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Updated: June 18, 2025
"See, it has a great mouth, as if to swallow one. Perhaps some of the black elves live there, that Nurse Camilla told us of. Do you think so, Eliza?" "What a baby you are, Panoria!" Eliza replied, with the superior air of one who knows all about things. "That is no oven; nor is it a black elf's house. It is Napoleon's grotto." "Napoleon's!" cried Panoria. "And who gave it to him, then?
She was waiting for her friend Eliza; for she had learned from Pauline that the absent ones were to return that evening from their visit to Melilli. Panoria, as you have learned, was a bright little girl, who spoke her mind, and had no great awe for the Bonapartes not even for the mighty Canon Lucien, the all-powerful Nurse Saveria, nor the masterful little Napoleon.
"You may dare me," Napoleon replied to the challenge of Panoria; "but if I do not wish it, you gain nothing by daring me." "Ho! you are afraid, little boy!" cried Panoria. "I afraid?" and Napoleon turned his piercing glance upon the little girl, so that she quailed before it. But Panoria was an obstinate child, and she returned to the charge.
Bah! why should they? If now I were but the master at home, as I am here" "Well, hermit! and what if you were the master?" cried Eliza from the lilac-bush. The two girls had kept silence as long as they could; and now, to keep Panoria from speaking out, Eliza had interrupted with her question. With that, they both ran into the grotto.
Go look in the 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.
"Not about us, be sure," Eliza declared. "I believe he's dreaming," said mischievous Panoria; "let us scream out, and see if we can frighten him." "Silly! you can't frighten Napoleon," Eliza asserted, clapping a hand over her companion's mouth. "But he could frighten you. I have tried it."
"Well, and is your uncle the canon's garden more sacred than any one else's garden?" questioned Panoria flippantly. "What a goosie you are to ask that! Of course it is," declared Eliza. "But why?" Panoria persisted. "Why?" echoed Eliza; "just because it is. It is the garden of my great uncle the Canon Lucien; that is why." "It is, because it is! That is nothing," Panoria protested.
He was to be a man; and yet, when the time came, he hated to leave his home. He was fond of his family; indeed, his life was largely given up to remembering and helping his mother and brothers and sisters. He regretted leaving his dear grotto; he was sorry to say good-by to Panoria his favorite "La Giacommetta."
Mamma Letitia was there, tearful, but smiling, with Eliza, and Pauline, and Baby Lucien; so were Uncle Lucien the canon, and Aunt Manuccia, who had been their mother's housekeeper, with Nurse Saveria, and Nurse Ilaria, whom Napoleon called foster-mother, and even little Panoria, to whom Napoleon cried "Good-by, Giacommeta mia! I'll come back some day."
Is not our uncle the canon beyond all others?" "Yes; to worry one," declared Panoria rebelliously. "But why? Is it because he is canon of the cathedral here at Ajaccio that they are all so afraid of him?" "Afraid of him!" exclaimed Eliza indignantly. "Who is afraid of him? We are not. But, you see, Papa Charles is not rich enough to do for us what he would like.
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