In his Journal of May 14, he wrote: 'After dinner I was summoned unexpectedly to the Queen's room. She was alone. She met me, and with an unutterably sad expression which filled my eyes with tears, at once began to speak about the prince. It is impossible for me to recall distinctly the sequence or substance of that long conversation. She spoke of his excellences--his love, his cheerfulness, how he was everything to her; how all now on earth seemed dead to her. She said she never shut her eyes to trials, but liked to look them in the face; how she would never shrink from duty, but that all was at present done mechanically; that her highest ideas of purity and love were obtained from him, and that God could not be displeased with her love. But there was nothing morbid in her grief. I spoke freely to her about all I felt regarding him--the love of the nation and their sympathy; and took every opportunity of bringing before her the reality of God's love and sympathy, her noble calling as a queen, the value of her life to the nation, the blessedness of prayer.' On the Monday following the Sabbath services, Dr Macleod had a long interview with the Queen. 'She was very much more like her old self,' he writes, 'cheerful, and full of talk about persons and things. She, of course, spoke of the prince. She said that he always believed he was to die soon, and that he often told her that he had never any fear of death.... The more I learned about the Prince-Consort, the more I agree with what the Queen said to me about him, "that he really did not seem to comprehend a selfish character, or what selfishness was."' It was Dr Macleod's feeling that the Queen had a reasoning, searching mind, anxious to get at the root and the reality of things, and abhorring all shams, whether in word or deed. In October 1866, he records: 'After dinner, the Queen invited me to her room, where I found the Princess Helena and Marchioness of Ely. The Queen sat down to spin at a nice Scotch wheel, while I read Robert Burns to her: "Tam o' Shanter," and "A man's a man for a' that," her favourite. The Prince and Princess of Hesse sent for me to see their children. The eldest, Victoria, whom I saw at Darmstadt, is a most sweet child; the youngest, Elizabeth, a round, fat ball of loving good-nature. I gave her a real hobble, such as I give Polly. I suppose the little thing never got anything like it, for she screamed and kicked with a perfect _furore_ of delight, would go from me to neither father nor mother nor nurse, to their great merriment, but buried her chubby face in my cheek, until I gave her another right good hobble. They are such dear children. The Prince of Wales sent a message asking me to go and see him.... All seem to be very happy. We had a great deal of pleasant talk in the garden. Dear, good General Grey drove me home.' In a letter written in 1867, he expresses himself thus: