THE AUSTINS Ivii 



dern. From these children we must single out his youngest 

 daughter, Eliza, who learned under his care to be a sound Latin, 

 an elegant Grecian, and to suppress emotion without outward 

 sign after the manner of the Godwin school. This was the 

 more notable, as the girl really derived from the Enfields ; 

 whose high-flown romantic temper, I wish I could find space to 

 illustrate. She was but seven years old, when Alfred Austin re- 

 marked and fell in love with her ; and the union thus early 

 prepared was singularly full. Where the husband and wife 

 differed, and they did so on momentous subjects, they differed 

 with perfect temper and content ; and in the conduct of life, 

 and in depth and durability of love, they were at one. Each full 

 of high spirits, each practised something of the same repression : 

 no sharp word was uttered in their house. The same point of 

 honour ruled them : a guest was sacred and stood within the 

 pale from criticism. It was a house, besides, of unusual in- 

 tellectual tension. Mrs. Austin remembered, in the early days 

 of the marriage, the three brothers, John, Charles and Alfred, 

 marching to and fro, each with his hands behind his back, and 

 ' reasoning high ' till morning ; and how, like Dr. Johnson, they 

 would cheer their speculations with as many as fifteen cups of 

 tea. And though, before the date of Fleeming's visit, the 

 brothers were separated, Charles long ago retired from the 

 world at Brandeston, and John already near his end in the 

 ' rambling old house ' at Weybridge, Alfred Austin and his wife 

 were still a centre of much intellectual society, and still, as 

 indeed they remained until the last, youthfully alert in mind. 

 There was but one child of the marriage, Anne, and she was her- 

 self something new for the eyes of the young visitor ; brought 

 up, as she had been, like her mother before her, to the standard 

 of a man's acquirements. Only one art had she been denied, 

 she must not learn the violin the thought was too monstrous 

 even for the Austins ; and indeed it would seem as if that tide 

 of reform which we may date from the days of Mary Wollstone- 

 craft had in some degree even receded; for though Miss Austin 

 was suffered to learn Greek, the accomplishment was kept secret 

 like a piece of guilt. But whether this stealth was caused by 



