"No, I don't! How can they be?"
"In this manner: every devil, be he an evil thought, passion, hate or revenge, a desire to do harm, to lie, to steal, to kill or to run away like a coward—these are all demons to be fought with and overcome, and the oftener we vanquish them, the stronger and better we grow, until at last you—or I—may become something very near an angel."
"I could never be an angel!" she retorted sullenly. "And what's more,
I don't want—"
"You do," said I, "indeed you do, I'm sure, or why should you so hate this devil of yours and fear the beyond? And there is an angel inside you, Diana; I have seen it peep at me through your eyes—"
"Now I think you're talking foolish!" said she petulantly.
"Perhaps so," I nodded, "but 'foolish' is an adjective which in this instance should be an adverb and which we will proceed to make so by the suffix 'ly.' Thus instead of saying, I talk 'foolish,' you must say I talk 'foolishly'—"
"So you do!" quoth she.
"Then I will talk grammar instead, Diana. Pray give me your most careful attention. Yonder is a tree, which is a noun common; the tree is shady, which is an adjective qualifying the noun 'tree,' and casts its shade obliquely, which is an adverb governing the qualifying verb 'casts.'" Thus, as we walked, I proceeded to give her a definition of the various parts of speech with their relation one to another, and found her to be, on the whole, very quick and of a retentive memory. Encouraged thus, I plunged into my subject whole-heartedly and was discussing the difference between transitive and intransitive verbs when she checked me in full career by asking:
"Have you a father and mother?"
"Good heaven!" I exclaimed. "What has this to do with grammar?"