" said Samson, "and good Sancho Panza's view of these cases is
quite right."

"Sirs, not so fast," said Don Quixote, "'in last year's nests there are
no birds this year.' I was mad, now I am in my senses; I was Don Quixote
of La Mancha, I am now, as I said, Alonso Quixano the Good; and may my
repentance and sincerity restore me to the esteem you used to have for
me; and now let Master Notary proceed.

"Item, I leave all my property absolutely to Antonia Quixana my niece,
here present, after all has been deducted from the most available portion
of it that may be required to satisfy the bequests I have made. And the
first disbursement I desire to be made is the payment of the wages I owe
for the time my housekeeper has served me, with twenty ducats, over and
above, for a gown. The curate and the bachelor Samson Carrasco, now
present, I appoint my executors.

"Item, it is my wish that if Antonia Quixana, my niece, desires to marry,
she shall marry a man of whom it shall be first of all ascertained by
information taken that he does not know what books of chivalry are; and
if it should be proved that he does, and if, in spite of this, my niece
insists upon marrying him, and does marry him, then that she shall
forfeit the whole of what I have left her, which my executors shall
devote to works of charity as they please.

"Item, I entreat the aforesaid gentlemen my executors, that, if any happy
chance should lead them to discover the author who is said to have
written a history now going about under the title of 'Second Part of the
Achievements of Don Quixote of La Mancha,' they beg of him on my behalf
as earnestly as they can to forgive me for having been, without intending
it, the cause of his writing so many and such monstrous absurdities as he
has written in it; for I am leaving the world with a feeling of
compunction at having provoked him to write them."

With this he closed his will, and a faintness coming over him he
stretched himself out at full length on the bed. All were in a flutter
and made haste to relieve him, and during the three days he lived after
that on which he made his will he fainted away very often. The house was
all in confusion; but still the niece ate and the housekeeper drank and
Sancho Panza enjoyed himself; for inheriting property wipes out or
softens down in the heir the feeling of grief the dead man might be
expected to leave behind him.

At last Don Quixote's end came, after he had receive