Austin and His Friends

by Frederic Henry Balfour

Austin was on his legs in a moment. "Just the thing for an afternoon like this!" he cried impulsively. "I'll go up now, and have a look round. Don't worry, auntie; I won't fatigue myself, I promise you. I only want to see if there's anything that looks as though it might be worth examining."

He hopped out of the room in some excitement, full of this new project. Aunt Charlotte, less enthusiastic, continued knitting placidly, her only anxiety being lest Austin should strain his back in leaning over the boxes. In about twenty minutes or so he returned, followed by Martha, the two carrying between them a battered green chest full of odds and ends, which she had carefully dusted before bringing into the drawing-room. "There!" he said, triumphantly; "here's treasure-trove, if you like. Put it on the chair, Martha, close by me, and then I can empty it at my leisure. Now for a plunge into the past. Isn't it going to be fun, auntie?"

"I hope, my dear, that the entertainment will come up to your expectations," observed Aunt Charlotte, equably.

"Sure to," said Austin, beginning to rummage about. "What are these? Old exercise-books, as I live! Oh, do look here; isn't this wonderful? Here's a translation: 'Horace, Liber I, Satire 5.' How brown the ink is. Aricia a little town on the way to Appia received me coming from the magnificent city of Rome with poor accommodation. Heliodorus by far the most learned orator of the Greeks accompanied me. We came to the market-place of Appius filled with sailors and insolent brokers.—Were they stockbrokers, I wonder? Oh, auntie, these are exercises done by my grandfather when he was a little boy. Poor little grandfather; what pains he seems to have taken over it, and how beautifully it's written. I hope he got a lot of marks; do you think he did? The sailor, soaked in poor wine, and the passenger, earnestly celebrate their absent mistresses. Poor things! They don't seem to have had a very enjoyable excursion. However, I can't read it all through. Oh—here are a lot of letters. Not very interesting. All about contracts and sales, and silly things like that. Here's a funny book, though. Do look, auntie. It must have been printed centuries ago by the look of it. I wonder what it's all about. A Sequel to the Antidote to the Miseries of Human Life, containing a Further Account of Mrs Placid and her daughter Rachel. By the Author of the Antidote. What does it all mean? 'Squire Bustle'—'Miss Finakin'—'Uncle Jeremiah'—used people to read books like this when grandfather was a little boy? It looks quite charming, but I think we'll put it by for the present. What's this? Oh, a daguerreotype, I suppose—an extraordinary-looking, smirking old person in a great bonnet with large roses all round her face, and tied with huge ribbons under her chin. Dear auntie, why don't you wear bonnets like that? You would look so sweet! Pamphlets—tracts—oh dear, these are all dreadfully dry. What a mixture it all is, to be sure. The things seem to have been shot in anyhow. Hullo—an album. Now we shall see. This is evidently of much later date than the other treasures, though it is at the bottom of them all."

He dragged out an old, soiled, photographic album bound in purple morocco, and all falling to pieces. It proved to contain family portraits, none of them particularly attractive in themselves, but interesting enough to Austin. He turned over the pages one by one, slowly. Aunt Charlotte glanced curiously at them over her spectacles from where she sat.

"I don't think I remember ever seeing that album," she said. "I wonder whom it can have belonged to. Ah! I expect it must have been your father's. Yes—there's a photograph of your Uncle Ernest, when he was just of age. You never saw him, he went to Australia before you were born. Those ladies I don't know. What a string of them there are, to be sure. I suppose they were——"

"There she is!" cried Austin, suddenly bringing his hand down upon the page. "That's my mother. I told you I should know her, didn't I?"

Aunt Charlotte jumped. "The very photograph!" she exclaimed. "I had no idea there was a copy in existence. But how in the wide world did you recognise it?"

Austin continued examining it for some seconds without replying. "I don't think it quite does her justice," he said at last, thoughtfully. "The position isn't well arranged. It makes the chin too small."

"Quite true!" assented Aunt Charlotte. "It's the way she's holding her head." Then, with another start: "But how can you know that?"