h his father.
It not unfrequently came to pass that he found it necessary to
repress the energy of his father's august magnificence. He would go
so far as to remind his father that in these days marquises were not
very different from other people, except in this, that they perhaps
might have more money. The Marquis would fret in silence, not daring
to commit himself to an argument with his son, and would in secret
lament over the altered ideas of the age. It was his theory of
politics that the old distances should be maintained, and that the
head of a great family should be a patriarch, entitled to obedience
from those around him. It was his son's idea that every man was
entitled to as much obedience as his money would buy, and to no more.
This was very lamentable to the Marquis; but nevertheless, his son
was the coming man, and even this must be borne.

"I'm sorry about this chapel at Bullhampton," said the son to the
father after dinner.

"Why sorry, Saint George? I thought you would have been of opinion
that the dissenters should have a chapel."

"Certainly they should, if they're fools enough to want to build
a place to pray in, when they have got one already built for them.
There's no reason on earth why they shouldn't have a chapel, seeing
that nothing that we can do will save them from schism."

"We can't prevent dissent, Saint George."

"We can't prevent it, because, in religion as in everything else, men
like to manage themselves. This farmer or that tradesman becomes a
dissenter because he can be somebody in the management of his chapel,
and would be nobody in regard to the parish church."

"That is very dreadful."

"Not worse than our own people, who remain with us because it sounds
the most respectable. Not one in fifty really believes that this or
that form of worship is more likely to send him to heaven than any
other."

"I certainly claim to myself to be one of the few," said the Marquis.

"No doubt; and so you ought, my lord, as every advantage has been
given you. But, to come back to the Bullhampton chapel,--don't you
think we could move it away from the parson's gate?"

"They have built it now, Saint George."

"They can't have finished it yet."

"You wouldn't have me ask them to pull it down? Packer was here
yesterday, and said that the framework of the roof was up."

"What made them hurry it in that way? Spite against the Vicar, I
suppose."

"He is a most objectionable man, Saint Ge