Hautoy which she handed over to him, amounted to an acknowledged
income of about fifteen thousand francs.

During the early days of her married life, Dinah had effected some
alterations which had made the house at La Baudraye a very pleasant
residence. She turned a spacious forecourt into a formal garden,
pulling down wine-stores, presses, and shabby outhouses. Behind the
manor-house, which, though small, did not lack style with its turrets
and gables, she laid out a second garden with shrubs, flower-beds, and
lawns, and divided it from the vineyards by a wall hidden under
creepers. She also made everything within doors as comfortable as
their narrow circumstances allowed.

In order not to be ruined by a young lady so very superior as Dinah
seemed to be, Monsieur de la Baudraye was shrewd enough to say nothing
as to the recovery of debts in Paris. This dead secrecy as to his
money matters gave a touch of mystery to his character, and lent him
dignity in his wife's eyes during the first years of their married
life--so majestic is silence!

The alterations effected at La Baudraye made everybody eager to see
the young mistress, all the more so because Dinah would never show
herself, nor receive any company, before she felt quite settled in her
home and had thoroughly studied the inhabitants, and, above all, her
taciturn husband. When, one spring morning in 1825, pretty Madame de
la Baudraye was first seen walking on the Mall in a blue velvet dress,
with her mother in black velvet, there was quite an excitement in
Sancerre. This dress confirmed the young woman's reputation for
superiority, brought up, as she had been, in the capital of Le Berry.
Every one was afraid lest in entertaining this phoenix of the