"By the beating?"

"There's no occasion for you to be frightened or to open your eyes like
that. There is no question of killing any body. What an idea!"

"Beating," said the canon, smiling, "is like scratching--when one begins
one doesn't know when to leave off."

"Bah! say too that I am cruel and blood-thirsty. I wouldn't have the
courage to kill a fly; it's not very likely that I should desire the
death of a man."

"In fine, child, no matter what objections you may make, Senor Don Pepe
Rey will carry off the girl. It is not possible now to prevent it. He
is ready to employ every means, including dishonor. If Rosarito--how
she deceived us with that demure little face and those heavenly eyes,
eh!--if Rosarito, I say, did not herself wish it, then all might be
arranged, but alas! she loves him as the sinner loves Satan; she is
consumed with a criminal passion; she has fallen, niece, into the snares
of the Evil One. Let us be virtuous and upright; let us turn our eyes
away from the ignoble pair, and think no more about either of them."

"You know nothing about women, uncle," said Remedios, with flattering
hypocrisy; "you are a holy man; you do not understand that Rosario's
feeling is only a passing caprice, one of those caprices that are cured
by a sound whipping."

"Niece," said Don Inocencio gravely and sententiously, "when serious
things have taken place, caprices are not called caprices, but by
another name."