of the Piazza, she held
the child up again to the eager, waiting throng--the light gleaming on
the tiny coronet above his baby-cap as she spread out his dimpled hands
with a motion of welcome, saying quite simply:

"This is your King. Love him, dear people of Cyprus!"

And she would not give the infant back to the Royal Governess, but
carried him herself in her own arms across the Piazza, held up for the
people to see--which never before had a queen of Cyprus been known to
do. But there was a light in her face which silenced those who would
have spoken of ways more seemly, and it was a triumphal procession to
the palace. But she paused before the peristyle, turning to face the
people again.

"There is welcome for every Cypriote," she said, "men, women and little
children, who come this day to pay homage to their infant King; and good
cheer in the palace for all," and signing to the attendants that they
should be made to enter she passed in, smiling, before them.

The child lay in his cradle in the splendid _Sala Regia_, under the
canopy blazoned with the arms of Cyprus--a little, helpless, smiling
child--guarded by the Councillors and Counts of the kingdom; and near
him stood the Queen with all her court, who for this day only had put
off their mourning that no suggestion of gloom nor any hint of evil omen
might shadow the royal baptismal and coronation fetes. The ladies were
dazzling in gems and heirlooms of broideries and brocades; the knights
and barons of the realm were glittering with orders--here and there,
above his costly armor, one showed the red cross of the Crusade, or wore
the emblem of the Knights of San Giovanni. But the people, who never
before had entered those palace doors, came surging--not afraid--nor
shrinking from the novelty and splendor nor curious for it; they came to
pledge their fealty to the baby-prince--a little child like their
own--whose gentle mother asked their love--than which no monarch may
bring a gift more royal.

XVIII

"Is there aught to fear, Aluisi?--Thou seemest overgrave," the Lady
Beata asked anxiously as her son came late, one evening into her private
boudoir in their suite in the palace; he looked unusually weary and
depressed.

"There is always much to fear," he answered, with no brightening of his
anxious face in response to his mother's smile.

"But not now--surely not now! She hath won the heart of the
people--these fetes were a triumph--they almost gla