trembling like a frightened chicken.

"He has come," says I to myself. "Alexis has come. To-morrow we shall
see him--handsome, young, filled with Imperial royalty from the crown of
his noble head to the soles of his patent-leather boots. But will he
wear his crown in the procession, or only keep it for the grand ball.
What if he should rest that crown on the head of some distinguished
American, selecting a literary lady?" This thought impressed me; both
hands went up to my lofty brow. Alas! they only sent the crimping-pins
ploughing across my head with a thorny sharpness that filled my throat
with screeches.

My dress has come home--I am stunned:

Thirty yards of silk, $10 per yard $300.00
One piece French crape 25.00
Ten yards Brussels point 100.00
Linings 10.00
Making 50.00
Materials 35.00
Silk buttons 12.00
Passementerie, etc. 15.50
-------
$547.50

I have just recovered from a long fainting fit. They have taken the
crimping-pins out of my hair and deluged it with crystal water. I am
lying on my couch faint and exhausted. Oh, my sisters, the paths of
royalty are beautiful, but full of thorns. That bill has been enough to
destroy all my pleasure in the visit of the Grand Duke Alexis.

IX.

READY TO LAND.

The great Grand Duke of all the Russias has been thrown upon our shore
by an upheaving of the mighty deep, and is now rocking at his ease in
the iron-clad cradle of a great nation. Oh, he had a terrible time.
Winds tossed him, storms pitched that noble vessel end foremost into the
very bowels of the sea, then hove it up on great mountain waves, where
it rocked and tottered and trembled, while the rain washed its
decks--rendering mops useless--and the lightning got so tangled in the
spars and rigging that you couldn't tell which was rope and which was
fire.

Out of all this danger the great Grand Duke was blown upon our shore,
with a good deal less fuss than Jonah had when he took to his life-boat
with fins and tail, and discharged cargo on a desert shore, without the
first chance of an imperial reception, and nothing but an upstart guard
to offer him the hospitalities of the country.

Befo