re than ever a rotten borough of royalism. Monsieur de Clagny,
whose talents and modesty were more and more highly appreciated by the
authorities, gave Monsieur de la Baudraye his support; he pointed
out that by raising this enterprising agriculturist to the peerage, a
guarantee would be offered to such important undertakings.

Monsieur de la Baudraye, then, a Count, a Peer of France, and Commander
of the Legion of Honor, was vain enough to wish to cut a figure with
a wife and handsomely appointed house.--"He wanted to enjoy life," he
said.

He therefore addressed a letter to his wife, dictated by Monsieur de
Clagny, begging her to live under his roof and to furnish the house,
giving play to the taste of which the evidences, he said, had charmed
him at the Chateau d'Anzy. The newly made Count pointed out to his wife
that while the interests of their property forbade his leaving Sancerre,
the education of their boys required her presence in Paris. The
accommodating husband desired Monsieur de Clagny to place sixty thousand
francs at the disposal of Madame la Comtesse for the interior decoration
of their mansion, requesting that she would have a marble tablet
inserted over the gateway with the inscription: _Hotel de la Baudraye_.

He then accounted to his wife for the money derived from the estate of
Silas Piedefer, told her of the investment at four and a half per cent
of the eight hundred thousand francs he had brought from New York, and
allowed her that income for her expenses, including the education of the
children. As he would be compelled to stay in Paris during some part of
the session of the House of Peers, he requested his wife to reserve for
him a little suite of rooms in an _entresol_ over the kitchens.

"Bless me! why, he is growing young again--a gentleman!--a
magnifico!--What will he become next? It is quite alarming," said Madame
de la Baudraye.

"He now fulfils all your wishes at the age of twenty," replied the
lawyer.

The comparison of her future prospects with her present position was
unendurable to Dinah. Only the day before, Anna de Fontaine had
turned her head away in order to avoid seeing her bosom friend at the
Chamarolles' school.

"I am a countess," said Dinah to herself. "I shall have the peer's blue
hammer-cloth on my carriage, and the leaders of the literary world in my
drawing-room--and I will look at her!"--And it was this little triumph
that told with all its weight at the moment o