194 A FLORIDA SHRINE. 



though it is rather the way of immigrants, 

 perhaps, not to refuse political responsibili- 

 ties. 



Naturally, I remembered these things as 

 I stood in front of " the big house " a 

 story-and-a-half cottage amid the flower- 

 ing shrubs. 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 resi- 

 dent 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 Prin- 

 cess, he said, built the house after her hus- 

 band's death, and lived there, a widow. I 

 appealed to the guide-book. My informant 

 sneered, politely, and brought me a 



