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