you not afraid of being robbed?" "No," was her answer; "there are the
best police." And she pointed out, above the jewel-box, various images
of the Virgin, and St. Nicholas, the patron saint of the country, with
a lamp burning in front of them. It is a fact that, during the seven
years and more which I spent in Russia, I on all occasions observed
the image of the Virgin, or of a saint, and the presence of a child,
to have something sacred for a Russian.

The common people, in speaking to you, never address you otherwise,
according to your age, than as mother, father, brother or sister, and
in this usage every one is included, even the Emperor and the Empress
and the whole imperial family. In the class above the populace there
are a number of people in comfortable circumstances and others very
well-to-do. The tradesmen's wives, for instance, spend a great deal on
dress, without this appearing to impose any restriction on household
expenses. Their head-dress especially is always fine and fashionable.
On their caps, whose flaps are usually embroidered with small pearls,
they wear a broad piece of stuff which falls from the head to the
shoulders and down the whole back. This sort of veil throws a shadow
on the face, which they assuredly need, seeing that all of them, I
know not why, whiten and rouge their faces and pencil their eyebrows
in the most absurd manner.

When the month of May comes to St. Petersburg there is no evidence of
spring flowers embalming the air, nor of the nightingale's song,
celebrated so much by the poets. The ground is covered with
half-melted snow. The Doga brings into the Neva ice blocks as large as
enormous rocks, heaped on top of each other, and these ice blocks
renew the cold which has diminished with the breaking of the Neva.
This dissolution might be called a splendid horror; the noise of it is
fearful. Close to the exchange the Neva is three times as wide as the
Seine at the Pont Royal, and one may imagine the effect of this sea of
ice cracking in all its parts. In spite of the officials posted all
along the quays to prohibit the people from jumping from floe to floe,
the boldest venture upon the moving ice for the purpose of crossing
the river. Before undertaking their dangerous expedition they make the
sign of the cross, and then rush on, fully persuaded that if they
perish it must be because they were predestined to it. The first who
crosses the Neva in a boat at the hour of the breakin