La Baudraye. Dinah, attainted and convicted of pedantry, because she
spoke grammatically, was nicknamed the Sappho of Saint-Satur. At last
everybody made insolent game of the great qualities of the woman who
had thus roused the enmity of the ladies of Sancerre. And they ended
by denying a superiority--after all, merely comparative!--which
emphasized their ignorance, and did not forgive it. Where the whole
population is hunch-backed, a straight shape is the monstrosity; Dinah
was regarded as monstrous and dangerous, and she found herself in a
desert.

Astonished at seeing the women of the neighborhood only at long
intervals, and for visits of a few minutes, Dinah asked Monsieur de
Clagny the reason of this state of things.

"You are too superior a woman to be liked by other women," said the
lawyer.

Monsieur Gravier, when questioned by the forlorn fair, only, after
much entreaty, replied:

"Well, lady fair, you are not satisfied to be merely charming. You are
clever and well educated, you know every book that comes out, you love
poetry, you are a musician, and you talk delightfully. Women cannot
forgive so much superiority."

Men said to Monsieur de la Baudraye:

"You who have such a Superior Woman for a wife are very fortunate----"
And at last he himself would say: