Page:Helen Leah Reed - Napoleons young neighbour.djvu/50

Rh pay for his board, she must still regard him as her guest, and in the small time at her disposal do all that she could to make him comfortable.

Rooms, therefore, must be rearranged and what furniture could be spared from the rest of the house must be put into Napoleon's apartments. So, in the short space of a few hours, the dreaded Emperor of the French, the ogre feared by the children, had become the neighbor, almost the inmate of a happy English household—English, in spite of its distance, many thousands of miles away, from the islands of Great Britain.

It was evening when Napoleon came back to the house with the family. Here again his conversation was chiefly with Betsy, as her fluent French pleased him. Her parents could use the language only with difficulty.

"Do you like music?"

"Yes, sir."

"But I suppose that you are too young to play."

This rather piqued Betsy.

"I can both sing and play."

"Then sing to me."