though
she did not wish him to see her face. Olive was always shy, but to-day
she seemed more so than usual, and she had a peculiar fashion, like some
flowers, of folding herself about with little leaves and tendrils of
reserve to hide her real self from the outside world.

Donald Harmon sat down next Jack and immediately across from Olive, but
Jack made no effort to open a conversation with him, for she did not
like him and did object to the odd way in which he gazed at Olive.

"What is your friend's name?" Donald inquired immediately.

"Olive," Jack returned in a non-committal fashion.

"But Olive what? I have a special reason for wishing to know," the young
fellow protested impatiently. Olive and Jean were talking with Elizabeth
and were not observing Jack and her companion.

For the fleeting part of a moment Jack hesitated, "Olive--why, Olive
Ralston," she replied quietly. "I thought you knew our name was
Ralston."

"I did," Donald answered. "Please don't think I am mad, but I thought
for a second she might have another name. Have you ever heard the theory
that we all have a double somewhere in the world? I want you to look
closely at my mother when she comes in. Your sister is enough like her
to be her own child, though of course there is a difference in their
coloring and expressions and perhaps other details that I have not
noticed, but when I saw your sister on the street to-day I was overcome
by their likeness." At this moment Donald Harmon, hearing his mother's
voice in the hall, quickly turned on the electric lights.

Jacqueline Ralston caught her breath before the strange vista of
possibilities that Donald Harmon's suggestion opened to her imagination.
Never had she ceased to wonder at the mystery of Olive's birth. "Has
your mother ever been out west before?" Jack asked hastily. And Donald
only had time to answer, "Never in her life," when Mrs. Harmon entered
the sitting room.

Jack's first emotion was one of intense and selfish relief. Mrs. Harmon
and Olive did not look in the least alike--the son's idea had been
absurd. Mrs. Harmon's eyes were blue and Olive's black, her complexion
was fair and Olive's dark. It was true Mrs. Harmon did have black hair,
though it was now slightly tinged with gray, and it grew in a point like
Olive's in the center of her low, broad forehead, but there was nothing
remarkable in this little point of resemblance. Jack thought Mrs. Harmon
beautiful and the first real so