The Queen’s correspondence with the Princess Louis of Hesse seems at this time to have become again overcast by the gloom of her great sorrow. Amidst the solemn silence of her mountain home, the Queen felt the loss of the Prince Consort more acutely than while immersed in the busy life of the political year at Windsor. Her younger children were growing apace, and she now felt the need of her husband’s wise and kindly counsel in educating them for their high station. To the Princess Louis she confided her thoughts, and in one of her Royal Highness’s letters to the Queen, bearing date 20th of September, the following passage on the subject occurs:--“... What you say about the poor sisters, and, indeed, of all the younger ones, is true. The little brothers and Beatrice are those who have lost most, poor little things! I can’t bear to think of it, for dear papa, more peculiarly than any other father, was wanted for his children; and he was the dear friend and even playfellow besides. Such a loss as ours is indeed unique. Time only increases its magnitude, and the knowledge of the want is felt more keenly.”[224] In November the birth of a little grand-daughter at Hesse (the Princess Elizabeth) gave rise to an affectionate interchange of letters between the Queen and the Princess Louis, and in one of these she refers to the efforts made by those round her Majesty to free her from the tyranny of her sad thoughts. “We are both much pleased,” writes the Princess Louis to the Queen on the 20th of November, “at the arrangement about Brown and your pony, and I think it is so sensible. I am sure it will do you good, and relieve a little the monotony of your out-of-door existence, besides doing your nerves good. I had long wished you would do something of the kind, for indeed only driving is not wholesome.” On the 18th of December Dr. Norman McLeod, writing in his Diary at Darmstadt, says:--“I was invited [Illustration: THE QUEEN AT OSBORNE. (_After W. Holl’s Engraving of the Original Portrait by Graefle. By Permission of Mr. Mitchell, Old Bond Street, W._)]