Although the colonial costume, which Betty’s mother permitted her to wear to the Valentine party, was new and in order, there was much else in decoration which concerned Betty and indeed the costume itself needed to be taken in a little to fit Betty’s more slender figure. She rushed home, accordingly, on the thirteenth, to spend the rest of the afternoon and evening on her preparations. “I studied like mad, Mother, in study halls; and Carolyn, Kathryn and I cut lunch to get out our Latin together!”

“I am afraid you should not omit lunch, Betty.”

“Oh, that was all right, Mother. We each had a chocolate bar and a cream puff and some peanuts, got ’em on the way to school, that is, I did. It was very obliging of St. Valentine to have his day this year toward the end of the week. Carolyn and Kathryn think that they will be valentines, too. Kathryn may dress as a ‘comic,’ though it depends somewhat on what costume she can get up the easiest. Carolyn has a lot of them that her sister has used at one time or another, and you know what nice ones they would be. O Mother, I think you are so lovely to let me wear this! You see, it isn’t as if it were an ordinary children’s party or just we girls dressing up as usual. I don’t know, indeed, whom Marcella may not have.”

“Well, come here and let me fit you, child. Allow me to remark that there isn’t as much change as might be expected from the difference in our ages.”

“O Mother, you are the youngest and best looking of us all! Ask Father.”

“He might either be prejudiced or hesitate to tell the truth,” laughed Mrs. Lee, and the fitting went on.

Another day of school was put through before the party. But it was St. Valentine’s Day and lessons were in the background of thought, it must be said. There were delightful interludes of receiving and giving valentines, with little mysteries even more interesting now than in childish days. And as the messages of St. Valentine might be regarded as carrying more romantic meaning now, the whole was more interesting.

One of the girls handed Betty a valentine which she was sure was from Mickey Carlin. He had probably bought it that morning and had not thought she would get it in time if he mailed it. Another, which she had taken from their mail box before she left home, also before the arrival of the mail man, bore in tiny letters on a corner inside the name Andy. Andy Sanford was a good friend of hers and had been ever since a certain freshman party at Betty’s. The sentiment was somewhat sugary, Betty thought, but “anything goes on Valentine day,” she said to Carolyn, to whom she showed all her valentines without reservation.

Carolyn laughed at the verse, which expressed undying devotion, and remarked that even if Chet and “others” had gone to the university, they still had a few nice senior boys to make life interesting! There were quite a number, in fact, in the large senior class; and common interests, with working things out together made good friends. The “others” might be supposed, from Carolyn’s standpoint, to include Chauncey Allen, who had all at once become deeply interested in Carolyn during the latter part of his senior year.

But all other fun paled into insignificance at last in comparison with the evening’s entertainment. Betty tucked away her valentines, to be looked over again at some other time. In some excitement she made ready, running back and forth between her own and her sister’s room, for Doris, also was going to a party, though no costume was demanded.

“You look lovely, Betty,” said Doris, “and very different”—then both girls laughed at the implication.

“No hint that you are not ‘always beautiful,’ understand! And your black silk mask is fetching—but they may know you by those dimples, and your mouth, of course.”

“Oh, I don’t care,” said Betty. “I’ll do my best to ‘keep my identity hidden,’ the way the detective can always do in stories. But if they find out—after the first—let ’em. Besides other girls have dimples. What in the world did I have to have them for!” Betty was rather disgusted as she looked closely into the mirror and practiced on expressions.

As the gentlemen of the party were not to know the costumes of the ladies, the girls were either brought by their natural protectors, or sent for by Marcella, or arriving by taxi. Mr. Lee said that he would “martyr himself for the cause,” and tucked Betty’s colonial skirts inside of the family car with great assumption of concern. “May you be brought home as safely,” said he, letting her scramble out of the car as she would, when they reached the Waite home. “It’s not very far,” said she.

A few flakes of snow were falling, lit up by the electric lights everywhere. It was a lovely world that February night. Betty’s heart beat high as with several girls as excited as she, doubtless, she climbed the steps toward the hospitable door.

Not long after, she descended the stair into the wide hallway, almost a part of the drawing-room, full of gayly costumed young people by this time. It happened that no one was coming to enter with her, for the dressing room to which she had been shown was empty and the girls who were supposed to follow her had dashed into Marcella’s room with an exclamation over some picture there. They were Marcella’s friends, either from the university, or of the “sub-debs” who were not in school at all now. Marcella numbered some of these among her friends, girls who were waiting for their entrance into society.

So as Betty hesitated a moment, looking at the bright decorations, the space clear before her, she made a pretty picture.

Hearts were in evidence everywhere. A flying Cupid, with bow and arrow, was suspended by a wire in a corner prettily fitted up as a sort of shrine to St. Valentine. Flowers gave fragrance and the spacious rooms were at a comfortable temperature. Marcella had spared no pains to make a pretty setting for her party.

She, too, was to be unknown till the unmasking. Accordingly, her mother and father and a visiting grandmother received the young guests and stood just within the limits of the drawing-room proper.

“Look at that sweet valentine standing there, wife,” said Mr. Waite, just aware of Betty and adjusting his glasses. “Who is she?”

“As I cannot lift her mask, I can not tell you, Lawrence,” returned Mrs. Waite, “but you are right. She looks as if she had just stepped out of an old-fashioned valentine. How cleverly that little lacy head-dress, with the heart in the middle of it, is arranged above her powdered hair! Larry ought to see her! Where is he, anyway?”

Betty glanced up the stairs, to see if the other girls were coming, but just at that moment, while the Waites were making their comments and Betty paused, St. Valentine himself in the person of one of Marcella’s friends, bethought himself of the duties which he had assumed to announce the guests. He detached himself from a little group which he had joined and came hurrying toward Betty.

His performance varied from the usual procedure; for he took her hand with a deep bow and led her to Mrs. Waite as he announced loudly, “Miss Valentine, a member of my own family!”

So led, with her quaint skirt and flowered silk overdress, a cascade of little pink hearts draped across her breast, Betty, like a pink rose from some old garden, went to give her hand in greeting. Very much grown up looked Betty in this costume, as her mother had regretfully told her. “But I am grown up,” Betty had replied.

She spread her fan a little, to act her part, and spoke in the formal manner of a polite stranger, though now, living only a few squares away, she had been here often and knew both Mr. and Mrs. Waite. Marcella’s mother was “a dear,” and Mr. Waite, slight, active, grey-haired, keen, was interesting.

“As you must be one of Marcella’s friends,” said Mr. Waite, extending his hand, “I shall dare to say that any lad here might be glad to see a valentine like this one coming his way. Don’t you agree with me, Mother?”

Marcella’s grandmother smiled assent and Betty made a sweeping curtsey to Mr. Waite as she turned to Marcella’s grandmother. She was afraid that they would recognize her voice, if she said too much.

“She does not want us to know who she is, of course; so don’t detain her, Father,” suggested Mrs. Waite. “I hope that you will enjoy yourself tonight. Marcella is somewhere about, but you will have to guess who she is. And she is the only one who will know you—for she, as you know, had to have a list of guests and characters to arrange the partners for the supper tables.”

In low but cordial tones, Betty finished her brief conversation with her host and hostesses and moved on to give her place to the other girls, who were now coming. A group of masked and costumed guests were right at hand and Betty joined them, to be greeted with gay laughter and compliment.

Meanwhile a conversation was going on, in the privacy of the library, in which Betty would have been interested.

“But I tell you, it simply can’t be done at this late date! It will just upset everything! I’ll have to change a lot of them all around. For mercy’s sake, why not see her all you want to all the rest of the evening? I’ll not tell the boys what character they’re to take out till the last minute. And there are the colonial dances for those dressed that way. Lucky so many of them dressed so—though I did ask some of my friends to do it.”

“Fat chance to talk in a square dance. My dear sister, have a heart! Why did I come all this distance to spend the week-end if not for the fun of saying some things masked that I can’t say without a mask?”

“I certainly don’t think much of that argument. I think I see myself listening to what a man hasn’t the nerve to tell me face to face!”

“You fail to understand, sweet chuck. It is less embarrassing and will lead up to what I intend to say ‘face to face.’ Moreover, I intend to say it in my own character, if behind a mask at first. Now, please! Pretty please! If there weren’t another in the running, and two or three of those nice kids, so far as I know, it wouldn’t make so much difference. Something Art Penrose said rather woke me up and I hired this costume, sent a valentine and took a train.”

“Then, honestly, are you in earnest where she is concerned?”

“I suppose I am, though it is a little early, perhaps, and I don’t know that I shall enter the waiting list. See?”

“Through a glass darkly! Still I have a lot of faith in you, too, and I’ll do it this once. But if you don’t tell me in time again, there’s going to be trouble in the family! Now come and help me with this list, if you think it so easy and will have your way!

“If you want my advice—faint heart ne’er won fair lady. She’s pretty mature in some ways and maybe, after all, you did well to come and see the situation yourself. You’d better write to her, too, and keep in touch until you both find out whether you’re as congenial as you think or not—or care enough for each other. I’ve admired more than one hero from afar and I ought to know.”

“Get over it, do they—the girls? Don’t think this one makes a hero of me, Sis, though our first meeting was a little romantic.”

“How was that?”

“I’m not telling.”

“I thought you saw her first at a party I had. You asked enough about her.”

“Did I? Well, you’re a sister worth having. Let me apply my keen intellect to that list of yours now. Seat us far away from that one fair youth that she was holding off, I judged, last summer.”

“Oh, it’s such a nuisance. I’ll have to change place cards and everything! Why do you always come rushing in at the last minute?” But this was said with a smile.

“Wait! Don’t despair. When I bought my valentines to mail I saw a lot of place cards and thought of your party. You had plenty, I saw, so I didn’t bring them out. I’ll run up and get them.”

“They won’t match, but—all right. Silly—but I kind of like you at that!”