"Do you think that I, a Russian, am afraid of a cold sleigh journey?" she asked earnestly, after a few moments' silence. "Scarcely! Of course, I should not travel in this dress, but would assume the disguise of a Russian lad, in order to act as your servant and interpreter. As for _les convenances_"--and, shrugging her shoulders, she pulled a little grimace, and added, "Bah! we are not lovers!" I asked for news of her father, but she informed me that he was in Zurich. She refused to give me her address, and all argument was useless. The point she urged, that she would be companion and interpreter combined, impressed me, and ere I had finally promised, she had given me instructions that I should, in applying for my passport from the Russian Embassy, also make application for one for "Ivan Ivanovitch, servant." Four evenings later, I was on the platform at Charing Cross Station, watching my big iron-bound trunks being stowed away into the Continental express, and chatting to two old Fleet Street friends, who had come to see the last of me, when a rather short young man, enveloped in a long, heavy ulster, approached, and, touching his cap respectfully, said-- "Good-evening, sir. I hope I'm not late." "No, plenty of time," I said indifferently, although I had a difficult task to keep my countenance. Turning to my friends, I explained, "That's my interpreter, Ivanovitch." Meanwhile, the object of our attention had walked across to the van to see his own trunk placed with mine. Five minutes afterwards, when we were in the carriage together, gliding out over the bridge that spans the Thames, I burst into a hearty laugh as I, for the first time, regarded her critically. Her disguise was so complete that, for the moment when she had greeted me, I had been deceived. Laughing at her successful make-up, she removed her round fur cap, and showed how she had contrived, by cutting her hair shorter, to make it appear like a man's. Underneath her overcoat she wore a suit of thick, rough tweed, and with great gusto she related how she had filled up her large boots with wool. She produced the inevitable cigarettes, and we spent the two hours between London and Queenborough in smoking and chatting. To describe in detail our long railway journey across Europe by way of Berlin and Moscow would occupy too much space. Suffice it to say that I travelled through Holy Russia with a passport which bore the _vise_ of the Minister of the Interior at Petersburg, and which ensured myself and my "servant" civility and attention on the part of police officials.