Page:A strange, sad comedy (IA strangesadcomedy00seawiala).pdf/14

2 shabbiness which is the exclusive mark of gentlemen. His dignified frock-coat was white about the seams with much brushing, and the tall, old-fashioned "stock" which supported his chin was neatly but obviously mended. The furniture in the room was as archaic as the Colonel's coat and stock. A square of rag carpet covered the floor; there had been a Brussels carpet once, but that had long since gone to the hospital at Richmond—and the knob of the Colonel's gold-headed cane had gone into the collection-plate at church some months before. For, as the Colonel said, with a sort of grandiose modesty—"I can give but little, sir, in these disjointed times. But when I do give, I give like a gentleman, sir."

There had been a time, not long before that, when he had been compelled to "realize," as the Virginians euphemistically express it, upon something that could be converted into cash. This was when it became necessary to bring the body of his only son, who had been killed early in the war, back to Corbin Hall—and likewise to bring the dead man's twelve-year-old daughter from the far South, where her mother had quickly followed her father across