at Issoudun, and to redecorate her rooms in various styles--Mediaeval,
Louis XIV., and Pompadour. The young wife found it difficult to
believe that Monsieur de la Baudraye was so miserly as he was reputed,
or else she must have great influence with him. The illusion lasted a
year and a half.

After Monsieur de la Baudraye's second journey to Paris, Dinah
discovered in him the Artic coldness of a provincial miser whenever
money was in question. The first time she asked for supplies she
played the sweetest of the comedies of which Eve invented the secret;
but the little man put it plainly to his wife that he gave her two
hundred francs a month for her personal expenses, and paid Madame
Piedefer twelve hundred francs a year as a charge on the lands of La
Hautoy, and that this was two hundred francs a year more than was
agreed to under the marriage settlement.

"I say nothing of the cost of housekeeping," he said in conclusion.
"You may give your friends cake and tea in the evening, for you must
have some amusement. But I, who spent but fifteen hundred francs a
year as a bachelor, now spend six thousand, including rates and
repairs, and this is rather too much in relation to the nature of our
property. A winegrower is never sure of what his expenses may be--the
making, the duty, the casks--while the returns depend on a scorching
day or a sudden frost. Small owners, like us, whose income is far from
being fixed, must base their estimates on their minimum, for they have
no means of making up a deficit or a loss. What would become of us if
a wine merchant became bankrupt? In my opinion, promissory notes are
so many cabbage-leaves. To live as we are living, we ought always to
have a year's income in hand and count on no more than two-thirds of
our returns."