Amalie never did things by halves. She took care quickly to burn her ships behind her. She cut herself off from all society, save that of a chosen set of intimate friends of like mind with herself. Every luxury of dress, which then was at its height, was rigorously renounced. Her beautiful dark hair, in which splendid, costly pearls had been wont to gleam, and which had been particularly admired, was shaven off, and a black flat wig worn instead. The gay embassy was abandoned for a plain little country-house situated between the Hague and Schevelingen; and, as a warning to visitors, over the door hung a sign-board with the strange device, _Nithuys_--"Not at home." Amalie was now exceedingly happy. "Soon I felt such comfort in this new life, in constant intercourse with my children, in gradual advance in knowledge, and above all in the peace of conscience with which I every night retired to rest, that still higher thoughts found room in my mind. God and my own soul came to be the usual subjects of my reflections and investigations." That Amalie Gallitzin's young children received a very strange education her most ardent admirers would not seek to deny. It must be remembered she was really educating _herself_--trying first one system and then another, anxious to put what she read into practice, and making many an experiment with the poor little boy and girl. Mimi, the daughter, being somewhat of an amiable non-entity, was affected comparatively little by the educational vagaries of her mother. At one time she and her brother were made to run about barefoot, at another to plunge into the cold river from a bridge, to "harden" them and make them fearless. But with Mitri (Demetrius)--clever, impulsive, sensitive, refined--mistakes were likely to be fraught with evil consequences. That his mother, who loved him so dearly, and whom he resembled so much, later on, in his splendid spirit of self-sacrifice and utter unworldliness, sorely misunderstood him seems certain. From the first she had an impossibly high standard for the poor boy, who, naturally spirited, was forever being checked and veered round like a pony in a game of polo. This led to a seeming indecision and weakness of character very foreign to his real nature. If you do not know where you stand, it is difficult to "put your foot down." Now, to his mother, who was all fire and energy, anything like weakness and half-heartedness was of all things most intolerable. His father, who saw the boy but seldom, judged far more correctly when he said: "That lad has really a tremendous will of his own, and will always go counter to the stream."