From Eaton the Princess was taken to Chatsworth, the magnificent seat of the Cavendishes. She stayed long enough to see and hear something of romantic Derbyshire. She visited Hardwick, associated with Building Bess, whose granddaughter, the unfortunate "Lady Arbell," had been a remote cousin of this happy young Princess, and she went, like everybody else, to Matlock. At Belper the party, in diligent search after all legitimate knowledge, examined the great cotton-mills of the Messrs. Strutt, and the senior partner had the honour of showing to her Royal Highness, by means of a model, how cotton was spun. From Chatsworth the Duchess and her daughter repaired to Alton Abbey, where the "Talbot tykes" still kept watch and ward; thence to Shugborough, the seat of the Earl of Lichfield, which enabled the visitors to see another fine cathedral and to breathe the air which is full of "the great Dr. Johnson." At each of the towns the strangers were met by addresses--of course made to the Duchess and replied to by her. How original these formal compliments must have sounded to Princess Victoria! On the 27th of October their Royal Highnesses were at Pitchford Hall, the residence of the Earl of Liverpool, from which they visited Shrewsbury--another Chester--with a word of its own for the old fateful battle in which "Percy was slain and Douglas taken prisoner," and the Welsh power broken in Owen Glendower. After getting a glimpse of the most picturesque portion of Shropshire, halting at more noble seats, and passing through a succession of Worcester towns, the royal party reached Woodstock on the 7th of November, and the same evening rested at Wytham House, belonging to the Earl of Abingdon. There was hardly time to realise that the memories of Alice Lee, the old knight Sir Henry, and the faithful dog Bevis, rivalled successfully the grisly story of Queen Eleanor and Fair Rosamond. Nay, the magician was still dogging the travellers' steps; for had he not made the little town of Abingdon his own by choosing it for the meeting-place of Mike Lambourne and Tressillian, and rebuilding in its neighbourhood the ruins of Cumnor Hall, on which the dews fell softly? Alas! the wizard would weave no more spells. A month before that princely "progress" Sir Walter Scott, after Herculean labours to pay his debts like an honest man had wrecked even his robust frame and healthful genius, lay dead at Abbotsford.