Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 1.djvu/162

144 with tattered clothes and a dirty old veil, and altogether in so sorry a plight, that at first I knew her not; but when I recognised her, I asked her how she came in such a state. “O my sister,” answered she, “talking profits not now: the pen hath written what was decreed.” Then I sent her to the bath and clothed her in a suit of my own and entreated her kindly and said to her, “O my sister, thou standest to me in the stead of my father and mother; and God has blessed me in the share of the inheritance that fell to me and prospered it to me, so that I am now in flourishing case; and thou shalt share with me in my increase.” So she abode with me a whole year, during which time we were much concerned to know what was become of our other sister. At last, she too came back to me, in a worse plight than the other, and I dealt still more kindly by her than by the first, and each of them had a share of my substance. After awhile, they said to me, “O sister, we desire to marry again, for we can no longer endure to live without husbands.” “O my dear ones,” answered I, “there is no good in marriage, for now-a-days good men are rare to find; nor do I see the advantage of marrying again, since ye have already made trial of matrimony and it has profited you nothing.” They would not listen to me, but married without my consent; nevertheless I equipped them and portioned them with my own money and they went away with their husbands. After a little, the latter cheated them of all they had and went away and left them. Then they came to me, in abject case, and made their excuses to me, saying, “Do not reproach us; thou art younger than we, but riper of wit, so take us as thy handmaids, that we may eat our mouthful; and we will never again speak of marriage.” Quoth I, “Ye are welcome, O my sisters: there is nothing dearer to me than you.” And I took them in and redoubled in