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.”