"She sent her kind regards to you," replied Betsy, "but is sorry that she is not well enough to come down."
"Then I will go up to her;" and Napoleon impulsively ran upstairs before word could be given of his approach.
When Napoleon entered her room, Mrs. Balcombe was lying down. The girls, who had followed him, saw him sit down on the edge of her bed as he thanked her very warmly for all her attention to him.
"I should have preferred to stay at The Briars. I am sorry to go to Longwood," he said; and then he handed a little package to her, saying, "Now please give this to your husband as a mark of my friendship." "This" proved to be a beautiful gold snuffbox.
As he turned to leave the room, Napoleon saw the red-eyed Betsy standing near the door.
"Here, my dear," he said, putting something in her hand, "you can give this as a gage d'amour to petit Las Cases."
Betsy had no heart now to reply to a jest that ordinarily would have brought out a spirited reply. But with the beautiful bon-bonnière in her hand, she ran out of the room and took a post at a window where she could see Napoleon. Her tears continued to flow and she found that she could not bear to look longer at the departing Emperor. At last she had to run to her own room, where, throwing herself on a bed, she wept bitterly for a long time.
It was true, as Betsy knew, that Longwood was not so very far from The Briars, and that it was not likely that she would be restrained from going there sometimes. Yet in spite of this knowledge the little girl realized that she had lost a great deal by the departure of the Emperor from her father's house.
Friends, and enemies too, of Napoleon in Europe would have been amazed at that moment to know that the man who so short a time before had been dreaded as the commander of one of the world's greatest armies, was now bewailed by a little girl as a lost playmate, for as playmate and friend Betsy had certainly come to regard him, and she regretted his removal to Longwood, not only because it was farther away, but because he was likely to be hedged in with a greater ceremony that might prevent her from seeing much of him.
Mr. Balcombe went with Napoleon to Longwood, and when he returned the girls asked eagerly how the Emperor liked the new residence.