atriarch, Lorenzo Giustiniani, full of
strength and inspiration.

* * * * *

It was early summer, when the mere living was a joy; and there was much
time for gracious dreaming as the galleys of Cyprus floated down the
length of the Adriatic and past the fair coasts of the Mediterranean,
before the coming of that wonderful day of days when the bridal fleet
was nearing the shores of the _Isola Fortunata_ which had been for long
the Mecca of the young Queen's girlish visions.

It lay before her radiant under the Cyprian sky--palaces and ramparts
stretching in long lines a-down the coast, against the background of
mountain ranges, densely wooded and crowned with the sparkling snows of
Troodos; there were gardens rainbow-dyed in bloom, cool with the spray
of fountains and the shadows of waving palms; and between the cities
were wonderful, fertile plains flowing down to the foam of the sea--a
vision of tangled blossoms wreathing with beauty the shattered splendor
of temples of outworn divinities, or rippling with tasselled corn and
vines and all manner of fruit-bloom, in luxuriant promise of present
good.

What could there be but happiness in such a home! Already the spell of
the fabled Cyprian isle was upon her,--could she ever forget this first
vision of her land of dreams--fairer than even her hope had limned it!

As she stood with beating heart, waiting with impatience that she scarce
could bear for the first touch of her new, strange shore, for the first
glimpse of her lover's face--all her pulses tuned to this harmonious
rhythm of sky and sea and romance, it was told her that a messenger
waited to speak with her.

"Let him approach," she said, turning half-unwilling to watch a knight
who advanced, unattended, bearing a missive with the pendant royal seal
of Cyprus that she knew so well. He knelt before her, vizor down, yet
with the customary homage; then, rising--

"I am sent by his Majesty the King," he said, "to bear his greeting to
his most gracious Sovereign Lady, or ever her foot shall touch the shore
which blossoms for her alone."

She drew a little pace away from him, fearing to utter her thought until
she had seen his face.

"Doth it become one so to speak the message of his King, with _visor
down_, Sir Knight, to the bride whom his Majesty would honor?" she
answered half-playfully--yet a little bashful in her first speech in the
Grecian tongue which she had striven to m