Early in 1875 Prince Leopold, then twenty-two years of age, suffered from typhoid fever. So great were the fears entertained for his life that the Queen was prevented from opening Parliament in person. Already Princess Alice in her letters had referred to her youngest brother as having been three times given back to his family from the brink of the grave. During the spring the Queen was deprived by death of her Clerk to the Council and literary adviser in her first book, Sir Arthur Helps. Charles Kingsley, whose work was much admired by the Prince Consort, died also. On the 18th of August, when the Queen was sitting on the deck of the royal yacht as it crossed from Osborne to Gosport, the yacht _Mistletoe_ ran across its bows and a collision took place, the _Mistletoe_ turning over and sinking. The sister-in-law of the owner of the yacht was drowned. The master, an old man, who was struck by a spar, died after he had been picked up. The rest of the crew were rescued. Her Majesty, who was greatly distressed, aided personally in the vain efforts to restore one of the sufferers to consciousness. In September the Queen, in paying a week's visit to the Duke and Duchess of Argyle at Inverary, had the pleasure of seeing Princess Louise in her future home. It was twenty-eight years since her Majesty had been in the house of MacCallummore, and then her son-in-law of to- day had been a little fellow of two years, in black velvet and fair curls. Towards the end of the year the Prince of Wales left for his lengthened progress through her Majesty's dominions in India, which was accomplished with much éclat and success. In 1876 the Queen opened Parliament in person. On the 25th of February her Majesty, accompanied by the Princess of Wales, Princess Beatrice, and Prince Leopold, and received by the Duke of Edinburgh, attended a state concert given in the morning at the Albert Hall. Since 1866 the Queen had been able gradually to hear and enjoy again the music in which she had formerly delighted, but she had taken the gratification in her domestic life. Her royal duties had been only intermitted for the briefest space. Every act of beneficence and gracious queenliness had been long ago resumed. But no place of public amusement had seen the face of the widowed Queen. Lady Augusta Stanley died, after a lingering illness, on the 1st of March. It was the close--much lamented from the highest to the lowest-- of a noble and beautiful life. The Queen afterwards erected a memorial cross to Lady Augusta Stanley's memory in the grounds at Frogmore. On the 7th of March her Majesty, accompanied by Princess Beatrice, opened a new wing of the London Hospital.