from death. The fact that she had done so gave her an
interest in it. Her own children were out in service, or at work in
the fields; and the child was a pleasure to her. Scarce a day
passed, then, that she would not go across the yard up to the
infants' ward, and bring Billy down to the lodge; where he would
play contentedly by the hour, or sit watching her, and sucking at a
cake, while she washed or prepared her husband's dinner.

Billy was seldom heard to cry. Perhaps he had wept all his stock of
tears away, before he entered the house. He had seldom fits of bad
temper, and was a really lovable child. Mrs. Dickson never wavered
in the opinion she had first formed--that the dead tramp was not
Billy's mother--but as no one else agreed with her, she kept her
thoughts to herself.

The years passed on, and William Gale was now no longer in the
infants' ward, but took his place in the boys' school. Here he at
once showed an intelligence beyond that of the other boys of his
own age. The hours which he had, each day, spent in the porter's
lodge had not been wasted. The affection of the good woman had
brightened his life, and he had none of the dull, downcast look so
common among children in workhouses. She had encouraged him to talk
and play, had taught him the alphabet, and supplied him with an
occasional picture book, with easy words. Indeed, she devoted far
more time to him than many mothers, in her class of life, can give
to their children.

The guardians, as they went in and out to board meeting, would
delight her by remarking:

"That is really a fine little fellow, Mrs. Dickson. He really does
you credit. A fine, sturdy, independent little chap."

The child, of course, wore the regular uniform of workhouse
children; but Mrs. Dickson--who was handy with her needle--used to
cut and alter the clothes to fit him, and thus entirely changed
their appearance.

"He looks like a gentleman's child," one of the guardians said, one
day.

"I believe he is a gentleman's child, sir. Look at his white skin;
see how upright he is, with his head far back, as if he was
somebody. He is different, altogether, from the run of them. I
always said he came of good blood, and I shall say so to my dying
day."

"It may be so, Mrs. Dickson; but the woman who left him here, if I
remember right, did not look as if she had any good blood in her."

"Not likely, sir. She never came by him honestly, I am sure. I
couldn't have believed she