not French," she presently resumed, "but I
don't know just how I know it. My first words must have been English,
for I have always dreamed of talking in that language, and my dimmest
half recollections of the old days are of a large, white house, and a
soft-voiced black woman, who sang to me in that language the very
sweetest songs in the world."

It must be borne in mind that all this was told by Alice in her creole
French, half bookish, half patois, of which no translation can give any
fair impression.

Beverley listened, as one who hears a clever reader intoning a strange
and captivating poem. He was charmed. His imagination welcomed the
story and furnished it with all that it lacked of picturesque
completeness. In those days it was no uncommon thing for a white child
to be found among the Indians with not a trace left by which to restore
it to its people. He had often heard of such a case. But here was Alice
right before him, the most beautiful girl that he had ever seen,
telling him the strangest story of all. To his mind it was clear that
she belonged to the Tarleton family of Virginia. Youth always concludes
a matter at once. He knew some of the Tarletons; but it was a widely
scattered family, its members living in almost every colony in America.
The crest he recognized at a glance by the dragon on the helmet with
three stars. It was not for a woman to bear; but doubtless it had been
enameled on the locket merely as a family mark, as was often done in
America.

"The black woman was your nurse, your mammy," he said. "I know by that
and by your prayer in English, as well as by your locket, that you are
of a good old family."

Like most Southerners, he had strong faith in genealogy, and he held at
his tongue's tip the names of all the old families. The Carters, the
Blairs, the Fitzhughs, the Hansons, the Randolphs, the Lees, the
Ludwells, the Joneses, the Beverleys, the Tarletons--a whole catalogue
of them stretched back in his memory. He knew the coat of arms
displayed by each house. He could repeat their legends.

"I wish you could tell me more," he went on. "Can't you recollect
anything further about your early childhood, your first
impressions--the house, the woman who taught you to pray, the old black
mammy? Any little thing might be of priceless value as evidence."

Alice shrugged her shoulders after the creole fashion with something of
her habitual levity of manner, and laughed. His earnestness seemed