But extinction was not to be the end of the venturesome blood of the French gentleman. His spirit animated one of his name to confide to the care of his ex-slaves the mansion crumbling above his head, and to become a wanderer in the States which had been so nearly disunited. Like the minstrels of old, he strung his harp from his shoulder, and journeyed from South to North and from East to West. His Norman blood still ran blue in his veins, and his faith was the faith of his fathers. In his travels he played his passage into the vivacious affections of an Irish maiden, who wore a rosary about her neck and a cross upon her sleeve. But these conspicuous badges of Popery failed to chill the passion of Marcel. And, in truth, if the maiden's heart was as black as the arch-fiend, her eyes (which is more to the point) were not less blue than heaven. With an improvidence sufficient to bleach the ghost of his colonial progenitor, he tossed forebodings into the capacious lap of the future, and stormed the yielding heart of young Ireland. Love was lord, and their marriage-bonds were double-locked and barred by Protestant and Catholic clergy. But there is a power which laughs at religious locksmiths. Within six months the illusions with which each had draped the other melted before the fire and brimstone of ecclesiastical dispute. Between the kisses of their lips each offered petitions to a patient Omnipotence for the salvation of the other's soul. As the kisses grew colder the prayers grew warmer. There is a tendency in man, when he has fallen out with the human brother whom he has seen, to wax more zealous in his attentions to the Divine Father whom he has not. To be courteous to one's neighbor is so much more difficult than to be cringing to one's God. And then a child was given. In the large family Bible upon the father's desk the event is recorded in two different hands, and the child was christened with two different names. The first reads: "MARIE MUSIN, _born April_ 24, 1868." And the second: "MARY ANN MUSIN, _born April_ 24, 1868." After fifteen years the matter was settled, as were most family matters, by the child herself. "I will be both," she said, decisively. "I will be Mariana." And Mariana she became. In the same high-handed fashion the theological disputes of the parents were reduced to trifles as light as air. "I will be a Presbyterian one Sunday and a Catholic the next," she concluded, with amiable acquiescence; "only on fast-days and lecture-nights I'll be a heathen." For a time these regulations were observed with uncompromising impartiality, but, upon moving to a smaller town, she foresaw a diplomatic stroke.