"Who are you, and what is the meaning of this intrusion?"
"My name is Ben Carew, at your service, Sister Carew. Howdy—howdy do, all of you? These your children? Is your son sick much?" replied the stranger, in a loud, familiar tone.
"Impertinent!" muttered the lady, angrily. She rose to her feet. "See here, old man, you have made a mistake coming here, certainly. I don't know you, and have no business with you, so clear out at once!"
The old man stood his ground, undismayed by the virago.
"Not so fast, ma'am, not so fast," he said, soothingly, with a wave of his hand. "Now, ain't you Vincent Carew's widow?"
"Yes," she snapped.
"And I'm Vincent Carew's brother Ben."
Every eye in the room turned on him in amazement, and Mrs. Carew exclaimed:
"My husband did not have a brother at all!"
"No brother that he owned, maybe, but an older brother, for all that, living down on the farm, poor and humble, so maybe his proud, ambitious brother didn't own up to his folks about Ben; but all the same he was good to him, and many's the year Vince sent money down to the old farm to help out when the crops failed and prices fell on live stock—many's the day, God rest his soul!"