great misfortune was that she lived in great times, and that she had no greatness in her to meet them. This was a calamity, but by no means caused by her own fault. Sometimes she was touching in the attention she gave to the smallest detail connected with the training and the welfare of her children. One may say that even before the great catastrophe which fell upon her, her attention had been entirely concentrated on her babes. She liked to be present at all the daily routine of their existences, and whenever her daughters were to be produced before some of their relatives, she made it a point to superintend their toilet, and to brush their long hair. The girls were generally dressed in white, winter and summer, and it was only when they had reached their twelfth year that she consented to dress them in dark colours during their school hours. But even then they had to change for dinner and to appear before their parents in the light gowns their mother was so fond of. Their clothes were always made in the best houses, and their linen just as dainty and magnificent as their mother’s. In summer and on board the Imperial yacht, they were generally attired in sailor hats and blouses, and were allowed to run about as much as they liked, and to talk to the officers and sailors. They shared their mother’s love for the sea, and the six weeks or so that these annual excursions in the Finnish waters lasted were the real holidays of the children as well as of the Empress. The latter has also been accused of not showing any amiability in regard to the foreign guests who from time to time visited the Court of Czarskoi Selo. In this there may have been a certain amount of truth, but the apparent coldness of the young Czarina proceeded from the everlasting fear which haunted her that she might be compromised by showing herself too effusive towards strangers. She knew that any attention she showed to her visitors would be widely commented upon, and as these with few exceptions were German princes, this circumstance added to her embarrassment, because she was very well aware that she was supposed to harbour strong Teuton sympathies. In regard to her English relatives she was handicapped, because the Queen of Great Britain was the sister of the Empress Dowager, and when she came to Rewal with King Edward, she was naturally more with Marie Feodorovna than with the niece with whom she had so very little in common, and who had done nothing whatever to win her sympathies.