ing the black elves,
this that you are to do, Eliza. For truly I think your uncle the canon
must be an ogre."

"You shall see," Eliza declared again; and, running after Nurse Saveria,
they were soon in the narrow street in which, standing across the way
from a little park, was the big, bare, yellowish-gray, four-story house
in which lived the Bonaparte family, always hard pushed for money, and
having but few of the fine things which so large a house seemed to call
for. Indeed, they would have had scarcely anything to live on had it not
been for this same important relative, "our uncle, the Canon Lucien,"
who spent much of his yearly salary of fifteen hundred dollars upon this
family of his nephew, "Papa Charles," one of whom was now about to make
a raid upon his picked and particular pears.

CHAPTER TWO.

THE CANON'S PEARS,

When the little girls had left him, Napoleon remained for some moments
standing in the mouth of his grotto. His hands were clasped behind his
back, his head was bent, his eyes were fixed upon the sea.

This, as I have told you, was a favorite attitude of the little boy,
copied from his uncle the canon; it remained his favorite attitude
through life, as almost any picture of this remarkable man will convince
you.

The boy was always thoughtful. But this day he was especially so. For he
knew that it was his birthday; and while not so much notice was taken of
children's birthdays when Napoleon was a boy as is now the custom, still
a birthday _was_ a birthday.

So the day set the little fellow to thinking; and, young as he was, he
had yet much to remember.

He felt that he ought to be as rich and important as the other boys
whom he knew round about Ajaccio There were Andrew Pozzo and Charles
Abbatucci, for example. They had everything they wished, their fathers
were rich and powerful; and they made fun of him, calling him "little
frowsy head," and "down at the heel," just because his mother could not
always look after his clothes, and keep him neat and clean.

Napoleon could not see why they should be better off than was he. His
father, Charles Bonaparte, was, he had heard them say at home, a count,
but of what good was it to be a count, or a duke, if one had not palaces
and treasure to show for it?

Napoleon knew that the big and bare four-story house in which he lived
was by no means a palace; and so far from having any treasures to spend,
he knew, instead, that if it were not for t