hat wonderful things were peculiar to the Fourteenth. At
recess the little girls locked arms and talked Valentines. The echoes
reached Emmy Lou.

The valentines must come from a little boy, or it wasn't the real thing.
And to get no valentine was a dreadful--dreadful thing. And even the
timidest of the sheep began to cast eyes across at the goats.

Emmy Lou wondered if she would get a valentine. And if not, how was she
to survive the contumely and shame?

You must never, never breathe to a living soul what was on your
valentine. To tell even your best and truest little girl friend was to
prove faithless to the little boy sending the valentine. These things
reached Emmy Lou.

Not for the world would she tell. Emmy Lou was sure of that, so grateful
did she feel she would be to anyone sending her a valentine.

And in doubt and wretchedness did she wend her way to school on the
Fourteenth Day of February. The drug-store window was full of
valentines. But Emmy Lou crossed the street. She did not want to see
them. She knew the little girls would ask her if she had gotten a
valentine. And she would have to say, No.

She was early. The big, empty room echoed back her footsteps as she went
to her desk to lay down book and slate before taking off her wraps. Nor
did Emmy Lou dream the eye of the little boy peeped through the crack of
the door from Miss Clara's dressing-room.

Emmy Lou's hat and jacket were forgotten. On her desk lay something
square and white. It was an envelope. It was a beautiful envelope, all
over flowers and scrolls.

Emmy Lou knew it. It was a valentine. Her cheeks grew pink.

She took it out. It was blue. And it was gold. And it had reading on it.

Emmy Lou's heart sank. She could not read the reading. The door opened.
Some little girls came in. Emmy Lou hid her valentine in her book, for
since you must not--she would never show her valentine--never.

The little girls wanted to know if she had gotten a valentine, and Emmy
Lou said, Yes, and her cheeks were pink with the joy of being able to
say it.

Through the day, she took peeps between the covers of her Primer, but no
one else might see it.

It rested heavy on Emmy Lou's heart, however, that there was reading on
it. She studied it surreptitiously. The reading was made up of letters.
It was the first time Emmy Lou had thought about that. She knew some of
the letters. She would ask someone the letters she did not know by
pointing them out on