't you ever know anybody of
my name?"

"What,--Ben Hooper?"

"No, Ben."

"Yes. I had a cousin named Ben."

"Is he as old as you?" asked Ben, striving to speak carelessly.

"He is older if he is living; but I don't think he is living."

"Why, don't you know?"

"He ran away from home when he was ten years old, and we have never seen
him since."

"Didn't he write where he had gone?"

"He wrote one letter to his mother, but he didn't say where he was. That
is the last any of us heard from him."

"What sort of a chap was he?" inquired Ben. "He was a bad un, wasn't
he?"

"No, Ben wasn't a bad boy. He had a quick temper though; but whenever he
was angry he soon got over it."

"What made him run away from home?"

"His father punished him for something he didn't do. He found it out
afterwards; but he is a stern man, and he never says anything about him.
But I guess he feels bad sometimes. Father says he has grown old very
fast since my cousin ran away."

"Is his mother living,--your aunt?" Ben inquired, drawn on by an impulse
he could not resist.

"Yes, but she is always sad; she has never stopped mourning for Ben."

"Did you like your cousin?" Ben asked, looking wistfully in the face of
his companion.

"Yes, he was my favorite cousin. Poor Ben and I were always together. I
wish I knew whether he were alive or not."

"Perhaps you will see him again some time."

"I don't know. I used to think so; but I have about given up hopes of
it. It is six years now since he ran away."

"Maybe he's turned bad," said Ben. "S'posin' he was a ragged
baggage-smasher like me, you wouldn't care about seein' him, would you?"

"Yes, I would," said Charles, warmly. "I'd be glad to see Ben again, no
matter how he looked, or how poor he might be."

Ben looked at his cousin with a glance of wistful affection. Street boy
as he was, old memories had been awakened, and his heart had been
touched by the sight of the cousin whom he had most loved when a young
boy.

"And I might be like him," thought Ben, looking askance at the rags in
which he was dressed, "instead of a walkin' rag-bag. I wish I was;" and
he suppressed a sigh.

It has been said that street boys are not accessible to the softer
emotions; but Ben did long to throw his arm round his cousin's neck in
the old, affectionate way of six years since. It touched him to think
that Charlie held him in affectionate remembrance. But his thoughts were
diverted by noticing