Uncle B. So it is, Louie, but it used to be yellow. Well, from that day on we were playmates, and I sent her a valentine that year. In fact, I have every year. I sent my fortieth this morning.
Bert. But I don’t see——
Uncle B. Hold on, Namesake. Wait a bit, and you will. Twenty years ago I sent one in which, in the best verses I knew how to make, I asked her a question—the question; and I asked her, if the answer was yes, to wear a white rose in her hair, and to sit in the bay window as I went home that night.
Bert. Why——
Uncle B. Yes, I know, my boy. We’re much alike, and history repeats itself. If it hadn’t—well, to go on, she didn’t do it, although I had had some white roses delivered there that afternoon. It seems now that she didn’t get the valentine at all. It went astray somehow. She thought I had forgotten, and didn’t care, and I thought the answer was “no,” and it made a difference in our friendship. Though we have been friends, the old intimacy was gone—and—well, we’ve lost twenty years.
Mrs. W. Oh, brother!
Uncle B. We’re going to make them up, Eva, don’t you forget it. Well, to-day I sent my fortieth valentine, and the same thing happened. It went astray. At least she hasn’t got it yet. (Bobby gives a start, and claps his hand to his pocket, but no one seems to notice. Uncle B. goes on.) She did get one, though, in rhyme, which, strange to say, asked her the selfsame thing. Don’t blush, my boy! And as she always gets a box of white roses on this particular day, when I came home to-night there she sat, in the bay window, with a white rose in her hair! I couldn’t believe my eyes, but I went in, and it’s all right. We’re to be married in six weeks, and I’ve you to thank, my boy, and when you and Eloise are married, you’ll get a check for one thousand dollars for a wedding present.
Bert. But I don’t see how she came to get my letter, and I should have thought she would have known it wasn’t hers.
Uncle B. Why, you called her Ellie—my old pet name for her, as well as yours for Eloise, it seems, and you signed it Bert, which every one always called me till I had a namesake nephew.
Bert. But I directed mine all right, and—no, I didn’t mail it, I do believe. I went off in a rush with Frank, and left it on the desk.