easily imagine the meats a little tough; a suspicion of smoke
somewhere in the sauces; too much pepper, perhaps, or too little salt;
or there might be the graver dissonance of claret not properly
attempered, or a choice Rhenish below the average mark, or the
spilling of some of that Arethusa Madeira, marvellous for its
innumerable circumnavigations of the globe, and for being as dry as
the conversation of the host. These things are not up to the high
level of the dinner; for wherever Aurelia dines, all accessories
should be as perfect in their kind as she, the principal, is in hers.

That reminds me of a possible dissonance worse than all. Suppose that
soup had trickled down the unimaginable _berthe_ of Aurelia's
dress (since it might have done so), instead of wasting itself upon
your trowsers! Could even the irreproachable elegance of your manners
have contemplated, unmoved, a grease-spot upon your remembrance of the
peerless Aurelia?

You smile, of course, and remind me that that lady's manners are so
perfect that, if she drank poison, she would wipe her mouth after it
as gracefully as ever. How much more then, you say, in the case of
such a slight _contretemps_ as spotting her dress, would she
appear totally unmoved.

So she would, undoubtedly. She would be, and look, as pure as ever;
but, my young friend, her dress would not. Once, I dropped a pickled
oyster in the lap of my Prue, who wore, on the occasion, her sea-green
silk gown. I did not love my Prue the less; but there certainly was a
very unhandsome spot upon her dress. And although I know my Prue to be
spotless, yet, whenever I recall that day, I see her in a spotted
gown, and I would prefer never to have been obliged to think of her in