d the
quaint Royal Crown of Cyprus of the time of their first king, Guy de
Lusignan--heavy and far too rough for her delicate brows to endure; and
the Councillors and Counts of the kingdom, the knights and nobles and
ladies of the court made a brave array. But the people,--the
peasants,--half-dazed by their unaccustomed nearness to such
magnificence, not feeling as did the people of Venice that the fetes of
the kingdom were meant for them, had looked on stolidly at all the
bravery of the passing procession and at the glitter of the
insignia,--showing no sign of greeting until a white, girlish figure
stood under the palace portal.

"_Panagia mou!_ Holy Virgin!" The familiar ejaculation came,
half-suppressed, in a whisper of awe, from hundreds of voices. For the
words of the Cyprian peasant were few, and this appeal to their most
revered image of the Virgin sufficed for the expression of their deepest
emotions. Was it, in truth their Queen--or the blessed Madonna herself,
who came forth from the palace arches in her sweeping robes, white and
gleaming, her royal mantle of cloth of gold and her jewelled crown--like
the beautiful ivory image in the Duomo of Santa Croce?--Very pale and
fair and sad she was, yet with a smile in her eyes, as she turned from
side to side to answer their greetings, which now broke forth
rapturously.

The color flushed her pale face when their cries of loyalty arose, and
she turned and took the little Prince of Galilee from her Eccellenza,
the Royal Governess the Dama Margherita de Iblin, holding him high,
close-pressed to her cheek for all the people to see, with a great glory
of mother-love in her shining eyes. They rent the air with their sobs
and shouts.

The child lay smiling on his mother's arm--serene and very beautiful; it
was in truth a holy picture.

The populace forgot that it was their Queen; as never before, that any
distance of caste lay between them--they forgot their native awkwardness
and dread of the great ones--they thronged nearer, unafraid--only to
touch her--to kiss some hem of her floating garments--to look in the
face of the little child who was to be their King!

And when the mother and the child were gone into the shadows of the
Duomo, so thronged with noble guests and with all the splendid Hierarchy
of Cyprus that there was scarce room for the royal procession to pass to
the High-Altar beyond the tomb of Janus, the hearts of the people in the
Piazza joined in the