to
a sumptuous apartment. "The walls were hung with splendid stuffs; the
table was covered with gold-plate; ten thousand roubles awaited her in
a casket. Courtiers stood in her ante-chamber; carriages and horses
were at her orders."

Catherine, the "scullery-Empress," was dead; Eudoxia's grandson, Peter
II., now wore the crown of Russia; and Eudoxia found herself
transported, as by the touch of a magic wand, from her loathsome
prison-cell to the old-time splendours of palaces--the greatest lady in
all Russia, to whom Princesses, ambassadors, and courtiers were all
proud to pay respectful homage. But the transformation had come too
late; her life was crushed beyond restoration; and after a few months of
her new glory she was glad to find an asylum once more within convent
walls, until Death, the great healer of broken hearts, took her to
where, "beyond these voices, there is peace."

* * * * *

While Eudoxia was eating her heart out in her convent cell, her husband
was finding ample compensation for her absence in Bacchanalian orgies
and the company of his galaxies of favourites, from tradesmen's
daughters to servant-maids of buxom charms, such as the Livonian
peasant-girl, in whom he found his second Empress.

Of the almost countless women who thus fell under his baneful influence
one stands out from the rest by reason of the tragedy which surrounds
her memory. Mary Hamilton was no low-born maid, such as Peter especially
chose to honour with his attentions. She had in her veins the blood of
the ducal Hamiltons of Scotland, and of many a noble family of Russia,
from which her more immediate ancestors had taken their wives; and it
was an ill fate that took her, when little more than a child, to the
most debased Court of Europe to play the part of maid-of-honour, and
thus to cross the path of the most unprincipled lover in Europe.

Peter's infatuation for the pretty young "Scotswoman," however, was but
short-lived. She had none of the vulgar attractions that could win him
to any kind of constancy; and he quickly abandoned her for the more
agreeable company of his _dienshtchiks_, leaving her to find consolation
in the affection of more courtly, if less exalted, lovers--notably the
young Count Orloff, who proved as faithless as his master.

Such was Mary's infatuation for the worthless Count that, under his
influence, she stooped to various kinds of crime, from stealing the
Tsarina's jew