Page:California Digital Library (IA recollectionsofe00abeliala).pdf/70

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
44
Recollections of
[Ch. V.

but quite in fun; his good humour never left him during the whole scene.

The following was the circumstance which had excited my ire in the morning. My father was very strict in enforcing our doing a French translation every day, and Napoleon would often condescend to look over them and correct their faults. One morning I felt more than usually averse to performing this task, and when Napoleon arrived at the cottage, and asked whether the translation was ready for him, I had not even begun it. When he saw this, he took up the paper and walked down the lawn with it to my father, who was preparing to mount his horse to ride to the valley, exclaiming as he approached, "Balcombe, voilà le thême de Mademoiselle Betsee. Qu'elle a bien travaillé;" holding up at the same time the blank sheet of paper. My father comprehended imperfectly, but saw by the sheet of paper, and

This article is issued from Wikisource. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.