after it was dark; and the party reached the lovely castellated
country-seat of Reinhardtsbrunn, amidst forest and mountain scenery,
with its lake in front of the house, set down in the centre of a
mining population that came up in quaint costumes, with flaming
torches, to walk in procession past the windows. The Queen was charmed
with Reinhardtsbrunn, and would fain have lingered there, but time
pressed, and she was expected in the course of the next afternoon at
Gotha, on a visit to the Prince's aged grandmother who had helped to
bring him up, and was so fondly attached to her former charge.

The old lady at seventy-four years of age anticipated the visit. She
travelled the distance of eight miles before breakfast, in order to
take her grandchildren by surprise. "I hastened to her," is the
Queen's account, "and found Albert and Ernest with her. She is a
charming old lady, and though very small, remarkably nice-looking,
erect and active, but unfortunately very deaf.... She was so happy to
see us, and kissed me over and over again. Albert, who is the dearest
being to her in the world, she was enraptured to see again, and kissed
so kindly. It did one's heart good to see her joy."

In the afternoon the travellers proceeded to Gotha, which was in a
state of festival and crowded with people. The Queen and the Prince
resided at the old Duchess's house of Friedrichsthal, where the
greatest preparations, including the hanging of all her pictures in
their rooms, had been made for them. The first visit they paid in
Gotha was a solemn one, to the chapel which formed the temporary
resting-place of the body of the late Duke, till it could be removed
to its vault in Coburg. Then the rooms in which the father had died
were visited. These were almost equally melancholy, left as they had
been, unchanged, with the wreaths that had decorated the room for his