Honor dropped into
free-and-easy chat with first one and then another of our party, and
whoever chose stepped forward and spoke with the modest little Grand
Duchess Marie, the Czar's daughter. She is fourteen years old,
light-haired, blue-eyed, unassuming and pretty. Every body talks
English.

The Emperor wore a cap, frock coat and pantaloons, all of some kind of
plain white drilling--cotton or linen and sported no jewelry or any
insignia whatever of rank. No costume could be less ostentatious. He is
very tall and spare, and a determined-looking man, though a very
pleasant-looking one nevertheless. It is easy to see that he is kind and
affectionate There is something very noble in his expression when his cap
is off. There is none of that cunning in his eye that all of us noticed
in Louis Napoleon's.

The Empress and the little Grand Duchess wore simple suits of foulard
(or foulard silk, I don't know which is proper,) with a small blue spot
in it; the dresses were trimmed with blue; both ladies wore broad blue
sashes about their waists; linen collars and clerical ties of muslin;
low-crowned straw-hats trimmed with blue velvet; parasols and
flesh-colored gloves. The Grand Duchess had no heels on her shoes. I
do not know this of my own knowledge, but one of our ladies told me so.
I was not looking at her shoes. I was glad to observe that she wore her
own hair, plaited in thick braids against the back of her head, instead
of the uncomely thing they call a waterfall, which is about as much like
a waterfall as a canvas-covered ham is like a cataract. Taking the kind
expression that is in the Emperor's face and the gentleness that is in
his young daughter's into consideration, I wondered if it would not tax
the Czar's firmness to the utmost to condemn a supplicating wretch to
misery in the wastes of Siberia if she pleaded for him. Every time
their eyes met, I saw more and more what a tremendous power that weak,
diffident school-girl could wield if she chose to do it. Many and many
a time she might rule the Autocrat of Russia, whose lightest word is law
to seventy millions of human beings! She was only a girl, and she
looked like a thousand others I have seen, but never a girl provoked
such a novel and peculiar interest in me before. A strange, new
sensation is a rare thing in this hum-drum life, and I had it here.
There was nothing stale or worn out about the thoughts and feelings the
situation and the circumst