“I have already said it. ‘In my manse they bestow but one loaf.’”
“Go a-walking with your grand talk! I’d like to know what right you have to deny your sister, even though her life has not been what it ought to be?”
Lucas had turned pale, and his beard trembled with repressed indignation.
“Uncle Bartolo,” he replied, affecting an air of indifference, “the saying is, ‘He that goes away is not counted.’ Let us drop this conversation.”
“I don’t feel disposed to; you may as well understand that. And now, let me tell you that this face of a judge, though it may be the correct one to show to a sinner, is not by any means the one to show to a penitent. Do you comprehend? Your poor little sister is penitent; and you know that
‘He who sins and mends,
Himself to God commends.’”
“I have said that I had no sister.”
“Don’t be stubborn, for God’s sake! Look here now, soul of an ape! How can you say you have no sister, if he has given you one? Lucas, I have come, and I shall not go away until you forgive Lucia.”
“Uncle Bartolo, don’t pledge yourself to what you cannot accomplish.”
“You are your father’s own son—the one and the other harder-headed than oxen. Juan Garcia and Lucas Garcia: there’s a pair fit for a cart!”