"i tell you, my dear fellow, aglaya is such an extraordinary, such a self-willed, fantastical little creature, you wouldn’t believe it! every high quality, every brilliant trait of heart and mind, are to be found in her, and, with it all, so much caprice and mockery, such wild fancies indeed, a little devil! she has just been laughing at her mother to her very face, and at her sisters, and at prince s., and everybody and of course she always laughs at me! you know i love the child i love her even when she laughs at me, and i believe the wild little creature has a special fondness for me for that very reason. she is fonder of me than any of the others. i dare swear she has had a good laugh at you before now! you were having a quiet talk just now, i observed, after all the thunder and lightning upstairs. she was sitting with you just as though there had been no row at all."