ulle gown, from the billowing skirts of
which her tiny waist sprang like the slender stem of a huge, white rose.
About her throat was clasped a double row of pearls--her father's gift
to her for the great occasion. And, in her arms,--last, daring touch of
her Countess-mother, who, in the matter of dress, was a consummate
artist,--Nathalie carried a great cluster of vivid crimson camellias,
that gave a perfect finish to a costume now relieved from any suspicion
of monotony, or too conventional simplicity. The red of the waxen
camellia, vividly transparent as it was, was scarce redder than the
unroughed cheeks and lips of their bearer. Nor was the brilliant
sparkling of the diamonds in the kakoshnik inadequately reproduced in
the light of those changing eyes, which, to-night, glowed large and dark
with steady, living fire.

Caroline, Countess Dravikine, gazing critically at her daughter's
finished figure, felt her heart glow within her. Who could reproach her
for exploiting such beauty before marriage? For at sight of Nathalie
to-night, an Emperor himself could scarce have reproached his son for
desiring the hand of so exquisite a creature. And, with her own great
skill as a firm basis for the girl's charming ingenuousness, reflected
her mother, what alliance would prove impossible to her now? For, even
in her mother-love, this odd woman was filled with the selfishness of a
very empty vanity. And it seemed now as if, with the death of her
unhappy sister, there had also died in Madame Dravikine the last vestige
of unworldliness.

The Hermitage that night proved a fitting field for her generalship. The
event so long dreaded by her as the seeming end of her own youth, was
suddenly turned into a double triumph. For, as Nathalie passed through
the long _salons_, she was followed by such a trail of whispers,
envious, malicious, amazed, from the women, universally applausive from
the men, that the Countess suddenly realized that she held in her hands
a new instrument of power; one greater than she had ever wielded before.
Moreover, before an hour was gone, she knew well that she had been
vindicated of any suggestion of mistake in having adopted the English
rather than the French form in introducing her daughter. For his Majesty
exclaimed, delightedly, as he personally lifted the debutante from her
third low and graceful courtesy; and the Empress, most charming, most
gentle, most refined of women, kissed the young girl on the ch