one good woman was his own wife, and in this way he would live
happy. I myself am not married, nor, so far, has it ever entered my
thoughts to be so; nevertheless I would venture to give advice to anyone
who might ask it, as to the mode in which he should seek a wife such as
he would be content to marry. The first thing I would recommend him,
would be to look to good name rather than to wealth, for a good woman
does not win a good name merely by being good, but by letting it be seen
that she is so, and open looseness and freedom do much more damage to a
woman's honour than secret depravity. If you take a good woman into your
house it will be an easy matter to keep her good, and even to make her
still better; but if you take a bad one you will find it hard work to
mend her, for it is no very easy matter to pass from one extreme to
another. I do not say it is impossible, but I look upon it as difficult."

Sancho, listening to all this, said to himself, "This master of mine,
when I say anything that has weight and substance, says I might take a
pulpit in hand, and go about the world preaching fine sermons; but I say
of him that, when he begins stringing maxims together and giving advice
not only might he take a pulpit in hand, but two on each finger, and go
into the market-places to his heart's content. Devil take you for a
knight-errant, what a lot of things you know! I used to think in my heart
that the only thing he knew was what belonged to his chivalry; but there
is nothing he won't have a finger in."

Sancho muttered this somewhat aloud, and his master overheard him, and
asked, "What art thou muttering there, Sancho?"

"I'm not saying anything or muttering anything," said Sancho; "I was only
saying to myself that I wish I had heard what your worship has said just
now before I married; perhaps I'd say now, 'The ox that's loose licks
himself well.'"

"Is thy Teresa so bad then, Sancho?"

"She is not very bad," replied Sancho; "but she is not very good; at
least she is not as good as I could wish."

"Thou dost wrong, Sancho," said Don Quixote, "to speak ill of thy wife;
for after all she is the mother of thy children." "We are quits,"
returned Sancho; "for she speaks ill of me whenever she takes it into her
head, especially when she is jealous; and Satan himself could not put up
with her then."

In fine, they remained three days with the newly married couple, by whom
they were entertained and treated like kings.