How sorry I am for you that dear Aunt[60] is gone. As she was so well this time, it will be a reason more for her returning soon to you.
Dear Lady Frances Baillie was with me on Thursday, so dear and charming.
* * * We are living in such a state of anxiety and alarm. War[61] would be too fearful a thing to contemplate--brother against brother, friend against friend, as it will be in this case! May the Almighty avert so fearful a calamity! Here, at Mayence and Frankfort, it will begin, if any thing happens, as there are mixed garrisons; and we must side with one against the other. For Henry, who is still here, it is dreadful. He can’t desert at such a moment, and yet if he should have to draw his sword against his country, his brothers fighting on the other side! Fancy the complications and horrors of such a war!
For Vicky and Fritz it is really dreadful; please let me hear by messenger what you hear from them. I am sure you think of us in these troubled times. What would dear Papa have said to all this? I long to hear from you, to know that your warm heart is acting for Germany.
* * * The dear old Oueen Marie Amélie[62] is gone to her rest at last, after a long and so stormy a life! Claremont is now also altered. How sad those constant changes are! It reminds one again and again that we are on a journey, and that the _real home_ is elsewhere. All those who work hard and love their fellow-creatures meet again, and the thorny path will be forgotten which leads to the happy meeting. I sincerely mourn for the dear Queen, and she was so kind to me always. I am glad she was one of Victoria’s god-mothers.
* * * Our Bazaar goes off wonderfully: 7,000 florins the first day, and to-day again a great deal. Affie was invaluable in arranging, selling, and assisting in every way. There have been crowds these two days, as in England: something quite unusual for the quiet inhabitants of this place. They have shown so much zeal and devotion that I am quite touched by it, as I am more or less a stranger to them.
Thousand thanks for your dear lines, and for the money and charming bas-relief of you, which I think very good. I thought so much of former birthdays at home in Buckingham Palace. They were so happy. We did nothing in particular; merely dined at Kranichstein with Uncle Louis in the afternoon. It was warm and fine.
