The Romanov's Third Daughter
"Go away, soldier," she said with great dignity. "I don't kiss soldiers."
Of course, the boy was greatly delighted that his new cadet's uniform had let him pass for a real man in the Imperial Guard.
When she grew older, Marie acquired a habit of developing fleeting crushes on handsome young men from her father's dashing regiments, and the matter was one of constant gentle teasing and concern in the family. She was an excellent flirt, playing billiards for long hours with officers, old and young, and of course making eyes at the dashing officers of the family's favorite yacht, the Standard. But flirtations were not always frivolous fun. At the age of eleven, Marie received a note from her mother that opens to us a secret of some sorrow in her young, loving nature.
"I had long ago noticed that you were sad," wrote Alexandra Feodorovna, "but did not ask because one does not like it when others ask. Try not to let your thoughts dwell too much on him. I know he likes you as a little sister, and would like to help you not to care too much, because he knows you, a little Grand Duchess, must not care for him so. Be brave and cheer up and don't let your thoughts dwell so much upon him. It's not good and makes you yet more sad."
In 1914 came the war, bringing officers and uniforms aplenty, and though she was too young to be a nurse, Marie spent a great deal of time among the wounded in a hospital she sponsored. She asked them about their wives and children, about their lives at home and about the battles they had taken part in, and then told them simply and without reservations about herself. She tried to help out as much as she could around the hospital, and the fun she had with the men who were recovering, and who were sent on errands along with her, was immeasurable. A humorous incident that took place when she was cutting ice with some
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