In April Princess Alice was confirmed. Her Majesty's estimate of her daughter's character was amply borne out in the years to come. "She is very good, gentle, sensible, and amiable, and a real comfort to me." Without her sister, the Princess Royal's, remarkable intellectual power, Princess Alice had fine intelligence. She was also fair to see in her royal maidenhood. The two elder sons were away. The Prince of Wales was in Italy, Prince Alfred with his ship in the Levant. At home the volunteer movement, which has since acquired such large proportions, was being actively inaugurated. The war between Austria and France, and a dissolution of Parliament, made this spring a busy and an anxious time. The first happy visit from the Princess Royal, who came to join in celebrating her Majesty's birthday at Osborne, would have made the season altogether joyous, had it not been for a sudden and dangerous attack of erysipelas from which the Duchess of Kent suffered. The alarm was brief, but it was sharp while it lasted. In June her Majesty opened the new Parliament, an event which was followed in a fortnight by the resignation of Lord Derby's Ministry, and Lord Palmerston became Prime Minister with a strong Cabinet. At the close of the season the sad news arrived of the sudden death from diphtheria of the year-old wife, the young Queen of Portugal. In August the Queen and the Prince made one of their yachting excursions to the Channel Islands. The Duchess of Kent's seventy-third birthday was kept at Osborne. During the autumn stay of the Court at Balmoral, the Prince presided over the British Association for the Promotion of Science, which met that year at Aberdeen. He afterwards entertained two hundred members of the association, filling four omnibuses, in addition to carriages, at a Highland gathering at Balmoral. The day was cold and showery, but with gleams of sunshine. It is unnecessary to say that the attendance was large, and the games and dancing were conducted with much spirit. In honour of the country, the Prince and his sons appeared in kilts, the Queen and the Princesses in royal Stewart tartan skirts and shawls over black velvet bodices. In 1859 the Queen made no less than three successful ascents of Highland mountains, Morvem, Lochnagar, and at last Ben Macdhui, the highest mountain in Scotland, upwards of four thousand feet. On the return of the royal party they went from Edinburgh to Loch Katrine, in order to open the Glasgow Waterworks, the conclusion of a great undertaking which was marred not inappropriately by a very wet day. The Queen and the Prince made a detour on their homeward route, as they had occasionally done before, visiting Wales and Lord Penryn at Penryn Castle.