She smiled, revealing to me that once she had been a girl.

I read in the English papers of the exhibition in London. It was
said the artist showed much promise. So possibly a career may at
last be opening out for him.

Nature has made life hard to Russian rich and poor alike. To the
banks of the Neva, with its ague and influenza-bestowing fogs and
mists, one imagines that the Devil himself must have guided Peter the
Great.

"Show me in all my dominions the most hopelessly unattractive site on
which to build a city," Peter must have prayed; and the Devil having
discovered the site on which St. Petersburg now stands, must have
returned to his master in high good feather.

"I think, my dear Peter, I have found you something really unique.
It is a pestilent swamp to which a mighty river brings bitter blasts
and marrow-chilling fogs, while during the brief summer time the wind
will bring you sand. In this way you will combine the disadvantages
of the North Pole with those of the desert of Sahara."

In the winter time the Russians light their great stoves, and doubly
barricade their doors and windows; and in this atmosphere, like to
that of a greenhouse, many of their women will pass six months, never
venturing out of doors. Even the men only go out at intervals.
Every office, every shop is an oven. Men of forty have white hair
and parchment faces; and the women are old at thirty. The farm
labourers, during the few summer months, work almost entirely without