I said hopefully that I would like very much to meet the Grand Duchess and she replied she thought it might be arranged. Not to-day, however, as the Grand Duchess’s time was completely filled. How long did I expect to remain in Moscow? A week? It could certainly be arranged, she thought. Meanwhile what would I like to see of the convent? Everything? She laughed and touched a little bell on the desk beside her. A little nun appeared and Mme. Gardeeve handed me over to her with orders that I was to see everything. I saw a small but perfectly equipped hospital, with an operating room complete in all its details. The hospital had been devoted to poor women and children before the war. Now most of the wards are filled with wounded soldiers. I saw a room filled with blinded soldiers who were being taught to read Braille type by sweet-faced nuns. Blindness is bitter hard for any man, but for illiterates it must be blank despair. I saw a house full of refugee nuns from the invaded districts of Poland. I saw an orphanage full of slain soldiers’ children. I lingered long in the lovely garden where nuns were at work, some with their habits tucked up, among the potato rows, some pruning trees and hedges, some sweeping the gravel paths with besoms made of twigs, some teaching the orphan girls to embroider at big frames, to knit and to sew. They made a fascinating picture, and I could hardly leave them even to see the church, which is one of the most beautiful small gems of architecture to be found in Europe. I never really saw that church at all, as it turned out, for just as we entered and I was getting a first impression of its blue and white and gold beauty, a messenger hastily opened the door and said that the Grand Duchess wanted to see me. We went back to the convent and I was taken to a tiny parlor, which is the private retreat of the Lady Abbess. It is not much bigger than a hall bedroom, and it gave the same general impression of blue and white and gold that one sees throughout the place. There were many books bound in the lapis blue which seems to be the Grand Duchess’s favorite color; a few pictures, mostly of the Madonna and Child; some small tables, one with Stephen Graham’s book, “The House of Mary and Martha,” held open upon it by a piece of embroidery carelessly dropped. There were easy chairs of English willow with blue cushions, and a businesslike little desk crammed with papers. Everywhere, in the window, on tables and the desk, were bowls and vases of flowers. Every room in the place, in fact, was filled with flowers. The door opened and the Grand Duchess came in with a radiant smile of welcome and a white hand outstretched. “I am so glad to find that I had time to meet you to-day, Mrs. Dorr,” she said, in a rarely sweet voice. “Your highness speaks English?” I exclaimed in surprise, and she replied, waving me to a comfortable armchair: “Why not? My mother was English.”