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It was a jovial and brilliant evening, and, in dis her friends,

Elizabeth promised them many repetitions of it

And she kept her word Frenzied hest sorts were now the principal occupation of the new

e it with new festivals

and pleasures, she considered as the first and most important of her

imperial duties; and these alone she endeavored to fulfil

But who composed her court, and of what elements did it consist?

Elizabeth found the presence of her serious official councillors very

tiresoreeable; she found

the surrounding of herself with the respectable ladies of her court to

be very inco them one

with a handsomer or ht dare to be of a finer type of beauty than she! She therefore

gladly avoided inviting the distinguished her class of state officials It was far reeable, to surround herself with frivolous and

handsoh and be cheerful, and she was

thus sure that no other lady would be there to dispute with her the palm

of beauty

Elizabeth was not proud She cared not whether noble blood flowed in the

veins of those ere invited to her festivals The youth, beauty, and

agreeable qualities which the empress found in any person, alone decided

the question of their adrooms, soldiers, servants, abandoned reprobates, who by their