f little bright black
eyes.

"Here I am my own master!" he said as he entered the grotto. "No one
commands me here!" And seating himself royally on a bench within the
dark entrance, he continued, "This is my birthday. I am eight years old
to-day. I wish I lived among the Spartans, then I should be beyond the
control of women; but now I have to obey such a number of people--old
Severia among the rest. Ah, if I were the master!"

"Well, and if you were the master, what would you do?" cried Eliza,
thrusting forward her pretty little head.

"First of all, I'd teach you not to come listening at doors," replied
Napoleon, disconcerted at being overheard.

"But, brother, there's no door that I can see."

"No matter, you have been eaves-dropping all the same."

"Eliza!--Panoria!" cried a loud voice. "Where can these children have
gone to?"

The young ladies came out of their leafy lurking-place in time to meet
the little Bonapartes' nurse, Severia--a tall old woman, who carried on
her arm a basket filled with the most luscious tempting pears, grapes,
and figs.

"A pear, Severia!" cried Napoleon, darting forward, and thrusting his
hand into the basket.

"The saints forbid, child!" exclaimed Severia. "They are for your uncle
the canon!"

"Ah!" said Napoleon, drawing back his hand as quickly as if a wasp had
stung him.

Panoria burst out laughing.

"I never saw such people!" she said, as soon as her mirth allowed her to
speak. "My uncle the canon seems the bugbear of the whole family. Is
Severia afraid of him, too?"

"Not more than I am," said Napoleon, boldly.

"And yet you were afraid to take a pear?"

"Because I did not wish to do it, Panoria."

"Did not _dare_ do it, Napoleon!"

"Did not _wish_ to do it, Panoria."

"And if you wished it, would you do it?"

"Certainly I would."

"I think you are a boaster, Napoleon; and in your uncle's presence would
be just as great a coward as Eliza or Pauline?"

"Come, children, follow me," said Severia, walking on.

"You think I am a coward?" whispered Eliza to her little friend. "Come
into the house, and see if I don't eat as much of uncle's fruit as I
please. Mamma is gone out to pay a visit, and will not be home until
to-morrow."

"Then I'll help you," said Panoria. And the little girls, fixing their
wistful eyes on the tempting fruit, followed Severia to the house.

Napoleon remained some time longer in his grotto; and when supper-time
approached, he wen