Is he to be shouted at with, "Come here, what's your name ?" or is he to be called (as if in high rebuke), "Boy ?" And yet there are grown-up folk who do all this without hesitation, failing to remember their own predicament at a by-gone period.

Boys are as useful, in their way, as any other order; and if they can be said to do some mischief, they can not be said to do it negligently.

It is their privilege and duty to be truly active; and their Maker, having spread a dull world before them, has provided them with gifts of play while their joints are supple.
The present boy, having been born without a father or a mother (so far as could yet be discovered), was driven to do what our ancestors must have done when it was less needful.

That is to say, to work his own name out by some distinctive process.

When the parson had clearly shown him not to be a Frenchman, a large contumely spread itself about, by reason of his gold, and eyes, and hair, and name (which might be meant for Isaak), that he was sprung from a race more honored now than a hundred years ago.