inah should become human; for neither of them was so bold as to imagine
that Dinah would give up her innocence as a wife till she should have
lost all her illusions. In 1826, when she was surrounded by adorers,
Dinah completed her twentieth year, and the Abbe Duret kept her in
a sort of fervid Catholicism; so her worshipers had to be content to
overwhelm her with little attentions and small services, only too happy
to be taken for the carpet-knights of this sovereign lady, by strangers
admitted to spend an evening or two at La Baudraye.

"Madame de la Baudraye is a fruit that must be left to ripen." This was
the opinion of Monsieur Gravier, who was waiting.

As to the lawyer, he wrote letters four pages long, to which Dinah
replied in soothing speech as she walked, leaning on his arm, round and
round the lawn after dinner.

Madame de la Baudraye, thus guarded by three passions, and always under
the eye of her pious mother, escaped the malignity of slander. It was so
evident to all Sancerre that no two of these three men would ever leave
the third alone with Madame de la Baudraye, that their jealousy was a
comedy to the lookers-on.

To reach Saint-Thibault from Caesar's Gate there is a way much shorter
than that by the ramparts, down what is known in mountainous districts
as a _coursiere_, called at Sancerre _le Casse-cou_, or Break-neck
Alley. The name is significant as applied to a path down the steepest
part of the hillside, thickly strewn with stones, and shut in by the
high banks of the vineyards on each side. By way of the Break-neck the
distance from Sancerre to La Baudraye is much abridged. The ladies of
the place, jealous of the Sappho of Saint-Satur, were wont to walk on
the Mall, looking down this Longchamp of the bigwigs, whom they would
stop and engage in conversation--sometimes the Sous-prefet and
sometimes the Public Prosecutor--and who would listen with every sign of
impatience or uncivil absence of mind. As the turrets of La Baudraye are
visible from the Mall, many a younger man came to contemplate the abode
of Dinah while envying the ten or twelve privileged persons who might
spend their afternoons with the Queen of the neighborhood.

Monsieur de la Baudraye was not slow to discover the advantage he, as
Dinah's husband, held over his wife's adorers, and he made use of them
without any disguise, obtaining a remission of taxes, and gaining two
lawsuits. In every litigation he used the Public Prosecuto