n his departure should be dressed as a prince of
the blood.

And all the while poor Teresa Panza was receiving her husband's
instructions as to herself and her two children, she was bemoaning and
struggling against their fate in her heart; and at last she burst
into bitter tears. Seeing her in such agony because he had predestined
that their daughter Maria was to marry a mighty count instead of a
poor peasant boy, Sancho tried to soothe her feelings by telling her
that he would try to put off the day of the wedding as long as
possible; and this promise seemed to cheer Teresa Panza to some
extent, for she dried her tears.

Having accomplished so much, Sancho then went back to his master's
house to talk over some things of importance with him.

CHAPTER VI

OF WHAT TOOK PLACE BETWEEN DON QUIXOTE AND HIS NIECE AND HIS
HOUSEKEEPER; ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT CHAPTERS IN THE WHOLE
HISTORY

While Sancho and his wife were flinging proverbs at each other at home,
there was another scene of unrest at Don Quixote's house. The housekeeper
had had a premonition of her master's impending expedition, and soon
perceived by his actions that she had not been alarmed in vain. She and
the niece employed all possible means to restrain him from faring forth;
but to all their admonitions and advice and prayers he made the same
reply: that there must be knights errant in the world to defend the weak
and virtuous and to punish arrogance and sin, and that he was the one to
set the world aright on that score. And when his niece began to bewail
his stubbornness and called down the wrath of heaven upon all tales of
chivalry, he threatened to chastise her for uttering such blasphemies.
Then he burst into a tirade on things and usages pertaining to chivalry,
a discourse so saturated with knowledge that it called forth a cry of
astonishment, a wail of disappointment, and a sigh of pity from the
niece, to whom it suddenly seemed that her uncle had missed his vocation
in life when he did not become a preacher.

This drove Don Quixote to discourse on almost everything under the
sun, and he finished up by reciting poetry, at which the niece became
terror-stricken from superstition, and exclaimed that her uncle knew
everything in the world. She even dared to suppose he knew something
about masonry and could build a house. This daring thought of hers he
immediately corroborated by saying that if he were not so occupied
with dealing out justic