All the public hospitals of Berlin are under the direct superintendence and control of the Empress, who, as the wife of an autocratic monarch, possesses much more direct authority than most Queen-consorts. Her interest in them is practical and thorough. She allows no alteration in construction, no building to be done, without going into the domestic side of the project. She knows where cupboards are necessary, where doors will save needless footsteps to and fro; she realizes the needs of women, too apt to be ignored where men alone arrange their treatment. She is indefatigable in trying to spread knowledge of the care of children among poor women, often so deplorably ignorant of what they most need to know. She detests the German method of placing men almost entirely in charge of girls’ schools; she has fought with some success against this masculine assumption of authority, nowhere carried so far as in the Fatherland, where little girls may be daily seen taking their walks in Berlin under the charge of a solemn young man in spectacles. The Empress is tall and well-made, and her hair turned white at a very early age--chiefly, say those people who have an explanation for everything, because of her grief that her only daughter was born deaf and dumb! This popular myth has naturally fitted in nicely with the white hair, so that it is almost a pity that it has no thread of truth upon which to hang. In any case, the white hair is very becoming to the statuesque dignity of the Empress, who grows year by year more impressive, more stately. Her Majesty’s chief recreation, the one in which she most delights, is riding. Every day, if possible, she takes a brisk canter of an hour or two. She also plays a good deal of lawn-tennis--although during the last year her health has not permitted her to indulge quite so often in this game. Her reading consists largely of historical memoirs, which interest her deeply; but she has not a mind quickly receptive of new ideas--would perhaps be a little narrowly intolerant if she were not prevented by her essential kindness of heart. Her chief talent has always been the creation of an atmosphere of home for her husband and children, no light task amid the rigid officialism of a court. She has been heard to relate how once, when not feeling very well, she sent to the kitchen for some tea at the unorthodox hour of ten o’clock at night, and was told that to carry out such an order was impossible; there was no provision for making tea at ten, only at five or in the morning from eight to nine. So the Empress went without her tea. The next morning the _Haus-Marshall_ requested Her Majesty in future, whenever she might need tea at ten o’clock, to give orders for it before five, because all the cooks went home at that hour. The Empress at once took steps to enable herself or any one else in the palace to obtain tea at any hour they might need it.