The Empress Alexandra, on the contrary, spoke with acerbity of every small incident which came to her knowledge, and declared loudly that she would refuse to admit in her presence the persons guilty of indiscretions. During the second season which followed upon her marriage, when Court receptions interrupted by the mourning for the late Czar were once more resumed, the Empress struck off from the list of invitations submitted to her the names of some of the most prominent members of St. Petersburg society, giving her reasons for doing so. The result was that nothing but old frumps, or mothers with marriageable daughters, attended this particular ball, and that the Empress in her turn was boycotted by almost everybody of note in the capital, who did not care to have themselves or their relatives publicly branded as not worthy to be admitted within the gates of the Winter Palace. The effects of this ostracism became apparent on the New-Year’s reception which followed upon this incident, which only four women attended, wives of Ministers, who, in virtue of their husbands’ position, could not well do anything else. The Emperor, surprised at this absence of the feminine element, on an occasion when it was generally very conspicuous, inquired into the matter. When told the story which had given rise to it he forthwith consulted his mother, and the latter, profiting by the occasion, told her son that he had better have the names of the people about to be invited at Court balls submitted to her for inspection, and not to the young Empress. Of course this became known at once, with the result that the popularity of Marie Feodorowna increased, while that of her daughter-in-law, on the contrary, diminished with every day that passed.