At this moment John, the man-servant, approached Mrs.Barton with a gravy-tureen, and also with a slight odour of the stable, which usually adhered to him through his in-door functions.

John was rather nervous; and the Countess happening to speak to him at this inopportune moment, the tureen slipped and emptied itself on Mrs.
Barton's newly-turned black silk.
'O, horror! Tell Alice to come directly and rub Mrs.Barton's dress,' said the Countess to the trembling John, carefully abstaining from approaching the gravy-sprinkled spot on the floor with her own lilac silk.

But Mr.Bridmain, who had a strictly private interest in silks, good-naturedly jumped up and applied his napkin at once to Mrs.Barton's gown.
Milly felt a little inward anguish, but no ill-temper, and tried to make light of the matter for the sake of John as well as others.

The Countess felt inwardly thankful that her own delicate silk had escaped, but threw out lavish interjections of distress and indignation.
'Dear saint that you are,' she said, when Milly laughed, and suggested that, as her silk was not very glossy to begin with, the dim patch would not be much seen; 'you don't mind about these things, I know.

Just the same sort of thing happened to me at the Princess Wengstein's one day, on a pink satin.