His ignorance seemed to have aroused pathetic sentiments in his aunt. "I ought to have known," she said, shaking her head, "they'd soon forget us in the old country; here's my own sister's son, and he doesn't remember his cousin's death! Well, well, now we're here, we must see if we can't know one another a little better. Fred, you must take the girls and me everywhere and show us everything, like a good nephew, you know."
Flushington had a horrible mental vision of himself careering about all Cambridge, followed by a long procession of female relatives—a fearful possibility to so shy a man. "Shall you be here long?" he asked.
"Only a week or so; we're at the 'Bull,' very near you, you see; and I'm afraid you think us very bold beggars, Fred, but we're going to ask you to give us something to eat. I've set my heart, so have the girls (haven't you, dears?), on lunching once with a college student in his own room."
"There's nothing so extraordinary in it, I assure you," protested Flushington, "and—and I'm afraid there's very little for you to eat. The kitchen and buttery are closed" (he said this at a venture, as he felt absolutely unequal to facing the college cook and ordering lunch from that tremendous personage; he would rather order it from his own tutor, even). "But, if you don't mind potted ham, there's a little at the bottom of this tin, and there's some bread and an inch of butter, and marmalade, and a few biscuits. And there was some sherry this morning."
The girls all professed themselves very hungry and contented with anything; so they sat around the table, and poor Flushington served out meagre rations of all the provisions he could find, even to his figs and French plums; but there was not nearly enough to go round, and they lunched with evident disillusionment, thinking that the college luxury of which they had heard so much had been greatly exaggerated.
During luncheon the aunt began to study Flushington's features attentively. "There's a strong look of poor, dear Simon about him when he smiles," she said, looking at him through her gold double glasses. "There, did you catch it, girls? Just his mother's profile (turn your face a leetle more towards the window, so as to get the light on your nose). Don't you see the likeness to your aunt's portrait, girls?"
And Flushington had to sit still with all the girls' charming eyes fixed critically upon his crimson countenance; he longed to be able to slide down under the table and evade them, but of course he was obliged to remain above.
"He's got dear Caroline's nose!" the aunt went on triumphantly; and the cousins agreed that he certainly had Caroline's nose, which made Flushington feel vaguely that he ought at least to offer to return it.
Presently one of the girls whispered to her mother, who laughed indulgently. "What do you think this silly child wants me to ask you now, Fred?" she said. "She says she would so like to see what you look like with your college cap and gown on. Will you put them on, just to please her?"
So Flushington had to put them on and walk slowly up and down the room in them, feeling all the time what a dismal spectacle he was making of himself, while the girls were plainly disappointed, and remarked that somehow they had thought the academical costume more becoming.