wing how much I need your tenderness, consolation, and pity."

At these words, the other half raised herself on the mattress, and
looked at Mdlle. de Cardoville in amazement. She could scarcely believe
what she heard; far from designing to intrude upon her confidence, it
was her protectress who was to make the painful confession, and who came
to implore pity and consolation from her!

"What!" stammered she; "you, lady!"

"I come to tell you that I suffer, and am ashamed of my sufferings.
Yes," added the young lady, with a touching expression, "yes--of all
confessions, I am about to make the most painful--I love--and I blush
for my love."

"Like myself!" cried Mother Bunch, involuntarily, clasping her hands
together.

"I love," resumed Adrienne, with a long-pent-up grief; "I love, and am
not beloved--and my love is miserable, is impossible--it consumes me--it
kills me--and I dare not confide to any one the fatal secret!"

"Like me," repeated the other, with a fixed look. "She--a queen in
beauty, rank, wealth, intelligence--suffers like me. Like me, poor
unfortunate creature! she loves, and is not loved again."

"Well, yes! like you, I love and am not loved again," cried Mdlle. de
Cardoville; "was I wrong in saying, that to you alone I could confide
my secret--because, having suffered the same pangs, you alone can pity
them?"

"Then, lady," said Mother Bunch, casting down her eyes, and recovering
from her first amazement, "you knew--"

"I knew all, my poor child--but never should I have mentioned your
secret, had I not had one to entrust you with, of a still more painful
nature. Yours is cruel, but mine is humiliating. Oh, my sister!" added
Mdlle. de Cardoville, in a tone impossible to describe, "misfortune,
you, see, blends and confounds together what are called distinctions of
rank and fortune--and often those whom the world envies are reduced by
suffering far below the poorest and most humble, and have to seek from
the latter pity and consolation."

Then, drying her tears, which nosy flowed abundantly, Mdlle. de
Cardoville resumed, in a voice of emotion: "Come, sister! courage,
courage! let us love and sustain each other. Let this sad and mysterious
bond unite us forever."

"Oh, lady! forgive me. But now that you know the secret of my life,"
said the workgirl, casting down her eyes, and unable to vanquish
her confusion, "it seems to me, that I can never look at you without
blushing."

"And why? because