The Strange Likeness

by Harriet Pyne Grove

But while Shirley was detained at the desk for this enrollment, she was in full view of the class, which had gathered before Shirley came in. The conference with the dean had made her almost late.

There was a general gasp of astonishment, and a turning of heads toward the row where Sidney Thorne sat, as if the girls found it necessary to assure themselves of there being two. If any of them had seen Shirley in the halls, or even noticed her in the dining room, it was most likely that they had taken her for Sidney. That young lady was looking at Shirley in well-bred surprise.

It cost Sidney something to control her surprise and dismay, but control herself she did, turning to Hope, who sat beside her, whispering with raised eyebrows, “Who is she?”

But the teacher was calling the class to order and the amazed Hope only shook her head as unable to account for Shirley.

Madge, who sat just in front of Sidney, heard the question, turned slightly, and said out of the corner of her mouth, “my new room-mate.”

The class was conducted as usual. Shirley, who had been directed to a seat at the end of a row, was busy taking notes most of the time, for Miss Berry was reviewing the main points of the previous lesson as well as presenting the new one and calling on the different seniors for recitation or comment.

It could have been her own voice reciting, Shirley thought, when Sidney Thorne was called upon, and she wondered; yet enunciation and intonation—something was different, and Sidney was using that “Boston” variety of pronunciation at which the girls had laughed. Shirley felt interested and a little drawn toward her double in spite of her wishing that it might have not been this year, and this place of all others, when the meeting had to occur.

Not all the seniors were present in every class. Some who were not taking the regular college preparatory course were away from the Latin class or from the class in mathematics. In consequence there was usually some one to exclaim over the “new girl who looks exactly like Sidney Thorne,” as the word went around. But Shirley paid no attention to any slight commotion on her account. She could have recited in Latin, but forgot to tell the Latin teacher that fact and was not called on for a recitation. She wanted to hold up her hand several times when questions of syntax came up. But something kept her from doing so. She could wait.

She was glad now that her father had made her read that first two hundred lines of Virgil with him. How she had hated it at the time, for her schedule was already full enough, she thought. But he had insisted. “I am not going to have my girl floundering around with her first experience of Latin poetry,” said he. “It is very easy, but it will seem hard at first, and with all due respect to the teacher, whoever it may be, I should like to show you a few things myself about scansion and get you into the easy rhythm of it. Come, now, sing of arms and the hero!”

Shirley found herself thinking of her father during the recitation. Two girls recited particularly well, though they were finding Virgil none too easy at first, it was clear. They were Sidney Thorne and Olive Mason.