A CHESTNUT BURR AND A HOME




CHAPTER I

A HERO, BUT NOT HEROIC



"Shall I ever be strong in mind or body again?" said Walter Gregory,
with irritation, as he entered a crowded Broadway omnibus.

The person thus querying so despairingly with himself was a man not
far from thirty years of age, but the lines of care were furrowed so
deeply on his handsome face, that dismal, lowering morning, the first
of October, that he seemed much older. Having wedged himself in
between two burly forms that suggested thrift down town and good cheer
on the avenue, he appears meagre and shrunken in contrast. He is tall
and thin. His face is white and drawn, instead of being ruddy with
health's rich, warm blood. There is scarcely anything remaining to
remind one of the period of youth, so recently vanished; neither is
there the dignity, nor the consciousness of strength, that should come
with maturer years. His heavy, light-colored mustache and pallid face
gave him the aspect of a _blase_ man of the world who had exhausted
himself and life at an age when wisely directed manhood should be just
entering on its richest pleasures.

And such an opinion of him, with some hopeful exceptions and