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THE ARABIAN NIGHTS
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her happiness in being preferred by your majesty before them, and, to satisfy their envy and revenge, deceived your majesty so easily. If you question them, they will confess their crime. The two brothers and the sister whom you see before you are your own children, whom they sent adrift, and who were taken in by the
keeper of your gardens, who provided nurses for them, and looked after their education.'
This speech of the bird's illumined the sultan's understanding. 'Bird,' cried he, 'I believe the truth of what you tell me. Come then, my children, come, my daughter, let me embrace you, and give you the first marks of a father's love and tenderness.' Then he rose up, and after having embraced the two princes and the
