ISMAIL IN HIS GRANDEUR. 83 London, in the mid-September of 1870, I was waiting for some friends at the Charing Cross railway station, when I saw a one-horse fly, driven by a coachman, whose shabby oiled hat and dirty white Berlin gloves proclaimed him as belonging to some second-rate livery stable, stop at the station. Its sole occupant was a lady, attired in very dusty black, looking weary and travel-worn and all alone. The lady was the Empress Eugenie. It was a Saturday afternoon, and the station was crowded with West End holiday makers. The Empress was going to Chislehurst, and found it difficult to pass the barriers, and had at last to appeal to the assistance of one of the policemen on duty. I saw the constable elbow a way for her Majesty through the dense masses, to whom she was unknown by sight, and then, as I turned away, I felt that I had just witnessed one of the most extraordinary vicissitudes of fortune recorded in the annals of Royalty. From the ballroom of Lake Timsah to the platform of a London railway station; from the Aigle to a stray seat in a crowded suburban train ; and all in ten short months !