There were every day dinners of sixty covers at the Governor's palace. The thousands of candles which the silver cressets and the chased candelabra supported did not succeed in lighting the monumental staircase; they illuminated the line of salons, plunged into the depths of the hall, lingered over the faded brocades and the old tapestries, glided over the waves of the mural frescoes representing a naval combat between the Christian Knights and the Moors, caressed the dark tresses of the beautiful Neapolitan ladies, flashed on the laced uniforms of the English officers of the garrison, played on the gala costumes, magnificent and strange, of the Greek and Levantine Navy, to glitter finally on the blonde hair of Lady Hester Stanhope, whose haughty head dominated this picturesque medley of races. At the supper which followed the ball, a table was arranged on a dais, which reminded the doctor of Oxford University.... But what a difference! One evening did he not accompany a lady of high and authentic rank, and, sitting by her, did he not find himself separated from the Governor, who was flanked on the right by the Duchesse of Pienna and on the left by Lady Hester, by the width of the table, not by the length--the width you must clearly understand? And with a score of lords, dukes, marquises and counts all around! The summer came. Lady Hester accepted the kind offer of General Oakes, who placed at her disposal the Palazzo San Antonio, a few miles from Valetta. The palace was a large building, flanked by a tower simulating a belfry. The interior was spacious and well ventilated, but the total absence of rugs and carpets, in order to keep it cool, gave the doctor the impression of being always on the floor of the kitchen. What was wonderful there were the gardens. The place recalled that of the Orangery at Versailles, but never will the most assiduous care be able, in the French climate, to obtain orange-trees, lemon-trees and pomegranate-trees so vigorous and so beautiful. What magnificent shooting of the sap towards the sun, expanding in domes of glistening leaves, in flowers of purple, in fruits of gold! Double oleanders, of the shape of hazel-trees, diffused their bitter and sharp odour. Hedges of myrtle ten feet high separated thickets of giant roses and bound a terrace, forming a colonnade where the vine suspended itself in arches and mingled its ripe grapes with the green branches. Many foreigners and English people touched at Malta; amongst them Mr. Michael Bruce, the bold Colonel Bruce who, with the assistance of Sir Robert Wilson and Mr. Hutchinson, had succeeded in contriving the escape of Lavalette, on the eve of his execution, and in enabling him to cross the frontier. Learning that Lady Stanhope's brother had been recalled by his military duties, he resolved to take his place near her and to accompany her throughout the perilous journey which she had resolved to undertake across European and Asiatic Turkey. Sweet solicitude!