glass. Your stockings are tumbling over your shoes, and your jacket is
all awry. How will your Mamma Letitia like that? Run, then! I hear the
carriage wheels! In with you, little Down-at-the-heel!"

Smarting under the girl's teasing, and all the more because it came from
her, Napoleon sulked into the house.

But Panoria still swung on the gate. When the carriage stopped before
the house, she ran to welcome her friend Eliza, and, with the returned
family, entered the house.

In the doorway the fat little canon, Uncle Lucien, received them.

"Back again, uncle!" cried Mamma Letitia in welcome. "And how do you
all? Where is Napoleon? Where is Pauline?" The woman who spoke was
Madame Letitia Bonaparte, the mother of Napoleon. She was a remarkable
woman--remarkable for beauty, for ability, and for position. Born a
peasant, she became the mother of kings and queens; reared in poverty,
she became the mistress of millions. In her Corsican home she was
house-mother and care-taker; and when, made great by her great son, she
had every comfort and every luxury, she still remained house-mother and
care-taker, looking after her own household, and refusing to spend the
money with which her son provided her, for fear that some day she or her
family might need it. In all the troubles in Corsica she accompanied her
husband to the mountain-retreat and the battle-field, encouraging him by
her bravery, and urging him to patriotic purpose, until the end came,
and Corsica was defeated and conquered. She carried all the worries and
bore all the responsibilities of the Bonaparte household; and it was
only by her management and carefulness that the family was kept from
absolute poverty.