our way be sundry houses whose doors are open and the women sitting in the vestibules of their homes, so that haply thy glance may alight upon some one of them, matron or maid: all sniff up love like water,[FN#86] and we fear for thee lest thy heart be netted in the net of amours." For thirty days, a whole month, I continued to go and come after this fashion but, O our lord the Sultan, at all times and tides I was drowned in thought and wondered in my mind, saying, "What chance caused me forgather with this damsel? What made me marry her? Whence this wealth which is under her hand? How came I to win union with her?" For I knew not the cause of all this. Now, on a day of the days, I found an opportunity of being private with one of her black slave girls[FN#87] and questioned her of all these matters that concerned her mistress. She replied, "O my lord, the history of my lady is marvellous; but I dare not relate it to thee in fear lest she hear thereof and do me die." So I said to her, "By Allah, O handmaid of good, an thou wilt say me sooth I will veil it darkly for in the keeping of secrets there is none like myself: nor will I reveal it at any time." Then I took oath of secrecy when she said, "O my lord,"?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 Fifty-second Night,