Though the Queen was still unable to walk, yet on the 8th of May she was so much benefited by her holiday at Osborne, that she was able, under the care of the Princess Beatrice, to return to Windsor. On the 26th of May, though still in feeble health, she went to Balmoral. Extraordinary precautions were taken to prevent the time-table of the Royal train on this occasion from being published, and her Majesty sent orders from Windsor that spectators must be excluded from the stations at which she stopped. Railway directors were not even allowed to be present when her Majesty arrived at Ferryhill station, Aberdeen, from whence she drove to Balmoral by the road on the south side of the Dee--a road she had never taken before. Life at Balmoral was gloomy, for all the old festivities had been stopped, and everybody was in deep mourning for John Brown. The Queen hardly ever left her own grounds, and the Court gladly returned to Windsor on the 23rd of June. On the 3rd of July a shocking accident occurred near Glasgow, which deeply impressed the mind of the Queen. As a new steamer, the _Daphne_, was being launched from Messrs. Stephen’s Yard she heeled over and sank. A hundred and fifty lives were lost, and the Queen not only sent a message of sympathy to the survivors, but a subscription of £200 to a fund raised for their relief. The Court removed to Osborne on the 24th of July, where a few days later the Queen received M. Waddington, the new French Ambassador. On the 24th of August her Majesty left Osborne for Balmoral, which she reached on the following day. She conferred the Order of the Garter on her grandson, Prince Albert Victor of Wales, on the 4th of September. It was thought strange that this distinction should be granted to the Prince whilst he was still a minor: George IV., for example, was not admitted to the Order till long after he had come of age. What was stranger still was that the investiture should have been a private function, conducted in the drawing-room at Balmoral, and not a public ceremonial in St. George’s Chapel. The exceptional character of the distinction was a proof of the high favour in which her Majesty held her grandson. Excursions to Braemar, Glassalt Shiel, Glen Cluny, and the neighbourhood were made during September. The Duke and Duchess of Connaught visited her Majesty in October on the eve of their departure for India, and the ex-Empress Eugénie, who was at Abergeldie, came to her almost every day, and long excursions in the bleak scenery of the Aberdeenshire mountains were organised for the Royal party. It was not till the 21st of November that the Court came back to Windsor--the same day on which the Duke and Duchess of Connaught landed at Bombay. After her return the Queen seems to have been engrossed with business to an unusual extent--much of it relating to troublesome private matters, and it was stated that her Majesty and Sir Henry Ponsonby during the first week had to work together for five