76 MEMOIR OF FLEEMING JENKIN 



equals of his father in mild urbanity of disposition. 

 Show Fleeming an active virtue, and he always 

 loved it. He went away from that house struck 

 through with admiration, and vowing to himself 

 that his own married life should be upon that 

 pattern, his wife (whoever she might be) like Eliza 

 Barren, himself such another husband as Alfred 

 Austin. What is more strange, he not only brought 

 away, but left behind him, golden opinions. He 

 must have been he was, I am told a trying lad ; 

 but there shone out of him such a light of innocent 

 candour, enthusiasm, intelligence and appreciation, 

 that to persons already some way forward in years, 

 and thus able to enjoy indulgently the perennial 

 comedy of youth, the sight of him was delightful. 

 By a pleasant coincidence, there was one person 

 in the house whom he did not appreciate and who 

 did not appreciate him : Anne Austin, his future 

 wife. His boyish vanity ruffled her ; his appear- 

 ance, never impressive, was then, by reason of 

 obtrusive boyishness, still less so ; she found occa- 

 sion to put him in the wrong by correcting a false 

 quantity ; and when Mr. Austin, after doing his 

 visitor the almost unheard-of honour of accompany- 

 ing him to the door, announced * That was what 

 young men were like in my time ' she could only 

 reply, looking on her handsome father, ' I thought 

 they had been better looking.' 

 This first visit to the Austins took place in 1855 ; 



