CHIT-CHAT FROM ABROAD.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume IX, Issue 35, 27 August 1892, Page 866

CHIT-CHAT FROM ABROAD.

During their recent visit to Beilin, the Duchessof Edinburgh and her attractive daughters aroused, says a contemporary, hardly less interest than the two Dutch queens. The I’iincess Marie has been especially admired, and the fact of her meeting her fanci, the Ciown Prince of Roumania, in the capital, has cast a halo of romance about her. She vividly reminds people of her mothei at the age of seventeen. An old Prussian officer sent to St. Petersburg as representative of the Emperor after the Franco-German war, once said that the Duchess of Edinburgh was then the most captivating school girl he had ever met. In the prettiest way she peeled his peaches at dessert. Her confidences were many, and her one idea of a pleasant life was to marry, live in the country, and have a number of clever sons and beautiful daughters. It would seem as if the Duchess had had her wish. Her life at Coburg, wheie she is immensely popular, is of the happiest and most useful description. The little Queen Wilhelmina of the Netheilands, and her mother, the Queen Regent, has been staying in Potsdam. She seemed much pleased when the Emperor stooped and kissed her on both cheeks. This little lady is only twelve years old. The little Crown Prince, who is just ten, and who received his commission in the Foot Guards on bis birthday, marched past with his regiment, looking very important in his uniform and mitre-shaped helmet. The child-Queen Wilhelmina, who stood at one window of the Palace with three of the little German Princes, looked very pretty and graceful, dressed entirely in white, and clapped her hands with delight as the little Crown Prince passed. Later in the day the Queen Regent, simply dressed in black, ‘ received' the Dutch residents in Berlin at the Castle. The little Queen, wearing white, with pale blue in her hat, was with her.

A society paper says : *On her golden wedding day the Queen of Denmark wore a dress of gold brocade trimmed with ostrich feathers, with a train thiee yards long. Her veil was ornamented with golden ears of corn. At the State concert Her Majesty wore a scarlet velvet robe trimmed with brocade. At a party given by the Crown Prince and Princess, the Queen woie mauve velvet. All the dresses were made in Copenhagen.’ The Empress Eugenie’s boots and shoes were so small, that when large sums were obtained by her ladies’ maids for her cast off dresses, the chassure found no purchasers. Consequently Her Majesty gave them to an institution or orphan girls, who wore them at their first communion.