DON QUIXOTE

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on my hands growing up in beauty like the sea-foam; at length, however,
as I had the character of being an excellent needlewoman, my lady the
duchess, then lately married to my lord the duke, offered to take me with
her to this kingdom of Aragon, and my daughter also, and here as time
went by my daughter grew up and with her all the graces in the world; she
sings like a lark, dances quick as thought, foots it like a gipsy, reads
and writes like a schoolmaster, and does sums like a miser; of her
neatness I say nothing, for the running water is not purer, and her age
is now, if my memory serves me, sixteen years five months and three days,
one more or less. To come to the point, the son of a very rich farmer,
living in a village of my lord the duke's not very far from here, fell in
love with this girl of mine; and in short, how I know not, they came
together, and under the promise of marrying her he made a fool of my
daughter, and will not keep his word. And though my lord the duke is
aware of it (for I have complained to him, not once but many and many a
time, and entreated him to order the farmer to marry my daughter), he
turns a deaf ear and will scarcely listen to me; the reason being that as