nd the
look she cast on Mrs. Triplet fairly caught that good, though somber
personage. She giggled; put her hand to her face, and said: "I'm sure I
ask your pardon, ma'am."

It was no use; the comedian had determined they should all laugh, and
they were made to laugh. Then she rose, and showed them how to drink
healths _a la Francaise;_ and keen were her little admirers to touch her
glass with theirs. And the pure wine she had brought did Mrs. Triplet
much good, too; though not so much as the music and sunshine of her face
and voice. Then, when their stomachs were full of good food, and the
soul of the grape tingled in their veins, and their souls glowed under
her great magnetic power, she suddenly seized the fiddle, and showed
them another of her enchantments. She put it on her knee, and played
a tune that would have made gout, cholic and phthisic dance upon their
last legs. She played to the eye as well as to the ear, with such a
smart gesture of the bow, and such a radiance of face as she looked
at them, that whether the music came out of her wooden shell, or her
horse-hair wand, or her bright self, seemed doubtful. They pranced on
their chairs; they could not keep still. She jumped up; so did they. She
gave a wild Irish horroo. She put the fiddle in Triplet's hand.

"The wind that shakes the barley, ye divil!" cried she.

Triplet went _hors de lui;_ he played like Paganini, or an intoxicated
demon. Woffington covered the buckle in gallant style; she danced, the
children danced. Triplet fiddled and danced, and flung his limbs in wild
dislocation: the wineglasses danced; and last, Mrs. Triplet was observed
to be bobbing about on her sofa, in a monstrous absurd way, droning out
the tune, and playing her hands with mild enjoyment, all to herself.
Woffington pointed out this pantomimic soliloquy to the two boys, with
a glance full of fiery meaning. This was enough. With a fiendish yell,
they fell upon her, and tore her, shrieking, off the sofa. And lo! when
she was once launched, she danced up to her husband, and set to him with
a meek deliberation that was as funny as any part of the scene. So
then the mover of all this slipped on one side, and let the stone of
merriment--roll--and roll it did; there was no swimming, sprawling, or
irrelevant frisking; their feet struck the ground for every note of the
fiddle, pat as its echo, their faces shone, their hearts leaped, and
their poor frozen natures came out, and warmed th