rded face was
illuminated with a radiant gladness; and the night was not shorter to
the dreaming sleepers than to him whose waking dreams brought heaven
near.

So quickly the night fled, that he looked up with surprise when at four
o'clock the first grey streaks of summer dawn showed themselves through
the little window. Then the old man turned to rake together the few
coals that lay under the ashes, and his son, turning on the sheepskins,
muttered sleepily to know if it were time to rise.

"Lie still, lie still! I would only make a fire," said the old man.

"Have you been up all night?" asked the boy.

"Yes; but it has been short, very short. Sleep again, my chicken; it is
yet early."

And he went out to fetch more fuel.

Chapter 1.IV. Blessed is He That Believeth.

Bonaparte Blenkins sat on the side of the bed. He had wonderfully
revived since the day before, held his head high, talked in a full
sonorous voice, and ate greedily of all the viands offered him. At his
side was a basin of soup, from which he took a deep draught now and
again as he watched the fingers of the German, who sat on the mud floor
mending the bottom of a chair.

Presently he looked out, where, in the afternoon sunshine, a few
half-grown ostriches might be seen wandering listlessly about, and then
he looked in again at the little whitewashed room, and at Lyndall, who
sat in the doorway looking at a book. Then he raised his chin and tried
to adjust an imaginary shirt-collar. Finding none, he smoothed the
little grey fringe at the back of his head, and began:

"You are a student of history, I perceive, my friend, from the study
of these volumes that lie scattered about this apartment; this fact has
been made evident to me."

"Well--a little--perhaps--it may be," said the German meekly.

"Being a student of history then," said Bonaparte, raising himself
loftily, "you will doubtless have heard of my great, of my celebrated
kinsman, Napoleon Bonaparte?"

"Yes, yes," said the German, looking up.

"I, sir," said Bonaparte, "was born at this hour, on an April afternoon,
three-and-fifty years ago. The nurse, sir--she was the same who attended
when the Duke of Sutherland was born--brought me to my mother. 'There is
only one name for this child,' she said: 'he has the nose of his great
kinsman;' and so Bonaparte Blenkins became my name--Bonaparte Blenkins.
Yes, sir," said Bonaparte, "there is a stream on my maternal side that
connects