wer."

"No, certainly, my lord," answered the peasant.

"We are much the nearer," replied Sancho; "go on, friend, for this is an
hour rather for bed than business."

"I say, then," quoth the countryman, "that my son who is to be the
bachelor fell in love with a damsel in the same village, called Clara
Perlerino, daughter of Andres Perlerino, a very rich farmer; which name
of Perlerino came to them not by lineal or any other descent, but
because all of that race are paralytic; and to mend the name, they call
them Perlerinos. Indeed, to say the truth, the damsel is like any
oriental pearl, and looked at on the right side seems a very flower of
the field; but on the left not quite so fair, for on that side she wants
an eye, which she lost by the small-pox; and though the pits in her face
are many and deep, her admirers say they are not pits but graves wherein
the hearts of her lovers are buried. So clean and delicate, too, is she,
that to prevent defiling her face, she carries her nose so hooked up
that it seems to fly from her mouth; yet for all that she looks
charmingly, for she has a large mouth, and did she not lack half a score
or a dozen front teeth she might pass and make a figure among the
fairest. I say nothing of her lips, for they are so thin that, were it
the fashion to reel lips, one might make a skein of them; but, being of
a different color from what is usual in lips, they have a marvellous
appearance, for they are streaked with blue, green, and orange-tawny.
Pardon me, good my lord governor, if I paint so minutely the parts of
her who is about to become my daughter; for in truth I love and admire
her more than I can tell."

"Paint what you will," quoth Sancho, "for I am mightily taken with the
picture; and had I but dined, I would not desire a better dessert than
your portrait."

"It shall be always at your service," answered the peasant; "and the
time may come when we may be acquainted, though we are not so now; and
I assure you, my lord, if I could but paint her genteelness and the
tallness of her person, you would admire: but that cannot be, because
she is crooked, and crumpled up together, and her knees touch her mouth;
though, for all that, you may see plainly that could she but stand
upright she would touch the ceiling with her head. And she would ere now
have given her hand to my bachelor to be his wife, but that she cannot
stretch it out, it is so shrunk; nevertheless, her long guttered nails