On his third voyage to Russia he was honoured by the invitation of a merchant somewhat wealthier than the common of his acquaintance and at that table met some official of the Court, of what exact situation his ignorance of Russian and of French forbade him to inquire. Before returning to his native Lincolnshire, his happy spouse and his young family, he enjoyed the singular privilege of a further unexpected invitation from this same Court official whom he had thus chanced to meet, and so found himself at supper in one of the smaller and more discreet rooms of the Palace, upon its mezzanine floor, in a choice company of both sexes. It is characteristic of the Empress herself--a great woman!--that a large humanity and a laudable curiosity combined rendered her indifferent to the conventions of rank. No sooner had she heard of the British merchant captain's cheerful and manly habit than she desired a more exact description, upon her receiving which he was permitted an entrance to the Presence. He enjoyed, partly by means of an elderly female who interpreted for him until he had improved his few words of German--the Empress's mother tongue and most familiar idiom--no little conversation with the august sovereign, who, when he arrived at this stage, deigned to keep him by her alone for some while. The interview was repeated upon more than one occasion and her Imperial Majesty was so good, upon his reluctant leave-taking some two or three weeks after his first arrival, as to press him with an invitation to return. Next season, the moment the Baltic ice was melted, he did so, disposing of a mixed cargo; and, while leisurely awaiting his return charge, was almost daily conveyed to the Palace from his humble lodging. For four successive seasons running this strange adventure persisted. Meanwhile his Boston neighbours could not but remark that his home in the British haven of which he was a native and mariner, showed a considerable advance in prosperity. His wife was better dressed, his growing family could boast an increasing and superior acquaintance among children of a rank with whom they would not earlier have mixed. It was even whispered that Bill Bones had made formidable investments in the City of London, which he certainly had visited more than half a dozen times during his last winter stay in England; and though his friends very charitably agreed that the profits of the Baltic trade might be large, and that Bill Bones might have had exceptional opportunities, they none the less talked among themselves upon the various possible sources of a fortune which that trade could hardly account for.