clean molten by the fire of grief.  An thou take me in for love and kindness ’tis well and if not I will again fare forth on my wanderings.”  When the old woman heard these words she compassioned the maiden and her heart felt tender towards her, and she cried, “Welcome to thee, O my daughter, sit thee down!” Accordingly she sat her down beside her hostess and the two fell to spinning yarn whereby to gain their daily bread:  and the old dame rejoiced in her and said, “She shall take the place of my daughter.”  Now of this second Princess (quoth Shahrazad) there is much to say and we will say it when the tale shall require the telling.  But as regards the eldest sister, she ceased not clinging to the plank and floating over the sea till the sixth day passed, and on the seventh she was cast upon a stead where lay gardens distant from the town six miles.  So she walked into them and seeing fruit close-clustering she took of it and ate and donned the cast-off dress of a man she found nearhand.  Then she kept on faring till she entered the town and here she fell to wandering about the Bazars till she came to the shop of a Kunafah[FN#171]-maker who was cooking his vermicelli; and he, seeing a fair youth in man’s habit, said to her, “O younker, wilt thou be my servant!” “O my uncle,” she said, “I will well;” so he settled her wage each day a quarter farthing,[FN#172] not including her diet.  Now in that town were some fifteen shops wherein Kunafah was made.  She abode with the confectioner the first day and the second and the third to the full number of ten, when the traces of travel left her and fear departed from her heart, and her favour and complexion were changed for the better and she became even as the moon, nor could any guess that the lad was a lass.  Now it was the practice of that man to buy every day half a quartern[FN#173] of flour and use it for making his vermicelli; but when the so-seeming youth came to him he would lay in each morning three quarterns; and the townsfolk heard of this change and fell to saying, “We will never dine without the Kunafah of the confectioner who hath in his house the youth.”  This is what befel the eldest Princess of whom (quoth Shahrazad) there is much to say and we will say it when the tale shall require the telling.  But as regards the Queen-mother,—­And Shahrazad was surprised by the dawn of day and fell silent and ceased to say her permitted say.  Then quoth her sister Dunyazad, “How sweet is thy story, O sister mine, and how enjoyable and delectable!” Quoth she, “And where is this compared with that I would relate to you on the coming night an the Sovran suffer me to survive?” Now when it was the next night and that was

          The Three Hundred and Seventy-second Night,