'
'Try,' said the duke.
'Shall you see our cousin to-day, George?'
'He is sure to be at the House,' replied the duke, eagerly. 'I tell you
what I propose, Kate: Tancred is gone to the House of Commons to hear
the debate on Maynooth; I will try and get our cousin to come home and
dine with us, and then we can talk over the whole affair at once. What
say you?'
'Very well.'
'We have failed with a bishop; we will now try a man of the world; and
if we are to have a man of the world, we had better have a firstrate
one, and everybody agrees that our cousin----'
'Yes, yes, George,' said the duchess, 'ask him to come; tell him it is
very urgent, that we must consult him immediately; and then, if he be
engaged, I dare say he will manage to come all the same.'
Accordingly, about half-past eight o'clock, the two peers arrived at
Bellamont House together. They were unexpectedly late; they had been
detained at the House. The duke was excited; even Lord Esk-dale looked
as if something had happened. Something had happened; there had been a
division in the House of Lords. Rare and startling event! It seemed
as if the peers were about to resume their functions. Divisions in
the House of Lords are now-a-days so thinly scattered, that, when one
occurs, the peers cackle as if they had laid an egg.
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