Here
lived once the son of the King of Naples; himself a Prince, and--worthy
son of a worthy sire--alderman and then mayor of the city of
Tallahassee. Thus did an uncompromising democrat pay court to the shades
of Royalty, while a mocking-bird sang from a fringe-bush by the gate,
and an oriole flew madly from tree to tree in pursuit of a fair creature
of the reluctant sex.
The inconsistency, if such it was, was quickly punished. For, alas! when
I spoke of my morning's pilgrimage to an old resident of the town, he
told me that Murat never lived in the house, nor anywhere else in
Tallahassee, and of course was never its postmaster, alderman, or mayor.
The Princess, he said, built the house after her husband's death, and
lived there, a widow. I appealed to the guide-book. My informant
sneered,--politely,--and brought me a still older Tallahassean, Judge
----, whose venerable name I am sorry to have forgotten, and that
indisputable citizen confirmed all that his neighbor had said. For once,
the guide-book compiler must have been misinformed.
The question, happily, was one of no great consequence. If the Prince
had never lived in the house, the Princess had; and she, by all accounts
(and I make certain her husband would have said the same), was the
worthier person of the two. And even if neither of them had lived there,
if my sentiment had been _all_ wasted (but there was no question of
tears), the place itself was sightly, the house was old, and the way
thither a pleasant one--first down the hill in a zigzag course to the
vicinity of the railway station, then by a winding country road through
the valley past a few negro cabins, and up the slope on the farther
side.
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