ere, sour enough
to tear the laces of Parisian finery, and eat out all the poetry of your
Parisian beauties, who undermine the happiness of others while they cry
up their walnuts and rancid bacon, glorify this squalid mouse-hole,
and the dingy color and conventual small of our delightful life at
Sancerre."

"I admire such courage, madame," said Bianchon. "When we have to
endure such misfortunes, it is well to have the wit to make a virtue of
necessity."

Amazed at the brilliant move by which Dinah thus placed provincial life
at the mercy of her guests, in anticipation of their sarcasms, Gatien
Boirouge nudged Lousteau's elbow, with a glance and a smile, which said:

"Well! did I say too much?"

"But, madame," said Lousteau, "you are proving that we are still in
Paris. I shall steal this gem of description; it will be worth ten
thousand francs to me in an article."

"Oh, monsieur," she retorted, "never trust provincial women."

"And why not?" said Lousteau.

Madame de la Baudraye was wily enough--an innocent form of cunning, to
be sure--to show the two Parisians, one of whom she would choose to be
her conquerer, the snare into which he would fall, reflecting that she
would have the upper hand at the moment when he should cease to see it.

"When you first come," said she, "you laugh at us. Then when you have
forgotten the impression of Paris brilliancy, and see us in our own
sphere, you pay court to us, if only as a pastime. And you, who are
famous for your past passions, will be the object of attentions which
will flatter you. Then take care!" cried Dinah, with a coquettish
gesture, raising herself above provincial absurdities and Lousteau's
irony by her own sarcastic speech. "When a poor little country-bred
woman has an eccentric passion for some superior man, some Parisian
who has wandered into the provinces, it is to her something more than a
sentiment; she makes it her occupation and part of all her life. There
is nothing more dangerous than the attachment of such a woman; she
compares, she studies, she reflects, she dreams; and she will not give
up her dream, she thinks still of the man she loves when he has ceased
to think of her.

"Now one of the catastrophes that weigh most heavily on a woman in the
provinces is that abrupt termination of her passion which is so often
seen in England. In the country, a life under minute observation as keen
as an Indian's compels a woman either to keep on the rails or t