DON QUIXOTE

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age of fourteen to fifteen years nobody beheld her but blessed God that
had made her so beautiful, and the greater number were in love with her
past redemption. Her uncle kept her in great seclusion and retirement,
but for all that the fame of her great beauty spread so that, as well for
it as for her great wealth, her uncle was asked, solicited, and
importuned, to give her in marriage not only by those of our town but of
those many leagues round, and by the persons of highest quality in them.
But he, being a good Christian man, though he desired to give her in
marriage at once, seeing her to be old enough, was unwilling to do so
without her consent, not that he had any eye to the gain and profit which
the custody of the girl's property brought him while he put off her
marriage; and, faith, this was said in praise of the good priest in more
than one set in the town. For I would have you know, Sir Errant, that in
these little villages everything is talked about and everything is carped
at, and rest assured, as I am, that the priest must be over and above
good who forces his parishioners to speak well of him, especially in
villages."