was ridiculous in
them she was safe from catching it; but, as often happens, some hue of
what she laughed at remained in the grain.

A Parisian woman sees so many examples of good taste that a contrary
result ensues. In Paris women learn to seize the hour and moment when
they may appear to advantage; while Madame de la Baudraye, accustomed
to take the stage, acquired an indefinable theatrical and domineering
manner, the air of a _prima donna_ coming forward on the boards, of
which ironical smiles would soon have cured her in the capital.

But after she had acquired this stock of absurdities, and, deceived by
her worshipers, imagined them to be added graces, a moment of terrible
awakening came upon her like the fall of an avalanche from a mountain.
In one day she was crushed by a frightful comparison.

In 1829, after the departure of Monsieur de Chargeboeuf, she was excited
by the anticipation of a little pleasure; she was expecting the Baronne
de Fontaine. Anna's husband, who was now Director-General under the
Minister of Finance, took advantage of leave of absence on the occasion
of his father's death to take his wife to Italy. Anna wished to spend
the day at Sancerre with her school-friend. This meeting was strangely
disastrous. Anna, who at school had been far less handsome than Dinah,
now, as Baronne de Fontaine, was a thousand times handsomer than the
Baronne de la Baudraye, in spite of her fatigue and her traveling
dress. Anna stepped out of an elegant traveling chaise loaded with Paris
milliners' boxes, and she had with her a lady's maid, whose airs quite
frightened Dinah. All the difference between a woman of Paris and a
provincial was at once evident to Dinah's intelligent eye; she saw
herself as her friend saw her--and Anna found her altered beyond
recognition. Anna spent six thousand francs a year on herself alone, as
much as kept the whole household at La Baudraye.

In twenty-four hours the friends had exchanged many confidences; and the
Parisian, seeing herself so far superior to the phoenix of Mademoiselle
Chamarolles' school, showed her provincial friend such kindness, such
attentions, while giving her certain explanations, as were so many stabs
to Dinah, though she perfectly understood that Anna's advantages all lay
on the surface, while her own were for ever buried.

When Anna had left, Madame de la Baudraye, by this time two-and-twenty,
fell into the depths of despair.

"What is it that ails you