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 was the most incongruous mass that could be conceived, embracing the fortress, the convent, the ornate style of Venice, and the luxurious vastness of an Oriental palace, all within its walls. It may be imagined that no private fortune, however ample, could have kept in perfect order a place of such immense size, the gardens alone requiring above thirty men constantly at work, and the repairs of the sea-wall being a labor that never ended.