e Queen joined her
husband and his guest at the instrument, enjoying and aiding in their
musical performance, and singing, "quite faultlessly and with
charming feeling and expression," a song written by the great master
who was now paying a farewell visit, with nothing of ceremony in it,
to English royalty. With a few touches Mendelssohn makes us see the
delightful ease and comfort of this royal interior, the Queen
gathering up the sheets of music strewn by the wind over the
floor--the Prince cleverly managing the organ-stops so as to suit the
master while he played--the mighty rocking-horse and the two
birdcages beside the music-laden piano in the Queen's own
sitting-room, beautiful with pictures and richly-bound books--the
pretty difficulty about her finding some of Mendelssohn's own songs
to sing to him, since her music was packed up and taken away to
Claremont--her naive confession that she had been "so frightened" at
singing before the master,--all are chronicled with not less zest and
affection than the graceful gift of a valuable ring "as a
remembrance" to the artist from the Queen, through Prince Albert. It
is a much more pleasing impression that we thus obtain than can be
given by details of State ceremonial and visits from other
sovereigns. Of these last there was no lack, and the princely
visitors were entertained with all due pomp and splendour; but
neither on account of these costly entertainments nor on behalf of
the royal children did the Sovereign ask the nation for so much as a
shilling, the Civil List sufficing for every unlooked-for outlay, now
that Prince Albert, by dint of persevering effort, had succeeded in
putting the arrangements of the royal household on a satisfactory
footing, sweeping away a vast number of time-honoured, thriftless
expenses, and rendering a wise and generous economy possible.

[Illustration: Balmoral.]

Formerly the great officers of the Crown were charged with the
oversight of the commonest domestic business of the palace. Being
non-resident, these overseers did no overseeing, and the actual
servants were practically masterless. Hence arose numberless
vexations and extravagant hindrances. In 1843 this objectionable form
of the division of labour was brought to an end, and one Master of
the household who did his work replaced the many officials who, by a
fiction of etiquette, had been formerly supposed to do everything
while they did and could do nothing. The long-needed r