herself up to the mark as to the fashions and latest developments of
luxury by an active correspondence with Anna Grossetete, her bosom
friend at Mademoiselle Chamarolles' school.

Anna, thanks to a fine fortune, had married the Comte de Fontaine's
third son. Thus those ladies who visited at La Baudraye were
perpetually piqued by Dinah's success in leading the fashion; do what
they would, they were always behind, or, as they say on the turf,
distanced.

While all these trifles gave rise to malignant envy in the ladies of
Sancerre, Dinah's conversation and wit engendered absolute aversion.
In her ambition to keep her mind on the level of Parisian brilliancy,
Madame de la Baudraye allowed no vacuous small talk in her presence,
no old-fashioned compliments, no pointless remarks; she would never
endure the yelping of tittle-tattle, the backstairs slander which
forms the staple of talk in the country. She liked to hear of
discoveries in science or art, or the latest pieces at the theatres,
the newest poems, and by airing the cant words of the day she made a
show of uttering thoughts.

The Abbe Duret, Cure of Sancerre, an old man of a lost type of clergy
in France, a man of the world with a liking for cards, had not dared
to indulge this taste in so liberal a district as Sancerre; he,
therefore, was delighted at Madame de la Baudraye's coming, and they
got on together to admiration. The _sous-prefet_, one Vicomte de
Chargeboeuf, was delighted to find in Madame de la Baudraye's
drawing-room a sort of oasis where there was a truce to provincial
life. As to Monsieur de Clagny, the Public Prosecutor, his admiration
for the fair Dinah kept him bound to Sancerre. The enthusiastic lawyer