As the school year drew near its close, the girls were treated to the strange sight of a frequent association of the “doubles.” No other relations were disturbed. The Double Three never became a Double Four. Interest had died out in adding to its numbers. But there was a sympathetic understanding between Sidney Thorne and Shirley Harcourt, not exactly to be explained. It simply existed.
It was not to be supposed that the girls would notice it and let it escape comment. Hope exclaimed over it. “Why, after all Sid’s snippiness, here you are the best of friends! What happened?”
“Oh, we had a talk once,” Shirley replied, and that was the only explanation that she ever gave.
“You ought to have seen yourselves, you and Shirley, Sid, down on the beach to-day like twin mermaids!” cried Fleta after a senior beach party. “How come?”
“I have discovered what a fine girl Shirley is,” Sidney replied, “and looking like her and having her look like me is rather fun now.”
“Of all things! Did you hear that, Irma?”
“Yes. Sid has stopped wearing anything to make her look different. I think that she and Shirley are going to do something to fool us all!”
“We are going to change clothes at the Prom,” soberly stated Sidney, while the girls looked at her dubiously to see if she were in earnest or not. But the suspicion of a smile hovered about Sidney’s mouth.
Sidney was looking better now, though not quite like herself. But she and Shirley were not so often mistaken for each other, as Sidney was decidedly thinner. The way in which she had been wearing her hair, too, since shortly after Shirley’s arrival, made it easy to distinguish the girls unless they wore hats. Hats and coats being different, and soon recognized among any closely associated group of girls such as a boarding school affords, they were a good means of identification.
But Shirley still kept close to Madge, Caroline, Hope and lately Olive. She and Sidney merely drifted together or sought each other when there was some idea to exchange upon the subject common to them both. Not that they talked much about it either, for it was too sober a topic to discuss as girls often discuss other things. “Heard from your mother yet, Shirley?” Sidney would perhaps ask.