He inquired the way to Arch Street, and found that it was not very far
from where he was, and he soon reached the designated number.

"Not a broad-brimmer have I seen yet," he said to himself, as he pulled
the bell-handle. He looked up and down the street while he waited. It
was wider than some that he had passed through, and rather quiet except
for the jingling horse-cars. It was very straight, and lined with red
brick houses with white marble steps and heavy wooden shutters.

He looked down, as he stood on the dazzling steps, at his boots splashed
with Boston mud, and he shuddered at the effect they might have on his
cousins. He should have had them cleaned at the station; but then he did
not have five cents to spend.

The door was opened, and he walked into the parlor and sent up his card.
It was a large room with very little furniture in it, and the few chairs
and sofas that there were stood stiffly apart. Not an ornament was to be
seen but a large clock that ticked slowly and sedately on the marble
mantel-piece. There were no curtains, but "Venetian blinds," formed of
green slats, hung at the windows. It all looked very neat and very bare,
and extremely stiff.

It was not long before Neal heard a step in the hall, and an elderly man
entered the room. He was very tall, and wore a long, quaint-looking coat
that flapped as he walked. His face was smooth, and of a calm, benign
expression that Neal afterwards found was never known to vary. He came
in with outstretched hand.

"Thee is Neal Gordon. I am pleased to meet thee again, cousin. Come up
stairs to breakfast; Rachel will be glad to see thee."

Who Rachel was Neal could not imagine, as he followed his host up a
short flight of stairs to the breakfast-room. He supposed she must be a
young daughter of the house, for although William Carpenter was both his
kinsman and his guardian, the relationship had until now been merely
nominal, and Neal knew very little about him or his family.

Sitting at the table, behind the tall silver urn and the cups and
saucers, was an old lady in a close white cap and spectacles. A snowy
kerchief of some fine white material was folded about her shoulders over
a gray dress. Her face, also, was calm and sweet, and wore the same
expression as did her husband's.

"Rachel," said he, "this is our cousin, Neal Gordon. Neal, this is my
wife, Rachel."

"I am glad to see thee, Neal," she said, extending her hand without
rising; "sit d