The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1894-07-04
SELECTED STORY.
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
uity of ideas and difficulty in knowing
which way to look in the presence of
bis fellow men, which made him never
20 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
Washington.
In appearance he was 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
seemed due to the consciousness that he
was an uninteresting anomaly, and he
certainly was as impervious to the ordi-
nary influence of his surroundings as
any undergraduate we'll could be. He
lived a colorless aimless life in his lit
tie rooms under the roof, reading every
morning from till with supersti-
tiously mechanical regularity, though
very often his books completely failed to
4 l,ata fO
which was not a particularly powerful
organ.
If the afternoon was fine he generally
sought out his one friend, who was
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 iterature"-a
graceful term for novels--or laboriously
spelled out a sonata upon his piano,
habit which did not increase his popu-
larity.
Fortunately for Washington, he had
no gyp, or his life might have been made
positive burden to him, and with his
bedmaler he was rather a 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,
Flushington 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 strange flutter of dresses coming
up the winding stone staircase outside
and was instantly seized with a 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 We're rus
fling now in his very passage, there was
pause, few faint smothered laughs
and little feminine coughs, then two
raps at the door
Come in, cried Flushington faint
ly. He wished he had been reading any
thing but the work by NJ. lola, which
was propped up ir front of him 1t is
your mild man who frequently has a
taste for seeing the less reputable side
of life i'll this secondhand way, and
Washington would toll manfully
ha IN
up every third word in the dictionary,
with a 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 VIC
lently to his head as large lady came
sweeping in, her face ripping with {
broad smile of affection.
She Mortified Washington, who knew
nobody with the least claim to smile a
him so eXpansively as that PIE dranl
lemonade to conceal his confusion
you don't know me, my dear Fred?'
she said easily. "Of course not-hov
should you! I'm-for goodness sake, III,
dear boy, don't look so terribly fright
enedl I'm your aunt-your Aunt Anne
LA, come over from Australian
The shock was a severe one to Flush
ington, who had not even known he pos
sessed such relative He could onl,
say, "Oh, which he felt even then wa
scarcely a 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 Oh
coming up, too, to see their grand col
iege cousin. They're just outside. II,
call them in; shall I2'
In another second Washington
small room was overrun by horde O
female relatives, while he looked OF
gasping.
They were pretty girls, too, many o
them, but that was all the more dread
mi to him. He did not mind the PLANE