From the foot of that great table, his place by precedence of years, Mr. Ben Meyerburg rose from his Voltairian chair, holding aloft a wineglass like a torch.

“Masseltov, ma,” he said, “and just like we drank to the happy couple who have told us the good news to-day, so now I drink to the grandest little mother in the world. Masseltov, ma.”  And he drained his glass, holding it with fine disregard back over one shoulder for refilling.

Round that table Mrs. Meyerburg’s four remaining sons, towering almost twice her height, rose in a solemn chorus that was heavier than their libations of wine.

“Masseltov, ma.”

“Ach, boys, my sons, ich—­ich—­danke.”  She was quivering now in the edge of tears and grasped tightly at the arms of her chair.

“Masseltov, ma,” said Rebecca Meyerburg, raising her glass and her moist eyes shining above it.  The five daughters-in-law followed immediate suit.  At Miss Meyerburg’s left the Marquis Rosencrantz, with pointed features and a silhouette sharp as a knife edge, raised his glass and his waxed mustache and drank, but silently and over a deep bow.

“Mamma—­mother dear, the marquis drinks to you.”

Mrs. Meyerburg turned upon him with a great mustering of amiability and safely withdrawn now from her brink of tears.  “I got now six sons what can drink to my health—­not, Marquis?”

“She says, Marquis,” translated Miss Meyerburg, ardently, to the sharp profile, “that now she has six sons to drink to her health.”

"Madame me fait trop d’honneur."

“He says, mamma, that it is too great an honor to be your son.”

From her yesterday’s couch of mental travail Miss Meyerburg had risen with a great radiance turping out its ravages.  She was Sheban in elegance, the velvet of her gown taken from the color of the ruby on her brow, and the deep-white flesh of her the quality of that same velvet with the nap raised.

“He wants to kiss your hand, ma.  Give it to him.  No, the right one, dearie.”

“I—­I’m much obliged, Marquis.  I—­well, for one little old woman like me, I got now six sons and six daughters, each one big enough to carry me off under his arm.  Not?”

She was met with immediate acclaim from a large blond daughter-in-law, her soft, expansive bosom swathed in old lace caught up with a great jeweled lizard.

“Little old nothing, ma.  I always say to Isadore you’ve got more energy yet than the rest of the family put together.”

“Ach, Dora, always you children like to make me think I been young yet.”

But she was smilingly tremulous and pushed herself backward in her heavy throne-like chair.  A butler sprang, lifting it gently from her.

Immediately the great, disheveled table, brilliantly littered with crystal, frumpled napkins, and a great centerpiece of fruits and flowers, was in the confusion of disorganization.