“Forgive me,” he murmured, “truly I didn’t mean to! But I couldn’t help it. You’re right, it’s none of my business, and I apologise. Come, I see you’re ready to leave here, let us go and buy a valentine, which you shall send to your betrothed, and then you’ll forgive me.”
His tone was gay again, and glad that the tension of the situation was relieved, Patty went with him to the valentine tables.
“Here’s a dandy!” remarked the pretty girl who was selling them. “New idea, too. Funny and yet clever! Want one?”
Herron took the one offered, and smiled as he read its lines.
“You wouldn’t dare send that to your fiance!” he said, laughingly.
Carelessly, Patty glanced at it. It was a well-done little sketch of a lover and his lass, leaning over a rustic stile, in true valentine fashion. Cupids and turtle-doves hovered above, and hearts and darts formed a conventional margin.
The lines read:
“Our love is high as Heaven
And wide as rolling sea;
The vows cannot be riven