Pauline. Then he cared, you see. How romantic! Why didn’t you try to make up with him?
Aunt P. It isn’t the lady’s place, my dear, to run after a man.
Pauline. Well, I like that! Well, if ever I’m fond of a man, I’ll run after him and hold him, if necessary, till I know what he was mad at. Or did you know, Auntie? And was it something that couldn’t be made up?
Aunt P. Why, I suppose I did know, dearie—but it seemed such a slight thing to anger him. My cousin came that Valentine’s Day. We had been brought up almost like brother and sister before I came to this town. It was fine sleighing, and he took me over to Wrentham for the night. His mother was there, just for the day and night, and the young girl whom he was to marry. When I came home, next day, I asked my mother for my mail. She replied that there wasn’t any. “But there must have been a valentine,” I said. “Amos always sends me one.” “I know,” she answered, “but this year he didn’t. He called, though, last evening, and seemed much put out that you were not here. He went off as stiff as a poker.” Of course, I thought he must be angry because I went sleighing with Timothy, though I thought it a bit far-fetched, as we were only old friends, and so were Timothy and myself. “But,” I thought, “I’ll explain when he gets over his huff, and it will be all right.”
Pauline. And didn’t you?
Aunt P. No, dear, I hadn’t the opportunity. Next day his mother came over to tell us that he had gone away. She seemed to think I was to blame, somehow, and she never was nice to me again, and it was more than a year before Amos came back, and then he was just coldly polite when we met. That was the end of my little romance, dear, for though there were others who found me fair, somehow I couldn’t seem to care for any of them. You see, dearie, Amos had won my love, though he didn’t know it, and so—— (Pauses.)
Pauline. And he has it yet! Oh, Auntie, how romantic! And does he live in town still?
Aunt P. Yes, but I meet him seldom, and we merely say a “How-de-do” in passing. Excuse me, dearie. I think I will go up-stairs a few minutes, while you look at my old keepsakes. I cannot imagine how I came to let you wheedle this old story from me. Please do not refer to it again.
Pauline. No indeed, Auntie. Thank you for telling me. (Aunt P. passes out, and Pauline proceeds to investigate drawer, soliloquizing as she does so.) Such quaint little valentines! I like them, though! And nearly all in the same handwriting—that of the faithless Amos, evidently. Yes, this one is signed A. H. A. H. A is Amos, of course. A. H. Could it be Mr. Hill, I wonder? “A. Hill,” he has it on his sign. He’s old, or rather old—sixty, I shouldn’t wonder, and he’s a bachelor. I’ll bet he’s the one! Mean old thing, to bring tears to the eyes of my little great-auntie after all these years! (Puts valentines hack in drawer, and shuts it rather vigorously, letting one drop, unnoticed, to the floor.) Men and boys are queer creatures, anyhow. I’m glad I’m a girl! And I’m glad I live now, instead of forty years ago. Why, I got more valentines, I do believe, to-day, than Aunt Polly has in all her life. Why, I dropped one! (Picks it up.) Amos was a little fellow when he sent this, I guess. (Opens it.) No, this is from the Timothy who seems to have been the villain in the little pastoral comedy. What a cute little verse!
(Reads.)