Page:Helen Leah Reed - Napoleons young neighbour.djvu/43

Rh "Oh, was he perfectly awful? Weren't you frightened?"

"If we were frightened, I tried not to show it. Napoleon seemed harmless. He did not even try to bayonet us," replied Dr. O'Meara.

"But how did he look?"

"He hadn't horns or hoofs; at least, we didn't see them, and on the whole he was charming, though he seemed tired. You girls will like him."

"Oh, no!" cried Betsy. "I shake and shiver whenever I think of him. If ever I look at him it will be only at a distance, but I could never, never speak to him."

"Mark my words, you will change your mind, Miss Betsy," cried one of the two as he turned away. About four o'clock that same afternoon, when it was approaching dusk in the little valley, one of the children reported that the same horsemen they had seen in the morning were again winding around the mountain.

Soon the whole family gathered outside, and as they looked, to their great astonishment they observed the procession halt at the mountain pass above the house, and then,