"Let the Cinarchesi blood go for its full value; but it was worth something to the Della Croce to be descended also from the Tuscan Malaspina; for the lands of those great Marquises were now in the possession of the Signor Dezio. And the Signor had such a daughter, a young maiden. Ah, Madonna! The loveliest girl in Corsica. And the vine-dresser crossed himself. As I listened to all this information, I began to look through my unused credentials, which I always carried. It struck me that this name of Della Croce was quite familiar to me, though I knew not how, until a letter in the sprawling hand of young Laurence Daldy fell out from among Peter’s crabbed characters. Laurence Daldy, my mother’s younger son, was now in full career, as a pigeon and a Guardsman, spending at full gallop his dead father’s money. These Daldys were of Italian origin, the true name being D’Aldis, which after some years of English life they had naturalised into Daldy. And now I recollected that when we Vaughan boys scorned them as ignoble sons of commerce, they used to brag about their kinship to the ancient Della Croce. Riding up the forest hill, on whose western bluff stands boldly the gray old tower of the Malaspinas, I began of course to make forecasts about the character of my host. My host I knew he needs must be, for Corsica is of all the world the most hospitable spot. Although by this time well acquainted with the simple island habits, I could not but expect to find a man of stateliness and surroundings, of stiffness and some arrogance. Now the sun was setting, and the western fire from off the sea glanced in spears of reddening gold into the solemn timeworn keep. All things looked majestic, but a deal too lonely. Where was I to apply, how was I to get in? The narrow doorway overhung with the wreck of some portcullis, was blocked instead with a sort of mantlet like the Roman Vinea; the loopholes on the ground-tier were boarded almost to the top, the high windows, such as they were, had their rough shutters closed. Everything betokened a state of siege and fear. Two or three magnificent chesnuts, which must have commanded the front of the tower, had been cut down and added to the defences of the approach. Over these I managed at last to leap my horse, who was by no means a perfect hunter; and there I halted at a loss how to proceed. I had been long enough in Corsica to know, even without a certain ominous gleam from a loophole, and the view in transverse section of a large double-barrelled gun, that the owner of this old mansion was now in the pleasant state of Vendetta.