" she cried suddenly.
She rose, took her plate in one hand, her glass in the other. "I ask
permission to change places with Madame Belisaire; I am quite sure that
her husband will not complain."

This was done with much grace and consideration. The little Weber
uttered a shout of indignation on seeing his mother rise from her chair,
and all this noise and confusion soon changed the previous stiffness and
restraint into laughs and gayety. The waiters went round and round the
table executing marvellous feats, serving twenty persons from one duck
so adroitly carved and served that each one had as much as he wanted.
And the peas fell like hail on the plates; and the beans--prepared
at one end of the table with salt, pepper, and butter; and such
butter!--were mixed by a waiter who smiled maliciously as he stirred the
fell combination.

At last the champagne came. With the exception of Ida, not one person
there knew anything more of this wine than the name; and champagne
signified to them riches, gay dinners, and gorgeous festivals. They
talked about it in a low voice, waited and watched for it. Finally, at
dessert, a waiter appeared with a silver-capped bottle that he proceeded
to open. Ida, who never lost an opportunity of making a sensation and
assuming an attitude, put her pretty hands over her ears, but the cork
came out like any other cork; the waiter, holding the bottle high, went
around the table very quickly. The bottle was inexhaustible; each person
had some froth and a few drops at the bottom of the glass, which he
drank with respect, and even believed that there was still more in the
bottle. It did not matter: the magic of the word champagne had produced
its effect, and there is so much French gayety in the least particle of
its froth that an astonishing animation at once pervaded the assembly. A
dance was proposed; but music costs so much!

"Ah! if we only had a piano," said Ida de Barancy, with a sigh, at the
same time moving her fingers on the table as if she knew how to play.
Belisaire disappeared for a few moments, but soon returned with a
village musician, who was ready to play until morning. Jack and his
mother at first felt out of their element in the noisy romp that ensued,
but Ida finally organized a cotillon, and the rustling of her silk
skirts and the jangling of her bracelets filled the souls of the younger
women with admiration and jealousy. Meanwhile the night wore on, the
little Weber was asleep