if the man who had died nine years ago had only left that morning and was expected back in the evening. At one side of the room stood the writing-table, with drawers on each side. Here he used to sit with his ministers facing him, and I fancy that some of our acquaintances could tell of awkward moments passed at that table. On it lay his notepaper, inkstand, pens, and the almanack for 1855! [Illustration: THE DEAD EMPEROR NICHOLAS I _February 18th, 1855._] Everything just as he left it—every single thing save one only—a small and beautiful pencil drawing of his head as it lay in death upon the pillow. Altogether a pathetic sight! and it all seemed so intimate, as if the handsome, dead giant might at any moment come stalking into the room, and resent the intrusion. It was the fashion among Russians in 1864 to talk of Nicholas as a tyrant before whom in his lifetime they crouched in terror, and of Alexander’s accession to power as a release from bondage. No doubt in a measure that was true. At the same time it is no less true that those who knew him best loved him dearly. The fierceness of his will, no less than his personal beauty and his charm, appealed. Where he chose he was irresistible. He was one of those magnetic men whose power over the hearts and affections of others is almost superhuman—there are men, one or two in a century, who walk upon the earth as Gods to be worshipped. One night there was a small dinner at Lord Napier’s, just the members of the Embassy and one Russian guest, Admiral Greig, the descendant of one of the many Scots who came over to Russia and took service there in the eighteenth century. His old Scottish connection put him on terms of very friendly intercourse with Lord Napier. That evening he told us the story of how he had carried the news of the battle of the Alma to the Emperor Nicholas.