supernumerary in the drama of her life. Compelled to bury her wealth
of love, she showed only the surface to the world. Now and then she
would try to rouse herself, try to form some manly resolution; but she
was kept in leading strings by the need for money. And so, slowly and
in spite of the ambitious protests and grievous recriminations of her
own mind, she underwent the provincial metamorphosis here described.
Each day took with it a fragment of her spirited determination. She
had laid down a rule for the care of her person, which she gradually
departed from. Though at first she kept up with the fashions and the
little novelties of elegant life, she was obliged to limit her
purchases by the amount of her allowance. Instead of six hats, caps,
or gowns, she resigned herself to one gown each season. She was so
much admired in a certain bonnet that she made it do duty for two
seasons. So it was in everything.

Not unfrequently her artistic sense led her to sacrifice the
requirements of her person to secure some bit of Gothic furniture. By
the seventh year she had come so low as to think it convenient to have
her morning dresses made at home by the best needlewoman in the
neighborhood; and her mother, her husband, and her friends pronounced
her charming in these inexpensive costumes which did credit to her
taste. Her ideas were imitated! As she had no standard of comparison,
Dinah fell into the snares that surround the provincial woman. If a
Parisian woman's hips are too narrow or too full, her inventive wit
and the desire to please help to find some heroic remedy; if she has
some defect, some ugly spot, or small disfigurement, she is capable of
making it an adornment; this is often seen; but the provincial woman
--never! If her waist is too short and her figure ill balanced, well,
she makes up her mind to the worst, and her adorers--or they do not
adore her--must take her as she is, while the Parisian always insists