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Rh mima and little Miss Letty retired to the library. The Colonel took down his family tree, and began gravely to study that perennially entertaining document in order to place the Corbin who was serving as aide-de-camp in the Union army. Miss Jemima, too, was deeply interested, and remarked sagely:

"He is no doubt a great-grandson of Admiral Sir Archibald Corbin, who adhered to the royal cause and was afterward made a baronet by George III."

At that very moment, the Colonel hit upon him.

"That is he, my dear Jemima. General Sir George Corbin, grandson of the admiral and son of Sir Archibald Corbin, second, married to the Honorable Evelyn Guilford-Hope, has one son and heir, Archibald, born May 18, 1842. His father must be dead, and he has but little more than reached his majority. Sister, if he were not in the Federal army, I should be most happy to greet him as a kinsman. But I own to an adamantine prejudice toward strangers who dare to meddle in civil broils."

So had Miss Jemima, of course, who regarded the Colonel's prejudices as direct inspirations from on high.