to stop this nimble tongue by an epigram,
"in Perfidious Albion, as the _Constitutionnel_ has it, you may happen
to meet a charming woman in any part of the kingdom."

"But charming _English_ women!" replied Madame de la Baudraye with
a smile. "Here is my mother, I will introduce you," said she, seeing
Madame Piedefer coming towards them.

Having introduced the two Paris lions to the ambitious skeleton that
called itself woman under the name of Madame Piedefer--a tall, lean
personage, with a red face, teeth that were doubtfully genuine, and hair
that was undoubtedly dyed, Dinah left her visitors to themselves for a
few minutes.

"Well," said Gatien to Lousteau, "what do you think of her?"

"I think that the clever woman of Sancerre is simply the greatest
chatterbox," replied the journalist.

"A woman who wants to see you deputy!" cried Gatien. "An angel!"

"Forgive me, I forgot you were in love with her," said Lousteau.
"Forgive the cynicism of an old scamp.--Ask Bianchon; I have no
illusions left. I see things as they are. The woman has evidently dried
up her mother like a partridge left to roast at too fierce a fire."

Gatien de Boirouge contrived to let Madame de la Baudraye know what
the journalist had said of her in the course of the dinner, which was
copious, not to say splendid, and the lady took care not to talk
too much while it was proceeding. This lack of conversation betrayed
Gatien's indiscretion. Etienne tried to regain his footing, but all
Dinah's advances were directed to Bianchon.

However, half-way through the evening, the Baroness was gracious to
Lousteau again. Have you never observed what great meanness may
be committed for small ends? Thus the haughty Dinah, who would not
sacrifice herself for a fool, who in the depths of the country led such
a wretched life of struggles, of suppressed rebellion, of unuttered
poetry, who to get away from Lousteau had climbed the highest and
steepest peak of her scorn, and who would not have come down if she
had seen the sham Byron at her feet, suddenly stepped off it as she
recollected her album.

Madame de la Baudraye had caught the mania for autographs; she possessed
an oblong volume which deserved the name of album better than most, as
two-thirds of the pages were still blank. The Baronne de Fontaine, who
had kept it for three months, had with great difficulty obtained a line
from Rossini, six bars written by Meyerbeer, the four lines that Victor
Hug