encountered, she said to Miss Liddell: "I dare say, Georgy, you were surprised at not driving with me this afternoon, but the fact was that as we returned from church yesterday, a man presented a pistol at the carriage window, which flashed in the pan; we were so taken by surprise that we had not time to escape, so I knew what was hanging over me, and was determined to expose no life but my own." The young Maid of Honour, in speaking warmly of the Queen's courage and unselfishness, shrewdly reminds her readers that had three ladies driven rapidly by instead of one, the would-be assassin might have been bewildered and uncertain in his aim. The Queen and the Prince had driven in the direction of Hampstead in "superb weather," with "hosts of people on foot" around them--a strange contrast in their ease and tranquillity to the beating hearts and watchful eyes in the Royal carriage. There had been no misadventure and nothing suspicious observed, though every turn, almost every face was scanned, till on the way home, between the Green Park and the garden wall, at the same spot, though on the opposite side from where Oxford had stood two years before, a shot was fired about five paces off. The Prince immediately recognised the man who had aimed at him the day before, "a little swarthy ill-looking rascal," who had been already seized, though too late to stop the shot, by a policeman close at hand. When the worst was over without harm done, "We felt as if a load had been taken off our hearts," wrote the Prince, "and we thanked the Almighty for having preserved us a second time from so great a danger." The Prince added, "Uncle Mensdorff [Footnote: The Duchess of Kent's eldest sister married a private gentleman, originally a French _emigre_, afterwards a distinguished officer in the Austrian service. His sons were Prince Albert's early companions and intimate friends.] and mamma were driving close behind us. The Duchess Bernhard of Weimar was on horseback--not sixty paces from us." It was said that when the Queen arrived at the Palace and met the Duchess of Kent, whom Count Mensdorff had conducted thither, the poor mother was deeply affected and fell upon her daughter's neck with a flood of tears, "while the Queen endeavoured to reassure her with cheerful words and affectionate caresses." Indeed the Queen was greatly relieved, and in the reaction she recovered her spirits. She wrote to the King of the Belgians the day afterwards, "I was really not at all frightened, and feel very proud at dear Uncle Mensdorff calling me 'very courageous,' which I shall ever remember with peculiar pride, coming from so distinguished an officer as he is." We may mention that the general impression made on the public by the Queen's bearing under these treacherous attacks was that of her utter fearlessness and strength of nerve; a corresponding idea, which we think quite mistaken, was that the Prince showed himself the more nervous of the two.