Page:A strange, sad comedy (IA strangesadcomedy00seawiala).pdf/141

Rh Shrewsbury. Within a day or two the Colonel and Letty, and their two guests, set out one afternoon for Shrewsbury to pay their first call.

Instead of the picturesque shabbiness of Corbin Hall, Shrewsbury was in perfect repair. It was a fine old country house, and when they drove up to the door, it had an air of having been newly furbished up outside and in that was extremely displeasing to the Colonel.

"Romaine is an iconoclast, I see," he remarked, fretfully. "He is possessed with that modern devil of paint and varnish that is the ruin of everything in these days. The place looks quite unlike itself."

"But does n't it look better than it ever did?" asked Letty, who would have been glad to see some paint and varnish at Corbin Hall. This the Colonel disdained to answer.

They were ushered into a handsome and modernly furnished drawing-room by Mr. Romaine's own man, who wore a much injured expression at finding himself in Virginia and the country to boot. Newport suited his taste much better. The Colonel sniffed contemptuously at the Turkish rugs, divans, ottomans,