It is an evil day for the swan when she finds herself the only swan among a large flock of geese.
Dulcibel's antecedents also were not as orthodox as they might be.

Her mother, it was granted, was "pious," and of a "godly" connection; but her father, as he had himself once said, "had no religion to speak of." He had further replied to the question, asked him when he first came to Salem, as to whether he was "a professor of religion," that he was "only a sea captain, and had no other profession." And a certain freedom of thought characterized Dulcibel, that she could scarcely have derived from her pious mother.

In fact, it was something like the freedom of the winds and of the clouds, blowing where they liked; and had been probably caught up by her father in his many voyages over the untrammeled seas.
At first Dulcibel had been rather impressed by the sermons of Master Parris and Master Noyes and the other ministers, to the effect that Satan was making a deadly assault upon the "saints," in revenge for their interference with his hitherto undisputed domination of the new world.

But the longer she thought about it, the more she was inclined to adopt Joseph Putnam's theory, that his sister-in-law and niece and the other "afflicted" persons were possessed by devils.
She inclined to this view in preference even to what she knew was Ellis Raymond's real conviction, that they were a set of hysterical and vicious girls and women who had rendered themselves half-insane by tampering for a whole winter with their nervous and spiritual organizations; until they could scarcely now distinguish the true from the untrue, the real from the unreal, good from evil, or light from darkness.
"They have become reprobates and given over to an evil mind," said Master Raymond to her one day; clothing his thought as nearly as he could in scriptural language, in order to commend it to her.
"Yes, this seems to be a reasonable explanation of their wicked conduct," replied Dulcibel.

"But I think after all, that it amounts to about the same thing as Joseph Putnam says, only that his is the stronger and more satisfactory statement." And thinking of it, Master Raymond had to come to the same conclusion.
His own view and that of his friends were about the same, only they had expressed themselves in different phrases..