Ebe Court.
THE business of the approaching session has already begun to break in upon the unusual quiet which the Queen and Prince Albert have been enjoying at Windsor.
The Queen held a Privy Council at two o'clock on Wednesday af- ternoon. It was attended by Prince Albert, the First Lord ofthe Trea- sury, the Secretaries of State for the Home and Foreign departments, the First Commissioner of the Woods and Forests, the Lord Chamber- lain, and the Paymaster of the Forces ; the last, Mr. Edward John Stanley, being sworn of the Council on his first attendance at the Board.
After the Council, those by whom it was attended dined at the Royal table.
Among the visiters at the Castle have been the Duke and Dutchess of Bedford, the Marquis and Marchioness of Clanricarde, and Lord Palmerston.
Prince Albert reviewed the Seventy-second Regiment of High- landers, in the Home Park, at half-past seven on Thursday morning. Yes!erday was the birthday of the Queen Dowager. The Duke and Dutchess and Prince George of Cambridge went over to Bushy Park, to congratulate her 3Iajesty. In town, a few of the Royal tradesmen and others illuminated their houses.
The Duke and Dutchess, the Princess Augusta, and the Princess Mary of Cambridge, left town on Saturday, for Kew ; the Duke and Dutchess having previously attended at the Italian Opera. Prince George joined the family circle on Monday. The Duke and Dutchess returned to town, on Tuesday and went to the Opera again.
The Queen has consented to patronize the City of London General Pension Society, and has presented the Society with a donation of 1001.
The Hertford Reformer tells two little moral tales of Royalty- " Her Majesty is, as our readers may be aware perhaps, habitually an early riser. During her stay at Panshanger she was abroad as early as seven o'clock, in company with Prince Albert. On one of these morning excursions, she was desirous of seeing a charming little lodge situate in a dell on the left as you pass through the Pnrk from Hertingfordbury. The rustic party were quite unprepared for so distinguished an honour ; and accordingly, the game- keeper addressed them at first with less homage than he would have paid to his Sovereign. He was fortunate enough to discover his error in time, and made reparation for his mistake by showing his illustrious visiters his different specimens of game, many of them exceedingly beautiful and of uncommon kinds, and with which they seemed exceedingly pleased. The affection the Roy al pair discovered towards each other, not a little, we believe, astonished the rustic. He appears never to have suspected Queens and Princes of such vulgar sympathies as those which are experienced by the common herd. How was his wonder raised at hearing her Majesty addreqi the Prince as 'my deur!' It would have comported more, no doubt, with his notions of regal etiquette for her Majesty to have addressed him as 'your Royal Highness Prince Albert of Saxe Coburg, &c. &c. Sze.'; but no such thing was the case. Here is a re- velation for married folks! Don't be frightened of being thought vulgar through cherishing those natural and interesting emotions which husbands and *pros ought ever to feel towards one another, for your Queen thinks it not un- becoming her to display them." " On another occasion, the Prince, who was passing through a gate at Hert- ingfordbury, was recognized by a lad, His Royal Highness, observing the boy's amazement, accosted him, Well, my man, you don't know me ?'—' Yes, I do,' replied the urchin you are Prince Albert.' The Prince smiled, and asked him how he knew ? Because,' replied the boy, by no means discon- certed, ' of the hair you have got there '; and with this be drew his fingers across his upper lip."
The race of Pepys survives—of the ingenuous quidnunc who was surprised to see the Duke of York sport with his child " like any pri- vate father of a family."
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