s dressed in the ancient Greek
style, and adorned with a wreath of flowers, not natural flowers,
however, but consisting of Hortensias in diamonds. Her dress was of
pink-crape embroidered with Hortensias in silver. The hem of her dress
and its train was encircled with a garland of flowers composed of roses
and violets. A bouquet of Hortensias in diamonds glittered on her bosom,
and her necklace and bracelets consisted of little diamond Hortensias.
In this rich and tasteful attire, a present sent her by the Empress
Josephine the day before, Hortense entered the parlor where the ladies
and gentlemen of her court awaited her, brilliantly arrayed for
the occasion.

The parlor, filled with these ladies glittering with diamonds, and with
these cavaliers in their rich, gold-embroidered uniforms, presented a
brilliant spectacle. The queen's two sons, who came running into the
room at this moment to bid their "bonne petite maman" adieu, stood still
for an instant, dazzled by this magnificence, and then timidly
approached the mother who seemed to them a queen from the fairy-realm
floating in rosy clouds. The queen divined the thoughts of her boys,
whose countenances were for her an open book in which she read
every emotion.

She extended a hand to each of her children, and led them to a sofa, on
which she seated herself, taking the youngest, Louis Napoleon, who was
scarcely six years old, in her lap, while his elder brother, Napoleon
Louis, stood at her side, his curly head resting on Hortense's shoulder,
gazing tenderly into the pale, expressive face of his beautiful mother.

"I am very prettily dressed to-day, am I not, Napoleon?" said Hortense,
laying her little hand, that sparkled with diamonds, on the head of her
eldest son. "Would you like me less if I were poor, and wore no
diamonds, but merely a plain black dress? Would you love me less then?"

"No, _maman_!" exclaimed the boy, almost angrily, and little Louis
Napoleon, who sat in his mother's lap, repeated in his shrill little
voice: "No, _maman_!"

The queen smiled. "Diamonds and dress do not constitute happiness, and
we three would love each other just as much if we had no jewelry, and
were poor. But tell me, Napoleon, if you had nothing, and were entirely
alone in the world, what would you do for yourself?"

"I would become a soldier," cried Napoleon, with sparkling eyes, "and I
would fight so bravely that I should soon be made an officer."

"And you, Louis, w