A young moon was rising over the city, throwing out in dark relief against the sky a hundred steeples and domes.

The long, thin spire of the Fortress Church--the tomb of the Romanoffs--shot up into the heavens like a dagger.

Near at hand, a thousand electric lights and colored lanterns, cunningly swung on the branches of the pines, made a veritable fairyland.

The ceaseless song of the skates, on ice as hard as iron, mingled with the strains of a band playing in a kiosk with open windows.

From the ice-hills came the swishing scream of the iron runners down the terrific slope.