"hodge-podge"--which, to be tasted to perfection, however, must be partaken of in early summer, when vegetables (of many kinds of which it is composed) are young and tender--mutton broth, fowls, "good" roast lamb, and "very good" potatoes. A bottle of wine the travellers had taken care to bring with them. They were less fortunate on the occasion of another similar trip, when all that could be procured was a couple of remarkably small and lean fowls, the remnants of which were sent down to the servants, with appetites rendered voracious by the keen mountain air. On this latter trip, a commercial traveller was much annoyed at his exclusion from the "commercial room," which was reserved for the servants. In answer to his remonstrance, the landlady pacified him by stating that the guests, who occupied her whole house, were "a wedding-party frae Aberdeen." When the cavalcade of the two "shabby vehicles" drove away, on the next morning, it was evident that "the murder was out," and that the inmates of the inn had discovered the quality of their guests, and communicated it to the scanty population of the village; for "all the people were in the street, and the landlady waved a pocket-handkerchief, and the ringletted maid a flag, from the window." CHAPTER XXII. THE WIDOWED QUEEN. Unbroken Happiness of the Queen's Life up to 1861--Death of the Duchess of Kent--The Prince Consort slightly Ailing--Catches Cold at Cambridge and Eton--The Malady becomes Serious--Public Alarm--Rapid Sinking, and Death--Sorrow of the People--The Queen's Fortitude--Avoidance of Court Display--Good Deeds--Sympathy with all Benevolent Actions--Letter of Condolence to the Widow of President Lincoln--The Albert Medal--Conclusion. Until 1861 the Queen had never known bereavement in the circle of her own immediate family. Nine children had been born to her, and, although it is understood that certain of her younger offspring do not possess that robustness of health which their elder brothers and sisters enjoy, yet not one had been snatched from their loving parents by the hand of the Great Destroyer. Early in 1861 came the first pang of bereavement. The Duchess of Kent, ripe in years, one of the best of mothers and one of the best of grandmothers, a lady to whose memory all Britons now and hereafter owe an incalculable debt of gratitude, passed peacefully away with her descendants gathered around her bedside. [Sidenote: LAST DAYS OF PRINCE ALBERT.]