The Mount Holly news. [volume] (Mount Holly, Burlington Co., N.J.) 1891-1942, 1894-04-24
FRED'S AUNT.


university. But his college did not treat
him with any excess of adulation ON
that account, probably from prudent
fear of rubbing the bloom off his mod
esty. They allowed him to blush I'M
seen, which was the condition in which
he preferred to blush.
He felt himself oppressed by pau
city of ideas and a difficulty in knowing
which way to look in the presence of
| his fellow men, which made him never
SO happy as when he had fastened his
outer door and secured himself from all
possibility of intrusion, though it was
almost an unnecessary precaution, for
nobody ever thought of coming to see
Flushington.
In appearance he was a man of mid
die height, with long scraggy neck
and large head, which gave him the
air of being much shorter than he really
was. He had little weak eyes, nose
and mouth of no particular shape and
very smooth hair of no definite color.
He had timid, deprecating air, which
/ bCC1nCO W bAAC COnoOAOhoiAOSS oAAd0 liz
was an uninteresting anomaly, and he
certainly was as impervious to the ordi-
nary influence Of his surroundings as
any undergraduate well could be. He
| lived a colorless, aimless life in his lit
tie rooms under the roof, reading every
morning from till with a supersti-
tiously mechanical regularity, though
!, foiloA fO
convey any ideas whatever to his brain,
which was not particularly powerful
organ
If the afternoon was fine, he generally
sought out his one friend, who was a
few degrees less shy than himself, and
they took monosyllabic walk together,
or If it was wet he read the papers at
the Union, and in the evenings after
hall he studied general literature "a
graceful term for novels-or laboriously
spelled out sonata upon his piano, a
habit which did not increase his popu-
larity.
Fortunately for Flushington, he had
no gyp, or his life might have been made
a positive burden to him, and with his
bedmaker he was rather favorite as
"a gentleman what gave no trouble, :"
meaning that when he observed his
sherry unaccountably sinking, like the
water in lock when the sluices are up,
Washington was too delicate to refer to
the phenomenon.
He was sitting one afternoon over his
modest lunch of bread and butter, pot
ted meat and lemonade, when all at
once he heard a sound of unusual voices
and q strange f1utter of dresses coming
up the winding stone staircase outside
and was instantly seized with cold
dread
There was no particular reason for
being alarmed, although there were GER
tainly ladies mounting the steps-prob-
ably they were friends Of the man oppo-
site, who was always having his people
up But still Washington had that odd
presentiment which nervous people have
sometimes that something unpleasant is
ON its way to them, and he half rose
from his chair to shut his outer oak.
1t was too late; the dresses were rus
Ting now in his very passage, there was
a pause, few faint smothered laughs
and little feminine coughs, then two
raps at the door.
Come in, " cried Washington faint
ly. He wished he had been reading any
thing but the work by M. lola, which
was propped up in front of him. 1t is
your mild man who frequently has a
taste for seeing the less reputable side
of life in this secondhand way, and
Washington would toll manfully
through the voluminous pages, hunting
up every third word in the dictionary,
with sense of injury when, as was Of
ten the case, it was not to be found. Still
there was sort of intellectual orgie
about it which had strong destinations
for him, while he knew enough of the
language to be aware when the incidents
approached the improper, though he
was not always able to see quite clearly
in what this improperly consisted
The door opened, and his heart seemed
to stop, and all the blood rushed vio-
lently to his head as large lady came
sweeping in, her face ripping with a
broad smile Of affection.
She Mortified Washington, who knew
nobody with the least claim to smile at
him so expansively as that He drank
| lemonade to conceal his confusion.
''You don't know me, my dear Fred?''
she said easily. "Of course not-how
should you? I'm-for goodness sake, my
dear boy, don't look SO terribly fright
enedi I'm your aunt-your Aunt Anne
liza, come over from Australia
The shock was a severe one to Flush
ington, who had not even known he pos
seased such relative. He could only
say, "Oh, which he felt even then was
scarcely warm greeting to give an
aunt from the antipodes.
"Oh, but" she added cheerily,
"that's not all I've another surprise
for you. The dear girls would insist ON
coming up, too, to see their grand col
lege cousin They're just outside. IN
call them in; shall I?''
In another second Washington S
small room was overrun by horde of
female relatives, while he looked ON
gasping.
They were pretty girls, too, many OF
them, but that was all the more dread
full to him. He did not mind the palmer
ones half so much A combination of
beauty and intellect reduced him to a
condition of absolute imbecility
He was once caught and introduced
to charming young lady from Newn-
ham, and all he could do was to back
feebly into corner and murmur
THANK you" repeatedly.
He was very little better than that
then as his aunt singled out one girl aft
or another 1--WE won't have any formal
nonsense between cousins, she said.
"You know them all by name already,
] dare say-this is Milly, that's Jane,
here's Flora and Kitty and Margaret,
and that's my little Thomasina over
there by the bookcase.
Poor Flushington ducked blindly in
the direction of each and then to them
all collectively He had not presence Of
mind to offer them chairs OF cake or
anything, and besides there was not
nearly enough of anything for all of
| them.
Meanwhile his aunt had spread her
self comfortably out in his armchair and
was untying her bonnet strings and
beaming at him until he was ready to
expire with confusion. II do think, T"
she observed at last that when All old
! aunt all the way from Australia tales