A Strange, Sad Comedy

A STRANGE, SAD COMEDY
BY MOLLY ELLIOT SEAWELL AUTHOR OF “THE SPRIGHTLY ROMANCE OF MARSAC,” “CHILDREN OF DESTINY,” “MAID MARIAN AND OTHER STORIES” “LITTLE JARVIS,” ETC.
NEW YORK THE CENTURY CO. 1896
Copyright, 1892, by Godey Publishing Co. Copyright, 1896, by The Century Co. All rights reserved THE DE VINNE PRESS.
A STRANGE, SAD COMEDY
A STRANGE, SAD COMEDY
ONE sunny November day, in 1864, Colonel Archibald Corbin sat placidly reading “The Spectator” in the shabby old library at Corbin Hall, in Virginia. The Colonel had a fine, pale old face, clean shaven, except for a bristly, white mustache, and his white hair, which was rather long, was combed back in the fashion of the days when Bulwer’s heroes set the style for hair-dressing. The Colonel—who was no more a colonel than he was a cheese-box—had an invincible placidity, which could not be disturbed by wars or rumors of wars. He had come into the world in a calm and judicial frame of mind, and meant to go through it and out of it calmly and judicially, in spite of rude shocks and upheavals.
Everything about Colonel Corbin had reached the stage of genteel shabbiness—a 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 the gulf. Even in that sad extremity, the Colonel had never dreamed of “realizing” on the great piles of silver plate, which would, in those times, have commanded instant sale. The Corbins, who were perfectly satisfied to have their dining-room furnished with some scanty horsehair sofas and a few rickety chairs and tables, had a fancy for loading down rude cupboards with enough plate for a great establishment, according to a provincial fashion in Virginia. But instead of this, the Colonel sacrificed a fine threshing-machine and some of his best stock without a qualm. The Colonel had borne all this, and much more,—and the rare, salt tears had worn little furrows in his cheeks,—but he was still calm, still composed, under all circumstances.