At these words, seeing the towering figure of the executioner in his scarlet robe, she threw herself into the arms of her old nurse, who was by her side, and sobbed and shivered with terror. Then growing calmer she knelt while a psalm was said and prayer offered, then she said farewell to those who had been with her to the end, and gave her prayer book as a memento to one who had asked this favour. The supreme moment had come. Unloosening her gown without the aid of her attendants, who were overcome with emotion, she cast aside the handkerchief with which she was expected to bandage her eyes, and then with a swift glance at the executioner, she said simply: "I pray you despatch me quickly," then kneeling down she asked, "Will you take it off before I lay me down?" Without any apparent emotion Lady Jane then tied the handkerchief over her eyes. She was now blindfolded and, trying to feel for the block, asked, "What shall I do? Where is it?" A person near her, on the scaffold, guided her to the block, and she instantly laid her head upon it, rested in silence for a moment, then exclaimed: "Lord, into thy hands I commend my spirit," and a moment later the agony was over. The noblest, most courageous girl who was ever the victim of relentless ambition, was gone, sacrificed to a game of chance in which she was the royal pawn! History offers no sadder, no more thrilling story than that of Lady Jane, the girl of seventeen, who was a "Nine Days Queen!" GENTLE ANNIE: A Daughter of the Regiment FORT SUMTER had been fired on! The whole country was in a state of flaming excitement. Up to that time there had been a division of sentiment in the North, and many thought that by patient effort the seceding States could be brought back into the Union--that there would never be any serious fighting--but now all that was changed. In a measure the Northerners were unprepared for war, and the regular army was then very small, but one month after the inauguration of President Lincoln he issued a call for seventy-five thousand volunteers for three months' service only, and the war between North and South began in earnest. In every part of the country there was one absorbing topic of conversation, while men were being hastily gathered into companies, officers were forming their regiments to march to the scene of conflict, women were hurriedly joining hospital brigades, and the government was rushing the purchase and manufacture of ammunition and weapons, and collecting an adequate supply of horses and army-wagons, camp equipments and provisions and uniforms for the soldiers.