Page:Helen Leah Reed - Napoleons young neighbour.djvu/217

Rh. But Mr. Balcombe was obdurate. He had decided that Betsy should have a week's imprisonment there, staying by day but released at night that she might sleep in her own room.

So Betsy went daily to her cell. She managed to vary the monotony of her prison life by sitting close to the grating of the open window, and while she sat there, the picture of dejection, Napoleon, approaching the window, daily expressed a half-mocking sympathy with her. For a time Betsy maintained an appearance of dignity and injured innocence, but in the end the Emperor, by mimicking her doleful expression, usually succeeded in making her laugh.

"Sewing!" he exclaimed in surprise, when he visited Betsy on the third day of her imprisonment.

"Yes," responded Betsy; "I am making a dress for myself."

"Ah, they indeed are cruel—"

Like all Betsy's acquaintances, Napoleon knew that she had no strong love for sewing and the ordinary domestic duties. She was at the age when boyish sports were much more