DON QUIXOTE

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a merry-making in our street; by night no one could sleep for the music;
the love letters that used to come to my hand, no one knew how, were
innumerable, full of tender pleadings and pledges, containing more
promises and oaths than there were letters in them; all which not only
did not soften me, but hardened my heart against him, as if he had been
my mortal enemy, and as if everything he did to make me yield were done
with the opposite intention. Not that the high-bred bearing of Don
Fernando was disagreeable to me, or that I found his importunities
wearisome; for it gave me a certain sort of satisfaction to find myself
so sought and prized by a gentleman of such distinction, and I was not
displeased at seeing my praises in his letters (for however ugly we women
may be, it seems to me it always pleases us to hear ourselves called
beautiful) but that my own sense of right was opposed to all this, as
well as the repeated advice of my parents, who now very plainly perceived
Don Fernando's purpose, for he cared very little if all the world knew
it. They told me they trusted and confided their honour and good name to
my virtue and rectitude alone, and bade me consider the disparity between