"His name is Jules," Maria told her parents. "He's Yvonne's cousin. I invited him over for dinner. I hope that's all right."

"Of course it's all right," Nicholas told his daughter. "It's just that it would have been nice if you'd told us first. We'd like to know a bit about him."

"Well, he's very nice," Maria said. "His family is in the wine business."

"I remember how badly you wanted to marry a soldier," Alexandra reminisced.

"Well, soldiers tend to be a bit scarce during peace time," Maria pointed out. "I'll just have to settle for whatever I can get. I do still want to have twenty children, however."

Jules arrived dressed very nicely and carrying a rose for Maria.

"Why, thank you!" said Maria. "Jules, I'd like for you to meet my family. "This is my father, my mother, my grandmother, my sister Olga and her husband Pavel, my sister Tatiana and her husband Dimitri, my sister Anastasia and her husband, also named Dimitri, and my brother, Alexei." The married sisters and their husbands were also visiting at the same time.

"You have such a large family," Jules commented. "In my family, there's only my sister and myself, besides my parents, of course. Did you fight a lot when you were younger?"

"Most of the time we got along quite well," Maria told him. "Nastya used to play a lot of naughty pranks, but it was all in fun. Tanya could be bossy sometimes too. We used to call her 'the governess'. The good thing about it was that if we ever wanted anything from our parents, all we usually had to do was ask Tanya, and she could get them to give it to us."

"I used to hate it when Tanya picked out my clothes for me in the morning, when I was quite capable of choosing them myself," said Anastasia.

"Well, I did have to make sure you dressed appropriately every day," Tatiana replied. They both laughed.

"Tanya even bossed me around sometimes, and I'm the oldest," Olga said.

"I remember how much you used to hate that," said Maria.

"What was it like to have four older sisters?" Jules asked Alexei.

"I enjoyed it very much," Alexei told him. "My sisters doted on me all the time. Sometimes they used to quarrel amongst themselves for the privilege of taking care of me. If not for the hemophilia, I'd say I had quite a happy childhood."

"Hemophilia?"

"I don't have it anymore, but I did when I was younger. I used to bleed so much that I was too weak to get out of bed for days sometimes. Once we were vacationing at our hunting lodge when I fell down in the bathtub and hurt myself really bad. Mama was so scared. She wrote to Father Grigori and he wrote back and told her that I would live."

"Father Grigori?"

"Rasputin." Anastasia grimaced. "At first we all thought that he was wonderful because he could stop Alexei's bleeding when no one else could, but Papa found out that he planned to seize the Russian throne and had him banished. He cast a curse on us in revenge."

"How horrible!" Jules gasped.

"It's all right now," Anastasia said. "I destroyed his reliquary, and that killed him and brought my family back to life."

"Thank goodness for that!" Jules exclaimed, gazing at Maria.

"I couldn't have done it without Dimitri," Anastasia said loyally, as her husband grinned and hugged her. "Alexei and I were always very close," she continued. "We were the two youngest, and we always did everything together. After I finally remembered who I really was, I missed my whole family terribly, but I missed Alexei most of all." She and Alexei exchanged loving glances.

"That's great that you don't have hemophilia anymore," Jules said to Alexei.

"It really is," Alexei agreed. "Now I can do all the things normal boys do, like riding a bike or going roller skating."

Later Jules and Maria went for a walk on their own.

"You have an amazing family," Jules told Maria. 'I'm so glad I met them."

"Thank you," said Maria.

"You're very lovely as well," Jules said. "Maria...may I kiss you?"

"I think I'd like that," Maria said. Gently, Jules took her chin into both his hands, lifted her face, and placed a soft kiss on her lips. For Maria, it was like magic.


While Jules and Maria enjoyed a leisurely stroll, Pavel and Olga chatted comfortably as they returned home.

"I'm so happy for Maria," Olga told her husband. "If anyone deserves to be happy, it's her. She was always the nicest one of all of us. She's never been unkind to anyone."

"I remember how she used to flirt with the officers on the Standart." Pavel grinned.

"Of the four of us girls, she was always the most eager to marry and have a family." Olga smiled mysteriously at her husband. "Speaking of which, I have a surprise for you that I know you're going to like."