prince went to his father and told him all that had happened. "An old
woman! an old woman! always an old woman!" said his father. "You do
nothing but think of old women. How can a strong man like you be so
easily frightened?" However, when he saw that his son was really in
great terror, and that he really believed the old woman would came back
at night, he advised him to say to her, "I will marry you if you can
make yourself a young girl again. How can I marry such an old woman as
you are?"

That night as he lay trembling in bed the little old woman lay there in
place of the dog, crying "Majnun, Majnun, I want to marry you. I have
loved you all these long, long years. When I was in my father's kingdom
a young girl, I knew of you, though you knew nothing of me, and we
should have been married then if you had not gone away so suddenly, and
for long, long years I followed you."

"Well," said Majnun, "if you can make yourself a young girl again, I
will marry you."

Laili said, "Oh, that is quite easy. Khuda will make me a young girl
again. In two days' time you must go into the garden, and there you
will see a beautiful fruit. You must gather it and bring it into your
room and cut it open yourself very gently, and you must not open it
when your father or anybody else is with you, but when you are quite
alone; for I shall be in the fruit quite naked, without any clothes at
all on." In the morning Laili took her little dog's form, and
disappeared in the garden.

Prince Majnun told all this to his father, who told him to do all the
old woman had bidden him. In two days' time he and the Wazir's son