rsonage should not be at Naples when they arrived
there.

A very brief note, which reached Caffarelli before he had left Paris,
informed him that all he had requested had been duly done. "He gave
it,"--it was of the King he spoke,--"he gave it at once, Carlo; only
saying, with a laugh, 'One of my brothers may dispute it with him some
of these days, for it gives some privilege; but whether it be to claim
the rights of the Church after high treason, or to have two wives in
Lower Calabria, I don't remember; but tell your friend to avoid both
murder and matrimony, at least till he returns to a more civilized
region.'

"I shall send the Irish Major with the despatch, as you wish. If I
understand you aright, you are not over-anxious he should come back
with the answer. But why not be more explicit? If you want----remember
Calabria is----Calabria,--you understand."

At first Caffarelli had intended not to show this note to Maitland; but
the profound contempt which his friend exhibited for M'Caskey, proved
that no sense of a debt of honor outstanding between them would lessen
Maitland's satisfaction at hearing that this troublesome "cur"--so he
called him--should not be yelping at his heels through the streets of
Naples.

Maitland, in fact, declared that he knew of no misfortune in life so
thoroughly ruinous as to be confronted in a quarrel with a questionable
antagonist. From the ridicule of such a situation, he averred, the
only escape was in a fatal ending; and Maitland knew nothing so bad as
ridicule. Enmity in all its shapes he had faced, and could face again.
Give him a foe but worthy of him, and no man ever sprang into the lists
with a lighter heart; the dread of a false position was too much for
him.

Leaving these two friends then at Paris, to talk, amid their lives of
many dissipations, of plots and schemes and ambitions, let us
betake ourselves to a very distant spot, at the extreme verge of the
Continent,--a little inlet on the Calabrian coast below Reggio; where,
on a small promontory separating two narrow bays, stands the lone
castle of Montanara. It had been originally a convent, as its vast size
indicates, but was purchased and converted into a royal residence by a
former king of Naples, who spent incredible sums on the buildings and
the gardens. The latter, especially, were most costly, since they were
entirely artificial,--the earth having been carried from the vicinity of
Naples.

The castle itself w