fortifications, and the girls had little gardens and kitchens and rooms for their special games and pastimes; there was also a Natural History museum which was a source of much interest and delight. There is another feature of the gardens at Osborne which should be mentioned, an immense myrtle-tree which was struck from a sprig of myrtle from the wedding bouquet of the Princess Royal; every Royal bride in the Queen’s family carries a piece of this myrtle with her to the altar on her marriage-day. The Queen has twice sent sprays of this myrtle as far as St. Petersburg, once in 1874, for the bridal bouquet of her daughter-in-law, the Archduchess Marie, now Duchess of Coburg, and once in 1894, for the bouquet of her granddaughter, the Princess Alix of Hesse, now the wife of the Czar of Russia. On the former occasion the myrtle was intrusted to the care of Lady Augusta Stanley, and the Queen gave her special instructions how to revive it in tepid water. Osborne was a harbor of refuge to which the Queen and Prince could run for a few days’ rest at any time when they felt their strength almost exhausted from the constant pressure of political work and responsibility; but they had an even more dearly loved holiday resort in their home in the Highlands at Balmoral. The Prince was always extremely sensitive to good air, and the smoky atmosphere of towns was peculiarly oppressive to him; he used to exclaim on reaching the pure country air, “Now I can breathe! Now I am happy!” The fine air of Dee-side was life and breath to him. In addition to the benefit to their health, the Royal couple delighted in Scotland for other reasons, the chief of which was that they could enjoy there a degree of freedom to which they were strangers elsewhere. Highland loyalty is compatible with perfectly good manners, and the poor people round Balmoral did not demonstrate their affection for their Sovereign by staring at her as if she were a waxwork show, or dogging her carriage or her footsteps whenever she went beyond her own gates. The Highland servants combined perfect respect with independence of character. The Queen delighted in them, and found real friends in several of them. The Royal family could make little _incognito_ expeditions in Scotland, and stay at small country inns as Lord and Lady Churchill and party, without any danger of being found out; or if they were found out, the people who made the discovery were too well bred to proclaim it, and showed their loyalty by respecting the wishes of their Sovereign to enjoy privacy. In the years before the Prince Consort’s death the Queen’s Ladies-in-Waiting, writing from Scotland, frequently speak of Her Majesty’s high spirits, her love of dancing, and her enjoyment of rapid driving. Lady Canning wrote in the autumn of 1848 from Balmoral:--