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.