About this time we had the pleasure of a visit from one of the best women we had ever known, Mrs. Louisa Birt of Liverpool, who is a female Don Bosco, and spends the whole of her time in rescuing poor children from the streets. I believe in one year five thousand had passed through her establishment. At parting she gave me her little bag, with her initials on it, which I have still. We also had seen a good deal of Lieutenant Karl Weyprecht, of the Austrian Navy, who, with Lieutenant Payer, discovered Franz Josef's Land during the Austrian Arctic Expedition, 1872-74; but this year he died, at the age of forty-three. We had a short excursion to Laibach, to see the Littai Mines, in Krain, in which Richard was employed as reporter. They are lead and cinnabar, which concession embraces 1 3/5. Now there were great preparations for the return of Prince Rudolf. Of course the Austrian Squadron was in, and he was received with great honour. The City was illuminated, the streets were full; and in the evening there was a grand opera, and three thousand in the theatre. When the Prince entered there was great applause and "Vivas!" ladies clapping hands and waving handkerchiefs; the National Hymn was played, and all stood up for over ten minutes. The people showed immense loyalty, and the Prince left next day. On the 19th of April Lord Beaconsfield died, and our journals were full of him for several pages. Richard wrote a "Sketch," which made twelve pages of print, which will appear in "Labours and Wisdom." My journal is four pages of lament. As a girl of fifteen, his "Tancred" formed all my ardent desires of an Eastern career, and was my first gate to Eastern knowledge and occult science. As a Statesman I put him on a pedestal as my political Chief and model. He had that peculiar prescience and foresight belonging to his Semitic blood. I think a certain period of things passed away with him. He was one of the last relics of England's greatness. Just as the Duke of Wellington died before the Crimean War, so Lord Beaconsfield foreshadowed England's temporary decline, or _fusion_ into another state of things, and this feeling helped his decay. Anyway, one great man is gone. We were very fond of going to the fairs, especially where the Hungarian Gypsies congregated. They used to sing, dance, tell fortunes, and Richard talked Romany with them. We determined this year to take our gout baths from Duino, and not from Monfalcone; it is a forty minutes' drive from Duino to Monfalcone, and the baths are exactly halfway between. [Sidenote: _Duino_.]