These words put the grand vizier into a strange agitation. The sultan had some time before signified to him his intention of bestowing the princess his daughter on a son of his; therefore he was afraid, and not without grounds, that the sultan, dazzled by so rich and extraordinary a present, might change his mind. Thereupon, going to him, and whispering him in the ear, he said to him, “Sir, I cannot but own that the present is worthy of the princess; but I beg of your majesty to grant me three months before you come to a resolution. I hope, before that time, my son, on whom you have had the goodness to look with a favourable eye, will be able to make a nobler present than Aladdin, who is an entire stranger to your majesty.” The sultan, though he was very well persuaded that it was not possible for the vizier to provide so considerable a present for his son to make the princess, yet he hearkened to him, and granted him that favour. So turning about to Aladdin’s mother, he said to her, “Good woman, go home, and tell your son that I agree to the proposal you have made me; but I cannot marry the princess my daughter till some furniture I design for her be got ready, which cannot be finished these three months; but at the expiration of that time come again.” Aladdin’s mother returned home much more overjoyed than she could have imagined, for she looked upon her access to the sultan as a thing impossible; and besides, she had met with a favourable answer instead of the refusal and confusion she expected. From two circumstances Aladdin, when he saw his mother return, judged that she brought him good news; the one was, that she returned sooner than ordinary; and the next was, the gaiety of her countenance. “Well, mother,” said he to her, “may I entertain any hopes, or must I die with despair?” When she had pulled off her veil, and had sat herself down on the sofa by him, she said to him, “Not to keep you long in suspense, son, I will begin by telling you, that instead of thinking of dying, you have every reason to be very well satisfied.” Then pursuing her discourse, she told him how that she had an audience before everybody else, which made her come home so soon; the precautions she had taken lest she should have displeased the sultan, by making the proposal of marriage between him and the princess Badr-oul-boudour, and the favourable answer she had from the caliph’s own mouth; and that, as far as she could judge, the present wrought that powerful effect. “But when I least expected it,” said she, “and he was going to give me an answer, the grand vizier whispered him in the ear, and I was afraid it might be some obstacle to his good intentions towards us.”