fer."

"You are right, Cephyse."

"Let me kiss that beautiful hair for the last time," said Cephyse, as she
pressed her lips to the silky locks which crowned the hunchback's pale
and melancholy countenance, "and then--we will remain very quiet."

"Sister, your hand," said the sewing-girl; "for the last time, your
hand--and then, as you say, we will move no more. We shall not have to
wait long, I think, for I begin to feel dizzy. And you, sister?"

"Not yet," replied Cephyse; "I only perceive the smell of the charcoal."

"Do you know where they will bury us?" said Mother Bunch, after a
moment's silence.

"No. Why do you ask?"

"Because I should like it to be in Pere-la-Chaise. I went there once with
Agricola and his mother. What a fine view there is!--and then the trees,
the flowers, the marble--do you know the dead are better lodged--than the
living--and--"

"What is the matter, sister?" said Cephyse to her companion, who had
stopped short, after speaking in a slow voice.

"I am giddy--my temples throb," was the answer. "How do you feel?"

"I only begin to be a little faint; it is strange--the effect is slower
with me than you."

"Oh! you see," said Mother Bunch, trying to smile, "I was always so
forward. At school, do you remember, they said I was before the others.
And, now it happens again."

"I hope soon to overtake you this time," said Cephyse.

What astonished the sisters was quite natural. Though weakened by sorrow
and misery, the Bacchanal Queen, with a constitution as robust as the
other was frail and delicate, was necessarily longer than her sister in
feeling the effects of the deleterious vapor. After a moment's silence,
Cephyse resumed, as she laid her hand on the head she still held upon her
knees, "You say nothing, sister! You suffer, is it not so?"

"No," said Mother Bunch, in a weak voice; "my eyelids are heavy as
lead--I am getting benumbed--I feel that I speak more slowly--but I have
no acute pain. And you, sister?"

"Whilst you were speaking, I felt giddy--and now my temples throb
violently."

"As it was with me just now. One would think it was more painful and
difficult to die."

Then after a moment's silence, the hunchback said suddenly to her sister,
"Do you think that Agricola will much regret me, and think of me for some
time?"

"How can you ask?" said Cephyse, in a tone of reproach.

"You are right," answered Mother Bunch, mildly; "there is a bad feeling
in such a doubt-