Ten minutes later the child was sound asleep; the porter--who was a good-natured man--having gone over to sleep in an empty bed in the house, leaving the child to share his wife's bed. In the morning the foundling opened its eyes and looked round. Seeing everything strange, it began to cry. "Don't cry, dear," the woman said. "I will get you some nice breakfast, directly." The kindness of tone at once pacified the child. It looked round. "Where's mother?" he asked. "I don't know, dear. We shall find her soon enough, no doubt; don't you fret." The child did not seem inclined to fret. On the contrary, he brightened up visibly. "Will she beat Billy, when she comes back?" "No, my dear, she sha'n't beat you. Does she often beat you?" The child nodded its head several times, emphatically. "Then she's a bad lot," the woman said, indignantly. The child ate its breakfast contentedly, and was then carried by the porter's wife to the master, who had already heard the circumstance of its entry. "It's of no use asking such a baby whether it has any name," he said; "of course, it would not know. It had better go into the infants' ward. The guardians will settle what its name shall be. We will set the police at work, and try and find out something about its mother. It is a fine-looking little chap; and she must be either a thoroughly bad one, or terribly pressed, to desert it like this. Most likely it is a tramp and, in that case, it's odds we shall never hear further about it. "Any distinguishing mark on its clothes?" "None at all, sir. It is poorly dressed, and seems to have been very bad treated. Its skin is dirty, and its little back is black and blue with bruises; but it has a blood mark on the neck, which will enable its mother to swear to it, if it's fifty years hence--but I don't suppose we shall ever hear of her, again." That afternoon, however, the news came that the body of a tramp had been found, frozen to death in a ditch near the town. She had apparently lost her way and, when she had fallen in, was so numbed and cold that she was unable to rise, and so had been drowned in the shallow water. When the master heard of it, he sent for the porter's wife. "Mrs. Dickson," he said, "you had better take that child down, and let it see the tramp they have found, frozen to death. The child is too young to be shocked at death, and will suppose she is asleep. But you will be able to see if he recognizes her." There was no doubt as to the recognition. The child started in terror, when he saw the woman lying in the shed into which she had been carried. It checked its first impulse to cry out, but struggled to get further off. "Moder asleep," he said, in a whisper. "If she wake, she beat Billy." That was enough. The woman carried him back to the house.