or does not disdain now to seek Empress
Frederick's advice in a number of matters, having realized how clever
she is, while there is no one whose approval he values more highly
than hers. Most people are in the habit of portraying the Empress
Frederick as a woman embittered and soured by disappointment. Yet if
the truth were known, there are few whose existence at the present
moment is of a more ideal character, She has lost a noble and devoted
husband, but this bereavement must, to a certain extent, have been
softened by the genuine sorrow manifested by all, not only in his
own country, but throughout the civilized world, when he died. Her
marriage was a singularly happy one, unclouded by even the faintest
difference of opinion with her consort, and she is now enjoying a
delightfully contented eventide of life.

She resides during the greater part of the year in a home constructed
in one of the loveliest portions of Germany, near Homburg, according
to her own designs, and her own ideas; she possesses a vast fortune,
which renders her independent of all her relatives, and which she is
free to spend as she wishes. With all her sons and daughters married,
she has no domestic cares of her own, and is at liberty to order her
mode of existence as she pleases, unhampered by any obligations or
restrictions, save those which her son may see fit to impose. Her rank
is of the highest, for she is the eldest daughter of Queen Victoria,
and the mother of the present German emperor, besides which she has
the status and title of an empress-queen. In fact, she has the rank
of a sovereign, without any of the responsibilities that are
attached thereto, and while she may have experienced, at one moment,
disappointment at being deprived by her husband's premature death
of engineering a number of political, social and economic reforms in
Germany, upon which she had set her heart, yet she cannot but have
realized by this time that her existence as an empress-dowager is
infinitely more agreeable than that of an empress-regent would have
been, for had she been at the present moment seated by her husband's
side on the throne, she would have found no time to devote to those
arts and sciences to which she is so passionately devoted, and which
nowadays occupy the greater portion of her life.

In spite of being a great-grandmother, Empress Frederick is still
in splendid bodily health and vigor. She rides on horseback daily in
summer, and in winte