guarded more closely and that it might be harder for the girls to see him.
For the two months before New Year's, Longwood was as busy a place as a dock-yard in war. The Admiral was often there, hurrying lazy workmen. Every day two or three hundred seamen carried timber and other building materials and furniture to Longwood. Although Napoleon was in no hurry to go there—indeed, he did not wish to go there at all—he watched the workmen with great interest, as he observed them climbing up the heights between Longwood and The Briars. He would really have preferred to make The Briars his home, and he tried to get the Government to buy it for him, but for reasons, perhaps political, this could not be accomplished. Longwood, in situation, was bleak and unshaded, and so exposed that it was not likely he could ever have a garden such as that at The Briars. Water had to be brought from a distance of three miles, and the houses that were to be remodelled for the French were known to be damp and unhealthy. The farmhouses which Napoleon was to occupy were very plain and have even been called a
