Once there was a mother who lived all alone with her daughter. One night they had as a guest a man who had supper with them and stayed over night.

The mother had a notion she would like to give her daughter to him in marriage. She said to her daughter. Weh, O mother. I"d like our guest to be my son-in-law, and he would be your husband. and he would give you a wedding dowry, and we should prepare the trousseau and furnishings, and you would marry and conceive and give birth to a baby boy, and I should be a grandmother, and how cute your son would be when he learned to walk, and he would climb the steps up to the roof and on our roof there is no railing, and he would look down at me from the roof and say, Peek, Granny, and he would run down from the roof and die. What a tragedy!

The daughter began to cry the mother began to wail. I sacrifice, I sacrifice. I sacrifice myself for you. In the name of Allah. In the name of Allah.

The guest had been listening to the story in his room upstairs. Now he came down and said. I want my son. My heart is burning for the sake of my son. Why did you kill him?

Embarrassed, the mother said. O father, we were just amusing ourselves.

No, he said, beating one hand on another. I want it to be just as you said, and I want to marry your daughter.

They were very happy and in the morning the contract was signed, and the daughter married, and conceived, and gave birth to a baby boy, and they built a railing around the roof of the house to protect their son, for Allah had given them their hearts" desire.