d bloom. In
no country of the world are flowers so worshipped, is money so freely
spent in floral decoration. There is something in the sight, and more
especially in the scent of hot-house plants, that appeals to the complex
siftings of three races which constitute a modern Russian.

We, in the modest self-depreciation which is a national characteristic,
are in the habit of thinking, and sometimes saying, that we have all the
good points of the Angle and the Saxon rolled satisfactorily into one
Anglo-Saxon whole. We are of the opinion that mixed races are the best,
and we leave it to be understood that ours is the only satisfactory
combination. Most of us ignore the fact that there are others at all,
and very few indeed recognize the fact that the Russian of to-day is
essentially a modern outcome of a triple racial alliance of which the
best component is the Tartar.

The modern Russian is an interesting study, because he has the remnant
of barbaric tastes, with ultra-civilized facilities for gratifying the
same. The best part of him comes from the East, the worst from Paris.

The Countess Lanovitch belonged to the school existing in Petersburg and
Moscow in the early years of the century--the school that did not speak
Russian but only French, that chose to class the peasants with the
beasts of the field, that apparently expected the deluge to follow soon.

Her drawing-room, looking out on to the Neva, was characteristic of
herself. Camellias held the floral honors in vase and pot. The French
novel ruled supreme on the side-table. The room was too hot, the chairs
were too soft, the moral atmosphere too lax. One could tell that this
was the dwelling-room of a lazy, self-indulgent, and probably ignorant
woman.

The countess herself in nowise contradicted this conclusion. She was
seated on a very low chair, exposing a slippered foot to the flame of a
wood fire. She held a magazine in her hand, and yawned as she turned its
pages. She was not so stout in person as her loose and somewhat highly
colored cheeks would imply. Her eyes were dull and sleepy. The woman was
an incarnate yawn.

She looked up, turning lazily in her chair, to note the darkening of the
air without the double windows.

"Ah!" she said aloud to herself in French, "when will it be tea-time?"

As she spoke the words, the bells of a sleigh suddenly stopped with a
rattle beneath the window.

Immediately the countess rose and went to the mirror over the