you
once before refused. Jacques Rennepont has still, I think, some money
left--we are spending it in follies--now and then giving a little to poor
people we may happen to meet--I beg of you, let me come to your
assistance--I see in your poor face, you cannot conceal it from me, that
you are wearing yourself out with toil."

"Thanks, my dear Cephyse, I know your good heart; but I am not in want of
anything. The little I gain is sufficient for me."

"You refuse me," said the Bacchanal Queen, sadly, "because you know that
my claim to this money is not honorable--be it so--I respect your
scruples. But you will not refuse a service from Jacques; he has been a
workman, like ourselves, and comrades should help each other. Accept it I
beseech you, or I shall think you despise me."

"And I shall think you despise me, if you insist any more upon it, my
dear Cephyse," said Mother Bunch, in a tone at once so mild and firm that
the Bacchanal Queen saw that all persuasion would be in vain. She hung
her head sorrowfully, and a tear again trickled down her cheek.

"My refusal grieves you," said the other, taking her hand; "I am truly
sorry--but reflect--and you will understand me."

"You are right," said the Bacchanal Queen, bitterly, after a moment's
silence; "you cannot accept assistance from my lover--it was an insult to
propose it to you. There are positions in life so humiliating, that they
soil even the good one wishes to do."

"Cephyse, I did not mean to hurt you--you know it well."

"Oh! believe me," replied the Bacchanal Queen, "gay and giddy as I am, I
have sometimes moments of reflection, even in the midst of my maddest
joy. Happily, such moments are rare."

"And what do you think of, then?"

"Why, that the life I lead is hardly the thing; then resolve to ask
Jacques for a small sum of money, just enough to subsist on for a year,
and form the plan of joining you, and gradually getting to work again."

"The idea is a good one; why not act upon it?"

"Because, when about to execute this project, I examined myself
sincerely, and my courage failed. I feel that I could never resume the
habit of labor, and renounce this mode of life, sometimes rich, as to
day, sometimes precarious,--but at least free and full of leisure, joyous
and without care, and at worst a thousand times preferable to living upon
four francs a week. Not that interest has guided me. Many times have I
refused to exchange a lover, who had little or