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I could not help remembering this to-day when her Highness, in greeting the Tsaritsa, was going to stoop and kiss her dress, according to court etiquette. It is true the Tsaritsa did not allow it to come to that, but herself embraced and kissed her. Yet, what an irony of fate, that a Princess of Wolfenbüttel, heiress of the great Guelphs, who contested the German Imperial Crown in days when the houses of Hohenzollern and Hapsburg had never yet been heard of, should kiss the dress of this woman who once was a laundress!

May 4.

After warm sunny days it has suddenly turned wintry again, with cold wind, wet, snow and rain. Ice from the Ládoga is floating down the Neva. We are told, however, that snow falls here even as late as June.

Our palace has been so neglected that even its roof has proved unsound; to-night, during a severe rainfall, water came through the ceiling in her Highness’s bedchamber; a good thing it did not come on the bed; but there was a pool on the floor.

The ceiling is decorated with a painted allegory; a burning altar entwined with roses; on both sides Cupids bearing two coats of arms; the Russian Eagle and the Brunswick Steed. Between them, two clasped hands and the inscription, “Non unquam junxit nobiliora fides.” “Never did fidelity join two nobler beings.” The damp has formed a black spot just over the altar, and cold dirty water kept dripping from Hymen’s flame.