s served quite as well to give an air of propriety to the
room as if they had been real duennas."

So saying he leaped off the bed, intending to close the door and not
allow Senora Rodriguez to enter; but as he went to shut it Senora
Rodriguez returned with a wax candle lighted, and having a closer view of
Don Quixote, with the coverlet round him, and his bandages and night-cap,
she was alarmed afresh, and retreating a couple of paces, exclaimed, "Am
I safe, sir knight? for I don't look upon it as a sign of very great
virtue that your worship should have got up out of bed."

"I may well ask the same, senora," said Don Quixote; "and I do ask
whether I shall be safe from being assailed and forced?"

"Of whom and against whom do you demand that security, sir knight?" said
the duenna.

"Of you and against you I ask it," said Don Quixote; "for I am not
marble, nor are you brass, nor is it now ten o'clock in the morning, but
midnight, or a trifle past it I fancy, and we are in a room more secluded
and retired than the cave could have been where the treacherous and
daring AEneas enjoyed the fair soft-hearted Dido. But give me your hand,
senora; I require no better protection than my own continence, and my own
sense of propriety; as well as that which is inspired by that venerable
head-dress;" and so saying he kissed her right hand and took it in his
own, she yielding it to him with equal ceremoniousness. And here Cide
Hamete inserts a parenthesis in which he says that to have seen the pair
marching from the door to the bed, linked hand in hand in this way, he
would have given the best of the two tunics he had.

Don Quixote finally got into bed, and Dona Rodriguez took her seat on a
chair at some little distance from his couch, without taking off her
spectacles or putting aside the candle. Don Quixote wrapped the
bedclothes round him and covered himself up completely, leaving nothing
but his face visible, and as soon as they had both regained their
composure he broke silence, saying, "Now, Senora Dona Rodriguez, you may
unbosom yourself and out with everything you have in your sorrowful heart
and afflicted bowels; and by me you shall be listened to with chaste
ears, and aided by compassionate exertions."

"I believe it," replied the duenna; "from your worship's gentle and
winning presence only such a Christian answer could be expected. The fact
is, then, Senor Don Quixote, that though you see me seated in this chair,
here