he heir to the throne
should be protected from the slightest possibility of contamination from
the outside world. The Prince of Wales was not as other boys; he might,
occasionally, be allowed to invite some sons of the nobility, boys of
good character, to play with him in the garden of Buckingham Palace;
but his father presided, with alarming precision, over their sports. In
short, every possible precaution was taken, every conceivable effort
was made. Yet, strange to say, the object of all this vigilance and
solicitude continued to be unsatisfactory--appeared, in fact, to be
positively growing worse. It was certainly very odd: the more lessons
that Bertie had to do, the less he did them; and the more carefully he
was guarded against excitements and frivolities, the more desirous
of mere amusement he seemed to become. Albert was deeply grieved and
Victoria was sometimes very angry; but grief and anger produced no more
effect than supervision and time-tables. The Prince of Wales, in
spite of everything, grew up into manhood without the faintest sign of
"adherence to and perseverance in the plan both of studies and life--"
as one of the Royal memoranda put it--which had been laid down with such
extraordinary forethought by his father.

II

Against the insidious worries of politics, the boredom of society
functions, and the pompous publicity of state ceremonies, Osborne had
afforded a welcome refuge; but it soon appeared that even Osborne was
too little removed from the world. After all, the Solent was a feeble
barrier. Oh, for some distant, some almost inaccessible sanctuary,
where, in true domestic privacy, one could make happy holiday, just as
if--or at least very, very, nearly--one were anybody else! Victoria,
ever since, together with Albert, she had visited Scotland in the early
years of her marriage, had felt that her heart was in the Highlands. She
had returned to them a few years later, and her passion had grown. How
romantic they were! And how Albert enjoyed them too! His spirits rose
quite wonderfully as soon as he found himself among the hills and the
conifers. "It is a happiness to see him," she wrote. "Oh! What can equal
the beauties of nature!" she exclaimed in her journal, during one of
these visits. "What enjoyment there is in them! Albert enjoys it so
much; he is in ecstasies here." "Albert said," she noted next day, "that
the chief beauty of mountain scenery consists in its frequent changes.
We came ho