hild to feel the glamour of it
through all the strangeness, and she had stolen out upon the balcony,
high over the Canal, to say over to herself the words that had been
confided to her--the little maid Caterina.

She dropped the title softly down to the water below, and started at the
echo of her own trembling voice.

_Caterina Queen of Cyprus_: Caterina--Regina!

A swaying figure in a passing gondola glanced up to the balcony of the
old Palazzo Cornaro and the young girl hastily fled, not pausing until
she had reached her own little chamber, looking on an inner court--the
only sanctuary that she could call her own, in all this great ancestral
palace, she, the future Queen of Cyprus.

Had any one heard her murmur those words? Would the Senate know that
some one in a gondola had caught the new title from her own lips? And
so--perchance--to punish the indiscretion--for the Senate was masterful,
never-to-be-disobeyed, and the matter was not to be known until it
should be declared by that solemn body of world-rulers. And if the
gondoliero had carried her word to the Palazzo San Marco----? What if
he had been sent there by the Senate itself to watch and see if she were
already woman enough to be trusted? Then there would be an end to the
golden dream--no coronation--no splendid ceremony of adoption. For there
was more. Before she should be made queen of that distant island she was
to be formally acknowledged "The Daughter of the Republic----" She was
to be made a real Princess of Venice!

What wonder that the heart of this young Venetian maid quivered with the
excitement of these visions of splendor, for by all the traditions of
her ancestors she measured the unwonted honor that was being decreed for
her--no one had yet been adopted "Daughter to the Republic"--the title
was to be created that she might wear a crown, to the further honor of
Venice! For her, who had never worn a jewel, nor a robe of state, nor
taken part in any but the simplest fete, who had never left the walls of
her ancestral palace, save under closest veil and guard--this sudden
vision of freedom and empire was intoxicating.

If she had known of those wonderful tales of the "Arabian Nights" these
things that were happening to her would have seemed more wonderful
still: but her young mind was free of similes--a sensitive blank whereon
the Senate might duly inscribe whatever tendencies seemed judicious; and
after the Betrothal there would be much time.