“Nothing so far as they have said anything to me. But, Shirley, when I was home on the vacation I found—” Sidney stopped and bit her lips, while the tears came into her eyes. Shirley leaned over to take the dish from Sidney’s hand. With hers she deposited it on the table and returned to the seat beside Sidney. Sidney’s face was in her handkerchief for a moment, while she tried to recover herself. The girls had first talked about school matters, but now at last the veil was dropped between them.
“Let me tell you about it,” shakily said Sidney, wiping her eyes. “Daddy was away. He has been away a great deal lately on business. Mother wanted something out of Dad’s deposit box in the bank, something that he sent for, and as they had arranged long ago, I could be permitted to go to either box. So Mother sent me to the bank instead of going herself. I could not for the life of me find anything marked as he had written it was, though there was one envelope that might be it.
“But I thought I ought to make sure, and there was one large white envelope that had nothing marked on the outside. I hesitated to break it, for it was sealed, but Dad was in a great hurry for his papers, so I tore open the envelope. And there, Shirley, was another envelope, marked,—” Sidney broke off and wiped her lips with her handkerchief.
“Oh, don’t tell me, Sidney, if it is so hard for you.”
“I want you to know, and I must tell somebody!”
Shirley waited. What dreadful thing was coming?
“The inside envelope was marked, ‘Papers regarding the Adoption of Sidney’!”
Sidney stopped, while Shirley, amazed, and yet relieved, said, “Oh, Sidney!”
“You can imagine how I felt. No, I don’t believe that you can either. Suppose you thought that you were your father’s and mother’s own child and then suddenly found that—well, you didn’t know who you were!”
Soberly Shirley nodded. “Didn’t you find out any more?” she asked.