very best
they have. Let's catch the next one who comes, and find out who your
friends are!"

"Oh, no," returned Alma, smiling, but shrinking shyly from the idea.

"Yes, indeed. We all used to try when I was little. I'm going to stand by
the door and hold it open a bit and you see if I don't catch somebody."

Alma lifted her shoulders. She wasn't sure that she liked to have her
mother try this; but Mrs. Driscoll went to the door, set it ajar in the
dark, and stood beside it.

She did not expect there would be any further greetings, and did this
rather to amuse Alma, who sat examining her three valentines with a tearful
little smile; but it was a very short time before another knock sounded on
the usually neglected door, and quick as a wink it opened and Mrs.
Driscoll's hand flying out caught another hand. A little scream followed,
and in a second she had drawn a young lady into the tiny hall.

They couldn't see one another's faces very well in the gloom.

"Oh, I beg your pardon!" exclaimed Mrs. Driscoll, very much embarrassed. "I
was trying to catch a valentine."

"Well, you did," laughed the stranger. "There's one on the step now, unless
my skirt switched it off when I jumped. I didn't intend to come in this
time, though I meant to return after I had done an errand; but now I'm
here I'll stay a minute if it isn't too early."

"If you'll excuse the table," returned Mrs. Driscoll "Alma and I have a
late tea." She stooped at the door and picked up a valentine from the edge
of the step, and both women were smiling as they entered the room where
Alma was standing, flushed and wide-eyed, scarcely able to believe that she
recognized the voice.

Sure enough, as the visitor came into the lamplight, the little girl saw
that the valentine her mother had caught and brought in out of the dark was
really Miss Joslyn. She could hardly believe her eyes as she looked at the
merry, blushing face which she was wont to see so serious and watchful. All
the pretty teacher's scholars admired her, but she had a dignity and
strictness which gave them some awe of her, too, and it seemed wonderful to
Alma that this important person should be standing here and laughing with
her mother, right in their own sitting-room.

Miss Joslyn's bright eyes saw signs of tears in her pupil's face, and she
also saw the handsome valentines strewn upon the table. "Well, well, Alma!"
she exclaimed softly, "you have quite a show there!"

"And here is an