While these thoughts were passing through Ben's mind, as I have said, they reached the house.
"Have you had any breakfast?" asked Charles as they ascended the steps.
"Not yet," answered Ben. "It isn't fashionable to take breakfast early."
"Then you must come in. My cousin will give you some breakfast."
Ben hesitated; but finally decided to accept the invitation. He had two reasons for this. Partly because it would give him an opportunity to see his sister; and, secondly, because it would save him the expense of buying his breakfast elsewhere, and that was a consideration, now that he had a special object for saving money.
"Is Mrs. Abercrombie at home?" asked Charles of the servant who answered his summons.
"Will you walk into the parlor?" said the servant, opening a door at the side of the hall. She looked doubtfully at Ben, who had also entered the house.
"Sit down here, Ben," said Charles, indicating a chair on one side of the hat-stand. "I'll stop here till Mrs. Abercrombie comes down," he said.
Soon a light step was heard on the stairs, and Mrs. Abercrombie descended the staircase. She is the same that we last saw in the modest house in the Pennsylvania village; but the lapse of time has softened her manners, and the influence of a husband and a home have improved her. But otherwise she has not greatly changed in her looks.
Ben, who examined her face eagerly, recognized her at once. Yes, it was his sister Mary that stood before him. He would have known her anywhere. But there was a special mark by which he remembered her. There was a dent in her cheek just below the temple, the existence of which he could account for. In a fit of boyish passion, occasioned by her teasing him, he had flung a stick of wood at her head, and this had led to the mark.
"Where did you come from, Charles?" she said, giving her hand cordially to her young cousin.
"Have you just arrived, and where is your father? You did not come on alone, did you?"
"No, father is with me, or rather he came on with me, but he had some errands down town, and stopped to attend to them. He will be here soon."
"I was not alone. There is my guide. By the way, I told him to stay, and you would give him some breakfast."
"Certainly, he can go down in the basement, and the servants will give him something."