Commander Bernard was passionately fond of gardening, and lavished any amount of care and attention upon a little arbour, constructed by his own hands and covered with clematis, hop-vines, and honeysuckle, where he loved to sit after his frugal dinner and smoke his pipe and think of his campaigns and his former companions in arms. This arbour marked the limits of the commander's landed possessions, for though very small, the garden was divided into two parts. The portion claimed by Madame Barbancon aspired only to be useful; the other, of which the veteran took entire charge, was intended to please the eye only. The precise boundaries of these two plats of ground had been, and were still, the cause of a quiet but determined struggle between the commander and his housekeeper. Never did two nations, anxious to extend their frontiers, each at the expense of the other, resort to more trickery or display greater cleverness and perseverance in concealing and maintaining their mutual attempts at invasion. We must do the commander the justice to say that he fought only for his rights, having no desire to extend, but merely to preserve his territory intact,--territory upon which the bold and insatiable housekeeper was ever trying to encroach by establishing her thyme, savory, parsley, and camomile beds among her employer's roses, tulips, and peonies. Another cause of heated controversy between the commander and Madame Barbancon was the implacable hatred the latter felt for Napoleon, whom she had never forgiven for the death of a young soldier,--the only lover she had ever been able to boast of, probably. She carried this rancour so far, in fact, as to style the Emperor that "Corsican ogre," and even to deny him the possession of any military genius, an asseveration that amused the veteran immensely. Nevertheless, in spite of these diverse political sentiments, and the ever recurring and annoying question of the boundaries of the two gardens, Madame Barbancon was, at heart, sincerely devoted to her employer, and attended assiduously to his every want, while the veteran, for his part, would have sorely missed his irascible housekeeper's care and attentions. The spring of 1844 was fast drawing to a close. The May verdure was shining in all its freshness; three o'clock in the afternoon had just sounded; and though the day was warm, and the sun's rays ardent, the pleasant scent of freshly watered earth, combined with the fragrant odour of several small clumps of lilacs and syringas, testified to the faithful care the commander bestowed upon his garden, for from a frequently and laboriously filled wash-tub sunk in the earth, and dignified with the name of reservoir, the veteran had just treated his little domain to a refreshing shower; nor had he, in his generous impartiality, excluded his housekeeper's vegetable beds and kitchen herbs from the benefits of his ministrations.