A fortnight after the visit to the post-office there was a tea-party. Mrs. Harrop, Mrs. Cobb, Mrs. Sweeting, the grocer’s wife, and Miss Tarrant, an elderly lady, living on a small annuity, but most genteel, were invited to Mrs. Bingham’s. They began to talk of Mrs. Fairfax directly they had tasted the hot buttered toast. They had before them the following facts: the carrier’s deposition that the goods came from Great Ormond Street; the lay-figure and what it wore; Mrs. Fairfax’s prices; the little girl; the wedding-ring but no widow’s weeds; the Portsmouth postmark; the French book; Mrs. Bingham’s new gown, and lastly—a piece of information contributed by Mrs. Sweeting and considered to be of great importance, as we shall see presently—that Mrs. Fairfax bought her coffee whole and ground it herself. On these facts, nine in all, the ladies had to construct—it was imperative that they should construct it—an explanation of Mrs. Fairfax, and it must be confessed that they were not worse equipped than many a picturesque and successful historian. At the request of the company, Mrs. Bingham went upstairs and put on the gown. “Do you mind coming to the window, Mrs. Bingham?” asked Mrs. Harrop. Mrs. Bingham rose and went to the window. Her guests also rose. She held her arms down and then held them up, and was surveyed from every point of the compass. “I thought it was a pucker, but it’s only the shadow,” observed Mrs. Harrop. Mrs. Cobb stroked the body and shook the skirt. Not a single depreciatory criticism was ventured. Excepting the wearer, nobody present had seen such a masterpiece. But although for half a lifetime we may have beheld nothing better than an imperfect actual, we recognise instantly the superiority and glory of the realised Ideal when it is presented to us. Mrs. Harrop, Mrs. Cobb, Mrs. Sweeting, and Miss Tarrant became suddenly aware of possibilities of which they had not hitherto dreamed. Mrs. Swanley, the linendraper’s wife, was degraded and deposed. “She must have learned that in London,” said Mrs. Harrop. “London! my dear Mrs. Harrop,” replied Mrs. Bingham, “I know London pretty well, and how things are cut there. I told you there was a French book on the table. Take my word for it, she has lived in Paris. She _must_ have lived there.” “Where is Great Ormond Street, Mrs. Bingham?” inquired Mrs. Sweeting. “A great many foreigners live there; it is somewhere near Leicester Square.” Mrs. Bingham knew nothing about the street, but having just concluded a residence in Paris from the French book, that conclusion led at once to a further conclusion, clear as noonday, as to the quality of the people who inhabited Great Ormond Street, and consequently to the final deduction of its locality. “Did you not say, Mrs. Sweeting, that she buys her coffee whole?” added Mrs. Bingham, as if inspiration had flashed into her. “If you want additional proof that she is French, there it is.”