"Yes," said Diavolo decidedly, "if you were mean enough to expect me to sneak on Angelica."
"Father Ricardo," the latter began energetically, "when you tell a lie do you look straight at a person or just past the side of their heads?"
"I always look straight at a person myself," said Diavolo, gravely considering the priest; "I can't help it."
"It's the best way," said Angelica with the assurance of one who has tried both. "I suppose, grandpapa," she pursued, "when people get old they have nothing to tell lies about. They just sit and listen to them;" and again she looked hard at Father Ricardo, whose face had gradually become suffused with an angry red.
"I should think, Father Ricardo," said Diavolo, observing this, "if you were a layman, you would be feeling now as if you could throttle us?"
But before the poor priest could utter the reproof which trembled on his lips, the door opened and the duke's unmarried daughter and youngest child, the beautiful Lady Fulda, entered, and changed the moral atmosphere in a moment.
Both children rose to receive her tender kisses affectionately.
Their passionate appreciation of all things beautiful betrayed itself in the way they gazed at her; and hers was the only presence that ever subdued them for a moment.
"I like her in white and gold," Angelica remarked to Diavolo when she had looked her longest.
"So do I," Diavolo rejoined with a nod of satisfaction.