As it happened, the Marquis of Trowbridge had never sat in the House of Commons, but he had a son who sat there now. Lord St. George was member for another county in which Lord Trowbridge had an estate, and was a man of the world. His father admired him much, and trusted him a good deal, but still had an idea that his son hardly estimated in the proper light the position in the world which he was called to fill. Lord St. George was now at home at the Castle, and in the course of that evening the father, as a matter of course, consulted the son. He considered that it would be his duty to write to the bishop, but he would like to hear St. George's idea on the subject. He began, of course, by saying that he did not doubt but that St. George would agree with him. "I shouldn't make any fuss about it," said the son. "What! pass it over?" "Yes; I think so." "Do you understand the kind of allusion that was made to your sisters?" "It won't hurt them, my lord; and people make allusion to everything now-a-days. The bishop can't do anything. For aught you know he and Fenwick may be bosom friends." "The bishop, St. George, is a most right-thinking man." "No doubt. The bishops, I believe, are all right-thinking men, and it is well for them that they are so very seldom called on to go beyond thinking. No doubt he'll think that this fellow was indiscreet; but he can't go beyond thinking. You'll only be raising a blister for yourself." "Raising a what?" "A blister, my lord. The longer I live the more convinced I become that a man shouldn't keep his own sores open." There was something in the tone of his son's conversation which pained the Marquis much; but his son was known to be a wise and prudent man, and one who was rising in the political world. The Marquis sighed, and shook his head, and murmured something as to the duty which lay upon the great to bear the troubles incident to their greatness;--by which he meant that sores and blisters should be kept open, if the exigencies of rank so required. But he ended the discussion at last by declaring that he would rest upon the matter for forty-eight hours. Unfortunately before those forty-eight hours were over Lord St. George had gone from Turnover Castle, and the Marquis was left to his own lights. In the meantime, the father and son and one or two friends, had been shooting over at Bullhampton; so that no further steps of warfare had been taken when Mr. and Mrs. Fenwick met the Marquis on the pathway.