Julia’s grandmother, a very gentle and simple old lady of eighty, always presided on these occasions, and if she were not drinking tea, a space would be cleared on the tablecloth and _patience_ would be laid out. She is always in black, has large eyes and fine brow and a magnificent Roman nose, regards the cards intently, and puts them one upon another deliberately and solemnly as if she knew all their secrets and were the Queen of Spades herself. But she listens to all that is said, and can repeat almost the whole of the conversation after the people are gone. She is of the old Orthodox Russian type and dwells under the ikons. No meal is ever begun without her grace being said. And she also has the gentle spirit of altruism. Every other Sunday night a rather obstinate old lady who belongs to the Evangelical Christians comes and sits beside her and reads in a loud distinct voice a volume of Spurgeon’s sermons in translation. And the old lady asks no questions, always seems to be pleased, and goes on putting out her cards and making up her patience pack in sympathetic silence. * * * * * Julia has lived in France and England, and she especially likes the English. “They have learned to be so kind,” she would say. “They take care not to injure people’s feelings when they talk. They are gentle, and they are not unjust, they are fair. They are centuries in front of us Russians in that way.” That observation struck me very forcibly when I heard it; for Julia has herself an English manner. She is like an English lady of quality of the best type. She has that something which she admires in us expressed in herself. It is good that the standard notion of an Englishman which one finds in Russia is something which corresponds to this praise which Julia gave us. The Russians see us at our best, that is, as we really are, and they admire us. They like our quiet kindness and fairness. They admire our passion for social reform and “putting the world right.” Julia also is “helping to build the kingdom of heaven upon earth,” helping to make the world really ready for the Master when He comes again. She is an _Eager-Heart_, who would even give up her chance of sheltering the heavenly Babe and wondrous Mother in order to take in a human babe and earthly mother homeless in the snow. That is the way of Martha, the finding of Christ in the suffering human being in the world, the realisation of “Inasmuch as ye did it unto the least of these ye did it unto Me” as contrasted with the way of Mary—the denial of the world and of the reality of the suffering in it, the pouring of the ointment on the feet of Christ instead of selling it and giving the proceeds to the poor.