Page:Helen Leah Reed - Napoleons young neighbour.djvu/47

Rh in this way. They heard how wretched it made the Emperor to think of returning to the small house where he had lodged in the town and where people stared into the windows, as if he were some kind of wild animal. When he found that Longwood would not be ready for him for several weeks, he had at once declared his unwillingness to return to Jamestown. The glimpse of The Briars that he had had from a distance pleased him greatly, and he had asked if it might not be possible to lodge him there. Mr. Balcombe, as an official of the Government, having placed some rooms at the disposal of the Admiral, Sir George Cockburn, was now anxious to put Napoleon at his ease about occupying them.

The Balcombe children were greatly stirred up when they found that Napoleon was to be their neighbor, for the rooms to be assigned him were near, but not in, the main house. Their fear of the Emperor had almost wholly disappeared.

Continuing to praise the view, Napoleon asked that some chairs be brought out on the lawn.

"Come, Mademoiselle," he said to Betsy in