nuns retire to rest at six, in order to be enabled to perform mass at two o’clock A.M. The sisters were all seated at long tables, partaking of the mushroom-soup of which the Russians are very fond, but which is very distasteful to foreigners. We did not stay in the apartment, as we would not interrupt their repast. My friend the abbess often expressed the most enlightened sentiments regarding religious sects, and I always ascribed great liberality to her on those points, but I was assured that they were not her real sentiments, but that she very frequently uttered them merely out of politeness when persons of another creed were present. Whether that was the case or not I had, of course, no means of ascertaining, but it must, I think, be allowed that the members of the Russian Church are very liberal in their sentiments and conduct towards those of a different religion. They never display the bigotry and narrowness of mind too frequent among the Roman Catholics: they certainly prefer their own road to heaven, but their doing so is no reason why they should deem that _none other_ leads to it. No one who has lived among them can really believe that the fanatical agitation so general at present in the country can be ascribed to any other cause than to the unwise policy of a government that thus influences the minds of the people. One day, when I was at the convent, a young priest begged to speak with the superior. He was of an interesting appearance, apparently about twenty-four or twenty-five years of age; his beautiful hair was parted in the middle and hung down in wavy curls a foot long over his shoulders; his nose and mouth were well formed, but what gave extreme intelligence to his countenance was a pair of bright black eyes with dark eyebrows: altogether I had rarely seen a more prepossessing young man. He was dressed in the long purple silk robe with loose sleeves, the extremely becoming costume of the Greek clergy, and suspended round his neck was a thick gold chain, to which was attached a crucifix of the same precious metal. The abbess received him with much kindness, and after remaining a few minutes in the drawing-room they retired together into another apartment. A short time elapsed ere the superior returned: when she did so, she informed me that her visitor was a young priest to whom a cure had been offered, and, as no one can accept a cure unless he be married, he had called to inquire of her if, among the orphan daughters of the clergy in her convent, she could recommend him a suitable wife, “which is very fortunate,” added she, “for there is a young girl named Annushca, whom I have been wishing to get married for the last year; she is just nineteen, and he could not find a better partner.” “But is she likely to be agreeable to the match?” “I think so,” replied the abbess; “but he is to come to-morrow morning to see her.”