This nurse, Mme. MacDonald, _née_ Valadon, had a Frenchwoman's admiration for the great captive and everything connected with him; she bitterly hated the British Government and Sir Hudson Lowe; she was fond of acrimoniously expressing her views on events long since past, and she delighted in telling her patients anecdote after anecdote from her vast store of information respecting Napoleon. Certain it is, too, that her reputation as a nurse was considerable, especially among the few French inhabitants that remained, otherwise the supercargo's doctors would never have strongly advised him, as they did, to continue to employ her when he removed from the Rose and Crown to the Briars, that little estate on which Bonaparte resided, in company with Mr. Balcombe and his family, while Longwood Old House was being prepared for his reception. [Illustration: FACSIMILE OF A LETTER WRITTEN FROM ST. HELENA, IN WHICH MR. LEES MENTIONS HIS REMOVAL TO NAPOLEON'S HOUSE.] The Briars consisted--and still consists, I believe--of two houses, one called the Pavilion, where Napoleon lived, and another building to the left, both situated on a plateau at the foot of hills and buried in trees. A fine garden and grass fields adjoined, and the surrounding country was then, as now, precipitous and wildly picturesque. This beautiful little estate was some mile and a half from James Town, and access was gained to it by a road winding up the side of the rugged hill. Both houses, comfortably furnished, chancing to be let (owing to the owner's temporary absence in England) when Joseph Lees arrived in St. Helena, he rented the smaller for two months, at the end of which time, said the doctors, he ought to have sufficiently recovered his health and strength to be able to proceed home. One bright morning about the middle of January, four sturdy "yamstalks," or inhabitants of composite origin, laboriously mounted the hillside above the town, carrying the invalid on a _chaise à porteurs_ extemporized out of an arm-chair and a couple of poles. Nurse MacDonald walked by his side, chattering vivaciously.