This must have been a season of great anxiety and sadness for the Queen. The guns of Alma and Sebastopol echoed solemnly among her beloved mountains. In her journal there is this year only one Balmoral entry--not the account of any Highland expedition or festivity, but the mention of an eloquent sermon by the Rev. Norman McLeod, and of his prayer, which she says was "very touching," and added, "His allusions to us were so simple, saying after his mention of us, 'Bless their children.' It gave me a lump in my throat, as also when he prayed for the dying, the wounded, the widow, and the orphan." There came a few months later a ghastly ally of the Russians into the fight--cholera--which, joined to the two terrible winter months, "Generals January and February," as the Czar called them, made sad havoc in the English and French forces, but did not redeem the fortunes of the Russians. Much mal-administration in regard to army supplies brought terrible hardships upon the English troops, and accomplished the impossible in revealing in them new qualities of bravery and heroic endurance. It was an awful war, and it lasted as long as, and a little longer than, the Czar, who died in March, 1855. "of pulmonary apoplexy," it was announced, though the rumor ran, that, resolved not to survive Sebastopol, he had taken his own unhappy life. With his death the war was virtually ended, and his son Alexander made peace as soon as he decently could with the triumphant enemies of his father. Through all this distressful time the Queen and the Prince-Consort manifested the deepest sympathy for, as well as pride in, the English soldiers. They had an intense pity for the poor men in the trenches, badly clad and half starved, grand, patient, ill-used, uncomplaining fellows! "My heart bleeds to think of it," wrote the Prince, of the army administration. He corresponded with Florence Nightingale, and encouraged her in her brave and saintly mission. When the sick and wounded began to arrive, in England both he and the Queen were faithful in visiting them in the hospitals, and Her Majesty had a peculiar sad joy in rewarding the bravest of the brave with the gift of the Crimean medal. In a private letter she gives a description of the touching scene. She says: "From the highest Prince of the blood to the lowest private, all received the same distinction for the bravest conduct in the severest actions.... Noble fellows! I own I feel for them as though they were my own children.... They were so touched, so pleased! Many, I hear, cried, and they won't hear of giving up their medals to have their names engraved upon them for fear that they may not receive the identical ones put into their hands by me. Several came by in a sadly mutilated state."