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 cælis," 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 Publisher's advertising, which faces the title page in the original book, has beenmoved to the end of the listings following this note. | |
| … implored Mrs. Wanderwerf … | … implored Mrs. Vanderwerf … |
| … to the South Kensington Musuem … | … to the South Kensington Museum … |
| … c'est notre facon … | … c'est notre façon … |
| In the advertising following this note, the name Bacharcah was correctedto read Bacharach. | |