"I don't think the tone was in the least arrogant," Angelica put in briskly; "and, at any rate, it's your own tone exactly, for I've heard you say as much and more, speaking of the priesthood."
"Not exactly," Diavolo corrected her. "Father Ricardo always says: 'Heaven, for some great inscrutable purpose, has mercifully vouchsafed this wondrous power to us, poor'—or humble or unworthy; the first adjective of that kind he can catch—'priests.' I like the short way of putting it myself."
"But why do you always try to make out that it is our duty to be miserable sinners?" Angelica asked.
"If we taught ourselves to be happy in this world, we should grow to love it too much, and then we should not strive to win the next."
"And that would impoverish the Church?" Diavolo suggested.
"But why not let us be happy, and you raise money in some other way?" Angelica wanted to know. "Miracles—now I should try some miracles; a miracle must be much better than a bazaar to raise the funds."
"Oh, but you forget the nunneries Father Ricardo was telling us about the other day," Diavolo said; "the austere orders where they only live a few years, you know."
"I had forgotten for the moment, but I read up the subject at the time, and found out that when the nuns die all their money remains in the Church; is that what you mean?" said the practical Angelica.
"Yes," said Diavolo. "You see, it would hardly cost ten shillings a week to keep a nun, and of course," he said to Father Ricardo, "the more fasting you counsel the less outlay there would be; so I don't wonder you promise them more goodies in the next world, the more austerities they practise in this."
"It must really work like a provision of nature for the enrichment of Holy Church—so many nuns worked off on the prayer and fasting mill per annum, so many unencumbered fortunes added to the establishment," Angelica observed.