In the end of the month the Queen resolved to pay a visit to the Scottish Border, an enchanted land of romance and minstrelsy, of fairy lore, and feudal chivalry. On the 28th of August, accompanied by Princess Louise, Princess Beatrice, Prince Leopold, Prince and Princess Christian, and Prince Christian Victor of Sleswig-Holstein, the Queen left Windsor Castle in the evening for Balmoral. She broke the direct route by having her special train stopped at Kelso, in order to visit a valued friend of the Royal Family--the Duchess of Roxburghe. On arriving at the station, the Queen affectionately kissed the Duchess; and her procession to Floors Castle was really a triumphal one. In fact, nothing could have exceeded the heartiness of the greeting which she everywhere got from the people. A vast crowd filled the Marketplace, where her Majesty received an address from the magistrates of Kelso. In replying to it, she said, “I thank you, Mr. Craig, and the town of Kelso; an answer will be sent to your address.” A little girl, the daughter of the Baron Bailie of Kelso, was then lifted up to the royal carriage, and presented to the Queen a large bouquet, which her Majesty received with an expression of delight. Her arrival at Floors, the seat of the Duke of Roxburghe, was announced to the town by a royal salute, fired from Roxburgh Castle. Great illuminations took place in Kelso at night, to the delight of thousands of country people. On the 22nd the Queen paid a visit to Melrose Abbey and Abbotsford. On reaching the Priory, she was received by the Duke of Buccleuch, the proprietor of the ruins and Lord-Lieutenant of the county. The Queen went to Jedburgh on the 23rd, and afterwards visited Hartrigge, a place associated with Lord Chancellor Campbell’s memory. When the royal progress through the land of Scott and Thomas the Rhymer ended the Court proceeded to Balmoral. This tour brightened the Queen’s spirits, which seemed to have been slightly depressed before she left town. She had half hinted in one of her letters to the Princess Louis that her home was losing its attractions for some members of her family, and these suspicions the Princess promptly dispelled in a letter written from St. Moritz. “You say,” she observes to the Queen, “that our home is dull now for those who like to amuse themselves. It is _never_ dull, darling mamma, when we can be with you, for I have indeed never met a [Illustration: THE BALL-ROOM, BALMORAL. (_From a Photograph by G. W. Wilson and Co._)]