When Queen Mary landed at Leith, it took her more than one day, if we remember rightly, to make a slow progress to her capital. Things are done faster in the nineteenth century; a few minutes by railway now separate Granton from Edinburgh. But the Edinburgh and Granton railway did not exist in 1842. Her Majesty and the Prince drove in a barouche, followed by the ladies and gentlemen of her suite in other carriages, and escorted by the Duke of Buccleugh and several gentlemen on horseback, to the ancient city of her Stewart ancestry. An unfortunate misconception robbed the occasion of the dignified ceremony and the exhibition of fervent personal attachment which had awaited it. All the previous day the authorities and the crowd had been on the look-out for the great event, and in the delay had passed the time quite happily in watching the preparations, and the decorations and devices for the coming illumination. The Lord Provost, Sir James Forrest, had taken the precaution to send a carriageful of bailies over night, or by dawn of day, to catch the first sign of the Queen's landing, and drive with it, post-haste, to the chief magistrate, who with his fellows was to be stationed at the barrier erected in the High Street, to present the keys of the city to the sovereign claiming admittance. But whether the bailies blundered over their instructions or slept at their post, or lost their way, no warning of the Queen's approach reached the Provost and his satellites in time. They were calm in the confident persuasion that the Queen would not arrive till noon--at the soonest--a persuasion which was based on the conviction that the event was too great to be hurried over, and which left out of sight the consideration of the disagreeable sea-voyage, and the natural desire to be on solid ground, and at rest, on the part of the travel-tossed voyagers. "We both felt dreadfully tired and giddy," her Majesty wrote of herself and the Prince when they reached Dalkeith.