"Why are you tied so tight in the middle?" Angelica asked at last in a voice that silenced everybody else in the room. "Doesn't it hurt? I mean to have a _good_ figure when I grow up, like the Venus de Medici, you know. I can show you a picture of her, if you like. She hasn't a stitch on her." "She looks awfully nice, though," said Diavolo, "and Angelica thinks she'd be able to eat more with that kind of figure." "Yes," Angelica candidly confessed, looking at her victim compassionately. "I shouldn't think, now, that you can eat both pudding and meat, can you?" "Not to mention dessert!" Diavolo ejaculated with genuine concern. "Mr. Ellis, will you get those children out of the room, somehow," Lady Adeline whispered to the tutor, who had come in for tea. "Is it true, do you think," Mr. Ellis began loudly, addressing Mr. Hamilton-Wells across the room--"Is it true that Dr. Galbraith is going to try some horrible experiments in vivisection this afternoon?" "What is vivisection?" asked Angelica, diverted. "Cutting up live animals to find out what makes them go," said the tutor. In three minutes there wasn't a vestige of the Heavenly Twins about the place. CHAPTER XX. The twins had a code of ethics which differed in some respects from that ordinarily accepted in their state of life. They honoured their mother--they couldn't help it, as they said themselves, apologetically; but their father they looked upon as fair game for their amusement. "What was that unearthly noise I heard this morning?" Mr. Ellis asked one day. "Oh, did we wake you, sir?" Diavolo exclaimed. "We didn't mean to. We were only yowling papa out of bed with our fiddles. He's idle sometimes, and won't get up, and it's so bad for him, you know." "I wish you could see him scooting down the corridor after us," Angelica observed. "And do you know, he speaks just the same at that time of day in his dressing gown, as he does, in the evening in dress clothes. You'd die if you heard him." Another habit of the twins was to read any letters they might find lying about. "It is dishonourable to read other people's letters," Mr. Ellis admonished them severely when he became aware of this peculiarity. "It isn't for us," Angelica answered defiantly. "You might as well say its dishonourable to squint. We've always done it, and everybody knows we do it. We warn them not to leave their letters lying about, don't we, Diavolo?" "That is because it is greater fun to hunt for them," Diavolo interpreted precisely. When Angelica gave a reason he usually cleared it of all obscurity in this way. "And how are we to know what goes on in the family if we don't read the letters?" Angelica demanded. "What necessity is there for you to know?"