Sylvie  had  good  sense  and  the  spirit  of  trade.  She  advised
her  brother  as  to  his  purchases  from  the  manufacturers,  and
relentlessly  sent  him  off  to  the  other  end  of  France  to  make
a  sou  of  profit  on  some  article.  The  shrewdness,  of  which
every  woman  possesses  more  or  less,  having  no  duty  to  do  for
her  heart,  she  had  utilized  it  in  speculation.  Stock  to  be
paid  for!  this  thought  was  the  piston  that  worked  this  ma-
chine and  gave  it  appalling  energy.  Eogron  was  never  more
than  head-assistant;  he  did  not  understand  his  business  as
a  whole;  personal  interest,  the  chief  motor  of  the  mind,  had
not  carried  him  forward  one  step.  He  often  stood  dismayed
when  his  sister  desired  him  to  sell  some  article  at  a  loss,  fore-
seeing that  it  would  go  out  of  fashion;  and  afterwards  he
guilelessly  admired  her.  He  did  not  reason  well  or  ill;  he
was  incapable  of  reasoning ;  but  he  had  sense  enough  to  submit
to  his  sister,  and  he  did  so  for  a  reason  that  had  nothing  to
do  with  business.  "She  is  the  eldest,"  he  would  say.
Physiologists  and  moralists  may  possibly  find  in  such  a  per-
sistently solitary  life,  reduced  to  satisfying  mere  needs,  and
deprived  of  money  and  pleasure  in  youth,  an  explanation  of
the  animal  expression  of  face,  the  weak  brain,  and  idiotic
manner  of  this  haberdasher.  His  sister  had  always  hindered
his  marrying,  fearing  perhaps  that  she  might  lose  her  in-
fluence in  the  house,  and  seeing  a  source  of  expense  and  ruin
in  a  wife  certainly  younger,  and  probably  less  hideous,  than
herself.
