e only dine in state on great
occasions, when it is politic to exhibit myself in public. We cannot
all of a sudden introduce the freedom of the English. Ah! You should
indeed value your institutions, both public and domestic."

The Count was busy all the next morning in seeing his overseers, and
receiving deputations from the inhabitants of the various villages on
his estate, who came to welcome him, and bring the accustomed offering
of bread and salt. He arranged, however, ample amusement for his guests
during the day, by supplying them with horses to ride, and boats on a
lake a couple of versts away from the house, where they caught a large
supply of fish in a very short time. In the afternoon several visitors,
who had been invited to meet them, arrived. They were proprietors,
large and small, of estates ten, twenty, and thirty versts away. The
Count's own estate extended thirty versts in one direction, so that he
had not many near neighbours. Some of these gentlemen spoke English
fluently, and had seen the world. Fred and Harry were delighted with
them, and so especially was Mr Evergreen, they were so polite and
polished, and so full of information. Mr Evergreen declared that he
should be proud to be a Russian, to be like them.

"Ah, my dear sirs, you should see Russia during the winter," exclaimed
Baron Shakertoskey. "It is then we are most full of life and vivacity.
Then nature kindly forms us roads, over which we are borne, gliding
smoothly, at a rapid pace by quick-footed steeds; bridges are thrown
across streams, by means which far surpass the art of man; and fresh
fish, and flesh, and fowl are brought to market in the forms which they
held when alive. Fish stand up on their tails, as if about to leap out
of the baskets where they are placed. Sheep, oxen, and calves, rabbits
and hares, look as if they could still run about, and fowls rear up
their heads as if still denizens of the poultry-yard. A true Russian
winter is only to be found at Moscow or in the interior. At Saint
Petersburg, owing to the neighbourhood of the Baltic, the wind which
blows over it frequently produces a thaw or a partial thaw, even in the
middle of winter. Thus, as the wind shifts, so does the temperature
rise and fall. With a west wind comes rain, and with a north-east a
bitter cold; other winds bring fogs, and some, cheerful, bright frosty
days, so that the inhabitants of that great city are liable to wind and
rain in