The Grand Duchesses’ attendants were a compromise between dressers, maids and nurses. They were all girls of good family, the most favoured being Mlle. Tegeleff, known as “Shoura”; the other two were “Elizabeth” and “Neouta.” The Empress--once again Victorian--was very desirous for these girls to wear caps, but they declined respectfully but firmly to do so, and she did not press the matter. The Grand Duchesses liked their attendants, and often used to help them tidy the rooms and make the beds! Unlike their mother, but like most Russians, the four sisters showed a predilection for dress, but the Empress had her own ideas on the subject, and she chose and ordered all their clothes. As children, the girls were dressed alike, but later the two eldest wore similar gowns, and the next two were dressed, so to speak, “to match.” The only frivolity which the Empress tolerated lay in her daughters’ dressing-gowns, which carried out the colours of the regiments of which they were colonels, and the Grand Duchesses were very proud of their dressing-gowns and their regiments. They were always present at parades, when they wore the uniform of their regiments, and this excitement was one of their chief pleasures. The sisters led most ordinary, uneventful lives; their exalted station never troubled them. With true courtesy they always made me pass out of a room before them, there was no ceremony, no fuss--they were the dearest, most affectionate girls, and I loved them all. The Grand Duchesses rose early, and were soon occupied with their lessons. After morning lessons they walked with the Emperor, and between lunch and tea they again went out with him. They spoke Russian, English or a little French, _never_ German, and, although they danced well, they had not much chance to do so, unless the Imperial Family went to the Crimea, then Princess Marie Bariatinsky always arranged a series of dances for them. The motive power in the lives of these charming children was family love. They had no thought apart from their home. Their affection was lavished on their father and mother, their brother and a few friends. Their parents were their paramount consideration. With the “children,” as we called them, it was always a question of “Would Papa like it?” “Do you think this or that would please Mama?”--and they always alluded to their father and mother by the simple Russian words of Mama and Papa.