Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night - Volume 5.djvu/189

 modesty and the circle of free born women and indulge in idle talk of chambering and wantonness, which beseemeth not people of learning. But the breasts of free-borns are the sepulchres of secrets' and such conversations are in confidence. Moreover, actions are according to intentions, [FN#250] and I crave pardon of Allah for myself and you and all Moslems, seeing that He is the Pardoner and the Compassionate.' Then she held her peace and thereafter would answer us of naught; so we went our way, rejoicing in that we had profited by her contention and yet sorrowing to part from her." And among the tales they tell is one of ABU SUWAYD AND THE PRETTY OLD WOMAN.

Quoth Abu Suwayd, "I and a company of my friends, entered a garden one day to buy somewhat of fruit; and we saw in a corner an old woman, who was bright of face, but her head-hair was white, and she was combing it with an ivory comb. We stopped before her, yet she paid no heed to us neither veiled her face: so I said to her, 'O old woman, [FN#251] wert thou to dye thy hair black, thou wouldst be handsomer than a girl: what hindereth thee from this?' She raised her head towards me"--And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say her permitted say.

When it was the Four Hundred and Twenty-fourth Night,

She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that Abu Suwayd continued: "When I spake these words to the ancient