untess. "I am, in fact,
five-and-thirty, and mean to set up a little passion--"

"Oh, yes, my wife ruins me in curiosities and china images--"

"She started that mania at an early age," said the Marquis de Montriveau
with a smile.

"Yes," said La Baudraye, with a cold stare at the Marquis, whom he had
known at Bourges, "you know that in '25, '26, and '27, she picked a
million francs' worth of treasures. Anzy is a perfect museum."

"What a cool hand!" thought Monsieur de Clagny, as he saw this little
country miser quite on the level of his new position.

But misers have savings of all kinds ready for use.

On the day after the vote on the Regency had passed the Chambers, the
little Count went back to Sancerre for the vintage and resumed his old
habits.

In the course of that winter, the Comtesse de la Baudraye, with the
support of the Attorney-General to the Court of Appeals, tried to form a
little circle. Of course, she had an "at home" day, she made a selection
among men of mark, receiving none but those of serious purpose and ripe
years. She tried to amuse herself by going to the Opera, French and
Italian. Twice a week she appeared there with her mother and Madame de
Clagny, who was made by her husband to visit Dinah. Still, in spite of
her cleverness, her charming manners, her fashionable stylishness, she
was never really happy but with her children, on whom she lavished all
her disappointed affection.

Worthy Monsieur de Clagny tried to recruit women for the Countess'
circle, and he succeeded; but he was more successful among the advocates
of piety than the women of fashion.

"And they bore her!" said he to himself with horror, as he saw his idol
matured by grief, pale from remorse, and then, in all the splendor of
recovered beauty, restored by a life of luxury and care for her boys.
This devoted friend, encouraged in his efforts by her mother and by the
cure was full of expedient. Every Wednesday he introduced some celebrity
from Germany, England, Italy, or Prussia to his dear Countess; he
spoke of her as a quite exceptional woman to people to whom she hardly
addressed two words; but she listened to them with such deep attention
that they went away fully convinced of her superiority. In Paris, Dinah
conquered by silence, as at Sancerre she had conquered by loquacity. Now
and then, some smart saying about affairs, or sarcasm on an absurdity,
betrayed a woman accustomed to deal with ideas--the woman who, fo