herself of Mrs. Smith’s German-silver, to add respectability to her soiree, she wholly overlooked Mrs. Smith, who was not invited to partake of the festivities.  This was a slight that no woman of spirit could endure; and though Mrs. Smith’s teapot was German-silver, she resolved to let Mrs. Brown see that she had herself some real Britannia mettle in her composition.  Accordingly when the teapot was sent up the following morning to Mrs. Smith’s apartments, with Mrs. Brown’s “compliments and thanks,” Mrs. Smith discovered or affected to discover, a serious contusion on the lid of the article, and despatched it by her own servant back to Mrs. Brown, accompanied by the subjoined note:—­

    “Mrs. Smith’s compliments to Mrs. Brown, begs to return the
    teapott to the latter—­in consequence of the ill-usage it has
    received in her hands.”

Mrs. Brown, being a woman who piques herself upon her talent at epistolary writing, immediately replied in the following terms:—­

“Mrs. Brown’s compliments to Mrs. Smith, begs to say that her paltry teapot received no ill usage from Mrs. Brown.—­Mrs. B. will thank Mrs. S. not to put two t’s at the end of teapot in future.”

This note and the teapot were forthwith sent upstairs to Mrs. Smith, whose indignation being very naturally roused, she again returned the battered affair, with this spirited missive:—­

    “Mrs. Smith begs to inform Mrs. Brown, that she despises her
    insinuations, and to say, that she will put as many t’s as she
    pleases in her teapot.

    “P.S.—­Mrs. S. expects to be paid 10s. for the injured article.”

Again the teapot was sent upstairs, with the following reply from Mrs. Brown:—­

    “Mrs. Brown thinks Mrs. Smith a low creature.

    “P.S.—­Mrs. B. won’t pay a farthing.”

The correspondence terminated here, the German-silver teapot remaining in statu quo on the lobby window, between the territories of the hostile powers; and there it might have remained until the present moment, if Mrs. Brown had not declared, in an audible voice, at the foot of the stairs, that Mrs. Smith was acting under the influence of gin, which reaching the ears of the calumniated lady, she rushed down to the landing-place, and seizing the teapot, discharged it at Mrs. Brown’s head, which it fortunately missed, but totally annihilated a plaster figure of Napoleon, which stood in the hall, and materially damaged its own spout.  Mrs. Brown, being wholly unsupported at the time, retired hastily within the defences of her own apartments, which Mrs. Smith cannonaded vigorously for upwards of ten minutes with a broom handle; and there is every reason to believe she would shortly have effected a practicable breach, if a reinforcement from the kitchen had not arrived to aid the besieged, and forced the assailant back to her second-floor entrenchments.  Mrs. Smith then demanded a truce until evening, which was granted by Mrs. Brown; notwithstanding which the former lady was detected, in defiance of this arrangement, endeavouring to blow up Mrs. Brown through the keyhole.