On the night of the last Trades House dinner I walked home with Erchie when his work was done. It was the 13th of February. There are little oil-and-colour shops in New City Road, where at that season the windows become literary and artistic, and display mock valentines. One of these windows caught my old friend’s eye, and he stopped to look in.

“My!” he said, “time flies! It was only yesterday we had the last o’ oor Ne’erday currant-bun, and here’s the valenteens! That minds me I maun buy——-” He stopped and looked at me, a little embarrassed.

I could only look inquiry back at him.

“Ye’ll think I’m droll,” said he, “but it just cam’ in my heid to buy a valenteen. To-morrow’s Jinnet’s birthday, and it wad be a rale divert to send her ladyship yin and tak’ a kind o; rise oot o’ her. Come and gie’s a hand to pick a nice yin.”

I went into the oil-and-colour shop, but, alas! for the ancient lover, he found there that the day of sentiment was done so far as the 14th of February was concerned. .

“Hae ye ony nice valenteens?” he asked a boy behind the counter.

“Is’t a comic ye mean?” asked the boy, apparently not much amazed at so strange an application from an elderly gentleman.

“A comic!” said my friend in disdain. “Dae I look like the kind o’ chap that sends mock valenteens? If ye gie me ony o’ your chat I’ll tell yer mither, ye wee—ye wee rascal! Ye’ll be asking me next if I want a mooth harmonium. Dae ye think I’m angry wi’ the cook in some hoose roond in-the terraces because she’s-chief wi’ the letter-carrier? I’ll comic ye!”

“Weel, it’s only comics we hae,” said the youthful shopkeeper; “the only ither kind we hae’s Christmas cairds, and I think we’re oot o’ them.”

He was a business-like boy,—he flung a pile of the mock valentines on the counter before us.

Erchie turned them over with contemptuous fingers. “It’s a gey droll age we live in,” said he to me. “We’re far ower funny, though ye wadna think it to see us. I have a great respect for valenteens, for if it wasna for a valenteen there maybe wadna hae been ony Jinnet—at least in my hoose. I wad gie a shillin’ for a rale auld-fashioned valenteen that gaed oot and in like a concertina, wi’ lace roond aboot it, and a smell o’ scent aff it, and twa silver herts on’t skewered through the middle the same as it was for brandering. Ye havena seen mony o’ that kind, laddie? Na, I daursay no’; they were oot afore your time, though I thocht ye micht hae some in the back-shop. They were the go when we werena nearly sae smert as we are nooadays. I’m gled I havena to start the coortin’ again.”

He came on one of the garish sheets that was less vulgar than the others, with the picture of a young lady under an umbrella, and a verse of not unkindly doggerel.

“That’ll hae to dae,” said he, “although it’s onything but fancy.”

“I hope,” said I dubiously, “that Mrs Mac-Pherson will appreciate it.”

“She’s the very yin that will,” he assured me as he put it in his pocket. “She’s like mysel’; she canna play the piano, but she has better gifts,—she has the fear o’ God and a sense o’ humour. You come up the morn’s nicht at eight, afore the post comes, and ye’ll see the ploy when she gets her valenteen. I’ll be slippin’ oot and postin’t in the forenoon. Though a young lassie canna get her valenteens ower early in the mornin’, a mairried wife’s’ll dae very weel efter her wark’s done for the day.”

“It’s yersel’?” said Mrs MacPherson when I went to her door. “Come awa’ in. I kent there was a stranger comin’,—though indeed I wadna be ca’in’ you a stranger,—for there was a stranger on the ribs o’ the grate this mornin’, and a knife fell aff the table when we were at oor tea.”

“Ay, and hoo knocked it aff deeliberate?” interposed her husband, rising to welcome me. “Oh, she’s the sly yin. She’s that fond to see folk come aboot the hoose she whiles knocks a knife aff the table to see if it’ll bring them.”

“Oh, Erchie MacPherson!” cried his wife.

“I’m no blamin’ ye,” he went on; “I ken I’m gey dreich company for onybody. I havena a heid for mindin’ ony scandal aboot the folk we ken, and I canna understaund politics noo that Gledstone’s no’ to the fore, and I danna sing, or play a tune on ony thing.”

“Listen to him!” cried Jinnet. “Isn’t he the awfu’ man? Did ye ever hear the like o’ him for nonsense?”

The kettle was on the fire: I knew from experience that it had been put there when my knock came to the door, for so the good lady’s hospitality always manifested itself, so that her kettle was off and on the fire a score of times a-day, ready to be brought to the boil if it was a visitor who knocked, and not a beggar or a pedlar of pipeclay.

“Tak’ a watter biscuit,” Jinnet pressed me as we sat at the table; “they’re awfu’ nice wi’ saut butter.”

“Hae ye nae syrup to put on them?” asked her husband with a sly glance.

“Nane o’ yer nonsense,” she exclaimed, and attempted a diversion in the conversation, but Erchie plainly had a joke to retail.

“I’ll tell ye a bawr aboot watter biscuits and syrup,” said he. “When I was coortin’ my first lass I wasna mair nor nineteen years o’ age, and jist a thin peely-wally callant, mair like playin’ moshy at the bools than rinnin’ efter lassies. The lassie’s faither and mither jist made fun o’ us, and when I wad be gaun up to her hoose, lettin’ on it was her brither I wanted to see, they used to affront me afore their dochter wi’ speakin’ aboot the Sunday-School and the Band o’ Hope I belanged to (because the lassie belanged to them tae), and askin’ me if I was fond o’ sugar to my parridge, and when I was thinkin’ o’ startin’ the shavin’. I didna like it, but I jist had to put up wi’t. But the worst blow ever I got frae them was yince when I gaed up wi’ a new pair o’ lavender breeks, and the lassie’s mither, for the fun o’ the thing, asked me if I wad hae a piece and jeely. I tellt her I wasna heedin’, that I was jist efter haein’ my tea; but she went and spread syrup on a watter biscuit and handed it to me the same as if I was a wee lauddie wi’ a grauvit on.”

Jinnet laughed softly at the picture.

“Oh, ye may lauch,” said her husband. “There was nae lauchin’ in my heid, I’m tellin’ ye. For there was the syrup comin’ dreepin’ through the holes in the watter biscuit, so that I had to haud the biscuit up every noo and then and lick in below’t so as to keep the syrup frae gaun on my braw lavender breeks. A bonny object for a lass to look at, and it was jist to mak’ me look reediculous her mither did it. She thocht I was faur ower young to be comin’ efter her dochter.”

“So ye were,” said Jinnet. “I’m shair ye hadna muckle sense at the time, or it wadna be yon yin ye went coortin’.”

“Maybe no’; but I never rued it,” said Erchie.

“She was as glaikit as yersel’,” said Jinnet.

“She was the cleverest, lass in the place,” protested Erchie. “My! the things she could sew, and crochet, and mak’ doon, and bake!”

“Her sister Phemie was faur cleverer than she was,” said Jinnet. “She couldna haud a candle to her sister Phemie in tambourin’ or in ginger-breid.”

“And dancin’! She could dance on a cobweb and no’ put a toe through’t.”

“Ye’ll need a line wi’ that yin, Erchie,” said his wife, who did not seem remarkably jealous of this first love.

“Ye should hear her singin’———”

“She wad hae been far better mendin’ her wee brither’s stockin’s, and no’ leavin’ her mither to dae’t,” said Jinnet. “She was a gey licht-heided yin.”

Erchie seemed merciless in his reminiscence,—I really felt sorry for his wife.

“Ye may say whit ye like to run her doon, but ye canna deny her looks.”.

“Her looks dinna concern me,” said Jinnet abruptly. “Ye’re jist an auld haver; think shame o’ yersel’!”

“Ye ken ye canna deny’t,” he went on. “It was alooed all over the place she was the belle. I wasna the only yin that was efter her wi’ my lavender breeks. She kept the Band o’ Hope for nearly twa years frae burstin’ up.”

“I’ll no’ listen to anither word,” protested Jinnet, now in obvious vexation; and mercifully there came a rapping at the door.

She returned to the kitchen with an envelope and a little parcel. Erchie winked at me, hugging to himself a great delight.

“I wonder wha in the world can be writin’ to me,” said she, looking at the addresses.

“It’ll likely be an accoont for di’mond tararas or dressmaking,” said Erchie. “Oh you weemen! Ye’re a perfect ruination. But if I was you I wad open them and see.”

She opened the envelope first. It was Erchie’s valentine, and she knew it, for when she read the verse she shook her head at him laughingly, and a little ashamed. “When will ye be wise?” said she.

Then she opened the little parcel: it contained a trivial birthday gift from an anonymous friend in whose confidence only I, of all the three in the room, happened to be. Vainly they speculated about his identity without suspecting me; but I noticed that it was on her valentine Jinnet set most value. She held it long in her hand, thinking, and was about to put it into a chest of drawers without letting me see it.

“Ye needna be hidin’ it,” said her husband then. “He saw it already. Faith! he helped me to pick it.”

“I’m fair affronted,” she exclaimed, reddening at this exposure. “You and your valenteens!”

“There’s naething wrang wi’ valenteens,” said her husband. “If it wasna for a valenteen I wad never hae got ye. I could never say to your face but that I liked ye; but the valenteen had a word that’s far mair brazen than ‘like,’ ye mind.”

“Oh, Erchie!” I cried, “you must have been blate in these days. The word was——”

He put up his hand in alarm and stopped me. “Wheesht!” said he. “It’s a word that need never be mentioned here where we’re a’ three Scotch!”

“But what came over the first lass, Erchie?” I asked, determined to have the end of that romance.

He looked across at his wife and smiled. “She’s there hersel’,” said he, “and ye better ask her.”

“What! Jinnet?” I cried, amazed at my own obtuseness.

“Jinnet of course,” said he. “Wha else wad it be if it wasna Jinnet? She’s the Rale Oreeginal.”