But there was one topic in which our soldier of fortune could by no means agree with Natalie Mierowna--her bitter and most unwise hostility to the strongly-established power of the Empress, or, as she styled her, "the woman who now occupied the throne of Ivan;" a prince whom she viewed exactly as the Scottish Jacobites did "the Young Chevalier," and a few old Frenchmen do at the present hour, "Henry V.," the descendant of St. Louis. These sentiments, however, she had to utter in secret, or when none were by them; and when he gazed into her dark and beautiful eyes, so full of romantic enthusiasm and of dangerous light, he felt thankful that one so peerless and so perilous was not, at all events, his enemy. She had accompanied the Empress on her celebrated pilgrimage to the ancient cathedral of Rostov, by the Lake of Nero, where the last of the Princes of Jaroslav was murdered in cold blood by Ivan the Terrible. Her expedition had taken place in the May of the preceding year. Catharine and her ladies walked ten versts afoot daily, and it was at the conclusion of this devotional journey that the final quarrel had taken place concerning the mazurka with the Aide-de-camp Vlasfief. "That insult shall never be forgotten here!" said she, stamping a little foot, in a prettily-embroidered scarlet shoe, on the carpet of the drawing-room where, fortunately for herself, she was alone with Balgonie: "an insult to me--to us, who have the blood of Ruric the Varangian in our veins; and from her--this woman of Anhalt-Zerbst!" Balgonie laughed; for the Ruric blood is to Russians what Captain John Smith's is to the Virginians, and the Norman element to the English. "Yes," she continued, "'tis something novel, an insult to us, from this Catharine, misnamed the Great, who has enslaved all the Ukraine, and given men and women away by thousands, like herds of cattle, to her courtiers and her lovers!" "Oh, be wary; I pray you, be wary, or speak in French!" said Balgonie imploringly, while laying his hand impressively--rather too impressively, we fear--upon hers, which was so delicately smooth and white, and was placed very temptingly within his reach, as they sat near each other for the purpose of conversing in low and confidential tones. "The people are mere slaves under her rule," continued Natalie, lowering her voice but without withdrawing that coveted hand; perhaps she forgot it in her energy; but the omission made poor Charlie Balgonie's honest heart beat very fast indeed, and his colour came and went painfully while her dark and glorious eyes were bent on his: "in her I behold only a usurper, who wields a knout in lieu of a sceptre, and who seats herself on a throne of human skulls; but the time is coming when all these things shall be altered!" "And this time, Natalie Microwna--what do you mean?" asked Balgonie, who had been long enough in Russia to feel a thrill of terror at words so wild and dangerous.