It was the day after Lincoln's birthday, and Saturday. Edward Watkins had come out for his weekly visit to Elisabeth and was sitting in Mrs. Smith's living room surveying her and talking to Miss Merriam. Elisabeth was walking with a fair degree of steadiness now, and made her way about all the rooms of the house without assistance. She still preferred to crawl upstairs and she could do that so fast that the person who was supposed to watch her had to be faithful or she would disappear while an eye lingered too long on the page of an interesting book or on the face of a friend.

Downstairs Edward leaned forward from his chair in front of Gertrude and picked up the ball from which she was knitting a soldier's scarf. He paid out the yarn to her as she needed it.

"You're happy here, aren't you?" he asked softly.

"Happy! I should say so! Next to having your very own home I can't imagine anything lovelier than this, with dear people and a pretty house and a darling baby. It's beautiful."

"You'd hate to leave it, wouldn't you?"

"Leave it? Why should I leave it? I think they like me. I think they want me to stay."

She looked at him piercingly, evidently disturbed at the suggestion.

"Want you to stay! I should think they would!" ejaculated the young physician. "I was just wondering what inducement would make you leave these dear people and this pretty house and this darling baby. If any one should—"

"Hullo," cried Ethel Brown, entering at this instant. "Do you know where Aunt Louise is?"

"She went out," replied Miss Merriam, somewhat nervously.

"Dorothy has gone to Della's this afternoon to help her get ready for tonight," Ethel said.

"She arrived before I left," admitted Edward—a confession that drew a long look from Gertrude.

"Where's Ayleesabet?"

"Playing under the table," answered Gertrude in cheerful ignorance that Ayleesabet had departed to more stimulating regions over the stairs.

Ethel lifted the table cover to investigate.

"She isn't here."

Gertrude jumped up and the doctor followed her into the hall. Ethel Brown ran into the dining room and then upstairs, with Miss Merriam in pursuit.

It was a moment of relief for everybody when Ethel gave a shout of discovery.

"Here she is!" she called, "and O, what will Dorothy say when she comes back and sees her room!"

"What's the modern way of dealing with that situation?" Edward asked when Miss Merriam re-appeared with Elisabeth under one arm.

"Do you mean ought she to be punished? Why should she? She was only following out her instinct to learn. How could she know that that was a time and place where it would inconvenience somebody else if she did? I'm the one to be punished for letting her have the opportunity."

"I suppose that's true. She'd never learn much if she didn't investigate, would she? And, as you say, she isn't yet conscious that she has any especial duty toward any one else's comfort."

"The Misses Clark are always saying 'No, no,' to her. I should think she'd think of their house as 'No, no Castle'."

"They love her, though," defended Ethel Brown.

"That's why I let her go there. A baby knows when she's loved and those two old ladies make her feel it even above the 'No, Nos'."

"I went in there yesterday when I saw Elisabeth's carriage outside their door," said Ethel, "and I found the older Miss Clark sitting on the floor clapping her hands and the baby trying to dance and sitting down, bang, every four or five steps."

Elisabeth was in a coquettish mood and played like a kitten with Edward.

"She is the very sweetest thing I ever saw!" exclaimed Ethel Brown. "I do wish I could take her to Washington."

"Take her to Washington! What on earth do you mean?" asked Miss Merriam.

"Nothing, only I hate to go away from her for even a few days. I came over to tell Dorothy that Grandfather Emerson is going to send us all to Washington with Mr. Wheeler's party for Washington's Birthday. Do you think Aunt Louise will let her go?"

"I think it will depend on who are going."

"There'll be lots of older people and teachers from our church and both the other churches, too."

"Any of your mother's particular friends?"

"I shouldn't be a bit surprised if Grandmother and Grandfather went themselves."

"Then your mother won't have any objection."

"That would settle the question for Dorothy, too, I should think," said Edward. "Are you taking outsiders along?"

"Outsiders?"

"New Yorkers. Della and Tom, for instance?"

"Oh, is there any chance of Mrs. Watkins's letting them go?"

"I'll suggest it if you think they'd be welcome."

"I don't see why they wouldn't be. Mr. Wheeler wants to have as many as possible because the more there are the better rates he can make with the railroad and at the hotel."

"Why don't you stir up the Hancock's?"

"The whole U. S. C.? Why not? It would be just too glorious," and Ethel proceeded to dance her butterfly dance around the room.

"Talk it over this evening," advised Edward, taking up his hat.

"Going?" inquired Ethel.

"I might as well—I mean, I must go, thank you," responded the doctor automatically, for she had said nothing to be thanked for.

It was a charming table around which the Club seated itself at the Watkinses'. Mr. and Mrs. Watkins sat at the head and foot and Della and Tom in the center of the sides.

"I ran in to see the baby a minute before I left," Ethel Blue explained to Mrs. Watkins, "and Dr. Watkins was there and he asked me to tell you that Aunt Louise had invited him to stay to dinner."

"Edward is becoming a very uncertain character, like all doctors," said Edward's mother.

"I think he is," remarked Ethel Brown to Ethel Blue who sat beside her. "He was just saying 'Good-bye' to Miss Gertrude when I left, and he must have stayed on after all."

Everybody had contributed something to the table decorations, but no one had seen them all assembled and they all paid themselves and each other compliments on the prettiness of the various parts and Della and Dorothy on the effectiveness of the whole.

In the center was a glowing centerpiece made of three scarlet paper hearts, each about eight inches high placed with the pointed ends up and the lower corners touching so that they made a three-sided cage over the electric light. From the top a tiny Cupid aimed his arrow at the guests before him. Della and Tom had designed this warm-hearted lantern.

Half way between the centerpiece and the plates a line of dancing figures ran around the table linked to each other by chains made of wee golden hearts. Ethel Blue had drawn and painted these paper dolls, so that each represented one of the Club members and they served as place cards as well as ornaments.

"I seem to see myself in Miles Standish's armor," said James. "Does that mean that I'm to sit here where I can admire my warlike appearance?"

"It does," said Della, "and I've put Priscilla next you so that for once you can cut out John Alden. Here's John Alden—that's you, Roger, and here's a little Russian for you to take home to Dicky."

"Where am I?"

"And I?"

"And I?" cried one after the other.

"Can't you guess? This is the Muse of History," pointing to a white-robed figure holding a scroll.

"Helen, of course," they all shouted. "And isn't this Hallowe'en witch Ethel Brown?"

"It really looks like her!"

"And what do you guess about this songstress?"

"Dorothy, and the young lady knitting is Della."

"Right."

"I hate to think that that's my face looking out of that cabbage," protested Margaret, "but Ethel Blue has a wonderful ability to catch likenesses."

"That's you, Mrs. Stalk of the Cabbage Patch, just as clearly as if it were your photograph."

"One of these two is mine and the other is for Edward," guessed Tom. "Am I one of the Great Twin Brethren and is Edward's the Pied Piper?"

"Right again. And this is Ayleesabet herself, and the Guardian Angel is Miss Merriam."

"She is an angel, isn't she!" exclaimed Della. "Look at these dozens of tiny hearts. Ethel Brown cut out those and James made them into the chains."

"Paste, paste," groaned James melodramatically. "My future calling is that of bill-poster."

Everything that could be was pink at the dinner. The soup was tomato bisque, the fish was salmon, the roast was beef, rare, the salad, tomato jelly, the dessert, strawberry ice cream, and with it small cakes heart-shaped and covered with pink icing.

In the drawing room a Cupid whirling on a card pointed with his arrow to a number, and the person who took from Mrs. Watkins's hand the envelope marked with the number indicated was instructed where to look for his valentine. Helen found hers inside of the piano. The Ethels turned up diagonal corners of the rug in the northwest corner of the library and discovered two flat packages. Margaret sought out a small bundle tied to the electrolier on the right hand side of the hall. So it went.

Each of them had prepared a valentine for every other member of the Club, so each had nine, for Dicky had sent his in to be distributed with the rest. Each had made all his nine of the same sort though not all alike. James, for instance, had made prettily decorated boxes and filled them with candy. Tom, who had a knack at cutting paper, had cut lacy designs out of lily white barred paper which he mounted on colored cardboard, and out of thin colored sheets whose patterns were thrown into relief by a background of white. Ethel Blue had drawn comical Cupids, each performing an acrobatic act. Ethel Brown had baked heart-shaped cookies and tied them into pretty boxes with pink ribbon. Dorothy's knowledge of basket making led her to experiment with some little heart-shaped trays, useful for countless purposes. She made them of different materials and they proved successful. Della stencilled hearts on to handkerchiefs, decorating some with a border of hearts touching, some with a corner wreath of interlaced hearts, the boys' with a single corner heart large enough for an initial. Each one was different.

Roger's contributions were heart-shaped watch charms of copper, each with a raised initial and mounted on a stray of colored leather and furnished with a bar and snapper of gun metal. Margaret's little heart-shaped pincushions were suitable for boys and girls alike. Some of them were small, for the pocket or the handbag; others were larger and were meant to be placed on the bureau. They were of varied colors, the girls' being of silk to match the colors of their rooms and the boys of darker hues.

Dicky's offerings were woven paper book marks made like Roger's blotter corners and intended to keep the place in a book by slipping over the corner of the leaf. Helen, who had been learning from Dorothy how to model in clay, had attempted paper weights. The family cat had served as a model, and each was a cat in a different position. Some were more successful than others, but, as Roger said, "You'd recognize them as cats."

When the search was over and every one had admired his own and his neighbor's valentines, Ethel Brown recited Hood's sonnet, "For the 14th of February," and Ethel Blue read part of Lamb's essay, "Valentine's Day," and they all felt that Saint Valentine's star was setting and that of the Father of his Country was rising resplendent.