to me he was handsomer than all the fine youths I saw."

"Then tell me, Haidee, do you believe you shall be able to accustom
yourself to our present mode of life?"

"Shall I see you?"

"Every day."

"Then what do you fear, my lord?"

"You might find it dull."

"No, my lord. In the morning, I shall rejoice in the prospect of your
coming, and in the evening dwell with delight on the happiness I have
enjoyed in your presence; then too, when alone, I can call forth mighty
pictures of the past, see vast horizons bounded only by the towering
mountains of Pindus and Olympus. Oh, believe me, that when three great
passions, such as sorrow, love, and gratitude fill the heart, ennui can
find no place."

"You are a worthy daughter of Epirus, Haidee, and your charming and
poetical ideas prove well your descent from that race of goddesses who
claim your country as their birthplace. Depend on my care to see
that your youth is not blighted, or suffered to pass away in ungenial
solitude; and of this be well assured, that if you love me as a father,
I love you as a child."

"You are wrong, my lord. The love I have for you is very different from
the love I had for my father. My father died, but I did not die. If
you were to die, I should die too." The Count, with a smile of profound
tenderness, extended his hand, and she carried it to her lips. Monte
Cristo, thus attuned to the interview he proposed to hold with Morrel
and his family, departed, murmuring as he went these lines of Pindar,
"Youth is a flower of which love is the fruit; happy is he who, after
having watched its silent growth, is permitted to gather and call it
his own." The carriage was prepared according to orders, and stepping
lightly into it, the count drove off at his usual rapid pace.

Chapter 50. The Morrel Family.

In a very few minutes the count reached No. 7 in the Rue Meslay. The
house was of white stone, and in a small court before it were two small
beds full of beautiful flowers. In the concierge that opened the gate
the count recognized Cocles; but as he had but one eye, and that eye
had become somewhat dim in the course of nine years, Cocles did not
recognize the count. The carriages that drove up to the door were
compelled to turn, to avoid a fountain that played in a basin of
rockwork,--an ornament that had excited the jealousy of the whole
quarter, and had gained for the place the appellation of "The Little
Versailles." It is needless to ad