My friendship with the Empress increased as the months passed. That autumn the Imperial Family went to Livadia, and I stayed with my uncle, going constantly to and from the Palace. The first day I saw the Empress in Livadia she gave me an entire layette for Titi which she had made herself. I had wondered why she had telegraphed for his measurements--now I knew! She would often call at my uncle’s and take the baby with her for a drive. The little thing got to know her well, and one day, looking at her photograph, he said “Baby”; so after this the Empress of Russia was known to Titi by her own wish, _tout simplement_, in English, as “Aunt Baby.” He always called her “Aunt Baby,” and in many of her letters she alludes to herself by this pet name, but, needless to say, the favour shown to me and my child by the Imperial Family was the source of much comment at Court. On one point my mind was made up. I determined never to allow any ideas of preferment or material advantage to spoil what was to me a condition of great happiness. My husband entirely agreed, and he declined to consider any mention of the posts which were from time to time spoken of in connection with him. As for myself, the Empress understood and appreciated my outlook. “You can always be my _friend_ if matters remain as they are,” she said. “I don’t want to lose my Lili in an official personage.” We were very happy in those days. The Grand Duchesses were fast leaving childhood behind them and blossoming into charming girls; they did not greatly resemble one another, each was a type apart, but all were equally lovely in disposition. I cannot believe that any men so inhuman existed as those who, it is said, shot and stabbed those defenceless creatures in the house of death at Ekaterinburg. Apart from their beauty, their sweetness should have pleaded for them, but, if it is true that they have “passed,” then surely no better epitaph could be theirs than the immortal words, “Lovely and pleasant were they in their lives, and in their death they were not divided.”