She can enjoy their simple friendliness and native shrewdness. She can read to them words of lofty promise and tender consolation. She can do all as if she were not crowned Queen and ruler of a great kingdom. In hardly any other part of her empire would such pleasant familiar intercourse and gentle personal charities be possible for her. The association has been deepened and strengthened by a duration of more than thirty years. The Queen came while still a young wife to Balmoral, and she has learnt to love and be loved by her neighbours in the long interval which leaves her a royal widow of threescore. Her children were fair-haired little boys and girls, making holiday here, playing at riding and shooting, getting into scrapes like other children, [Footnote: There is a story told of one of the little princes having chased an old woman's hen and been soundly scolded by her for the offence. Her neighbours remonstrated with her, and her heart failed her when, a few days afterwards, she saw the Prince Consort coming up the path to her house leading the small offender. But the visit was one of courteous deprecation, in order that the little hunter of forbidden game might personally apologise for his delinquency.] prattling to the old women in "mutches" and "short gowns," whose houses were so charmingly queer and convenient, with the fires on the hearths to warm cold little toes, and the shadowy nooks ready for hide-and-seek. These children are now older than their mother was when she first came up Dee-side, heads of houses in their turn, but they have not forgotten the friends of their youth.