"Nothing could be meaner. I would rather live poor all my life than get property by such means."
"If you have no more questions to ask, Ernest, I will try to sleep. I feel drowsy."
"Do so, Uncle Peter."
The old man closed his eyes, and soon all was silent. Presently Ernest himself lay down on a small bed near by. When he awoke, hours afterward, he lit a candle and went to Peter's bedside.
The old man lay still--very still. With quick suspicion Ernest placed his hand on his cheek.
It was stone cold.
"He is dead!" cried Ernest, and a feeling of desolation came over him.
"I am all alone now," he murmured.
But he was not wholly alone. There was a face glued against the window-pane a face that he did not see. It was the tramp he had met during the day at the village store.