So when I met the Grand Duchess Olga again, when I accompanied King Edward on that memorable visit to Reval--when, as Prince Orloff, the Emperor’s principal aide-de-camp, said to me, King Edward changed the atmosphere of Russian feelings towards England from suspicion to cordial trust--there was quite an affectionate meeting, and we danced the “Merry Widow” waltz--a then famous stage performance--with such effect as to make the Empress of Russia laugh. They told me she had not laughed for two years. At the banquet preceding the dance the Grand Duchess and I, I regret to say, made such a disturbance in our mutual jokes that King Edward called out to me that I must try to remember that it was not the Midshipmen’s Mess; and my dear Grand Duchess thought I should be sent to Siberia or somewhere. We sailed at daylight, and I got a letter from her when I arrived in England saying she had made a point of seeing Uncle Bertie and that it was all right, I was not going to be punished. Then she went on to describe that she had had a very happy day (being her birthday) picnicking in the woods; the only drawback was, she told me, that the gnats would bite her ankles. Being, at that period, both a courtier and a sycophant, I telegraphed to her at some Palace she was at in Russia to say “I wished to God I had been one of the gnats.” It was weeks before she got the telegram, as the Russian Secret Department believed it was from some anarchist, and was a cypher for bombing the Emperor or something of the sort, and there was a lot of bother to trace out who had sent it. I find among my papers another charming letter which I received from the Grand Duchess Olga. It runs: PETERHOF. _11/25 July, 1909._ DEAR ADMIRAL, I have been going to write to you for ever so long and now is a chance to send you a few lines. How are you getting on? We speak of you very often. I suppose you’ll be going to Carlsbad this automn--and I am very sorry that we are not going--so as to meet you there! I have a great favour to ask you--but as I believe and think you _can_ grant it--I shall ask: Lieutenant ---- of your Royal Navy--whom we got to like very much two years ago at Sorrento--is willing to come this automn and spend a month with us at our country place--_if_ he gets leaves of course; I write all this to you as I don’t know who else can help and give him leave.