The intendant of the gardens was extremely surprised to see in the basket a child, which, though he knew it could be but just born, had very fine features. This officer had been married several years, but though he had always been desirous of having children, Heaven had never blessed him with any. He made the gardener follow him with the child; and when he came to his own house, which was situated at the entrance into the gardens of the palace, went into his wife's apartment. "Wife," said he, "as we have no children of our own, God hath sent us one. I recommend him to you; provide him a nurse, and take as much care of him as if he were our own son; for, from this moment, I acknowledge him as such." The intendant's wife received the child with great joy. The following year the queen consort gave birth to another prince, on whom the unnatural sisters had no more compassion than on his brother; but exposed him likewise in a basket, and set him adrift in the canal, pretending this time that the sultaness was delivered of a cat. It was happy also for this child that the intendant of the gardens was walking by the canal side. He carried this child to his wife, and charged her to take as much care of it as of the former, which was as agreeable to her inclination as it was to that of the intendant. This time the Emperor of Persia was more enraged against the queen than before, and she had felt the effects of his anger, as the grand vizier's remonstrances had not prevailed. The next year the queen gave birth to a princess, which innocent babe underwent the same fate as the princes her brothers; for the two sisters, being determined not to desist from their detestable schemes till they had seen the queen their younger sister at least cast off, turned out, and humbled, exposed this infant also on the canal. But the princess, as had been the two princes her brothers, preserved from death by the compassion and charity of the intendant of the gardens. To this inhumanity the two sisters added a lie and deceit, as before. They procured a piece of wood, of which they said the queen had been delivered. Khoonoo-shah could no longer contain himself at this third disappointment. He ordered a small shed to be built near the chief mosque, and the queen to be confined in it, so that she might be subjected to the scorn of those who passed by; which usage, as she did not deserve it, she bore with a patient resignation that excited the admiration as well as compassion of those who judged of things better than the vulgar.