s "Liabilities."

"Decidedly," said D'Artagnan to himself, "I have struck a good vein.
That star which shines once in the life of every man, which shone for
Job and Iris, the most unfortunate of the Jews and the poorest of the
Greeks, is come at last to shine on me. I will commit no folly, I will
take advantage of it; it comes quite late enough to find me reasonable."

He supped that evening, in very good humor, with his friend Athos;
he said nothing to him about the expected donation, but he could not
forbear questioning his friend, while eating, about country produce,
sowing, and planting. Athos replied complacently, as he always did. His
idea was that D'Artagnan wished to become a land-owner, only he could
not help regretting, more than once, the absence of the lively humor
and amusing sallies of the cheerful companion of former days. In fact,
D'Artagnan was so absorbed, that, with his knife, he took advantage of
the grease left at the bottom of his plate, to trace ciphers and make
additions of surprising rotundity.

The order, or rather license, for their embarkation, arrived at Athos's
lodgings that evening. While this paper was remitted to the comte,
another messenger brought to D'Artagnan a little bundle of parchments,
adorned with all the seals employed in setting off property deeds in
England. Athos surprised him turning over the leaves of these different
acts which established the transmission of property. The prudent
Monk--others would say the generous Monk--had commuted the donation
into a sale, and acknowledged the receipt of the sum of fifteen thousand
crowns as the price of the property ceded. The messenger was gone.
D'Artagnan still continued reading, Athos watched him with a smile.
D'Artagnan, surprising one of those smiles over his shoulder, put the
bundle in its wrapper.

"I beg your pardon," said Athos.

"Oh! not at all, my friend," replied the lieutenant, "I shall tell
you--"

"No, don't tell me anything, I beg you; orders are things so sacred,
that to one's brother, one's father, the person charged with such orders
should never open his mouth. Thus I, who speak to you, and love you more
tenderly than brother, father, or all the world--"

"Except your Raoul?"

"I shall love Raoul still better when he shall be a man, and I shall
have seen him develop himself in all the phases of his character and his
actions--as I have seen you, my friend."

"You said, then, that you had an order likewise,