Princess Royal was charming, with excellent manners and full of intelligence. Both the children were delighted with their _séjour_, and very sorry to come away. When the visit was drawing to a close, the Prince said to the Empress that he and his sister were both very reluctant to leave Paris, and asked if she could not get leave for them to stay there a little longer. The Empress said she was afraid this would not be possible, as the Queen and Prince Albert would not be able to do without them; to which the boy replied, ‘Not do without us! don’t fancy that, for there are six more of us at home, and they don’t want _us_.’”[241] [Illustration: MAP OF CRATHIE AND BRAEMAR.] Writing to the Dowager Duchess of Coburg from Osborne, on the 30th of August, Prince Albert says--“We purpose making an escape on the 5th (September) to our mountain home, Balmoral. We are sorely in want of the moral rest, and the bodily exercise.” Balmoral was reached on the 7th, and “the new house,” though not finished, was found to be quite habitable, and “very comfortable.” The Queen was charmed with its appearance, and the home-like welcome she received from her dependants, an old shoe being thrown after her for luck when she entered the Hall. And truly it brought luck--for in two days afterwards Deeside was ruddy with the blaze of the bonfire which was lit on Craig Gowan heights to celebrate the fall of Sebastopol. The bonfire had been prepared the year before, when the false news of the fall of Sebastopol had arrived, and the wind had blown it down on Inkermann Day (5th of November). It was again built up, and on the evening of the 10th, writes Prince Albert to Stockmar, “it illuminated all the peaks round about, and the whole scattered population of the valleys understood the sign, and made for the mountain, where we performed towards midnight a veritable Witches’ Dance, supported by whisky.”[242]