“I am still young, am I not? Should you not have known me again, in spite of my eight-and-forty years of age?”

“On the contrary, I do not find you the same person at all.”

“I understand,” cried Athos, with a gentle blush.

“Everything, D’Artagnan, even folly, has its limit.”

“Then your means, it appears, are improved; you have a capital house — your own, I presume? You have a park, and horses, servants.”

Athos smiled.

“Yes, I inherited this little property when I quitted the army, as I told you. The park is twenty acres — twenty, comprising kitchen-gardens and a common. I have two horses, —