"I don't understand you."

"For Harold. You know, Bab, I think I could bear up better if his name
wasn't Harold."

"I don't see how it concerns you," I responded.

"Don't you? With me crazy about you for lo, these many years! First as
a baby, then as a sub-sub-deb, and now as a sub-deb. Next year, when you
are a real Debutante----"

"You've concealed your infatuation bravely."

"It's been eating me inside. A green and yellow melancholly--hello! A
letter to him!"

"Why, so it is," I said in a scornfull tone.

He picked it up, and looked at it. Then he started and stared at me.

"No!" he said. "It isn't possible! It isn't old Valentine!"

Positively, my knees got cold. I never had such a shock.

"It--it certainly is Harold Valentine," I said feebly.

"Old Hal!" he muttered. "Well, who would have thought it! And not a word
to me about it, the secretive old duffer!" He held out his hand to me.
"Congratulations, Barbara," he said heartily. "Since you absolutely
refuse me, you couldn't do better. He's the finest chap I know. If it's
Valentine the Familey is kicking up such a row about, you leave it to
me. I'll tell them a few things."

I was stunned. Would anybody have beleived it? To pick a name out of the
air, so to speak, and off a malted milk tablet, and then to find that it
actualy belonged to some one--was sickning.

"It may not be the one you know" I said desperately. "It--it's a common
name. There must be plenty of Valentines."

"Sure there are, lace paper and Cupids--lots of that sort. But there's
only one Harold Valentine, and now you've got him pinned to the wall!
I'll tell you what I'll do, Barbara. I'm a real friend of yours. Always
have been. Always will be. The chances are against the Familey letting
him get this letter. I'll give it to him."

"GIVE it to him?"

"Why, he's here. You know that, don't you? He's in town over the
holadays."

"Oh, no!" I said in a gasping Voice.

"Sorry," he said. "Probably meant it as a surprize to you. Yes, he's
here, with bells on."

He then put the letter in his pocket before my very eyes, and sat down
on the corner of the writing table!

"You don't know how all this has releived my mind," he said. "The poor
chap's been looking down. Not interested in anything. Of course this
explains it. He' s the sort to take Love hard. At college he took
everything hard--like to have died once with German meazles."

He picked up a book, and the charred picture was u