"Well, the pastry-cook's family will have nothing to do, except in the way of business, with butcher or baker; but they are very friendly with the grocer, and they have evenings together. Now the two little old maids, who keep the stationer's shop where the post-office is, are very genteel, and have explained to me more than once that they don't feel at home in this quarter, and that their friends are in the West End. But they are not well off, poor things, I fear, and they like to spend an evening now and then with the family of the grocer and the pastry-cook, who are rather proud to receive them, and can give them the best tea and Madeira cake; and both the little ladies assure me that nothing can be more respectable than the families of the pastry-cook and the grocer--for their station in life, they always add." "Oh, of course," Miss Blanchet said, who was listening with great interest as to a story, having that order of mind to which anything is welcome that offers itself in narrative form, but not having any perception of a satirical purpose in the whole explanation. Minola appreciated the "of course," and somehow became discouraged. "Well," she said, "that's nearly all, except for the family of the chemist, who live next to the little ladies of the post-office, and who only know even them by sufferance, and would not for all the world have any social intercourse with any of the others. It's delightful, I think, to find that London is not one place at all, but only a cluster of little Keetons. This one street is Keeton to the life, Mary. I want to pursue my studies deeper though; I want to find out how the gradations of society go between the mothers of the boy who drives the butcher's cart, the baker's boy, and pastry-cook's boy." "Oh, Minola dear!" "You think all this very unpoetic, Mary, and you are shocked at my interest in these prosaic and lowly details. But it is a study of life, my dear poetess, and it amuses and instructs me. Only for chance, you know, I might have been like _that_, and it is a grand thing to learn one's own superiority." "You never could have been like that, Minola; you belong to a different class." "Yes, yes, dear, that is quite true. I belong to the higher classes entirely; my father was a country architect, my stepfather is a Nonconformist minister--these are of the aristocracy everywhere." "You are a lady--a woman of education, Minola," the poetess said almost severely. She could not understand how even Miss Grey herself could disparage Miss Grey and her parentage in jest. "I can assure you, dear, that one of the pastry-cook's daughters, whom I talked with to-day, is a much better educated girl than I am. You should hear her talk French, Mary. She has been taught in Paris, dear, and speaks so well that I found it very hard to understand her. She plays the harp, and knows all about Wagner. I don't. I like her very much, and she is coming here to take tea with us."