Thus, from the very start Pierrette was hurt by the remarks of her two
cousins,--hurt, she knew not why. Her straightforward, open nature,
hitherto left to itself, was not given to reflection. Incapable of
thinking that her cousins were hard, she was fated to find it out
slowly through suffering. After breakfast the brother and sister,
pleased with Pierrette's astonishment at the house and anxious to
enjoy it, took her to the salon to show her its splendors and teach
her not to touch them. Many celibates, driven by loneliness and the
moral necessity of caring for something, substitute factitious
affections for natural ones; they love dogs, cats, canaries, servants,
or their confessor. Rogron and Sylvie had come to the pass of loving
immoderately their house and furniture, which had cost them so dear.
Sylvie began by helping Adele in the mornings to dust and arrange the
furniture, under pretence that she did not know how to keep it looking
as good as new. This dusting was soon a desired occupation to her, and
the furniture, instead of losing its value in her eyes, became ever
more precious. To use things without hurting them or soiling them or
scratching the woodwork or clouding the varnish, that was the problem
which soon became the mania of the old maid's life. Sylvie had a
closet full of bits of wool, wax, varnish, and brushes, which she had
learned to use with the dexterity of a cabinet-maker; she had her
feather dusters and her dusting-cloths; and she rubbed away without
fear of hurting herself,--she was so strong. The glance of her cold
blue eyes, hard as steel, was forever roving over the furniture and
under it, and you could as soon have found a tender spot in her heart
as a bit of fluff under the sofa.

After the remarks made at Madame Tiphaine's, Sylvie dared not flinch
from the three hundred francs for Pierrette's clothes. During the
first week her time was wholly taken up, and Pierrette's too, by