Mr. Thorne had seen her wince, but he nerved himself to go on. It had to be told. How much better it would have been for Sidney to have known the truth. Yet, there had been some point, too, in Sidney’s growing up to this lovely young womanhood as a child of the house. What would have been the psychology of it Mr. Thorne could not decide, though he had thought of little else since he had read Sidney’s pitiful letter.
“But now, Sidney, I am realizing that we have known very little of everything perhaps interesting to you in this connection. There are several things that I recall about the arrangement that I must look into for your sake. There was no birth certificate, for one thing. Everything was fixed up as tight for us as could be, and all that we cared for was that your parents should have been good people. The chief attraction was your small self.
“But now I am going to do a little detective work on my own account and I shall say nothing to your mother at present. I have a fancy that it may or may not amount to anything, and I must say, Sidney, that I was astonished at the duplication of yourself, almost, in Shirley Harcourt. Is she sure that she is the child of Dr. and Mrs. Harcourt?”
“I have just read a letter from Mrs. Harcourt in answer to that very question. She is, and she was born in Chicago. But we haven’t the same birthdays.”
“I am not sure that we know your birthday, Sidney. You seemed to your mother’s aunt a little older than you were according to accounts, though we told her nothing. She thinks you ours.”
“If you look things up and find anything dreadful the matter, Daddy, don’t tell me!”
“There will be nothing dreadful. Sidney, there has always been a quality about you that can be only accounted for by something innate. It is not all our training and the environment of refinement. There was something in you, my child. You were always dainty and beauty-loving and responsive,——”
“Can’t account for it in that way, Daddy,” interposed Sidney, as Mr. Thorne paused. “Think how different children in the same family are. I admired Mother and Auntie so much and was so proud of our family, that I just grew up with the idea of being like Mother.”
“That would support your mother’s idea that it was better for you not to know. Well, we’ll not discuss that now. I have already written to the people in Wisconsin and in a few days, after some pressing business matters are disposed of, I may go there myself. I know how I should feel in your place, Sidney. I regret beyond words that you have had the suffering which you have had. We could not imagine why you were suddenly so upset and ill. But I am glad to see that you have gotten beyond that.”
“It is partly due to Shirley, Father. She brought me some fruit when I was so miserable and we became really acquainted. It is queer the way we feel about each other. I know that Shirley feels as I do. It was uncanny, I thought at first, and I did not like it at all. Really, I have had a big lesson, I suppose, but my, what a hard one it has been! I hadn’t the least idea that I was so proud. But you would have laughed at what Shirley said to me about that. Shirley has a big soul and doesn’t seem to hold anything against me no matter how silly I’ve been. She said that my ‘superiority complex’ mustn’t go into ‘total eclipse!’”