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80
Recollections of
[Ch. VIII.

ing to my sister and myself, dining one day with him, "his conversation was the perfection of causerie, and very entertaining." He was, perhaps, rather too fond of using direct compliments, but this was very pardonable in one of his rank and country. He remarked once, that he had heard a great deal of the beauty and elegance of the Governor's daughter, and asked me who I thought the most beautiful woman in the island. I told him I thought Madame Bertrand superior, beyond all comparison to any one I had ever before seen. My father had been greatly struck with her majestic appearance on board the Northumberland, and I always thought every one else sank into insignificance when she appeared; and yet her features were not regular, and she had no strict pretensions to beauty, but the expression of her face was very intellectual, and her bearing queen-like and dignified.

Napoleon asked me if I did not con-

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