After arriving in St. Petersburg, she made known her mission to the authorities, who appointed a guard to escort her to the Russian Army, and she was soon administering comfort to the sick and wounded. She really proved to be an angel of mercy, as her beauty alone often brought hope to the despairing one. About two months after she began work as an agent of the Red Cross, she received a telegram that her mother had died from smallpox. It is trouble enough to lose a parent and be at her bedside, but to be in a foreign land, with an army which is fighting another, with not a single friend or acquaintance to comfort you, is heart-rending. This was the severest grief of her life. But, being engrossed by her duties, her grief was tempered. It is said that "duty is the sublimest word in the English language." Certainly, it is the best cure for trouble, grief, disappointments, or any of the ills of life. Soon after this, she received a long letter of condolence from her attorney lover, on the death of her mother. This was quite a comfort, and she redoubled her efforts to comfort the sick, wounded, distressed, dying soldiers around her. While engaged in her mission of mercy, she became acquainted with Count ----, a gallant colonel in the Russian Army. This count, like the American attorney, fell desperately in love with her, and made it known the first opportunity, asking her hand in marriage as soon as hostilities ceased. She repelled his offer, telling him that among the sick, dead and dying, was no place to be thinking about anything of that kind. The count took his defeat philosophically, saying to his friends that he would bide his time and renew his suit for the fair American angel of mercy, in "the sweet by-and-by." Octavia found time to correspond with her uncle, and her attorney lover, telling each how she had become fond of her work, and that it was not as objectionable as one would think.