Page:Helen Leah Reed - Napoleons young neighbour.djvu/225

Rh was therefore easier to embarrass her. Toward the end of her stay at St. Helena, an English surgeon, Dr. Stokoe, was sent to the island. He was much the senior of Jane, but, because the two were seen much together, the gossips of St. Helena thought that he wished to marry her.

Napoleon himself occasionally teased Jane about Dr. Stokoe, and professed to think that Mr. Balcombe was a cruel father, standing in the way of his daughter's happiness. "Why have you refused your daughter to the surgeon of the flagship?" he would ask mischievously, adding, "C'est un brave homme."

Napoleon's capacity for seeing the humorous side of things kept up his spirits wonderfully during his first year or two of exile. Betsy's enjoyment of a joke, even of a practical joke, was perhaps the strongest bond between the Emperor and his little neighbor.

"Come," he would say, "come, Mees Betsee, sit down and sing like our dear departed friend." By this term Napoleon referred to a certain lady who believed herself to be the possessor of a very fine voice. To exhibit her prowess this lady would sit down and sing