As the poor tramping old basket-maker, whose failing strength would not allow him to earn much of a living, his simple funeral was attended by nearly a whole village,--honest men who stood respectfully bareheaded as the coffin was lowered into the grave--kind-hearted women who wept for "poor lonely soul"-- as they expressed it,--and little children who threw knots of flowers into that mysterious dark hole in the ground "where people went to sleep for a little, and then came out again as angels"-- as their parents told them.

It was a simple ceremony, performed in a spirit of perfect piety, and without any hypocrisy or formality.

And when it was all over, and the villagers had dispersed to their homes, Mr.Twitt on his way "down street," as he termed it, from the churchyard, paused at Mary Deane's cottage to unburden his mind of a weighty resolution.
"Ye see, Mis' Deane, it's like this," he said--"I as good as promised the poor old gaffer as I'd do 'im a tombstone for nuthin', an' I'm 'ere to say as I aint a-goin' back on that.

But I must take my time on it.
I'd like to think out a speshul hepitaph--an' doin' portry takes a bit of 'ard brain work.

So when the earth's set down on 'is grave a bit, an' the daisies is a-growin' on the grass, I'll mebbe 'ave got an idea wot'll please ye.