He was too rational, indeed, to murmur at this, but he could not avoid feeling depressed by it; for, with the enthusiasm of youth, he was ready to revere his chief as the ideal of mercantile greatness.

He admired his sagacity, decision, energy, and inflexible uprightness, and would have been devoted to him heart and soul, but that he so seldom saw him.

When the merchant was not engaged by business, he lived for his sister, whom he most tenderly loved.

For her he kept a carriage and horses which he himself never used, and gave evening parties to which Anton and his colleagues were not invited.

Gay equipages rolled in one after the other, liveried servants ran up and down stairs, and graceful shadows flitted across the windows, while Anton sat in his little upper chamber, and yearned eagerly after the brilliant gayeties in which he had no part.