I was at last shown by this military-looking gentleman into a reception room of the most spacious proportions. I sat down and prepared to wait for a secretary or aide-de-camp, when, suddenly, the door flew open, and, with a rapid step, a handsome, delicate-looking gentleman advanced toward me. I rose, and again went through the tiresome explanation that I had a letter for the Grand Duke, which I should like to hand to him in person, and so on, and so on. I expected to receive the reply that this gentleman would be greatly pleased to relieve me of the trouble, and was prepared to answer rather severely that I wished to hand the letter to his Grace myself. He said, with a gracious smile, which played like a dim light over his pale features, that he would see that the Grand Duke received the letter. "But," I said, "I must hand it to him myself." "Is it necessary?" he asked, with his faint smile. "It is," I replied as firmly as I could. He stepped back a little, and said, with a bow, "I am the Grand Duke." I almost sank into the chair with surprise. As soon as I recovered my composure, I handed him the letter, which I now felt to be a very small affair for so much ceremony and trouble. While I was waiting for the Grand Duke to read the letter, two great dogs came into the room, from different directions, and immediately began fighting. The Grand Duke said something in Russian, which showed that he at least knew how to speak commandingly. The great beasts, with drooping tails, slunk from his presence like whipped children. The Grand Duke Constantine was a younger brother of the Czar, and was a man of many accomplishments. He spoke with ease and grace seven languages, and his English was quite as grammatical and exact as my own. The Grand Duke, as soon as he had read the letter, called in his aide-de-camp, Colonel Greig, and said that the colonel would see to it that all my needs were attended to immediately, and expressed the wish that he might see me on my return from Nijnii. "I should like to know what you, as an American, think of Russia." Colonel Greig took me to the residence of his mother, the widow of Admiral Greig of the Russian navy, who lived just opposite Kronstadt. We were driven over in a troika, or droshky, with one horse trotting in the middle and one on each side, in full gallop. It was the most delightfully exhilarating drive I had ever taken, and I still think that the troika is the most attractive of all vehicles. At the Greigs' I was treated with the utmost consideration, and was a guest at a banquet the first night I was there. When I came to prepare for this function, I remembered that I had no change of clothes with me, as I had come out from St. Petersburg in a great hurry.