'There is another thing, too,' said the Curate, 'that apart from his folly about Knighthood, no one would esteem him to be other than a man of excellent judgment.'

Don Quixote at the same time was saying to Sancho: 'Friend Sancho, let us bury all injuries, and tell me when, how, and where didst thou find Dulcinea. What was she doing? What saidst thou to her? What answer made she? How did she look when she read my letter? Who copied it for thee? Tell me all, without adding to it or lying, for I would know everything.'

'Master,' replied Sancho, 'if I must speak the truth, nobody copied out the letter, for I carried no letter at all.'

'Thou sayest true,' said Don Quixote, 'for I found the pocket-book, wherein it was written, two days after thy departure, and I did expect that thou wouldst return for it.'

'I had done so,' said Sancho, 'if I had not carried it in my memory when you read it to me, so that I could say it to a parish clerk, who copied it out of my head, word for word, so exactly that he said that in all the days of his life he had never read such a pretty letter.'

'And hast thou it still by heart, Sancho?' asked Don Quixote.

'No, Sir, for after I gave it, seeing that it was to be of no more use, I let myself forget it. If I remember, it began, Scrubby Queen, Sovereign Lady, and the ending—yours till death, the Knight of the Rueful Countenance—but between these things I put in three hundred hearts, and loves, and dear eyes.'

'All this I like to hear, therefore say on,' said Don Quixote. 'Thou didst arrive; and what was the Queen of Beauty doing then? I daresay thou foundest her threading pearls or embroidering some curious device with golden threads for this her captive Knight.'

'No, that I did not,' said Sancho, 'but winnowing two bushels of wheat in the yard of her house.'

'Why, then,' said Don Quixote, 'thou mayest reckon that each grain of wheat was a pearl, seeing they were touched by her hands. But tell me, when thou didst deliver my letter, did she kiss it? Did she use any ceremony worthy of such a letter? Or what did she?'