Mac Holland had surprised Shirley by bringing Hope to the university with him. Mac and Dick were full of fraternity affairs just now, for Dick had engineered Mac’s pledging, “before any of the other frats got hold of him.”
On Saturday evening, after a big athletic rally, a roomful of young friends were eating pine-apple ice and cake at Dr. Harcourt’s when Shirley called Sidney’s attention to Miss Dudley and Miss Standish. Sidney had been helping Shirley serve the guests and they were about to offer a pretty plate each to the great-aunts. “Wait,” laughed Shirley. “Aunt Anne is on the Dudleys.”
The two bright-eyed, modern women were sitting together on the large davenport under a tall lamp. Several books lay around them and they were so absorbed in their conversation that they scarcely noticed the chatting students around them.
“Hear ’em?” asked Shirley again.
“Yes,” returned Sidney. “Auntie is laying it off about the Standishes and the Thornes. It’s all right now. The last obstacle is removed!”
Yet it was not with the superficial phases of family and ancestry that Miss Dudley and Miss Standish were dealing. Pleasantly they accepted the plates from the pretty girls so strangely duplicated and continued their conversation after the girls had left them.
Soberly Miss Dudley followed them with her eyes. “What,” she asked, “do you think will be the result of this discovery?”
“I do not know,” as seriously Miss Standish made answer. “I am impressed with Dr. Harcourt’s attitude of not forcing Sidney to a decision and, in general, of not hurrying matters.”
“In this whole bewildering disclosure it has been hardest for Eleanor, I think.”
“You mean Mrs. Harcourt, I suppose. Yes, it would be.”