Page:Helen Leah Reed - Napoleons young neighbour.djvu/154

128 regarding the trouble between Sir Hudson Lowe and the Emperor in this, she certainly would not have favored the former.

"What do you really think," she asked her father one day, "about this quarrel between the Governor and the Emperor?"

Mr. Balcombe very properly, as an officer of the Government, was not inclined to give a direct reply. But Betsy understood him, when he said:

"Their disputes are generally on subjects so trivial that they hardly seem worth quarrelling about."

But she realized that to Napoleon these disputes were not trivial when she came upon him one day reading an English book. Looking at it, as he held it before her, she saw that it was a copy of "Æsop's Fables," a book that in a translation children often use to improve their knowledge of French.

The page was open at "The Sick Lion." This is the famous account of the lion that, when lying sick, receives visits from many other animals who, instead of sympathizing, exult over his downfall. The lion makes no complaint until a donkey kicks him in the