Page:Frank Stockton - Vizier of the two-horned Alexander.djvu/185

TWO-HORNED ALEXANDER princess regent, while the two boys, Ivan and Peter, were waiting to see what would happen next.

"She was really a woman admirably adapted to her position. She was well educated, wrote poetry, and knew how to play her part in public affairs. She presided in the councils, and her authority was without control; but she was just as bloody-minded and cruel as anybody else in Russia.

"Now, it so happened when the Princess Sophia was at the height of her power, that I was her secretary. For five or six years I had been a teacher of languages in Moscow, and at one time I had given lessons to the princess. In this way she had become well acquainted with me, and having frequently called upon me for information of one sort or another, she concluded to make me her secretary. Thus I was established at the court of Russia. I had charge of all Sophia's public papers, and I often had a good deal to do with her private correspondence, but she signed and sealed all papers of importance.

"The Prince Galitzin, who had been her father's minister and was now Sophia's main