"Of course we have kept up the Valentine fun year after year, because there's such a lot of children in our family. I don't suppose that grown up people nowadays would make anything of it, if it wasn't for children,—except maybe vulgar people who use those horrid comic valentines to play a vulgar joke on some one," Kate Van der Berg was saying just as Dorothea stepped over the threshold. A little nod and smile was given to Dorothea the next moment,—a little easy nod and that happy half-smile that was "not too much," recommended by Hope.
"It says in Chambers' Book of Days," here spoke up Anna Fleming, "that Valentine's Day is now almost everywhere a much degenerated festival, but that it was once a very general custom with everybody—grown-up-people as well as children—to send valentines to each other; and it says, too, that the origin of this custom is a subject of some obscurity. Those are the very words; I read them last night to Myra, didn't I, Myra?"
"Yes; and you read too that the Saint Valentine who was a priest of Rome and martyred in the third century seems to have nothing to do with the matter beyond the accident of his day being used for the festival purpose."
"Then, if that is true, the whole thing is a sentimental muddle of nonsense, starting off with the mating of birds for origin, as some of the old writers seem to believe," cried Kate, in a disgusted tone. "But I'm not going to believe any such thing. I'm going to believe what Bishop Wheatley says about it. He says that Saint Valentine was a man so famous for his love and charity that the custom of choosing valentines upon his festival took its rise from a desire to commemorate that very love and charity by choosing a special friend on his day,—I suppose his birthday,—which was, as nearly as can be reckoned, the fourteenth of February. Now, I shall stick to this explanation of the day. Bishop Wheatley's authority is good enough for me, and I shall choose my valentine on his lines this year as I did last."
"Oh, who was your Valentine last year?" cried little Lily Chester, with eager curiosity.
"My aunt Katrine,—a great-aunt whom I had never seen until last year, when she came over from Germany to visit us."
"An old aunt,—how funny!" exclaimed Lily.
"Why funny?"
"Why? Because—because whoever heard of anybody choosing an old aunt for a valentine?"
"Whom do you choose, Lily?"