A family with whom my friends were acquainted had the misfortune to lose their mother. The friends and relatives of the deceased as usual assembled to keep the survivors company, and the people below stairs actually played at cards, whilst the clergy above were singing the mass over the corpse. The reason given us was “que c’était tellement ennuyant à s’asseoir et ne rien faire;” but this was an exception to the general conduct on such occasions. The Russians believe in the efficacy of prayers for the dead, and for the good of souls in the intermediate state, but they do not seem to have any very definite ideas about purgatory. Indeed the Greek religion only teaches that there are two places: one for the good, and the other for the bad. Yet they attend to the annual performance of a mass for those that are departed, and hold the communion of spirits in its literal sense. They endeavour by every means to render the prospect of death less terrible, yet perhaps there is not a nation upon the earth that contemplates it with so great horror and dread: like the ancient Romans, they cannot endure to hear it even named before them, and frequently, when death becomes accidentally the subject of conversation, they will beg that the subject may be dropped as being too disagreeable. One morning the porter found a basket on the snow in front of the house in which we were residing, and brought it to the princess. To our astonishment, on removing the numerous wrappings on the top, a little baby of not more than a few days old was exposed to our view. Madame, although she had six children of her own, immediately, with all the kindness of a Russian, declared that she would adopt it. “She would not,” she said, “on any account show such inhospitality to the little distressed stranger as to send it away; it had been evidently destined by Heaven that it should be left at her gate, so that she might afford it the protection its own unfortunate mother was unable to give it.” She therefore immediately sent to a priest, and requested him to christen the child, and she and the prince stood as sponsors. It is a curious thing that among the Russians the _father_ and _mother_ of an infant not only cannot stand as sponsors to it, but they are not allowed to _be present_ at its baptism. The godfather and godmother, by answering for the child, become related to it, and to _each other_; and a lady and gentleman who have stood as sponsors to the same child are not allowed to marry each other. The form of christening differs materially from that of our Church. The priest takes the child, which is quite naked, and, holding it by the head, so that his thumb and finger stop the orifices of the ears, he dips it thrice into the water; he cuts off a small portion of the hair, which he twists up with a little wax from the tapers and throws into the font; then, anointing the baby’s breast, hands, and feet with the holy oil, and making the sign of the cross with the same on the