t,
nourishing fluid.--_Selected_.

* * * * *

[Illustration]

TWENTY VALENTINES

By Marion Mallette Thornton

"Oh," said Millicent, watching the postman's blue coat up the street.
"I wish he would come here day after to-morrow and bring me twenty
valentines!"

"Will he, Mitty?" Jimmy-Boy asked eagerly.

Millicent shook her head. "'Course not, Jimmy-Boy. I know only six
little girls; I couldn't get but six."

Aunt Sara was listening. She was Millicent's very prettiest auntie
from the city, and she nearly always found a way to help.

"How would you like to _send_ twenty valentines?" she asked.

Millicent laughed. "Why, auntie, I couldn't send but six, either. I
don't know any more girls. Besides, I haven't any more valentines."

"Suppose I should show you how to make twenty valentines, and find
twenty little girls to send them to; would you like, to do it?"

Millicent came running from the window with Jimmy-Boy close behind
her.

"I'd love to, auntie! Please show me right away."

"Love to, auntie, right away," echoed Jimmy-Boy.

"You can help," Aunt Sara promised. "You can bring the mucilage while
Millicent gets the scissors."

When they came back with these, Aunt Sara had a pile of gay pictures
on the table, and some sheets of thick white paper.

"We will cut this into hearts," she said, "and you can cut out these
birds and flowers and paste them on. Let's see which can make the
neatest and prettiest ones."

Jimmy-Boy had to be helped a little in cutting out pictures, but he
had learned to paste neatly at kindergarten, and his valentines were
so pretty it was hard for Aunt Sara to choose between his and
Millicent's.

It was such fun making them that Millicent almost forgot about the
twenty little girls they were to go to.

[Illustration: "_Let's see who can make the neatest and prettiest
ones_."]

"Who are they, auntie?" she asked when she remembered. "Where do they
live?"

"Away down in the city," Aunt Sara explained. "Each one in a little
white bed in a Children's Hospital. I don't know their names, but I'll
send them to the superintendent, and they will get them safely on
Valentine's Day. You can't think how happy they will be."

"Oh, I just like to try to think!" cried Millicent. "I'm glad we made
them so nice."

The twenty valentines went off in their white envelopes the next
morning.

On Valentine's Day the postman brought Milly six from the six