Austin and His Friends. Frederic Henry Balfour

confess as much to him if my life depended on it. But the trickery of the little wretch! It's that I can't get over."

      Meanwhile Austin meditated on the little episode on his side, as he made his way along the road. "I daresay dear old auntie was a bit put out," he thought, "but she brought it all upon herself. She doesn't see that everybody must live his own life, that it's a duty one owes to oneself to realise one's own individuality. Now it's bad for me to associate with people I detest—bad for my soul's development; just as bad as it is for anyone's body to eat food that doesn't agree with him. Those MacTavishes poison my soul just as arsenic poisons the body, and I won't have my soul poisoned if I can help it. It's very sad to see how blind she is to the art and philosophy of life. But she'll have to learn it, and the sooner she begins the better."

      Here he left the high road, and turned into a long, narrow lane enclosed between high banks, which led into a pleasant meadow by the river side. This shortened the way considerably, and when he reached the stile at the further end of the meadow he found himself only some ten minutes' walk from the park gates. Then a subdued excitement fell upon him. He was going to see the beautiful picture-gallery and the great collection of engravings, and the gardens with conservatories full of lovely orchids. He was going to hold delightful converse with the cultured and agreeable man to whom all these things belonged. And—well, he might possibly even see a ghost! But now, in the genial daylight, with the prospect of luncheon immediately before him, the idea of ghosts seemed rather to retire into the background. Ghosts did not appear so attractive as they had done yesterday afternoon, when he had talked about them with Lubin. However—here he was.

      Mr. St. Aubyn, tall and middle-aged, with a refined face set in a short, pointed beard, received him with exquisite cordiality. How seldom does a man realise the positive idolatry he can inspire by treating a well-bred youth on equal terms, instead of assuming airs of patronage and condescension! The boy accepts such an attitude as natural, perhaps, but he resents it nevertheless, and never gives the man his confidence. The perfect manners of St. Aubyn won Austin's heart at once, and he responded with a modest ardour that touched and gratified his host. The Court, too, exceeded his expectations. It was a grand old mansion dating from the reign of Elizabeth, with mullioned casements, and carved doorways, and cool, dim rooms oak-panelled, and broad fireplaces; and around it lay a shining garden enclosed by old monastic walls of red brick, with shaped beds of carnations glowing redly in the sunlight, and, beyond the straight lines of lawn, a wilderness of nut-trees, with a pool of yellow water-lilies, where wild hyacinths and pale jonquils rioted when it was spring. On one side of the garden, at right angles to the house, the wall shelved into a great grass terrace, and here stood a sort of wing, flanked by two glorious old towers, crumbling and ivy-draped, forming entrances to a vast room, tapestried, which had been a banqueting hall in the picturesque Tudor days. Meanwhile, Austin was ushered by his host into the library—a moderate-sized apartment, lined with countless books and adorned with etchings of great choiceness; whence, after a few minutes' chat on indifferent subjects, they adjourned to the dining-room, where a luncheon, equally choice and good, awaited them.

      At first they played a little at cross-purposes. St. Aubyn, with the tact of an accomplished man entertaining a clever youth, tried to draw Austin out; while Austin, modest in the presence of one whom he recognised as infinitely his superior in everything he most valued, was far more anxious to hear St. Aubyn talk than to talk himself. The result was that Austin won, and St. Aubyn soon launched forth delightfully upon art, and books, and travel. He had been a great traveller in his day, and the boy listened with enraptured ears to his description of the magnificent gardens in the vicinity of Rome—the Lante, the Torlonia, the Aldobrandini, the Falconieri, and the Muti—architectural wonders that Austin had often read of, but of course had never seen; and then he talked of Viterbo and its fountains, Vicenza the city of Palladian palaces, every house a gem, and Sicily, with its hidden wonders, hidden from the track of tourists because far in the depths of the interior. He had travelled in Burma too, and inflamed the boy's imagination by telling him of the gorgeous temples of Rangoon and Mandalay; he had been—like everybody else—to Japan; and he had lived for six weeks up country in China, in a secluded Buddhist monastery perched on the edge of a precipice, like an eagle's nest, where his only associates were bonzes in yellow robes, and the stillness was only broken by the deep-toned temple bell, booming for vespers. Then, somehow, his thoughts turned back to Europe, and he began a disquisition upon the great old masters—Tintoretto, Rembrandt, Velasquez, Tiziano, and Peter Paul—with whose immortal works he seemed as familiar as he subsequently showed himself with the pictures in his own house. He described the Memlings at Bruges, the Botticellis at Florence and the Velasquezes in Spain—averring in humorous exaggeration that beside a Velasquez most other paintings were little better than chromolithographs. Austin put in a word now and then, asked a question or two as occasion served, and so suggested fresh and still more fascinating reminiscences; but he had no desire whatever to interrupt the illuminating stream of words by airing any opinions of his own. It was not until the meal was drawing to a close that the conversation took a more personal turn, and Austin was induced to say something about himself, his tastes, and his surroundings. Then St. Aubyn began deftly and diplomatically to elicit something in the way of self-disclosure; and before long he was able to see exactly how things stood—the boy of ideals, of visionary and artistic tastes, of crude fresh theories and a queer philosophy of life, full of a passion for Nature and a contempt for facts, on one hand; and the excellent, commonplace, uncomprehending aunt, with her philistine friends and blundering notions as to what was good for him, upon the other. It was an amusing situation, and psychologically very interesting. St. Aubyn listened attentively with a sympathetic smile as Austin stated his case.

      "I see, I see," he said nodding. "You feel it imperative to lead your own life and try to live up to your own ideals. That is good—quite good. And you are not in sympathy with your aunt's friends. Nothing more natural. Of course it is important to be sure that your ideals are the highest possible. Do you think they are?"

      "They seem so. They are the highest possible for me," replied Austin earnestly.

      "That implies a limitation," observed St. Aubyn, emitting a stream of blue smoke from his lips. "Well, we all have our limitations. You appear to have a very strong sense that every man should realise his own individuality to the full; that that is his first duty to himself. Tell me then—does it never occur to you that we may also have duties to others?"