"Are you ready, Brigitte?" said Colleville, bolting into the
dining-room; "it is nine o'clock, and they are packed as close as
herrings in the salon. Cardot, his wife and son and daughter and
future son-in-law have just come, accompanied by that young Vinet;
the whole faubourg Saint Antoine is debouching. Can't we move the
piano in here?"

Then he gave the signal, by tuning his clarionet, the joyous sounds of
which were greeted with huzzas from the salon.

It is useless to describe a ball of this kind. The toilets, faces, and
conversations were all in keeping with one fact which will surely
suffice even the dullest imagination; they passed round, on tarnished
and discolored trays, common tumblers filled with wine, "eau rougie,"
and "eau sucree." The trays on which were glasses of orgeat and
glasses of syrup and water appeared only at long intervals. There were
five card-tables and twenty-five players, and eighteen dancers of both
sexes. At one o'clock in the morning, all present--Madame Thuillier,
Mademoiselle Brigitte, Madame Phellion, even Phellion himself--were
dragged into the vivacities of a country-dance, vulgarly called "La
Boulangere," in which Dutocq figured with a veil over his head, after
the manner of the Kabyl. The servants who were waiting to escort their
masters home, and those of the household, were audience to this
performance; and after the interminable dance had lasted one whole
hour it was proposed to carry Brigitte in triumph when she gave the
announcement that supper was served. This circumstance made her see
the necessity of hiding a dozen bottles of old burgundy. In short, the
company had amused themselves so well, the matrons as well as the
young girls, that Thuillier found occasion to say:--