Part 11 (2/2)
She paused impressively, but with a quickening gleam in her eyes, as there suddenly have in view a hurrying figure in gray sweater and dark crimson cap on the campus walk. It was Marcelle herself, late, but in time to create the desired sensation.
Kit drew a deep breath, and plunged back to her subject, considering exactly the time it would take for the belated guest to reach the study.
”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 ill.u.s.trious 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 cla.s.smates, 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 k.n.o.b, 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.”
Peggy really rose to the occasion remarkably, Kit thought. Probably the most zealously guarded members.h.i.+p in Hope's freshman cla.s.s was that of the Portia Club, and yet, before the tea was over, she had invited Marcelle to attend the next meeting and be proposed for members.h.i.+p.
”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, Marcelle?”
Marcelle shrugged her shoulders, deprecatingly.
”I shall be glad to help always,” she said, with simple dignity, ”if you wish to make me one of you. We have an old copy of Shakespeare at home that was my mother's, and I have read much of it in the long winter evenings. I think,” she added, whimsically, ”that I would rather play parts like Shylock or Hamlet than the girl roles, and best of all, I should love dearly to play Prince Hal.”
”What do you think of that?” Anne said on the way home. ”The idea of her being interested in Shakespeare at all or knowing anything about it, after living all her life in that little sand dump. Kit, you certainly have discovered a flower that was born to blush unseen.”
”It will take her out of her sh.e.l.l, anyway,” Kit replied, happily. ”And I do think the girls came up to the mark splendidly. Heaven knows how they are talking about us now, behind our backs, but they acted their parts n.o.bly when I swung that door open, and there stood, just Marcelle!”
CHAPTER XV
THE FAMILY ADVISES
No qualms of homesickness visited Kit the first two months after school opened. Not even New England could eclipse the glory of autumn when it swept in full splendor over this corner of the Lake States. Down east there was a sort of middle-aged relaxation to this season of the year. Kit always said it reminded her of the state of mind Cousin Roxy had reached, where one stood on the Delectable Mountains and could look both ways.
But here autumn came as a veritable gypsy. The stretches of forest that fringed the ravines rioted in color. The lakes seemed to take on the very deepest sapphire blue. No hush lay over the land as it did in the east, but there were wild sudden storm flurries, and as Kit expressed it, a feeling in the air as if there might be a regular circus of a cataclysm any minute.
Hardly a Sat.u.r.day pa.s.sed but what she was included in some motoring party.
The Dean never joined these, but Miss Daphne thoroughly enjoyed her new role of chaperon. Sometimes the run would be further north, along the route to Milwaukee. Other days they would dip into the beautiful wooded roads that cut through the ravines, leading over towards Lake Delevan. And once, towards the end of November, in the very last spurt of Indian Summer weather, they took a week-end tour up to Eau Claire and Chippewa Falls.
”I only wish,” Rex said, ”that we could come up here next spring when they have their big logging time. It's one of the greatest sights you ever saw, Kit. I have seen the logs jammed out there in the river until they looked like a giant's game of jackstraws. Maybe we could arrange a trip, don't you think so, mother?”
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