Asthe 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 oftendiscuss 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 withShirley’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 Icouldbear 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 afewthings 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 worthsomethingafter 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 ofher university lad and introduced him to all of her friends,thoughHope 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 cordialmanner 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 Thornewereyour twin.”
“Youcan’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.