"I think it's beautiful," said Gertrude; "but I wish he didn't look so melancholy; it makes me quite sad to see him."
"How old should you think he was?" asked Dr. Jeremy.
"About fifty," said Mrs. Jeremy.
"About thirty," said Gertrude.
"A wide difference," remarked Emily. "Doctor, you must decide the point."
"Impossible! I wouldn't venture to tell that man's age within ten years, at least. Wife has got him old enough, certainly; perhaps I might see him as low as Gertrude's mark. Age never turned his hair grey!—that is certain."
CHAPTER XXXIV.
A NEW ACQUAINTANCE.
To travellers in the United States, a trip from Boston into New York state is an everyday affair, scarce worth calling a journey; but to Dr. Jeremy it was a momentous event, calling the good physician out of a routine of daily professional visits, which, for twenty years, had not been interrupted by a week's absence from home, and plunging him at once into that whirl of hurry, tumult, and excitement, which exists on all our great routes, especially in the summer season.