On the window-sill was a cracked basin, in which stood a dead basil plant, dry, grey. She looked at it some time, moving the hardened earth with her fingers. Then she turned to the empty bird-cage. Poor solitary starling! how he had whistled to the poor old woman! Then she began to cry. But after a few moments she roused herself. Mechanically, she went to the door and closed it carefully. Then she went straight to the dark corner, where she knew that the staved-in straw chair stood. She dragged it into the middle of the room, where the hook was in the big rafter. She stood on the chair, and measured the height of the ceiling. It was so low that she could graze it with the palm of her hand. She took off her gloves, and then her bonnet--it was in the way of the hook. Then she unclasped her girdle, one of those narrow Russian ribbons of silver woven stuff, studded with niello. She buckled one end firmly to the big hook. Then she unwound the strip of muslin from under her collar. She was standing on the broken chair, just under the rafter. "Pater noster qui es in caelis," she mumbled, as she still childishly did when putting her head on the pillow every night. The door creaked and opened slowly. The big, hulking woman, with the vague, red face and blear stare, and the rabbit-skin muff, bobbing on her huge crinolined skirts, shambled slowly into the room. It was the Sora Lena. X. When the man from the cook-shop under the archway and the footman entered the room, it was pitch dark. Madame Krasinska was lying in the middle of the floor, by the side of an overturned chair, and under a hook in the rafter whence hung her Russian girdle. When she awoke from her swoon, she looked slowly round the room; then rose, fastened her collar and murmured, crossing herself, "O God, thy mercy is infinite." The men said that she smiled. Such is the legend of Madame Krasinska, known as Mother Antoinette Marie among the Little Sisters of the Poor. _Printed by_ BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO _Edinburgh and London_ * * * * * Transcriber's note: One page of advertising has been moved from the beginning of the text to the end of the listings following this note. Missing punctuation has been silently added, especially quotation marks. Hyphenation is inconsistent. The following additional changes have been made to the text: Wanderwerf ==> Vanderwerf (... implored Mrs. Vanderwerf ...) Musuem ==> Museum (... to the South Kensington Museum ...) facon ==> facon (... c'est notre facon ...) In the advertising following this note, the name Bacharcah was corrected to read Bacharach. * * * * * _Mr. William Heinemann's List._ VICTORIA: QUEEN AND EMPRESS. BY JOHN CORDY JEAFFRESON, Author of "The Real Lord Byron," etc. In Two Volumes, 8vo. With Portraits. [_In October._ * * * * * TWENTY-FIVE YEARS IN THE SECRET SERVICE.