When the season commenced, and it was this year, as last, particularly gay, a reflection of the general prosperity of the country, with the high hopes inspired by the Australian gold-fields, the Queen wrote to the King of the Belgians in order to re-assure him with regard to a fear which seems to have arisen in the elderly man's mind, that she whom he remembered at the beginning of her reign as fond of pleasure and untiring in her amusements, might be swept away in the tide. "Allow me just to say one word about the London season. The London season for us consists of two State balls and two concerts. (The State balls and concerts are given to this day, though her Majesty, since her widowhood, has ceased to attend them. The Queen's place and that of Prince Albert in these social gaieties, have been naturally taken by the Prince and Princess of Wales.) We are hardly ever later than twelve o'clock at night, and our only dissipation is going three or four times a week to the play or opera, which is a great amusement and relaxation to us both. As for going out as people do here every night, to balls and parties, and to breakfasts and teas all day long besides, I am sure no one would stand it worse than I should; so you see, dearest uncle, that in fact the London season is nothing to us." So much higher, and more solid and lasting, as they should have been, were the pursuits and gratifications of the woman, the wife and mother, than of the young girl. The Queen added that the only one who was fagged was the Prince, and that from business and not pleasure, a result which made her often anxious and unhappy. Indeed, this suspicion of precarious health on Prince Albert's part was the cloud the size of a man's hand that kept hovering on the horizon in the summer sky. Parliament was prorogued and dissolved at the same time at an unusually early date, the first of July, so that the season itself came to a speedy end.