"Nicholas called after him in vain, and then called his servant to dress him, with a vague apprehension of evil, and a belief that no lover ever had so many to assist his wooing as himself.
* * * * *
"Olinska, the daughter of a noble Polish family, was deprived of her parents at an early age, and selected for her guardian the high-minded Countess Walewski. Her childish years were spent in Warsaw, the city of her forefathers; but the Countess was obliged to remain at St. Petersburg, being a member of the Czarina's household, and thither she called her ward, to be presented at court, and drown the memory of her sorrows in the gaieties of the capital.
"Young, beautiful and unsophisticated, chaperoned by an illustrious lady, and reputed to be heiress of
great wealth, the Polish maiden speedily became the magnet and toast of a brilliant circle, and a prize for which scores of young nobles contended. But the heart of Olinska was not to be purchased with titles, and while the scions of aristocracy knelt vainly at her feet, she bestowed her virgin affections upon Dimitri, whose silent homage defeated that of all others, with its proud, peculiar dignity. Military rank is esteemed by the Russians as little inferior to that of inheritance; yet they acknowledge a difference, and the line drawn between them by the usages of society cannot be overstepped with impunity. The young officer, although admitted into court circles, was aware of the distance between himself and the lady in a social sense; but the encouragement she gave him, so insensibly drew them together, that disparity of birth was forgotten, and love—the great leveller of conditions—reigned paramount.
"However misanthropically a man may express his indifference to the world's opinion, we are all, more or less, its most subservient slaves, and although Nicholas Dimitri assured his idol that the gossip of fashionables was nothing to him, he deemed it proper to solicit the kind offices of the Countess, as a go-between; and apparently visited the guardian, when, in reality, the fair ward was the object of his intentions.
"Peter the Great, who, at that period, occupied the throne of Russia, had an unpleasant habit of rewarding his bachelor friends for worthy deeds, with the hand of some fair maiden of his court; and, having beheld the Polish lady, he resolved to bestow her upon Admiral Praxin, who, though often regarded with suspicion
by his sovereign, had lately rendered 'the state good service.' Olinska repulsed the old sailor's advances with disdain; but the Czar requested her to grant him a private interview, and a request from such a source being synonymous with a command, the lady felt obliged to grant it.
"Alone she sat, in a gorgeously furnished apartment, when the Admiral was announced, her sable locks shading a neck and bosom that rivalled the snow in their whiteness, and supporting her head with a hand of nature's choicest modeling.
"Admiral Praxin was a man in the 'sere and yellow leaf' of meridian life. His form was firm and upright, and his costume was that of a youthful courtier; but deep wrinkles tracked his brow with the footprints of age, and his hair had caught the snow-flakes of the mountain's farther side. That foretaste of eternal torments, the gout, had rather confused the measure of his tread, and the stout old Admiral entered the lady's presence with an ungraceful limp.