Friend Teresa⁠—Your husband Sancho’s good qualities, of heart as well as of head, induced and compelled me to request my husband the duke to give him the government of one of his many islands. I am told he governs like a gerfalcon, of which I am very glad, and my lord the duke, of course, also; and I am very thankful to heaven that I have not made a mistake in choosing him for that same government; for I would have Señora Teresa know that a good governor is hard to find in this world and may God make me as good as Sancho’s way of governing. Herewith I send you, my dear, a string of coral beads with gold clasps; I wish they were Oriental pearls; but “he who gives thee a bone does not wish to see thee dead;”

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