value of their business. Sitting on a bench covered with striped-green
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