"You left your purse, didn't you, Ella?" she asked.
"Oh, yes, but there's only ten dollars in it," Ella said calmly, though the others gasped at thought of this sum.
"Probably it's only some one who wants to get warm," Jess declared. "Come on—he'll go when he sees us coming."
But the tramp, if tramp he was, did not move at their approach. He merely stared, and the children stared back at him.
They saw an old man, stoop-shouldered and dressed in wrinkled, baggy clothes that were vaguely reminiscent of sailor's clothing. He wore a funny little peaked cap and he had a curly white beard.
"Evening," he said, as they did not speak.
"How—how do you do?" Polly stammered.
"I saw the fire and I thought I'd sit down and warm my old bones," croaked the tramp, in a hoarse voice. "You don't mind, do you?"
"Well, if you're warm, I should think you could go now," Carrie said, before any one else could speak.