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Sure enough. there was the bennl She held it in the rosy palm of her hand. letting her gaze travel slowly Hound the laughing circle which M about her. Kenneth did not understand the pretty game. but he trembled vhlbly. feeling that all his {q tell. his been eyes had detected ; suspicious bulge in‘ the porous ring. His heart was beating painfully. he nuld not have told why. as she press- Id the knife downward, catching her mdar lip between her white teeth and {row-ulna portentously. “No, here," he replied, moving hon White and supple wrist ever so slighta [y with his hmwn fingers. Truth '. King cake on the dining-tabla; 'Here i’" she questioned. with aside- ong glance at him from her luminous ’yes. Amd so it was that at length a high, arched door had swung open. hand had caught hand, the human line had uncoiled its swaying length, a gay thorns had burst upon the night air, and Lorio was leading the breathless larumdnle along the flagged corridor, across the moonlit court. up a crooked stair, and into the vast salon above. The stranger, having been passed oeremoniously around the circle of elders, was brought at length to the orphaned chatelaine of the house. "Miss Le Breton. Mr. Mnybin, 0d- Iltte. this is my old friend, Kenneth Muybiu. Make him welcome." "Oh!" Kennerth breathed more freely. his Ollenldorf slipping. like Christian’s burden from his shoulders. as they sped on in the wake of the others. Kenvneth's eyes were still dazzled by the sudden blaze of gaslight; his mind was confused by the variety of novel impressions crowded into it. But the mere sight of the young girl intone him restored him with some- ;hmg like a physical shock to himself. Fhe was so different. he naively de~ pided, trom all other women in the world! A slender, dainty figure, robed all n purest white; gray eyes with long, lark lashes, dusky hair falling over par forehead, and giving her, some- how, the innocent, startled look of [he blooded colts in his father’s pas- ture at homeâ€"(this is as far as Ken- Ievth eve-r got in a description of 0d- Itte Le Breton. He guided her hahd boldly when it nme her turn to cut a. slice from the great brown, shining. hollow ring of "My brother. Gaston. then, has not informed you ?" smiled his companiori. "fit is the Epipha.nyâ€"-Twelfth Night, you know. Amd yve go to cut :1 King's cake at my codsin. Miss Le Breton‘s.“ The'slight twist of her Creole tongue added a piquant flavor to her English. "What is it, may I ask, Mademoi- selle? \Vhere are we going 7" He put the question awkwardly. trying to frame the French syllables with grammatical exactness. As he spoke. the expectant group, numbering some twenty-five or thir- ty young people of both' sexes, station- ed In the slitlike alley of St. Antoine. opened with a noisy welcome, and closed around the newcomers. May- bln's halfwamprehending ears drank inn eagerly the soft bubble of foreign upeth which assailed his guide. while he bowed right and left in response to rapid introductions. A moment later, mamhalled by Lorio himself. they went sweeping down Royal Street. "They! Who '2" demanded Kenneth, pausing to stare up at the twin tow- ars of the Cathedral outlined'against a tender sky. "Yes." Gaston had rémnrked. steer- as him rapidly along the narrow Itreet under the shudéw of overhang- hg galleries. "this is indeed that old luurtor of New Orleans about which you others are so curious. Myself, I prefer Paris. Or even New Yorkl’fi he added gayly. "But you may not ntop to sniff the must and mould of I now. Kenneth. Omne an, old man. [hey are waiting 'for us." HIS QUEEN. wand I'orld uHAPTER 1. Kenneth Maybin. somewhere about the middle of the long line, found him- aelf. suddenly drawn. dancing. into a high, arched doorway. and along a hmpâ€"lit corridor with tattered ceil- ng, stone pavements and stuccoed mils. To the stranger, fresh from his ggsaio matter-of-tact existence in a instant State. the experience was be- vildering. Hurried out of the hotel Lining-room half an hour earlier by I15 01d collegeâ€"chum. Gaston Lorio. he kid been plunged without a moment's into a new and strange "Do you mean to tell me. Mademoi. selle,” demanded Kenneth at length. pale with unaccustomed wrath, "that you prefer your tool of a Chico: to me?" "I certainly'do. Mr. Kenneth May- bin," retorted Odette; “and I regard Needless to set down the extrava- gant steps by which the foolish quar- rel climbed to its explosive conclus. "Mr. Maybin! How you ought to be ashamed l" gasped Chicot's mis- tress. releasing her hand from her lover’s clasp and moving away from him. "I do not cure." returned Kenneth, half in fun. yet half nettled, too; “I would like to tie his head up in a towel, or choke him with one of my guitar strings I" “I wishâ€"â€"" said Kenneth..pausing abruptlyâ€""I wish Chicot would stop hifl noise! Icannot hear myself talk." “But, Kenneth." murmured Odette, tenderly reproachful, “Chicot is my bird!" _ "Yes." She returned, faintly. the significant prcwsure of his hand. Both knew in their hearts that he would also keep his Queen. Alas! the Cup and the Lip! Chicot, facetiously known as the Queen's Fool. was singing in his cage on the rose-wreathed lxlloony. His song. rapturously exultunt. might have been an epithalamlum. It was a knell! The supreme hour had struck. They were discussing the final arrange- ments for the little return fete which; the same evening. wasâ€"nominallyâ€"io end the King’s brief reign. Twenty-two and eighteen were at that moment pacing‘the prim walks of the court below in the falling dusk. “But Ishall keep the bean, you know." he said. ' "She has the heart) of her eighteen summers," responded Grunde Cous- Lne with a soft, fluttering suspira- tion. "He has the ardor of his twenty- two years. this you-mg American," oom- mented one of the gray-bearded uncles to Gralnde Cousine. the stately maiden lady who presided ove-r Le Breton mansion. And he sighed. a little em Viously. "I shall keep my Queen also!" he prophesied exultantly under his breath. This, indeed. seemed likely enough. His wooing, so boldly begun. pmooeeded thenceforward with adash and a pecrsisxtency which took his own breath away whenever he paused to think of it. The month sped like a. lightning flash. "Burt you pay for your royalty, Ken? Beth. my boy," cried Gaston, whlo had stolen upon them unperceived. “Oh, the price is not so costly! You simply plan for your Queen. within the month. some little fete in return for your Royal hauorsâ€"â€"-â€"" “But, I may keep the bean?" deâ€" manded Kenneth, mrning to his whthe-robed companion. She nodded assent, blushing again under his direct gaze. “And I gm really your King ?" whls- pared Kenneth. longing yet not daring (to take into his own the little white hand on her knee. \Vhen their boisterous subjects. breathless with mock compliment and circling dance, finally left them in peace, the newly made Kingâ€"fz'llow- ed his Queenatreadlng on air !â€"-down the centuryâ€"old stair and into the per- fumed courtyard. They sat on a. stone bench there listening, ostensi- bly to Chioot, Odette's mocking-bird, singing in his cage upon one of the rose-wreat herd balconies. "The universe itselfâ€"â€"" began May- blrn fervently. "I make you my King, Monsieur," she said with a sweeping curtsy. Odette flushed to the roots of her hair. She. too, glanced defiantly from one to another! in the shrieking. teasing circle; then she took the tro- phy-1a heart-shaped, wine-dark sea- beamâ€"(bemween a dainty thumb and forefinger and dropped it lightly in Kenneth's outstretched p’llm. Kenneth grew absolutely pale. His nostrils dilated; his blue eyes flashed u defiamt look around and fixed them- selves upon the flower-like face before him. "Choose me. Odette." he heard himself murmur with unconsiouss lips. "Non! Non] Moi! M01!" “1! II" A chorus of guy voices, young and old, caught up the cry with clapping of hands and stamping of "Come. little cousin. choose me I" shouted Gaston, darting around the table to juggle her elbow. "Look at me, Odette. I am the man." laughed another tenth or twen< tie'th cousin. future depended upon some decision which a girl..bamly known. to him by name. was about to make. To others Listening in holiday mood. for the time was hard upon Christ- mas. the song was a flood of melody tender. wooing. joyous, sadâ€"a cap- tive’s song of the green wood. and of his forgotten mate calling from her nest in the dewâ€"scented magnolia tree; a passionate love-lilt, varied by mus- ical and mischigvous imitations, of a dog's bark, the thump of the police- man’s staff on the banquette, the call A mocking-bird somewhere in the neighborhood had begun to sing. The same night he seated himself at a table, spread out before him the fair pages of legal cap. dipped his pen in the inkstand.â€"and pushed his chair back with a frown of annoyance. session at once. " I shall get on capitally here,” he decided, looking over at the Cathedral towers and hearing vaguely the dis- tant hum, like wind-stirred forest leaves. of children‘s voices in the con- vent school near by. “ I shall look up data duang the mornings and .write my brief 0’ nights.” ‘ But be calculated without that un- known quantity which is said to lurk behind all human reckoning. He found precisely the place he wanted; the topfloor of a tall house in Royal Street, a stone's throw from the Cathedral and the ancient building beside it where the court records of a. century and a half are stored. There was a small court-yard below, hulf tilled with a mossy cistern and a. ram- shackle bench, and a; pleasant outlook upon a mass of flmvering geraniums, in a dunner-window which jutted like a. gray hood from the roof of a house just across the street. He took pos- session at once. He wa in search of lodgings hLmself having come South to study the ins and outs of a complex will case which had its roots in New Orleans. But he had no mind to lodge with the memâ€" ory of a lost loveâ€"vague and shadowy thoughrit had become; nor with some denuded, shabby genteel Le Bretonâ€" pelrh'aps, he shuddered, Grande Cou- sine herself I “ What an idiotic youngster I was!" he muttered smilingly. yet strangely stirrred. “Dear little Odette, I hope she is happy. And I sincerely trust that Monsieur Henri Dansereau has proper respect for Ghicot." The wound inflicted by this an- nouncement, he assured himself. had long since healed. Nevertheless he felt a distinct pang, when, passing the fine old Le Breton mansion. he saw swing- ing from the wrought-iron railing of the veranda a square carboard bear- ing the legend: “ Chambres garnies a loner.” (Furnished Rooms to Rent.) He hurried on with one furtive glance down the familiar corridor, for the arched door stood wide opern. The greener-y in the court was dusty and forlorn; a latternly looking woman with a pan of vegetables on her knee was sitting can the stone bench where he had sat that first night with 0d- ette. The paths where he had walked that last night with his Queen were strewn with unsightly debris. A casual inquiry had put him in pos- session of the information that his sometime friend. Gaston Lorio, had been living for a couple of years in his beloved Paris; and that the Le Breton family had suffered financial- ly from the failure of a local bank. Concerning his sometime sweetheart he needed no information. A newspa- per received within six months after that absurd parting in the dusky Le Breton.courtyard had contained the announcement of. Mademoiselle Le Breton‘s marriage to Monsieur Henri Dansereau; and the notice of the de- parture of Monsieur and Madame Henri Daneereau for their new home in France. Five years later Kenneth Maybin strolled once more down the quaint street by which hehad first entered the French Qwarter. This time it was in broad daylight. and this time, by reason of many journeyings about the world and much prying into strange places. his interest in the dim corri- d‘olrs with their glimpses of Edenlike gardens beyond, the mysterious jeal- ousied galleries, and the manyâ€"colored peaked roofs, was somewhat abated. pressing n w. slendex throat "L‘t is I who am the Queen’s Fool,” laughed Kenneth bitterly, as he sped northward in the railway train at the very hour set for the Queen's fete. CHAPTER 11. Five years later Kenneth Maybin strolled once more down the quaint you," she added delibem‘tely,-"EB no battenâ€"thanâ€"anâ€"assassin !" "Then. Miss Odette Le Breton. let me say good-byâ€"‘foireverl" ' His flying footsteps sounded along the tunnel-like corridor. The next moment the street door opened, and closed with a reverberating bang. "Mon cher Chicot. Tresor de mon coeur," murmured Odette, lifting a pallid face toward the hidden cage and pressing n whito hand against her “Madam, you are charged here with Violating an ordinance prohibiting the keeping of a. mocking-bird," said Recorder Nolan a day or two later. He looked from the affidavit inhia hand to the colored lady dressed in guine-blue calico. witha white waist, apron, and a plaid chignonâ€"Mra. July Ann Baxter, in short, who sat on a bench] in the crowded court-room balancing a large bird cage on her knee. “What have you to plead to the charge?” "Have 'em arrested, man! Bring the whole kit. and caboodle into court!” The laugh was provoking; it proved to be the last straw, the surcharging feather, the turning hair. For the sec. 0nd time in his life Mr. Kenneth May- bin lost his head. Muybin by this time had worked himself into a frenzy which amounted almost to madness. IA fellowâ€"lawyer, listening to the recital of his wrongs, laughed: And .so it befell that the mocking- bird sang on unmolested in his ger- anium bower, while his baffled foe ramped and roared in vain for a day or two longer; then the lawyer sent over to the invisible roomer a note couched in the politest language, but setting forth plainly the grievance of the writer. He watched the mess- enger hand this to Mrs. Baxter herself, and saw the portly form of that high. turbuned dame disappear, with stride majestic, down the corridor, as if conâ€" scious of the importance of her er- rand. Absolute inaction on the part of the roomer, with increased volubility on the part of the bird. A second note, frigid, stiff, peremp- tory, threatening. Result, the same; which is to say, no result at all. "Hump!" she ejaculated, “dat’s a mighty high-jinted pusson. Mek lak be de marster. But he ain’t marster- in‘ July Ann Baxter. An‘ I ain’t gwine tar tell her nothin'! Hump!" Mrs. July Ann Baxter opened her lips to speak, but Maybin was already recrassing the street. She 'looked after him, shaking her head indignantly_ “No, sub. I keeps roomers. Dat mockinhbird is de prapitty 0’ one o' my roomers. "Very well, Mrs. Baxter. Please pre- sent my compliments to the roomerâ€"a lady? I thought soâ€"and tell her that the bird‘s noise is extremely an- noying to me. I shall be infinitely obliged if. she will remove bird and cage to another part of the house." “0hl”Mayb'm gasped for breath. "Then I suppose, Mrs.â€"eh-â€"Baxter, that the bird on the top floor is yours?" “Yes, suh," she bobbed an oldâ€"time plantation "curchy," “U’m de lady of de house. Mis‘ July Anna Baxter, sub." She had the rich, unctuous voice of the plantation darky. “How do you do, Auntie 3” began Maybin with easy familiarity. “I wish to see the lady of the house." He hand- ed her his visitingâ€"card as he spoke. His ring was answered by afat old negress with a shrewd, goodâ€"humored face. Rich, successful, imperious, Mr. Kenneth Maybin was unused to being balked in his desires. One morning he descernded his stair, crossed the street, and rang at the enemy‘s door. So far as he knew, the enemy was in sole possession; he had never caught so much as a glimpse of any other inmate of the dormerâ€"windowed room. at of the house itself. At length. after some [our 01‘ five days of constant feeding. the temper reached a. white heat. Move? Never! He Liked his qwarters, he had a most imparbant brief to write, he needed at least urdinary quietâ€"that infernal bird should be hushed! "Have 'em of the milkman. the long-drawn cry of the praline woman. . An Irishman, on weighing his pig, exclaimed, It does not weigh so much '85 I expected, and I never thought it lwould. Married yet, old man? No; but I’m engaged, and that‘s ll good as married. It's better. it you only knew it. The bring-mg up of a chlld In a consumptive family should be of a specially hyglemc character. The best of food, floods of fresh air and suxnlxghl, not too much study, long hours of sleep in a well ventilated room and. as far as possible, avoidance of exposure to the contagion of the family maladyâ€"these are the weapons by which the malign influlence of m- herited weakness of constitution may be overcome and many precious lives saved. . Tins Is an Important fact. It teaches us that since, as a rule, only the predisposition to the family disâ€" ease is inherited, and not the disease Itself, the chances of the younger generation escaping. if proper care is used. are very great. neoessarilyiabundant, they are very likely to become, victims of that d13- €368. The children of consulmptlve parents ave seldom robust, and so are predis- posed to any of the germ dlseases, and Iivmg constantly m a house wbewe the germs of consumption are ConsumpLion, for example, was only recently regarded as one of the most surely inherited: diseases, and is still believed by malny to be so. Bun; we now know that it 114 u. germ disease which, while not "catching" in the (ordinary sense of\ Lhel word, is readily transmitted from the suck tovthe well when the invalid is careless in his hwbits, especially as regards expeoA toration. It is alSO‘ acqulirevd more leadin 'by Lhose of delicate consump- tion than by the robust. Undoubtedly some dLseases are realâ€" ly inhemited, but their number Is cer- Lamly not large. Many diseases rum in families, but are not on that ac- counL necessarigy hereditary. The onlookers roared: Mnybin him- self joined in the laugh at his own ex. pense. His fury was fast melting in the humor of the situation. (He step. ped forward to withdraw the charge; but the Judge wavedl him back and proceeded solemnly in the exposition of the ordinance. This, he declared, said nothing about mocking-birds, except as might or might not be constructive- ly construed. Among these hereditary dlseaael were reckoned conszumpLLon and scrotum, leprosy, gout, rheumatism. goxme, cancer, Lnsamty, epilepsymnd mumy other netvouu affections. As we learn more abowt these mala- dLes. however, one after another of them is removed wholly or m part from this category and placed among the acquired diseases. The question of heredity, or the transmissmvn of oe‘rtain mental traits or physical characteristics from par- ents to children, is one that has been much studied, but of which as yet too little is known. Formerly the in- heritance or! disease was believed in impliciily, by physicians as well an laymen, and ihe list of maladies L0 which children Were supposed to be almost inevitalbly condemned by the accident of birth was a. very long "any Supposed Hereditary .llnludles Ara "Becuze, in de tuat place, 8119‘: mole pusson. An‘ she's Lame in beta her Laigs an’ she's blin' in beta ‘hgr eyes. ‘Sides, she’s a lady bawn, dat's what she is, an‘ she ain’ gwine ter be drug tar oo‘te by no common, low. down Iy‘nrsâ€"‘scusin‘ 0’ you, Jedgo, honey I“ "The bird is not yours 9" interrupted Recorder Nolan. - “N0, sub. Hit b'longs ter one o' my roomers. I rippreseut her in dish! yer case, I‘m ler garjeen. She ain' been able ter come tet co'teâ€"â€"-” " 'Fo‘ de Luwd, Jedge, Inin‘ guilty 1' said Mrs. Baxter, visibly flustered. "I been i‘aise‘ in Copiah County, Mis-ippi, mongs (18 quality; an' I’ olar’ ter goodness 1’“ (Imp in my tracks at I butter go to jail; You ain‘ gwine ter 3011' me [er jail, is you, Jedge? Disih yer mockin'â€"bird nin‘ my pijopitty, no- huw. ’b‘ides, at any bigguty, high- jinted, mnsterin‘ pusson"â€"-â€"she cast a withering glance at Maybin â€" "doan’ lak music, whyn't be change his: bo'd- in‘~housei Why, Jedge, honey," Mrs, Baxter‘s richv voice became tenderly persuasive, "dish yer muckin‘-bird kin sing fitleu ter lif‘ up yo' soul when you gits low in de vallew o‘ sorter an’ tribullatium.“ ‘ Mrs. Baxter stood up, resting the cage upon her hip ; the mocking-bird within. thus baled to the bar of jus- tice, maintained a discreet silence. “Why 2" demanded the Judge gravy BETTER. TE‘AN MARRIAGE AN IRISHMAN'S WEIGH INHERITED DISEASES. To Be Continued Really Acquired.