with a forced smile, “You told me, indeed, that I should find the lady perfectly kind, pleasant, and charming; I am mightily obliged to you!” “All this is nothing,” replied the old woman; “let her go on, you will see other things by and by.”  Then the young lady said to him, “Brother, you are a brave man; I am glad to find you are so good-humoured and complaisant to bear with my little caprices, and that your humour is so conformable to mine.”  “Madam,” replied Backbarah, who was charmed with this address, “l am no more at my own disposal, I am wholly yours, you may do with me as you please.”  “How you oblige me,” returned the lady, “by such submission!  I am well pleased with you, and would have you be so with me:  bring him perfume, and rose-water.”  Upon this, two slaves went out and returned speedily, one with a silver casket, filled with the best of aloes wood, with which she perfumed him; and the other with rose-water, which she sprinkled on his face and hands.  My brother was quite enraptured with this handsome treatment.  After this ceremony, the young lady commanded the slaves, who had already played on their instruments and sung, to renew their concerts.  They obeyed, and while they were thus employed, the lady called another slave, and ordered her to take my brother with her, and do what she knew, and bring him back to her again.  Backbarah, who heard this order, got up quickly, and going to the old woman, who also rose to accompany him and the slave, prayed her to inform him what they were to do with him.  “My mistress is only curious,” replied the old woman softly; “she has a mind to see how you look in a woman’s dress, and this slave, who is desired to take you with her, has orders to paint your eyebrows, to cut off your whiskers, and to dress you like a woman.”  “You may paint my eyebrows as much as you please,” said my brother, “I consent to that, because I can wash it off again; but to shave me, you know I must not permit.  How can I appear abroad again without moustaches?” “Beware of refusing what is asked of you,” returned the old woman, you will spoil your fortune, which is now in as favourable a train as heart can wish.  The lady loves you, and has a mind to make you happy; and will you, for a nasty whisker, renounce the most delicious favours that man can obtain?” Backbarah listened to the old woman, and without saying a word went to a chamber with the slave, where they painted his eyebrows with red, cut off his whiskers, and were going to do the like with his beard..  My brother’s patience then began to fail:  “Oh!” said he, “I will never part with my beard.”  The slave told him, that it was to no purpose to have parted with his whiskers, if he would not also part with his beard, which could never comport with “woman’s dress; and she wondered that a man, who was upon the point of being loved by the finest lady in Bagdad, should be concerned about his beard.  The old woman threatened him with the loss of the young lady’s favour;