"Charity, if you please!"

But the peasant is not lavish, and, for whole weeks, he did not bring
back a sou.

Then he became the victim of furious, pitiless hatred. And this is how
he died.

One winter, the ground was covered with snow, and it froze horribly. Now
his brother-in-law led him one morning at this season a great distance
along the highroad in order that he might solicit alms. The blind man
was left there all day, and, when night came on, the brother-in-law told
the people of his house that he could find no trace of the mendicant.
Then he added:

"Pooh! best not bother about him! He was cold, and got some one to take
him away. Never fear! he's not lost. He'll turn up soon enough to-morrow
to eat the soup."

Next day he did not come back.

After long hours of waiting, stiffened with the cold, feeling that he
was dying, the blind man began to walk. Being unable to find his way
along the road, owing to its thick coating of ice, he went on at random,
falling into dikes, getting up again, without uttering a sound, his sole
object being to find some house where he could take shelter.

But by degrees the descending snow made a numbness steal over him, and
his feeble limbs being incapable of carrying him farther, he had to sit