This was not a long, but a very happy visit; the Queen and Prince had received many courteous attentions from the Prussian Court, and had found their beloved daughter proud and content. From Osborne, in a letter to his daughter, the Prince-Consort writes: "Alfred looks very nice and handsome in his new naval cadet's uniform--the round-jacket and the long- tailed coat, with the broad knife by his side." The next month the Prince went to Spithead, to see this son off on a two-years' cruise--and felt that his family had indeed begun to break up. The next exciting public matter was the news of Louis Napoleon's alliance with King Victor Emmanuel in the war against Austria. And this was the Emperor who, had given out that his empire was "peace"--that the only clang of arms henceforth to be heard therein would be a mighty beating of swords and spears into plow-shares and pruning-hooks. The next domestic excitement was caused by a telegram from Berlin, announcing the birth of a son to the Crown Prince and Princess, and that mother and child were doing well. Queen Victoria was a grandmother, and prouder, I doubt not, than when afterwards she was made Empress of India. For her mother's birthday, in May, 1859, the Crown Princess came over and made a delightful little visit. The Queen wrote of her: "Dear Vicky is a charming companion." Of the Princess Alice she had before written: "She is very good, sensible and amiable, and a real comfort to me." Mothers know how much there is in those words--"a real comfort to me." The Crown Princess found most change in baby--Beatrice--and after her return home, her father often wrote to her of this little sister: "The little aunt," he says, "makes daily progress, and is really too comical. When she tumbles, she calls out, in bewilderment, 'She don't like it! She don't like it!'--and she-came into breakfast a short time ago, with her eyes full of tears, moaning, 'Baby has been so naughty,--poor baby so naughty!' as one might complain of being ill, or of having slept badly." Later in the year the Prince writes: "Alice comes out admirably, and is a great support to her mother. Lenchen (the Princess Helena) is very distinguished, and little Arthur amiable and full of promise as ever." In November, Prince Frederick William and his Princess came over on a visit--and the fond father wrote: "Vicky has developed greatly of late-- and yet remains quite a child; of such, indeed, 'is the kingdom of heaven.'" Of the Prince he said: "He has quite delighted us." So all was right then. About this time he said of his daughter, Alice, that she had become "a handsome young woman, of graceful form and presence, and is a help and stay to us all in the house." What a rich inheritance such praise!