Sally was yet a great help to her. And a maid whom the parson would take pains to teach the French language was not to be too harshly treated. So she only said:
"Ah, well, it seems not strange to me that one who thinks not much of our king should want to get able to talk with the French some day. So I told the parson he was welcome to teach you all the queer stuff he chose to, as I am sure he is."
Mistress Cory Ann Brace did not speak to Parson Kendall in that way at all, and Sally knew it. She curtseyed and bobbed and tried at first to pretend that she could not spare Sally during a morning.
But when the parson said, quietly, "Very well, then we must try some other plan," she came around as if the word "burgesses" was again sounding in her ears, and said that after all she reckoned that on Thursdays she could let the girl off for a couple of hours in the morning, and so it was settled without more ado.
Before spring again gave place to summer, the parson said to Goodwife Kendall:
"It doth astonish me, the way in which the Maid Sally Dukeen taketh her French! I have of late granted her an hour a day at the study, she so desired it. She hath verbs, accent, the speech itself to a degree that will soon enable her to speak and write it correctly. And to-day the pretty wench asked if in the fall she could drop geography and take up Greek!"
"I bethink me she must have come of a race strong of will, keen of intellect, and quick to learn. I would that we knew more of the maid."
Did Sally grieve that no Fairy Prince would come sailing home on the Belle Virgeen when June would be rich with flowers and song?
Yes, and no. Down deep in her heart was a little murmur of pain. But her Fairy had cried as if in scorn:
"And what, prithee, have you to do with the comings and the goings of the Fairy Prince? If it be the will of his father that he should stick to his studies and not mix at all with the strife, and, it may be, the peril of these days, why should it cause you sorrow? Dream, if you must, of the lad that is far away, but concern not yourself with the course that is marked out for him."