window curtains, and a Japanese bowl full of flowers on
the round table among a selection of the newest books; when they heard
the fair Dinah playing at sight, without making the smallest demur
before seating herself at the piano, the idea they conceived of her
superiority assumed vast proportions. That she might never allow herself
to become careless or the victim of bad taste, Dinah had determined to
keep herself up to the mark as to the fashions and latest developments
of luxury by an active correspondence with Anna Grossetete, her bosom
friend at Mademoiselle Chamarolles' school.

Anna, thanks to a fine fortune, had married the Comte de Fontaine's
third son. Thus those ladies who visited at La Baudraye were perpetually
piqued by Dinah's success in leading the fashion; do what they would,
they were always behind, or, as they say on the turf, distanced.

While all these trifles gave rise to malignant envy in the ladies of
Sancerre, Dinah's conversation and wit engendered absolute aversion.
In her ambition to keep her mind on the level of Parisian brilliancy,
Madame de la Baudraye allowed no vacuous small talk in her presence, no
old-fashioned compliments, no pointless remarks; she would never endure
the yelping of tittle-tattle, the backstairs slander which forms the
staple of talk in the country. She liked to hear of discoveries in
science or art, or the latest pieces at the theatres, the newest poems,
and by airing the cant words of the day she made a show of uttering
thoughts.

The Abbe Duret, Cure of Sancerre, an old man of a lost type of clergy
in France, a man of the world with a liking for cards, had not dared to
indulge this taste in so liberal a district as Sancerre; he, therefore,
was delighted at Madame de la Baudraye's coming, and they got on
together to admiration. The _sous-prefet_, one Vicomte de Chargeboeuf,
was delighted to find in Madame de la Baudraye's drawing-room a sort
of oasis where there was a truce to provincial life. As to Monsieur de
Clagny, the Public Prosecutor, his admiration for the fair Dinah kept
him bound to Sancerre. The enthusiastic lawyer refused all promotion,
and became a quite pious adorer of this angel of grace and beauty. He
was a tall, lean man, with a minatory countenance set off by terrible
eyes in deep black circles, under enormous eyebrows; and his eloquence,
very unlike his love-making, could be incisive.

Monsieur Gravier was a little, round man, who in the days of