Page 47 (1/1)

"Yes," said Debray, "but then Ostia is only a few leagues from Rome"

"True," said Monte Cristo; "but ould be the use of living eighteen hundred years after Lucullus, if we can do no better than he could?" The two Cavalcanti opened their enor "All this is very extraordinary," said Chateau-Renaud; "still, what I admire the most, I confess, is the marvellous promptitude hich your orders are executed Is it not true that you only bought this house five or six days ago?"

"Certainly not longer"

"Well, I am sure it is quite transforhtly, it had another entrance, and the court-yard was paved and empty; while to-day we have a splendid lawn, bordered by trees which appear to be a hundred years old"

"Why not? I arass and shade," said Monte Cristo

"Yes," said Madame de Villefort, "the door was towards the road before, and on the day of ht me into the house from the road, I remember"

"Yes,an entrance which would allow ate"

"In four days," said Morrel; "it is extraordinary!"

"Indeed," said Chateau-Renaud, "it seems quite miraculous to make a new house out of an old one; for it was very old, and dull too I recollect co for my mother to look at it when M de Saint-Meran advertised it for sale two or three years ago"

"M de Saint-Meran?" said Madaed to M de Saint-Meran before you bought it?"

"It appears so," replied Monte Cristo

"Is it possible that you do not knohom you purchased it?"

"Quite so; my steward transacts all this business for me"

"It is certainly ten years since the house had been occupied," said Chateau-Renaud, "and it was quite melancholy to look at it, with the blinds closed, the doors locked, and the weeds in the court Really, if the house had not belonged to the father-in-law of the procureur, one ht it some accursed place where a horrible crime had been committed" Villefort, who had hitherto not tasted the three or four glasses of rare hich were placed before him, here took one, and drank it off Monte Cristo allowed a short tiular, baron, but the same idea calooht it if my steward had not taken the matter into his own hands Perhaps the fellow had been bribed by the notary"