"Your servant,
"Teresa Panza."
This letter was very entertaining to all the company, especially to the duke and duchess; insomuch that her grace asked Don Quixote whether it would be amiss to open the governor's letter, which she imagined was a very good one? The knight told her that, to satisfy her curiosity, he would open it; which being done, he found what follows:
"I received thy letter, dear Sancho; and I vow and swear to thee, as I am a Catholic Christian, I was within two fingers' breadth of running mad for joy. When I heard thou wert made a governor, I was so transported, I had like to have fallen down dead with mere gladness; for thou knowest sudden joy is said to kill as soon as great sorrow. I had the suit thou sentest me before my eyes, and the lady duchess's corals about my neck,—held the letter in my hands, and had him that brought them standing by me; and for all that, I thought what I saw and felt was but a dream. For who could have thought a goatherd should ever come to be governor of islands? But what said my mother, 'Who a great deal must see, a great while must live.' My lady duchess will tell thee how I long to go to court. Pray think of it, and let me know thy mind; for I mean to credit thee there, by going in a coach.
"Neither the curate, the barber, the bachelor, nor the sexton, will believe thou art a governor; but say it is all juggling or enchantment, as all thy master Don Quixote's concerns used to be; and Sampson threatens to find thee out, and put this maggot of a government out of thy pate, and Don Quixote's madness out of his coxcomb. For my part, I do but laugh at them, and look upon my string of coral, and contrive how to fit up the suit thou sentest me into a gown for thy daughter.
"The news here is, that Berrueca has married her daughter to a sorry painter, that came hither pretending to paint any thing. The township set him to paint the king's arms over the townhall; he asked them two ducats for the job, which they paid him: so he fell to work, and was eight days a-daubing, but could make nothing of it at last, and said he could not hit upon such puddling kind of work, and so gave them their money again. Yet for all this he married with the name of a good workman. The truth is, he has left his pencil upon it, and taken the spade, and goes to the field like a gentleman. Sanchica makes bone-lace, and gets her three halfpence a-day clear, which she saves in a box with a slit, to go towards buying household stuff. But now she is a governor's daughter, she has no need to work, for thou wilt give her a portion. The fountain in the market is dried up. A thunderbolt lately fell upon the pillory: there may they all light! I expect thy answer to this, and thy resolution concerning my going to court.
"Thy wife,
"Teresa Panza."
These letters were admired, and caused a great deal of laughter and diversion; and, to complete the mirth, at the same time the express returned that brought Sancho's answer to Don Quixote, which was likewise publicly read, and startled and delighted all the hearers. Afterwards, the duchess withdrew to know of the page what he had to relate of Sancho's village; of which he gave her a full account, without omitting the least particular.