hear the tones of the solemn hymn with which
the impetuous stream will rock thee to thine eternal rest! Receive,
then, ye sacred waves of the Dnieper, receive thou, mine Ivan, in thy
cold grave, thy wife's vow of fidelity to thee. Again will I espouse
thee--in life as in death, am I thine!"

And drawing from her finger the wedding-ring which her beloved husband
had once placed upon it, she threw it into the foaming waves.

Bending down, she saw the ring sinking in the waters and murmured: "I
greet thee, Ivan, I greet thee! Take my ring--forever am I thine!"

Then, rising proudly up, and stretching forth her arms toward heaven,
she exclaimed aloud: "I now go to pray that God may send thee vengeance.
Woe to Russia, woe!" and the stream with its boisterous waves howled and
thundered after her the words: "Woe to Russia, woe!"

COUNT MUNNICH

The Empress Anna was dead, and--an unheard-of case in Russian imperial
history--she had even died a natural death. Again was the Russian
imperial throne vacated! Who is there to mount it? whom has the empress
named as her successor? No one dared to speak of it; the question was
read in all eyes, but no lips ventured to open for the utterance of
an answer, as every conjecture, every expression, if unfounded and
unfulfilled, would be construed into the crime of high-treason as soon
as another than the one thus indicated should be called to the throne!

Who will obtain that throne? So asked each man in his heart. The
courtiers and great men of the realm asked it with shuddering and
despair. For, to whom should they now go to pay their homage and thus
recommend themselves to favor in advance? Should they go to Biron, the
Duke of Courland? Was it not possible that the dying empress had chosen
him, her warmly-beloved favorite, her darling minion, as her successor
to the throne of all the Russias? But how if she had not done so? If,
instead, she had chosen her niece, the wife of Prince Anton Ulrich, of
Brunswick, as her successor? Or was it not also possible that she had
declared the Princess Elizabeth, the daughter of Czar Peter the Great,
as empress? The latter, indeed, had the greatest, the most incontestable
right to the imperial throne of Russia; was she not the sole lawful heir
of her father? How, if one therefore went to her and congratulated her
as empress? But if one should make a mistake, how then?

The courtiers, as before said, shuddered and hesitated, and, in order
t