the damsel who lived with her; so she acquainted him with her case and what there was in her of beauty and loveliness and perfect grace.  Thereupon the Basha fell in love with the girl by hearsay and without eye-seeing[FN#183]:—­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-sixth Night,

Dunyazad said to her, “Allah upon thee, O my sister, an thou be other than sleepy, finish for us thy tale that we may cut short the watching of this our latter night!” She replied, “With love and good will!” It hath reached me, O auspicious King, the director, the right-guiding, lord of the rede which is benefiting and of deeds fair-seeming and worthy celebrating, that the Basha fell in love with the girl by hearsay and without eye-seeing:  so he changed his habit and donning a dress of Darwaysh-cut left his mansion and threaded the streets passing from house to house until he reached that of the old woman.  He then knocked at the entrance and she came behind it and asked “Who’s at the door?” “A Darwaysh and a stranger,” answered he, “who knoweth no man in this town and who is sore anhungered.”  Now the ancient dame was by nature niggardly and she had lief put him off, but the damsel said to her, “Turn him not away,” and quoting “Honour to the foreigner is a duty,” said, “So do thou let him in.”  She admitted him and seated him when the maiden brought him a somewhat of food and stood before him in his service.  He ate one time and ten times he gazed at the girl until he had eaten his sufficiency when he washed his hands and rising left the house and went his ways.  But his heart flamed with love of the Princess and he was deeply enamoured of her and he ceased not walking until he reached his mansion whence he sent for the old woman.  And when they brought her, he produced a mint of money and a sumptuous dress in which he requested and prayed her to attire the damsel:  then the old woman took it and returned to her protegee, saying to herself, “By Allah, if the girl accept the Basha and marry him she will prove sensible as fortunate; but an she be not content so to do I will turn her out of my door.”  When she went in she gave her the dress and bade her don it, but the damsel refused till the old woman coaxed her and persuaded her to try it on.  Now when the dame left the Basha, he privily assumed a woman’s habit and followed in her footsteps; and at last he entered the house close behind her and beheld the Princess in the sumptuous dress.  Then the fire of his desire flamed higher in his heart and he lacked patience to part from her, so he returned to his mansion with mind preoccupied and vitals yearning.  Thither