“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 on the wall, evidently taken from an old likeness.” Oh, how she wished the family could hear her now! “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, you can’t have him trotting over wilderness trails with Marquette and Lasalle, you know.”
“Nevertheless,” responded Kit, ignoring her, “he is one of the founders of this college. 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 later to Anne, “Goodness knows who they expected to see, but I almost felt as though I had promised them a two-headed man, and then had sprung Jeannette. Wasn’t she marvelous, 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 Flambeau in you too, you could never carry this off the way you’re doing.”
Jeannette 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 Georgia smiled, and greeted the Founder’s granddaughter in the proper spirit.
She was dressed in a plain gray suit, but Kit gloried in the way she took her place beside Virginia at the table, and answered 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 Flambeau, “I thought everyone 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 Flambeau. 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.”
Peggy really rose to the occasion remarkably, Kit thought. Probably the most jealously guarded membership in the prep classes was that of the Portia Club, and yet, before the tea was over, she had invited Jeannette to attend the next meeting and be proposed for membership.
“We’re not going to try a whole play at first, just famous scenes, and I know you’d fit in somewhere and enjoy it. Don’t you want to, Jeannette?”