Generalrejoicing 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 thatI might have known I wanted. Will you want to shop, Shirley?”
“I’llwantto,” 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 oneof 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 decksmooth 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 goldenlocks. 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 suchnew 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. “Inoticed. 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. Shewasa dear girl, Shirley thought even if she had waited so long to say a word to her. How could it have happened?Couldthere 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 amsure 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 itwouldbe fun.”