me at six o'clock." Then she went on a longer expedition--up
to the very top of a high hill. "It was quite romantic. Here we were
with only this Highlander behind us holding the ponies (for we got off
twice and walked about). . . . We came home at half-past eleven,--the
most delightful, most romantic ride and walk I ever had. I had never
been up such a mountain, and then the day was so fine." The Highlanders,
too, were such astonishing people. They "never make difficulties," she
noted, "but are cheerful, and happy, and merry, and ready to walk,
and run, and do anything." As for Albert he "highly appreciated the
good-breeding, simplicity, and intelligence, which make it so pleasant
and even instructive to talk to them." "We were always in the habit,"
wrote Her Majesty, "of conversing with the Highlanders--with whom one
comes so much in contact in the Highlands." She loved everything about
them--their customs, their dress, their dances, even their musical
instruments. "There were nine pipers at the castle," she wrote after
staying with Lord Breadalbane; "sometimes one and sometimes three
played. They always played about breakfast-time, again during the
morning, at luncheon, and also whenever we went in and out; again before
dinner, and during most of dinner-time. We both have become quite fond
of the bag-pipes."

It was quite impossible not to wish to return to such pleasures again
and again; and in 1848 the Queen took a lease of Balmoral House, a small
residence near Braemar in the wilds of Aberdeenshire. Four years later
she bought the place outright. Now she could be really happy every
summer; now she could be simple and at her ease; now she could
be romantic every evening, and dote upon Albert, without a single
distraction, all day long. The diminutive scale of the house was in
itself a charm. Nothing was more amusing than to find oneself living
in two or three little sitting--rooms, with the children crammed away
upstairs, and the minister in attendance with only a tiny bedroom to do
all his work in. And then to be able to run in and out of doors as one
liked, and to sketch, and to walk, and to watch the red deer coming so
surprisingly close, and to pay visits to the cottagers! And occasionally
one could be more adventurous still--one could go and stay for a night
or two at the Bothie at Alt-na-giuthasach--a mere couple of huts with "a
wooden addition"--and only eleven people in the whole party! And there
were mounta