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 was his mother, not if she had sworn to it with her dying breath."
Mrs. Dickson's belief was not without influence upon the boy. When he was old enough to understand, she told him the circumstances of his having been found at the workhouse door, and of the discovery of the woman who had brought him there; and impressed upon him her own strong conviction that this was not his mother.
"I believe, Billy," she said, over and over again, "that your parents were gentlefolk. Now mind, it does not make one bit of difference to you, for it ain't likely you will ever hear of them. Still, please God, you may do so; and it is for you to bear it in mind, and to act so as--if you were to meet them--they need not be ashamed of you. You have got to earn your living just like all the other boys here; but you can act right, and straight, and honorable.
"Never tell a lie, Billy; not if it's to save yourself from being thrashed ever so much. Always speak out manful, and straight, no matter what comes of it. Don't never use no bad words, work hard at your books, and try to improve yourself. Keep it always before you that you mean to be a good man, and a gentleman, some day and, mark my words, you will do it."
"You're spoiling that child," her husband would say, "filling his head with your ridiculous notions."
"No, I am not spoiling him, Sam. I'm doing him good. It will help keep him straight, if he thinks that he is of gentle blood, and must not shame it. Why, the matron said only yesterday she could not make him out, he was so different from other boys."