on the part of that gentle
lady, the professor's wife. Mrs. Macdougall was of the old school, with
very beautiful if very old-fashioned notions of propriety. Her whole
life was one poetic setting forth of the manners and deportment proper
to ladies, both young and old. But none the less her shrewd mother wit
and kindly heart instructed her in things not taught in the schools. The
consequence was that, while she herself sat erect in fine scorn of the
backs of her straight-backed Sheratons, her drawing-room was furnished
with an abundance of easy chairs and lounges, and arranged with cosey
nooks and corners calculated to gratify the luxurious tastes and lazy
manners of a decadent generation. Her shrewd wit was further discovered
in the care she took to assemble to her evening parties the prettiest,
brightest, wickedest of the young girls in the wide circle of her
friends. As young Robert Kidd put it with more vigour than grace, "There
were no last roses in her bunch." Moreover, the wise little lady took
pains to instruct her young ladies as to their duties toward the young
men of the college.

"You must exert yourselves, my dears," she would explain, "to make
the evening pleasant for the young men. And they require something to
distract their attention from the too earnest pursuit of their studies."

And it is a tradition that so heartily did the young ladies throw
themselves into this particular duty that there were, even of the
saintliest of the saints, who found it necessary to take their lectures
in absentia for at least two days in order that they might recover from
the all too successful distractions of the Macdougall party.

Among the guests invited was Margaret, beloved for her own sake, but
even more for the sake of her mother, who had been Mrs. Macdougall's
college companion and lifelong cherished friend. The absorbing theme
of conversation, carried on in a strictly confidential manner, was the
sensational feature of the Presbytery examination. The professor himself
was deeply grieved, and no less so his stately little lady, for to
both of them Dick was as a son. But from neither of them could Margaret
extract anything but the most meagre outline of what had happened. For
full details of the whole dramatic scene she was indebted to Robert
Kidd, second year theologue, whose brown curly locks and cherubic face
and fresh innocence of manner won for him the sobriquet of "Baby Kidd,"
or more shortly, "Kiddie."

"