her countenance. She was, however, extremely fat, and on seeing her feet
laid up before her on a cushion, I at once perceived that they were so
swollen as to render her incapable of walking, which probably brought on
her excessive _embonpoint_. Her hands were plump and small, but rather
coarse-grained in texture, not quite so clean as they might have been,
and altogether not so aristocratic-looking as the charming face. Her
dress was of superb black velvet, ermine-trimmed, with diamonds thrown
all abroad over it.

Not far from her stood the least little man I had ever seen; of such
admirable proportions no one could call him a dwarf, because with
that word we usually associate something of deformity; but yet with an
elfin look of shrewd, hard, worldly wisdom in his face that marred the
impression which his delicate regular little features would otherwise
have conveyed. Indeed, I do not think he was quite of equal rank with
the rest of the company, for his dress was inappropriate to the occasion
(and he apparently was an invited, while I was an involuntary guest);
and one or two of his gestures and actions were more like the tricks of
an uneducated rustic than anything else. To explain what I mean: his
boots had evidently seen much service, and had been re-topped, re-heeled,
re-soled to the extent of cobbler's powers. Why should he have come in
them if they were not his best--his only pair? And what can be more
ungenteel than poverty? Then again he had an uneasy trick of putting his
hand up to his throat, as if he expected to find something the matter
with it; and he had the awkward habit--which I do not think he could
have copied from Dr. Johnson, because most probably he had never heard
of him--of trying always to retrace his steps on the exact boards on
which he had trodden to arrive at any particular part of the room.
Besides, to settle the question, I once heard him addressed as Monsieur
Poucet, without any aristocratic "de" for a prefix; and nearly every one
else in the room was a marquis, at any rate.

I say, "nearly every one;" for some strange people had the entree;
unless, indeed, they were, like me, benighted. One of the guests I
should have taken for a servant, but for the extraordinary influence he
seemed to have over the man I took for his master, and who never did
anything without, apparently, being urged thereto by this follower. The
master, magnificently dressed, but ill at ease in his clothes, as if