h joy, and filled herself a flask of vodka against the
journey home. Poor Anna--she was destined never to see St. Petersburg
again.

It was while they were changing sleighs at a wayside inn that she was
attacked by a "mipwip" or white wolf,[27] which consumed quite a lot of
the hapless woman before anyone noticed.

Brattlevitch tells us that the Tsar was utterly dazed by this cruel
bereavement. He had Anna's remains embalmed with great pomp and buried
in a public park, where they were subsequently dug up by frenzied
anarchists.[28] He also conferred upon her in death the deeds and title
of Poddioskovitch, thus proving how a poor cabaret girl rose to be one
of the greatest ladies in the land.

SOPHIE, UNCROWNED QUEEN OF HENRY VIII

[Illustration: SOPHIE]

Contemporary history tell us little of Sophie, later chronicles tell us
still less, while the present-day historians know nothing whatever about
her. It is only owing to concentrated research and indomitable patience
that we have succeeded in unearthing a few facts which will serve to
distinguish her from that noble band of unknown heroines who have lived,
paid the price, and died, unnoted and unsung!

She was born at Esher. The name of her parents it has been impossible to
discover, and as to what part of Esher she first inhabited we are also
hopelessly undecided.

As a child some say she was merry and playful, while others describe her
as solemn and morose. The reproduction on page 170 is from an old print
discovered by some ardent antiquaries hanging upside down in a disused
wharf at Wapping.

It was obviously achieved when she was somewhere between the ages of
twenty and forty. The unknown artist has caught the fleeting look of
ineffable sadness, as though she entertained some inward premonition of
her destiny and her spirit was rebelling dumbly against what was
inevitable.

Esher in those days was but a tiny hamlet--a few houses clustered here,
and a few more clustered there. London, then a graceful city set upon a
hill, could be seen on a clear day from the northernmost point of Esher.
On anything but a clear day it was, of course, impossible to see it at
all. Esher is now, and always has been, remarkable for its foliage. In
those days, when the spring touched the earth with its joyous wand, all
the trees round and about the village blossomed forth into a mass of
green. The river wound its way through verdant meadows and pastures. In
winter-tim