CHAPTER III.
DR. CAROLLYN'S BRIDE.
Love me with thy voice, that turns
Sudden faint above me;
Love me with thy blush, that burns
When I murmur, Love me!—Mrs. Browning.
A man had given all other bliss,
And all his worldly worth for this,
To waste his whole heart in one kiss
Upon her perfect lips.—Tennyson.
Nearly seventeen years before the emigrants of 1860 started on their long journey for Pike's Peak, a young physician of New York was one winter twilight making his way up-town, after a fatiguing round of visits, the number of which was evidence of his rising reputation. His elastic step betrayed health and spirits which no ordinary weariness could depress—indeed, there was a joyous eagerness in his manner which might almost betray to the passing stranger that he was a bridegroom returning to his bride. A husband of three months, for whom the honeymoon was still shining, going home to his own elegant house to meet a beautiful and affectionate wife—it was no marvel that his foot rung on the pavement with such an electric tread.
As he turned the corner of Broadway to go up Bleecker, then one of the fashionable streets, and the one upon which his mansion stood, the lamp-light flashed full in his face, and he felt his hand heartily grasped, at the same instant he extended it, and his own "My dear Maurice! is it possible?" cut short by the enthusiastic greeting of his friend.
"Yes, it's really me, myself. I'm just in on the packet from Havre—making my way home. Mother does not expect me for a month yet, and I'm going to give her a surprise. It seems to me you're looking better than ever, Leger, and that's saying a good deal."
"That's my wife's fault."
"Your wife! You don't say you're married?"
"Didn't you receive my letter?"