"You need feel nought but pride at bearing that ancient name!" cried Parson Kendall. "No more noble officer hath the French navy ever known than the fearless, distinguished commander who once bore it. A marquis, child, a French nobleman! A Protestant, who conquered Spanish, Danes, and Dutch during his splendid career.
"Hast not thou felt the will of thine ancestor, stirring thee to make the most of thyself? Hast thou not felt within thee a craving for the best things in life? Hast not thou pushed thy way up to those better things?"
"Yes, oh, yes!" burst forth Maid Sally, with a great shuddering sob. "I felt it! I almost knew it! My good Fairy felt it must be so!"
"Your good Fairy?" The parson looked amazed.
"Yes," cried Sally, for to the winds went all fear of letting the kind parson know what was in her heart, and what had been one great comfort of her poor little life.
"Yes, my good Fairy, sir. I talked with another part of myself and found help in pretending a Fairy dwelt in my soul. My poorer self was one part of me, the good Fairy the other. And the good Fairy did hearten and comfort me."
"One was Sally Dukeen," and the parson smiled most pleasantly, "the other was Sara Doo-kane. Strange how the accent of but one letter can change a name. I fancy it was Mistress Brace's incorrect way of calling it.
"But there is more for you to know. Your mother was an English lady, also of excellent birth, but on the way to this country with your father, to seek a better fortune, she died.
"Now very early this morning I sought out the soldier, Officer Duquesne, of whom you have told me and of whom I have heard. And although I know him to be a very different man from your ancestor of nearly a hundred years ago, and his also, and fighting I hold on the wrong side, he yet told me some things I was pleased to know.
"The man who gave you his card, my dear maiden, was your father's own cousin, and I feel sure he once felt great love for your mother. He told me of having seen a young maid who was so much the image of a beloved friend of the past that he desired to know her name. And tears filled his eyes when I showed him a small painted picture of your mother that had lain in Mistress Brace's little trunk. For she would have us find the trunk and see what was hiding inside."