e and show me where your mother is,
for I bring her a letter and a present from your father."

"That I will with all my heart, senor," said the girl, who seemed to be
about fourteen, more or less; and leaving the clothes she was washing to
one of her companions, and without putting anything on her head or feet,
for she was bare-legged and had her hair hanging about her, away she
skipped in front of the page's horse, saying, "Come, your worship, our
house is at the entrance of the town, and my mother is there, sorrowful
enough at not having had any news of my father this ever so long."

"Well," said the page, "I am bringing her such good news that she will
have reason to thank God."

And then, skipping, running, and capering, the girl reached the town, but
before going into the house she called out at the door, "Come out, mother
Teresa, come out, come out; here's a gentleman with letters and other
things from my good father." At these words her mother Teresa Panza came
out spinning a bundle of flax, in a grey petticoat (so short was it one
would have fancied "they to her shame had cut it short"), a grey bodice
of the same stuff, and a smock. She was not very old, though plainly past
forty, strong, healthy, vigorous, and sun-dried; and seeing her daughter
and the page on horseback, she exclaimed, "What's this, child? What
gentleman is this?"

"A servant of my lady, Dona Teresa Panza," replied the page; and suiting
the action to the word he flung himself off his horse, and with great
humility advanced to kneel before the lady Teresa, saying, "Let me kiss
your hand, Senora Dona Teresa, as the lawful and only wife of Senor Don
Sancho Panza, rightful governor of the island of Barataria."

"Ah, senor, get up, do that," said Teresa; "for I'm not a bit of a court
lady, but only a poor country woman, the daughter of a clodcrusher, and
the wife of a squire-errant and not of any governor at all."

"You are," said the page, "the most worthy wife of a most arch-worthy
governor; and as a proof of what I say accept this letter and this
present;" and at the same time he took out of his pocket a string of
coral beads with gold clasps, and placed it on her neck, and said, "This
letter is from his lordship the governor, and the other as well as these
coral beads from my lady the duchess, who sends me to your worship."

Teresa stood lost in astonishment, and her daughter just as much, and the
girl said, "May I die but our master Don Q