On the afternoon of the 21st of November, the country was gladdened by the birth of the Queen's first-born, the Princess Royal, now Crown Princess of Prussia. The event occurred considerably before the period anticipated by the Queen's medical and other attendants, and preparations had to be made in a hurry. Nevertheless, the Queen soon regained her accustomed health, and so rapidly that we find it recorded that on the day before that appointed for the christening, she and a lady of the Court, exercising their strength and preserving their presence of mind, rescued the Prince from a most perilous if not fatal position. He had been skating, accompanied only by the Queen and one Lady-in-waiting, and had fallen through the ice in such a position that he could not possibly have extricated himself. Two days after the Princess was born, Mr. Selwyn, a gentleman with whom Prince Albert was reading English law and constitutional history, came to give his pupil his accustomed lesson. The Prince said to him, "I fear I cannot read any law to-day, there are so many constantly coming to congratulate; but you will like to see the little Princess." He took his tutor into the nursery, as he found that the child was asleep. Taking her hand, he said, "The next time we read, it must be on the rights and duties of a Princess Royal." In 1841 Lord Melbourne was no longer Prime Minister. Sir Robert Peel, who had gained the largest Parliamentary majority which had been known for many years, reigned in his stead. The Queen made no difficulty about the Ladies of the Household now. Her tastes and feelings were consulted with great delicacy and consideration by the Premier, and the selection of the Duchess of Buccleuch in the first instance as Mistress of the Robes, which post may be termed the female Premiership of the Household, was especially gratifying to Her Majesty. But her heart was, nevertheless, loth to part with the constant female companions of the first four years of her reign. Thursday, September the 2nd, was the last evening she spent with them. At the dinner-table she could scarcely trust herself to speak, and she is reported to have shed bitter tears when she retired with her ladies. Everybody pitied the young Sovereign, and saw and felt the hardship involved. But it was an inevitable accompaniment of her high position. [Sidenote: BIRTH OF THE PRINCE OF WALES.]