The Three Hundred and Sixty-ninth 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
youngest sister continued her tale:--So when we three maidens and
our mother entered the city about sunset I the youngest said to
them, "We be three Princesses and a Queen-mother: so we cannot
show ourselves in this our condition and needs must we lodge us
in a Khan: also 'tis my rede that we should do best by donning
boys' dress." All agreeing hereto we did accordingly and,
entering a Caravanserai, hired us a retired chamber in one of the
wings. Now every day we three fared forth to service and at
eventide we forgathered and took what sufficed us of sustenance;
but our semblance had changed with the travails of travel and all
who looked at us would say, These be lads. In this plight we
passed the space of a year full-told till, one day of the days,
we three fared forth to our chares, as was our wont, and behold,
a young man met us upon the way and turning to me asked, "O lad,
wilt thou serve in my house?" Quoth I, "O my uncle,[FN#159] I
must ask advice," and quoth he, "O my lad, crave counsel of thy
mother and come and serve in our home." He then looked at my
sisters and enquired, "Be these thy comrades, O lad?" and I
replied "No, they are my brothers." So we three went to our
mother in the Khan and said to her, "This young man wisheth to
hire the youngest of us for service," and said she, "No harm in
that." Thereupon the youth arose and taking me by the hand guided