A young man attached to the English embassy, Sir Edward W----, a member of the London skating-club, and accustomed to astonish the promenaders in Hyde Park on the Serpentine, executed some wonderful feats in the way of figures, pirouettes, and single and double curling. Like the Chevalier de St. George, who on the pond at Versailles traced the name of Marie-Antoinette, Sir Edward traced the monograms of the queens, the empresses, and other female celebrities, who left their sleighs to admire his skill. Others, less perfect than he, no doubt, but very skilful nevertheless, performed Chinese and European dances, including a waltz. The latter was danced by two Dutch ladies in the picturesque dresses of Saardam milkmaids, to the applause and admiration of everybody. I may dispense with a description of the theatre: it was dazzling as usual, but the aspect of the adjacent rooms was truly delightful. The rarest plants of the imperial green-houses--myrtles, orange-trees in full bloom--hid the walls of the staircases, the vestibules, and the ball-rooms; it was a decoration all the more appreciated in virtue of the temperature outside. After the performance of _Cendrillon_, to which some gracefully designed ballets had been added, the crowd repaired to those drawing-rooms, where the perfume and the variety of the flowers reminded us of the most clement season of the year. They only went through a few polonaises. ‘I am bound to admit,’ said Comte de Witt, ‘that this sleighing party has been a beautiful, marvellous, and elegant affair, even to us Russians, who are accustomed to that kind of magnificence. I also admit that this fête, recalling as it does the spring, is equally worthy of the rest. In truth, at the pace we are proceeding with our amusements, it will not be surprising if surfeit breed disgust. Nevertheless, in order to add something new to all that has been offered to us, and to complete this winter fête, they ought to have constructed on the Schönbrunn lake a palace of ice to receive and entertain our royal company.’ ‘Entirely of ice, general?’ ‘Yes, like that which Empress Anne constructed on the Neva. But you, who have lived in St. Petersburg, did you never hear of that fête?’ ‘No.’