company ranged themselves as they found it most agreeable.

Then they began to pass around the dusky, piquant, Arlesian
sausages, and lobsters in their dazzling red cuirasses,
prawns of large size and brilliant color, the echinus with
its prickly outside and dainty morsel within, the clovis,
esteemed by the epicures of the South as more than rivalling
the exquisite flavor of the oyster, -- all the delicacies,
in fact, that are cast up by the wash of waters on the sandy
beach, and styled by the grateful fishermen "fruits of the
sea."

"A pretty silence truly!" said the old father of the
bride-groom, as he carried to his lips a glass of wine of
the hue and brightness of the topaz, and which had just been
placed before Mercedes herself. "Now, would anybody think
that this room contained a happy, merry party, who desire
nothing better than to laugh and dance the hours away?"

"Ah," sighed Caderousse, "a man cannot always feel happy
because he is about to be married."

"The truth is," replied Dantes, "that I am too happy for
noisy mirth; if that is what you meant by your observation,
my worthy friend, you are right; joy takes a strange effect
at times, it seems to oppress us almost the same as sorrow."

Danglars looked towards Fernand, whose excitable nature
received and betrayed each fresh impression.