These thoughts were in her mind as she opened the door.  But no Mrs. Smith presented her figure to the old lady’s gaze.  She saw instead, with considerable surprise, a stylish young man with a book under his arm.  She jumped to the conclusion that he was a book-pedler, having been annoyed by several persistent specimens of that class of travelling merchants.

“If you’ve got books to sell,” she said, opening the attack, “you may as well go away.  I aint got no money to throw away.”

Mr. Ferdinand B. Kensington—­for he was the young man in question—­laughed heartily, while the old lady stared at him half amazed, half angry.

“I don’t see what there is to laugh at,” said she, offended.

“I was laughing at the idea of my being taken for a book-pedler.”

“Well, aint you one?” she retorted.  “If you aint, what be you?”

“Aunt Deborah, don’t you know me?” asked the young man, familiarly.

“Who are you that calls me aunt?” demanded the old lady, puzzled.

“I’m your brother Henry’s son.  My name is Ferdinand.”

“You don’t say so!” ejaculated the old lady.  “Why, I’d never ’ave thought it.  I aint seen you since you was a little boy.”

“This don’t look as if I was a little boy, aunt,” said the young man, touching his luxuriant whiskers.

“How time passes, I do declare!” said Deborah.  “Well, come in, and we’ll talk over old times.  Where did you come from?”

“From the city of New York.  That’s where I’ve been living for some time.”

“You don’t say!  Well, what brings you this way?”

“To see you, Aunt Deborah.  It’s so long since I’ve seen you that I thought I’d like to come.”

“I’m glad to see you, Ferdinand,” said the old lady, flattered by such a degree of dutiful attention from a fine-looking young man.  “So your poor father’s dead?”

“Yes, aunt, he’s been dead three years.”

“I suppose he didn’t leave much.  He wasn’t very forehanded.”

“No, aunt; he left next to nothing.”

“Well, it didn’t matter much, seein’ as you was the only child, and big enough to take care of yourself.”

“Still, aunt, it would have been comfortable if he had left me a few thousand dollars.”

“Aint you doin’ well?  You look as if you was,” said Deborah, surveying critically her nephew’s good clothes.

“Well, I’ve been earning a fair salary, but it’s very expensive living in a great city like New York.”

“Humph! that’s accordin’ as you manage.  If you live snug, you can get along there cheap as well as anywhere, I reckon.  What was you doin’?”

“I was a salesman for A. T. Stewart, our leading dry-goods merchant.”

“What pay did you get?”

“A thousand dollars a year.”

“Why, that’s a fine salary.  You’d ought to save up a good deal.”

“You don’t realize how much it costs to live in New York, aunt.  Of course, if I lived here, I could live on half the sum, but I have to pay high prices for everything in New York.”