n Utrecht velvet
placed in a square recess just behind their private counter (the counter
of their forewoman being similar and directly opposite) the brother
and sister consulted as to what they should do. All retail shopkeepers
aspire to become members of the bourgeoisie. By selling the good-will
of their business, the pair would have over a hundred and fifty thousand
francs, not counting the inheritance from their father. By placing their
present available property in the public Funds, they would each obtain
about four thousand francs a year, and by taking the proceeds of their
business, when sold, they could repair and improve the house they
inherited from their father, which would thus be a good investment.
They could then go and live in a house of their own in Provins. Their
forewoman was the daughter of a rich farmer at Donnemarie, burdened with
nine children, to whom he had endeavored to give a good start in life,
being aware that at his death his property, divided into nine parts,
would be but little for any one of them. In five years, however, the man
had lost seven children,--a fact which made the forewoman so interesting
that Rogron had tried, unsuccessfully, to get her to marry him; but she
showed an aversion for her master which baffled his manoeuvres. Besides,
Mademoiselle Sylvie was not in favor of the match; in fact, she steadily
opposed her brother's marriage, and sought, instead, to make the shrewd
young woman their successor.

No passing observer can form the least idea of the cryptogramic
existence of a certain class of shopkeepers; he looks at them and asks
himself, "On what, and why, do they live? whence have they come? where
do they go?" He is lost in such questions, but finds no answer to
them. To discover the false seed of poesy which lies in those heads and
fructifies in those lives, it is necessary to dig into them; and when we
do that we soon come to a thin subsoil beneath the surface. The Parisian
shopkeeper nurtures his soul on some hope or other, more or less
attainable, without which he would doubtless perish. One dreams
of building or managing a theatre; another longs for the honors of
mayoralty; this one desires a country-house, ten miles from Paris with a
so-called "park," which he will adorn with statues of tinted plaster and
fountains which squirt mere threads of water, but on which he will spend
a mint of money; others, again, dream of distinction and a high grade
in the National Gu