m home, and
they directed their steps towards the house, which was not far off. On
reaching it the youth threw a pebble up at a grating, and immediately a
woman-servant who was waiting for them came down and opened the door to
them, and they went in, leaving the party marvelling as much at their
grace and beauty as at the fancy they had for seeing the world by night
and without quitting the village; which, however, they set down to their
youth.

The head-carver was left with a heart pierced through and through, and he
made up his mind on the spot to demand the damsel in marriage of her
father on the morrow, making sure she would not be refused him as he was
a servant of the duke's; and even to Sancho ideas and schemes of marrying
the youth to his daughter Sanchica suggested themselves, and he resolved
to open the negotiation at the proper season, persuading himself that no
husband could be refused to a governor's daughter. And so the night's
round came to an end, and a couple of days later the government, whereby
all his plans were overthrown and swept away, as will be seen farther on.

CHAPTER L.

WHEREIN IS SET FORTH WHO THE ENCHANTERS AND EXECUTIONERS WERE WHO FLOGGED
THE DUENNA AND PINCHED DON QUIXOTE, AND ALSO WHAT BEFELL THE PAGE WHO
CARRIED THE LETTER TO TERESA PANZA, SANCHO PANZA'S WIFE

Cide Hamete, the painstaking investigator of the minute points of this
veracious history, says that when Dona Rodriguez left her own room to go
to Don Quixote's, another duenna who slept with her observed her, and as
all duennas are fond of prying, listening, and sniffing, she followed her
so silently that the good Rodriguez never perceived it; and as soon as
the duenna saw her enter Don Quixote's room, not to fail in a duenna's
invariable practice of tattling, she hurried off that instant to report
to the duchess how Dona Rodriguez was closeted with Don Quixote. The
duchess told the duke, and asked him to let her and Altisidora go and see
what the said duenna wanted with Don Quixote. The duke gave them leave,
and the pair cautiously and quietly crept to the door of the room and
posted themselves so close to it that they could hear all that was said
inside. But when the duchess heard how the Rodriguez had made public the
Aranjuez of her issues she could not restrain herself, nor Altisidora
either; and so, filled with rage and thirsting for vengeance, they burst
into the room and tormented Don Quixote and flogged the d