The Queen played but a slight part in public life in the early part of 1883. Whilst at Osborne in January she awarded the Albert Medal to the survivors of the gallant exploring party who distinguished themselves by saving life at the Baddesley Colliery Explosion in May, 1882, and she sent to the Mayor of Bradford an expression of sympathy with the sufferers from the fall of a great chimney stack in that town at the end of the year--a disaster involving the sacrifice of fifty-three lives. On the 14th of February her Majesty held a Council at Windsor, and revised the Royal Speech for the opening of the Session. On the 19th of February she attended the funeral of Pay-Sergeant Mayo, of the Coldstream Guards, at Windsor, who had died suddenly whilst on duty at the Castle, and on the same day, owing to the Prince of Wales holding the opening levee of the season on her behalf, her Majesty was able to be present as one of the sponsors at the baptism of the infant son of the Duke and Duchess of Connaught at Windsor. On the 6th and 13th of March, however, her Majesty held Drawing Rooms at Buckingham Palace. On the 17th of March Lady Florence Dixie alleged that a murderous attack had been made on her in the shrubbery of her house at Windsor, by two men disguised as women. As her ladyship had been writing a good deal on the Irish Question, and as the town was in a panic over the dynamite war waged by the Fenians against public buildings, it was suggested that this outrage might have been planned by one of the Irish Secret Societies. Investigation, however, indicated that Lady Florence must have been labouring under a mistake, and the incident would have passed out of sight but for its effect on the Queen’s peace of mind. Lady Florence Dixie’s story had alarmed the Queen, showing her, as it did, that there was peril almost at the doors of Windsor Castle. Her Majesty sent Lord Methuen, Lady Ely, and Sir Henry Ponsonby with messages of sympathy to Lady Florence Dixie, and finally the Queen’s personal attendant, Mr. John Brown, was despatched to examine the ground and report on the circumstances of the outrage. He caught a chill in the shrubbery of Lady Florence Dixie’s villa, and when he returned to Windsor Castle complained of being ill. He died of erysipelas on the 27th of March, the day after the daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Albany was christened. Brown was the son of a tenant of Colonel Farquharson’s and began life as gillie to the Prince Consort. For nineteen years he was the personal attendant of the Queen, and no servant was ever so completely trusted by a royal master or mistress. “John Brown,” writes the Queen in a note to her “Leaves from the Journal of Our Life in the Highlands,” “in 1858 became my regular attendant out of doors everywhere in the Highlands. He commenced as gillie in 1859, and was selected by Albert and me to go with my carriage. In 1857 he entered our service permanently, and began in that