It was the collection of Colonel Villiers that first awakened in me an interest in old silver, and the beginning I made in Russia that winter ended in my possessing a collection of value and beauty. Villiers was a member of the Duke of Buckingham's family and was a Queen's Messenger, a position of responsibility and trust. And I had several other friends at the British Embassy. Lord and Lady Dufferin I knew; and one of the secretaries, Mr. Alan, now Sir Alan Johnston, who married Miss Antoinette Pinchot, sister of Gifford Pinchot, I had first met in Vienna. The night that Villiers arrived in Petersburg (before I had met him) some of the English _attachés_ had been invited to dine with us; but the First Secretary arrived at the last moment to explain that the Queen's Messenger was expected with private letters and that they had to be received in person and handed in at Court promptly. "It's the only way they have of sending really private letters, you see," he explained. "Alexandra probably wants to tell Dagmar about the children's last attacks of indigestion, so we have to stay at home to receive the letters!" Well--the glad day did finally come when my mother and I turned our backs on Russia and its eternal twilight and repaired to Nice for a little amusement and recuperation after the Petersburg season. A number of our friends were there, and it was unusually gay. I was warmly welcomed and congratulated, for Petersburg had put the final _cachet_ upon my success. Although I might win other honours, I could win none that the world appraised more highly than those that had come to me that year. In a letter to my father, from Nice, my mother says: