CHAPTER XX.

COUNT GOLOVIN.

"Provost. It is a bitter deputy.

Duke. Not so, not so: his life is parallel'd

Even with the stroke and line of his great justice:

He doth with holy abstinence subdue

That in himself which he spurs on his power

To qualify in others. Were he meal'd

With that which he corrects, then were he tyrannous;
But this being so, he's just."

SHAKSPERE: Measure for Measure.

THERE was another who was anxiously watching the interview between Alexander and Anna. The Empress-mother could feel for her daughter-in-law. Ah, dear old lady, a long and weary time she had had of it during her own husband's life. The Emperor Paul was a brute. His first wife had lived only three or four years after her marriage; and many believed that his cruel treatment had hastened her end. Alexander's mother knew better how to manage her half-cracked spouse; but it had cost her many a pang, and had nearly crushed the life out of her.

At length, there had come a son to cheer her heart and it was Alexander, her first

born, the joy of her heart.

Alas, in his very

babyhood, he had been snatched away from her not by the kindly arms of holy death, whose rest is calm and peaceful; but by the sturdy arms of that frightful ogress, the Empress Catherine, her mother-in-law, who meant to bring up the child, away from his father and mother, according to her own notion of things, which differed from decent people's on one or two points. The young mother was seldom allowed to see her son; and all free motherly and filial fellowship was sternly checked. Her honest German heart had rebelled against this cruel arrangement; but she too, like her daughter-in-law in after years, had learnt in time to bend her neck meekly to the yoke. Years passed away: son after son had been born to her; and son after son had been snatched away as soon as born. The heart-stricken mother had meekly bowed her head.

At length, the hour of deliverance came: frightful ogress went to her own placewherever that may be., Mother and children were reunited. Who can tell the joy of that mother's heart, when she found in her eldest a tenderness of filial love which his

son

wretched training had not eaten out? She was ready to cry out: "Let us be merry; for this my son was dead, and is alive again-was lost, and is found."

Alas, poor mother's heart! Still keener sorrow was in store for her. Who can say what a sword pierced through her heart, when her darling boy had to wade through her husband's blood to mount his throne: when the father was murdered to make room for the son; and, above all, when that son's surroundings, combined with his own weakness, forced him to raise his father's murderers to the chief offices of the state? There be tragedies played in high places, which we glibly talk of as "public events," and little reck the "private feelings" which they touch. The mother still bore on, but was no longer dumb. Loudly she proclaimed her horror of the deed. Little cause had she to regret it on her own account: little cause had her husband ever given her to bewail his fate. Still she had been his wife: she had lain in his bosom, and shared his home. She was the mother of his sons; and she had been true and loyal to her children's father from first to last. And she denounced the dastardly murder in no measured terms.

Count Pahlen, the chief of the murderers, persuaded Alexander to remonstrate with his mother. But the mother was firm. “My son," she said, "you must choose between Pahlen and me." The son made his choice: in two hours, Pahlen and the other murderers were on their way to banishment.

From that time, life rolled on calmly over the mother's head. Alexander proved himself the best of sons: tender, loving, dutiful. There was only one point in which he had grieved her heart; and that was his forsaking the wife of his youth. The gentle Elizabeth had soon won her way to her mother-in-law's heart. The good old lady felt for the wronged wife as if she had been her own daughter. And, now that the wrong of those bygone days seemed likely to be renewed, her kindly heart again turned toward the patient sufferer. Her anxiety was so great, that, after a while, she followed her son.

She found him pacing his private cabinet in great excitement: a very unusual thing for him.

"My son, what is this?" she asked anxiously: "what has moved you so ?”

"It is a political affair, mother," answered

Alexander courteously: "I have sent for Count Baranovitch."

"And have you been discussing political matters with her highness, Princess Donskaya ?"

"Yes, mother."

"Is she not somewhat too young a counsellor ?" asked the Empress-mother, looking anxiously at her son.

She was about to follow up this question with another, still more searching, when the arrival of Count Baranovitch put a stop to further questioning; and she was forced to retire.

It was not often the Emperor sent for Count Baranovitch; and therefore there was some excitement in the Prime Minister's manner as he entered the cabinet. What was the matter? Majesty heard any fresh news about the secret societies? Alexander's appearance did not reassure him. Screw loose somewhere!

"I hear complaints against Count Golovin's oppression and cruelty," said the Emperor warmly.

Count Baranovitch was taken aback.

"From whom has your Majesty heard those complaints?"