“Here comes my mother, hide!” cried Dinah in alarm.  And she hurried forward to intercept Madame Piedefer.

“Mamma,” said she—­this word was to the stern old lady a coaxing expression which never failed of its effect—­“will you do me a great favor?  Take the carriage and go yourself to my banker, Monsieur Mongenod, with a note I will give you, and bring back six thousand francs.  Come, come—­it is an act of charity; come into my room.”

And she dragged away her mother, who seemed very anxious to see who it was that her daughter had been talking with in the boudoir.

Two days afterwards, Madame Piedefer held a conference with the cure of the parish.  After listening to the lamentations of the old mother, who was in despair, the priest said very gravely: 

“Any moral regeneration which is not based on a strong religious sentiment, and carried out in the bosom of the Church, is built on sand.—­The many means of grace enjoined by the Catholic religion, small as they are, and not understood, are so many dams necessary to restrain the violence of evil promptings.  Persuade your daughter to perform all her religious duties, and we shall save her yet.”

Within ten days of this meeting the Hotel de la Baudraye was shut up.  The Countess, the children, and her mother, in short, the whole household, including a tutor, had gone away to Sancerre, where Dinah intended to spend the summer.  She was everything that was nice to the Count, people said.

And so the Muse of Sancerre had simply come back to family and married life; but certain evil tongues declared that she had been compelled to come back, for that the little peer’s wishes would no doubt be fulfilled—­he hoped for a little girl.

Gatien and Monsieur Gravier lavished every care, every servile attention on the handsome Countess.  Gatien, who during Madame de la Baudraye’s long absence had been to Paris to learn the art of lionnerie or dandyism, was supposed to have a good chance of finding favor in the eyes of the disenchanted “Superior Woman.”  Others bet on the tutor; Madame Piedefer urged the claims of religion.

In 1844, about the middle of June, as the Comte de la Baudraye was taking a walk on the Mall at Sancerre with the two fine little boys, he met Monsieur Milaud, the Public Prosecutor, who was at Sancerre on business, and said to him: 

“These are my children, cousin.”

“Ah, ha! so these are our children!” replied the lawyer, with a mischievous twinkle.

PARIS, June 1843-August 1844.

ADDENDUM

The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy.

Beaupre, Fanny
  A Start in Life
  Modeste Mignon
  Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life

Berthier, Madame (Felicie Cardot)
  Cousin Pons