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Title: The Strange Likeness
Author: Harriet Pyne Grove
Release Date: November 20, 2021 [eBook #66779]
Language: English
Produced by: Stephen Hutcheson, MFR, Sue Clark, and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STRANGE LIKENESS ***
The Strange Likeness
Contents
CHAPTER PAGE
I. Act Two, Scene One. 3
II. Shirley Embarks Upon New Adventures. 7
III. Puzzling Encounters. 20
IV. On with the Panorama. 34
V. Senior Plans. 43
VI. The “Double Three.” 54
VII. The Sensation. 63
VIII. Shirley’s First Day. 78
IX. Letters. 90
X. When Doubles Meet. 98
XI. Gossip and Honors. 110
XII. Hallowe’en Plays. 125
XIII. Fleta to the Rescue. 138
XIV. “Much Ado.” 147
XV. An Accidental Meeting. 157
XVI. Sidney’s “Ghost.” 174
XVII. Sidney Makes a Discovery. 182
XVIII. Life Becomes Endurable. 195
XIX. Assurances. 294
XX. At Last. 216
XXI. In Her Father’s Home. 225
[Illustration: Sidney passed with her head in the air and without
looking at Shirley.]
THE
STRANGE LIKENESS
BY HARRIET PYNE GROVE
[Illustration]
THE SAALFIELD PUBLISHING
COMPANY
Akron, Ohio New York
Copyright MCMXXIX
THE SAALFIELD PUBLISHING COMPANY
The Strange Likeness
_Made in the United States of America_
THE STRANGE LIKENESS
CHAPTER I.
ACT TWO, SCENE ONE.
Stage dramas are accustomed to begin with Act One, Scene One; but the
little drama of living presented in this story starts with the second
act. The fact that the first act was for so long unknown to some of the
_dramatis personae_ permitted the mystery.
“Adoring, dear?”
A young gentleman entered the room as he spoke, smiling indulgently as
he looked at his young wife, who bent over a white crib.
The young man was perhaps twenty-seven years of age, neat in his gray
suit, with the blue tie that matched his eyes, and carrying himself
with an air of poise and quiet assurance. Soft fair hair with a wave
that curled itself over an intelligent brow, and good, firm features
were points that were no drawback to the gentleman’s attractive
personality. Crossing the room, he put an arm around the slender figure
of his wife and with her looked down at the sleeping baby.
“Do you blame, me, honey?” whispered the young woman, responding to
the embrace and drawing away from the crib a little as she laid a soft
finger on her husband’s lips. “Don’t wake her. Isn’t she like a lovely
little rosebud? Just look at her adorable little mouth and that wee,
dimpled hand and arm. Oh, I’m so glad that I have her!
“And what do you think of the nursery? Auntie’s taste is wonderful, you
know, and she helped me. Why, Auntie is just crazy about the baby!”
“I see where I am going to be entirely left out in the cold,” the young
man remarked, but he did not look worried over the situation.
“You will soon be as silly as I am,” laughed his wife. “Now promise me!
You will never tell, will you?”
“I have hesitated to promise, dear, because I think that no good ever
comes of not knowing the truth.”
“But what harm could it do? She is really ours, all tight and fast, and
nobody to dispute it!”
“Certainly. But suppose she finds out some day.”
“She can’t, unless we tell her, and if you will promise,--”
Two arms went around the young man’s neck and a lovely face looked up
at him. “Please, please,” she begged. “It isn’t as if there would be
anything dreadful to find out.”
“No,--it’s just that I--well, I’m no proof against you, as you well
know! All right. I promise. I will never tell her.”
“_Now_ you have made me perfectly happy,--as you always do. This is the
prettiest doll that I ever had to play with, and I’m going to bring her
up _very carefully_.”
“I see that she has my hair,” teasingly continued the young man, “what
there is of it. What color are her eyes? I’ve never seen her awake but
once and then she was howling and her eyes were screwed shut.”
“Her eyes are going to be exactly like mine. Auntie says that in all
important features she is precisely like all the prettiest babies of
our family!”
The two young people happily looked at each other and laughed, still
softly; but the baby parted its long, dark lashes a little, turned its
head, waved a tiny hand for a moment, and with a faint sigh put its
thumb in its mouth, falling soundly asleep again as it did so.
Silently the two, who stood by the crib with its white blankets and
dainty coverlid, waited to see if the child would waken. Then gently
the young woman drew the baby hand away from the rosebud mouth. With a
new dignity she said, “You have to do that whenever babies start to put
their thumbs in their mouths.”
But this was back in the late autumn some seventeen years before the
next recorded scene.
CHAPTER II.
SHIRLEY EMBARKS UPON NEW ADVENTURES.
“Of _course_ I don’t care, Mother! Why shouldn’t you and Dad go off
and have the time of your lives? It is simply _great_! Hurrah for the
Trustees and Faculty! It is _time_ that Dad had his ‘sabbatical year,’
or whatever you call it. With all that he has done for this university!”
“And all that he expects to do, childie.”
“Certainly. The museum will be full of all those mummies and things
that you will dig up over there.”
Shirley’s mother smiled. “It would be better for you to learn more
definitely, daughter, just what your classical father is going to do
over there. I can assure you that we are not going to bring home any
mummies. I wanted to make sure, little girl, that your heart had no
soreness about this. You understand why it is not best to take you
now. When you go abroad, as I hope you may some day, you will want
a more general trip first. We have had that. And it is best not to
interrupt your education now. I confess to being a little torn between
desire to go with your father, to see your cousin in England, with the
fine opportunity for myself as well, and the regret about leaving you
behind.”
“Seriously, Mother,” said Shirley, more earnestly than she had spoken
before, “it looks like a fine adventure to me. Of course, I’m not going
to pretend that I will not miss you. But you could give it up and come
home if anything serious should be the matter, and after all, we might
look at it this way. I am going West for the summer, a big chance for
me. Then _I’m_ going to do what I’ve longed to do, attend a girls’
school for a year. See? _I’m_ leaving _you_ for a year!”
“Bless you, child,--I might know that you would take it that way. What
a comfort you have always been to me! Just see to it that you are
careful not to do risky things, and I shall throw off responsibility.
Keep a diary, Shirley. I’m going to keep one, too, to bring you daily
pictures of what we shall be doing. Then there will be letters, of
course.”
“I will write the letters, Mother, but I’m not so sure about the diary.
You know my failing. I like to have the fun, but it takes so long to
write about it, and you know that the fun makes better notes than the
serious things. My diary will be something like this: ‘January first.
Snowing. Missed breakfast. Classes all day. Theme assigned. Chose ‘Why
Go To College?’ Have to dress for dinner. Hungry. Expect letter from
Mother tomorrow.’”
“Even an outline like that, Shirley will be better than nothing. I
should like to look over it to see what my girl has really been doing.”
“I promise to have good lessons, Mother, not just fun, and I imagine
that they are pretty strict. Probably they will have to be. But that
is a long way off. I shall have nothing _but_ fun this summer, I hope.
Here comes Dad. Is this the distinguished professor of Epigraphy,
Paleography and Archaeology, to say nothing of--well, all the rest--who
is going to dig up Greece and Rome and Egypt this year?”
“And is this the saucy, beautiful and only daughter of the said
professor?” queried a light-stepping, fine looking man who entered his
own living-room, letting the screen bang behind him.
Shirley ran to meet him, hugging him rather impetuously, while he
rumpled her hair and imprinted a kiss upon her forehead. “Well, girls,”
said he, “the last old grad has gone, I believe: the last meeting of
the trustees is over. I shook hands with the president in his office
and he wished me a happy and profitable year.” With a comical side
step, the dignified professor reached for the other girl, his wife, and
drew her to him with the arm that was not around Shirley.
“My reports of grades are long since in and I’ve answered the
university bell for classes for the last time till year after next. Can
you wonder that I am a little crazy?”
This mild way of figuratively throwing up his hat amused Shirley, but
she was as careful of her father’s dignity as he; so she slipped out
from his arm and said, “Here comes a student up the walk, Father. Come
on, Mother. Dad has probably flunked him in something. Never mind,
Daddy, you will soon be away. I’m packing, too, and I need Mother
anyhow. ‘_In pace requiescat_,’” Shirley added, waving her hand toward
the unseeing student who was knocking on the screen, just as Shirley
and her smiling mother left the room.
Just what point Shirley had in mind in applying the Latin expression
to the supposedly unhappy student, she did not explain, but it was
probably the only Latin phrase that occurred to her at the time.
Whatever was the lad’s errand, the professor made short work of him and
as the student began to whistle as soon as he reached the street some
responsibility must have been lifted.
It was a little hard for Shirley that her father and mother should
leave before she could, but it could not be helped, and if Shirley had
a lump in her throat, no sign of it showed in her bright face as she
blithely waved a last goodbye to Dr. and Mrs. Harcourt, whose faces she
could see through the Pullman window as the train began to move. But
she turned away rather soberly and the young man with her without a
word took her arm to lead her back to the car which stood waiting.
Shirley swallowed, winked a moment, then lifted smiling eyes, dark,
with curling lashes, to her tall, slim companion. “I’m all right, Dick.
There’s just that funny, all-gone feeling, you know.”
“Yep,” returned Richard Lytton. “I’ve had it. Remember when I went to
military school? When I stood on the platform in my new uniform, just
a mere kid, you know, and saw the train disappear with my father on
board, going home without me,--O boy!”
“You were such a little chap, weren’t you? But you seemed terribly old
to me, and I remember how impressed I was when you came home at the
Holidays wearing that uniform.”
“Little idiot that I was!” laughed Dick, drawing Shirley out of the way
of a truck loaded with trunks. “More students going out on the next
train,” said Dick, glancing at the truck. “There’s that freshman trying
to catch your eye, Shirley.”
Shirley looked in the direction of Dick’s nod and smiled at a plump
youth who was looking at her with interest. She waked up to her
immediate surroundings a little with her bow to the boy who was in one
of her father’s classes and whom she had met several times at her own
home. She could not know how very much interested the freshman was or
why he said to himself, “That’s only her cousin.”
The small station of the college town was busier than usual with the
departure of students. As Dr. and Mrs. Harcourt had made their plans to
depart at the earliest moment possible, their leaving was coincident
with that of many others, though trustees had largely gone before.
“If you begin to smite them, now, Shirley,” said Dick, “what it will be
when you actually get into college, I shudder to think.”
“Nonsense,” said Shirley. “Perhaps I can stay two years at the other
school. They have a junior college, you know.”
“Your father wouldn’t stand for that, Shirley. He wants you here for
your University work.”
“I know.”
But they had reached the car in which two ladies were sitting. One was
elderly, the other about the age of Shirley’s mother. “Well, here’s the
orphan, Mother,” said Dick cheerfully, handing Shirley into the front
seat and going around to the other door to climb into the driver’s seat
himself.
“I would not remind her in that heartless way, Dick,” said his mother
whose smile was as cheerful as Dick’s and whose kind eyes looked
sympathetically at Shirley.
“I don’t mind, Cousin Molly. Thank fortune, I’m not really an orphan,
and I’m going to do just what my revered Dad said to do, keep my mind
on the adventures before me. Do you think that we _can_ get off,
ourselves, day after tomorrow, Auntie?”
Shirley addressed the older lady in this remark.
“You will be obliged to do so, my dear. You forget that your tickets
are purchased and all the arrangements made. We may as well do the
last of your shopping now, if Dick will drive us around. I knew that
your mother could not manage all of it at the last, with all the
interruptions that she had in the professor’s affairs.”
“Now, Auntie! don’t blame it on poor Dad.”
“He could not help it, my dear. But I have not lived next door to you
in vain, my child, these pleasant years, and your mother trusts my
judgment. I have the list.”
“Oh, you have planned it with her, then,” said Shirley. “Things have
been rather mixed up today, but she said to ask you about everything.
I’m almost packed, but I surely will be glad to have your help.”
Miss Dudley was Shirley’s great aunt, her mother’s aunt. She lived
in an apartment of her own near the Harcourt home and managed to
hold the position of general adviser to her niece without any of
the disagreeable features which an interfering nature might have
introduced. But Miss Dudley had her own pursuits and a wide circle
of friends. No one knew her age, but if the Harcourts were in the
early forties, Miss Dudley, well preserved, still attractive, with
her only lightly wrinkled brow, her wide-awake brown eyes and air of
independence, must be in the sixties. She and Shirley had always been
good friends. Her tasteful rooms, her books, her curios, which the
child Shirley was trained not to touch without permission, had always
been a source of pleasure to the professor’s daughter. Many a time some
one of Miss Dudley’s friends would come in to call and note the pretty,
fair-haired child with her dark eyes, reading some book, perhaps, and
curled up in a corner of Miss Dudley’s davenport.
The Lyttons were distant cousins, related upon the Harcourt side. It
was with them that Shirley expected to make the western trip. As they,
too, had many errands and much to do before the start, Dick deposited
Miss Dudley and Shirley in the center of town at their first shopping
point and made arrangements to meet them at a later hour, to take them
home again. Shirley quite forgot to be lonesome in the exigencies
of the moment, the importance of not forgetting any detail and the
selection of the last purchases.
Meanwhile, upon the Pullman, Dr. Harcourt was saying to a rather sober
wife, “I need a more cheerful companion, Eleanor.” Somewhat whimsically
he looked into the now smiling eyes, very like Shirley’s. “I, too, feel
as if the plunge had taken my breath a little, but if we let ourselves
get homesick or worried at the start, what will become of us?”
“I’m sure I don’t know. I felt like a girl again, planning my trousseau
and honeymoon,--but saying goodbye to Shirley has made me think of my
responsibilities, I suppose.”
“Stop it, then, my dear. This is our second honeymoon. Think of the fun
that we are going to have. Remember what we decided. It is true that
things calamitous might happen, but how foolish to guide one’s life by
them.”
“I remember, learned professor,” said Mrs. Harcourt, responding to the
pressure of the hand that reached down to take hers. “We decided that
it is entirely wise to accomplish something in this old world, not
held back by our fears, and that this year will be an opportunity to
Shirley as well as to ourselves. We’ve made fine plans for her and as
usual we pray ‘deliver us from evil.’ Really, Will, I’m a happy woman
and I trust in you and Providence just as much as ever. You don’t blame
me that I find leaving Shirley behind a little wrench, do you?”
“Not a bit of it. But I think that it will do you both good. What did I
do with that Baedeker? The last report of our archæalogical expedition
is in it. I put it between the pages and I hope that I’ve not left it
at home!”
“I have it in my bag, Will. I’ll find it for you in a jiffy.”
Dr. and Mrs. Harcourt were embarking upon the steamer bound for the
English coast at about the same time that Mr. and Mrs. Lytton, their
son Dick and cousin, Shirley Harcourt left the college town for their
adventures in the West.
“Don’t do anything a Dudley wouldn’t do,” brightly said Shirley’s
great-aunt as she embraced her for the last time. “Take good care of
my only niece, Dick, if you go off on any of those wild trails. I hope
that you will be armed for bandits.”
“Why, Auntie,--who would think that of you? These aren’t the old days
in the West.”
“Twentieth century bandits are the worst kind, child. Remember, Dick.”
“Trust me, Cousin Anne. When you see us again we shall have climbed the
Rockies in Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, and California, so to speak.
Shirley, do they have the Rocky Mountains in California?”
“Don’t ask embarrassing questions, Dick. We’ll look it up on the map,
for we’ll have plenty of time for that on the train. I’m going to study
geography and a lot beside this trip, Aunt Anne. Please take good care
of your dear self. I wish that you were going too.”
“I couldn’t stand it, Shirley, not all that you are going to do. Take
her away, Dick, before I change my mind about letting her go at all!”
This time it was not to the Lytton car but to a taxi that Dick escorted
his cousin, a taxi which ticked away in front of the Harcourt home.
Aunt Anne would lock the place finally. Shirley whisked inside, taking
her seat beside Mrs. Lytton and giving a sigh of relief as she sank
into it.
“Tired, child?” inquired Mrs. Lytton.
“Not so much tired as glad that the last thing is done and that we are
really off. Are we?”
“I judge that we are. I am glad, too. There was so much to do at
our house and I had to see that Dick and your cousin Steve left no
essential article behind.”
Both Mr. Lytton and Dick protested at this aspersion upon their ability
to look after themselves, but it was all in a joking way and Shirley
sat still and tense with the excitement of beginning such a big trip,
the longest that she had ever taken. At the station there was a group
of girls who had come to see Shirley off. Several of Dick’s friends,
too, had made it a point to be there just before the train came in.
“The worst of it is that it is going to be so long before we see you
again,” said one high school friend of Shirley’s. “It seems a shame for
you not to graduate with the class!”
“Yes, it does; but I’ll go into college with you anyhow, and it would
be pretty hard to be here all year without Father and Mother.”
“I don’t blame you, Shirley,” said another girl. “If I had your chance
I’d take it in a minute. Write us all about it, won’t you?”
“Oh, yes, Shirley,” cried the first girl. “We’ll want something about
you for our little bulletin, and if you will tell me about your trip
I’ll use it for a theme!”
But the train whistled. Goodbyes were at last over, the goodbye that
had seemed to Shirley to stretch out endlessly ever since her father
and mother started away. From the window Shirley waved and blew kisses,
at last sinking back on the cushioned seat to find herself beside “old
Dick,” who picked up a magazine to use as a fan.
“Come to, Shirley,” said he. “You stood all that like a Trojan. Imagine
me if the boys had treated me to all that embracing.”
“They slapped you on the back, Dick, as _I_ should not like to be
slapped. I think I prefer the girls’ way.”
CHAPTER III.
PUZZLING ENCOUNTERS.
“Thanks, Dick; I’m recovered,” laughed Shirley, waving away the
magazine. “Besides I have this little fan in my ‘under-arm’ bag. It is
rather hot today. We are not near enough to the electric fan to get any
good of it.”
“We have a fine location, Shirley, in the very center of the car. Your
uncle Dick saw to that! I made the reservations, but I can’t vouch for
all that are ahead of us. We go from one line to another, you know.”
Shirley did not know. With a bland indifference to detail, for all that
would be looked after by somebody, she was ready for all adventure and
surprises. “All right,” she said. “I’m perfectly content to let my
‘uncle Dick,’ with some little help from his parents, no doubt, look
after all these things, without bothering about any of them myself.
But I may as well say at the start that I am perfectly happy, grateful
to you all, and every other nice thing that I ought to be! Why, I can
hardly believe it, Dick, honestly!”
“It’s a big chance for me, too, Shirley, and remember that you are
going to keep the account of what we see for me, too.”
“Indeed I will, always provided that you keep the bandits away.”
“Did I forget to promise Cousin Anne? But she was just joking, the way
she does. Say, Shirley, I’m going to see who’s on this train. I was too
busy with family affairs to see if anybody got on that I knew, and the
taxi made it anyway.”
“Who knows? Somebody may be going as far as Chicago at least.”
Shirley was beginning to look through her pretty new pocketbook that
held so much and was so complete inside and out. She was rather glad to
be alone for a little. Dick had settled them all comfortably, doing the
little things that a well brought up young man can do.
Now with the male enjoyment of freedom he would stroll through the cars
at his own sweet will and Shirley dismissed her cousin’s doings, for
her own happy thoughts. Father and Mother were off and on the way to
great things. Dear Auntie, to whom she owed this trip, would really not
be lonesome, for she, too, had pleasant plans for the summer. It was
just wonderful how it had all come about.
Professors in colleges have to plan for trips like this one, for great
sums of money do not grow on bushes in universities. Dr. Harcourt’s
resources would be strained to finance the European trip, to say
nothing of Shirley’s expenses. But Aunt Anne had been heart and soul
with the matter from the start. It would be of professional importance
for Dr. Harcourt to take the trip, join the expedition in which the
university was interested, and get material for the book on which he
was working. At once Miss Dudley told them that she would undertake the
care or plans for Shirley and it was by her advice that the decisions
were made. The Lyttons were going on this long western trip and would
be only too glad to have Shirley with them. Arrangements were made
almost a year ahead of the time for Shirley’s entrance at the girls’
school.
Thoughtfully Shirley drew out her little black note-book, in which she
was going to keep an account of expense as well as little notes of the
trip, to be filled in by herself or Dick when they wrote letters. She
was thinking what a fortunate girl she was. Cousin Molly had given her
the new pocketbook. Her “lovely” new blue coat and the pretty, becoming
hat Aunt Anne had selected, with her approval. Shirley’s eyes rested
on the coat hanging beside her. Here came the porter with bags for the
hats, and Shirley took off hers, fluffing out her golden locks with a
glance at the little long mirror.
Shirley Harcourt had enjoyed very little travel, though a short trip
somewhere was not unusual in the summer vacations. But Dr. Harcourt
was hampered by a modest income and then he liked to stay around home,
working in his library at the writing, reading books which were beyond
Shirley’s comprehension, or interest.
Mr. Lytton enjoyed far more means, though the Lyttons, too, had
responsibilities which kept them from travel. This was a trip long
planned, one which would take almost the entire summer, with the stay
that they intended in various places.
Richard Lytton was almost twenty and entering the junior year at the
university in the fall. Shirley, who knew him as well as a sister
would know a boy, was always deeply interested in such of his doings
as he confided to her. She knew the pretty sophomore girls whom he
took to the class affairs and the coquettish freshman girl of the year
before, who was such a “peach,” but who left school at the close of
the freshman year. Shirley wondered if Dick still wrote to her; but
like a little lady, Shirley never asked questions. It was fine to have
a cousin in the university and she was glad to think that Dick would
still be in school when she entered. He could tell her such things as
she ought to know, matters which were entirely outside of her father’s
knowledge, or so she thought.
But Shirley did not know that the professors, whose minds are supposed
to be upon the subjects they teach,--and they are, indeed,--are fully
aware of other problems connected with the social relations and the
discipline as well as the privileges of the young people in their care.
To Shirley, “Dad” was just a “dear dad,” who knew “a lot” and worked
“terribly hard” and was always having to see some student about lessons
or his private affairs, concerning which the professor was annoyingly
secretive.
Mrs. Lytton glanced at Shirley, after Dick had disappeared, but she
saw that Shirley was fully occupied. After an approving survey of her
pocketbook’s contents, a few scribbles in the new note-book, and a
comfortable adjustment of the pillow which had been given her, Shirley
was watching the rapidly flying landscape with great interest. Dick
would be back when it was time for dinner in the dining car. Then it
would grow dark after a while, she would have the new experience of
being in a berth in a sleeper, and in the morning they would be in
Chicago.
It must be said that Shirley, though keen about the coming thrills of
the parks and the Rockies, had anticipated perhaps most eagerly of all
seeing this huge and interesting city. It was the biggest thing in its
line that she had yet seen, for Shirley’s visit to New York was yet to
come.
They took rooms, engaged beforehand by Mr. Lytton, in a modest but very
neat and respectable place. Part of the time with Mr. and Mrs. Lytton,
part of the time with Dick, part of the time with all three of the
Lyttons, Shirley saw Chicago. The banging cars, the conductors, some
of them, so foreign that they could scarcely pronounce intelligently
the names of the streets; the roar of the elevated trains and the fun
of finding how to take them, climbing high above the surface cars
and stepping hurriedly off the platform to the car that glided up so
quickly; the big sight-seeing ’busses,--everything was new to Shirley.
Dick liked to go around by himself part of the time, but he also
enjoyed taking Shirley around when his parents were either tired or
preferred some other amusement than that which the young people chose.
They would drop in to hear one of the concerts at Lyon and Healy’s, or
find a popular eating place that looked attractive in between times.
They visited the Art Institute together, and the museum in Grant Park,
though that was too much for them. “We’ll have to take that by degrees,
Dick,” said Shirley. “I can’t carry so much in my feeble mind at one
time. I imagine that Mother and Father will have an awful time taking
in so much in a short visit to the foreign galleries.”
“Best way is to pick out what you are interested in for details,” said
Dick, “and then take a casual look through at the rest. Let’s go to
Lincoln Park this afternoon.”
“All right, and remember that I have to see the Lake every day. Oh, I
just dread going across Michigan boulevard again. I didn’t know that
there were so many machines in the world as there are in Chicago!”
“Don’t worry. I’ll see you safely over. It’s somewhat worse than our
little town at Commencement time, isn’t it?”
“Yes. To think that I thought that congestion!”
Wherever they went Dick noticed that Shirley drew the eyes of people.
That, to be sure, was not so unusual, for even at home, Shirley was
considered a very pretty girl. But there was a look almost like one of
recognition that he noticed several times. Once, on the top of a ’bus,
as they stood, undecided, in the aisle because there were no two seats
together, a gentleman rose from an aisle seat, next to which another
was vacant. Smiling at Shirley and tipping his hat, he moved to where
a single seat gave him room and made it possible for Shirley and Dick
to sit together. Shirley, standing with that air of detached poise
which was natural to her, thought it only a pleasant courtesy, smiled a
little in return and took the inside seat.
Dick glanced after the gentleman. “That chap thinks that he knows you,
Shirley,” he said.
“Oh, no; he couldn’t,” replied Shirley, “unless he is some graduate of
our school.”
“That might be,” Dick assented. “We meet ’em everywhere.”
But the next encounter puzzled Shirley a little. She and Dick had
dropped into a very attractive cafeteria for lunch, on one of their
trips downtown. After they had finished their lunch Shirley moved
toward the door, standing aside, out of the way of people, while Dick
was paying for their checks.
While Shirley stood there, interested in the scene, but not feeling a
little apart from it, a short, slim little person came hurrying past,
and stopped short upon seeing her. “Hello!” she said. “Seeing how the
_hoi polloi_ do it? I thought you had gone for the summer. Passed the
house today and it’s all shut up. Nice looking young man you are with.
Have a good time for me. Little Ollie has to earn her wages now. So
long.”
Shirley stood smiling during this address, delivered rapidly, for the
girl seemed to be in a great hurry. There was no chance to tell her
that she must be mistaken, though Shirley’s evident surprise at being
addressed might have suggested it, Shirley thought afterward.
Dick joined her immediately. “_Who’s_ the old friend?” he asked,
looking after the prettily dressed girl who was now mingling with the
rest of the hurrying noon crowds on the sidewalk.
“I’m sure I don’t know, Dick, some one that thought she knew me. She
stood right in front of me and never stopped to wonder if I were the
right one. I must look a good deal like some one she knows.”
Then Shirley repeated the girl’s speech. “She asked me if I were seeing
how the _hoi polloi_ do it; so the girl I look like can’t be in the
habit of frequenting cafeterias. And this one is a nice one, too.”
“Well, just look out that some one doesn’t try to scrape an
acquaintance with you on the strength of your resemblance to somebody.”
“I don’t see how that could be done, Dick.”
The next episode, however, was very harmless and occurred the next
day. Shirley was alone, stepping out of a candy shop not far from where
they were staying. A handsome car drew up to the curb and permitted
a lad of possibly twelve years to hop out, then drove rapidly away.
The boy was well dressed, his knickers, stockings, shoes,--the whole
outfit, in the latest style for boys. He started to run across the
pavement toward one of the doors in the tall building, when he caught
sight of Shirley.
“Oh, that’s funny,” he said. “I thought that you were out seeing the
Indians by this time. Mother said,--” but here the child broke off, for
some one called him from the door. “Goodbye,” he called back, as he
started on after his brief halt, with a touch of his cap.
“A sweet little gentleman,” thought Shirley, who had enjoyed the
friendly little speech and looked with pleasant acknowledgment at the
lad when he spoke to her.
“Whoever my double is, Dick,” said Shirley, after she returned to the
hotel and found Dick in the lobby, “she is due out where the Indians
are, I’ve just discovered. I hope that I run across her. No, I don’t
either. I’d rather there were just one of me!”
“I don’t blame you, Shirley. But you will probably never see her,
especially if she has gone on West ahead of us. Besides we may not be
going to the same places at all.”
“It is not very important, Dick. I’ll probably forget all about it.”
Shirley was with Mrs. Lytton later in the day, when they went with a
guide through the great store of Marshall Field’s and afterward had
lunch together there and shopped. Shirley wanted to send her Aunt Anne
something from this particular store, just because Miss Dudley had
spoken of liking it so much. It must be something nice, from her own
little private fund.
For any purchase of her own, Shirley would have sought bargains, but
for Miss Dudley she looked among many things far in advance of what she
could pay and she rather wondered that the clerks took so much pains.
It was an evident disappointment to a clerk who sold her a delicate
handkerchief that she bought nothing else, and when Mrs. Lytton asked
to see something less expensive than an article which was offered her,
the young woman behind the counter looked decidedly surprised, giving
Shirley a glance which she could scarcely interpret. But all through
the store they were treated with a little more than even the customary
courtesy. “I should almost think,” said Mrs. Lytton, “that they knew
us.”
Shirley had not mentioned to her cousin the little encounters with
those who seemed to think that they knew Shirley, and it did not seem
worth while to comment upon it. But she did wonder if the resemblance
had anything to do with the very particular courtesy of the clerks. She
was accustomed to much the same consideration at home, for her father’s
position and personality commanded the respect of his fellow townsmen.
But the Harcourts by no means were expected to buy the most expensive
articles upon a trip to the home shops.
The last occurrence which could be attributed to a fancied resemblance
took place at the hotel, just as they were all waiting in the lobby,
preparatory to leaving. A porter was standing by their luggage. Mr.
Lytton was paying the bill at the desk. Dick was buying a paper. Mrs.
Lytton was sitting in one of the big chairs and Shirley was standing
by her, a little back of the chair, with one hand and her pocketbook
resting on its well padded top.
A gentleman, conservatively dressed and looking like a prosperous
Chicago business man, had previously passed them on his way from the
entrance to the desk, where he talked with one of the clerks a moment
and turned to make his way as rapidly out. Seeing Shirley, he paused a
moment, with a look of surprise. Then he left the straight path to the
door and walked briskly toward her. Mrs. Lytton, who was watching her
husband from this distance, did not see him. But Shirley saw him coming
and wondered what next. It might be some one whom she ought to know.
In consequence, when the gentleman offered his hand, Shirley extended
hers. This might be an “old grad,” and it would never do not to
remember him. There were hosts of folks who were entertained at her
father’s table every Commencement and she could not always remember
them.
As in the other instances, this stranger was in a hurry. Not yet had
Shirley had an opportunity to say, “You are mistaken!” Nor yet had one
mentioned the name of her “double!”
But this was not an “old grad.” It was evident at once as the gentleman
addressed her. “Why, my dear, it is pleasant to see you in town yet. I
thought that you had gone with your father. We shall miss all of you,
though I expect to be in and out all summer. Mrs. Scott and the girls
have gone on up to Wisconsin, you know. May you have a very delightful
trip. You are looking very much better than you did when you returned
at the close of school. Goodbye, my child, I must hurry back to the
bank.”
Tipping his hat, this kind-looking, fatherly man sped on with true
Chicago hurry. Twice Shirley had thought that she might get in a
protesting word, and got no further than an apparent stammer. For
Shirley was not supposed to interrupt older people and it would not
have been possible to stop this rapid speech without an interruption.
Mrs. Lytton had turned, but with the confusion, inside and out, she did
not catch what was said. Mr. Lytton and Dick were joining them now, the
porter was gathering up the bags and in a moment they were in a taxi,
on their way to the station to catch their train.
CHAPTER IV.
ON WITH THE PANORAMA.
“Who was the old codger with whom you were shaking hands, Shirley, as
I came up?” Dick inquired, as once more he went through the process
of settling everybody’s baggage and settled himself, too, down on a
Pullman seat by Shirley.
“His name was Mr. Scott,” said Shirley demurely. At last she had one
name of some one who knew her double. “I would not say that he is very
old, and I’m sure that ‘codger’ does not describe him.”
“Why didn’t he shake hands with Mother first?”
“He probably did not recognize her.”
“How did you happen to know him?”
“I did not know him.” Shirley was enjoying this.
“Then why on earth would you shake hands with him?”
“Because I thought that he might be some graduate or even an important
trustee that knew Father and remembered me, though you might think
that I am flattering myself.”
“And he turned out not to be a trustee or anybody?”
“He was somebody, all right. He said that he supposed I had gone
with my father and that I was looking better than I did right after
school was out, and that Mrs. Scott and the girls had gone on up into
Wisconsin ‘you know.’”
Dick threw his head back and laughed. “I saw him give a quick look back
when he saw me going toward you, Shirley. He stopped a moment, almost
as if he intended to come back; then he took out his watch and shot out
of the door.”
“He was going to the bank,” said Shirley. “Oh, I know Mr. Scott very
well indeed!”
“It is a good thing that we are leaving Chicago. Have you told Mother?”
“No; I’d forget to do it, and we have been doing such interesting
things that it has not seemed very important. It’s rather mildly
interesting, though, to know that some girl, probably of a well-known
and wealthy Chicago family, looks enough like me to have me taken for
her in broad daylight, at least by persons in a hurry, or by clerks
that do not know her any too well. Perhaps I’ll write to Mr. Scott and
ask him what her name is.”
“How would you address him, my dear cousin?”
“Yes. That would be a difficulty. ‘Mr. Scott, Chicago, Illinois,’ might
be a bit indefinite.”
“Well, I’ll say for you, Shirley, that you look like a million dollars
in that new rig of yours. You probably look so much more stunning than
the original that they have to stop to speak to you.”
“Now _you_ are a cousin worth having, Dick. Thanks awfully. Next
year,--no, I can’t--the year after, when you are a senior, I’ll have
all the girls that you like best in for teas and things and invite you
over. Maybe the senior girls wouldn’t come to a party given by little
me, though.”
“They’d be delighted to be asked to the professor’s house, even with
you out of the question, which I should not admit. Moreover, my dear
Shirley, how do you know that by that time a senior girl would be
interesting? Now the reverend seniors are often known to have the most
serious cases of their college career with sophomores, or even freshmen
girls.”
“That is so. Good. I’ll know all the freshmen girls, perhaps, and I
know some of the sophomore girls as it is. Just pick out one that Aunt
Anne will welcome into the family!”
“That remains to be seen, Shirley. Now, look here. Let’s plan what
we do when we get to Denver.” Dick pulled from his pocket one of
the illustrated advertisements, published by the railroad companies.
Everything else was soon forgotten in studying Colorado and its
possibilities.
From that time on there was one delightful panorama of prairie,
irrigating ditches, rivers, mountains, with rides among the foothills
and climbs to the heights; of new birds and flowers and trees; of
unafraid wild animals in the national parks; of snowy summits; of
glaciers in Glacier Park and sure-footed horses on narrow trails.
Shirley was not afraid to go into quiet raptures over dashing mountain
streams, all the scenes so new and inspiring to her, and each new
expedition. Mrs. Lytton declared that it was “as stimulating as a cup
of coffee” to meet Shirley’s eagerness every morning.
“Never having had a daughter, Shirley, I did not know what I had
missed, till this trip. Dick could not be spared, but I wish that we
could adopt you.”
“I never made a good girl, did I?” queried Dick.
“You are a fine son,” said his mother, “and that is enough for me.”
Shirley was glad of that little speech of compliment from her cousin
Molly. Thoroughly appreciating the privilege of this trip with them,
she had tried in every way to make her cousins glad that she had come.
There were many little ways in which she could be of service, and when
they were out together, as they sometimes were without the gentlemen,
they were as jolly as two girls. Mrs. Lytton was active and strong,
taking part in all the rides upon the narrow trails as bravely as any
of them.
One delightful experience followed another. They grew weary at times,
to be sure, and there were some narrowly averted accidents, but no
calamity occurred to mar their trip. When it was wise to let time
intervene between undertakings, they merely tarried a little longer in
some camp or hotel until they felt like resuming the onward way. They
met many friendly people at different places and with the informality
of American tourists, they joined forces for some trip, or discussed
frankly the problems of a common country. There was one group of girls,
traveling with two chaperons, who were attracted to Shirley. Their
companionship made the trip through the Yellowstone lively, for they
often found themselves upon the same ’bus. Dick, too, attached a young
man of about his own age, a student in a different university.
But it was not until they had reached a hotel in the big and wonderful
state of Washington that Shirley saw her double.
It happened in one of the corridors on the second floor about noon.
The Lyttons and Shirley were leaving that night. Shirley had just been
downstairs to the lobby, and as there was but one easy flight of stairs
with a landing midway, Shirley did not take the elevator, but ran up
the stairs instead.
Between the stairway and her room were the doors to the elevator, and
as she turned from the last stair down the corridor in the direction
of her room, she saw herself, apparently, standing in front of the
elevator door. Even the hat was of the same color as her own, and a
little fluff of golden hair curled around near the place where ears
were supposed to be. The coat was not like her own, however.
The young girl was laughing and talking in an animated fashion to two
girls who were with her. She faced Shirley, and Shirley, now surprised
and interested, took an eager step toward her. But it was quite evident
that the other girl had not seen Shirley. The elevator doors slid open
just then; the three girls stepped in and were out of sight in a moment.
More mechanically than otherwise, Shirley went on toward the room with
something that she was bringing Mrs. Lytton. “Why, Cousin Molly, I’ve
just seen my double. It’s the queerest thing. I didn’t suppose that
two people of different families _could_ look so much alike. Oh, I
haven’t told you a word about how in Chicago people kept taking me for
some one.” Shirley paused, rather dazed by the experience.
Mrs. Lytton looked at her rather soberly, Shirley thought. “I wonder
who it could be. Why don’t you try to find out who she is? Has she a
room on this floor?”
“How stupid I am, Cousin Molly! Here I stand! It _would_ be rather
interesting to know who she is, perhaps.”
Shirley flew out of the room and down the stairs. But there was no sign
of the girls in the lobby. She even went to the desk and asked rather
hesitatingly if the clerk had seen any one who looked like herself pass
just now.
The clerk to whom she addressed the question looked at her closely.
“Yes,” he said. “A young lady enough like you to be your twin came to
the desk for a moment with another young lady, who left her key. Let me
see. The young lady’s name was Penn, Miss Penn. She and her mother just
checked out, but she came back to get something which she had forgotten
or thought that she had forgotten she said. From what was said I took
it that they were going to some other hotel in the city, here. If they
are friends of yours, or relatives, I may be able to trace them for
you.” The clerk, as he talked, noted Shirley’s hesitation. He came to
the correct conclusion that she did not know the young lady who looked
so much like her. Odd, he thought.
“Thank you,” said Shirley. “I will ask my cousin if it is best to find
them. We are leaving in a few hours ourselves.”
But Mrs. Lytton did not think that it would be worth while to try to
find the girls. “It would only be a matter of curiosity, perhaps, and
neither of you would care for acquaintance, since you say that it has
not made a pleasant impression to find yourself taken for some one
else. And if the girl should be some distant relative, my experience is
that unless there is something in common, looking up one’s relatives is
not very satisfactory,--though interesting, of course, and kinship does
make a bond, unless too distant. If you really want to do it, Shirley,
we can remain another day. I will let you decide the matter. We might
get into touch by this evening, I’ve no doubt, and perhaps you would
feel better satisfied.”
“If you leave it to me, Cousin Molly, I’ll say to go right on with our
trip. For a moment, I felt like going right up to the girl and saying,
‘Look in the mirror, please,’ just for fun. But my curiosity has all
oozed out and my natural timidity, Dick, has come to the fore.”
Dick Lytton, who was present at the discussion, laughed and asked
Shirley again if she had told his mother all the details.
“Most of them Dick. I’ll give her the whole story while we pack up. Now
let me fold up your frocks, Cousin Molly. You know you like the way I
do it. Is it too soon to pack them?”
“No. Better have it done before we go out. Where did you say you were
going to take us, Dick? Oh, yes. We get another and better view of the
old Pacific, Shirley. Go and find your father, please, Dick.”
CHAPTER V.
SENIOR PLANS.
It was past the middle of September, but the well-kept, well-watered
and closely shorn lawns of the school still looked like velvet. A
little rolling, with concrete walks, flower beds, fine shrubbery, great
old trees with heavy foliage, close as a grove in some portions, the
large grounds contained some handsome buildings of modern make, as well
as several of stately old style no longer built.
Most attractive of all, perhaps, was the lake front, where Lake
Michigan stretched out widely and a boathouse of a conservative style
stood by a small dock, to which were tied a number of boats. What had
probably been a bluff, of no great height, had been smoothed into a
gentle incline toward a strip of sandy beach. Out at some distance a
strong breakwater had been constructed to protect the small shipping of
this girls’ school.
Back a little in the quiet open grove, on two of the rustic benches,
which had been drawn close together, a small group of girls in their
summer frocks talked in animated fashion.
Any group of girls is interesting and attractive, but these girls,
representing the cream, so to speak, of girls who cared enough
for education to receive it and who had reached the senior year
successfully, might claim a second look from anybody.
“Oh dear,” said one, “classes begin tomorrow!”
“Hate to take up the grind, Fleta?” queried another, whose locks of a
reddish gold were gathered into a little net over the fluffed mass at
the back of her head. Irma Reed was letting her “bob” grow out.
“Sort of,” laughed Fleta, a tall, grey-eyed girl with good features,
whose hair she declared was grey at the start, though its soft ash
color was becoming to Fleta’s fresh complexion.
“I shall quite welcome it,” a plump, brown-haired lass contributed. “I
have had the pokiest summer that you ever imagined. It is one grand
adventure to get back to school! Mother was sick all summer, too sick
to leave town, even, and we could not get to our summer cottage at all.
Of course no help wanted to stay where there was sickness, and beside
the trained nurse I had one lone woman in the kitchen and I had to take
care of one small brother and two smaller sisters and keep them quiet
on account of Mother.
“I was glad to do it, of course, and you may know that I learned first
aid to the injured, beside a whole kindergarten and primary course! The
only poetry that I can repeat is Mother Goose and the like. But perhaps
it paid. I’ve been up against some real things, girls; and I am _so_
thankful that Mother is well now and that things are so I can come back
here!”
A pair of beautiful dark eyes were watching Edith Stuart as she related
her summer’s experience. A pretty little chin lifted as Sidney Thorne
remarked, “‘All’s well that ends well,’ as the immortal Shakespeare
hath it. You have had a hard summer, Ede. But I am rather glad, too, to
get back, though I had quite as full a summer as usual of good times.
It is our last year here, girls. Can you realize it?”
“Sidney has been East this summer girls,” a very slight, dainty girl
remarked, with a gesture of complete information. “That’s the Boston
accent she is bringing back. Yes, Sidney, I’m ‘ratheh’ glad to get
back, too, and it is ha’d to realize that indeed it is our _lawst_
year!” The girl’s face was dimpling with mischief and she shook back
from her face hair almost as golden as Sidney’s own.
Sidney looked a trifle taken back at this. Sidney Thorne did not like
to be made fun of and preferred to do the criticising herself if there
were any to be done; but after a moment, during which she did not know
whether she wanted to freeze up or not, she gave way to smiles instead.
“Little sinner,” she said, “don’t you make fun of me! But you are all
wrong, though I have been with my aunt all summer and I talk more
or less like her all the time, which is _perfectly_ proper for any
Standish to do! I haven’t been East at all. I was on a big western
trip, partly by rail, partly by auto. If you are good, I will tell
you about some of the good times I had. But give me hotels and cars,
no camps except for very limited stops. I did some mountain climbing,
though, and I like the riding, though I had one terrible scare, riding
on a ‘sky-line,’ when the horse slipped and there were only inches to
slip in.”
“Oo-ooh!” shivered Dulcina Porter.
“Not so bad,” said Sidney, “after it is over. Think how many times you
just miss being hit when you cross a street, or your car just escapes a
collision. The great event of the trip was going up into Alaska, where
I had never been before.”
As if in memory of cool places, Sidney drew her light scarf closer
around her shoulders. But the breeze from Lake Michigan’s waters was
blowing more strongly just now.
“To change the subject, Sidney,” said Fleta Race, “what plans have you
for the Double Three this year, and what must we have in senior doings?
How about the elections and everything? What’s our play going to be and
how are we going to work it diplomatically with you know whom, to have
what we really want instead of working at something we’ll hate?”
Sidney smiled a little, though she was annoyed. It was like Fleta to
blurt everything out, she thought. She dropped her eyes, playing with
the end of her gay scarf. “Why ask me, Fleta?” she asked.
“Because you have the most influence of anybody in school, and because
you are the president of the Double Three,” Fleta replied. “I’m sure
that you have some little ideas. What’s been floating around in the
little old brain this summer while you have been climbing and sailing
and swimming and everything?”
“Don’t push our president, Fleta,” gently said Edith, who sat next to
Sidney. She tapped Sidney’s proud little shoulder with a soft finger as
she continued. “Of course, Sidney has ideas, but let her have a chance
to work them out. If she has any plans she will tell us fast enough.
This isn’t a formal meeting anyhow. It just happened.”
Edith’s remarks made Sidney feel in a more responsive mood. Fleta’s
compliment, too, was not unacceptable. She had no objection to an
addition to the idea, either, and said in a low tone, as if some
listening spirit might be near, “What do you think, girls,--the dean
spoke to me about Miss Gibson this morning. I was talking to her about
several things and she said, ‘By the way, Sidney, I noticed that a
number of the girls were making it hard for Miss Gibson last year. I
wish that you would use your influence among them. Your scholarship is
uniformly so high and your courtesy is always so irreproachable that I
am sure you will want to help Miss Gibson. She was new last year, you
will remember, but her knowledge and standing are such that I expect
loyalty from my girls!’
“Excuse my repeating a compliment to myself, girls, but I just had
to say the whole speech as she said it. Moreover, was it so much of
a compliment as trying to get me to do something? I did not tell her
that I detested Miss Gibson, of course, and it wasn’t the time to tell
her how autocratic and disagreeable Miss Gibson is. Indeed, there were
people waiting to see the dean. All that I said in reply to the dean
was, ‘Yes, Miss Irving,’ though I looked attentive, and inquiring,
at the proper places. Why should I tell the dean what I was thinking?
Most certainly none of us intend to do any thing that is not in good
form, like a few of the girls. You remember what happened in the junior
English last year that time. At the same time, I do not think that they
should have retained a teacher who is so objectionable to many of the
best girls.”
Sidney Thorne naturally included herself and her companions among the
“best girls” of the school, as she spoke in her most dignified way,
with careful choice of words. If Sidney ever fell into the modern
carelessness of school girl speech, it was not because she had not been
trained from childhood in the best English, chiefly from having always
heard it from her parents.
“I got a good deal out of my work with Miss Gibson last year, Sidney,”
said a girl who had not spoken during these interchanges, though she
had joined in smiles or laughter. She was not a particularly pretty
girl, but had a pleasing face, one of high intelligence. A pleasant
mouth and a firm, though not prominent chin, clear blue eyes, a nose
as straight as Sidney’s and a broad brow, such of it as could be seen,
presented a wholesome combination. Some day, when Hope Holland cared a
little more about her looks, she would make a handsome young woman,
but at present she was far more interested in other things. Today she
wore the simplest of dark blue georgette dresses over a dark slip. Not
a ring, a pin or a string of beads decorated her. Her small hands were
clasped around her knees, as her heels went back under the bench to a
cross bar there. Her silk hose were black and her shoes, while neat,
were not as new as those of the other girls. Hope could have had them,
but had not bothered.
The rest of the girls wore light dresses, with all the pretty
accompaniments, though these were all in good taste and surely not out
of style. No girl who had been at least a year in this school was ever
seen to be over-dressed, for with the lessons from books, other lessons
were taught about the fine arts of living. Whatever their private
tastes, and it would be odd if no girl ever attended the school whose
personal ideas were different, while here the atmosphere prevailed and
had its present and often permanent influence.
“You have never said so before, Hope,” returned Sidney. “Why didn’t you
come to the rescue last year? Have we a disciple of Miss Gibson among
the ‘Double Three?’”
Hope laughed a little. “It takes me longer to make up my mind, Sidney,
than it does some people. I could see that Miss Gibson was making a
mistake in the way she handled some of the girls, but I got more
inspiration out of the way she reads and the interest that she gives to
all”--here Hope hesitated and Fleta inserted, “that old stuff!”
“Yes. That’s it, Fleta. Another thing I found out, and that is that
Miss Gibson writes herself and gets it accepted, which is more to
the point, I imagine, from what my brother tells me. So I’m going to
ask her questions in class and get her to tell us things, if I get a
chance.”
“Don’t imagine that she’d let you! She thinks that she has to pour the
course of study in and assist the process of digestion as little as
possible!”
Hope could not help smiling at Sidney’s vehemence, but to herself
she thought that Sidney was not fair, as sometimes happened when a
prejudice seized Sidney. Hope wondered what it was this time. Did
Miss Gibson lack family, grace of manner, or was there some personal
peculiarity that offended Sidney? Miss Irving was right about Sidney’s
grades. Miss Gibson had not offended by any injustice to the one whom
Fleta called the most influential girl in school. Was that true? Very
likely.
“Nearly time for dinner, girls,” said Sidney, looking at the little
jeweled watch which she wore. “Let’s walk to the beach for a minute.
After all, this is a dear old place. I shall hate to leave it next
spring, I suppose. One thing I want to say right now, girls, and you
must make your plans accordingly. As it is our last year together, I
want you to spend either all or at least part of the Christmas Holidays
with me. We’ll have a house party of the Double Three. I want them all
in my house, Hope, if you don’t mind, and you must come over all the
time and stay all night as much as you can.”
Exclamations of delight at the plan were heard for the next few
minutes. “If we _should_ decide to take in any one else and make it a
Double Four, we can still have our house party, of course. It is all
fixed up with Mother.”
Hope, who lived in the same city, rather protested at her not having
any one at her house, but she gave it up when she saw that it would
make Sidney unhappy to interfere with her plans. Hope often gave up
to the more insistent Sidney, but she was fond of Sidney and knew her
good points as well as some of her faults,--the drawbacks, either in
disposition or in perception of the facts of life, from which no one
can be entirely free.
Together, in happy mood, the girls walked to the edge of the shore,
where the restless waves of Lake Michigan broke on the sand and
pebbles. Coming events of their senior year were discussed, for by this
time the girls were well acquainted with the customs and traditions
of their school. Events social, athletic and intellectual were talked
over, from hockey and basketball to the marvelous “Prom” in the spring,
perhaps the most delightful and exciting of all.
Other groups of girls were drifting toward the buildings when at last
Sidney, Hope and the rest of the Double Three turned their steps in
that direction. For all of them these first days were filled with
expectation, along with the pleasure of meeting each other again
after summer days. Adventures of one kind or another were certain to
come, adventures of success or failure, adventures of friendship and
adventures of good times.
CHAPTER VI.
THE “DOUBLE THREE.”
This small association of six girls, who were known as the “Double
Three,” and who so denominated themselves, had drifted into the
very informal organization on account of an accidental performance
at Hallowe’en in their junior year. They were friends, more or less
intimate then. It chanced that the Mistress of Hallowe’en celebrations,
a senior of the year before, had appointed Sidney and Hope to manage
some sort of a “stunt,” as those events are called.
The result was an amateur one act play, portraying more or less of a
mystery. Sidney wrote most of it, or managed its production. Masks and
loose black dominoes were the costume, to which the final touch was
given by an oblong badge which represented the face of an ordinary
ivory domino, the “double three.” The domino robe had suggested the
word; the number of the girls who had been asked by Sidney and Hope to
help had suggested the badge; double three sounded so much better than
plain six, if something from the game were taken as a symbol.
So much was said about the stunt of the “double threes” that it was
only natural for the girls to drift together more often and finally to
call themselves the Double Threes, with occasional meetings and good
times. But it must not be supposed that it was a definite or recognized
society or anything like a sorority, for sororities did not exist in
this school.
Fleta Race, Irma Reed, Edith Stuart and Sidney Thorne occupied a suite
together. Dulcina Porter and Hope Holland shared one of the single
rooms in the dormitory. In their junior year Sidney and Hope had
roomed together; but without having any trouble, both had come to the
conclusion that it would be good to try not being together, for they
were friends when at home. Each would room with a “stranger” and Sidney
would try being in a suite. Hope privately thought that she would not
like it, for all the ways of simple school living were not what Sidney
enjoyed at home. But at that Sidney was an independent soul that wanted
to see if she could do what other girls did. She was not the only
daughter of wealthy parents among the students here.
Previous to her sophomore year Sidney had been tutored at home, and
hard indeed she found it to make up all the loose ends of her freshman
year. Hope had attended another school until her junior year, when she
had come to join Sidney after hearing her accounts of its superior
advantages. But then, everything that Sidney did, everything that she
had, all connected with herself and her family, were considered just
right by the cool Sidney, so sure was she, so blandly superior to
mistakes or criticism.
Hope felt a sense of relief to have no one but dainty unselfish little
Dulcie around. Yet there was a charm about the superior Sidney after
all, and Hope loved her. In the real living together, Sidney’s gentle
training made it impossible for her to be discourteous or disagreeable.
It was that unconscious assumption of superiority that Hope disliked,
though she could not have analyzed it. Sidney was “proud,” she would
have said. Money had nothing to do with it, for Sidney at least
_thought_ that she admired achievement and ability above everything.
It was quite likely that she did not even give her father credit for
having successfully managed a large business and money which he had
inherited. Practical ability is not to be despised, and it is only the
love of money that is the root of evil, or the silly ostentation that
sometimes accompanies it.
Leaving the campus, the girls of the Double Three strolled into the
parlors, where several other girls at once ran up to Sidney, as she was
the latest arrival.
“I looked everywhere for you, Sidney,” said one. “Where in the world
did you disappear to?”
“Oh, the girls got hold of me after I was dressed. We had so much to
talk about that we went down in the grove to look at the lake and
stayed there, gibbering, longer than we intended. I wanted to hunt up
some more of you.” Sidney was swinging hands with this bright-eyed girl
as she spoke.
“Hello, Thorne in the flesh,” cried another very tall girl, who looked
down upon the shorter Sidney as she spoke. “Going to beat me in
everything this year?”
“Going to try to, Olive,” returned Sidney, whirling around to look up
at her old rival and exchange mild embraces.
“Well, look out, that’s all,” laughed Olive, moving away with a salute.
“Listen, Sidney,” said another miss who was trying to get to Sidney
through the group. “There is going to be a meeting of the athletic
board right after dinner in the library. Don’t you forget it and do
something else!”
“All right, Dorothy. I’ll be there.”
There were other girls, who did not rush to meet Sidney, and one who
joined the tall, competent looking Olive Mason, as she walked away from
Sidney’s group, made a somewhat critical remark. “I don’t see why you
should welcome Sidney Thorne so cordially, Olive. She did everything
but cheat to beat you last year.”
“Good sportmanship, my dear,” replied Olive. “She didn’t cheat and it
is up to me to see that my work is better than hers.”
“I think that it is, Ollie. It was just favoritism that gave her the
higher grades! Sidney Thorne is a little snob!”
“I’d show myself pretty small, if I said that favoritism gave Sidney
the higher grades, so never mind, Barbie. Please don’t say anything
like that around where the girls can hear you. They all know that you
are such a friend of mine and they might think that I felt that way. It
wouldn’t look well, to say the least, Barbara.”
“Don’t worry. If I express an opinion about Sidney, I’ll see that the
girls know it is my own, not yours. I’ll say this for Sidney Thorne,
that she doesn’t push herself in; but she just loves it that they put
her on all the boards and committees and make much of her.”
“Why shouldn’t she?” asked the fair-minded Olive. “Who wouldn’t like
it? She has ideas, and is pretty and charming. I don’t say that it does
not spoil her a little, but I thought it out this summer. I was jealous
and disappointed, Barbie, but I decided to go right ahead seeing what I
can do on my own account. I imagine that every one of us can make some
place for herself if she tries!”
Barbara Sanford looked keenly at Olive. “You’re one mighty fine girl,
Olive!” she exclaimed. “The girls know it, too!”
“That is good of you to say, Barbie, but it would be a pity if I
hadn’t learned a few things by being in this school three years and
‘playing the game’ under our athletic director,--and isn’t it terrible,
Barbie?--she’s engaged!”
“What! The Water Nymph going to leave us?”
“Sh-sh! There she is. Why, she is back for part of the year anyhow, and
perhaps she will not be married before next summer.”
“I wish it had been Miss Gibson, or the math teacher. But that is the
way it always is!”
“Barbie the pessimist!” laughed Olive.
After dinner Sidney was promptly on hand at the meeting of the
“athletic board,” announced also at dinner. Sidney was feeling
especially happy about everything. It was really glorious to be a
senior, with more privileges, among the “high and mighty,” so far as
age and position were concerned. Sidney knew too, that she had worked
hard in these years, to justify her parents’ faith in her and to
satisfy herself that she could.
The meeting was a short one, however. There were no lesson hours, but
as the girls were expected to be in their rooms at a reasonable time,
Sidney ran up to her suite immediately, to help her suite-mates put
everything to rights. She was glowingly happy. “This is going to be
the greatest fun yet,” she said. “What do you think one of the girls
said to me? I won’t tell you who it was, though. She said, ‘why don’t
you and the rest of the Double Three set it up about some of these
elections? You could have things the way you want them!’”
Dulcie and Hope had come in and were sitting on one of the single beds,
watching Fleta unpack and hang away a few last garments. Edith, mending
one of last year’s cushions too pretty to be thrown away, came in and
plumped herself down beside Hope.
“What did you say to that?” asked Hope, watching Sidney, who was
looking critically at the arrangement of the dresser and was changing
the position of several knick-knacks.
“I said nothing, says I,” facetiously answered Sidney, looking into
the mirror and giving her aristocratic nose a dab with the puff from
her vanity case. And it may be remarked that Sidney was also enough of
an aristocrat to powder that same nose nowhere else than in her boudoir
or some equally private place.
“However,” she continued, “why not use a little influence if we have
it? Why be seniors for nothing?”
“They will _say_ that we do it anyhow,” approvingly Dulcie added,
swinging her slippered feet under the bed and out again. “They did last
year; don’t you remember, Hope?”
“Being accused of a thing and really doing it,” said Hope, “are two
very different things.”
Sidney thought that Hope was being “snippy.” She cast a glance in
Hope’s direction and brightly asked, “Any objection, Hope?”
“I never cared to belong to a political gang,” laughed Hope. “We see
enough of that in Chicago.”
“Calls us a ‘gang,’ girls,” whimpered Fleta, making a comical face.
“Time enough to worry about politics when there is any reason for it,”
comfortably said Edith Stuart. “There isn’t any objection to our having
our own ideas and working for them, especially if they are for the
good of the school and not just to get our own way. Being determined to
get her own way and run everybody is like Stella Marbury. I am pretty
sure that it was Stella who suggested that to Sidney. Own up, Sidney.
Stella wants to be one to make this a Double Four, Sidney.”
Sidney was now sitting on a straight chair in a corner by a window.
“Does she?” she asked, with no change of countenance.
“If it was Stella, you’ll not get Sidney to acknowledge it now,” said
Irma Reed, leaning up against the frame of the door and watching
Sidney Thorne with amused eyes. “My opinion is that the Double Three’d
better keep in the background unless we want the dean to consider us
a sorority and tell us that we simply can’t exist. We might make it a
little reading club, if we want to have it a real club. There would be
no objection to that.”
“I wouldn’t even do that,” said Edith. “We are just congenial friends.
If anybody reaches the same intimacy with us we might be a Double Four,
perhaps. But we are not considering applications, are we, Sidney?”
“I should think _not_!” said Sidney, with emphasis.
CHAPTER VII.
THE SENSATION.
Coming as she did from a trip which had filled her mind with
impressions of breadth and beauty, Shirley Harcourt was delighted to
observe that her school environment was not to be one that was close
or confined. As she was borne around the drive to Westlake Hall, she
caught a glimpse of the lake’s shining waters and wound through the
woods of its attractive acres.
But Shirley was tired and she wished that the summer’s travel had not
taken off the freshness of the pretty coat, in which Dick thought that
she looked “like a million dollars,” or faded a little the becoming
hat. And she had been careful, too, wearing something else on the
outdoor trips on the mountains. Her bathing cap sufficed on the
California beaches.
It had not been possible for the trip to be planned for Shirley’s
convenience. As they came home by a southerly route, one which Shirley
thoroughly approved, nevertheless, she had found it necessary to
strike north to Chicago again. This route was comparatively so near to
home that she was tempted to go there, if only for a few hours.
But there was the extra expense to be considered first. Then it would
be quite forlorn, after all, to go into that house and find the
strangers to whom it had been rented for the year. Miss Dudley would
not return until the first of October. With determination, then,
Shirley put aside all home-clinging thoughts and wondered why she were
not more keen about the school experience before her. She had thought
it such a wonderful plan, something that she had always wanted to
do,--that jolly life in a dormitory with other girls!
But Shirley’s depression was chiefly physical and a natural result of
the continued delights and strain of the long summer trip. Now she
was feeling refreshed by the cool, fresh lake air, and the sight of
the school environment cheered her. No one was arriving with her, for
Shirley was late. This was another drawback, for Shirley’s habit was to
be ahead of her work, and the thought of a number of lessons in which
to catch up was not a happy one. She counted up the days which had
passed since the opening one,--only three. There would be no lessons
recited on that day, perhaps not on the next one. She would _do_ it,
anyhow, and Shirley set her lips firmly together at the thought of it.
With rising interest, Shirley looked at the massive building with its
porches and vines, as she turned from paying the man of the taxi and
went up the steps. Her bag was light, but she took her time to ascend,
looking around at the walks and buildings seen through the trees, and
noting that there were no girls around. Glancing at her watch, she saw
that it was the dinner hour.
Shirley rang the bell and was admitted promptly. The sensation had
arrived. The maid gave her one look, first surprised, then questioning.
“Why Miss (Shirley did not catch the name),--are you masquerading
already?” she said.
Shirley looked surprised in her turn. “Will you show me to my room,
please, or to some one who will direct me? Or perhaps I should see the
dean first.” That, Shirley knew, would probably be impossible, if she
were at dinner. “I am Shirley Harcourt, and my arrangements were all
made for me.” “Yes, certainly,” said the maid. “The dean is at dinner,
but there is always some one in charge at the office during these first
days. I will take you there.”
More than one curious glance the maid cast at Shirley as she showed
her to the office. It was as if she could not believe her eyes, and
Shirley, who had almost forgotten her Chicago experiences by this time,
wondered if this were not some one from Chicago, who must know her
“double.”
“It will be possible, I think, for you to have dinner,” said the maid.
“I will be ready to see you when you are through in here. Miss Schiff,
this is Miss Shirley Harcourt, who wants to see you about the room
reserved for her.”
The maid was enjoying this introduction, it was very evident. She was
quite a superior sort of maid, Shirley could see. Probably she was
some girl who was paying her way with this part service. Shirley was
accustomed to that in her college town. She dimly saw the neat office
with its desks and safe, its tables and chairs. Miss Schiff was looking
at her with bright amusement. “What in the world?” she asked. “Are you
joking me, Emma? But no,--” Miss Schiff was looking at the traveling
garb, the bag and the tired girlish face.
“I am Shirley Harcourt,” firmly said Shirley. “If you will find the
list of girls and their rooms, you will see my name. I have been on a
western trip and I could not get here before.”
“I see,” kindly said Miss Schiff. “Excuse me. I took you for some one
else at first. I will look up the matter at once. Just sit down. You
can go out to dinner with me presently.”
“Thank you, but my head aches a little and I should like bed better
than anything else. I had a late lunch in Chicago, and then I had some
fruit and a sandwich on the local train that brought me here. Probably
they gave me the headache.”
“Perhaps a hot drink would help you,” Miss Schiff suggested, “but that
is as you like.”
In a few moments Shirley knew the number of her room, and the maid whom
Miss Schiff called Emma took her to a room on the second floor. It was
already occupied, Shirley saw, but there stood her pretty cedar chest,
already uncrated and ready to be unlocked for the sheets and pillow
slips which must go on that comfortable looking single bed. The big
portmanteau which had accompanied her on the western trip also stood on
one side of the large closet.
Pretty frocks hung in the closet, all on one side. Shirley wondered
who her room-mate was to be, but her head throbbed too unpleasantly
now for her to do anything but make up her bed, take a hurried bath
and crawl thankfully under the covers. Her room-mate, of course, would
be surprised to find her there, but she couldn’t help that.
It happened that her room-mate did not come in or think of doing
so until after the time for study hours to commence; for with the
other girls she had gone out on the campus for a while, and meantime
she heard that Shirley Harcourt had arrived. “You will find a little
surprise in your room,” said Miss Schiff to Madge Whitney, whom she met
as she went to dinner, through the flocks of girls that came from the
dining hall.
“My room-mate’s come, has she, Miss Schiff? Why doesn’t she come to
dinner?”
“She had a severe headache and wanted to get to bed. You might study in
the library, Madge, or with Caroline again. I will give you permission.”
“Oh, thank you, Miss Schiff! My books are all in Cad’s room anyhow. Did
she look like a nice girl?”
Miss Schiff laughed. “Yes, she looked _like_ a _very_ nice girl, so
much like one, in fact, that you may find her more of a surprise than
you think.” With an amused look, Miss Schiff hurried on.
“Now what did she mean by _that_?” asked Madge of her friend Caroline
Scott. “Do you suppose that she is some precise prunes, prisms and
persimmons creature that I won’t like at all? I’ve a great mind to run
up and see!”
“And make a great hit right at the start!” Caroline suggested.
“That is so. If she has a headache, she may be in a warlike frame of
mind. I’ll not risk it. Poor thing! It’s bad enough to be late getting
to school, let alone having a headache ‘right at the start.’ Will you
lend me a pencil, Cad? Then I’ll not have to go to the room at all till
bedtime. Dear me,--if we only could have roomed together this year!”
“Yes; but I am not going to let rooming with Stella Marbury spoil my
senior year. We get along all right, and she spends half her time away
from the room practicing anyhow. It would never have done not to room
with the girl from my home town.”
“I know it, and Stella wants the ‘prestige’ of rooming with you, Cad.
Stella is one little worker for prominence!”
Due to Madge’s meeting with Miss Schiff, Shirley’s slumbers were not
disturbed by any inrushing room-mate. She expected it, dozing uneasily
for a while, but as the medicine which she had taken for her headache
began to take effect and she felt more comfortable, she fell into a
deep slumber.
When Madge Whitney entered, she did so quietly, though she was obliged
to put on her electric light. She tiptoed around, finding everything
that she needed, and looking curiously toward the bed in which Shirley
lay without stirring. Madge saw the shining gold of the hair that
spread over the pillow, but only a cheek and a very pretty arm and
hand that had been tossed free of the covers could be distinguished.
A lake breeze was coming in quite coolly now from the two open windows.
Madge shut the one nearest the beds partly down, and though she did not
dare to touch her room-mate, she drew up the bathrobe that lay across
the foot of the bed and put a corner of it over the arm and shoulder,
as she had sometimes found that her mother had done for her. Then she
put out the light and undressed by only the dim light which came in
from the hall through the door set ajar for the purpose. Shirley was a
fortunate girl to have so thoughtful a room-mate waiting, though, it
must be acknowledged that Madge might not have thought of this had it
not been for considerable interest and curiosity. Some way, that hand
looked familiar. But hands were much alike!
In the morning Shirley woke wondering where she was after a dream of
mountain climbing. But the headache was gone. A renewed Shirley sat up
in bed and looked around. Why, this was fine. Here she was at last. Why
should she worry about lessons? They would be good to her and let her
make them up as she could. She naturally looked first at the stirring
form in the other bed. The rising gong was ringing loudly.
A flying mop of curly black hair was all that Shirley could see; but
hands were raised to rub a pair of sleepy eyes, as the girl turned over
on her back, trying to wink those same blue eyes open.
“Good morning,” clearly and pleasantly said Shirley. “Is this the Miss
Madge Whitney with whom Miss Schiff said I was to room?”
“It certainly is,” replied Madge, “and I suppose that you are Shirley
Harcourt.”
“Yes,” said Shirley.
The blue eyes came open, after a last blink, and suddenly Madge set up.
“Why, the idea! Was it you, Sidney Thorne, all the time, here in my
room in bed last night? And to think that I covered up your shoulder
and tiptoed around and put the light out and everything! What became
of the other girl? And why on earth,--?” But Madge stopped and stared
again.
“It was good of you not to waken me,” Shirley’s musical voice
continued, “but I really am not anybody by the name of Sidney. I do
suppose that of all things I had to strike the same school as my
‘double!’” Shirley looked rather disgusted.
“If you are not Sidney Thorne, then you certainly _have_ a double. Why,
it is the _strangest thing_! Please excuse me for having stared so. I
am so surprised!”
“I do not blame you. There must be a strong resemblance, for I remember
in Chicago several people took me for some one, I did not know who. It
is rather enlightening, as my dad says, to know who she is,--unless I
have _two_ doubles! Wouldn’t that be terrible! I didn’t know that my
‘style of beauty’ was so common.”
“It isn’t. Sidney lives in Chicago all right, and is very well known
there, or her father and mother are, which is the same thing. So you
found out that you had a ‘double’ when you came to Chicago?”
“The first time. I stayed there a little while with my cousins. Then
we went on with our big western trip that has made me late coming back
to school. We got delayed toward the last. But we ought to get up, I
suppose.”
“I should think we _should_!” cried Madge, looking at her watch, and
hopping out of bed. “There will be _some sensation_ this morning
at breakfast! Shirley, Shirley, Shirley Harcourt,” Madge repeated
reflectively. “Let me get used to it. I hope that you will not mind if
I should call you Sidney by mistake. I do see something different about
you, Shirley, but I can’t tell what it is for the life of me.”
“Thank fortune for that!” laughed Shirley, busy pulling on her shoes
and stockings. “I’m afraid that it is going to be embarrassing all
around.”
Madge said nothing in reply to that, for she was wondering what Sidney
would think of it. That she would not like it at all was a foregone
conclusion. How queer it was; but Madge had heard of such things.
Hurriedly the girls dressed. Shirley was quite glad that they wore a
uniform at the school, though it occurred to her, as she slipped the
one piece blue dress over her head, that the uniform would complicate
the matter of identity. She had never thought of this possibility.
There were too many wonderful things taking her attention every day,
too many adventures planned in advance for much reflection. Letters to
Europe and to Aunt Anne had taken her spare time. That she should meet
her double at school!
Madge slipped a friendly hand in Shirley’s arm as they went downstairs
and through confusing corridors to the big dining room. It was not as
much of an ordeal to Shirley as it might have been to some girls, for
she was accustomed to be invited with her parents to dinner at the
dormitory where the co-eds at home held forth. This was very similar,
Shirley thought. But she had determined not to say one word about her
family or the professor of whom she was so proud. This year should be
unique,--and, indeed, its opening adventures promised that it would be.
No one paid any attention to her until after grace had been said by the
dean and the girls were all seated. “Staying with Madge, Sidney?” asked
one, unfolding her napkin and taking up her spoon for her fruit.
“This, girls,” said Madge, without the suspicion of a smile, “is my
new room-mate, Shirley Harcourt. She got in last night. Shirley, this
is Betty Terhune.” Madge continued the introductions around the table,
at which there was no teacher, one of the senior girls occupying the
place at the head. Some of the girls gave Shirley a second look, as she
acknowledged the introductions, but most of them thought that it was a
joke.
“Oh, what’s the point of this?” asked Betty. “I suppose you stayed all
night with Madge, Sidney. Your new room-mate is going to be pretty late
in her classes, Madge.”
Shirley now sat quietly, eating her orange and smiling aside at Madge.
“Listen, girls,” said that young lady. “I don’t blame you for thinking
it a joke. I could scarcely believe Shirley this morning when I finally
got awake and found her there. But if you don’t believe me, look over
there at Sidney Thorne!”
The astonished girls looked toward the table at which they were
accustomed to see Sidney Thorne. Sure enough, there she was, calmly
eating her fruit, with no idea of the surprise in store for her.
Shirley was as much interested as the rest and gave a comprehensive
look at this heretofore elusive double of hers.
“My!” Betty exclaimed. “Even the profile is the same! Why, how could it
happen? Are you sure that you are not related?”
“It must be very distantly, if we are. I never heard of any relatives
by that name.” Shirley felt decidedly strange. It was like a dream to
be here in this different but attractive school, so far from her mother
and father, where a girl who looked almost exactly like her, so far as
she could see, was already a pupil in the school.
“Tell me about Sidney Thorne,” she said to Betty. “You can’t imagine
what a queer surprise it is to find a girl so like me here!”
“I can imagine how I would feel,” sympathetically said Betty. “But if
you have to have a double, it is a good thing that she is a nice girl.
Sidney lives in Chicago, as Madge may already have told you. She hasn’t
any brothers or sisters that I ever heard of, but occasionally her
mother and father drive here to see her. They have all kinds of money
and they are very fine, cultured people,--so everybody says. Her mother
is just the prettiest thing!
“Sidney is one of the smartest girls in school. She belongs to a little
crowd that they call the ‘Double Three,’ since a Hallowe’en stunt last
year, but they are only her most intimate friends. She’s in almost
every club there is here.”
Immediately the thought crossed Shirley’s mind that if such were the
case she might as well pay no attention to clubs or societies, those,
at least, whose membership was elective. For some reason she felt that
no “double” would want to elect her--but then she had a second thought:
If _she_ were the one whose double came into a school, she would think
it a test of her generosity to admit her to its advantages.
There was little time for thinking about this comparatively small
matter, for class time was not far away. Every girl had some important
thing to do next. The conversation between Madge, Shirley and Betty
whisked to the day’s program and Shirley had much to find out. Her
courses had been arranged long since. Books, the location of the class
rooms and matters of registration were now Shirley’s concern.
As they hurried from the dining-room after breakfast, Madge asked
Shirley if she would like to meet Sidney. “Oh, no, Madge,” Shirley
replied. “I haven’t time for one thing extra, and then I think that it
would be better for her to hear about me first, if possible, rather
than to have the shock of seeing me. I caught a glimpse of her on my
trip, but she has never heard of me.”
“It’s good of you to think of that,” returned Madge. “I think that I
like you pretty well, Shirley Harcourt.”
CHAPTER VIII.
SHIRLEY’S FIRST DAY.
As Miss Schiff had notified the dean about the strange resemblance,
Shirley was obliged to meet no surprise on the dean’s part, or
embarrassment on her own during her first conference. She found the
dean dignified, receptive, kind in rather a reflective, serious way.
Shirley ascribed her manner partly to the fact of the resemblance, but
it was not even mentioned. Miss Irving asked her a few questions, then
directed her in regard to her immediate movements.
Soon Shirley was armed with the cards on slips which admitted her
to classes. These, she knew, would serve also to identify her. In
consequence, she went with quiet assurance to her class rooms,
determined to show no self-consciousness if she could help it.
In the college atmosphere, with her father one of the best loved
professors on the faculty, Shirley had been taught to think of others,
and that altruism, together with long custom in meeting teachers and
crowds of young people, helped her now. These classes were small and
held in pretty class rooms that pleased Shirley.
Sometimes Shirley felt a little amusement over the situation, but she
thought how very annoying it must be to the other girl to have a double
appear so unexpectedly, a girl who was to live under the same roof, go
to the same meals, attend the same classes for a whole school year. But
in spite of Shirley’s kind thought of the other girl, just how annoying
it was to Sidney Thorne she could scarcely know.
As she entered the first class, Shirley was more concerned with her
lack of preparation than with anything else. It was the class in
English. She went at once to the desk to speak to the teacher and
offer her name for enrollment. This teacher, too, must have had the
word passed to her, or must have seen her at breakfast, for she showed
no surprise and when Shirley said, “Of course, Miss Berry, I am not
prepared this morning,” she nodded pleasantly. “You may make up such
work as you have lost,” she said.
But while Shirley was detained at the desk for this enrollment, she was
in full view of the class, which had gathered before Shirley came in.
The conference with the dean had made her almost late.
There was a general gasp of astonishment, and a turning of heads toward
the row where Sidney Thorne sat, as if the girls found it necessary to
assure themselves of there being two. If any of them had seen Shirley
in the halls, or even noticed her in the dining room, it was most
likely that they had taken her for Sidney. That young lady was looking
at Shirley in well-bred surprise.
It cost Sidney something to control her surprise and dismay, but
control herself she did, turning to Hope, who sat beside her,
whispering with raised eyebrows, “Who is she?”
But the teacher was calling the class to order and the amazed Hope only
shook her head as unable to account for Shirley.
Madge, who sat just in front of Sidney, heard the question, turned
slightly, and said out of the corner of her mouth, “my new room-mate.”
The class was conducted as usual. Shirley, who had been directed to a
seat at the end of a row, was busy taking notes most of the time, for
Miss Berry was reviewing the main points of the previous lesson as well
as presenting the new one and calling on the different seniors for
recitation or comment.
It could have been her own voice reciting, Shirley thought, when
Sidney Thorne was called upon, and she wondered; yet enunciation and
intonation--something was different, and Sidney was using that “Boston”
variety of pronunciation at which the girls had laughed. Shirley felt
interested and a little drawn toward her double in spite of her wishing
that it might have not been this year, and this place of all others,
when the meeting had to occur.
Not all the seniors were present in every class. Some who were not
taking the regular college preparatory course were away from the Latin
class or from the class in mathematics. In consequence there was
usually some one to exclaim over the “new girl who looks exactly like
Sidney Thorne,” as the word went around. But Shirley paid no attention
to any slight commotion on her account. She could have recited in
Latin, but forgot to tell the Latin teacher that fact and was not
called on for a recitation. She wanted to hold up her hand several
times when questions of syntax came up. But something kept her from
doing so. She could wait.
She was glad now that her father had made her read that first two
hundred lines of Virgil with him. How she had hated it at the time, for
her schedule was already full enough, she thought. But he had insisted.
“I am not going to have my girl floundering around with her first
experience of Latin poetry,” said he. “It is very easy, but it will
seem hard at first, and with all due respect to the teacher, whoever
it may be, I should like to show you a few things myself about scansion
and get you into the easy rhythm of it. Come, now, sing of arms and the
hero!”
Shirley found herself thinking of her father during the recitation.
Two girls recited particularly well, though they were finding Virgil
none too easy at first, it was clear. They were Sidney Thorne and Olive
Mason.
Nothing happened of any great annoyance to Shirley that day, though
several times she was taken for Sidney. She felt that life had really
begun and when she found that the only lessons so far in mathematics
were in the nature of a review, her worries disappeared. She was a
rapid reader. Her English would be caught up in no time. French was
easy,--nothing could make a wave of trouble roll across her peaceful
breast, she told Madge and Caroline.
With them and Betty Terhune, after classes were over, Shirley went out
upon the campus again to wander there and in the wood and more open
grove. The girls were rather enjoying the distinction of having the new
girl in tow and being the center of so much interest among the girls.
Shirley quite forgot that her arrival was a sensation in exploring
the delights of the place. Once Caroline called her Sidney and Betty
started to do so later on, but changed. “Sid--” to Shirley.
“Duck on the rock” was fun down in the midst of the sand and pebbles.
Then the girls had her peep through a little window into the boat-house
to see the school launch. “We call it the yacht,” said Madge, “and I
guess it is a kind of one. It was given to the school, and the big boat
house, too, was given by one of our alumnae. See,--there is room for
the smaller boats inside, too. They all go inside to stay when real
winter comes.”
Shirley looked in. There was the pretty launch with its brass railings
and its mahogany finish. Shirley read the name, “Westlake,” and
exclaimed over the future delights which its very existence promised.
“I don’t see how I can wait for Saturday!” she cried, when Betty told
her that the seniors were to go out in it Saturday.
Perhaps it was largely from curiosity, but that evening, both before
and after dinner, a great many of the younger girls and most of the
seniors managed in some way to meet Shirley. “Introduce me to your
room-mate, Madge,” one of the girls would say. Or Betty and Cad, as
Caroline was almost universally called, would come up with a bevy of
girls to be introduced. Shirley appreciated Madge’s convoy, and knew
that Madge wanted to keep her from the embarrassment of being alone. It
was not really necessary, for Shirley was quite able to take care of
herself; but the circumstances were unusual, to say the least.
There was music in the parlors, with much lively conversation after the
girls had tired of being outside. They dressed for dinner, as it was
directed and their light, cool frocks were more suitable for the house
when the lake breezes blew strongly. Shirley had had an opportunity to
press her pretty orchid dress of soft silk, which looked suitable and
was becoming. She felt more at home in it than she had been able yet to
feel in the uniform, neat as it was, and comfortable.
Shirley’s wardrobe, however, was limited. It had seemed better to do
the big things, like the trips and the year at school, even if economy
were necessary in the doing. From the catalogue Mrs. Harcourt and Miss
Dudley had found the list of garments permitted, or required. These
Shirley possessed. It was good fun to be away at school, Shirley was
thinking tonight. Suppose she did look like some one else. That would
be a nine days’ wonder. But she noticed that Sidney Thorne did not come
up to meet her. When Shirley entered the parlors with Madge, Sidney
immediately found it necessary to go to her room and begin work on her
lessons or some committee report. “Poor girl,” Shirley thought, as she
noticed Sidney’s hurried departure, “she has had a shock!”
It was not long before Shirley herself thought that she must waste no
more time with the girls. She, too must master her lessons. Madge went
upstairs with her, but said that she would not study until regular
hours began. Leaving Shirley to her usual concentration, Madge hurried
around to Cad’s room to “indulge in a little harmless gossip,” she told
her hostess. “I’m glad that Stella isn’t in. Lucky that she practices
half the time.”
“Yes, and the rest of the time she is with her musical chum. It is a
wonder that she does not want to room with her.”
“How did you like my room-mate?” Madge asked Betty.
“Very much. It’s eerie, though, to see how much she looks like Sidney.
When you are with her for a while you do seem to see that she is
different.”
“A different personality altogether,” airily stated Caroline. “It’s
funny, though. She even walks like Sidney,--that light springy way,
awfully independent, you know, with her chin up. But Shirley seems more
interested in everything than Sidney will let herself be.”
“Sidney thinks that it is not ‘good form’ to show surprise at anything.
It is new to Shirley, too. Then she isn’t as stand-offish as Sidney was
when she first came here. It certainly is going to be fun to watch the
differences and to tell them apart. The uniform, too, makes it worse.
If they only could dress differently!”
“Sidney will have something on tomorrow, Betty,” said Madge, “depend
upon it, girls, that will let her friends know which is which!”
“Yes,” replied Betty, “and poor old Sidney is thinking right now that
she would like to leave and go to some other school.”
“Suppose she did!” cried Caroline.
“No,” said Betty, “I think that I know Sidney well enough to say that
she will stick it out and not be driven away. She may want to go, and
hate it like everything to have some one look like her very twin, but
she will stay, for pride’s sake if for nothing else. And nobody will
know how she hates it, either.”
“Oh, I don’t know. The Double Three will know it.”
“She may say something at first, when she is so surprised. But nobody
will be _sure_. Maybe she will not care as much as I think she will.
But I think that it would be something of a shock to any one, and
especially to Sidney.”
The girls agreed that having a double who wasn’t your twin would
scarcely be desirable. Still, Shirley Harcourt was a very attractive
girl.
Other girls beside Madge and her friends were commenting that evening
upon the sensation of the day. Some of them declared that they could
see a difference in the two girls; others exclaimed that the new girl
looked _exactly_ like Sidney.
Sidney Thorne herself was very deeply annoyed, as she said frankly,
though with reservations, to Fleta. “Yes, it will be a perfect
nuisance to be taken for some one else or have some one taken for you.
Fortunately the new senior seems to be unobjectionable so far as we can
see. On the whole, I suppose that it is not very important. I shall ask
the dean if I may not wear something which will identify me, to you
girls, at least. In time every one will recognize some difference, I
hope. We certainly can not look exactly alike and I shall adopt some
different arrangement of my hair. Wouldn’t you, Irma?”
“That would be a good idea,” said Irma, who was quickly getting into
something more comfortable than her dinner dress.
Sidney disappeared into her bedroom and came back with a pretty
cluster of artificial flowers taken from her coat. “There,” she said,
“I’ll wear this tomorrow. Everybody has seen me with this new bunch of
posies.”
“You’d better wear something over your shoulders behind, too,” said
Fleta. “I’d suggest a placard, ‘This is Sidney.’”
“Fleta!”
“Excuse me, Sid; I was trying to be funny.”
Sidney did not reply, but stood pulling out the flowers for a better
effect. Fleta gave a quick glance at Irma, who frowned at her; and
Edith, who also caught Fleta’s eye, shook her head, and lifted her
hands in an expression of “It’s beyond me!”
Sidney now picked up her uniform and fastened the flowers high upon its
shoulder. “Now,” she said, “that will be seen from either direction,
Fleta. We can dismiss it all, I hope. It probably will not be very
disagreeable as soon as it gets past the stage of mixing us up. Better
not tell any of your secrets, girls, or talk about the Double Three,
until you are sure it is I. Odd,--they say that twins think it fun to
be taken for each other and like to mystify people.”
Fleta reported this to Dulcie, when Dulcie, in bathrobe and slippers,
met her in the hall and asked her what Sidney thought of the “new girl
who is her image.”
“She can’t like it very well,” Fleta answered, “but she is very
dignified about it.”
“Sidney would be. I hope that she won’t make it hard for the new girl.
She could, you know.”
“Yes; but Sidney never does mean things.”
“Sidney is honorable, but she can let a girl alone about as well as any
one I know; and it makes a difference here, whether you are a friend of
Sidney’s or not.”
“Yes,” thoughtfully Fleta assented. “She says now we must make sure
that it is she we are talking to, when we tell any secrets or talk
about the Double Three.”
Dulcie laughed. “We must have a pass word, then,” she said.
CHAPTER IX.
LETTERS.
For a few days all of Shirley’s extra time, except enough for outdoor
exercises, which she took in a general way, was spent in catching up
and in reciting her missed lessons. She would not risk putting it
off. There was much less of it than she had expected, she wrote to
the dear folks in Europe, from whom she had received the longed-for
fat letter. To them alone she repeated a few complimentary remarks
from her teachers in proof that she was “getting along all right,” as
she told her parents. All the happy details left to be told about the
trip she related as well as her impressions of the school, but not a
word did she say about finding her double in existence. Why tell it,
she thought. To Dick, however, it made the main subject and Shirley
chuckled as she started in on a letter to him.
It was Friday night and Madge, who was preparing to go with Cad to the
library, asked what she was laughing about. “What I’m going to write
to Dick,” replied Shirley. “Dick is my cousin, who was along on this
summer trip with his father and mother. Perhaps I was the one who was
‘along,’ though. They all took care of me.”
Madge looked interested, but hurried off, as Shirley had told her
that this was her great opportunity to catch up and write home. The
usual Friday night affairs had not begun so early in the year. Lessons
could be divided between now and Saturday, though the boat trip was in
prospect for the seniors.
“My dear Dick,” wrote Shirley: “You will, perhaps, know what has
happened from my writing to you. Otherwise, I will frankly say, I would
not think that I had time thus early in my school career. Think of it,
Richard,--I am a senior, with all the glories of the position! And by
the way, the school is all that I had hoped to find it and more. There
are ever so many pretty fine girls here, too, from all appearances,
though I do not know many of them yet, and you are invited now to our
‘Prom’ in the spring. It will be at a week end and you can come as well
as not. Plan for it and mystify your fraternity friends accordingly.
“You will remember, if you can spare the thoughts from your exciting
rushes and affairs of your own opening weeks, that you were laughing
at me once, right after I saw my ‘double’ on the Pacific coast. (I
hear you laugh and say--a big place to see her in). You said, ‘Don’t
worry, Shirley. I prophesy that you will see her again and find out
about her. She will probably be waiting for you at school. Notify me at
once,’--and a lot more of nonsense that we both immediately forgot.
“But the joke of it is, Dick, that she really was ‘waiting for me’
here. It has been a shock to both of us, and she has not come near me
to meet me yet, a whole week, or almost. I don’t blame her. Her name
is Sidney Thorne and her parents are wealthy people of Chicago, a fact
which we very well guessed at from my experience there. Looking exactly
like me, of course she is all that one could desire,--in a double. I
will tell you more anon. Tell Cousin Molly, if you like, but I am not
going to write it to Dad and Mother, or to Aunt Anne, for the simple
reason that they will think it an annoyance to me, which it isn’t, that
is, not much of one, and rather funny. And I want them to feel that my
year is almost a perfect one, since they have all done so much toward
making it so. Oh, I may change my mind, of course, for I’m so used to
telling Mother everything; but my best judgment is to wait.
“A fine time to you. May you get all the new boys that you want for the
frat and have a marvellous time of it. And don’t have too serious a
case until after you see some of these girls!”
Shirley laughed again as she folded her letter to Dick. For a moment
she almost regretted being away from those scenes of college life.
“Now, Auntie,” she said, choosing the most perfect sheets of her best
writing paper for her letter to Aunt Anne.
“Dearest Great-Aunt,” began the letter. “You would be pleased to death
to see this beautiful, beautiful place. At night I can hear the waves
lapping the shore and the cool breeze comes into our windows. We have
had bright days, and you know how blue the sky and lake can be, with
the ‘bright sparkles’ on the water. The school campus, or the wood,
goes right up to the shore. Tomorrow we are to have a ride in the
school launch, which is called the Westlake. It is big and handsome.
The seniors are to go, and perhaps some others. Madge Whitney, my
room-mate, did not know and it has not been announced yet.
“I do not know where you and Mother and Father could have found a
school that I should like so well. After the big trip, I did hate to
be penned in anywhere, in spite of always liking school more or less.
It was a habit, you know. But here, right on the lake, you get an
impression of space just about as you would on the sea-shore. The
waves aren’t as big, nor are they salty,--but it is different and
lovely. Thank you for your part in it, to begin with!
“I have had no trouble in making up the lessons that I missed. The
teachers all helped me to start in. The dean, Miss Irving, is dignified
and not easy to become acquainted with, but deans have to be that way,
I suppose, or the girls would run all over them. You know how it is at
home. I do not know anybody real well yet, but I am not homesick. It is
just another big adventure on top of all that I had this summer.
“My room-mate is a real dear sort of a girl. She is Madge Whitney
and has the blackest of hair and the bluest of eyes, a real Irish
combination, and one of the other girls, such a funny, nice one that
Madge calls ‘Cad’ (Caroline Scott), sometimes calls Madge ‘Irish.’ Cad
says Madge ought to have my eyes, or I ought to have Madge’s hair,
instead of being all mixed up the way we are. There will be plenty of
good times, you can see. Tomorrow we are to have a ride on the school
launch, which will be a great treat. There was nothing special on for
tonight so I thought that I must get a word in to you and ‘the folks’
and Dick. I’ll study a little after I get this letter finished. I am
sending it home, for I think that you will be there by that time, as
nearly as I could understand your card, which was not the clearest that
you ever wrote, my dear aunt,--no disrespect intended! I’ll write as
often as I can, but it is going to be a busy life. I can see that you
were wise when you gave me that box of correspondence cards and told me
to write often if not so much at a time. But I’ll get a real letter off
every once in a while.
“Oh, yes,--my room is on the second floor, which isn’t much of a climb
to any one used to the mountains this summer. Some of the girls are in
suites with a study room, but this, as you know, shares a bath with
girls in another single room, on the other side of it (the bathroom).
We are on the other side of the building from the lake, though we get
the breezes just the same, and we look out on trees and campus and
pretty shrubbery. But you know how it is from the pictures in the
catalogue.”
A very little more Shirley added, then folded the letter and put it in
its envelope, sighing as she did so, for she thought of all the girls
to whom she must write at least once. Dozens of cards she had sent home
from different places, and jolly, friendly cards they were, for Shirley
could write a good message in small space when she tried. But there
would be more to tell that the girls in the senior class of the home
high school would enjoy after Shirley became better acquainted and had
a greater supply of real boarding-school lore to impart.
Putting home, her people, and even her present surroundings, including
her “double,” out of her mind with determination, Shirley plunged into
her lessons, in which she was still absorbed when Madge came back from
the library.
“Say, Shirley,” said Madge as she entered. “Hope Holland says that they
want you to do something on the program of the classical club that
meets next week. She said that anybody who can ‘walk away with Virgil’
the way you do should be able to step right in on our programs. I told
her that I thought your father was a teacher or something from what you
said about his having you read some Virgil with him. Was that right?”
“Yes, he is,” demurely Shirley replied. “Why, yes, I suppose I could do
something. What do they want?”
“I guess they’ll let you do anything you wanted to, for the program
committee is having a time to think up things.”
Shirley thought a moment. “I brought some of my old themes and things,”
she said, “and there is a short one on Latin poetry that might do,
since we are all studying Virgil now.”
“Just the thing! May I run back to tell Hope that you will? She is
worrying about it. Nobody wants to do anything, and we are supposed to
have a decent program.”
“Of course I will do it. It certainly will not be much trouble to get
up and read something that I’ve already written.”
“Does your father teach Latin?”
“Yes. You see why I have to get my Latin lessons, don’t you?” Shirley
was laughing, and Madge nodded brightly at her as she ran off to tell
Hope that Shirley had something on Latin poetry and that it probably
was good because her father taught Latin.
Study hours had been over for a little while. Shirley piled up her
books, undressed and was in bed when Madge came back. That night she
dreamed that her father and mother came back from their trip across
the waters, met Sidney Thorne and thought that she was their daughter.
Sidney went off with them happily and none of them paid any attention
to Shirley’s cries, while Shirley looked down at herself and saw that
she was all wrapped up like an Egyptian mummy!
CHAPTER X.
WHEN DOUBLES MEET.
General rejoicing showed in the smiling faces of the girls around
the tables Saturday morning at breakfast when it was announced that
the Westlake would leave the dock at nine o’clock for parts unknown.
Applause followed the statement from the dean, who went on to say that
it would carry the senior girls and some of the teachers, and that
lunch would be provided.
“You will wear suitable hats and wraps, for we shall stop at one of
the towns to do such shopping as by this time you may have wished that
you had done before coming. As it is not a picnic, there is no need of
picnic garb. Lunch will be enjoyed on the Westlake. Make your wants
known to one of the teachers. You will be chaperoned in small groups
while shopping.”
“Oh, good hunting!” cried Madge, though softly, as soon as Miss Irving
had finished. “I was unusually stupid about some of the little things
that I might have known I wanted. Will you want to shop, Shirley?”
“I’ll _want_ to,” smiled Shirley, “but I spent too much on different
things while I was on my trip. Little Shirley will have to count the
pennies, alas. But I might buy a hankie, to remember the first trip in
the Westlake, and indulge in a sundae if they let us. Do you know where
we shall stop?”
“Haven’t an idea. It all depends on where we go.”
“You don’t mean it,” laughed Shirley. “Of course it will not be
Chicago?”
“No, I think not. We’ll probably start north, but as the lake is lovely
this morning we’ll go out quite a distance and have a fine ride.”
Shirley hesitated to put on the coat in which she had traveled. It was
still pretty, but needed cleaning very much, and pressing had only
seemed to bring out a few dingy streaks all the more. She brushed up
and wiped off the hat, and fastened down its few ornaments more tightly
in order that darker and less faded portions should not show. “Can I
have cleaning done from here, Madge?” she asked.
“Yes, but it may be some time before you get back what you send.”
“Then I suppose I’ll have to wear this coat as it is, till time to put
on my winter coat.”
Madge nodded an affirmative. “Oh, it doesn’t look so bad,” she said,
not very tactfully, for there was no consolation for Shirley in that
remark.
“No one would ever know that it was new when I started away in June,”
ruefully said Shirley, “and I tried to take care of it, too. Well, it
can’t be helped. If it weren’t for the Sunday service, I could get
along here on the campus without it. Luckily I did not catch it on
anything to tear it. It will be all right after it is cleaned, I hope,
for I shall have to wear it next spring again.”
While Shirley might feel uncomfortable at the start, she was too
sensible to let any coat or hat spoil her enjoyment of the trip; but
she did wish that she could make herself a little less conspicuous. She
would slip into some seat and just stay there! Yet Shirley knew well
enough that there was probably no new girl in any school who came into
quicker prominence than herself. Seniors and freshmen, music students
and irregulars of any sort by this time knew “Sidney Thorne’s double”
and were enjoying the fun of trying to tell them apart by stares and
looks that tried to be unnoticeable but were often felt, or seen, by
both Sidney and Shirley. Sidney resented some of it and had told one
of the freshman girls, in a half laughing but quite decided way to “do
her staring at the new girl” not at her.
“But Sidney,” explained the freshman, who knew Sidney in Chicago, “I
wanted to speak to you, and I had to look, to see if it were you or
Shirley Harcourt.”
“Look at our clothes,” said Sidney. “I always wear something different,
and she doesn’t, so far. Besides, we can’t look so much alike as you
all seem to think! It is ridiculous.”
Sidney was in much the same sort of a mood today. Of course this girl
would have to be in all the class affairs and it would not be as easy
to avoid her as it was about the hall or in classes. Well, there she
was, in that old coat and hat, and if Hope Holland was not with her,
and Ollie Mason, too!
The sun was warm as Shirley traversed the walks of the campus between
Hope and Olive, who had joined her to talk about the classical club
program. Madge and Caroline were behind them, and Betty Terhune from a
group in front called back that they were early enough to choose their
seats. Between the tall trees, then down to the shore they briskly
walked.
The Westlake looked prettier than ever, its deck smooth and clean, its
sides shining. None of the teachers had yet arrived, but there were two
men in charge of the boat. They saw that the girls were safely aboard
and kept a wary eye out for a possible reckless one.
Of course the girls with whom Shirley was walking wanted to sit in the
very front seats, where Shirley would be in plain view of everybody!
But then, the front of the boat was the most desirable place and
Shirley knew that she would enjoy cutting the waves there, with the
prow, and seeing the water tossed aside. Hope was being “nice to her,”
Shirley knew, as she asked Shirley to sit in a certain spot that was a
favorite location and took a seat beside her. Shirley already knew that
Hope Holland came from Chicago and was a member of the “Double Three.”
She found Hope a very pleasant companion, but she had Madge also, on
the other side of her, and Dulcie sat beyond Hope.
Sidney, with Fleta and Irma, was now making her way toward the prow
and girls were coming to the dock in numbers. “Nobody is going to take
Shirley Harcourt for me today,” Sidney thought, as she saw the hat and
coat and glanced with some satisfaction at her own soft sport coat, new
and trim. A gay, close little red hat confined her golden locks. A
scarf of the newest design fluttered its ends in the wind.
Shirley, as she caught a glimpse of the red hat and the white coat,
sighed and thought much the same thing that Sidney had thought, though
with a difference. She could hear Stella Marbury’s voice exclaiming not
far away. “Sid! That must be a new coat; I’ve never seen it before. It
is certainly nifty.”
“I’m glad that you like it,” said Sidney, drawing it a little more
closely around her and putting her hands in its pockets. “Yes, it’s
new. I got it for just such occasions as this. Thank fortune, we don’t
have to wear those uniforms off the school grounds!”
“Why I thought that you liked the uniform idea. I’m sure I heard you
say once that it was so democratic and sensible.”
“Probably I did,--last year. It is different now.”
“And I know why,” replied Stella. Then Stella dropped her voice and
said something else. Hope spoke to Shirley then, asking her about her
summer’s trip, which Madge had mentioned. As Hope had been through the
western parks, both girls expressed their enthusiasm over the scenery,
the tramps and the horseback rides, and Shirley was glad not to hear
any more of Stella’s conversation. Dulcie she liked very much. “Dulce”
had a quaint touch of humor all her own at times. It was not long
before Shirley forgot her coat and hat that were not all she could
wish. She was her own interested and interesting self, friendly, but
not too talkative, and giving the other girls a chance to lead the
conversation and to be as friendly as they evidently wanted to be. She
suspected Hope of some intention in the matter, but what difference did
it make why they were with her. She would enjoy the fun.
Cad Scott had brought her guitar, and two of the girls, Betty Terhune
and Olive Mason, had their “ukes.” Tall Olive clasped her ukelele and
beat away upon its strings with the greatest enjoyment, in the latest
popular songs or the old ones that everybody knew. Shirley heard the
school songs for the first time. They were clever and pretty, she
thought, and different from the university songs. She was glad that
she had come. It was nice girl stuff! There sailed a white schooner
with full sails under the strong wind. Gulls and other water birds flew
sometimes near them.
Her mind a blank, as she would have said, except for present
impressions, Shirley leaned back to watch the water, the boat and
girls, and to listen, humming such tunes as she knew and singing such
new words as might be repeated in choruses. “You have a good voice,
Shirley,” said Hope.
“Thank you,” Shirley returned. “I want to take lessons some day. My
mother sings, though her voice is of a different quality.”
A few minutes afterward, Hope said something to Caroline, who started
some new chords. She squealed loudly above the noise of the motor,
“We’ll sing ‘Westlake Forever.’ Sidney, you take the solo.”
“All right,” called Sidney across a few girls. The guitar twanged; and
the ukes gave a few opening strains, then were silent. Sidney began to
sing, in a rich contralto that showed a little training in the careful
enunciation of words and free tones.
Shirley gasped and was silent. That was the reason Hope asked Sidney to
sing. She had heard Shirley’s voice and wondered. It was scarcely kind
of Hope. Yes, perhaps it was, to show Shirley the similarity in voices
and leave it to her to decide about whether she should reveal this
phase of likeness or not.
“You can get the chorus to this, Shirley,” Madge stopped at the end of
the first chorus to say.
“I’m thinking that I will not sing any more today,” said Shirley,
smiling.
Madge reached over and patted her hand. “I noticed. I think that you
have had some training, too.”
“A little from my mother, just so I’ll not sing in a way to spoil my
voice.”
“Sidney began lessons here last year. She’s going on in Chicago when
she gets a little older. Her parents are going to give her all of that
sort of thing that she wants. So Cad says.”
But the girls were all singing again, Sidney having refused to do
anymore solo work against wind, waves and the engine. Shirley hummed a
little. That would let Hope know that she had not minded the revelation.
They were far out upon Lake Michigan to all appearances when
lunchtime came. But after they were all well fortified against future
contingencies by a variety of sandwiches, potato chips, pickles and
similar articles of a picnic lunch, Shirley saw that land was in sight.
They made for a port which proved to be Kenosha, on the Wisconsin
shore. There they spent a few hours, Shirley, to her surprise, in the
same group with Sidney Thorne. The girls had been assigned to certain
teachers, of whom there were a number out today. Madge said that the
ride was popular with the teachers. Two of them wanted to go to the
same shops and joined forces, hence the combination.
Shirley naturally kept with Madge and Caroline, but when they found a
place for the inevitable sundae or soda, Shirley discovered that Hope
Holland and Sidney Thorne were sitting down at the table where she and
Madge had seated themselves. Caroline, at the last minute, had accepted
the invitation of a beckoning hand from another small table like theirs.
Shirley did not know that Hope had dared Sidney to this but she looked
at the well-dressed girl so like herself and smiled in a friendly way,
as she acknowledged Hope’s introduction. “Miss Thorne” also spoke as
she would have done to any other girl and they all proceeded to give
their orders. It was over, and very naturally, the meeting of the
“doubles.” It could scarcely be called an adventure, and yet Shirley
had a strange feeling about it. They talked, as girls talk, of school
affairs chiefly, as they enjoyed the tempting dishes brought them.
Hope, Sidney and Madge told bright stories of former adventures for
Shirley’s benefit, but Sidney seldom looked at Shirley as she talked.
She _was_ a dear girl, Shirley thought even if she had waited so long
to say a word to her. How could it have happened? _Could_ there be any
common ancestor not so far back, or was it just one of those strange
duplications of which she had read?
Let it go for the present, the manner of both girls said. Sidney was
her most charming self, appealing to Madge or Hope about this fact or
that fancy. She called Shirley Miss Harcourt, which set Shirley off
just a little farther than the other girls. But it was going to be
much more comfortable for both Shirley and Sidney after this, with no
efforts to avoid each other. Shirley decided that Sidney would have to
be the one to make any advances, if they became really acquainted, but
nods and smiles were possible now.
It was nearly dinner time when the launch at last brought its load of
girls home to the school grounds. Madge took Shirley’s arm as they
walked up from the dock. “Hope said that she engineered that meeting,”
Madge told Shirley. “She said that she thought it ridiculous for Sidney
not to know you at all.”
“I hope that she did not force Sidney Thorne into it,” said Shirley,
“not that it matters so much, but it is better.”
“She said that she dared her to sit there with you and Sid took the
dare. I think that she enjoyed it at the last.”
“It makes everything less noticeable now, I think,” Shirley
thoughtfully said. “After a while the girls will not think so much
about it, and I am sure that I shall not. I am glad to have met Sidney
and I think her a fine girl. What do you think of Hope? Did she mean it
kindly, do you think, when she asked Sidney to sing the solo, and was
it to show me how like our voices were?”
“Yes to both, I think,” declared Madge. “She probably did it on an
impulse, and if she thinks that you do not understand, she will very
likely say something to you about it. By the way, you and Sidney could
have a lot of fun at the Hallowe’en masquerade if you dress alike.”
“I’d not like to suggest it, but it _would_ be fun.”
CHAPTER XI.
GOSSIP AND HONORS.
Although Sidney Thorne would like to have done so, she could not very
well dismiss Shirley and all her works. Shirley was too bright in
her lessons and making too much of an impression upon both girls and
teachers. Shirley was a little more reserved than was quite natural to
her because of these unusual circumstances, but she tried not to notice
some of the little things that happened. Then that little fighting
reserve, that is in most of us, came to the rescue, not to push her
way, but to resist any influence that would quietly relegate her to
the rear, so far as lessons or ordinary activities were concerned. She
possessed the same qualities of leadership that Sidney had, though
whether they were exercised among her classmates or not did not matter
to her. Indeed, Shirley scarcely knew that she possessed it.
Other activities followed the picnic launch ride. Shirley played
tennis, outdoor basketball and other active games, taking care not to
join a group or team in which Sidney might be playing. But there were
other girls, some of whom in the excitement of the games would call
her Sidney and perhaps not know till the game was over that they had
been playing with Shirley. Several times, when Shirley thought that
some girl was speaking more freely of something than she would have
done except before Sidney, Shirley smilingly reminded her with, “I am
Shirley, remember.”
All this and the keen, though unobtrusive, interest which Shirley
showed in everything connected with the school’s activities made the
girls like her and trust to her sense of honor. She was fair in the
games, though she tried to win, and she had the advantage over some
of the girls in having come from a school where a spirit of real
sportsmanship was fostered. Shirley knew that and it made her less
ready to resent any lack of it in the girls with whom she played.
But volley ball and all the other kinds of ball in the courts were
played less as it grew colder and the fun of Hallowe’en drew near.
“Is the Double Three going to repeat the stunt of last year, Sidney?”
asked Caroline Scott, the room-mate of the girl who thought that she
and Caroline ought to make the Double Three into a Double Four.
Caroline and Sidney had never known each other very well in Chicago,
though their fathers were associated somewhat in a business way and
their mothers were in certain club work or church activities together.
They had become better acquainted, though not intimately so, since they
came to the same school.
“The Double Three never repeats,” laughed Sidney. “It’s the rest of you
girls that’s made a club of us anyhow. We don’t acknowledge that the
Double Three exists.”
“I see,” said Caroline, not believing that Sidney was at all in
earnest. “Then you are going to get up your costumes each one on her
own, I suppose.”
“I suppose so. I’ve sent to Mother for ideas, but the dean says that
she’ll not allow any expensive costumes to be sent in and if we have
any, we’ll have to make them, or use something we have. I’m very much
provoked about it.”
“Couldn’t you have something simple made in Chicago, Sidney?”
“Perhaps so but I’m too cross with the dean to ask about it.”
“She has not made any announcement yet.”
“No, but she will. I was waiting to see her, and she was telling
all this to one of the teachers who is going to have charge of the
Hallowe’en performance.” Sidney made a gesture as if the whole thing
were not very interesting to her.
“Do you mind telling who the teacher is?”
“Not in the least. You might know it is Miss Gibson.”
“That is why you are so disgusted, then, I suppose. Poor Gibby has a
hard time winning you over to her side.”
“She certainly need not try; but I am very respectful, don’t you think?”
“In class, at least, Sidney, looking out for your grades.” This was
Fleta, who was laughing as she said this. But Sidney shrugged her
shoulders. “I am never impolite to her anywhere, for my own sake,” she
said.
The girls were gathering in the beautiful chapel of the school before
morning worship. Hope, Fleta, Dulcie, Caroline and Madge were standing
in the aisle before passing to their regular seats. None of the
teachers had come in yet. Shirley was in her seat, but concealed from
Sidney’s view by the other girls who were in the way. Sidney continued
speaking.
“Miss Gibson has a loyal adherent now in Shirley Harcourt, and that
must console her for the rest of us. Shirley drinks in everything Miss
Gibson says with open mouth. Madge, didn’t you say that her father is a
teacher?”
“Yes.”
Shirley, who had been writing up her notes from the class before the
chapel exercises, had been dimly conscious of this conversation, but on
hearing her name, she paused in the movement of her pencil and looked
toward Madge’s back. Well, let them talk. She was tired of reminding
people!
“She is probably from some little country town and this is the biggest
place she ever saw,” continued Sidney. “I suppose her father is some
village school teacher that teaches Latin. Didn’t you say that he made
her get ahead on her Virgil?”
“Yes,” again said Madge, wavering between her loyalty to Shirley and
her customary admiration for Sidney, attractive, influential girl, that
she was. “I don’t know anything about her family. She reads her letters
and puts them away, but she gets some from abroad.”
“Somebody must have sold a farm,” lightly said Sidney, whose speech
indicated no spiteful feelings in intonation, but surely did not spring
from any sympathy of heart.
Shirley set her lips together and began to write slowly again. She
was angry for the first time. Before she left this school the
girls should know who her father was and that even country school
teachers--supposing he had been one--and the people on the farms that
raised everything foolish Sidney had to eat--but Shirley made her
resentful thoughts stop racing on. How silly she was! People who had
those ideas would probably keep them. What difference did it make?
“Well, Sid,” Fleta was saying, “you’d better be careful how you make
fun of your double. She may be related to you, you know.”
“Not a chance of it,” said Sidney. “It’s just one of those freaks of
nature by which we happen to look alike now. We’ll probably change in
a few years, except for our coloring, and I think that my hair is a
little lighter than hers.”
“Yes, and you are not quite so tall as Shirley, Sid,” said Fleta. “I
noticed it first when you both stood up together from the same table in
Kenosha.”
“It would be funny if you went to the same university, wouldn’t it?
Shirley is going to college, she says.”
“I am not sure that I shall go to college at all,” said Sidney. “It
would be fun, I suppose, but Mother wants me to be with her and it
would only mean living at home and going to the university in Chicago.”
“I thought you were keen on your studies, Sidney,” said Caroline, in
surprise.
“I am, some of them,” replied Sidney, “but I can have lessons on what I
like, read French and other literature at home and all that. You see, I
shall be eighteen before long, and Mother will bring me out in society
then. Why, Caroline, you and Hope will be doing the same thing!”
“Perhaps,” said Hope. “I am thinking of going to the university, and I
can’t do both.”
More girls had come in by this time. The dean had mounted the platform
and the teachers were in their places. The group around Sidney broke
up and Madge turned, to see Shirley busily writing in her notebook.
“Gracious!” exclaimed Madge. “Do you suppose, Caroline, that she was
there all the time?”
“Not likely,” replied Caroline. “I’d be so mad I couldn’t write if I
had heard Sidney talking like that about me. But Shirley is writing
away as cool as a cucumber. Shall you ask her?”
“My, no! If she has heard and says anything about it, I’ll tell you,
but I’ll not start any trouble for Sidney, and I would hate to have
Shirley know that Sidney would speak of her in just that way. Some
way--I like Sidney--but it didn’t seem just as kind as a girl ought to
be that has everything, like Sidney.”
“No,--it did _not_. But Sidney is proud, and Shirley Harcourt is making
too much of a success at everything to suit Sidney.”
“I wonder,” said Madge.
Shirley could scarcely keep her mind upon the Scripture lesson that
morning, beautiful and helpful as she had always found the passage
selected by the dean. But Shirley would scarcely have been human if
she had not been disturbed. ‘Open-mouthed,’ was she? And this was
the biggest place that she had ever seen! But she could fancy her
large-minded father laughing at it all. What would it matter to him?
Just nothing at all. Nevertheless Shirley seethed a little. Sidney
was a proud, empty-headed little minx! No, she wasn’t either; she was
smart, and Shirley _could_ have liked her so _much_!
That last week before Hallowe’en everybody regretted having any lessons
to learn. Little groups that were getting up “stunts” had important
conferences, marked by laughter and secrecy, for mystery made the
Hallowe’en surprises all the more entertaining. Although Miss Gibson
had charge and girls were supposed to ask her about the propriety of
what they proposed to do, this was not one of the English teacher’s
frequent duties, presenting a play or a program. She appointed a
committee, however, to help her and for its chairman chose Shirley,
to that young lady’s surprise. She had intended to wear a costume for
the occasion, and the little black mask which she had worn in similar
affairs at home reposed in her box. She reported at the first meeting
of the committee without much idea of what would be required of her.
Miss Gibson very well knew that in her enthusiasm that first year
she had made some mistakes with the girls and had antagonized some
of them unnecessarily by her manner of pushing perfectly reasonable
requirements in a dictatorial way. In Shirley she knew that she had a
girl who was thoroughly enjoying the course under her teaching and one
who was not affected by any criticism that she might hear. Naturally a
teacher chooses her most loyal supporters to help her.
The meeting was at the close of recitation hours. Not one of the
influential Double Three was present! Caroline Scott and Betty Terhune
were the other seniors. One from each of the other classes filled
out the large committee of six. But they were supposed to assist
in decorating the immense reception room which would be used for
the celebration and in locating and suggesting the setting for the
different features.
“Miss Harcourt,” said Miss Gibson at the beginning of the meeting, “you
are the chairman of the senior committee. You, Caroline and Betty are
to help with the senior stunt and also to have such oversight as may
be necessary over those of the other classes. It may scarcely do to
remind you that you are to keep any secrets entrusted to you, in case
of surprises. The general decorations are put into the hands of all of
you, and Shirley Harcourt may preside when I can not be present at your
meetings. I am too busy to plan the details, but they are all to be
submitted to me. That is clear, I believe. Now I will hear such ideas
as you may already have.”
Nobody seemed to have any. Miss Gibson looked from one to another of
the committee and smiled. Then Shirley rather timidly asked if there
were any decorations that were kept from year to year. “There are
certain things that one always has for Hallowe’en, Miss Gibson, and it
would save time.”
Miss Gibson did not know, but Caroline told Shirley that the
celebration last year was in the chapel and consisted of the one-act
play and some pantomimes given on the platform, with curtains and
home-made scenery. “Then we went to the parlors in our costumes and had
our social time.”
“You will have to talk it over first, girls,” said Miss Gibson. “Have a
meeting by yourselves and think up everything that you know, about what
to do on Hallowe’en. I think that the dean does not want the chapel
used this year.”
With this, Miss Gibson left the committee to its own devices and joined
another teacher, who was waiting for her just outside the door of her
classroom.
“Well, what do you think of that!” Betty Terhune exclaimed. “The girls
last year said that Miss Gibson always wanted to do everything herself
and now look at her!”
Shirley laughed. “Probably she has heard that criticism.”
“Yes,” said the junior, Marie Petersen, “but she ought to have picked
out the girls that were so smart and _wanted_ to do it themselves.”
“Let me say something, Marie,” said the sophomore, Laura Jones.
“Speak up, if you are but a young thing,” laughed the junior.
“Miss Gibson has confidence in us, or she wouldn’t have turned it over
to us. Let’s get up the best ever!”
“Hear, hear!” said the freshman, a “very young child,” according to
Caroline. She was letting a boyish bob grow out and had two wisps
on either side of her head now, each tied with a piece of pink baby
ribbon. These wisps were supposed to be braids.
Shirley looked at her freshman assistant and nearly laughed out.
“Good!” she cried. “That’s the spirit. I’m afraid, Pansy, that you
can’t be Bluebeard’s wife _this_ year.”
“Why not?” stoutly inquired Pansy Layne. “Couldn’t I wear a wig?”
“Yes, you could, Pansy,” laughed Shirley. “Why, do you know how to do a
Bluebeard stunt?”
“No; but Bluebeard’s wives were hung up by their hair.”
“Smart girl! Now let’s put our thinking caps on. I have seen plenty of
Hallowe’en parties, but I never had to get up anything like this, and
it seems scarcely fair to expect me to be chairman here, the first year
that I am in the school.”
“I can tell you what they have had lately,” said Caroline. “You just
go along and be chairman and we’ll help. But remember that each class
is supposed to think up its own particular stunt, so we aren’t so
responsible as you would suppose. Only it makes it worse about helping
them if they are too late deciding what they’ll do. Madam Chairman, I
move that we go ahead first on decorations for the parlors and halls,
and meanwhile think up what else we can.”
“There are limitations, too,” said Betty. “Hallowe’en has certain
emblems. Caroline, you write and ask your folks what they can get in
the way of pumpkin lanterns and other suitable Hallowe’en things for
decoration; and we ought to have some black, and red, and white paper
to cut cats and things out of, and perhaps some draperies, cheesecloth,
I suppose, in the same colors. We have some money from the classes for
this, Shirley, if we need it.”
“It is a relief to hear that, Betty. Caroline, will you send for those
things?”
“Yes. I’ll telegraph and they’ll be sent right out from Chicago. What
with our costumes, we won’t have much time for cutting out ‘cats and
things,’ Betty.”
“Luckily I have my costume,” said Shirley, “and if it will give you any
ideas for anything that we could get up, I’ll show it to you. My aunt
helped Mother make it for something that we had at home. It’s hanging
now in my closet to get the wrinkles out. I’ll have to press it, too,
perhaps.”
The girls trooped to Shirley’s room for the inspiration which looking
at a real costume might give them. Madge was there and admitted to
their councils, while Shirley brought out her costume for inspection.
“Now that is a real one and different. Who painted that cat’s head is
an artist!”
“It was Auntie that did that,” laughed Shirley, “but I can copy it for
anybody that wants one.”
“We’ll keep you painting, then,” said Pansy. “I’ll perish if I can’t be
a witch or a cat.”
“They say that girls are ‘catty,’” said Marie, “so I don’t know about
being a cat.”
“But Shirley ought to be a witch with that tall hat and have a sort of
Cat Brigade to drill.”
“How would the freshmen like to be kitty-cats, then?” asked Shirley.
“It would be funny, Pansy, if they would do it, and we could have a
drill and a song,----”
“Oh, yes, with a chorus of growls and meows,” Pansy added. “If the
girls don’t want to do it for their class stunt, let’s have it extra.”
“Everything must be submitted to Miss Gibson, you know,” said Shirley.
Other suggestions followed. It would not be so bad to be on the
committee, the girls concluded. Meetings of the classes were to be
held at once. There was to be no putting off if their appearance
was assured for Hallowe’en, and no class wanted to be omitted on
the program of fun. When forced to it by the exigencies of time
and occasion, there is little that girls can not think up, for the
amusement of each other and usually to the entertainment of everybody
concerned.
CHAPTER XII.
HALLOWE’EN PLAYS.
There was advantage in being on “the committee,” that of being excused
from classes the afternoon before Hallowe’en to do the decorating.
Pansy said that she wished Hallowe’en came every week and that she
might be on the committee, and she only wished that she had had more
recitations to miss than she had!
Shirley said little, but worked hard; for she knew of at least one
critical eye, who would scan the rooms, not inclined to praise.
Drapings in orange, red, black and white, in varied combinations,
pumpkin shades for the bulbs, black backgrounds for gay posters, and
even flowers of the appropriate colors made the Hallowe’en setting.
Shirley tried not to have it too “scrappy,” but the girls told her
that it had to be more or less so. Every one had some favorite poster
that must not be left out. But Miss Gibson came in at the last, with
directions that vindicated Shirley’s ideas and saved the day.
When the girls began to come into the rooms in their costumes and
masks, the fun began. They changed their voices, and it was almost
impossible to tell who any one was, though there were some mild shouts
of “Oh, I know who _you_ are!” But it was easy to be deceived. Shirley
wore a ghost costume until after the freshman stunt, for her witch’s
costume had to be used by the leader. Pansy’s first idea had been for
Shirley to lead the drill of the freshmen; but Shirley told her that
it would never do to have a senior in the freshman stunt. Shirley
suggested a funny variety of drill modeled after a “gym” drill, which
would be mysterious, creepy and catty, in movement and rhythm. She also
composed a song for the Cat Brigade, which was accepted by the freshmen
committee and sung with great gusto. The only difficulty was to keep
its ghostly melody from becoming known till the time to sing it.
The pumpkin shades mellowed the light in the great room. In one corner
stood a queer booth for which the committee had been obliged to have
a janitor’s assistance. A placard warned “Danger,--Witches’ Caldron,”
and one of the senior witches stood there to keep out the curious till
after the senior stunt.
There would have been fun enough in the mere costuming and social fun
of the occasion. Shirley, from behind her sheet and white mask, ready
to help with the stunts if necessary, enjoyed the scene. She wondered
which costume concealed Sidney, but did not see any one that looked
like her so far as she could tell.
Madge Whitney declared that she would _never_ dress to make herself
look _hideous_. As Autumn, she wore a wreath of artificial leaves, in
the gay colors of fall, and carried a cornucopia from which trailed
grapes and their vines, over red and yellow apples. Her dress was gay
with the autumn colors. One of the sophomores came as Autumn, too, but
carried a “sheaf” of wheat and a basket of corn and fruit.
There were ghosts galore, for every one who had neither time nor energy
to do anything else fell back on a sheet, with some slight addition.
Clown costumes, too, were popular, in all varieties. Bluebeard, Spanish
pirates, characters from history and from fiction, high and low,
challenged recognition.
If Madge went as Autumn, Caroline had decided to go as Winter. She wore
kingly robes, white, with a frosted crown, a white beard, sparkling
with frost, purchased for the purpose, and a white wig to cover any
trace of her own locks. Some glass pendants and the artificial snow or
frost made a very realistic appearance.
Some lords and ladies in suits which were used at the senior plays were
elegant in their carriage and speech. It was a motley company and the
little bells of the clowns tinkled as they walked.
The teachers did not join the masked company, but sat or stood around
the room to watch the fun.
Madge stood by Shirley when Miss Gibson clapped her hands for order and
announced that the company would be entertained by the seniors, who
were presenting the witches scene, Act four, Scene one, of Macbeth.
Neither of the girls had seen this practiced, as Miss Gibson had
consented to train them for a good presentation of it.
“Sidney wouldn’t be in it at all,” said Madge.
“Yes, I know,” said Shirley. “It was just as well, for it gave Olive a
chance to be Macbeth. They give it only as far as the vanishing of the
witches, Miss Gibson says, and they make the apparitions just ordinary
‘ghosts.’ Stella is one of them.”
The curtains of the odd booth were thrown back and found to be painted
into some likeness of a cavern, suggested, at least. Even the opening
thunder was given by the roll of a drum back in the “cavern.” There was
the cauldron and something to imitate the appearance of fire under
it. The girls enjoyed the pretense of being witches with their uncanny
parts and the
“Double, double, toil and trouble,
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.”
All the girls spoke their lines distinctly, though Miss Gibson had
deleted some, to shorten the scene and to leave out those that were
too unpleasant for such an occasion. Olive as Macbeth made quite an
impression. She withdrew with the witches, but witches, apparitions
and Macbeth were obliged to come out again in front of the cavern to
receive further applause.
“The rest will be anti-climax,” mourned Pansy, the kitty-cat, who had
joined Madge and Shirley.
“The freshman fun will be the relaxation of the evening,” said Shirley,
“and how can you speak thus to the author of your beautiful verses!”
Pansy laughed. “That is so. I had forgotten our beautiful poetry.”
“To tell the truth, in comparison with this, our lines may fall a
little flat; but just looking at you kittens, you black cats, I should
say, will be enough. I thought that I saw two costumes like your
witch’s, Pansy, a while ago.”
“I did, too,--I wonder whose the other is.”
The sophomore entertainment was even more gruesome than the witches of
Macbeth. When a curtain was drawn aside at the end of the room, there,
against the white background of another curtain, which represented a
wall, hung the white faces of Bluebeard’s wives. A ghostly sophomore
read the story, briefly told, in its most exciting parts, while the
wife who entered the forbidden chamber, Bluebeard, and Sister Ann
played their parts in pantomime, with the addition of ghostly groans
from the wives who had, supposedly, been disposed of long since. This
was a little too realistic and made more than one of the audience jump
a little at first. But it was soon over.
There was relief from spookdom when the juniors came in to give very
prettily a “Dance of the Pumpkins.” “Pumpkin” costumes and one funny
rolling movement gave the “motif.”
But how they laughed when the freshmen came in as black cats, managed
by a rather frisky looking witch with her tall black hat, her black
robe and the broomstick on which she expected to make her exit. On the
front of the robe was the large cat’s head with its big yellow eyes,
and a whole cat was depicted on the back between the witch’s shoulders.
First the witch led the march, while the piano crashed and two girls
who had violins tried a little hideous jazz at certain points.
Next, the witch stopped and from the side gave orders for a standing
drill with rubber mice. A few squeals from the audience at the first
appearance of the mice, swung forth by their tails, was so natural and
suggestive that the whole audience laughed and one girl called out,
“nice kitties!”
The comical appearance made by the backs of the girls, as they wheeled
and faced away from the audience, brought more laughter. Shirley had
despaired of painting enough cats for all the freshmen in the drill,
but the bright idea occurred to her after it was decided to put cats on
their costumes, to stencil the cats. Accordingly, on the square white
patch of muslin, similar to the one upon her own costume, which the
witch wore, in stenciled patches of black, the clawing limbs and wildly
waving tail of the witch’s cat appeared.
As a result of careful measurements, this made a line of cat pictures
funny to behold, with the black whiskers and yellow eyes added by
Shirley’s brush afterward. The cat’s head in front was striking, too,
but not so funny as the whole cat between the shoulders behind. It was
scarcely necessary to do anything “smart,” Madge declared to Shirley.
Just to look at them was enough, Madge said; and Shirley, grinning
herself at some of the evolutions, nodded assent. “Maybe that’s so,”
she whispered, as the freshmen girls made their eyes big, held out the
mice with one “claw” and scratched at them with the other. They laid
them on the floor and played with them, or took them away from each
other and “howled” in chorus, all to the music. This changed now to the
lively melody of which Shirley was the composer.
Facing the audience and lined up in one row, the freshmen pinned the
rubber mice on their costumes by the tails as badges and stood for a
moment to get their breath while one of the teachers, who had made an
accompaniment to Shirley’s melody, played a brief prelude.
“Mother Goose stuff,” said a low voice near Shirley. Shirley did not
turn to see what the speaker looked like, in some gay costume, she
supposed, for the voice was Sidney’s. Madge heard it, too, and nudged
Shirley, whose ghost costume, of course, could not indicate to Sidney
that the chairman of the committee was close by. “She’s jealous,”
whispered Madge, but the sarcastic little phrase spoiled what followed
for Shirley. “It _is_ silly,” she thought, “but, someway, they couldn’t
think up anything better, and we had to have _something_.” Quietly she
stood to see how the girls would sing the foolish song.
But the rest of the audience were in the spirit of fun and “Mother
Goose stuff” was quite acceptable to them. Youthful freshmen voices
started in after a loud crash from the accompanist and a wail from the
violins.
Oh we are the witch’s cats;
We creep and we snoop and we prowl;
We watch the brimming, boiling pot,--
At strange approach we howl.
Hist! St! Meow! Meow!
At strange approach we howl.
Don’t try to catch,
For we can scratch,
Don’t lift our latch,
Or strike a match!
Hist! St! Meow! Meow!
At strange approach we howl!
Oh we are the Cat Brigade;
On Hallowe’en night we may ride,
And trail her broomstick in the air
Or guard her at her side.
Hist! St! Meow! Meow!
We guard our witch’s ride!
Beware the knell
In darkness fell
When witches spell
The fates they tell!
Hist! St! Meow! Meow!
Beware the Cat Brigade!
With further evolutions, at the direction of the witch, and repeating
the last lines softly, the Cat Brigade marched out followed by
applause and laughter. The freshmen had put over their little play
quite effectively and Shirley drew a long breath of relief. The last
“stunt” was over. The rest was in the hands of a sub-committee, who
had the management of the refreshments. The fun of fortune telling and
the other customary Hallowe’en features could go on without further
supervision. Shirley hurried out to get into her own costume, for the
freshman witch had another one which she wanted to wear. Like Madge,
she preferred to be beautiful rather than funny.
Again Shirley saw the costume which was so like hers, except for the
cats, painted by some other artistic hand. The cat upon the back was
directly on the black robe and was such a funny, big yellow cat that
Shirley drew nearer to see it. But the girl who wore it was getting out
into the hall as quickly as possible through the crowd of girls, not
noticing at all the “ghost” which followed her.
Shirley heard a shepherdess who accompanied the “Yellow Cat” witch
arguing with her in a low voice. “Why should you care, Sid?”
“Caroline knew that they were going to do that stunt! She suggested
this to me on purpose! Perhaps I’ll come back, if I can find all of
that Turkish costume; but I’m afraid that it isn’t with that stuff that
I left here last year, and besides, I’ll have to go all through that
big box! I’m sure that I took the red sash home!”
“That’s all right, Sid! I have----”
Shirley heard no more, for she, too was trying to get past a group of
girls who blocked the way and wanted to hear no more. How odd it was.
How had Sidney happened to make such a costume? Perhaps it was easier,
for the robe may have been the Double Three domino of last year. But
Caroline’s suggesting it! Shirley could not understand.
The cat costume did not return. No Turkish costume mingled with the
rest, for Shirley, returning in the cat costume, noticed particularly.
It troubled her, though she thought that she was silly indeed, to take
so much interest in a girl who cared nothing for her. The freshmen
kitty-cats, all alike, were enjoying themselves immensely and performed
amusing antics occasionally around their witch, Shirley now. She had no
fear of being discovered, for naturally enough every one supposed her
to be a freshman.
As a prize was offered for the most striking and original costume,
the judges came to Shirley to notify her that her costume was being
favorably considered on account of the cleverly painted cats. This was
before the masks were removed. “Where is that costume like yours, with
the big yellow cat on the back?” one of the girls asked Shirley. “Did
you do them together?”
“No,” said Shirley, changing her voice as well as she could. “I did not
know anything about it till I saw it here tonight.”
“We’d like to see it before we decide; yet, girls, the black cat is
more appropriate to witches, and I think that this costume will take
the first prize anyway.”
The judges hurried off. If it had not been for that last remark, it
might have been Shirley’s duty to say that she knew who the girl was
who wore the yellow cat costume, though even then it would have been
a question whether to tell or not. Shirley had a feeling that Sidney
would prefer to lose a prize rather than admit having a costume like
Shirley’s. How had it happened? she asked herself again.
CHAPTER XIII.
FLETA TO THE RESCUE
Sidney did not do anything so foolish as to remain away from the
Hallowe’en fun. However unhappy she felt over the apparent copying of
her costume, or perhaps a deliberate suggestion by Caroline, who knew
that the freshman witch would wear such a costume, she reached a better
frame of mind under the urging of Fleta, pretty in shepherdess gayety.
The Turkish costume was one which she had used in Chicago and had
brought with her the year before. Then, the little play called for the
“Double Three” domino. “Luckily it hasn’t been worn here, Sidney,” said
Fleta, as she helped Sidney hunt through the big box and took smaller
boxes down from the top shelf of the closet.
“But it is so terribly mussed,” wailed Sidney. “I can’t wear it at
all!” The main part of the costume was, of course, at the very bottom
of the big box which formed the window seat in their study.
“Yes, you can, Sid! Hunt up the sash, and if you can’t find it, there’s
that red one of mine that will do. It’s in my drawer, somewhere in a
box. I’ll get my little iron and run down to the kitchen. They’ll let
me press there, under the circumstances. Wait till I get a sheet to lay
on the table, if I can’t get hold of an ironing board. Where’s the cord
to my iron? There, now!”
A very capable shepherdess, still wearing her mask, flew down to the
kitchen, where refreshments were being prepared for a real Hallowe’en
banquet, the first one of the kind that they had ever had there. Fleta
explained that there had been a great mistake and that somebody would
miss all the fun if this costume could not be pressed and made fit to
wear.
“If you can find a place to do it, go ahead,” was the reply to Fleta’s
explanation and request, and determined Fleta found a place where she
could attach the cord to her electric iron and press the costume well
enough.
Sidney, who was accustomed to be waited on, thanked Fleta, however,
very sincerely. She had found the sash and some other little
accompaniments and was ready to slip right into the newly pressed
garments. It had taken scarcely half an hour from the time when she
and Fleta had left the parlors. Sidney quite enjoyed one feature of
wearing a different costume, that of deceiving her other suite-mates,
for they all dressed together.
“Where is Sidney?” Irma inquired of Edith.
“I don’t know. There’s Fleta. Ask her.”
“What has become of Sidney, Fleta? I haven’t seen a thing of her since
that cat performance. Do you suppose that she hated it to have made a
costume so like that of the witch?”
“Yes, she did, but she got over it. She’s somewhere around. I persuaded
her to come back.”
“Oh, she did run off, then!”
“Yes. Better let her say the first word about it.”
“Yes, indeed. I know Sidney too well to make any uncalled for remarks!”
Great was the surprise, when the masks came off, just before the
Supper, and Sidney was found by her suite-mates in Turkish garb.
Shirley, also, was asked many times if she had led the Cat Brigade; but
she explained as best she could, and it was all made clear when she was
announced as the winner of the first prize, and as “having the costume
which is considered the most original. It gave the idea, also, for
the freshman stunt and was worn by the freshman witch in the cleverly
performed drill. Miss Shirley is the composer of the song which they
sang.”
The “banquet,” served early enough, it was hoped, not to upset the
young ladies, and simple enough to ward off all criticism, was funny
chiefly in its decorations, place cards and the names of dishes upon
the menu cards. It was too bad that there should be any one not able to
throw herself entirely into the enjoyment of the evening. But Shirley
was too tired, after her strenuous efforts of the day, to throw off
altogether the unpleasant impressions made by Sidney’s remarks, which
she had overheard.
Madge noticed how quiet she was, but laid it to her being tired. As
they went into their room, after all the fun was over, Madge said, “I
hope you didn’t mind what Sidney said that time about ‘Mother Goose
stuff.’ Your song and the way the freshmen sang it nearly made me
double up laughing, and to think you won the prize makes me swell with
pride to have such a room-mate.”
“Nonsense! I’d think you’d be ashamed of me for the style of literature
that I produced, to say nothing of that tune.”
“It was as funny as the words, and the jazz was thrown in by the piano
and violin. The queerest thing, Shirley, was that as I looked back, out
of the corner of my eye when Sidney’s voice spoke so near us, I found
that she was wearing the witch costume, the one with the yellow cat.
You can imagine how surprised I was to see Sidney as a Turkish lady,
after masks were off.”
“I knew that Sidney was the yellow cat witch, Madge, for I heard Fleta
talking to her when they left the room. I happened to be near her again
when I went out to change my costume. I watched to see if she would
come back, and she didn’t come for so long that I gave her up. Then I
found her later, or the costume that I imagined was the one they had
spoken about. I felt worried, for some reason.”
“Sidney is sort of peevish about things lately, Caroline says.”
“Perhaps it is my being here. I’m sorry; but it doesn’t seem to be
possible to help it.”
“You are a little too bright at your lessons and too influential
yourself Shirley, to please Sidney, who is used to being the center of
things. That is my private opinion.”
“I don’t care for any particular influence, Madge, but of course I
do care for standing well in my classes. I’ll try to keep off of
committees after this.”
“You must do nothing of the kind. It isn’t fair.”
“Yes, it is Madge, because all I want is to have good reports for my
father and mother and to enjoy as much of the good times with you girls
as I have time for.”
“You are too capable, Shirley. You can’t get out of things like that.”
The next morning Shirley, going upstairs, met Sidney coming down; but
instead of the usual courteous greeting from Sidney, she passed with
her head in the air and without looking at Shirley. Shirley frowned
thoughtfully and went on to her room. Was Sidney blaming her for the
costume affair?
At her first opportunity, she reported the cut to Madge and asked
if she could tell Caroline to come to their room after classes at
noon. “There is no need of Sidney Thorne’s taking such an attitude
toward me,” Shirley said. “I shall go to her to-day and ask her what
the trouble is, apologize, if I have done anything, or receive her
explanation. I do not think that she is the sort of a girl who would
refuse one.”
Shirley repeated to Madge what she had overheard and asked Madge if it
would be best to repeat it to Caroline.
“No, Shirley,” said Madge. “Of course, you want to get at the bottom of
this, but it will only make Caroline mad to tell her what Sidney said,
when Sid was out of patience, too. We’ll just ask Caroline if she knows
how it happened that Sidney wore the witch suit.”
Shirley agreed with Madge that this would be the best course. The less
trouble stirred up the better. But Shirley was surprised to realize how
it troubled her to have a misunderstanding with Sidney.
Before lunch, Caroline, with her arms full of books, rushed in on
her way from class. A little tap on the door was all that announced
her arrival, and she pushed the door open without waiting for an
invitation. “Hello, Cad,” said Madge. “I waited for you, till I saw
that you were going to be too long.”
“Yes, I thought that Miss Gibson would never let me go. Here are all
the books that I have to read for my essay on--what is it that I have
to write about?” Caroline with a look of pretended ignorance, consulted
a large sheet of paper filled with notes.
“Never mind that,” laughed Madge. “We want to ask you how it happened
that Sidney wore the yellow cat witch costume? Do you know anything
about it? Has Hope said anything, or any of the Double Three?”
“What makes you think that I know anything about what Sidney wore?
_Did_ she _really_ do that? That certainly is a joke on her!” Caroline
was so absorbed in the idea that she forgot to push the question why
they thought she would know about it.
“I wonder if what I said to Hope was at the bottom of it. We girls
were talking about costumes for the party and I said that the cutest
costume I had ever seen was a witch’s costume with cats painted on
it. Remember, Madge? You had shown me Shirley’s costume, and began to
tell about the big eyes in the head in front and the big cat ready
to spring that was between the shoulders. Hope said that Sidney was
uncertain about her costume, and I started to say that the costume I
was describing had better not be copied, but some one broke in with
something so funny that we all laughed and I forgot all about what I
had said. But Sidney wore a Turkish costume when we unmasked.”
“Yes, but that was after the Cat Brigade. She was in the senior stunt
as a witch, you remember. Don’t you remember what an impression the
yellow cat made?”
“No, Madge,” said Shirley. “That was not Sidney. She must have done
what I did; for she wouldn’t do anything, you remember, in the Senior
stunt.”
“That is so. I had forgotten. Some one just wore her costume to save
making another witch costume. Mercy, how mixed up everything was!”
“All the better for a costume party, Madge,” said Caroline. “But what
is the trouble? Why do you want to know about it?”
“Oh, just because Sidney cut Shirley this morning, and Shirley thinks
that it must have something to do with the costumes that were so much
alike.”
“Whew! Wouldn’t Sidney _speak_ to you, Shirley? Are you sure?”
“I met her, by myself, and I was by myself. But it is not fatal,
Caroline, and I would not pay any attention to it, except that with a
girl like Sidney there must be some reason for it. She must think that
I have done something. Please do not speak of the cut. I did not mean
to have Madge mention it.”
“I’m perfectly safe, Shirley. I’ll speak to Hope about the costume. She
need not know how _I_ know that Sidney wore it. She does not room with
Sidney, but as a member of the Double Three she probably knew what all
of them were going to wear.”
“I’d appreciate it, Caroline,” said Shirley. “I am going to see Sidney
to-night anyhow and ask if I have offended her, but if I had some idea
of how I have happened to do so, it would help.”
“Yes, it would. I’ll see Hope some time this afternoon, Shirley, and
report before dinner.” Caroline ran out with her books, while Madge and
Shirley started out on their way downstairs, for it was nearly time for
the gong.
CHAPTER XIV.
“MUCH ADO.”
“Yes, Irma,” said Sidney, sitting in the study shortly after dinner.
“Considering the fact that there were about half a dozen witch costumes
last night, the decision of the judges that Shirley Harcourt’s costume
was the most original was nothing short of ridiculous. But that would
not annoy me at all. What I feel provoked about is that those girls
so evidently made it up to get me to wear the same sort of suit that
Shirley did. I couldn’t get much out of Hope, when I asked her again
about it; but she certainly told me that Caroline described a costume
that would be just the thing for me!”
“I can scarcely believe it, Sidney. Shirley Harcourt is not that sort
of a girl; and if Caroline suggested it, I don’t see that it involves
Shirley at all.”
“Oh, all right, Irma. But I think what I think. My, how cold it is
tonight! I wanted to go down to the lake, but there is frost in the air
and the wind is unpleasant.”
“You must be taking cold, Sidney. I was out and did not notice it at
all.”
A light knock came at the door of the study. Irma went to the door and
opening it, found Shirley Harcourt there. “Why, how do you do, Shirley;
come in,” Irma said.
Soberly Shirley entered with a return of Irma’s greeting. Hesitant she
stood within the room, seeing the girl in the pretty, blue negligé,
who sat on the other side of a central table. Sidney had just had time
to turn her back before Shirley came in. “I wanted to speak to Sidney
Thorne just a moment, Irma,” Shirley continued. “I had reason to think
this morning that I had offended her and I want to ask her what is
the matter. I am very willing to apologize, if I have done anything,
without knowing it.”
Shirley paused and looked at the shining hair, one well-shaped ear, and
a cheek fair and pink with only the natural tints of youth. But Sidney
made no move.
Irma stood quietly. She knew that it must have taken an effort on
Shirley’s part to say that she was willing to apologize. But Sidney,
listening, thought that Shirley knew well enough. She had not yet been
addressed. She would not turn around until she was.
Shirley looked at Irma, but Irma, puzzled and annoyed, did not know
what to do. She started to speak and then stopped, and Shirley, wishing
that she had not come, smiled at Irma as she opened the door again,
stepping outside. “It was a mistake to come, I see,” said Shirley.
“Thank you, Irma; good night.”
Irma closed the door and without a word to Sidney went into the bedroom
which she and Edith occupied. There she moved around for some time
before coming into the study again. Taking the same chair by the table
which she had occupied before Shirley knocked, she resumed her study.
With the ringing of the gong for study hours to begin, Fleta and Edith
came in, full of life, hoping that they didn’t interrupt, but it was
most important to tell the latest news, that the “Water Nymph” was
going to be married at the Christmas Holidays.
It was a relief to Irma when they came. She was not enjoying her silent
companion, though silence was better than speech if speech should
take up the subject of the call. But Sidney knew that for once in her
life, at least, she had been discourteous. Of that Irma very likely
disapproved. She would say nothing. It was a relief to her, as well,
when the other girls joined them.
Shirley had found that Hope had little recollection of what she had
said to Sidney. “Why, Caroline,” she replied to Caroline’s questions,
“I was trying to help Sidney about her decision. I remembered your
describing a cute one, and I had the impression that it was one you had
seen somewhere. I knew that you were wearing something else. So I told
Sidney about the painted cats. Mercy, what have I done? I never even
thought of it that night, for we had witches in the senior stunt and I
supposed that it was Sidney’s idea, though I did hear her say that she
would not have a part in the performance.”
“It’s just that Sidney may think Shirley had some hand in it. I only
want to let _you_ know that Shirley did not _even_ know that Madge had
_shown_ me the costume when she did.”
“If you want me to say something to Sidney,--” Hope began.
“Not yet, Hope, and perhaps not at all. Haven’t you heard Sidney say a
_word_?”
“I have scarcely seen Sidney at all. I can’t quite understand,--did you
say that Sidney has been _blaming_ you girls for her having something
just like Shirley’s?”
“Hope, you dear little goose! You are too broad-minded yourself to take
all this in. Just keep quiet about it. If we call you in as witness,
tell the truth!”
“I certainly can do that, Cad. I wish that Sidney weren’t quite so
proud.”
“Sid would not be herself if she were not proud. What a pity that we
can’t all be Standishes of New England!”
“You are a sad case, Cad Scott,” laughed Hope. “Good luck to you.”
So it came about that Shirley decided to go directly to Sidney,--with
the embarrassing results. Had she persisted, it is most likely that
Sidney would have entered into conversation with her. But Shirley’s
pride came in there. It had been hard to go to Sidney’s room. She could
not stay where she was not wanted. Thinking about it, she concluded
that it was, as Madge said, “much ado about nothing.” “Just go right
on, Shirley. If Sidney is mad about anything, you have shown that you
are ready to make it right. That is enough. If it were any other girl
than Sid you would not care. I believe that you are twins!”
Shirley laughed. “It isn’t my way to let things go, unless I’m sure
that the other side is altogether unjust. But I can’t help myself, it
seems. We’ll drop it.” Within herself Shirley decided not to avoid
Sidney, to speak if the opportunity given, but to go right along as
usual.
Shirley’s other school-mates were more friendly than ever after
the masked party. Without trying, Shirley was taking a position of
influence among the girls. She was consulted and sought. She joined one
or two clubs, but worked busily at her lessons, encouraged often by
the warm letters from her mother. Her father was too busy to do more
than to scribble a few lines of affection and advice upon her mother’s
letters.
In one of Miss Dudley’s letters she asked, “Have you remembered,
Shirley, that you were born in Chicago? I don’t know that we have
thought of it in connection with your going to school so near the city.
Your father was getting another degree at Chicago University, and your
mother was with your grandmother and me in a house that we had rented
for a while in Glencoe,--a very attractive suburb,--you must stop off
and see it some time.”
To this Shirley wrote, “If I’ve ever been told that I was born anywhere
else than at ‘home,’ I have forgotten it. I can’t say that I am pleased
to hear it particularly, though it does not matter so much where a
body was born, I guess, as who--whom she was born to! I’m certainly
glad that I belong to your family, Auntie. Can’t you come on at the
Holidays to see me?”
But Miss Dudley could not manage it. The fact was that she was taking
every spare cent to meet the expenses for her niece, though she had
indulged in an economical summer vacation. She would not tell Shirley
this. Let Shirley think that Auntie had plenty.
As the first term speeded to its close, Caroline had several
conferences with Hope Holland relative to Shirley, who was expecting to
spend the vacation at the school with several other pupils, for whose
benefit it would not be closed. Hope wanted Shirley at her home, but so
did Caroline, and the fact that Hope belonged to the Double Three made
it embarrassing.
“I don’t have to go over to Sidney’s all the time,” she said. “We see
each other all the time at school and Mother and Father and the boys
will want me there. I suppose I’ll have to go to Sidney’s parties,--not
that they will not be fine, as they always are, but I don’t see why I
should not invite Shirley.”
“If you do, Sidney will never get over it. I’ll tell you. You let _me_
invite Shirley and have her _part_ of the time. Then when you are not
in anything with the Double Three, or entertaining them yourself, she
can be with you.”
“If I have a party,” said Hope, with determination, “if I have a
party,” she repeated, “and Shirley is in Chicago, she will be invited.
Sidney can have a headache if she does not want to come!”
“Well, then, may I have Shirley?”
“Yes, on those conditions, that I have her part of the time, to stay
all night, you know.”
“All right. We’ll not quarrel, Hope. Shirley is such a big-hearted and
broad-minded girl, like yourself, Hope, that I couldn’t be jealous of
either of you if I tried.”
“That is because you are nice yourself, Cad, my dear.”
All of this was not imparted to Shirley. But she knew that she was
invited by both Caroline and Hope, and after a letter of permission
from her great-aunt, Miss Dudley, she accepted her invitations very
happily. When she heard that the Double Three were having a house party
at Sidney’s, she wondered about how things would be managed; for she
“felt it in her bones” that Sidney would not invite her to her home,
and she knew that Hope was a “Double Three.” But Shirley said nothing.
That could be handled by her hostesses, she knew. She would go and have
a wonderful time.
It had happened that Sidney’s parents had not driven to the school
that fall. It was Sidney’s second year. They were accustomed to the
separation as well as she. She spent one or two week ends in Chicago,
as well as the Thanksgiving vacation. Early in the year, also, Sidney
had asked Hope and Caroline not to speak of the strange resemblance
between Sidney and the then “new girl.” “If you write home about it,
Father and Mother will hear of it, and it will not strike them very
pleasantly I am sure,” said Sidney. And after some consideration Hope
and Caroline had promised, though Caroline had said, “We’ll not say
anything now, shall we, Hope? But if our parents ever do see Shirley
or hear about her, don’t flatter yourself, Sid, that we can muzzle our
fathers. Our mothers might hesitate to say anything, but if I know Dad,
he would be just as likely as not to mention it.”
“I suppose he would,” said Sidney, with a look and tone that made
Caroline want to resort to “primitive measures,” she told Hope. “If we
had been about six years old, Hope,” she said, “I would have slapped
Sidney Thorne and not regretted it.”
“Tut-tut, Caroline,” laughed Hope. “It’s a primitive society, indeed,
that can’t control its angry passions.”
None of the girls had forgotten all this, and now Hope and Caroline
expected to enjoy the surprise of their respective families upon their
first sight of Shirley. “You will not mind, will you, Shirley, if
anybody takes you for Sidney?” Caroline asked.
“I am used to it by this time,” said Shirley, “and _this_ time I shall
know why Chicago people, or some of them, think that they know me.”
CHAPTER XV.
AN ACCIDENTAL MEETING.
Long since Sidney Thorne had spoken to Shirley, for she found out that
her suspicions of an intent to embarrass her were entirely unfounded.
Her manner toward Shirley had not even been unfriendly for some time
but when she found that Shirley was going to Chicago as the guest of
Caroline, she was almost indignant. The girls knew that it would be
embarrassing for her. Why did they invite Shirley? Now, unless she
wanted to have complications arise, she could not invite Shirley to the
affairs that she wanted to have for the Double Three. Well, she would
just _leave_ Shirley out, if she did come from the same school. You did
not have to be intimate with everybody!
Such was Sidney’s attitude. Shirley thought of it, too, and felt
rather sorry for Sidney, supposing, of course, that Sidney wanted to
be courteous, as she had always been except on that one occasion,
which had never been explained between them. But it would not affect
Shirley’s good time in the least.
The Double Threes had gone on ahead, leaving on the first train, with
the exception of Hope Holland, who waited for Caroline and Shirley,
the three preferring to go by themselves, though it was only a tacit
understanding among them.
How jolly it was to have no lessons and to be facing the best vacation
of the year in thrills and Christmas festivities. Shirley’s winter coat
was all that could be desired, and she was to buy a new hat in Chicago,
though the hat which she had brought, with her coat, was becoming and
still good. Sidney would have no reason to be ashamed of her double.
Cards from Hope and Caroline had warned their families of showing too
much surprise at a remarkable resemblance between Shirley Harcourt and
Sidney Thorne. As a result, while they were almost startled, in spite
of the warning, there was to be no embarrassing moment for Shirley.
She was to go first to Hope’s; but at the station two cars met the
girls, one from each household. Mr. Scott reached them first and was
introduced to Shirley. “I have met you once before, Mr. Scott,” said
Shirley after shaking hands.
“Why, when, my child?” asked kindly Mr. Scott.
“Last summer, when I was in Chicago for a few days. You came up to me
in a hotel and shook hands with me. I thought it was some graduate of
our university, till you told me that Mrs. Scott and the girls had gone
up to Wisconsin and assumed that I knew about it.”
“Then it was you instead of Sidney!” laughed Mr. Scott. “I remember
that I was puzzled, for Sidney was supposed to have left the city some
time before.”
But here came two youths hurrying across through the crowd to them.
“Hello, Hope. How do you do, Mr. Scott? Caroline, how you’ve grown!
Isn’t that always the thing to say to returning children?” The taller
of the two boys was shaking hands with Caroline, after this speech, and
put an arm around Hope, as he waited to be introduced to her friend.
In a moment Shirley found herself in a handsome car, sitting behind
with Hope, while the two young men sat in front, the older one driving
skilfully through the traffic of Chicago. “Little did I think, Hope,”
said Shirley, “when I was here last summer, or even last fall on the
way to school, that at Christmastime I’d be back to visit with a dear
girl like you.”
“I want you many more times, Shirley. I’m sorry that Madge had to go
home, but after all, it’s nice to have you to ourselves. Some way,
people get to loving you, Shirley, did you know that?”
“No I didn’t,” laughed Shirley. “I think that it’s ‘your imagination
and a beautiful dream,’ as Auntie is fond of saying.”
“You did not know that I had such big brothers, did you? I told them
all about you, though. I have one more, and no sisters at all.”
Shirley looked at the two young men in front of her, used to the ways
of the city, capable, interesting. Mac, who was driving, looked not
in the least like Hope, though he had her serious look when his face
was in repose, as now. Good, clear features marked the profile that
Shirley saw. His face was rather thin and the hands on the wheel were
well-shaped. Ted, the other brother, was not as tall as Mac, but looked
as old; his eyes and the shape of his face were like Hope.
“They look as if they were the same age, don’t they?” asked Hope. “Ted
is not quite a year older than I am, and Mac is just a year older than
Ted. We were all little together and my, how Mother ever stood our
playing and fussing I don’t know. Kenneth is fourteen, only three years
younger than I am, but he is somewhat spoiled as the ‘baby’ of the
family.”
It was pleasant to be welcomed into the beautiful home of the Hollands.
Shirley shared Hope’s room and thought it “lovely;” but Hope said that
they were selling the house soon and would move into a suburb farther
out.
Shirley knew little about changes in a city and these things did
not concern her. Immediately she entered upon one happy event after
another. Mac, so full of fun, yet so serious upon occasion, took a
great fancy to Shirley and saw that she missed nothing. When she went
to Caroline’s just before Christmas Day, Mac did not desert her, but
drove over, with gifts from the Hollands, while Caroline said that she
never had so much attention in her life as now from the Holland boys
and their friends. Shirley did not even know that Sidney had had a
great party for the Double Three, for Hope was over early that evening
and went to Sidney’s late, in plenty of time for this event. Caroline
sent regrets because of a previous engagement, which was an evening
with Mac and one of his friends.
“I thought that you were like Sidney at first,” said Mac, “but I’d
never confuse you two after a good look, Shirley. Sidney is a fine girl
and she may learn a few things about people after a while; but you have
a different viewpoint and it makes you sweeter.”
“Why, that is nice of you to say,” said the surprised Shirley, “but I
didn’t know that you were so--,” she paused for a word and Mac said,
“‘observing,’ isn’t it?”
“No; that would be admitting that you are right.”
“Analytical, then, or philosophical. Remember that I am going to
college!”
“Oh, you ought to know Dick. He is in our university at home, the one
where my father teaches.” There, it was out. Shirley had changed her
mind about not speaking of her wonderful father.
“Is your father a university professor? That explains it, then.” Mac
looked as if he would like to go on, but was not sure whether he dared
or not.
“What it explains I don’t know,” laughed Shirley, “but so far as Dad
is concerned, he is mighty fine, even if he never has much money and
puts it into his line of work or gives it back to the college. And he’s
always doing things in one way or another for his students.”
“That is about what I was going to say, Shirley, doing big things on
next to nothing. The reason I know anything about it is that we have a
friend like that. But who’s Dick? Her best college friend? Don’t tell
me that I have to label you ‘Taken!’”
“I don’t know what to make of you, Mac. Ought I to be offended? You are
so funny that I can’t be. No; Dick is my cousin and I’m going to bring
him up for the Prom to meet our girls. I told him not to have too much
of a college ‘case’ till he saw them.”
“I tell you what would be delightful to do,” said Mac. They were
sitting together on a hall seat at the Hollands, while they waited for
Hope, who had gone upstairs after her gloves which were missing. Mac
was to drive them to Caroline’s.
“There are other young men who would be interested in being entertained
by some charming damsel other than their sisters.” Mac paused and
looked meaningly at Shirley. “Why not arrange for Dick with, say, the
sister of one of said young men, or one of her other friends?”
“It would be possible, even if Dick came as my guest,” said Shirley,
“for me to see something of, well, any of ‘said young men.’”
“How dearly I love my sister, only time will prove,” said Mac, rising
and taking hold of Hope on the lowest step. Hope looked suspiciously at
her brother, stopping in her descent.
“What now, Malcolm?” she said, severely, but breaking out into her own
cheery smile as she looked at the laughing Shirley. “Such displays of
affection usually mean something, Shirley,” Hope continued, “but I’ll
do almost anything for you, Mac, for taking us around the way you are
doing.”
“I am always willing to sacrifice myself for my only sister,” asserted
Mac, with a perfectly serious face. But Mac Holland did not keep up
his joking about the Prom or indulge in any personal remarks after
this, and Shirley liked him all the better when he was his normal self,
full of fun, to be sure, but with something better than that about
him. He saw that Shirley and his sister heard some of the holiday
entertainments that Chicago can supply, quietly taking care of them in
a gentlemanly way.
The girls had two weeks’ vacation, which they enjoyed to the full.
After Shirley had visited with Caroline, she came back to Hope,
yielding to many urgings, for Mr. and Mrs. Holland liked Shirley. There
were only a few occasions on which Shirley met people who took her for
Sidney Thorne; but Hope repeated a remark that had been made to Mac.
“‘I did not know that you knew Sidney Thorne so well, Mac, and went
around with her so much,’ somebody said to Mac the other day, Shirley,”
said Hope. “And Mac never explained at all!”
It was not until toward the last of her stay in Chicago that Shirley
met any one connected with Sidney. As the girls had told Sidney, they
could not muzzle their fathers. Mr. Scott, in particular, Caroline made
no attempt to caution. Why should she? Sidney might just as well let
her father and mother know about the lovely girl that looked like her.
It happened, then, that Mr. Scott said to Mr. Thorne, “Odd, Thorne, but
my daughter brought home from school a young girl who looks enough like
your daughter to be her twin.”
“There are close resemblances sometimes, I suppose,” returned Mr.
Thorne, who was preoccupied with the bonds about which he had come to
the bank.
“But this isn’t any ordinary close resemblance, Thorne. Did you ever
have any relatives named Harcourt?”
“None that I ever heard of. Say Scott, I’ll drop in tomorrow to see
if you have gotten hold of what I want beside these. Regards to your
wife. Mine is happy these holidays with her daughter from school. Good
morning.”
That very afternoon the incident occurred which brought Shirley to
the notice of Sidney’s father, a surprising experience. The Holland
chauffeur, who had little to do when the Holland boys were at home, had
taken the girls to do some shopping. It was Shirley’s last opportunity
to make such purchases as she needed before going back to school. They
had run across Caroline, who accompanied them when Shirley went to have
a dress tried on, one which she had seen before but just decided to
buy. Some alterations were to be made and when Shirley saw how Hope
looked as she sat waiting she suggested that the girls need not wait
for her. “You have a headache, Hope, I know, and I shall have to wait
a little while. Go on home, do. I can come by street car. I know right
where to go, for Mac told me one time, for fear I might get lost.”
Caroline looked at Hope. “Yes, Hope, you are half sick; but I tell you
what we’ll do. I’ll take you home, and Hope can tell her chauffeur to
wait for Shirley. Shirley knows where the car is parked. I’d have to
leave you in a minute anyhow, because I told Mother that I’d be right
back, and she will be through her shopping by this time.”
So it was arranged, and Hope was glad to go with Caroline. Shirley did
not have very long to wait, not as long as she had expected. Hurrying
from the store, she mistook direction and had a great hunt for the
car. At last she saw it, smooth and shining, and with a sigh of relief
she approached it, entering it without waiting for the chauffeur, whom
she saw standing at a little distance in conversation with some other
man. Shirley sank back against the cushions in relief. Her dress was a
pretty one and would be sent to her at the school. Her other packages
would be delivered at the Hollands’. What luxury this was. Could this
be Shirley, ready to say, “Home, James?”
The chauffeur, whom Shirley had scarcely noticed before, apologized for
not being there to open the door, which Shirley had found unlocked.
“I was only a short distance away,” said the man, “but I saw a man
that--,” but the chauffeur was busy with getting his car out into the
street successfully and Shirley lost the rest. She closed her eyes and
leaned back again. They had not taken time even for some ice-cream and
she was really hungry. Ho for the good dinner waiting at the Hollands’!
Shirley was almost ready to doze off, for traffic in Chicago disturbed
her no more, when the car stopped at a curb, to let a fine-looking man
of middle age enter. Shirley looked up with surprise. Perhaps this
was some guest,--but it was funny that Hope had not mentioned it.
The gentleman was dressed in unobtrusive but the finest of business
outfit,--clothes, tie, shoes, the heavy, handsome overcoat and the
well-fitting hat.
He, too, leaned back as if tired. “You may go home now,” he said to the
chauffeur.
Shirley sat up, startled. Who was this? She turned and started to say
something, but the gentleman looked at her and said, “What is the
matter, Sidney? Have you forgotten something? I see that you left your
fur coat to be fixed, but I hope that you will not take cold in that
one.”
Shirley ceased to be startled when she heard herself addressed as
Sidney. By some mistake she had gotten into the Thorne car and this was
Mr. Thorne! She smiled and said, “I see that I have made a mistake. I
am not Sidney, Mr. Thorne, I am Shirley Harcourt. Hasn’t Sidney told
you about me?”
“Do you mean to say that you are not Sidney? Why, Sidney, child, you
are just joking!” Mr. Thorne looked scarcely puzzled.
“Well, I don’t know how to convince you, but poor Sidney must be
somewhere wondering what became of her car. I thought that this one
was the Holland car that was to take me home. I should have known the
chauffeur, but the boys have driven us around most of the time. I am
visiting at the Holland home, and I go to the same school that your
daughter attends.”
Mr. Thorne was sitting forward now, looking seriously at Shirley. The
chauffeur was looking back occasionally, as much as he dared. “I seen
that she had different clothes on,” he said, and was answered only by a
sharp glance from Mr. Thorne. But the reproving look was quite wasted.
“I was quite deceived,” said Mr. Thorne. “My friend, Mr. Scott, told
me only this morning that a young girl who resembled my daughter was
visiting his daughter from the school.”
“Yes, sir. I visited Caroline part of the time. Caroline, Hope and I
have been together nearly all the time.”
Mr. Thorne then directed the chauffeur to go back to the place where
he had parked the car to wait for Sidney. Meantime, he exerted himself
to put Shirley at her ease. “I do not wonder that you mistook the car.
Holland has one almost like it, perhaps exactly like it, though I never
thought about it. Tell me a little about yourself Miss Shirley. Where
do you live?”
Under Mr. Thorne’s kindly look Shirley found herself telling as she
had told no one but the Holland family, about her home, her father and
mother, the university and her one year at the girls’ school.
“Has it been a happy one so far?” asked Mr. Thorne kindly. He looked
at her so thoughtfully and with so much interest that Shirley felt
comforted some way. Here was one who did not resent her looking like
Sidney.
“Not altogether,” Shirley frankly told him, “but it was all new, and
with my father and mother so far away I have been a little bit lonely
once in a while, but not very often, for there is always so much to
do.”
“Has the close resemblance between yourself and my daughter made any
complications?”
“A few, but nothing serious,” smiled Shirley. No one should criticise
Shirley from anything she might say here in Chicago.
When they arrived at the place from which Shirley had started, Sidney
and her mother could be seen, coming from the entrance of the store
where Shirley had shopped. “Oh, I hope that they have not waited!”
exclaimed Shirley.
“If they have it is not your fault.”
“I’m afraid it is.”
Mr. Thorne helped Shirley out and drew her with him to meet his wife
and Sidney. “I will take you to find the other car,” he said. “You must
be safely started to the right place this time.”
It was a curious meeting. Sidney’s face was flaming, and Mrs.
Thorne’s was full of amazement. “Mother,” said Mr. Thorne, “this
is Miss Harcourt, who attends school with Sidney. I ran across her
accidentally. Have you been waiting for the car?”
“No,” replied Mrs. Thorne, after saying a few words to Shirley and
extending her daintily gloved hand from her furs. “We have only now
finished. Sidney expected to go home alone, for I intended to join one
of the ladies for tea at the club.”
“That accounts for Carl’s expecting only Sidney in the car, then.”
Mr. Thorne was watching the two girls, who had pleasantly exchanged
greetings as school girls would. He gave his wife a long look, then
said that he must find the Holland car for Shirley. “I will be back in
a moment,” said he. “Come, Miss Harcourt; no telling where your car may
be parked by this time, but the chauffeur is doubtless on the lookout
for you.”
“I am sorry, Mother,” said Sidney, as the two entered their own car,
“that I did not tell you before about Shirley Harcourt. But I thought
that it might annoy you as it annoyed me to have some one else look so
much like me.”
“It was startling,” replied Mrs. Thorne. “It is strange, too, that
she happened to attend the same school. I am afraid that you have not
enjoyed your term. Would you prefer to go somewhere else?”
“Perhaps,” said Sidney, “but Father will want me to get my certificate
there, I think.”
To Mr. Thorne, when he joined them, Sidney again apologized prettily
for not having told them of Shirley. “I am wondering how you happened
to meet her, Father,” she said.
Mr. Thorne related the circumstances and seemed to be surprised at
Sidney’s rather critical attitude, when she said that Shirley “might
have known the difference in cars and chauffeurs.”
“It was merely a mistake, Sidney. You might almost as well say that
Carl ought not to have mistaken her for you. I found Miss Harcourt a
very charming young girl. She told me of her father when I inquired. He
is abroad on some archæalogical expedition this year. I fancy that he
is rather a big man in his line.”
Then Mr. Thorne changed the topic and Sidney was relieved to find that
her parents did not pursue the subject of the resemblance.
Mr. Thorne’s explanation of a delay satisfied the waiting chauffeur,
who drove home as rapidly as the traffic would permit after Shirley was
safely deposited in the car. It had not been so long after all, since
Shirley’s wait in the store had been shorter than she had expected.
Nevertheless, she found that Hope had been uneasy.
“I believe that you are ‘psychic,’ Hope,” joked Shirley, “but my
double, that ought to be where I am concerned, if she is so like me, is
not even interested.”
“You are mistaken, Shirley. Sidney is attracted to you, but fights it.”
“I wonder if you are right,” mused Shirley.
“Sidney can’t _share_ anything,--not even looks!”
CHAPTER XVI.
SIDNEY’S “GHOST.”
About lunchtime the next day, Mrs. Holland answered the telephone to
find Mr. Thorne on the line. After some preliminary conversation, he
came to the point of his message. “I called you to inquire about Hope
and her guest. We were so interested yesterday in meeting the young
lady who looks so much like Sidney, that Mrs. Thorne and I would like
to meet her again. Sidney’s guests left yesterday and we have just seen
Sidney off; but if your girls are not going till later, could we not
have them for dinner. I seem to remember that Miss Harcourt spoke of
its being doubtful about her leaving till late to-day. Mrs. Thorne is
right here and she will speak to you when I am through.”
“Thank you Mr. Thorne; the girls may not get off until to-morrow
morning. Hope is wretched and I am not sure whether it is too much
Christmas holiday excitement or an attack of _la grippe_ coming on.
Shirley says that she will wait to go with her, if she is able, in the
morning. They will scarcely miss anything. Oh, is this Mrs. Thorne now?
How are you, my dear? Yes, Shirley can come,--I will properly present
the invitation,--but Hope is too miserable. Wait a moment, please.”
Mrs. Holland duly called Shirley, who said that she would be very happy
to go. Mr. Thorne, again at the telephone, said that he would call for
her on his way home.
“Hope, what have you gotten me in for by being sick?” queried Shirley
of Hope, who was lying in bed, being plied with various remedies at
different intervals.
“A pleasant acquaintance, I hope, that will make up for Sidney’s
snippiness! Has Caroline gone, do you know?”
“Yes; I forgot to tell you. She telephoned early and she very likely
took the same train as Sidney. I rather dread going to Sidney’s home,
and what will she think--my being invited after she has gone?”
“Mr. Thorne evidently wants to see you and perhaps he’d rather have Sid
out of the way, especially if he saw that she feels as she does about
it.”
“Well, I’ll try to be a ‘good girl!’”
“I don’t think that they will try to find out about how it went at
school. You might think up some of the mistakes to amuse them, though.
But don’t you imagine that Mr. Thorne wants to see if any relationship
can be traced between the families?”
“Perhaps.”
Shirley dressed for dinner early. There was no telling when Mr.
Thorne might come. She was ready to slip on coat, hat and furs when
the chauffeur rang the bell. Soon she was in the car which she had so
mistaken yesterday and in conversation with Mr. Thorne, who looked at
her in puzzled but kindly fashion. “Even your voice, Miss Shirley, is
like my daughter’s. Wearing her clothes, you might utterly deceive me
if you tried.”
“I shall not try, Mr. Thorne; but you would find differences, if you
were with me for any length of time. Try to find them this time; I
shall not mind.”
“What I thought, that I might find is some common ancestor who may
account for this,” smiled Mr. Thorne. “You must tell us all about your
family and I want Mrs. Thorne to hear it. Now you must tell me how you
like Chicago. Have you been up in our sky-scrapers, and have you seen
the other features that we can furnish?”
“I did most of that last summer, when I was here. It was a better time
than the winter, though the weather has been better than usual, Mrs.
Holland says, for the ‘Windy City.’”
It was a curious experience for Shirley. She found Sidney’s home
more beautiful and luxurious than that of the Hollands. Mrs. Thorne
was charmingly gracious, as puzzled as her husband, and even more
interested in affairs of Shirley’s family. Served by the butler at
the table, Shirley tried not to make any mistakes, for the sake of
her mother, whose household was conducted just as daintily, but by
necessity, much more simply.
“Yes,” said Shirley, when asked about her ancestry, “my aunt, Miss
Dudley, takes a great interest in those things. She says that we
are descended from Governor Thomas Dudley, the second governor of
Massachusetts, and that ’way back we came from William the Conqueror.
That is on Mother’s side, and I think she said Harcourt was a name in
the line, too.”
“Why, my dear,” said Mrs. Thorne to her husband, “Aunt Abby found that
the Thornes are descended from William the Conqueror through Mary
Thorne, who was the mother of Susanna Thorne; and Susanna Thorne, if I
remember correctly, was the mother of Governor Dudley.”
Mrs. Thorne sent a maid for a certain book in the library which
contained the proper authority for her statement, together with a
paper on which Miss Standish, who was “Aunt Abby,” Shirley found, had
recorded the Standish and Thorne lines. So Sidney had been brought up
on this!
“My aunt,” said Mrs. Thorne, “is very proud of our Standish line and
has made Sidney think more of that than of her father’s, especially as
he makes fun of it all. Here is your Dudley motto, Shirley: ‘Nec gladio
nec arcu.’ Can you translate it?”
“Neither by sword nor by bow,” quickly said Shirley.
“She is the daughter of a Latin professor, my dear. Well, I think that
we have discovered a common ancestry for the two girls. Do you suppose
that this style of beauty breaks out occasionally during the centuries?”
Mr. Thorne was laughing as he spoke, but Mrs. Thorne was quite serious
when she said that it could be accounted for in no other way. “Take it
up in your club, dear,” said he. “They will settle it!”
But after Shirley had been again safely delivered at the Holland
residence, Mr. Thorne in his car gave himself to serious reflection.
Shirley, too, was thoughtful. What a queer experience,--to be sent to
Sidney’s room, to see the fine pictures, the handsome rugs, the large
rooms, with all their tasteful furniture and fittings, and to be, in a
sense, in Sidney’s place, temporarily. They were dear people, Sidney’s
father and mother.
“I almost played Sidney’s ghost, Hope. You don’t know how strange it
seemed to be there, in Sidney’s home, without Sidney. It was odd for
Mr. and Mrs. Thorne, too. But I can see that they wanted to know me and
everything about me. We found that the Thornes are in the same line,
’way back, as the Dudleys, my mother’s people, and Mrs. Thorne thinks
that accounts for our resemblance. But Mr. Thorne did not think so, and
joked her about having her club decide it.”
Meanwhile Mr. Thorne was saying to his wife that he thought she more
than half believed all the stuff that her aunt, Miss Standish, had
taught Sidney. “You have made a mistake, I am afraid, my dear, to let
Sidney get those ideas. They will make her snobbish,--and perhaps
unhappy.”
“I never have the heart to stop Auntie, and what is the harm?”
“This resemblance, little wife, is very odd.”
“What do you make of it?”
“Nothing at present.”
But Sidney’s Ghost went back to school, where busy days waited for both
girls; and Mr. Thorne was plunged into such a rush of affairs, with
some new undertakings in which he was interested, that any importance
attaching in his mind to the fact of Sidney’s having a “double,” was
at least partly erased by more immediately important matters.
One little fear in the back of Shirley’s consciousness caused her
enough uneasiness to make her write about her latest experiences in
Chicago to her mother. It was after the second term was well started
and followed the first long letter and several cards. It was her first
reference to the resemblance.
She gave the details of the accidental meeting and of her visit at
Sidney’s home. Then she asked the question. “Mother,” she wrote, “you
don’t suppose that I am anybody’s child but yours, do you? You haven’t
adopted me? I am your child as little Betty used to say ‘by borning?’
I feel sure that I am, and yet this queer likeness has given me a
miserable doubt, when I let myself get foolish about it. I don’t want
to say anything to Auntie, so I write straight to you. Tell me what you
think, or know, the next time you write, please.
“Meanwhile, I’ll not worry, for everything about school is going
wonderfully. I’ve written reams, I know; but you had to be told about
the various complications. I like Sidney, in spite of her being such a
proud piece of humanity. Several days after we came back to school she
said to me, going in to class, ‘Why didn’t you tell me that you had
been out to our house?’ I was surprised to find her behind me and I
said, ‘I’d have been glad to if there had been a suitable opportunity.’
And Sidney flushed up at that, for she had not been near me, and the
only time I ever went to her room to speak to her she was not exactly
hospitable.”
CHAPTER XVII.
SIDNEY MAKES A DISCOVERY.
More and more Shirley grew into the life of the school. Hope Holland
was her most intimate friend, though her room-mate, Madge Whitney,
continued to be a close chum. Dulcie Porter, Hope’s room-mate, was
often with Shirley after the Christmas vacation, and Hope and Dulcie,
it will be remembered, were of the famous Double Three. Caroline Scott,
Betty Terhune, and later, more in class relations, Olive Mason and her
chum, Barbara Sanford, were Shirley’s firm friends.
Though she was invited by both Hope and Caroline to Chicago for the
spring vacation, Shirley accepted the urgent invitation of Madge and
went with her to a quiet little town on the lake shore in Michigan,
where she met Madge’s friends and had a real rest besides. This was due
largely to Madge’s sensible mother.
Letters and cards came from Dr. and Mrs. Harcourt, but there was no
reference to Shirley’s question. From different comments Shirley knew
that they had not received that letter, though later news from her was
acknowledged. They had been at that time upon an African expedition
and had returned by a different route than that touching the point
where they had ordered their mail to follow them. In consequence, the
letter was received only just before their sailing for America, having
followed them around as letters to travelers abroad sometimes do.
Hope, who had never cared much for clothes, blossomed out after the
vacation with some particularly pretty and tasteful frocks, chiefly
hung away, however, during the days of the uniform and the dinners when
the old frocks would do as well. But the time of the spring Prom was
appearing.
Mac Holland had instructed his sister to arrange that he should be with
Shirley on that occasion and Hope had talked it over with Shirley. The
result was that Dick was to be one of this foursome, as Mac called it,
though Hope insisted that Shirley must introduce Dick to all the girls.
Knowing Dick, Shirley consented to this, and hoped that it would turn
out as it should.
When Shirley saw Sidney on her return, she was shocked at Sidney’s
white, worn face. “What is the matter with Sidney Thorne?” she asked
Hope.
“I don’t know. Mrs. Thorne is worried about her, Mother says. She
seemed to get sick all at once, but the doctor says that there is
nothing the matter with her. She does not sleep very well and is
nervous. The doctor gave her something, but Sidney says that she does
not want any medicine. I think that Sidney has changed, too. It is odd.”
Shirley felt drawn toward the pale, quiet girl who came to classes,
recited well, but without any enthusiasm. No one but Olive now would
be a rival of Shirley’s for highest grades. These easily would be
Shirley’s though her only motive for her hard study was to please her
father by as high marks as possible, rivalry not concerning her at all.
But Sidney Thorne had during the vacation received a shock from which
she had not been able to recover. Her pillow at home had received many
bitter tears whose traces were carefully removed when necessary. But at
night she usually cried herself into a sleep of exhaustion which left
her merely pale in the mornings and brought much concern to Mr. and
Mrs. Thorne. It would have been better if she had confided her grief to
these dear people who loved her; but she could not bring herself to do
it in the short time that she was at home. Uncomforted, therefore, she
returned to school, struggling to readjust her thoughts, and stricken
in heart.
The girls asked her what was the matter and the Double Three said that
Sid didn’t “eat enough to keep a bird alive.” The most delicious fudge
did not tempt her. Miss Gibson, “Gibby,” the hated, found Sidney one
afternoon, strolling alone in the farther part of the grove under the
pretence of looking for wild flowers. This was one of the times of
rebellion, when it was all Sidney could do to keep back her tears.
But Miss Gibson was purposely blind to the evidences of trouble and
succeeded in interesting Sidney enough to forget herself. They sat down
on one of the benches which faced the lake while Miss Gibson, talking
away, told Sidney a little of her early struggles for an education.
“But grit carries us through anything,” cheerily Miss Gibson closed
her brief reference, “and I have such a wonderful opportunity here
that I am very happy about it.” With that she left Sidney to her own
reflections, waving to another of the teachers who was passing along
not far away.
Sidney turned a little to watch Miss Gibson as she went away. She felt
a new sympathy. Why, Gibby probably _needed_ this position, and she
_was_ a good teacher and knew what she was about. How awful if the
girls drove her away! Well, weren’t things mixed up in this old world?
She would do what she could to keep Gibby now! Strange that it takes
a touch of misfortune to teach us what others go through. Sidney had
never known anything but having a home and protection. Helping the poor
was one thing; but to Sidney the unfortunate were a world apart.
Grit. That was it. Thanks to Gibby for suggesting it. She had not quite
gone to pieces anyway. Sidney had not realized how much of her life
had been built upon what she knew now was not hers. Foundations were
slipping from under her. Little thoughts of pride brought a realization
that they had no root in fact. These were bitter days. But Sidney
kept up her lessons automatically, glad of their thought-compelling
frequency.
One Saturday the Double Three and some others had gone on a picnic.
Sidney made the excuse of not feeling equal to the jaunt and remained
in her room, glad to be alone. Shirley, as it happened, was alone, too,
Madge had gone with the rest; but Shirley had work to do for Monday.
She, too, had begun the day with a headache, but that had disappeared
by noon and a box of delicious fruit had arrived from her aunt. It was
not the fruit season, but Aunt Anne had found various things, among
them some strawberries which had kept beautifully on the way.
Shirley hastened to prepare them, but they were too ripe to keep, for
they had come from the South. She thought of the teachers, then of
Sidney. Perhaps they would tempt Sidney’s flagging appetite. While she
opened the package of confectioner’s sugar which her aunt had sent, she
considered. Should she run the risk of disturbing Sidney? Well, why
not? At the worst Sidney could only be inhospitable, and that would not
hurt Shirley in any vital way.
With a tempting dish of the red berries sprinkled with the white sugar,
Shirley swallowed her hesitation and rapidly walked through the halls
to Sidney’s door. Lightly she rapped, thinking of the last time she had
entered.
A faint voice said, “Come in.” Shirley opened the door, to see Sidney
through the open door from the study. She was lying on her bed, but
dressed.
“Oh, excuse me,” said Shirley. “Were you trying to sleep? I’ll run
right away, but my aunt sent me some berries and I thought of you, for
the girls say that you have spring fever, or something and have lost
your appetite.”
Shirley made her voice as bright as possible, as she put the attractive
dish of berries on the study table.
“Oh, isn’t that good of you!” said Sidney, in a tone of pleased
surprise. She sat up, saying, “Wait a minute. I don’t want to
sleep,--and I have to make up for being so mean when you were here
once before.”
Sidney had not expected to say that and Shirley showed her surprise
for a moment. “Oh, there is nothing to make up,” she said. “Aren’t
you a bit well, Sidney? Is there anything that I can do for you?”
“Nobody can do anything; but I’m really better, a little. I just didn’t
want to go on a picnic. Oh, these are lovely! So many of the berries
that we begin to get early are not ripe. But where are yours? Haven’t
you any for yourself?”
“Oh, yes, plenty.”
“Do you mind going to get them, then? Come in to eat them with me. I
have some delicious cookies that Edith had sent her from home. She
_would_ give me some, and I did not want them then.”
Shirley looked at Sidney to make sure that she really wanted her; she
hurried back to bring a dish of berries for herself and another spoon.
How odd this little lunch was, but how charming Sidney could be. No
wonder that she had been influential in the school. They sat in the
window seat together, while one by one the red berries disappeared,
and the cookies took their place among the things that were. Sidney
looked like a more sober and thinner edition of Shirley. “Wouldn’t a
snap shot of us be funny?” she asked, a smile dawning with the thought.
“Shirley,” she added more soberly, “do you suppose that we could
be--closely--related?”
“I don’t know, Sidney, though I have thought of it, of course. What do
your parents think, Sidney,--anything at all about it?”
“Nothing so far as they have said anything to me. But, Shirley, when
I was home on the vacation I found--” Sidney stopped and bit her
lips, while the tears came into her eyes. Shirley leaned over to take
the dish from Sidney’s hand. With hers she deposited it on the table
and returned to the seat beside Sidney. Sidney’s face was in her
handkerchief for a moment, while she tried to recover herself. The
girls had first talked about school matters, but now at last the veil
was dropped between them.
“Let me tell you about it,” shakily said Sidney, wiping her eyes.
“Daddy was away. He has been away a great deal lately on business.
Mother wanted something out of Dad’s deposit box in the bank, something
that he sent for, and as they had arranged long ago, I could be
permitted to go to either box. So Mother sent me to the bank instead of
going herself. I could not for the life of me find anything marked as
he had written it was, though there was one envelope that _might_ be it.
“But I thought I ought to make sure, and there was one large white
envelope that had nothing marked on the outside. I hesitated to break
it, for it was sealed, but Dad was in a great hurry for his papers, so
I tore open the envelope. And there, Shirley, was another envelope,
marked,--” Sidney broke off and wiped her lips with her handkerchief.
“Oh, don’t tell me, Sidney, if it is so hard for you.”
“I want you to know, and I must tell somebody!”
Shirley waited. What dreadful thing was coming?
“The inside envelope was marked, ‘Papers regarding the Adoption of
Sidney’!”
Sidney stopped, while Shirley, amazed, and yet relieved, said, “Oh,
Sidney!”
“You can imagine how I felt. No, I don’t believe that you can either.
Suppose you thought that you were your father’s and mother’s own child
and then suddenly found that--well, you didn’t know who you were!”
Soberly Shirley nodded. “Didn’t you find out any more?” she asked.
“No. I would not open what I was not supposed to know about; I took the
first package that I had thought might be the right one and I went
away as quickly as I could. I could scarcely believe what had happened,
and I cried all night. Then I went down again to the bank with the key
to my father’s box and some big white envelopes like the one I had
broken open. I read again what was written on the inner envelope and
I realized more than at first what it meant. Then I put it in one
of the envelopes most like the other and sealed it up again. I suppose
that I should never have known! They must have meant never to tell me.
Why, my great-aunt does not know I am _sure_, or she would never have
talked about my being a Standish, and a Thorne, and all that stuff!”
Sidney’s tone was bitter now.
“Even Mother used to join in, but Dad never did. I’ll say that for
him. And poor Mother loves to deceive herself about anything that she
wants to be so!” Sidney was more tender now, and Shirley recalled
with some surprise how Mrs. Thorne had spoken as if Sidney’s ancestry
were theirs, or, rather, theirs hers. “I can imagine how my dear,
sentimental mother must have persuaded my father never to tell me.”
“And then I came along,” said Shirley thoughtfully.
“Yes, and I can see that my father has been thinking about it. He has
made several remarks to Mother that I remembered after I found the
envelope. But your coming, Shirley, had nothing to do with my finding
the facts.” Sidney was fair. Shirley was not to blame. “That was
why he wanted to have a talk with you, I suppose, Shirley,” Sidney
continued, “and Mother invited you there after I had gone on to school.”
Shirley reached over and took Sidney’s hand, looking at it. “Sidney,
he asked all about my people, my father and mother, and I even told
him all about my ancestry, for I have a great-aunt, too, that thinks
a great deal of our family tree. Isn’t it queer? And I wrote to my
mother, Sidney, to ask her if I were really her daughter, ‘by borning’
as my little sister that died used to say. I had a sister and a brother
that died several years ago. It may be, Sidney, that we are sisters,
twins, most likely and that neither of us belong to the families where
we are.”
“Well, I’m sorry for you, Shirley, if that is so,” and Sidney’s hand
tightened on Shirley’s. Then Sidney’s head went down on Shirley’s
shoulder and her slight body shook with sobs. “Oh, I know that they did
not mean to be cruel, Shirley,” she said as soon as she could control
herself, “but it is so _terribly_ hard now.”
“I do know a little, Sidney,” whispered Shirley through the golden
waves of Sidney’s pretty hair, “because of all the pangs I have when I
think about it and wonder about myself.”
“Yes,” said Sidney, “and oh, I _do_ want so to belong to Father and
Mother!”
“I wonder if it would not be best to tell them all about it,” Shirley
suggested. “You will want to know how it all came about.”
“I’m not so sure,” said Sidney. “It depends on where I came from.”
“You are sure of this, that they do not want you to leave them and that
you are legally their child. Isn’t that some consolation?”
“A little.”
“And they have known it all along and yet have loved you to pieces and
been so proud of you and everything.”
Sidney brightened a little at this suggestion, but soon she sobered
again. “There is one thing, though, Shirley, I’m going to _bear_ it and
never complain to either of them. I do know what they have done for me.
I have thought of that, Shirley. But I have to wait a little. I can’t
do it now. I am glad that I have told you and it will be good to see
you occasionally. You will stand by, won’t you, and keep the other
girls from knowing what is the matter?”
“Mercy yes!” Shirley gasped at the very idea of her telling any one.
“I always have liked you down in my heart, Shirley, though I just
couldn’t stand it to have you look so like me.”
“I don’t blame you,” laughed Shirley. “I didn’t exactly relish it
myself, but I thought that it would only be for a little while, and
wouldn’t spoil the fun much.”
Sidney laughed with Shirley and then led her into her bedroom where
she drew her before the mirror. “If twins ever looked more alike than
that,” Sidney finally said, “then, as my friend Ran Roberts says, I’m a
fishworm!”
“You are coming on, Sidney,” said Shirley. “Goodbye, Twin. If you get
lonesome, come around. I’m studying, or shall be, but ever and anon I
shall long for intermission.”
CHAPTER XVIII.
LIFE BECOMES ENDURABLE.
As the school year drew near its close, the girls were treated to the
strange sight of a frequent association of the “doubles.” No other
relations were disturbed. The Double Three never became a Double
Four. Interest had died out in adding to its numbers. But there was a
sympathetic understanding between Sidney Thorne and Shirley Harcourt,
not exactly to be explained. It simply existed.
It was not to be supposed that the girls would notice it and let
it escape comment. Hope exclaimed over it. “Why, after all Sid’s
snippiness, here you are the best of friends! What happened?”
“Oh, we had a talk once,” Shirley replied, and that was the only
explanation that she ever gave.
“You ought to have seen yourselves, you and Shirley, Sid, down on the
beach to-day like twin mermaids!” cried Fleta after a senior beach
party. “How come?”
“I have discovered what a fine girl Shirley is,” Sidney replied, “and
looking like her and having her look like me is rather fun now.”
“Of all things! Did you hear that, Irma?”
“Yes. Sid has stopped wearing anything to make her look different. I
think that she and Shirley are going to do something to fool us all!”
“We are going to change clothes at the Prom,” soberly stated Sidney,
while the girls looked at her dubiously to see if she were in earnest
or not. But the suspicion of a smile hovered about Sidney’s mouth.
Sidney was looking better now, though not quite like herself. But she
and Shirley were not so often mistaken for each other, as Sidney was
decidedly thinner. The way in which she had been wearing her hair, too,
since shortly after Shirley’s arrival, made it easy to distinguish
the girls unless they wore hats. Hats and coats being different, and
soon recognized among any closely associated group of girls such as a
boarding school affords, they were a good means of identification.
But Shirley still kept close to Madge, Caroline, Hope and lately Olive.
She and Sidney merely drifted together or sought each other when there
was some idea to exchange upon the subject common to them both. Not
that they talked much about it either, for it was too sober a topic to
discuss as girls often discuss other things. “Heard from your mother
yet, Shirley?” Sidney would perhaps ask.
“Not yet, Sidney. I wrote again, but I am mixed up about their
itinerary, for it has changed. I keep hearing from them, and I think
that they finally receive my mail, but all of it very late.”
“Let’s go down to the shore a while. I need to be with you, Shirley.”
Then the two, arm in arm and not saying a word, might stroll to the
shore or off into the wood. Sidney refrained from suggesting a like
unhappy fate for Shirley, yet her interest in knowing what word Shirley
would have from Dr. and Mrs. Harcourt was plain. Shirley, for her part,
never introduced a reference to Sidney’s woeful revelation, but if
Sidney spoke of it, she would try to cheer her and she advised that
Sidney tell Mr. and Mrs. Thorne, in order to know how they had come to
adopt her. Sidney at first said that she was afraid to know, but later
she was considering it.
Shirley determined not to cross the bridge before she came to it, but
there was the awful possibility that she, too might have been adopted.
Perhaps they were two stray little twins without anybody but each
other. That consciousness and the odd feeling of kinship that she had
toward Sidney made her very sympathetic. There was nothing the matter
with Shirley’s imagination, though she tried to be sensible. Little
Betty looked a little bit like her. Her brother had had the same
combination of dark eyes and light hair. Oh, it simply could not be
that she did not belong to her father and mother!
Nothing in Sidney’s life had been changed in the least, yet she was
like a lost child in her heart. Finally she told Shirley that she
would write about it to her father just as soon as the Prom was over.
“I don’t think that I _could_ bear any more and go through the Prom,”
she said. “I’m going to make myself have a good time. Ran Roberts is
the boy from our suburb that I like best. He is such a gentleman, too,
and I want you to meet him. Then he is bringing some of his friends
for some of the other girls who can’t ask anybody they know to come
so far, so it will be a jolly lot of guests that we have. And if Mac
comes, as Hope says, and your cousin Dick doesn’t fail you, we’ll all
see that everybody has a fine time. Remember that I want you this time,
Shirley. I suppose that I’ll always be proud, whether I have anything
to be proud of or not,--” here Sidney laughed a little and Shirley’s
eyes twinkled. “But I have learned a _few_ things these awful weeks and
one of them is to be sincere with myself and face the facts. For pity’s
sake, remind me, Shirley, if I get on my high horse again.”
“Nothing of the sort,” firmly said Shirley. “A body has to have some
self respect and your ‘superiority complex’ mustn’t go into total
eclipse!”
“Aren’t you comforting?” smiled Sidney, “and you ought to be telling me
what a snob I’ve been!”
“Hush and shush, as Madge says. I made up a new saying myself the other
day, though not thinking about you.”
“What is it?”
“It’s a small potato that can’t grow an eye.”
“Shirley the philosopher!” grinned Sidney. Life might be worth
_something_ after a while. And the clothes that she was to have for the
Prom and the days after it were lovely!
Ah, that senior Prom! Beautiful lights were about the campus. Within
chandeliers sparkled or soft lights came from pretty shades over the
side lights. Girls in their prettiest frocks, fluffy or silken evening
dresses, duly inspected by the dean, though silently so, as the girls
reported to her, were met by masculine figures in correct attire. No
orchestras in Ravinia Park ever discoursed such music as that senior
Prom orchestra, engaged for the occasion, furnished to these happy boys
and girls.
Dick Lytton arrived, full of news for Shirley and a glad sight for eyes
that rather longed for home occasionally, she told him. She was very
proud of her university lad and introduced him to all of her friends,
though Hope was first and Shirley was glad to see how pleased Dick
was with the girl for whom he had been invited, in one sense, though
Shirley would have had Dick if no one else came to the Prom.
Sidney was true to her word that Shirley should meet her group of
friends, though Mac Holland was always in evidence wherever Shirley
was. He, too, knew Sidney well, of course, but Randall Roberts was the
favored lad with her, Shirley could see. The acquaintance between the
girls and boys from Chicago and its suburbs made a pleasant circle; yet
Shirley did not forget to see that Dick’s acquaintance was still wider.
The girls were permitted to have calls on Saturday, also, and at Sunday
dinner, which made an exciting week end for many of them, whose friends
stayed in the nearest suburb and spent as much time at the school as
was allowed. Shirley had an opportunity for a satisfactory visit with
Dick, who had intended to leave for home on Saturday, but stayed for
Sunday dinner and a visit instead.
“Can any mere professor in a university expect me to leave this bower
of beauty for anything so stupid as Monday’s lessons?” asked Dick, when
Hope inquired if he could stay. With Sidney’s cordial manner Dick
was pleased, but he could scarcely get over the close resemblance,
and after having met her he looked closely at Shirley every time he
came, for fear that he might make a mistake. “Shirley,” said he, when
they were alone on the campus Sunday afternoon just before he left
the grounds,--“Shirley, I can’t help wondering about this resemblance
between you and Sidney Thorne. Have you told your mother about it yet?”
“Yes, Dick, but I have not heard from her in relation to it. I’d like
to tell you something that I know, but I can’t.”
“Well, I’ll not be surprised to learn that Sidney is your twin. But I
suppose it can happen and has happened that people who are not related
are duplicates, so to speak. By the way, Hope Holland promised to write
to me in reply to the letter which I must, of course, write to my young
lady of the Prom.”
“All right,” laughed Shirley, “but don’t forget who was at the bottom
of your coming. I might enjoy hearing about our school myself.”
“Wait till I tell you of a prospective student next year. Don’t tell me
that I can’t work for my own middle west university! To be sure there
might be another attraction, but I impressed upon him the superior
advantages of a smaller school!”
“Dick! I know whom you mean,--but it would be crazy for--.”
“Don’t hesitate, my dear; it was Mac Holland.”
“For Mac, then not to go on here. Think of the schools right at hand!”
“Often it is wise to have another environment. Why did you want to go
away to school?”
“Because Father and Mother were going away!”
“Is this my truthful cousin?”
“Well, I will acknowledge that I’ve always been crazy for the
experience. So, I’ve had it!”
“Seriously, Shirley, has it been all right for you?” Dick was her
sober, brotherly cousin now, who had taken care of her on the summer
trip.
“Yes, Dick. I have learned a great deal in several ways. There are
things that have happened that have not been just what I would have
chosen; but in the lessons and everything about the school, and in the
lovely friends that I have made,--well, I wouldn’t have missed it.”
“I will tell Aunt Anne that, then. You have satisfied her with your
letters and cards, she said.”
“Then tell her all about Sidney, won’t you now, Dick, since you have
seen her. Tell her all about what happened from the first and get her
interested. I will write and refer to it, but it would take so long to
write it all now.”
“All right, Shirley. But why not wait until you come home, since you
have waited this long?”
“Something might happen. I’d like to have Aunt Anne know about it.”
“You are very mysterious, Shirley. I can’t imagine what could happen;
but, as you say. I don’t even see what difference it would make if
Sidney Thorne _were_ your twin.”
“You _can’t_? Well, maybe it wouldn’t make any. I’m sorry, Dick, to see
you go. It has been like home to have you here. I shall be quite ready
to go home and stay with Aunt Anne till Father and Mother come back.”
But Shirley did not know that she would not spend the summer with Aunt
Anne.
CHAPTER XIX.
ASSURANCES.
The excitement of the “Prom” over, Shirley Harcourt and her friends
turned their attention to the usual preparation for examinations and
the Commencement exercises not far away. Like most schools of the
sort, Westlake would have graceful outdoor pageants. Both Shirley and
Sidney were in the senior play, which was a good thing for them. There
was little time for anything but lessons, practising and constant
association with their friends.
At last Shirley heard from her mother, relative to her question. She
did not know how anxious she had been until she felt the relief that
came with the reading.
“Yes, dear,” wrote Mrs. Harcourt, “you are certainly my own little
girl ‘by borning.’ I am sorry that you have had this long wait for a
reply, but I hope that this thought was only a fancy and not a worry.
No, I have not received the first letter you mention. I am very much
interested in this other girl, so like you. Tell me more about her.
When and where was she born and on what date? Your father wants to
know, too. O Shirley, you have no idea what this trip means to him. In
spite of his hard work, he looks ten years younger, feels like a boy,
he says, and knows that this will mean everything professionally.”
Shirley was almost sorry to tell Sidney that she had received word, but
Sidney herself asked her if she had received it. “I saw Madge going up
with a foreign looking letter in her hand. I wondered if you could have
received word from your mother, Shirley,” said Sidney, meeting Shirley
after dinner.
“Yes, Sidney, and I want you to read it. Let’s go up right now. Nobody
is there.”
The two girls ran up the stairs together. Sidney sat down in the chair
Shirley offered, afraid to ask Shirley what her mother had said. She
looked searchingly at Shirley, however, saying, “I think that it is
good news, from the way you look.”
“Yes, Sidney,--but read the whole letter, please. It is especially
interesting. I’m crazy to see the things that they are bringing home.
At Christmas, you know, they were in the wilds and couldn’t even send
me a present. She’s bringing me an Egyptian scarab and all sorts of
things from crazy places, besides some of the regular treasures that
she will pick up this summer in Europe. They haven’t so much money,
though, because the trip has taken so much. My father will make
something, though, by writing everything up.”
Sidney was holding the letter and listening to Shirley. “And you think
that all that sort of thing is better, don’t you?”
“Yes,” Shirley simply replied.
“I begin to understand about you, Shirley.”
That was all Sidney said until after she read the letter, looking up to
smile at Shirley, however, when she came to the important statement.
Then she read on again, soberly, to the end, and handed the letter back
to Shirley. “That is a fine letter. How beautifully she writes of what
they have seen. I could wish that my real mother, if she is anywhere,
could be as interesting as that. I’m so afraid, Shirley that--oh, well,
I’ve no business to harrow you all up with my woes!”
“You must remember that a very beautiful lady selected you and made you
her own,” Shirley suggested.
“Yes, and I have so much that they have given me. I guess that I am a
pretty ‘small potato,’ Shirley!”
But the suggestion of being “selected” jarred upon Sidney’s
sensitiveness. Where had her parents found her? There was one
possibility that she had not considered, and that brightened her when
she thought of it. It might be that she was related after all, a child
of some relative.
Sidney had now come to the point where she felt that she must know.
That night she wrote to her father, telling him of her visit to the
deposit box and its results. She addressed the letter to his office,
but she said that if it was his judgment to show her mother the letter,
she was ready for her to know. “It was a great shock,” she wrote, “but
I am trying to be sensible about it. I dread and yet I want to know the
rest.”
She sent the letter by special delivery the next morning. That
night she received a telegram from her father to the effect that he
was driving up to see her on the following day. Sidney’s heart was
comforted by the prompt response, though she could scarcely suppress
her excitement. She did not tell Shirley, could not, for some reason.
The girls in her suite knew of her telegram, but it was nothing new for
Mr. Thorne to telegraph his movements.
It was just after lunch when Sidney saw her father’s car coming around
the drive. She had been staying near the main building except during
recitation hours and now, with several of the girls, she was out upon
the campus near by. She ran toward the drive, waving, and stood till
the car reached her. Her father was alone, driving the car himself.
How fine he was, and how kind!
Mr. Thorne reached out from the car and took Sidney’s outstretched
hand, patting it and looking searchingly into the earnest brown eyes
that were raised to his. “So that was what was the matter, childie,”
he said. “Run in and ask permission to be carried off. We’ll get away
from the school to talk. I will drive up to let any investigating
authorities know that it is your father who wants you.”
“Good. Shall I change to a dress?”
“Yes. Take off your uniform and bring a coat and hat. We shall have
dinner somewhere, probably, and then I will bring you back. Will you
miss any recitations?”
“One, but I can fix that.”
It was on the lake shore, below a sandy bluff, with their car parked
above, that Mr. Thorne and his daughter sat down to have their talk.
The fresh air was exhilarating. There was movement in the waves and in
the flight of birds, around them and out above the waters; but there
was not a soul on the beach to overhear or distract.
Before this they had talked about unimportant things, and Mr. Thorne
had said that he had not yet mentioned the matter to her mother. Now he
began by reminding her, as Shirley had, that all this had been known
to them and that their love for her had only grown with the years. “You
belong to us, Sidney. You are our own child by adoption and in every
way you have grown into our hearts. Your mother was wondering only the
other day how she would bear to have you grow up, come out into society
and leave her, very likely, to marry some one,--as she did herself.
‘It’s a little too near,’ she said. Now can you realize that this is
all true?”
“I think so,” soberly Sidney replied. “Seeing you and hearing you say
these things makes me feel as I always have,--that I belong!”
“Indeed you do, my child. I’d like to see any one take you away from
us! But I know that you are anxious to hear how it all happened. Let me
see. You were seventeen in September, weren’t you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then eighteen years ago or so your mother had something of a collapse
after undertaking too many things socially. In the middle of the winter
I took her to California, and when it grew warm, we went immediately
to the cottage in Wisconsin for the summer. We did not even stop in
Chicago and your mother only longed for the woods and the little lake.
We lived quietly, though I had to go back and forth. There were the
usual servants, though your mother did not want many around. No one
lived in the cottage except one quite intelligent girl who was a
nurse, on her vacation, and just the one to stay with your mother.
“They were outdoors as much as possible and your mother began to get
her tone again, even telling me that she must go back to Chicago, to
avoid the necessity of my frequent trips. But I persuaded her to stay
through October at least, or a part of it, if I remember correctly.
“Once this young woman who was with your mother stopped with her at
her home and there your mother found you, about two months old by that
time, they said, and unusually pretty. They tell me though that a
kiddie does not look like anything till it is about three months old.
It was a new interest, and when your mother found that your mother and
father were dead and that these good people had taken you for their
daughter’s friend, your aunt, also a nurse, she began to wonder if
she might not have the baby herself. You were like a new doll to her,
Sidney, and she was temporarily disgusted with so much society.
“She began to visit the country home, to take pictures of the baby, to
get pretty clothes for it,--you can imagine how your mother would.”
“Yes,” laughed Sidney, and the two who loved Mrs. Thorne so dearly
exchanged understanding glances.
“We learned that your parents were people above reproach and as your
mother found that their name, Sampson, was one in the Standish lineage,
she let your aunt go on about the Standishes to her heart’s content.
But I think that your mother has almost forgotten about your having no
real connection with our immediate ancestry.”
“I suppose so,” mechanically answered Sidney, stunned at the new name.
Mr. Thorne had seen her wince, but he nerved himself to go on. It had
to be told. How much better it would have been for Sidney to have known
the truth. Yet, there had been some point, too, in Sidney’s growing up
to this lovely young womanhood as a child of the house. What would have
been the psychology of it Mr. Thorne could not decide, though he had
thought of little else since he had read Sidney’s pitiful letter.
“But now, Sidney, I am realizing that we have known very little of
everything perhaps interesting to you in this connection. There are
several things that I recall about the arrangement that I must look
into for your sake. There was no birth certificate, for one thing.
Everything was fixed up as tight for us as could be, and all that we
cared for was that your parents should have been good people. The
chief attraction was your small self.
“But now I am going to do a little detective work on my own account and
I shall say nothing to your mother at present. I have a fancy that it
may or may not amount to anything, and I must say, Sidney, that I was
astonished at the duplication of yourself, almost, in Shirley Harcourt.
Is she sure that she is the child of Dr. and Mrs. Harcourt?”
“I have just read a letter from Mrs. Harcourt in answer to that very
question. She is, and she was born in Chicago. But we haven’t the same
birthdays.”
“I am not sure that we know your birthday, Sidney. You seemed to your
mother’s aunt a little older than you were according to accounts,
though we told her nothing. She thinks you ours.”
“If you look things up and find anything dreadful the matter, Daddy,
don’t tell me!”
“There will be nothing dreadful. Sidney, there has always been a
quality about you that can be only accounted for by something innate.
It is not all our training and the environment of refinement. There was
something in you, my child. You were always dainty and beauty-loving
and responsive,----”
“Can’t account for it in that way, Daddy,” interposed Sidney, as Mr.
Thorne paused. “Think how different children in the same family are. I
admired Mother and Auntie so much and was so proud of our family, that
I just grew up with the idea of being like Mother.”
“That would support your mother’s idea that it was better for you not
to know. Well, we’ll not discuss that now. I have already written to
the people in Wisconsin and in a few days, after some pressing business
matters are disposed of, I may go there myself. I know how I should
feel in your place, Sidney. I regret beyond words that you have had
the suffering which you have had. We could not imagine why you were
suddenly so upset and ill. But I am glad to see that you have gotten
beyond that.”
“It is partly due to Shirley, Father. She brought me some fruit when
I was so miserable and we became really acquainted. It is queer the
way we feel about each other. I know that Shirley feels as I do. It
was uncanny, I thought at first, and I did not like it at all. Really,
I have had a big lesson, I suppose, but my, what a hard one it has
been! I hadn’t the least idea that I was so proud. But you would have
laughed at what Shirley said to me about that. Shirley has a big soul
and doesn’t seem to hold anything against me no matter how silly I’ve
been. She said that my ‘superiority complex’ mustn’t go into ‘total
eclipse!’”
“You have talked to her, then, about this?”
“Yes. I have seen the pictures of her parents, too. Her father makes me
think of you. Once I would have said that they had ‘quite intelligent
faces,’ I suppose!”
“Life has a great way of taking down our ‘superiority complexes,’
Sidney, but it is just as well to keep our self-respect.”
“That is what Shirley said. She lives almost in the university there, I
suppose, and hears faculty conversation,--perhaps as elevating as ours,
Daddy!”
Sidney laughed as she spoke, and her father agreed that there were
opportunities for culture in other circles except their own. More
nonsense of comparisons followed, while Sidney wrote in the sand with a
stick and Mr. Thorne tossed an occasional pebble. Then he rose and held
a hand to Sidney. “Come, now,” he said. “I told your mother that I was
not going to be home until late. I want to take you far enough away to
get all the cobwebs and kinks out of your brain and then we shall stop
somewhere for the best dinner that we can find. Please try to have a
few care-free hours with an old daddy that is very fond of his child.”
“I can do it,” gratefully cried Sidney, “but you mixed your figures
terribly when you talked about cobwebs and kinks!”
CHAPTER XX.
AT LAST.
For the girls of Westlake the rest of the year went on wings. Sidney
Thorne told Shirley, in one of their whirlwind conferences, that she
was living a dream most of the time, and Shirley said that she felt
that way, too.
Sidney had the chief part in the Shakespearean play which the seniors
were giving, under a Miss Gibson whose girls were more appreciative and
loyal since Sidney had changed her attitude. Sidney’s part as heroine
was of some consolation to her injured pride, but she resolutely
refrained from any directions to others, or any remarks which could be
at all construed as self-congratulatory. “Sidney isn’t as cocky as she
used to be,” was the inelegant comment of the blunt Stella.
There were beach parties, jaunts in the launch, rowing and even
swimming in Lake Michigan’s still chilly waters. Shirley regretted
leaving the beautiful place with its fine teachers, its fun and the
dear girls that were, some of them, to be life-long friends. “You will
be visiting Hope and Caroline and me in Chicago,” Sidney reminded her.
“I am wanting you very much this summer, though I’ve hardly had time to
think about it. We’ll just be in the Wisconsin cottage, Shirley, the
greater part of the summer; but Mother says that I may have anybody
that I want. When are your father and mother coming home?”
“Probably not until the last thing before college opens in the fall. It
gives Father an extra three months, you see, to stay through another
summer.”
“Then you can stay with me as well as not, and if you’d rather have
Hope and Caroline, I think that they could be induced to come, too.”
“I shall need no other inducement than yourself, Sidney. Why, I have
never been to one of those northern cottages and it is a rare treat you
are offering me.”
“I am glad that you think so, and I believe that I’d rather be by
ourselves part of the time, till my father finds out something, if he
can.”
Mr. Thorne, in the meantime, was meeting various difficulties. He had
lost trace of people during all these years. Finally he put a carefully
worded advertisement in the Chicago papers, by which X offered a
considerable sum for definite information about certain matters. The
names of Mr. and Mrs. Sampson were given with their supposed former
address.
This brought results. It was toward the end of the summer, when Shirley
was packing to go home from her long visit in Wisconsin, that Mr.
Thorne came from Chicago with success written in his face. “Oh, you
have found out!” gasped Sidney as she hurried toward him from the
wooded nook just beyond the house, where she and Shirley had swung a
hammock. Mrs. Thorne, who sat on the wide porch of the log mansion,
with its gay Indian rugs and comfortable chairs, came smilingly down
to join the others. For some time she had known of Sidney’s discovery,
but as Sidney was so self-contained and cool about it by that time, she
never did quite realize what the first shock had meant.
“Can you stand finding out that you are not a Sampson or a Standish,
Sidney?” queried the smiling gentleman, brushing back his slightly
graying hair as he removed his hat and sought a comfortable seat on the
wide veranda.
“Oh, don’t tease me, Daddy! It’s too serious!”
“So it is, little girl. How shall I begin? Probably the best thing is
to dash right into it and announce that you and Shirley were little
twin babies.”
“Oh!” said Sidney and Shirley in one low breath. “Then,--” Sidney
began, but put her hands to her face for a moment, taking them away to
put her head down on Shirley’s shoulder as she had done once before;
for Shirley was standing beside her.
“I’m not _sorry_, Shirley,--don’t think that--” Sidney shakily began.
“But it is such a relief,--and I can’t quite stand it!”
“Come over here to your daddy,” said Mr. Thorne, drawing Sidney, big
girl as she was, to his knee. “Now just have a little weep if you like.
I’ll tell you how it happened after a while. Yes, Mother, you will have
a rival in Mrs. Harcourt now; but some way I do not think that they
will rob us of Sidney.”
Mr. Thorne smiled into the disturbed face of his wife. “Oh dear,” she
said, “would he, Shirley?”
Shirley was just thinking of that herself, but she said, “My father
will do what is best for everybody. He always does.”
“But how about your mother? Oh, your poor mother, never to have _known_
of Sidney!”
At that Sidney, now wiping her eyes looked at Shirley and laughed.
“I guess she had the better girl,” she said, “and here I have _two_
mothers! Well, Twin, how about it?”
“I’m a little stunned,” replied Shirley, “but I seem always to have
known it!”
“You may read the letters, my dear,” said Mr. Thorne, taking a small
packet from his pocket and handing it to his wife. “I have just come
from an interview with the writer. She will see us again if necessary.
“I think,” continued Mr. Thorne, “that I prefer to give you girls a
brief outline of what happened rather than have you in touch with this
person. She saw you girls together last winter, at the time of the
mistake about the car. From what she said, she must have been worrying
since then. I should say that ignorance and fear, with the lack of a
strong sense of honor, were at the bottom of it all. The fact that
no one by the name of Sampson had anything to do with this stopped
my search for a while. That story was all made up, though not by the
people who had our Sidney when we found her.
“A sudden impulse made a young and inexperienced nurse pick up one of
the wee bundles of babies at a hospital and carry it a short distance
down the street to an apartment where her older sister was delirious
and calling for her baby that had died several weeks before. This
woman, who is really responsible, was perplexed and troubled at first,
but as the presence of the child seemed to have a good effect upon the
sick woman, she encouraged its being kept for a few days, though this
nurse had meant to keep it only a few hours. By the woman’s direction,
after they had discovered that the baby was one of twins, the record
was changed. As Mrs. Harcourt had not yet seen her babies and several
odd calamities, to the people who knew, had happened, the deception
was not discovered. Getting a baby back to the hospital was a risky
performance after so long. They gave it up, though the woman for whose
benefit they had stolen the child did not live.
“So the babe was passed from one to another in that circle of friends,
until a very dear lady found her not far from this very place, and here
you are, Sidney!”
“Yes, and fortunate I am! Were they sure of my name, Father?”
“Oh, yes. You were correctly labeled, my dear! And the woman, whose
name I will not give you, had carefully preserved all that she knew.
But, she said during the years she had consoled herself with the
thought that you could not be better off, though that was largely for
my benefit, of course. She did not know where your parents lived, as
the address at the hospital gave only that of your Grandmother Shirley,
Mrs. Dudley, who was then living at Glencoe.”
“Of _my_ grandmother, you mean,” said Sidney seeing something funny in
it. “Shirley, I’m a Dudley now. Write to your great-aunt about it.”
Mrs. Thorne did not particularly relish the trend of this conversation
and rose to go into the house with her letters. “Try to be especially
good to your mother, Sidney,” Mr. Thorne suggested, in low tones,
as his wife left them. “You have kept from showing your worry so
wonderfully of late. Now she may need a little comfort.”
Sidney, who had been sitting at her father’s feet for a little while,
held his hand a little more tightly and assented. Shirley excused
herself and slipped away, for it was not the time for claiming her twin
sister, or talking of gay girl affairs. It was fortunate, she thought,
that she should be leaving them to this readjustment. What would be the
next step?
The next step, so far as the Thornes were concerned, was a long letter
to Dr. and Mrs. Harcourt, sent on by Shirley, who could arrive at home
only about a week before her parents. No plans could be made, if there
were any to make, before the Harcourts arrived. Sidney, however, told
Shirley to tell Hope that they were sisters. “Mother and Father say
that there is to be no secrecy about it, though we do not intend to
announce it. But we all agree that I am fortunate to have such a fine
family and that the resemblance between us would be foolish for us to
ignore it. The friends may as well understand, though no one need know
exactly how the separation happened.”
“That should be entirely in your hands to say, I think,” Shirley
returned. “Think of the excitement that I’m going to have! You may
expect to see a wild looking college professor springing along, with a
step just like yours, up your front yard,----”
“And they say that you and I walk just alike!”
“Do we?”
“Will he really look wild?”
“That was my little joke, Sidney. You will not be ashamed of your real
father, though he does not always dress as Mr. Thorne does. How could
he?”
Shirley rode alone to Chicago, thinking of how the future would be
managed, wondering how Sidney would feel about seeing her parents,
feeling almost that she did not want to share them with Sidney and
reproving herself for her selfish thoughts. She was glad that she had a
twin sister! She loved Sidney. That was enough.
Mac Holland and Hope met her at the station and took her for a day’s
visit with them. It was decided that Mac was going to spend a year at
Shirley’s university. “I’ll not be saying goodbye for very long,” said
he. “Tell Dick Lytton to have the brass band at the station.”
“I’d better not,” laughed Shirley. “He might do it.”
CHAPTER XXI.
IN HER FATHER’S HOME.
Toward the middle of September, Mrs. Thorne and Sidney were sitting in
Mrs. Thorne’s luxuriously furnished sitting room upstairs, waiting.
Sidney, near the windows in front, suddenly exclaimed, “Here they are!
Oh, Mother, what shall we do now?”
The Thorne car passed the front of the house, in the street, and went
into the drive at the side. Sidney watched and presently saw the erect
figure, that followed Mr. Thorne across the lawn with the springing
step that Shirley had mentioned. Sidney could not see his face very
well and they both disappeared near the entrance. Now the chauffeur
brought a little baggage.
Mrs. Thorne was answering Sidney’s question. “When your father has
had Dr. Harcourt shown to his room, and he has had an opportunity to
refresh himself and dress for dinner, he will be directed to the
library, where I shall probably be by that time, with your father.
Then, after we have had a little talk, you will be sent for, and I
think that we shall let you meet Dr. Harcourt by yourself. I am sure
that _I_ do not want to be there.”
“Mother is glad that Mrs. Harcourt did not come,” thought Sidney, and
to tell the truth she thought that her real mother had taken the proper
course. It was Sidney’s place to go to her mother, just as it was
proper for Dr. Harcourt to come at his earliest opportunity. But the
Thornes had invited them both.
As Mrs. Thorne had said, she joined her husband in the library as
soon as she thought it advisable. Dr. Harcourt, properly conducted
by a servant, made his appearance, when he was suitably prepared for
the occasion, and met Mrs. Thorne, rather particularly gowned for
the occasion. Any details, however, were wasted on Dr. Harcourt, who
thought her a pretty, attractive, refined woman but was incapable of
being impressed with more. Indeed, the girls and faculty women of his
university were accustomed to the same sort of thing, and evening dress
was no novelty to the professor.
The talk which had been begun by the gentlemen on their way from the
station was continued. Mr. and Mrs. Thorne were very much relieved to
note that Dr. Harcourt had no wish to upset existing arrangements at
present, if at all. “Unusual things have often a way of disposing of
themselves,” said he. “Suppose we wait to see what ideas develop. My
wife and I hope that our daughter will like us. That is the extent of
our hope at present. We are so utterly surprised, you know, in spite
of Shirley’s having written about the resemblance. It is gratifying to
know that we have another daughter, and my wife’s heart is yearning
to see her. Our home is open to her, like our hearts, but a young
girl with her home and training here, her love yours,--it must be
bewildering, indeed.”
Mrs. Thorne was gratified to hear such sentiments and to see what a
distinguished looking gentleman the professor was. To him she suggested
that they withdraw for a little while and send his daughter to him.
“Very well,” said he. “That would probably be less embarrassing to her.”
Sidney, too, had taken great care with her toilet. Her stylish little
frock became her, and she had a pathetic smile for her father as she
crossed the room to meet him. He rose, laying a book on the table by
him, and took several steps toward her.
“Why,” said he, with a puzzled, half-believing look, “this is not
Shirley, by any chance?”
“No, sir; this is Sidney.”
Sidney had dreaded this meeting. Would her father, perhaps fold her in
his arms and weep over her? How she would hate that! But so would this
father. With kind eyes he looked down at her, holding her cold hand
that had been held out to meet his. “My dear child, to think that we
have been missing your life with us all these years. Come, sit down
by me for a few moments. As I have been telling your--parents, it is
a bewildering situation, but I assure you that neither your affection
nor a choice of homes will be forced on you. We must think out what is
best. We shall try to enter into our daughter’s life without making her
unhappy.”
“Oh, you are like Shirley, aren’t you?” said Sidney, trying to realize
that this was her father. More than one student had been put at his
ease by the kind understanding of this professor. It was impossible
that his own daughter should not like him.
“Am I? In what way?”
“Thinking what is good for everybody, as she says.”
“Habit, I suppose,” said Dr. Harcourt, with a smile. “We deal with
problems in the faculty. But this is a new one. Some good fairy has
changed one daughter into two, while we were away. Shall we not be
happy over it?”
“Why, I believe we could be,--Father.”
“Thank you, my child.” Dr. Harcourt seemed to be affected by Sidney’s
sweet way of addressing him. He paused for a moment. “Now, I can not
be here long. I must go back to the university to-morrow. But your
mother sends you her love and wants you to come to us, for a visit, or
to stay. She wanted to see you, but could not quite bring herself to
meet you here. Then I want to have a talk with you, either to-night
or to-morrow morning, to learn something of how you feel in regard
to this, and to know what are your ambitions;--you can guess how
interested I am in everything concerning you.”
“Yes, sir. I am not sure that I have any big ambitions, like Shirley,
but it may do me good to think about it. I _will_ go to see my mother,
and you, and the university,--and I am glad that you understand how a
girl would feel with two fathers and two mothers. But you can scarcely
know how thankful I was after having been nearly distracted, to find
that my _real_ father is you!”
Sidney was making a fine impression of sincerity upon her father.
After one or two more references to the chief subject of thought,
Dr. Harcourt suggested that Sidney summon Mr. and Mrs. Thorne. From
that time on, through dinner and for a large part of the evening, a
strange evening to Sidney who sat to listen, the conversation turned on
general matters, national, local, business, the university where Dr.
Harcourt taught, the results of his trip, the interests of the Thornes.
And after Sidney had gone to her room, Dr. Harcourt took pains to
express his feeling over the fact that a home of such “high ideals” had
been provided for his little unknown child, who fell into such dangers.
It was like Dr. Harcourt not even to think of the evidences of wealth
around him.
Shirley, at home, and a sober mother of a daughter whom she had never
seen, thought of that Chicago meeting; but Shirley was too full of
her entrance as a freshman in the university to worry about Sidney.
Everything would be all right now, or soon. Of course Sidney would love
her very own parents. Didn’t she know her twin?
Not long after Dr. Harcourt’s hurried Chicago trip, Sidney, chaperoned
by Miss Standish, visited her father and mother. Miss Standish, after
her first disappointment, had taken a great interest. She met and
heartily approved the new father, Dr. Harcourt, thinking Sidney very
fortunate in her family. She looked up the Thornes and the Harcourts and
the Dudleys again until Sidney begged for mercy at the array of names
and facts. “Never mind,” said her great-aunt, “some day you will be
interested again; and I am sure to find Miss Dudley keenly interested
and well informed about our New England families.” She noted Sidney’s
inward excitement as they drew near the pretty little college town,
and she was very much alive herself to every impression of people and
environment. Neither of them came in a critical attitude.
Gently and affectionately Mrs. Harcourt welcomed her daughter, trying
not to disturb the poise which Sidney strove to maintain. But when it
came to the point, neither could help being somewhat shaken by all that
it had involved. It was a softer and sweeter Sidney than Shirley had
first known, who came on to the home which should always have been hers.
A decided stir in the student circle was made by the sudden and
unheralded appearance of “Shirley Harcourt’s twin.” Dr. Harcourt longed
to put Sidney into college with Shirley, but he saw that she was not
physically as strong and after a long talk with her, he gave up the
idea for the present.
There was plenty of fun, for Shirley’s friends flocked in at her
invitation. Sidney was admired and made much of till she told Shirley
that her head would be quite turned. She had not been unaccustomed
to admiration, but this gay yet earnest group of university girls
and boys, most of them older than herself, made a new and attractive
feature. She noted their respect toward her father and the grace with
which her mother managed the various situations. There was one maid,
who spent the day and went away at night, but the home was full of
books and things that spoke of taste and culture if not of wealth. Too
bad that such dear people could not have both, Sidney thought, and she
helped Shirley or her mother in little ways while she was there, trying
to learn. Shirley understood.
Mac Holland had surprised Shirley by bringing Hope to the university
with him. Mac and Dick were full of fraternity affairs just now, for
Dick had engineered Mac’s pledging, “before any of the other frats got
hold of him.”
On Saturday evening, after a big athletic rally, a roomful of young
friends were eating pine-apple ice and cake at Dr. Harcourt’s when
Shirley called Sidney’s attention to Miss Dudley and Miss Standish.
Sidney had been helping Shirley serve the guests and they were about to
offer a pretty plate each to the great-aunts. “Wait,” laughed Shirley.
“Aunt Anne is on the Dudleys.”
The two bright-eyed, modern women were sitting together on the large
davenport under a tall lamp. Several books lay around them and they
were so absorbed in their conversation that they scarcely noticed the
chatting students around them.
“Hear ’em?” asked Shirley again.
“Yes,” returned Sidney. “Auntie is laying it off about the Standishes
and the Thornes. It’s all right now. The last obstacle is removed!”
Yet it was not with the superficial phases of family and ancestry that
Miss Dudley and Miss Standish were dealing. Pleasantly they accepted
the plates from the pretty girls so strangely duplicated and continued
their conversation after the girls had left them.
Soberly Miss Dudley followed them with her eyes. “What,” she asked, “do
you think will be the result of this discovery?”
“I do not know,” as seriously Miss Standish made answer. “I am
impressed with Dr. Harcourt’s attitude of not forcing Sidney to a
decision and, in general, of not hurrying matters.”
“In this whole bewildering disclosure it has been hardest for Eleanor,
I think.”
“You mean Mrs. Harcourt, I suppose. Yes, it would be.”
“To us it is like having two Shirleys. My first impulses are to say
that Sidney should come to her mother to stay. Eleanor wants her.”
“You have not seen Mr. and Mrs. Thorne, and you have no idea what a
blank it would leave in their home.”
“That is what my nephew considers, together with gratitude that his
child came into such a fortunate environment. Sidney will go back to
Chicago now, knowing and appreciating her own father and mother. Dr.
Harcourt is trusting Mr. and Mrs. Thorne to see that she is not carried
away by any merely social life. They are too broad-minded and just, he
says, to be selfish about Sidney’s relation to us. I like his opinion
that this cannot be adjusted in a moment, and that none of us must make
a tragedy out of a discovery which should be a happy one.”
“It _is_ a happy one,” began Miss Standish, “rather than a blank about
Sidney’s origin.” But just then the two girls came bringing Mrs.
Harcourt between them from the regions of the kitchen and pantry.
Removing a book or two from the way, they put her into the comfort of
the davenport, by Miss Dudley and Miss Standish. “Not another thing do
you do, Mother,” said Sidney, with smiling decision. “Lean back on the
cushions now and be served by your daughters! Come on, Shirley.”
With a glance of understanding, the two girls started away, followed
immediately by Dick, Mac, and another university lad, who sprang up to
assist in the last servings.
The somewhat weary but content faculty wife leaned back with a sigh
and a smile. “I enjoy my two daughters,” she said, “and I only wish
that this could be permanent. But we must be very wise just now. That
Shirley and Sidney know each other so well and have felt drawn to each
other is one of the happiest circumstances. I consider it providential
that they were sent to the same school.”
“So do I,” returned Miss Standish, who might have been pardoned for
some regrets. “Happy days in the new relations are before both of them;
and the expectancy of their own adventures, in such a life as they
shall make for themselves out of their opportunities, is theirs, just
as it was before.”
The girls themselves put problems out of their minds, after Sidney had
confided her present plans to Shirley: “I’m going back to Chicago,
Shirley,” she said, “and let my other mother do what she wants to do
about the ‘debut,’ in the winter or spring. But I’ll not disappoint
_our_ mother and father by giving up study and improvement so early.
Could you stand it, Shirley, to have _me_ come to _your_ school?”
“It would be a pity if I couldn’t!” warmly exclaimed Shirley.
“I think that I may come, then, next year. Luckily I did pretty well
in Latin and I want to take some courses under my very own father. I’m
_very_ proud of him. After my other mother gets used to the idea, it
will be almost like letting me go away to school as before.
“Then I can be with _our_ mother and father, see how it goes to be a
faculty daughter along with you, and cover myself with glory to my own
dad!”
“Noble ambition!” laughed Shirley, “the sooner the better, Sidney. Be
sure to tell him that before you go.”
“Perhaps I will,--and that if I am going away, I am also coming back.”
THE END
THE STRANGE LIKENESS
By Harriet Pyne Grove
Classmates in a girls’ school on the shores of Lake Michigan, Shirley
Harcourt, from an eastern state, and Sidney Thorne, whose home is in
Chicago, bear a remarkable resemblance to each other. At first they
resent the likeness, but afterwards become very good friends, and often
wonder about their lineage. At last Sidney discovers she is an adopted
child, and her foster father traces her parentage very carefully to
find she is indeed the twin sister of Shirley.
~ SAALFIELD BOOKS ~
BOYS FICTION
SUBMARINE BOYS SERIES
_The Submarine Boys on Duty_
_The Submarine Boys’ Trial Trip_
_The Submarine Boys and the Middies_
NORTHLAND SERIES
_Dick Kent, Fur Trader_
_Dick Kent with the Malemute Mail_
_Dick Kent on Special Duty_
BLACK RIDER SERIES
_In the Camp of the Black Rider_
_The Mystery at Lake Retreat_
_Tom Blake’s Mysterious Adventure_
GIRLS FICTION
MEADOW-BROOK GIRLS SERIES
_The Meadow-Brook Girls Across Country_
_The Meadow-Brook Girls Afloat_
_The Meadow-Brook Girls in the Hills_
LINDA CARLTON SERIES
_Linda Carlton, Air Pilot_
_Linda Carlton’s Ocean Flight_
_Linda Carlton’s Island Adventure_
ADVENTURE GIRLS SERIES
_The Adventure Girls at K-Bar-O_
_The Adventure Girls in the Air_
_The Adventure Girls at Happiness House_
Transcriber’s Note:
The table of Contents has been added by the transcriber.
Punctuation has been standardised. Hyphenation and spelling have been
retained as they appear in the original publication. Changes have been
made as follows:
Page 24
know that the profesors _changed to_
know that the professors
Page 39
the two girls stepped in _changed to_
the three girls stepped in
Page 46
shivered Dulcian Porter _changed to_
shivered Dulcina Porter
Page 67
to do anything by make up her bed _changed to_
to do anything but make up her bed
Page 83
and its mahagony finish _changed to_
and its mahogany finish
Page 92
guessed at from my expeience _changed to_
guessed at from my experience
Page 93
you get an impession _changed to_
you get an impression
Page 94
have had no touble _changed to_
have had no trouble
Page 94
The dean, Miss Iving _changed to_
The dean, Miss Irving
Page 113
Do you mind tellling who _changed to_
Do you mind telling who
Page 123
How would the freshmen lika to be _changed to_
How would the freshmen like to be
Page 127
did not see any one that loked like _changed to_
did not see any one that looked like
Page 127
As autumn, she wore a wreath of _changed to_
As Autumn, she wore a wreath of
Page 134
she peferred to be _changed to_
she preferred to be
Page 143
but intead of the usual _changed to_
but instead of the usual
Page 146
she probaby _changed to_
she probably
Page 148
blue negligée _changed to_
blue negligé
Page 170
extending her daintly gloved _changed to_
extending her daintily gloved
Page 172
abroad on some archaelogical expedition _changed to_
abroad on some archæalogical expedition
Page 172
than she had exepected _changed to_
than she had expected
Page 172
Sidney it attracted to you _changed to_
Sidney is attracted to you
Page 179
know how stange it seemed _changed to_
know how strange it seemed
Page 182
Dulce Porter, Hope’s _changed to_
Dulcie Porter, Hope’s
Page 191
I put it in the one of the envelopes _changed to_
I put it in one of the envelopes
Page 200
thought Hope was first _changed to_
though Hope was first
Page 222
so far as the Thorne’s _changed to_
so far as the Thornes
Page 226
and met Mrs. Harcourt _changed to_
and met Mrs. Thorne
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