of the trying day. “I can bear anything now,” she replied. “Since I did not die yesterday, it seems to me that nothing will ever kill me.” Momentous words which I was to remember more than once as time went on and one disaster followed upon another. When the war broke out the Empress Dowager was in England. She telegraphed to her daughter-in-law to take her place at the head of the Red Cross until her return to Russia, and to take the first measures necessary to ensure its activity. The Czarina was but too willing to do so, but she encountered unusual opposition and even hostility on the part of the officials interested in the society, who criticised all the improvements which she suggested, and even refused to follow the instructions which she gave them. This, of course, was a source of bitter mortification to her, and she was but too glad to retire altogether from the management of the whole affair as soon as her mother-in-law returned. But this was wrongly interpreted by the public that said the Sovereign was not interested in the cause of the wounded, because she disapproved altogether of the war, and would have liked to see Russia come to an agreement with Germany. The position of my unfortunate mistress grew more and more difficult as time went on. At first the triumphant (for so it was called) march of the Russian troops into Galicia and the capture of Lemberg seemed to point to a successful campaign, but then came the first reverses, followed by the great retreat which meant abandoning to the enemy some of the most fertile provinces of the Russian Empire and the whole of Poland. The loss of the whole line of fortresses which defended the Vistula was also an awful blow dealt both to Russia’s might and to Russia’s welfare as well as prestige. Of course the whole country waxed indignant at this unexpected series of disasters, and of course the government was made responsible for them. The want of foresight on the part of the War Office was attributed to the general corruption which existed in all Russian administrative spheres, and also to the partiality of the Czar for certain favourites, against whom he would never listen to any criticisms and whom he continued to employ though the whole country had recognised their utter incapacity.