lady, who for nine years had led the opposition, was so delighted at
the good reception accorded to her son, that she became loud in her
praises of the Muse of Sancerre.

"After all," she exclaimed, in reply to a tirade from Madame de
Clagny, who hated her husband's supposed mistress, "she is the
handsomest and cleverest woman in the whole province!"

After scrambling through so many brambles and setting off on so many
different roads, after dreaming of love in splendor and scenting the
darkest dramas, thinking such terrible joys would be cheaply purchased
so weary was she of her dreary existence, one day Dinah fell into the
pit she had sworn to avoid. Seeing Monsieur de Clagny always
sacrificing himself, and at last refusing a high appointment in Paris,
where his family wanted to see him, she said to herself, "He loves
me!" She vanquished her repulsion, and seemed willing to reward so
much constancy.

It was to this impulse of generosity on her part that a coalition was
due, formed in Sancerre to secure the return of Monsieur de Clagny at
the next elections. Madame de la Baudraye had dreamed of going to
Paris in the wake of the new deputy.

But, in spite of the most solemn promises, the hundred and fifty votes
to be recorded in favor of this adorer of the lovely Dinah--who hoped
to see this defender of the widow and the orphan wearing the gown of
the Keeper of the Seals--figured as an imposing minority of fifty
votes. The jealousy of the President de Boirouge, and Monsieur
Gravier's hatred, for he believed in the candidate's supremacy in
Dinah's heart, had been worked upon by a young Sous-prefet; and for