The first of the public festivities were three of the four State visits to Her Majesty's Theatre, "when the whole of the boxes on one side of the grand tier had been thrown into one" for the royal company gracing the brilliant audience--which, as on a former occasion, filled the back of the stage as well as the rest of the house. The plays and operas were, _Macbeth_, in which Helen Faucit acted, [Footnote: Another great actress had just passed away in her prime. Mademoiselle Rachel had died in the beginning of this month, near Cannes.] _Twice Killed, The Rose of Castille, Somnambula_. At the first performance, the Queen sat between the King of the Belgians and the Prince of Prussia. After the play, "God save the Queen" was sung with much enthusiasm. As when her own marriage had occurred, all the nation sympathised with Her Majesty. It was as if from every house a cherished young daughter was being sent with honour and blessing. The Princess Royal, always much liked, appealed especially to the popular imagination at this time because of her extreme youth, her position as a bride, and the circumstance that she was the first of the Queen's children thus to quit the home-roof. But, indeed, we cannot read the published passages in the Queen's journal that refer to the marriage without a lively realisation of the touch of nature which makes the whole world kin, without a sense that good true hearts beat alike everywhere, and that strong family affection--an elixir of life--is the same in the palace as in the cottage. In fine frosty weather, on Saturday, the 23rd, the Prince Consort, after a walk in Buckingham Palace Gardens with the Queen and the child so soon to be parted from them, started to bring the bridegroom, who had landed in England that morning. He arrived in the middle of the day, and was received in the presence of the Court. The Queen found him looking pale and nervous, but no doubt alive to her warm greeting, at the bottom of the grand staircase. At the top a still sweeter reward awaited him, for the Princess Royal, with her fifteen years' old sister, Princess Alice, to keep her company, stood there.