that he has no longer the power to please women. And thus only could the countess explain his shy, reserved manner toward her, which all her winning kindness and cordiality could not overcome; and the insupportable abruptness of which, indeed, seemed rather to increase than diminish with time. When she expressed her annoyance at this to her husband, he would laugh, and say: "You know, fair Agatha, that Nature has given many a miserable little worm its sting; what else has the poor man to defend himself against your charms?" or, "You must remember that the unfortunate man has but one eye, and therefore can only half see your beauty;" or he would ward off her complaint with some other courteous joke of the kind.

But Agatha felt this peculiar situation with some bitterness. It was a matter of still greater irritation to her, however, that in this way, little by little, she lost the influence over her children's education which she considered her maternal prerogative. The ancient languages, as well as the mathematical studies, she was not familiar with; she could not, therefore, pretend to any interference with Mr. Mannsfeld's instruction. But she claimed her share, not only in the moral culture of her children, but also in their mental development, and from that he excluded her, without any apparent intention, in an unaccountable manner.

Unfortunately, the poor countess had at the moment but little time to counteract this unnatural estrangement. For, at court, the tangled threads seemed to grow more and more knotted. The queen required consolation and encouragement, and with the Countess

Kronhelm, by birth the subject of her beloved brother, she hoped just now to find more sympathy than with any of her Swedish ladies. The net, which the vengeance of the deeply-injured empress-queen, Maria Theresa, had gradually woven around the apparently-sleeping lion, was contracting more and more. Nearly all the smaller states of Germany, France, and Russia, had combined their intrigues against him, and to secure Sweden, through the influence of the Hats, was now the press ing question. Already the king, worked upon this time in unison by the hirelings of France and Russia, was half won over; the queen, but feebly supported by a portion of the Caps, worked indefatigably in opposition. Irritated by a thousand vexations and annoyances, an hour of confidence, in which she could pour out her heart and abuse her adversaries, did her good. Agatha, although she looked upon the great king as her own worst enemy whose severity and unjust anger had robbed her young life of its best happiness, was yet generous enough to sympathize with the queen. Moreover, she had been fully instructed by her husband as to the folly and wickedness of any participation of Sweden in this war. She therefore magnanimously crowded her own troubles into the background of her soul, and only looked forward with increased longing to the summer, when she would once more be mistress of her time. For, during the short fine season which the far North grants, she was accustomed, as has already been mentioned, to retire with her children to a quiet country-seat on the southern shore of Suedermannland, while her husband, as lord-chamberlain, was obliged to follow the court to the different royal

villas and hunting-seats. Here, for the château lay isolated and far from any neighbors, she could live entirely at her leisure and for her children, while the count only visited her now and then, always sure of a cordial reception from his beautiful wife. "Only a few months yet," she would say to herself, "and that happy time will be here again. Then I shall reconquer the lost field, and I shall venture every thing to overcome the strange foe who threatens to supplant me in the hearts of my children."

CHAPTER III.

FOURTEEN YEARS AGO.

To render Agatha's position intelligible to the reader, I must take him back fourteen long years.

The momentous night of December, which in 1741 was to prepare a new change of rulers for the Russian people, had already spread its raw, foggy darkness over the imperial city of the North, when, in one of the spacious antechambers of the Winter Palace, a young officer was pacing to and fro, lost in thought.

He was expecting the courier who, at midnight, was to start for Germany, to carry thither the letters of the imperial highnesses. For, a hundred and twenty years ago, the common mail travelled but slowly, and high personages and those dependent on them gladly availed themselves of the government couriers for their private affairs as well.

The regent, Anna of Mecklenburg, once convinced that she had no longer any thing to fear from the vengeance of General Münnich, whom she had rewarded with ingratitude, and the dread of whom had led her and her weak-minded husband to change their sleeping-apartment every night during the previous spring,

had passed the summer in brainless, loitering security. Completely estranged from her husband, whom she had long despised, given to criminal, amorous pleasures, avoiding every energetic act from physical as well as mental indolence, she paid no attention to the warnings of those whose interests were interwoven with her own. Before Münnich, the enraged lion, she had trembled; the idea of trembling before her cousin Elizabeth, a weak, sensual woman like herself, was too new to her to find easy access into her stubborn head, which could only harbor its accustomed round of empty thoughts.

Had she not seen her, ousted as she had been, occupying, from her youth upward, quite an inferior position under her aunt, the Empress Anna? And did she not know of her being too much absorbed in loveintrigues to think much about the throne?

And on this day particularly the regent believed herself perfectly secure. Warned most urgently by a secret letter, had she not, leaving the card-table and beckoning the czarevna to join her in her boudoir, herself called her to account? And had not the princess, on her loading her with reproaches, assured her of her innocence with many tears, and sworn, by all that was sacred, that she knew nothing of secret plans? Therefore, when even her husband, on retiring, had expressed some concern, and thought it advisable to have L'Estocq, the confidant of the princess, arrested, and cause sentinels to be stationed at certain posts, she would not listen to him, and easily quieted the weak duke, by describing to him the scene she had just had with the czarevna.

And yet she herself was often not free from the