“To us it is like having two Shirleys. My first impulses are to say that Sidney should come to her mother to stay. Eleanor wants her.”
“You have not seen Mr. and Mrs. Thorne, and you have no idea what a blank it would leave in their home.”
“That is what my nephew considers, together with gratitude that his child came into such a fortunate environment. Sidney will go back to Chicago now, knowing and appreciating her own father and mother. Dr. Harcourt is trusting Mr. and Mrs. Thorne to see that she is not carried away by any merely social life. They are too broad-minded and just, he says, to be selfish about Sidney’s relation to us. I like his opinion that this cannot be adjusted in a moment, and that none of us must make a tragedy out of a discovery which should be a happy one.”
“It is a happy one,” began Miss Standish, “rather than a blank about Sidney’s origin.” But just then the two girls came bringing Mrs. Harcourt between them from the regions of the kitchen and pantry.
Removing a book or two from the way, they put her into the comfort of the davenport, by Miss Dudley and Miss Standish. “Not another thing do you do, Mother,” said Sidney, with smiling decision. “Lean back on the cushions now and be served by your daughters! Come on, Shirley.”
With a glance of understanding, the two girls started away, followed immediately by Dick, Mac, and another university lad, who sprang up to assist in the last servings.
The somewhat weary but content faculty wife leaned back with a sigh and a smile. “I enjoy my two daughters,” she said, “and I only wish that this could be permanent. But we must be very wise just now. That Shirley and Sidney know each other so well and have felt drawn to each other is one of the happiest circumstances. I consider it providential that they were sent to the same school.”
“So do I,” returned Miss Standish, who might have been pardoned for some regrets. “Happy days in the new relations are before both of them; and the expectancy of their own adventures, in such a life as they shall make for themselves out of their opportunities, is theirs, just as it was before.”
The girls themselves put problems out of their minds, after Sidney had confided her present plans to Shirley: “I’m going back to Chicago, Shirley,” she said, “and let my other mother do what she wants to do about the ‘debut,’ in the winter or spring. But I’ll not disappoint our mother and father by giving up study and improvement so early. Could you stand it, Shirley, to have me come to your school?”
“It would be a pity if I couldn’t!” warmly exclaimed Shirley.