The old Ballard and Exchange Hotel in Richmond, Virginia, celebrated for having entertained more distinguished visitors than any other hostelry in this country, consisted of two houses on opposite sides of the street, connected by one of the most picturesque bridges, where the guests found a pleasant meeting place as they passed from one building to the other.

Colonel Carrington, the proprietor, was a courtly, gallant and hospitable old Virginia gentleman, a peer of peers, yielding to no superiority of position, as was evidenced in his reception of the Prince of Wales on his visit to Richmond. After cordially shaking hands with the royal visitor he slapped him on the back and said:

"Make yourself at home, Prince, make yourself at home, sir. I extend to you my heartiest welcome, sir. Old Wash will look after you and if I can be of any service, Prince, just call on me."

I never heard whether the Prince returned the Colonel's slap but I know that he accepted the cordiality in the same spirit in which it was offered. He visited the Colonel's stables and discussed the pedigree of his fine thoroughbred, drove with him behind his fastest trotter, and so liked the old Virginia mint juleps which he drank with his host, that he asked for and received the recipe for making them and took it back with him to the motherland, with some mint roots to plant in his palace garden.

The Colonel was our life-long friend and devoted to our children who, while they returned his affection, stood in awe of him from the time that he gave them a graphic illustration, by pulling his wig awry and turning his eyelids wrong side out, of what had happened to "peeping, prying, inquisitive Jerry."

On our return from Salt Sulphur Springs the summer our little Corbell was in his eighth year, as we drove up to the Exchange Hotel the dear old Colonel came out to the carriage and said:

"Your rooms are all ready, General. We received your telegram and prepared for your coming, but we have two cases of measles here, so I have arranged to have you taken care of at the Monumental Hotel till the danger is over."

We thought it best not to run any risk, and went to the Monumental. The rooms were large and comfortable. Dr. and Mrs. Barksdale were the first to greet us. They, too, with several others of our friends who had little children, had been obliged to leave the Exchange for the same reason.

Our precautions proved in vain, for my sister, a young lady just entering society, who was staying with us, was stricken with the disease, and my schoolboy brother and my two children caught the contagion. At the end of three months, however, all were well except our beautiful, gifted, wonderful boy, our little Corbell, always a delicate child, who now became weaker day by day.

There was never anything like the goodness of the people of Richmond in those trying months. Relatives, friends and strangers came daily with toys, books, good things, carriages, as long as we could take our darling to ride, for his beautiful angel face, his wonderful mind and his glorious voice had won a place in every heart.

While Corbell was ill Mr. Davis called on us for the last time, as he was never again in Richmond. When he came in I drew up a chair for him, but he said:

"May I not sit on the bed beside our sick boy?"

When Corbell's lunch was brought in he asked that luncheon be brought for Mr. Davis, to which Mr. Davis added his voice.

"Shall I say grace, Mr. Davis, or will you?" asked the child.

"You, if you please," Mr. Davis replied, "for I should like to hear your grace."

Closing his beautiful eyes Corbell said the grace his father had taught him:

adding, "and never mind, Jesus, about Mr. Davis being here for he would like to have you."

I do not think that the child took his eyes from Mr. Davis's face, except to say grace, during the whole time the visitor was there. Oh, but that face was so awfully, so pathetically changed! Every expression, the sound of his voice, the look in his eyes, all betokened a broken heart. Only the harmony of motion and the melody of tone remained.

On Good Friday night, seven months afterward, in sorrowful tones one and then another of my friends as they left me for the night whispered resignation to the will of God. Our Corbell was dying. All through the long weary night my Soldier, Mary and I breathlessly watched and listened beside him. As we were moving softly about the room he said:

"I'm not asleep, our mama. 'Tisement thought I was dreaming 'cause I was laughing, but I wasn't. I was laughing about the funny thoughts I had when I was young. I just couldn't make my eyes open wide and when she caught me laughing I could see the first time I found out that God was ahead. It was that time in the bathroom when I wanted you to turn on the snow and 'Tisement said you couldn't do it, and couldn't any of you do it; neither our mama nor our papa nor Thomas could turn on the snow. You said you could all of you turn on the water. Well, I couldn't see why you couldn't just as well turn on the snow as the water. Then all of a sudden the thought came into my head that God was ahead of you all and that only He could turn on the flaky, flying, zig-zag snow, and I began wondering what more He could do that nobody else, not even our mama and our papa, could do. Do you remember how Thomas laughed at me the next day when I told him about it? How funny I was when I was young, wasn't I? I reckon all the little children are just as funny, though, and all of them think there isn't anything in the world that their father and mother can't do. I know I thought so until that very morning and then I knew that God was ahead even of them. Once I asked our papa which was the oldest, he or God, and oh, my, but I was so hurt and disappointed when he said God was the oldest."

Little streaks of light were just beginning to scramble in through the slatted blinds. My Soldier smiling, stooped and kissed our darling's little wasted hands and said, "Yes, my boy; God is ahead," and then he walked over to the double windows and opened wide the blinds so that all the dawn-colors might stream in untrammeled and light the room, that our little one could see the eastern sky and watch for the sun he loved so well. The sky became a deeper red and moving across it was a black specky cloud.

"What are those dark specks, Soldier; are they crows?" I asked as I walked through the window onto the veranda to take a better look at the long queer line and to breathe in the morning air.

"No, little one," replied my Soldier, "they are wild geese; the cold weather is all gone."

"Then summer has come, our papa," said the child. "I was watching those little moving black flakes, too, when our mama asked you what they were."

A wrangling of voices from below grated upon our ears.

"Some unfortunate fellow has been overcome and is in the hands of the police," explained my Soldier.

The sacredness of our watch, the loneliness of the hour and the hollow silence of the deserted streets made the harsh voices seem more discordant. I looked over the rail.

"Oh, what a pitiable sight!" I exclaimed. "The poor man looks like a gentleman, too, refined and distinguished looking. Poor fellow! He seems so angry and—so sick. Please, my darling, go to his rescue. Who knows but perhaps somewhere there are belonging to him little ones like ours?"

"Yes, please go, our papa, please, sir," echoed the pleading tones from the bed, "go and bring him in. He may have little ones of our kind and maybe he has a little one of our mama's kind, too, waiting for him somewhere."

My Soldier went out just as the round red rim of the sun burst into sight out of the east. There was a greater joy than a smile on his face when he came back. He had brought the stranger in and registered him in the hotel as our guest. Our lives frequently came in touch with this stranger's in the years that followed, and he told me that often and again when he was attacked by that same terrible, almost incurable, malady, the memory of the spirit of the child in the dawn of Good Friday had saved him.

A year later, when my Soldier went home and little Corbell was placed beside him, the children of this man came to me and said, "We are sorry Corbell is taken away, for we have been putting flowers on his grave every day, as our papa told us. But we can just as well put them here and on the General's grave, too."

The long Saturday passed and Easter Sunday came over the hills in the whiteness of its lilies and with melodious chimes rang out the blessed tidings that a Saviour had risen to bring Heaven to the world. But the golden light brought no dawn of hope to the hearts of those who watched sorrowfully over the little life that was drifting out upon that sea of glorious music into the Heaven of which it gave glad promise. Lulled to rest while the children sang their Easter carols, our boy went to join his brother angels. Through the open window the voices were sounding "Christ is risen" as he turned his head and laid his face against mine and reached out his little hand to my Soldier and Mary. I felt his spirit flutter and go. With a shivering sigh for me his soul slipped through the gate that Christ had risen to unlock.

During his long illness thoughtful friends from everywhere had been untiring in kindness. All their gifts he had willed to the poor children. His books he had left to his little brother, his ring to Mary, his "Confederate Orphan" fund to his father and me, saying, "Next quarter you will both be Confederate Orphans, for I shall be with the soldiers in the Lord's Army—maybe I'll be His little drummer boy, so I want you both to have that money."

His "Uncle Bev," as he called Judge Beverly Tucker, had given him a little enameled democratic rooster and on the Saturday evening before the Easter dawn he asked his father to give the rooster to the "poor handsome man who had come in the early morning when the sun was biggest and reddest and Good Friday was getting out of the way for Easter."

Weeks before he had selected his pall-bearers from among his little playfellows and had asked them all to wear white. To Dr. Minnegerode he said:

"Please, sir, Doctor, don't make the boys or any of my friends or relations cry but, please, sir, tell them something pretty, as you do at Sunday-school sometimes, and make them as happy as you can and have them all sing bright songs; and I want everybody to bring me red and blue and yellow and pink flowers, as well as white ones, and when you all get through and start back home I want the boys and girls to carry all the flowers with them because the flowers would be so lonesome out there that they'd fade and die. Birds don't care for flowers and children do." He often asked me, "Don't you think flowers can feel?"

The Easter blossoms were still fresh and fragrant in St. Paul's Church when fourteen of Corbell's little boy friends all in white, singing their Easter anthem, carried the little white casket that held the flower just budding into blossom in our Father's garden, across the street and up the aisle, followed by all the children of the Sunday-school and the many sympathizing friends.

We left him under the shade of the young green leaves, among the blooming flowers of the early spring, where the music of the waters of the winding stream as it rippled over the pebbles could be heard mingling with the sweet song of the birds.

The morning that he went to sleep George had come in with a waiter of white cape jasmine from General and Mrs. Maury, who had taken him to their home during these last days of his little brother's perfect life. In his loving haste to bring them to his brother some of the delicate white blossoms had fallen and been crushed. Corbell looked down at the hurt leaves, then up into George's eyes, saying, "Little brother, be gentle with the flowers; they die so soon." These, almost his last words, my Soldier had engraved on one side of the gold dollar, the "Confederate Orphan" money which he had willed to us, and wore it always on his watch-chain. After he went to our boy I wore it and always have tried to obey its voice and "be gentle with the flowers, they die so soon."

"LITTLE BROTHER, BE GENTLE WITH THE FLOWERS;
THEY DIE SO SOON"

My Soldier longed to take me away at once from the scenes where so much suffering had come to me and the next morning I summoned all my strength for the trial awaiting me. I went to Mary's room and found her dressed, with the exception of her gloves, ready to go out. Her trunks, marked and strapped, were being taken down-stairs. Upon the bed were my dress and wrap, bonnet and veil and gloves of mourning, all laid out by her careful hand.

"Come," she said, "let me help you off with your wrapper. You have not much time; I was just coming for you. You are to leave on the ten-thirty train. George has gone with his father while he makes the final arrangements. I have said good-bye to them."

"Good-bye? Mary!" I said. "Good-bye? What do you mean? You would never leave me now when I need you so?"

Her beautiful face was as white as marble as she said:

"Weeks ago, my lady, when I saw that our little darling could not live I made all my arrangements to take the veil. God has again taken from me all I had on earth. When you, too, like me, are bereft of everything come to me."

"Passengers for the New York express, time's up!" rang through the hall.

For one minute we were clasped in each other's arms; her cold lips pressed mine for the first time. No word was spoken—she was gone—I was alone. I looked about me, dazed, confused. There was my hand satchel packed, a book and a letter, Mary's writing, on the bureau. Mechanically I picked them up, shuddering as I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. Was that pale, pinched face shrouded in crÊpe mine?

"Dear Mother, where are you?" George's little arms were clasping my knees. "Dear Father sent me to take care of you till he comes back. He says he will be up in a minute for you and I must help you to get ready."

Always before our precious boy had called me "Our Mama" and his father "Our Papa," as he had been taught by his father. I sat down, taking him in my lap.

"'Our Mama' is ready, my precious boy," I said.

"Dear Mother, you've got me and Dear Father; don't cry—please, Dear Mother. I saw Mammy-Mary again but she shook her head at us and pointed up here to you and so Dear Father wouldn't stop her. Oh, she looked most as dead as you do, Dear Mother."

"Why do you call me differently, dear?" I asked.

"I don't know," he replied, "but the words 'Dear Mother' just came to me and choked up in my throat and so I said them out."

From that time to him I was always "Dear Mother."

From the walls of a convent in France for many years came at Easter time a message of love, a book, an embroidered flower, a letter or a prayer. Then, when all had been taken from me and I needed her most, only silence came, and I knew that she, too, had passed beyond.