desired me to show the Queen one of my books of plants. She seated herself in the gallery, a table and a book laid before her. I kept my distance till she called me to ask some questions about the mosaic paper work; and as I stood before Her Majesty, the King set a chair behind me. I turned with some confusion and hesitation on receiving so great an honour, when the Queen said, “Mrs. Delany, sit down, sit down; it is not every lady that has a chair brought her by a King.” So I obeyed. Amongst many gracious things, the Queen asked me why I was not with the Duchess when she came, for I might be sure she would ask for me. I was flattered, though I knew to whom I was obliged for this distinction, and doubly flattered by that. I acknowledged it in as few words as possible, and said I was particularly happy at that moment to pay my duty to Her Majesty, as it gave me an opportunity to see so many of the royal family, which age and obscurity had deprived me of. “Oh, but,” said Her Majesty, “you have not seen all my children yet.” Upon which the King came up and asked what we were talking about, which was repeated, and the King replied to the Queen, “You may put Mrs. Delany in the way of doing that by naming a day for her to drink tea at Windsor Castle.” The Duchess of Portland was consulted, and the next day fixed upon, as the Duchess had appointed the end of the week for going to Weymouth.’ In 1779 was born the short-lived Prince Octavius. Before the death of this happy little Prince, Strange, the engraver, consented to engrave his portrait. The Queen did not like the politics of the artist, for he was the most determined Jacobite in the kingdom--except his wife. He was so successful, however, with his ‘plate’ of Octavius, that George III. knighted him; and even his wife thought the better of the ‘Elector and Electress of Hanover’ for having made her what ‘the King over the water’ had never thought of doing--Lady Strange. The following year was that of the riots of London. While that popular tumult was raging the King behaved with courage and common sense; and the Queen, left almost entirely alone at Buckingham House with her children, with equal calmness and intrepidity. The ‘ladies’ who _ought_ to have been in attendance had hurried homeward with their jewels. The Queen did not lose heart at this desertion, but was amply comforted by the frequent yet brief visits of the King, who spent two entire nights, holding council with the heads of the army, in the Queen’s Riding House.