of La Hautoy, was any compensation to Dinah on finding herself reduced
to unconfessed penuriousness till 1835.

This sketch of the financial policy of the first Baron de la Baudraye
explains the man completely. Those who are familiar with the manias of
country folks will recognize in him the _land-hunger_ which becomes
such a consuming passion to the exclusion of every other; a sort of
avarice displayed in the sight of the sun, which often leads to ruin
by a want of balance between the interest on mortgages and the
products of the soil. Those who, from 1802 till 1827, had merely
laughed at the little man as they saw him trotting to Saint-Thibault
and attending to his business, like a merchant living on his
vineyards, found the answer to the riddle when the ant-lion seized his
prey, after waiting for the day when the extravagance of the Duchesse
de Maufrigneuse culminated in the sale of that splendid property.

Madame Piedefer came to live with her daughter. The combined fortunes
of Monsieur de la Baudraye and his mother-in-law, who had been content
to accept an annuity of twelve hundred francs on the lands of La
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