On the 22nd of May the Court went to Balmoral. The Russian dispute was now compromised, so that the Queen was able to thoroughly enjoy her Highland visit. She spent much of her time in the cottages and homes of the peasantry, to whom she was unusually lavish this year with gifts commemorating her birthday. When she arrived she found that the celebrated cradle and rope bridge over the Dee at Abergeldie--which most of the Royal personages in Europe had used at different times--was removed, and replaced by a substantial footbridge which had been put up at her expense. But the fall of Mr. Gladstone’s Government shortened the Queen’s sojourn in Scotland, and she had to return to Windsor on the 17th of June. Complaints were made that she was absent in Aberdeenshire when the Ministerial crisis occurred. But the crisis was unexpected, and since the Prince Consort’s death the Queen has always preferred Balmoral to Windsor during Ascot Race week. The death of Prince Frederick Charles (the “Red Prince”) of Prussia, at the comparatively early age of fifty-seven, deprived Germany of one of her ablest military tacticians, and sent the English Court into mourning. He was the father of the Duchess of Connaught, to whom he bequeathed a large part of his vast wealth. By a strange blunder which gave infinite annoyance to the Queen, not only did the Prince of Wales appear at Ascot after the event, but her Majesty’s order that Court mourning should begin on the 16th was not officially proclaimed till the 18th. The Royal procession at Ascot on the afternoon of the “Red Prince’s” death, caused much irritation at the Court of Berlin. [Illustration: MARRIAGE OF THE PRINCESS BEATRICE.]