“Be at ease, dear sister!  I am not ill.  I was up rather late last night, and that makes me a little pale—­but pray do not cry—­it grieves me.”

The Bacchanal Queen had but just arrived, radiant in the midst of the intoxicated crowd, and yet it was Mother Bunch who was now employed in consoling her!

An incident occurred, which made the contrast still more striking.  Joyous cries were heard suddenly in the next apartment, and these words were repeated with enthusiasm:  “Long live the Bacchanal Queen!”

Mother Bunch trembled, and her eyes filled with tears, as she saw her sister with her face buried in her hands, as if overwhelmed with shame.  “Cephyse,” she said, “I entreat you not to grieve so.  You will make me regret the delight of this meeting, which is indeed happiness to me!  It is so long since I saw you!  But tell me—­what ails you?”

“You despise me perhaps—­you are right,” said the Bacchanal Queen, drying her tears.

“Despise you? for what?”

“Because I lead the life I do, instead of having the courage to support misery along with you.”

The grief of Cephyse was so heart-breaking, that Mother Bunch, always good and indulgent, wishing to console her, and raise her a little in her own estimation, said to her tenderly:  “In supporting it bravely for a whole year, my good Cephyse, you have had more merit and courage than I should have in bearing with it my whole life.”

“Oh, sister! do not say that.”

“In simple truth,” returned Mother Bunch, “to what temptations is a creature like me exposed?  Do I not naturally seek solitude, even as you seek a noisy life of pleasure?  What wants have I?  A very little suffices.”

“But you have not always that little?”

“No—­but, weak and sickly as I seem, I can endure some privations better than you could.  Thus hunger produces in me a sort of numbness, which leaves me very feeble—­but for you, robust and full of life, hunger is fury, is madness.  Alas! you must remember how many times I have seen you suffering from those painful attacks, when work failed us in our wretched garret, and we could not even earn our four francs a week—­so that we had nothing—­absolutely nothing to eat—­for our pride prevented us from applying to the neighbors.”

“You have preserved the right to that honest pride.”

“And you as well!  Did you not struggle as much as a human creature could?  But strength fails at last—­I know you well, Cephyse—­it was hunger that conquered you; and the painful necessity of constant labor, which was yet insufficient to supply our common wants.”

“But you could endure those privations—­you endure them still.”