Some minutes after the meeting of Mother Bunch with the Bacchanal Queen,
the two sisters were alone together in a small room in the tavern.

"Let me kiss you again," said Cephyse to the young sempstress; "at least
now we are alone, you will not be afraid?"

In the effort of the Bacchanal Queen to clasp Mother Bunch in her arms,
the cloak fell from the form of the latter. At sight of those miserable
garments, which she had hardly had time to observe on the Place du
Chatelet, in the midst of the crowd, Cephyse clasped her hands, and could
not repress an exclamation of painful surprise. Then, approaching her
sister, that she might contemplate her more closely, she took her thin,
icy palms between her own plump hands, and examined for some minutes,
with increasing grief, the suffering, pale, unhappy creature, ground down
by watching and privations, and half-clothed in a poor, patched cotton
gown.

"Oh, sister! to see you thus!" Unable to articulate another word, the
Bacchanal Queen threw herself on the other's neck, and burst into tears.
Then, in the midst of her sobs, she added: "Pardon! pardon!"

"What is the matter, my dear Cephyse?" said the young sewing-girl, deeply
moved, and gently disengaging herself from the embrace of her sister.
"Why do you ask my pardon?"

"Why?" resumed Cephyse, raising her countenance, bathed in tears, and
purple with shame; "is it not shameful of me to be dressed in all this
frippery, and throwing away so much money in follies, while you are thus
miserably clad, and in need of everything--perhaps dying of want, for I
have never seen your poor face look so pale and worn."