Mamma kept me very strictly, and did a good deal of weeding in the selection of my friends. She did not consider, alas! the Rydes the best of companions for a girl of my temperament, who was always on the look out for wickedness, fearing that they stuffed my head with all sorts of silly nonsense. On holidays she caught me flat-nosed, with my face glued to the window, looking out for the Rydes. I went with Mary Vietinghoff to Dr. Roth’s gymnastic class, and enjoyed meeting there girls of different social classes. Forgetting that our stations in life were widely apart, it amused me to shake hands with daughters of shopkeepers as well as ladies by birth, without distinction. Dr. Roth made us march up and down the hall with our hands clasped behind our backs. At each step we made he repeated like a pendulum, “_Kopf, Rücken, Kopf, Rücken!_” and I mimicked him in the ante-room where we put on our hats, throwing my audience into convulsions of giggling. My foolish tricks drove Dr. Roth to despair. When his back was turned I dashed on to the window, raised up a corner of the blind which was generally let down during our exercises, and stared at the passers-by. As we lived within two minutes’ walk of Dr. Roth’s dwelling, I begged mamma to allow me to go unaccompanied to his class. Mamma objected at first, for she said she could not have me running alone in the streets, but I soon overcame her prejudice and profited by my liberty for paying flying visits to the Rydes on my way home from Dr. Roth’s. Being such a romp I wanted a lot of looking after and gave much trouble to poor mamma, who never knew what I would do next. My apparent frivolity deeply wounded her, but remonstrance always led to scenes. One night, coming home from a dancing-party, where my conduct had been more disgraceful than usual, after a miserable scene that we had had together, mamma fell into hysterics. It drove me nearly mad to see her in such a state, and I dashed into the street and raced headlong, hatless, my hair loose, flying wildly about my shoulders and waving in the wind. Whilst I fled in terror across the street I heard two well-known voices calling: “Vava! Vava!” screamed mamma, “Fräulein Princess!” roared our cook, running after me in pursuit. This only increased my speed, and I ran as fast as my legs would carry me. A group of students, wearing coloured caps and followed by huge dogs, who were coming out of a restaurant before which I was galloping at that moment, were soon at my heels. I never stopped running till I found myself breathless at the door of the Vietinghoffs, having taken that way by instinct, and I flung myself panting into their apartment, where I felt safe at last. On Sundays we went to the Russian chapel. It amused me enormously to watch the secretary of the queen, a gentleman looking excessively pleased with himself, who made the sign of the cross only when the priest pronounced the names of the queen or the Grand Duchess Vera.