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. Bélisaire 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 wrapped in a shawl on a sofa in the corner. Jack had made many signs to Ida, who pretended not to understand, carried away as she was by the pleasure and happiness about her. Jack was like an old father who is anxious to take his daughter home from a ball. “It is late,” he said.