Khacan was pleased with the instructions the merchant gave him, and resolved to abide by them.  He assigned the fair Persian a particular apartment near his lady’s, whom he desired to invite her to an entertainment, and thenceforth to treat her as a person designed for the king:  he also provided for her several suits of the richest clothes that could be had, and would become her best.  Before he took his leave of the fair Persian, he said “Your happiness, madam, cannot be greater than what I am about to procure for you; you shall judge for yourself; it is for the king I have purchased you; and I hope he will be even more pleased with possessing you than I am in having discharged the commission with which his majesty has honoured me.  I think it, however, my duty to warn you that I have a son, who, though he does not want wit, is yet young, insinuating, and forward; and to caution you how you suffer him to come near you.”  The fair Persian thanked him for his advice; and after she had given him assurance of her intention to follow it, he withdrew.

Noor ad Deen, for so the vizier’s son was named, had free access to the apartment of his mother, with whom he usually ate his meals.  He was young, handsome in person, agreeable in manners, and firm in his temper; and having great readiness of wit, and fluency of language, was perfect master of the art of persuasion.  He saw the fair Persian; and from their first interview, though he knew his father had bought her purposely for the king, and had so informed him, yet he never used the least endeavour to check the violence of his passion.  In short, he resigned himself wholly to the power of her charms, by which his heart was at first captivated; and, from his first conversation with her, resolved to use his utmost endeavours to keep her from the king.

The fair Persian, on her part, had no dislike to Noor ad Deen.  “The vizier,” said she to herself, “has done me honour in purchasing me for the king; but I should have thought myself very happy if he had designed me only for his own son.”

Noor ad Deen was not remiss in improving the advantage he enjoyed of seeing and conversing with a beauty of whom he was so passionately enamoured; for he would never leave her till obliged by his mother.  “My son,” she would say, “it is not proper for a young man like you to be always in the women’s apartments; go, mind your studies, and endeavour to qualify yourself to succeed to the honours of your father.”

The fair Persian not having bathed for a considerable time on account of the length of her journey, the vizier’s lady, five or six days after she was purchased, ordered the bath in her own house to be got ready purposely for her.  She sent her to it accompanied by many other women-slaves, who were charged by the vizier’s lady to be as attentive to her as to herself, and, after bathing, to put her on a very rich suit of clothes that she had provided for her.  She was the more careful in order to ingratiate herself with her husband, by letting him see how much she interested herself in every thing that contributed to his pleasure.