The winter of 1894-1895 was an unusually severe one, even in the mild and sheltered Isle of Bute; and Bute, always complacent towards the frolics of the younger generation, speaks of curling, sleighing, and tobogganing as the order of the day, and of the "extraordinary descent of a snow-covered slope by Mr. S---- (a distinguished architect at that time a guest at Dumfries House) upon, or rather with, a tea-tray." He writes further, in this connection, of his schoolboy sons: J---- and N---- seem both devoted to curling; and this fact, and the way in which it associates them with the people, delights me.[4] {202} The latter reference is interesting, and even pathetic, recalling as it does the pleasure Bute himself had always taken from his boyhood, notwithstanding his natural shyness, in associating on kindly terms, whether at weddings or less formal social gatherings, whenever opportunity offered, with his humbler neighbours in Buteshire and elsewhere. It was this characteristic, combined with his singular courtesy and unpretentiousness of manner, which won the affection as well as the respect of the reserved and undemonstrative people among whom, for the most part, his life was spent.[5] [Illustration: _The Marquess of Bute, Lord Rector of St. Andrews University, 1892-1897_] A letter written in March, 1895, just after the death of Professor Blackie, gives a thumbnail sketch of that eccentric scholar, who was as unconventional in dress as in everything else: The last time I met him (by invitation) he was dressed in a long velvet gown bound with a bright cherry-coloured sash, and a big _sombrero_ hat. There was a middle-aged lady present, to whom he introduced me, and whom he insisted on my _kissing_. I think we kissed to please him. His accent (pronunciation) was so vile in Greek, and I believe in Gaelic, as almost to argue a physical defect of ear. In this same spring Bute visited Sanquhar, where {203} he had lately bought back the ancient Crichton Peel tower, which the first Earl of Dumfries had sold to the Buccleuch family in 1639. "The Duke," he notes, "had allowed the tower to fall almost completely down. I bought some mugs here--'Presents from Sanquhar'--for the children, and found on investigation that they were made in Germany!" An interesting little bit of Fife folk-lore is noted on April 6: I found the children of Falkland rolling Easter eggs downhill, calling the day "Pace (Pasch) Saturday." It was a week too soon, according to the Kalendar; but one little girl said that Pace Saturday was always the first Saturday in April. [Sidenote: 1895, Lord Acton] Bute received this summer a letter, which pleased him much, from the eminent historian Lord Acton, a recently "capped" doctor of St. Andrews University, to whom Bute had presented a hood made in the mediæval fashion.[6] The Athenæum, _July_ 5, 1895. DEAR LORD BUTE,