ion.

She horrified Flushington, who knew nobody with the least claim to
smile at him so expansively as that; he drank lemonade to conceal his
confusion.

"You know me, my dear Fred?" she said, easily. "Of course not--how
should you? I'm--for goodness sake, my dear boy, don't look so
terribly frightened! I'm your aunt--your aunt Amelia, come over from
Australia!"

The shock was a severe one to Flushington, who had not even known he
possessed such a relative; he could only say, "Oh?" which he felt even
then was scarcely a warm greeting to give an aunt from the Antipodes.

"Oh, but," she added, cheerily, "that's not all; I've another surprise
for you: the dear girls would insist on coming up, too, to see their
grand college cousin; they're just outside. I'll call them in--shall
I?"

In another second Flushington's small room was overrun by a horde of
female relatives, while he looked on gasping.

They were pretty girls, too, many of them; but that was all the more
dreadful to him: he did not mind the plainer ones half so much; a
combination of beauty and intellect reduced him to a condition of
absolute imbecility.

He was once caught and introduced to a charming young lady from
Newnham, and all he could do was to back feebly into a corner and
murmur "Thank you," repeatedly.

He was very little better than that then as his aunt singled out one
girl after another. "We won't have any formal nonsense between
cousins," she said; "you know them all by name already, I dare say.
This is Milly; that's Jane; here's Flora, and Kitty, and Margaret; and
that's my little Thomasina over there by the book-case."

Poor Flushington ducked blindly in the direction of each, and then to
them all collectively: he had not presence of mind to offer them chairs
or cake, or anything; and besides, there was not nearly enough of
anything for all of them.

Meanwhile, his aunt had spread herself comfortably out in his armchair,
and was untying her bonnet-strings and beaming at him until he was
ready to expire with confusion. "I do think," she observed at last,
"that when an old aunt all the way from Australia takes the trouble to
come and see you like this, you might spare her just one kiss!"

Flushington dared not refuse; he tottered up and kissed her somewhere
about the face, after which he did not know which way to look, he was
so terribly afraid that he might have to go through the same ceremony
with his cousins, which he simp