and merciful."

"You knew her!" exclaimed the young maiden, grasping his hand and
looking at him with a confiding friendliness. "Oh, you knew her! You
will now be doubly dear to me, for those bright eyes have seen my
mother, and perhaps this hand which now rests in mine has also touched
hers!"

"That," said Count Orloff, with a smile, "I should not have dared to do;
it would have been high-treason!"

"Was she, then, so great a sublime a princess?" asked Natalie.

"She was an empress!"

"An empress!" And the young maiden, sprang up with beaming eyes and
glowing cheeks. "My mother was an empress!" said she, breathing hard.

"Empress Elizabeth of Russia."

Overcome by the feelings suddenly excited by this news, Natalie sank
again upon her seat and covered her face with her hands. Tears gushed
out between her delicate, slender fingers; her whole being was in
violent, feverish commotion. Then, raising her arms toward heaven, with
a celestial smile, while the tears overflowed her face, she said: "I am,
then, no longer a homeless orphan; I have a fatherland, and my mother
was an empress!"

Count Orloff respectfully kissed the hem of her garment.

"You are the daughter of an empress," said he, "and will yourself be an
empress! That was what Paulo wished, and therefore have they condemned
him as a criminal. What he was unable to accomplish must be done by
me, and for that purpose have I come. Princess Natalie, your fatherland
calls you, your throne awaits you! Follow me to your crowning in the
city of your fathers--follow me, that I may place the crown of your
grandfather, Peter the Great, upon your noble and beautiful head!"

THE WARNING

From this time forward Alexis Orloff was the inseparable companion of
Natalie. With the most reverential submission, and at the same time with
the tenderest affection, seemed he to be devoted to her, and equally to
adore her as his empress and his beloved.

He took pains to represent to her that she was necessarily and
inevitably destined to become an empress.

And she had comprehended him but too well. Ambition was awakened in this
young maiden of eighteen years; it was an imperial crown that called
her--why should she not listen to this call coming from the lips of
one in whom she had unlimited confidence, and toward whom she felt
infinitely grateful?

He had unfolded and explained all to her. He had told her of her mother,
the good Empress Elizabeth, who had made Rus