glance toward the
caldron, she perceived that the topmost missives were sliding over the
edge in the breeze raised by that gusty sneeze. The big square envelope
tumbled clumsily down upon its back and lay staring, quite close to the
flickering gas. Bea's wilful eyes rested on it one illuminating instant,
and then leaped away, while her cheeks whitened suddenly. The name on the
valentine was that of the senior herself.

Poor little Bea! After the first dazed moment she began to select and
gather up the fifteen valentines which she had deposited five minutes
before.

"Why, Beatrice Leigh!" gasped Berta. "You haven't any right to take them
back after you have mailed them!"

"Do you imagine for one moment that I shall give valentines to a girl who
sends them to herself? And the senior who receives the most is declared
the most popular in the class!"

"But--but," stammered Berta, "perhaps she thought--perhaps she didn't
think----"

"And I was afraid a girl who could do a thing like that might blame us
for entering the senior parlor uninvited!"

Bea's hands fell listlessly at her sides as she walked away. "I don't
care," she said. And Berta, who was wise in some unexpected ways,
wondered why people always said they did not care just when they cared
the most.

Next day various anonymous verses were delivered at the door where Lila
Allan wrestled with the rules for indirect discourse, while her roommate,
chin in hand, stared gloomily out at the snow-darkened sky. Valentines
were silly, anyway, and it was a shame for any one to waste time and
energy in hunting foolish rhymes for eyes and hair and smiles and hearts.
How could a person be sure about anybody, if a girl with a face like a
white flower could send valentines to herself with the address side down?

All day long the senior caldron bubbled notes faithfully till the very
last minute. After chapel the class fluttered into their little parlor,
with its fire blazing merrily and its shaded lamps glowing. Somebody,
disguised in a long gray beard and flowing gray robe, stalked in amid
laughter and clapping, and began to distribute the contents of the
kettle.

Berta, hanging at a perilous angle over the stairway just outside, felt
some one halt silently beside her, and glanced up into Bea's eyes.

"Hello!" she said, in an excited whisper. "Can you see all right, Bea? I
think she has called my senior's name about twenty times already. Look
how the valentines are heap