the social battle which, like a war-horse, she scents from afar, drags
him out with her--somewhere--generally, when there is nothing more
exciting on hand, across the way to that bric-a-brac-shop of a house,
where the tawdry elegant, always weary Mrs. Babbington Brooks holds
forth in an ultra-æsthetic style peculiarly her own. There they spend
the entire evening in what mamma softly calls "a sweet communion of
congenial souls," which, being translated according to methods of the
earth, earthy, means simply a tiresome time over cards, the constant
sipping of a pale pink stuff which foams--dissipated looking, but
harmless. This they drink out of dainty little cups somewhat larger than
a thimble. "Fragile art gems," to quote Mrs. Babbington Brooks, "which I
was so wildly fortunate as to find in a curiously jolly shop somewhere
about Venice, the last time I was over on the other side. Ah! how I do
love Venice!"

Now, there is a fair sample of that woman's talk; it is a mystery to me
how she keeps it up. Mamma says that she is "wierdly picturesque;" papa
says (but only to me) that she is "a regular downright fool." But they
are both wrong; she is a woman with a sufficient amount of brains to
know just how easily and successfully so-called sensible people may be
imposed upon; and how readily they can be made use of--stepping stones
to the accomplishment of selfish desires. But she does not fool mamma.
They both use one another to advantage. There is always between them a
tacit little arrangement. Mrs. Babbington Brooks never stops short of
a positive sensation. Her methods are bold, startling, successful. Her
husband, an insignificant looking man, invented something, an air-brake
for railway trains, an improvement on the Westinghouse air-brake,
"Brooks' Unbroken Circuit." This, after years of obscure struggling,
brought them into immediate wealth, but not at once into social notice.
Their first efforts in that direction, or rather, _her_ first