Eh?
So we shall amuse and instruct ourselves." Clarence smiled.

These sporadic moments of instruction and admonition were not unusual to the good Father.

He cheerfully seated himself at the Padre's table before a blank sheet of paper, with a pen in his hand.
Father Sobriente paced the apartment, with his usual heavy but noiseless tread.

To his surprise, the good priest, after an exhaustive pinch of snuff, blew his nose, and began, in his most lugubrious style of pulpit exhortation:-- "It has been written that the sins of the father shall be visited upon the children, and the unthinking and worldly have sought refuge from this law by declaring it harsh and cruel.

Miserable and blind! For do we not see that the wicked man, who in the pride of his power and vainglory is willing to risk punishment to HIMSELF--and believes it to be courage--must pause before the awful mandate that condemns an equal suffering to those he loves, which he cannot withhold or suffer for?
In the spectacle of these innocents struggling against disgrace, perhaps disease, poverty, or desertion, what avails his haughty, all-defying spirit?
Let us imagine, Clarence." "Sir ?" said the literal Clarence, pausing in his exercise.
"I mean," continued the priest, with a slight cough, "let the thoughtful man picture a father: a desperate, self-willed man, who scorned the laws of God and society--keeping only faith with a miserable subterfuge he called 'honor,' and relying only on his own courage and his knowledge of human weakness.