“Since all the girls here belong to this dormitory, it seems appropriate that the founder whose memory we honor should be Malcolm Douglas.  His portrait hangs upon the wall, evidently taken from an old likeness.”  Oh, how she wished the home folks could hear her roll her phrases!  “There is no more adventurous or thrilling career in the annals of historic Delphi than that of the illustrious Scotchman.  Making his way through the perils of the wilderness, he came from Quebec with a party of fur traders and pioneer explorers.”

“Don’t hit too far back, Kit,” interrupted Peggy, alertly.  “If he was a founder in ’71, you can’t have him trotting over wilderness trails with Marquette and Lasalle, you know.”

“Nevertheless,” responded Kit, ignoring the levity of her nearest neighbor, “he is one of the heroes of our Wisconsin pioneer times.  He came here in his early twenties, and married Lucia, the daughter of Captain Peter Morton.  Their daughter was Mary, and, girls, she was the mother of one of our classmates, the very same Mary who went through Hope and graduated with high honors.  You’ll find her initials carved in Number 10 across the hall, and her portrait—­the only one I could find—­is in this graduating group.”

The girls all crowded forward to look at the group photograph which Kit held out to them, just as a knock came at the door.  For one dramatic instant Kit held the knob, her back against the door as she announced in almost a whisper: 

“The granddaughter of Malcolm Douglas.”

The girls leaned forward, eagerly, every eye fixed upon the door.  As Kit said afterwards, laughingly to Anne: 

“Goodness knows who they expected to see, but I almost felt as though I had promised them the excitement of a live mummy and then had sprung Marcelle.  Oh, but wasn’t she splendid, Anne?  The way she stood the introduction and the shock of finding herself the guest of honor.  As I looked at her, I thought to myself, you may be Douglas, and you may be Morton, fine old Scotch and English stock, but if it wasn’t for the dash of debonair Beaubien in you too, you could never carry this off the way you are doing.”

Marcelle was not the only person present who had to fall back on inherent caste for their manners of the moment, but Tony was the only one that gave an audible gasp.  Even Peggy and Norma smiled, and greeted the Founder’s granddaughter in the proper spirit.

She was dressed in white, just a plain kilted skirt and smock, but Kit gloried in the way she took her place beside Charity at the tea table, and parried the questions of the girls with laughing ease.

“Of course,” she said, with the little slight accent she seemed to have caught from her father and old Grandmother Beaubien, “I thought every one in Delphi knew.  For myself, I am proud of him, and of all my mother’s people, but I am also proud of being a Beaubien.  You girls do not know perhaps that some of my father’s people helped to found Fort Dearborn, and they were very brave and courageous voyagers in the early days of New France.”