Louis Philippe started on his homeward journey accompanied by her Majesty and Prince Albert, who were to go on board the _Gomer_ and there take leave of their guest. Afterwards they were to embark in the royal yacht and cross to the Isle of Wight. But the stormy weather overturned all these plans. The swell in the sea was so great that it was feared the King could not land at Treport. Eventually he parted from the Queen and the Prince on shore, returned in the evening to London, went to New Cross--where he found the station on fire--proceeded by train to Dover, and sailed next day, amidst wind and rain, in French steamer to Calais. In order to soften the disappointment to the officers and crew of the _Gomer_, the Queen and Prince Albert breakfasted on board that vessel before they proceeded to the Isle of Wight. The cause of the cruise of the Queen and the Prince at this season was the wish to see for themselves the house and grounds of Osborne, belonging to Lady Isabella Blatchford. They were to be sold, and had been, suggested by Sir Robert Peel to her Majesty and the Prince as exactly constituted to form the retired yet not too remote country and seaside home--not palace, for which the royal couple were looking out. It is unnecessary to say that the personal visit was quite satisfactory, though the purchase was not made till some months later. The engraving gives a pleasant idea of the Osborne of to-day, with its double towers--seen out at sea--its terraces, and its fountains. On the 21st of October the Queen and the Prince happened to be yachting off Portsmouth. It was the anniversary of the battle of Trafalgar, and the _Victory_ lay in the roads, adorned with wreaths and garlands from stem to stern. The Queen expressed her desire to visit the ship. She went at once to the quarter-deck to see the spot where Nelson fell. It is marked by a brass plate with an inscription, on this day surrounded by a wreath of laurel. The Queen gazed in silence, the tears rising to her eyes. Then she plucked a couple of leaves from the laurel wreath, and asked to be shown the cabin in which Nelson died. The cockpit was lit up while the party were inspecting the poop of the _Victory_, which bears the words of the great Admiral's last signal, "England expects every man to do his duty." In the cockpit, long associated with merry, mischievous sprites of "middies," there had been for many a year the representation of a funeral urn, with the sentence, "Here Nelson died." The visitors looked at the spot without speaking. There, on this very day in the fast-receding past, amidst the hardly subdued din of a great naval battle, the dying hero with his failing breath made the brief, tender appeal to his faithful captain, "Kiss me, Hardy." The Queen requested that there might be no firing when she left the ship, and was sped on her way only by "the three tremendous British cheers of the sailors manning the yards."