le breath that one cannot bear to be
near her for a moment; and even my lady the duchess--but I'll hold my
tongue, for they say that walls have ears."

"For heaven's sake, Dona Rodriguez, what ails my lady the duchess?" asked
Don Quixote.

"Adjured in that way," replied the duenna, "I cannot help answering the
question and telling the whole truth. Senor Don Quixote, have you
observed the comeliness of my lady the duchess, that smooth complexion of
hers like a burnished polished sword, those two cheeks of milk and
carmine, that gay lively step with which she treads or rather seems to
spurn the earth, so that one would fancy she went radiating health
wherever she passed? Well then, let me tell you she may thank, first of
all God, for this, and next, two issues that she has, one in each leg, by
which all the evil humours, of which the doctors say she is full, are
discharged."

"Blessed Virgin!" exclaimed Don Quixote; "and is it possible that my lady
the duchess has drains of that sort? I would not have believed it if the
barefoot friars had told it me; but as the lady Dona Rodriguez says so,
it must be so. But surely such issues, and in such places, do not
discharge humours, but liquid amber. Verily, I do believe now that this
practice of opening issues is a very important matter for the health."

Don Quixote had hardly said this, when the chamber door flew open with a
loud bang, and with the start the noise gave her Dona Rodriguez let the
candle fall from her hand, and the room was left as dark as a wolf's
mouth, as the saying is. Suddenly the poor duenna felt two hands seize
her by the throat, so tightly that she could not croak, while some one
else, without uttering a word, very briskly hoisted up her petticoats,
and with what seemed to be a slipper began to lay on so heartily that
anyone would have felt pity for her; but although Don Quixote felt it he
never stirred from his bed, but lay quiet and silent, nay apprehensive
that his turn for a drubbing might be coming. Nor was the apprehension an
idle one; one; for leaving the duenna (who did not dare to cry out) well
basted, the silent executioners fell upon Don Quixote, and stripping him
of the sheet and the coverlet, they pinched him so fast and so hard that
he was driven to defend himself with his fists, and all this in
marvellous silence. The battle lasted nearly half an hour, and then the
phantoms fled; Dona Rodriguez gathered up her skirts, and bemoaning her
f