Page:California Digital Library (IA recollectionsofe00abeliala).pdf/57
Shortly after his arrival, a little girl, Miss Legg, the daughter of a friend, came to visit us at the Briars. The poor child had heard such terrific stories of Bonaparte, that when I told her he was coming up the lawn, she clung to me in an agony of terror. Forgetting my own former fears, I was cruel enough to run out and tell Napoleon of the child's fright, begging him to come into the house. He walked. up to her, and, brushing up his hair with his hand, shook his head, making horrible faces, and giving a sort of savage howl. The little girl screamed so violently, that mamma was afraid she would go into hysterics, and took her out of the room. Napoleon laughed a good deal at the idea of his being such a bugbear, and would hardly believe me when I told him that I had stood in the same dismay of him. When I made this confession, he tried to frighten me as he had poor little Miss Legg, by brushing up his hair, and distort-