“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.