"Oh, my Lord Nelson," she replied, "I entreat you no. You have experienced officers who will have carried out all your commands [which indeed was the case--T. T.], and to us Sicilians there is a world of difference between the guest who comes and goes, and the guest who lays his head for only one night. Our poor house of the Favara is indeed unworthy of such an honour from you, so much desired by even the Queen herself; but we are an ancient race of the same Norman blood as your own kings and nobles. We are the oldest and purest Norman family in Sicily. We have ever maintained the independent traditions of our race towards the Church, and sorely suffered for it in estate. Soon we shall have perished from off the face of the earth, and there will be nothing left of the Princes of the Favara but a name; and we yearn to have it handed down in Sicily, the land of traditions, as the last tradition of the dead old race, that the great hero of the other Norman kingdom so far away slept under our roof in token of friendship and amity." Now the Admiral, as is well known, had the kindest heart in the world, and he was touched by the anxiety and race-pride of the beautiful young Princess. He would not tell her My Lady's real reason for desiring him to return to Palermo, conceiving, no doubt, that there would be no gainsaying this. Indeed, he did not take the trouble either to believe it or to care: he was always reckless of his personal safety, and so no more was said of it. And the long sunny afternoon and the evening with its brilliant _fête_ passed away, the guests leaving early, as they were of Palermo, and the road had an evil repute at night. And with them melted away the great army of servants, to return close after dawn so that their absence should not be discovered by the guest. They were not, as may be divined, servants of the Prince, nor, many of them, servants at all, but from the vineyards and lemon groves. In the houses of Sicilian nobles, liveries are kept sometimes for centuries for occasions like these. Poor Will had been mightily crest-fallen all the afternoon and evening, for his hostess had been so unremitting in her attentions to the Admiral, who was by no means insensible to her beauty and graciousness, and who was enjoying the Sicilian dignity and repose, after the somewhat foreign and noisy entertainments of the Queen in Naples. And Will's mortification was increased when, at the time of the departure of the other guests (when at last he had expected to have a few words with Rusidda), the Admiral bade us take word to My Lady about his spending the night at the Favara. He intimated at the same time that we had no need to return till the morning.