air-cushion--viz., exhausting the aggressor’s strength without making the slightest impression on her opponent. Mrs. Brahmin had been prepared to find in Mrs. Arundel a dangerous rival, and was ready to defend her position to the death, and to battle _à l’outrance_ for her portion of the Lombard loaves and fishes. But her courage was not destined to be put to the proof, the present being an occasion on which an appeal to arms was unnecessary--diplomacy would suit her purpose better, and on diplomacy, therefore, she fell back. She had not been ten minutes in Mrs. Arundel’s company ere she discovered her weak point--she was unmistakably vain. Accordingly, with artless simplicity, Mrs. Brahmin indirectly praised everything Mrs. Arundel said or did, and Mrs. Arundel straightway suffered her discrimination to be tickled to sleep, took Mrs. Brahmin at her own price, and doted on her from that time forth, until--but we will leave events to develop themselves in their due course. Rose and Mrs. Brahmin were mutual enigmas--neither could comprehend the other. Rose had heard the details of the “Chopimatoo” affair, and all her sympathies were ready to be enlisted in behalf of the interesting widow; but the “sweet simplicity,” cleverly as it was done, did not deceive her. With the instinct of a true nature she felt that it was assumed, and that beneath it lay the real character. What that might be remained to be discovered, and she suspended her judgment till opportunity might afford her a glimpse of that which was so studiously concealed. On the other hand, the character of Rose was one which Mrs. Brahmin could by no means comprehend, perhaps because in its entireness it was beyond and above her comprehension; but parts of it she discerned clearly enough, and most particularly did they puzzle her. For instance, she perceived that Rose had a mind, properly so called--that her ideas and opinions were _bona fide_ the product of her own intellect, and not like those of too many girls, a dim reflex of somebody else’s; but the straightforward, earnest truthfulness of her nature she could by no means fathom, such a quality being essentially foreign to her own disposition; accordingly, she deemed it put on for a purpose, which purpose it behoved her to find out. But her investigations did not prosper well, from the simple fact that _ex nihilo nil fit_: Rose, having nothing to conceal, concealed it effectually. Many and important were the consultations held in the boudoir by this council of three, as to who should, and who should not, be invited. Lady Lombard’s smooth brow grew furrowed with the unwonted demand upon her powers (?) of mind. “Sir Benjamin and Lady Boucher regret exceedingly that a previous engagement prevents their accepting Lady Lombard’s kind invitation for Thursday, the--th.” “Dear me, how _dreadfully_ provoking!” sighed the perplexed “in-vitress.”