s only given to winners of three weeks' dormitory
records, so the less fortunate occupants of the Brown and Rose rooms
were really profiting by the tidiness of their hostesses. The Blue
Grotto was placed in apple-pie order on the afternoon of the fourteenth
of February. A white hemstitched cloth and a bowl of snowdrops adorned
the center table, and the cakes were set out on paper doilies. Both
hostesses and guests were in the dining-hall by four o'clock, awaiting
the appearance of the urns, and each bore her cup of tea and a portion
of bread and butter and scones upstairs with her.

It was a jolly party round the square table, and if the cakes were not
too plentiful, they were at least voted delicious. The girls carried
down the cups when they had finished, shook the table-cloth out of the
window, carefully collected crumbs from the floor, so as to preserve
their record for neatness, then gathered round the table again for an
hour's fun before the bell should ring for prep.

"It's a Valentine party, and I've got a ripping idea," said Gowan.
"We'll put our names on pieces of paper, fold them up, shuffle them and
draw them; then each of us must write a valentine to the one we've
drawn. We'll shuffle these, and one of us must read them all out. Then
we must each guess who's written our valentines."

"Sounds rather brainy, doesn't it?" objected Noreen. "I don't think I'm
any hand at poetry!"

"Oh! you can make up something if you try. Valentines are generally
doggerel."

"Need it be quite original?" asked Edith.

"Well, if you really _can't_ compose anything, we'll allow quotations."

"Cracker mottoes?" suggested Dulcie.

"Exactly. They're just about in the right style."

"Are you all getting into a sentimental vein?" giggled Bertha. "Remember
'Love' rhymes with 'Dove,' and Cupid with--with--"

"Stupid," supplied Dulcie laconically.

"I'm not going to give my rhymes away beforehand," said Phillida. "Is
that shuffling business finished, Gowan? Then bags me first draw."

Each girl, having been apportioned the name of her valentine, set to
work to compose a suitable ode in her honor. There was much knitting of
brows and nibbling of pencils, and demands for a few minutes longer,
when Gowan called "Time!" At last, however, the effusions were all
finished, folded, shuffled, and laid in a pile. Gowan, as the
originator of the game, was unanimously elected president. She drew one
at a venture, opened it, and read: