"Poor Cephyse!" said Rose, sighing, and shaking her head sorrowfully.
"After having amused herself so well, and flung away so much money with
Jacques Rennepont, to live in such a place, and support herself by hard
work! She must have courage!"

"Why, indeed, there is a great difference between that closet and the
coach-and-four in which Cephyse came to fetch you the other day, with all
the fine masks, that looked so gay--particularly the fat man in the
silver paper helmet, with the plume and the top boots. What a jolly
fellow!"

"Yes, Ninny Moulin. There is no one like him to dance the forbidden
fruit. You should see him with Cephyse, the Bacchanal Queen. Poor
laughing, noisy thing!--the only noise she makes now is crying."

"Oh! these young people--these young people!" said the greengrocer.

"Easy, Mother Arsene; you were young once."

"I hardly know. I have always thought myself much the same as I am now."

"And your lovers, Mother Arsene?"

"Lovers! Oh, yes! I was too ugly for that--and too well taken care of."

"Your mother looked after you, then?"

"No, my girl; but I was harnessed."

"Harnessed!" cried Rose-Pompon, in amazement, interrupting the dealer.