第28章 CHAPTER VIII.(3)

Then she whipped to the other end of the table and stitched like wild-fire. "Be pleased to cast your eyes on that, Mrs. Triplet. Pass it to the lady, young gentleman. Fire away, Mr. Triplet, never mind us women. Woffington's housewife, ma'am, fearful to the eye, only it holds everything in the world, and there is a small space for everything else--to be returned by the bearer. Thank you, sir." (Stitches away like lightning at the coat.) "Eat away, children! now is your time; when once I begin, the pie will soon end; I do everything so quick."

_Roxalana._ "The lady sews quicker than you, mother."

_Woffington._ "Bless the child, don't come so near my sword-arm; the needle will go into your eye, and out at the back of your head."

This nonsense made the children giggle.

"The needle will be lost--the child no more--enter undertaker--house turned topsy-turvy--father shows Woffington to the door--off she goes with a face as long and dismal as some people's comedies--no names--crying fine chan-ey oranges."

The children, all but Lucy, screeched with laughter.

Lucy said gravely:

"Mother, the lady is very funny."

"You will be as funny when you are as well paid for it."

This just hit poor Trip's notion of humor, and he began to choke, with his mouth full of pie.

"James, take care," said Mrs. Triplet, sad and solemn.

James looked up.

"My wife is a good woman, madam," said he; "but deficient in an important particular."

"Oh, James!"

"Yes, my dear. I regret to say you have no sense of humor; nummore than a cat, Jane."

"What! because the poor thing can't laugh at your comedy?"

"No, ma'am; but she laughs at nothing."

"Try her with one of your tragedies, my lad."

"I am sure, James," said the poor, good, lackadaisical woman, "if I don't laugh, it is not for want of the will. I used to be a very hearty laugher," whined she; "but I haven't laughed this two years."

"Oh, indeed!" said the Woffington. "Then the next two years you shall do nothing else."

"Ah, madam!" said Triplet. "That passes the art, even of the great comedian."

"Does it?" said the actress, coolly.

_Lucy._ "She is not a comedy lady. You don't ever cry, pretty lady?"

_Woffington_ (ironically). "Oh, of course not."

_Lucy_ (confidentially). "Comedy is crying. Father cried all the time he was writing his one."

Triplet turned red as fire.

"Hold your tongue," said he. "I was bursting with merriment. Wife, our children talk too much; they put their noses into everything, and criticise their own father."

"Unnatural offspring!" laughed the visitor.

"And when they take up a notion, Socrates couldn't convince them to the contrary. For instance, madam, all this morning they thought fit to assume that they were starving."

"So we were," said Lysimachus, "until the angel came; and the devil went for the pie."

"There--there--there! Now, you mark my words; we shall never get that idea out of their heads--"

"Until," said Mrs. Woffington, lumping a huge cut of pie into Roxalana's plate, "we put a very different idea into their stomachs." This and 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.