irs is the very
motive-power of the whole vast machinery.

Had we any right to step beyond the limits of our story for
illustration, it would not be difficult to quote names enough to show
that we are speaking not at hazard, but "from book," and that great
events derive far less of their impulse from "the lords" than from "the
ladies of creation." Whatever be the part they take in these contests,
their chief attention is ever directed, not to the smaller battle-field
of home questions, but to the greater and wider campaign of
international politics. Men may wrangle and hair-split, and divide about
a harbor bill or a road cession; but women occupy themselves in devising
how thrones may be shaken and dynasties disturbed,--how frontiers may be
changed, and nationalities trafficked; for, strange as it may seem,
the stupendous incidents which mould human destinies are more under the
influence of passion and intrigue than the commonest events of every-day
life.

Our readers may, and not very unreasonably, begin to suspect that it was
in some moment of abstraction we wrote "Glencore" at the head of these
pages, and that these speculations are but the preface to some very
abstruse reflections upon the political condition of Europe. But no;
they are simply intended as a prelude to the fact that Sir Horace Upton
was not exempt from the weakness of his order, and that he, too, reposed
his trust upon a woman's judgment.

The name of his illustrious guide was the Princess Sabloukoff,
by birth a Pole, but married to a Russian of vast wealth and high
family, from whom she separated early in life, to mingle in the
world with all the "prestige" of position, riches, and--greater than
either--extreme beauty, and a manner of such fascination as made her
name of European celebrity.

When Sir Horace first met her, he was the junior member of our Embassy
at Naples, and she the distinguished leader of fashion in that city.
We are not about to busy ourselves with the various narratives which
professed to explain her influence at Court, or the secret means to
which she owed her ascendency over royal highnesses, and her sway over
cardinals. Enough that she possessed such, and that the world knew it.
The same success attended her at Vienna and at Paris. She was courted
and sought after everywhere; and if her arrival was not feted with the
public demonstrations that await royalty, it was assuredly an event
recognized with all that could flatte