dwarf, who played the triangle, and Madame Mère, who beat the great drum, while the learned dog scratched round on the ground as if seeking for his wooden letters. The dog seemed to move with pain, and his hair was spotted with blood. Madame Mère still wore her black mourning, but she had no longer her old plump, comical figure, and her face was not now red but pale. The dwarf, who still wore the embroidered coat of an old French marquis, with a powdered wig, seemed to be somewhat taller, probably because he had become so fearfully thin. He displayed as before his skill in fencing, and seemed to be wheezing out his old boasts, but spoke so softly that I could not catch a word, and it was only by the movements of his lips that I could often observe that he was crowing like a cock.
"While these laughably horrible distorted images moved before my eyes with unseeming haste, I perceived that Laurence breathed more restlessly. A cold shudder ran like frost through all her body, and her beautiful limbs twitched convulsively, as if with intolerable pain. But at last, supple as an eel, she slid and slipped from my arms, stood in a second in the centre of the room, and began to dance, while the mother with the drum and the dwarf with the triangle again raised their softly muffled music. She danced as she had done on the Waterloo
