The Three Musketeers

"You are young," replied Athos; "and your bitter recollections have time to change themselves into sweet remembrances."

asked Felton, with an astonishment which in spite of the empire he held over himself he could not entirely conceal.

"The duke is in love to madness, or rather to folly,"

And she greedily read the following few lines:

"We have only lived up to the present time because we believed each other dead, and because a remembrance is less oppressive than a living creature, though a remembrance is sometimes devouring."

D'Artagnan concealed his face in the bosom of Athos, and sobbed aloud. "Weep," said Athos, "weep, heart full of love, youth, and life! Alas, would I could weep like you!" And he drew away his friend, as affectionate as a father, as consoling as a priest, noble as a man who has suffered much.

"I pardon you," said he, "the ill you have done me. I pardon you for my blasted future, my lost honor, my defiled love, and my salvation forever compromised by the despair into which you have cast me. Die in peace!"

But, it is well known, what strikes the capricious mind of the poet is not always what affects the mass of readers. Now, while admiring, as others doubtless will admire, the details we have to relate, our main preoccupation concerned a matter to which no one before ourselves had given a thought. D'Artagnan

Athos took the paper, returned the pistol to his belt, approached the lamp to be assured that it was the paper, unfolded it, and read: Dec. 3, 1627