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 but, added she, 'I will do my best to please you; though certainly he will either laugh at me, or send me back like a fool, or be in so great a rage as to make us both the victims of his fury.'

She used a great many more arguments to make him change his mind; but Aladdin persisted, and his mother, as much out of tenderness as for fear he should be guilty of some worse piece of extravagance, consented.

As it was now late, and the time for going to the sultan's palace was past, it was put off till the next day. The mother and son talked of different matters the remaining part of the day; and Aladdin took a great deal of pains to encourage his mother in the task she had undertaken; while she, notwithstanding all his arguments, could not persuade herself that she could ever succeed; and it must be confessed she had reason enough to doubt. 'Child,' said she to Aladdin, 'if the sultan should receive me as favourably as I wish for your sake, and hear my proposal with calmness, and after this kind reception should think of asking me where lie your riches and your estate (for he will sooner inquire after these than your person), if, I say, he should ask me the question, what answer would you have me give him?'

'Let us not be uneasy, mother,' replied Aladdin, 'about what may never happen. First, let us see how the sultan receives you, and what answer he gives. If it should so happen that he desires to be informed of all that you mention, I have thought of an answer, and am confident that the lamp, which has assisted us so long, will not fail me in time of need.'

Aladdin's mother could not say anything against what her son then proposed, but reflected that the lamp might be capable of doing greater wonders than merely providing food for them. This satisfied her, and at the same time removed all the difficulties which might have prevented her from undertaking the service she had promised her son; when Aladdin, who penetrated into his mother's thoughts, said to her, 'Above all things, mother, be sure to keep the secret, for thereon depends the success:' and after this caution, Aladdin and his mother parted to go to bed. Aladdin rose at daybreak, and went and awakened his mother, begging her to get dressed to go to the sultan's palace, and to get in first, as the