e, embroidery cushion, and spinning
wheel usually afford, and if to refresh my mind I quitted them for a
while, I found recreation in reading some devotional book or playing the
harp, for experience taught me that music soothes the troubled mind and
relieves weariness of spirit. Such was the life I led in my parents'
house and if I have depicted it thus minutely, it is not out of
ostentation, or to let you know that I am rich, but that you may see how,
without any fault of mine, I have fallen from the happy condition I have
described, to the misery I am in at present. The truth is, that while I
was leading this busy life, in a retirement that might compare with that
of a monastery, and unseen as I thought by any except the servants of the
house (for when I went to Mass it was so early in the morning, and I was
so closely attended by my mother and the women of the household, and so
thickly veiled and so shy, that my eyes scarcely saw more ground than I
trod on), in spite of all this, the eyes of love, or idleness, more
properly speaking, that the lynx's cannot rival, discovered me, with the
help of the assiduity of Don Fernando; for that is the name of the
younger son of the duke I told of."

The moment the speaker mentioned the name of Don Fernando, Cardenio
changed colour and broke into a sweat, with such signs of emotion that
the curate and the barber, who observed it, feared that one of the mad
fits which they heard attacked him sometimes was coming upon him; but
Cardenio showed no further agitation and remained quiet, regarding the
peasant girl with fixed attention, for he began to suspect who she was.
She, however, without noticing the excitement of Cardenio, continuing her
story, went on to say:

"And they had hardly discovered me, when, as he owned afterwards, he was
smitten with a violent love for me, as the manner in which it displayed
itself plainly showed. But to shorten the long recital of my woes, I will
pass over in silence all the artifices employed by Don Fernando for
declaring his passion for me. He bribed all the household, he gave and
offered gifts and presents to my parents; every day was like a holiday or
a merry-making in our street; by night no one could sleep for the music;
the love letters that used to come to my hand, no one knew how, were
innumerable, full of tender pleadings and pledges, containing more
promises and oaths than there were letters in them; all which not only
did not soften me,