Pauline. Even if it has been lost a long time?
Amos. I should think so. You see, you have no right to open it, so you would not know the writer, and thus could not return it to him, so the only thing to do is to mail it.
Pauline. So I thought. But you see, this one has been lost for forty years.
Amos. Forty years? Are you sure? Perhaps the one to whom it was addressed has moved, or is dead. It is a long time, my dear.
Pauline. No, he hasn’t, and she isn’t, so I mailed it. But I think I know the writer. Ought I to tell him about it, too?
Amos. Why, it might be well to do so. It is an unusual occurrence, to get a letter that was written to one forty years ago. I think you had better tell me the whole story.
Pauline. I believe I will. I was showing my valentines to Auntie to-day. Oh, do you know, I believe that letter was a valentine. Did you ever lose one?
Amos. Never. A valentine forty years old will be rather stale, I fear. Perhaps the lady—I believe you said it was a lady—may have been married for years to some other man. She may be a grandmother now, and may laugh at the effusion of the callow youth of the olden time.
Pauline. She won’t, I’m sure. And she isn’t a grandmother, for she never married. She has been faithful to a faithless lover all these years, and I believe that lost valentine is at the bottom of the whole trouble.
Amos. Indeed, just how, may I ask?