Page:The Semi-detached House.djvu/258

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250
THE SEMI-DETACHED HOUSE.

rustling disturbed sort of quiet, which is the peculiar result of a regular nurse's exertions, and which is—strange to say—less irritating to the nerves of an invalid than the finished quiet of a lady-like attendant.

Lord Chesterton was extremely pleased with the birth of his grandson, for Arthur was the only heir to his old title and large estates—two possessions which he valued almost equally. He was informed of it at the House of Lords, and actually left that lively assembly in order to drive down to Pleasance, before the important debate on the Trawl and Seine Herring fishing nets was brought to a close, a direliction of public duty which weighed on his conscience; but he tried to atone for it by filling his carriage with red boxes containing minutes about Hospodars, and statements of the wrongs of Dedarkham Bux in the well known cause of the Jaghire of Munnydumdum. Public men keep up to this day the farce of saying that they read these papers. However, the absorbing interest they possessed, did not prevent Lord Chesterton from entering