In the middle of the worry, the season was gay as if no life-blood was drained in strong currents from the country; and Varna, with its cholera swamps, where the troops had encamped on Turkish soil, was not present to all men's minds. The Queen set an example in keeping up the social circulation without which there would be a disastrous collapse of more than one department of trade. On May-day, Prince Arthur's birthday, there was a children's ball, attended by two hundred small guests, at Buckingham Palace. Sir Theodore Martin quotes her Majesty's merry note, inviting the Premier to come and see "a number of happy little people, including some of his grandchildren, enjoying themselves." Among the grandchildren of Lord Aberdeen were the young sons of Lord Haddo—sinking under a long wasting illness—George, sixth Earl of Aberdeen, who, when he came to man's estate, served as an ordinary seaman in a merchant ship, where his rank was unsuspected, and who perished by being washed overboard on a stormy night; and the Honourable James Gordon, who died from the bursting of his gun when he was keeping his terms at Cambridge.
The Queen honoured Count Walewski, the French ambassador, by her presence at one of the most brilliant of costume balls. A great Court ball was followed by a great Court concert, at which Lablache sang again in England after an interval of many years. Among the visitors to London in June were poor Maria da Gloria's sons, Coburgs on the father's side, young King Pedro of Portugal, and his brother, the Duke of Oporto, fine lads who were much liked wherever they went.
The Queen and the Prince spent her Majesty's birthday at Osborne, and commemorated it to their children by putting them in possession of the greatest treasure of their happy childhood—the Swiss cottage in the grounds, about a mile from the Castle, in which youthful princes and princesses played at being men and women, practised the humbler duties of life, and kept natural history collections and geological specimens, as their father and uncle had kept theirs in the museum at Coburg. Another great resource consisted of the plots of ground—among which the Princess Royal's was a fair-sized garden, ultimately nine in number, where the amateur gardeners studied gardening in the most practical manner, and had their tiny tool-house, with the small spades and rakes properly grouped and duly lettered, "Prince Alfred" or "Princess Louise," as the case might be. A third idea, borrowed like the first from Coburg, was the miniature fort, with its mimic defences, every brick of which was made and built, and the very cannon-balls founded, by the two sons destined to be soldiers—the Prince of Wales and Prince Arthur.
Before the end of the season cholera broke out in London. Among its victims was Lord Jocelyn, eldest son of Lord Roden, and husband of Lady Fanny Cowper. He had been on guard at the palace, and died after an illness of not more than two hours' duration in the drawing-room of his mother-in-law, Lady Palmerston.
The Queen came up to town to prorogue Parliament in person. Afterwards her Majesty and the Prince spent his birthday at Osborne, when one of the amusements, no doubt with a view to the entertainment of the children as well as of the grown-up people, was Albert Smith's "Ascent of Mont Blanc," which was then one of the comic sights of London.
Early in September Prince Albert, in compliment to the alliance between England and France, went, by the Emperor's invitation, to visit the French camp at St. Omer, and was absent four or five days. The Prince's letters were as constant and lover-like as ever.
On the 15th of September the Court arrived at Balmoral, and the same day the Queen received the news of the sailing of the English and French soldiers for the Crimea. An anxious but brief period of suspense followed. Six days later came the tidings of the successful landing, without opposition, in the neighbourhood of Eupatoria.
Lord Aberdeen came on a visit to Balmoral, and had just left when the glad tidings arrived of the victory of the Alma, followed immediately by a false report of the fall of Sebastopol.
During this year's stay in the north, her Majesty met for the first time a remarkable Scotchman whom she afterwards honoured with her friendship. Both the Queen and Dr. Macleod describe the first sermon he preached before her, on Christian life. He adds, "In the evening, after daundering in a green field with a path through it which led to the high-road, and while sitting on a block of granite, full of quiet thoughts, mentally reposing in the midst of the beautiful scenery, I was roused from my reverie by some one asking me if I was the clergyman who had preached that day. I was soon in the presence of the Queen and Prince, when her Majesty came forward and said with a sweet, kind, and smiling face, 'We wish to thank you for your sermon.' She then asked me how my father was, what was the name of my parish, &c.; and so, after bowing and smiling, they both continued their quiet evening walk alone." [Footnote: Life of Dr. Norman Macleod.]
The Court returned from Balmoral by Edinburgh. At Hull, and again at Grimsby, the Queen and the Prince inspected the docks, of which he had laid the foundation stones.