sons who were the equals of his mother and himself in intellect and
width of interest, and the 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 Barron, 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 appearance, never
impressive, was then, by reason of obtrusive boyishness, still less
so; she found occasion 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 accompanying 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; and it seems it
was some time before Fleeming began to know his mind; and yet
longer ere he ventured to show it. The corrected quantity, to
those who knew him well, will seem to have played its part; he was
the man always to reflect over a correction and to admire the
castigator. And fall in love he did; not hurriedly but step by