MY LADY 
 VALENTINE
 
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 Copyright, 1916, by 
 A. M. DAVIS 
 
 All rights reserved
 
 TO MY 
 
 HUSBAND 
 
 2137933
 
 MY LADY VALENTINE 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 CALEB WHITMAN was in a bad humor. The 
 task of editing the Valentine Special with 
 which Better Every Week was planning to cele- 
 brate its tenth anniversary, was far from his taste. 
 The theme of this number was to be as one 
 might surmise Love; and Whitman did not be- 
 lieve in love, at least not in the violent emotion 
 which the story-writers were so fond of describing. 
 
 " Do you suppose," he said to his friend Radding, 
 who had dropped in upon him one hot August after- 
 noon, " that any man in his senses ever carried on 
 over a girl as these story-book fellows do? Do 
 you think any man ever felt like saying the sickly 
 things the poets write? I can't see why writers 
 want to turn out such stuff. I can't see why any- 
 body reads the silly yarns when we print them. . . . 
 How do you account for it, Rad? You're a phi- 
 losopher." 
 
 Radding smiled and yawned. He moved out of 
 the direct draft of the electric fan which blew his 
 thin brown hair about his high, intelligent fore- 
 head: 
 
 7
 
 8 MY LADY VALENTINE 
 
 " There are three classes of people," he said. 
 " Those who have been in love ; those who are in 
 love; and those who hope to be in love." 
 
 " What's that got to do with it ? " asked Whit- 
 man. 
 
 " The first class read love stories to recall past 
 happiness, the second to intensify present happiness, 
 the third to anticipate future happiness." 
 
 " I must be in a class all by myself, then," stormed 
 Whitman, " for the more time I put in on this bunch 
 of stuff the more determined I am never to be a 
 lover. Why, Rad, it takes a man's reason " 
 
 " Yes," Radding admitted, " it does." 
 
 " It warps his judgment." 
 
 "It certainly does that." 
 
 " It causes as much misery as joy, apparently." 
 
 " The evidence is all with you." 
 
 " Then what on earth does it give in return ? " 
 
 " That," said Radding, smiling at the younger 
 man's vehemence, " is what you will some day find 
 out." 
 
 " Not I," boasted Whitman. 
 
 " You mean that you have set yourself against 
 marriage?" his friend inquired. 
 
 " Not at all. I've merely set myself against the 
 emotional state of the story-book lover. When I 
 pick out a wife, I'll do it with my head. I'll look 
 first of all for a rational human being, secondly for 
 a healthy human being." 
 
 " You might not like her, you know," Radding re- 
 minded him.
 
 MY LADY VALENTINE 9 
 
 Whitman looked up from the manuscript he was 
 glancing over to say, " I don't want to like her in 
 the crazy way these lovers do. All I want to feel 
 is a calm regard. I don't want to have my heart 
 thump every time she comes around the corner. I 
 don't want to be a prey to jealousy every time an- 
 other man looks at her. Above all, I don't want to 
 sink into second childhood and call her silly 
 names." 
 
 " What names, for instance ? " Radding asked. 
 
 "'Darling.' 'Birdie.' 'Honey-Love,'" quoted 
 Whitman scornfully from the ardent page before 
 him. 
 
 " Oh, that kind of names ! " said Radding, with 
 a nod of understanding. " What shall you call 
 her?" 
 
 "'Mary,' if that's her name; 'Susan' if that's 
 what she was christened; and I shall expect her to 
 call me ' Caleb.' " 
 
 " You even let me turn it into ' Caley,' " Radding 
 reminded him. 
 
 " You're different," said Whitman, honest affec- 
 tion shining in his eyes. " You're all the family I 
 have, Rad; the best friend I have in the world. 
 Don't let me get started on you, or I'll turn as sen- 
 timental as the novelists. ... By the way, I'm 
 going to try my own hand at a novel this vaca- 
 tion." 
 
 " I thought you didn't believe in them ? " 
 
 " I believe in this one. It's to be the story of a 
 sane courtship, like the one I've been outlining to
 
 io MY LADY VALENTINE 
 
 you. I've been planning it ever since I was as- 
 signed to this job of getting out the Valentine 
 Special. I believe that there are thousands of peo- 
 ple who will read my kind of love story with re- 
 lief." 
 
 " You can but try it," Radding granted. And 
 then he asked, " Where are you going on your 
 vacation, anyway?" 
 
 " Up in the hills, to a camp I know of a kind 
 of writers' colony." 
 
 "When do you start?" 
 
 Whitman did not answer. He was lost in the 
 contents of the last of the envelopes which he had 
 taken up from the great pile before him. 
 
 " Got hold of something good ? " asked Radding, 
 noticing his preoccupation. 
 
 " I've come upon something odd," Whitman ex- 
 plained, raising his eyes for only a fleeting mo- 
 ment from the letter he was reading. 
 
 "What is it?" 
 
 " A poem, a letter and a signature." 
 
 " Want to share them with me, or am I in your 
 way?" 
 
 " Not in my way. I'm going to knock off in a 
 minute and go home with you." 
 
 " Is it a good poem ? " 
 
 " Not very ; but it may do with editing. We are 
 going to have two pages of light verse. The idea 
 of this is at least new. Something kind of win- 
 some about it. But it's the personality behind it 
 that piques my curiosity. Take a look at it, Rad."
 
 MY LADY VALENTINE 11 
 
 And Whitman held out a thin sheet of cross barred 
 country paper on which some one had written in 
 a firm hand: 
 
 " TO MY UNKNOWN LOVER 
 
 " I know not where thou art, 
 Thy name I do not know, 
 And yet for thee my heart lives on 
 Like violets under snow. 
 
 For some day thou wilt come, 
 
 Dear Lover, all unknown; 
 And find thy waiting, faithful love 
 
 And claim her for thine own. 
 
 How shalt thou know me thine? 
 
 Remember, dear, by this: 
 My lilies all will ring their bells, 
 
 My foxgloves waft a kiss. 
 
 My cedar tree will offer shade, 
 My vines will dance with glee, 
 
 My garden gate will stand ajar 
 So loneliness may flee. 
 
 I know not where thou art, 
 
 Thy name I do not know, 
 And yet for thee my heart lives on 
 
 Like violets under snow." 
 
 " Rather forthputting," said Radding, handing 
 the paper back. 
 
 "Oh, I don't know," said Whitman. "Now 
 listen to the letter which accompanies it ; " and he 
 read:
 
 12 MY LADY VALENTINE 
 
 " Deep Harbor, N. Y. 
 " Dear Editor of Better Every Week: 
 
 " Here are some verses that grew in a garden. 
 Please buy them. You would, I feel sure, if you 
 knew what it would mean to me. I must make 
 money " 
 
 " I suppose they all say that," ejaculated Rad- 
 ding. 
 
 " They don't say it in this way," said Whitman, 
 continuing to read: 
 
 " I must make money a certain sum within 
 a specified time." 
 
 " Been playing cards or following the ponies ? " 
 Radding joked. 
 
 Whitman didn't smile. "Don't, Rad," he said. 
 " The writer is in real trouble. Listen : " 
 
 " It isn't easy to earn anything when one lives 
 in a little village that has been asleep these hun- 
 dred years. It isn't easy to sell anything in a 
 town where the only demand is for peppermint 
 candy, gray yarn and dry groceries. 
 
 " Please take my poem. If you are an old 
 man I imagine you with gray side-whiskers, a 
 round red face that wrinkles into smiles, and a 
 thick gold watch chain stretched across a white 
 waistcoat " 
 
 At this point Whitman looked up with a smile, 
 as if to invite Radding to share his amusement.
 
 MY LADY VALENTINE 13 
 
 With his red hair, keen gray eyes, straight shoul- 
 ders, the young editor could not have been less like 
 the writer's vision. 
 Again he went on : 
 
 " say to yourself ' a little encouragement from me 
 may make a difference in this person's whole 
 life.' 
 
 "If you are young but oh, dear, how should 
 I know how to appeal to a young man. I don't 
 know anything about young men. They all left 
 Deep Harbor long ago. The last one that was 
 seen here was in, well, 1812 at the very latest." 
 
 Whitman paused for dramatic effect before read- 
 ing impressively: 
 
 " Yours respectfully, 
 
 " HENRY B. LUFFKIN." 
 
 "Well?" said Radding. 
 
 " Well," said Whitman. " Of course no man 
 wrote that note and no man wrote those verses." 
 
 "Why not?" asked Radding. "Every village 
 of over two hundred inhabitants has a poet. Deep 
 Harbor has Henry. I can see him plainly. He's 
 pale, and watery blue eyed, with tow colored hair, 
 which he wears long. He ties his cuffs with rib- 
 bons. He owes a soda water bill at the village 
 drug store and hopes that you will pay him enough 
 for the poem to square it." 
 
 " Rad," said Caleb, " you don't believe that."
 
 14 MY LADY VALENTINE 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 "Why not! Because every word of that letter 
 and every line of that poem was written by a girl. 
 Look here. This proves it it isn't dated." 
 
 " Henry wouldn't date it," said Radding. " He'd 
 think it was commercial." 
 
 " I can just see that village," Whitman continued, 
 ignoring Radding' s chaffing. " A lonely little place, 
 at the end of the earth, with a deserted harbor where 
 no ships ever come; sagging old wharves, ruminat- 
 ing old fishermen, and somewhere in it this girl, 
 panting for a wider world. You see, I know, Rad, 
 because I spent my boyhood in that kind of place." 
 
 " What are you going to do about the poem ? " 
 asked Radding. 
 
 " I'm going to take it. We can edit it a bit, and 
 stick it in somewhere. At space rates she won't be 
 much richer, but she may be happier." 
 
 " Buy that poem, and you'll have Henry on your 
 hands for the rest of your life," Radding warned 
 him. 
 
 " I can't take you seriously," said Whitman stub- 
 bornly, " because I feel certain that Henry isn't 
 Henry." 
 
 " Do you want to back your judgment? " Radding 
 demanded. 
 
 " I'll stake a dinner on it." 
 
 " All right, my boy. If I win, the toast will be 
 to Henry Luff kin, village poet." 
 
 " And if I win," Whitman laughed, entering into 
 the spirit of Radding's fun, " the toast will be to 
 Lady Valentine."
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 LIKE to eat at Tony's, because he cuts out 
 the din." As he spoke, Whitman lifted the 
 cover from two of the thick, juicy English chops 
 which were the restaurant's specialty, and passed 
 one to Radding. " I don't care to compete with 
 a Hungarian orchestra and a cabaret show when 
 I have something to say," he finished. 
 
 "Have you something to say?" 
 
 The question caused Whitman to flush con- 
 sciously. Radding was so unfailingly logical. 
 
 " Nothing special," the younger man parried ; and 
 through the rest of the meal he discreetly confined 
 his conversation to commonplaces. It was not un- 
 til after the souffle that he said with forced non- 
 chalance : 
 
 " By the way, Rad, it looks as if I'd won the 
 bet." 
 
 "What bet?" 
 
 "What bet! The one about the writer of the 
 letter from Deep Harbor." 
 
 " Ah," said Radding carelessly, " I'd forgotten." 
 
 "Forgotten!" Whitman looked at his friend 
 closely, as if to test his sincerity. He could never 
 be sure when Radding was quizzing him. 
 
 15
 
 16 MY LADY VALENTINE 
 
 "Heard something, have you?" Radding asked. 
 
 For answer Whitman fumbled in his breast 
 pocket and drew out a letter which he spread on 
 the table before them. " This came this morning, 
 in answer to my acceptance of the poem," he said. 
 
 "What did you say in your acceptance? I'm 
 not sure that doesn't interest me more than 
 ' Henry's ' reply." 
 
 " Why? " There was a hint of defiance in Whit- 
 man's manner. 
 
 " I don't know; I just wondered." 
 
 " I said we'd give five dollars for the poem," said 
 Whitman. " I wish it might have been more." 
 
 "Is that all you said?" 
 
 "All except" 
 
 "Except?" 
 
 " I did speak of her " 
 
 "His/' corrected Radding, plainly enjoying 
 Whitman's resentment at the change of pronoun. 
 
 " I did speak of her trouble," continued Whit- 
 man. " I think I'd have been a brute not to have 
 mentioned it." 
 
 " Are you so tender with all your contributors? " 
 
 " I never had much to do with the correspondence 
 before," the young editor explained. " They put 
 me on the job because the office is short handed at 
 this time of year." 
 
 " Ah, I see. And so you told ' Henry ' that you 
 were sympathetic with him in his difficulty ? " 
 
 " Not that exactly. I told the girl who wrote 
 the letter that I hoped the encouragement from the
 
 MY LADY VALENTINE 17 
 
 magazine would be the beginning of better things 
 for her." 
 
 " Anything more ? " 
 
 " Hang it, Rad. Why are you so curious ? . . . 
 Let me see. The whole letter was only a few type- 
 written words. Nothing very personal in that, 
 you'll admit." 
 
 "Dictate the letter?" 
 
 " No, I happened to write it myself." 
 
 "I see! Goon." 
 
 " Go on ! I can't remember what I was going to 
 say, you pick me up so every other word." 
 
 " I'll promise not to do it again. What else was 
 in the letter?" 
 
 " That was about all, except I did say I knew how 
 he felt (I had to say ' he ' until I'd proved that the 
 name was a blind.) " 
 
 " Yes ; or the truth." 
 
 " And I told her that I spent my boyhood in a 
 village like Deep Harbor." 
 
 " Did you let * Henry ' know what a short time 
 ago that was ? " 
 
 Whitman showed his white, even teeth in a broad, 
 conscious smile, as he met Radding's twinkling eyes 
 across the table. " Rad, I've a guilty conscience," 
 he confessed. " I hope it was fair; but if she could 
 pretend to be a man, I thought I might pretend to 
 be an old one. A fatherly friend seemed to be 
 what she needed." 
 
 " Urn umph." 
 
 " I did not say I corresponded to her picture of
 
 i8 MY LADY VALENTINE 
 
 me; but I did say that no matter how gray my 
 whiskers or how ample my white waistcoat, I could 
 never forget my own early struggle for a footing." 
 
 Radding nodded. " I see," he said. " Now 
 we've had the prologue, let's have the letter." 
 
 " Shall I read it, or will you? " asked Whitman. 
 
 " You read it, if you will. That kind of angular 
 hand-writing makes my eyes tired." 
 
 " She thought it was manly to write that way," 
 Whitman defended the writer. He began to read 
 the letter, lowering his voice so that the good Ger- 
 man family near them could not hear. 
 
 " Deep Harbor, N. Y. 
 "Dear Editor of Better Every Week: 
 
 " Thank you, thank you for your letter and the 
 money. I can't tell you how I felt when I got 
 the courage to look into Box 37 and made sure 
 that there was an envelope between the seed 
 catalogue and the weekly copy of The Harbor. 
 
 " All the way down the road I had said to my- 
 self ' there won't be a letter there. I know there 
 won't. I don't expect any ; ' but that was just 
 to keep up my courage in case another empty day 
 awaited me. Did you ever cheat yourself that 
 way when you were young? But when I got to 
 the Post Office there was my letter. 
 
 " I made up my mind not to open it until I 
 was at home with the door locked. Then if you 
 had returned my verses, I could have had a good 
 cry. But as I ran down the road, I loosened the
 
 MY LADY VALENTINE 19 
 
 flap, put in one finger and felt the check. I can't 
 tell you what it meant. It wasn't just money. 
 It was HOPE. 
 
 " And your letter, your dear, kind letter. I 
 can't find the right words to thank you for that. 
 With five dollars that I have earned, and a friend, 
 I know I can accomplish anything ! 
 
 " I hope you will accept a very tiny present as 
 a mark of my appreciation of your kindness, just 
 a simple little gift from Deep Harbor. I hoped 
 if you are old, it might please you. Grandfather 
 used to wear them. 
 
 " Gratefully yours, 
 
 " HENRY LUFFKIN." 
 
 " What was the present ? " Radding asked, not at- 
 tempting to conceal his amusement. 
 
 Whitman hesitated. Then he reached into his 
 pocket and took out a soft gray ball, which he kept 
 in his own hands, smoothing it gently. " Wrist- 
 lets," he said. " Gray worsted wristlets." 
 
 " What on earth are wristlets ? " 
 
 ' That shows you weren't brought up in the coun- 
 try, Rad." He slipped the bands on his wrists and 
 held his hands out, smiling. " You can saw wood, 
 milk cows, pump water, do all sorts of things that 
 are best done with bare hands, and yet keep warm, 
 if you have wristlets. I wouldn't take anything 
 for them. Not that I'll use them in New York; 
 but because they'll bring up my boyhood every time 
 I look at them."
 
 20 MY LADY VALENTINE 
 
 Radding examined them curiously. " I see," he 
 said. " I wonder where * Henry ' bought them." 
 
 "Henry!" protested Whitman. "Henry! 
 Won't you acknowledge you're beaten, yet? Did 
 ' Henry ' knit wristlets ? Did ' Henry ' write that 
 letter?" 
 
 " You haven't proved he didn't, not to my entire 
 satisfaction." 
 
 " What other proof do you want? " 
 
 "Well, I'll have to think it over. I'll try my 
 own hand at the detective business. Dine here 
 again a week from to-night, and I'll have some evi- 
 dence." 
 
 " Very well, a week from to-night but Rad, 
 you know more about girls than I do, I've always 
 avoided them. Girl stenographers can't spell and 
 lady contributors cry if you criticize their copy. 
 But tell me this, if Henry is a girl isn't he unusually 
 interesting, something out of the ordinary ? "
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 A WEEK later, well before the appointed hour, 
 ** Caleb Whitman was at the table, which he 
 and Radding always occupied, under the cuckoo 
 clock. From time to time he peered intently down 
 the aisle between the rows of tables overhung with 
 festoons of paper flowers, in search of his friend. 
 He neglected to unfold the evening paper he had 
 bought at the door. He ignored the menu which 
 the German waiter had thrust before him. He 
 merely waited, with impatience in which there was 
 no ill nature, but only eager expectancy. And then, 
 at last, he saw Radding leisurely strolling down the 
 room. 
 
 " Well," said Whitman, as his friend drew out 
 the chair opposite. " I had about given you up." 
 
 Radding consulted his watch. " I am late," he 
 said dryly, " three minutes." 
 
 " Three minutes seems an eternity when a fel- 
 low is hungry," Whitman defended himself. 
 
 " If you are as hungry as that," Radding drawled, 
 his mouth twisted into a whimsical smile, " I'll wait 
 until later to show you what I have in my pocket." 
 
 " What is it, Rad ? Show it to me and quit your 
 kidding." 
 
 " Nothing of importance; just a letter." 
 
 21
 
 22 MY LADY VALENTINE 
 
 " Let's see it. Hand it over." 
 
 Radding turned to the waiter, deliberately. 
 " Well, Otto, what shall we have to-night ? And, 
 Caleb, what do you feel like eating? " 
 
 " I'm not hungry." 
 
 " Not hungry ? That's good ; because this din- 
 ner's to be on you." 
 
 " Like thunder it is." 
 
 " Yes. I'll produce the evidence that wins me 
 the bet with the coffee." 
 
 " Then I'll have my coffee with my dinner," Whit- 
 man threatened. 
 
 Radding was not to be hurried. He ordered the 
 dinner with the care and the interest of a man whose 
 time is abundant and whose palate is discriminating, 
 stopping continually to consult the young man op- 
 posite as to details, ignoring the indifferent shrugs 
 with which his questions were received. 
 
 When the waiter had gone, Whitman leaned 
 across the table. " I call your hand," he said. " I 
 hold a better one." 
 
 " If you have, we'd better wait. Then each of 
 us can enjoy his dinner in the pleasant belief that 
 it's on the other fellow." 
 
 " All right," agreed Whitman, with no very good 
 grace; and with well assumed indifference he ap- 
 plied himself to his dinner. 
 
 " Want a demi-tasse? " Radding asked, when the 
 end of the meal had at last been reached. 
 
 " No, I don't. Look here, Rad, if you think you 
 are teasing me, you are mistaken."
 
 MY LADY VALENTINE 23 
 
 "Teasing!" Radding protested. "Am I teas- 
 ing? You like coffee, don't you? " 
 
 For answer, Whitman held out his hand. 
 " Come on, Rad; what have you? Hand it over." 
 
 Radding searched his coat pockets. " By Jove," 
 he muttered, " I must have forgotten it." 
 
 " No, you didn't. Look again." 
 
 " Ah, here it is." 
 
 As Radding drew forth the letter, Whitman 
 caught a glimpse of the writing. " That's not her 
 writing," he said. 
 
 "Whose writing?" 
 
 " You know Lady Valentine's." 
 
 Radding feigned surprise. " Oh, no, I haven't a 
 letter from * Henry.' " 
 
 " The deuce you haven't. Have you been string- 
 ing me for the last half hour? Did you think I was 
 interested in your general correspondence ? " 
 
 " I thought you might like to see this letter, I 
 confess." Radcling's tone conveyed a sense of in- 
 jury. " It can wait, however, for some other time." 
 
 "Of course I'm interested, old man, in anything 
 that interests you," Whitman cried in quick con- 
 trition. "Who's the letter from? What's it 
 about?" 
 
 " It's from Deep Harbor," Radding remarked 
 casually, adjusting his glasses, " and it's about 
 Henry." 
 
 Whitman's interest instantly revived. " You old 
 fraud," he said. " Give it to me. Honestly, you 
 ought to have a job operating a rack."
 
 24 MY LADY VALENTINE 
 
 " Here it is," Radding said at last, passing the 
 letter across the table, deep-seated amusement hov- 
 ering in his eyes ; and Whitman read : 
 
 " Deep Harbor, N. Y. 
 
 " Aug. Qth, 191 
 " Mr. James Radding, 
 "Dear Sir: 
 
 " In reply to your inquiry concerning iden- 
 tity of one Henry Luffkin, will say that same has 
 resided in Deep Harbor for past fifty years; is 
 church member in good standing, engaged in 
 ferry business. 
 
 " Yours respectfully, 
 
 " W. L. WILSON, Postmaster." 
 
 " Well," Radding's voice recalled Whitman from 
 the perusal of the letter. " It looks as if you paid 
 for the dinner." 
 
 " It does, does it? " Whitman retorted. " I've a 
 little evidence myself. I've been holding it back 
 until you produced yours." Whitman reached into 
 his own pocket and drew out a second letter. 
 " This came yesterday," he said. " I did a little 
 detective work myself. I'm not very proud of it, 
 either. If that little girl wants to go incognito " 
 
 " What girl ? " Radding asked innocently. 
 
 " What girl ! My girl ; Lady Valentine." 
 
 "Ah, I see." 
 
 " Here's my letter. Listen to this, and tell me if 
 a ferryman, aged fifty, wrote it." There was chal- 
 lenge in the toss of Whitman's red head.
 
 MY LADY VALENTINE 25 
 
 " What's the prologue to this one? " 
 
 " When I thanked her for the wristlets, I sent her 
 a box of candy and a box of cigars." 
 
 " That sounds promising. What was the re- 
 sult?" 
 
 "This was the result;" and Whitman began to 
 read: 
 
 " Deep Harbor, N. Y. 
 "Dear Editor of Better Every Week: 
 
 " I'm very glad you liked the wristlets. Have 
 you really wished for them ever since you were a 
 boy? 
 
 " I can't half express to you how much I en- 
 joyed your candy. I never tasted anything more 
 delicious than those chocolates, especially the ones 
 with cocoanut inside. I feel like a person in a 
 story book with such a wonderful gift. 
 " Thank you over and over again. 
 " Sincerely yours, 
 
 " HENRY LUFFKIN. 
 " P. S. The cigars were perfectly lovely, too." 
 
 Radding chuckled appreciatively, while Whitman's 
 smile was not wholly one of amusement. " Rad," 
 he said, " does the man live who would call cigars 
 ' perfectly lovely ' or forget to mention them un- 
 til the postscript? " 
 
 His friend's amusement had not yet spent itself. 
 
 " What are you laughing at ? " Whitman de- 
 manded.
 
 26 MY LADY VALENTINE 
 
 " To think " 
 
 " To think what? Stop laughing." 
 
 "To think to think," gasped Radding, "you 
 should spend your good money " 
 
 " Yes ; go on ; I never begrudged money less." 
 
 " On a middle aged ferryman who happens to 
 have a sweet tooth." 
 
 Compassionate silence was the only answer Whit- 
 man deigned to make. 
 
 At last Radding controlled himself sufficiently to 
 say, " Well, it's plain we shall have to call it a tie. 
 . . . The next step I suppose is to run up there and 
 make a personal investigation. Too bad that you 
 are going to that camp for your vacation. Engaged 
 a place there some time ago, didn't you ? " 
 
 " Y-e-s, I'm off Monday." 
 
 " Well, it makes no difference especially. I can 
 get away myself in another week. I'll hunt up 
 Deep Harbor in the ' Blue Book,' and run up there 
 in my machine. I won't mind the jaunt in the 
 least." 
 
 " What are you going to do when you get there ? " 
 Whitman demanded. " Nothing to make it em- 
 barrassing for the girl, remember that." 
 
 " I'll be careful. I expect to get a lot of fun out 
 of it. If the valentine poet proves to be the ferry 
 man, I'll sail with him. If the poet proves to be a 
 girl, I'll persuade her to sail with me." 
 
 "You will, will you? Pretty sure of yourself, 
 aren't you, Rad ? " 
 
 " Yes," Radding admitted, after thinking the mat-
 
 MY LADY VALENTINE 27 
 
 ter over for a few moments; "yes, I suppose that 
 I am ; but you see, Caley, even though I'm hard on 
 forty I still enjoy girls. I have none of your 
 prejudice against them." 
 
 " So that's it," said Whitman dryly, and he pushed 
 back his chair from the table and rose decisively. 
 " I'm getting tired of this joint," he said. " I think 
 I'll take a walk. I don't know when I've felt so 
 restless."
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 " Deep Harbor, N. Y. 
 
 " Aug. 1 6, 191 
 "DearRad: 
 
 " Yes ; stare as hard as you will, rub your eyes, 
 put on your glasses. The postmark of this letter 
 is Deep Harbor, and the illegible scrawl is that 
 of Caleb Whitman, editor and would-be novelist. 
 
 " When we parted Saturday night I fully in- 
 tended to carry out my plan of going to the camp. 
 Indeed, on the following morning I bought my 
 ticket, seated myself in the car for Utica (which 
 was as far as I could go on the through train) 
 and tried to lose myself in contemplation of the 
 expected joys before me. 
 
 " Then what happened ? Why didn't I get to 
 my destination ? Why am I not at this very mo- 
 ment sitting near a camp fire listening to the stories 
 of how-the-trout-got-away? I can't entirely ex- 
 plain it myself. The human mind is an intricate 
 piece of machinery, and you know my stupidity is 
 boundless when I am asked to explain the work- 
 ings of a machine. All I know is that the wheels 
 of the car had no sooner begun to grind under my 
 particular chair than the prospect of the weeks in 
 the camp affected me exactly like cold pan cakes. 
 
 " However, there I sat, letting myself be borne 
 28
 
 MY LADY VALENTINE 29 
 
 along nearer and nearer to the bacon, the corn- 
 meal, the old yarns, and the straw bed under the 
 canvas. When we reached Utica, I clambered 
 out, to wait for the jerk-water accommodation 
 that was to take me to the end of my journey. 
 It was hotter than a greenhouse in summer. I 
 made for the magazine stand, bought a copy of 
 our own sheet, just to see how it would strike me 
 coming off the news stand, and I won't blame 
 it to Better Every Week I fell asleep. I was 
 awakened by the uniformed human megaphone 
 bawling out a train. Looking at my watch I saw 
 that it was time for my own old ice wagon to 
 start into the hills; so, seizing my bag, my gun, 
 my fishing tackle and a few other little trifles, I 
 ran to the tracks, just in time to see a train pull- 
 ing out. 
 
 ' You can make it,' a passenger shouted, 
 stretching out a hand for my bag. So I ran, and 
 he stretched, until finally, with his help, I made 
 the step, bags and all. 
 
 " ' Well/ he said good naturedly, * that was 
 something of a sprint; ' and together we made for 
 the smoking car. There we exchanged the usual 
 confidences as to politics and occupation. After 
 a while I told him my destination. He was 
 solemn faced. He stared at me contritely. 
 * Partner/ he said sorrowfully, * I've done you a 
 bad turn. I've h'isted you on the wrong train. 
 This here goes west. You're headed for Jack- 
 son.'
 
 30 MY LADY VALENTINE 
 
 " ' What's Jackson like? ' I asked hopefully. 
 
 " ' Jackson is a fust rate town electric lights, 
 trolley car, cement sidewalks.' He stared at me 
 uncertainly. * Don't it make no difference to you 
 where you land ? ' 
 
 " ' Not much/ I said. ' I'm on my vacation. 
 Is there anything to do at Jackson? Any water 
 there? Fishing, that sort of thing?' 
 
 " ' Well, no, not at Jackson. But we are only 
 ten miles from the lake.' 
 
 "'What lake?' 
 
 " * What lake ! Good Lord ; don't you know in 
 what direction you are going ? Lake Ontario, of 
 course.' 
 
 " Lake Ontario ! You have no idea how cool 
 that sounded, Rad. I let my mind drift away 
 for a moment from the hot car, the stale old camp, 
 out, out over the miles of shining blue waters. It 
 sounded good to me. 
 
 " * Know any quiet place on the lake where I 
 can board for a week or two ? ' 
 
 " ' Well, no place with style' (You see, Rad, 
 he was properly impressed by my general appear- 
 ance. He saw that I was a man of fashion 
 which is more than you ever discovered). He 
 hesitated : ' There's awful good fishing and sail- 
 ing at Deep Harbor.' 
 
 "Deep Harbor! If that innocent citizen had 
 discharged a cannon in my ear, I could not have 
 been more startled. * Deep Harbor ! Deep Har- 
 bor ! Am I on the way to Deep Harbor ? Of all
 
 MY LADY VALENTINE 31 
 
 places on earth, that's the one I want to go to 
 most.' 
 
 " ' Well,' he said, looking at me narrowly, as if 
 to detect signs of a disordered mind. * You're 
 the fust I ever heard say that. Most people wants 
 to get away from there. It's deader than 
 well, deader than dead fish. It's quieter than an 
 empty house. It's more monotonous than an old 
 schooner when they ain't no wind.' 
 
 " ' How do you get there ? ' was all I said for 
 answer. 
 
 " * You wait two hours in Jackson, and get the 
 dummy. You can't count on it being on time, 
 either.' 
 
 " ' I'll wait,' I said; and then, as the conductor 
 approached he had been delayed by an argu- 
 ment with a mother as to whether a boy of twelve 
 was over five I said ' Ticket for Jackson,' and 
 all was settled. 
 
 " Then Jackson and supper. It was very good, 
 too, served in a neat country hotel. Opposite me 
 was a young sergeant of the regulars (it seems 
 there's a post somewhere in this locality), uncom- 
 monly good looking and uncommonly entertain- 
 ing, so that the time passed very pleasantly before 
 we parted I for the dummy, he for the army 
 daugherty, drawn by two splendid mules. I hope 
 we meet again. 
 
 " Then Deep Harbor in the blackness of a sum- 
 mer evening with just enough light for me to see 
 that the one village street of any pretension slopes
 
 32 MY LADY VALENTINE 
 
 down to the water; that the town stands high on 
 the bluffs; and that it looks out over a great ex- 
 panse of water. 
 
 " As for the hotel, it has the appearance of a 
 moulting bird. My ink is as thick as curdled 
 custard ; my pen is as rusty as I am on the war of 
 1812 (one of the naval battles of that war was 
 fought in this harbor) ; and my table is as un- 
 steady as a ship without a center board. Not 
 very promising you say? I'm not so sure. I 
 look for adventure to-morrow. In the mean- 
 time, 
 
 " Yours for the quest, 
 
 " CALEY." 
 
 " Deep Harbor, N. Y. 
 
 "Aug. 17, 191 
 " Dear Rad : 
 
 " When I tell you that I have not only seen 
 Henry Luffkin, but that I have been talking to 
 him all this long sunny morning; that I have ar- 
 ranged to board with him and his sister in a cot- 
 tage as white as the lake is blue, doubtless you 
 will think that the quest is over; that I cry ' Nuff,' 
 and that the dinner is on me. 
 
 " Nothing of the kind. The chase has just be- 
 gun. For not even you, Radding, could suspect 
 Henry of writing verse, knitting wristlets or hav- 
 ing * a good cry.' 
 
 " I found him in the early morning unreefing 
 the sail of the ' ferry ' a cat boat with a motor
 
 MY LADY VALENTINE 33 
 
 attachment. He is a rugged, squarely built man 
 with an eye, honest and steady and very blue 
 as sailor men's eyes so often are, from long 
 gazing at sea, I suppose. Suspecting that he was 
 the ferryman of the postmaster's report, I made 
 the sail with him across the bay to a hamlet 
 that boasts a cheese factory. 
 
 " Occasional, reluctant monosyllables, were all 
 I succeeded in drawing from Henry by my ef- 
 forts at conversation. I own I questioned him 
 shamelessly, veiling my curiosity by frank confi- 
 dences of my own. I was a writer, an editor, by 
 trade ; was he interested in the modern periodical ? 
 
 " Only in The Harbor, a sailor's weekly. 
 
 " I supposed a seafaring man like him could 
 not understand what kept men at their pens. 
 
 " No, he couldn't. Thought it would be monot- 
 onous. With sailing it was different. No two 
 days were alike. 
 
 " Had he any children ? A daughter, for in- 
 stance ? 
 
 " No, he was a bachelor. His sister kept the 
 house. She to be sure was a great reader. When 
 the old post office was torn down, he had fetched 
 her over a wheelbarrow full of old newspapers, 
 and she wasn't done reading them yet ! 
 
 " ' It's the sister,' I determined. But when 
 (the captain having admitted they had an extra 
 room) I went to inspect the cottage and made 
 Sister Abby's acquaintance, I saw I would have to 
 drop that solution of our little mystery.
 
 34 MY LADY VALENTINE 
 
 " For Abby was a drab woman, with capable, 
 worn hands, whose conversation was limited to 
 the frequent repetition of ' Well, for pity sakes! ' 
 and whose interest was divided between keeping 
 the white cottage white and tending a bed of 
 Johnny- jump-ups, neatly surrounded by varie- 
 gated pebbles. 
 
 " ' This is a beautiful country/ I said, as she 
 threw open my one window, neatly protected by 
 mosquito bar. ' I don't know of any place on the 
 coast with a finer view.' 
 
 " ' For pity sakes ! ' said Sister Abby. 
 
 "' They tell me the British fired a good many 
 balls into these old banks in 1812,' I tried again, 
 undaunted. 
 
 " ' They drunk from our well,' said Abby, 
 pointing out to an open well in the sandy yard be- 
 low. 
 
 " ' I should think,' said I, * that you would all 
 turn story writers in this country, with such a 
 background.' 
 
 " ' For pity sakes ! ' said Abby. ' Who'd do the 
 work ? ' 
 
 " ' Don't any of the village ladies write ? ' 
 
 " ' Yes, sir, all of 'em.' 
 
 "'All of them?' This was more than I had 
 bargained for. 
 
 " * Some writes better hands than others, of 
 course.' 
 
 ' I meant fiction,' I explained, ' poems, stories, 
 that sort of thing.'
 
 MY LADY VALENTINE 35 
 
 " f For pity sakes/ said Sister Abby. 
 
 " I am sure she will make me comfortable and 
 forgive me anything but setting a sandy shoe on 
 her braided rugs. In the meantime I have taken 
 out my paper, sharpened my pencils and begun the 
 novel. It ought to be easy to write a sane novel 
 in such matter of fact surroundings there's 
 nothing about Captain Luffkin or Sister Abby to 
 give a romantic turn to my yarn. 
 
 " As ever, 
 
 " CALEY." 
 
 " Deep Harbor, N. Y. 
 
 " Aug. 20, 191 
 " Dear Rad : 
 
 ''' Your letter, with its amazing conclusions, just 
 received. Honestly, old man, I don't know what 
 has come over you. I used to think you were one 
 of the most astute judges of human nature I ever 
 knew, with more penetration and intuition than 
 any man of my acquaintance. And yet, in this 
 letter, open before me, you say, ' I am convinced 
 that we were both wrong. Neither a pale faced 
 youth, nor a charming girl wrote the verse and 
 the letters. Abby wrote them ! ' And to prove 
 that absurd assertion, you find proof of a poetical 
 temperament in Abby's love of Johnny- jump- 
 ups; you find evidence of exquisite sensitiveness 
 in a nature that shrinks from the rough intruder 
 (otherwise me) and hides its real feelings and 
 aspirations in the single phrase, ' For pity sakes ; '
 
 36 MY LADY VALENTINE 
 
 and you find a sense of humor attested by the re- 
 mark, ' Yes, they all write ; some writes better 
 hands than others.' Really, Rad, I don't know 
 what to make of you. 
 
 " And yet I am no nearer proving who did write 
 those letters and knit my wristlets than I was 
 when I came. Surely it was none of the village 
 girls whom I met on my solitary walks, fresh and 
 comely as many of them are. Lady Valentine 
 wouldn't nudge, nor giggle, nor stand and watch 
 the dummy come in, with her mouth wide open 
 like a slot machine. 
 
 " You ask about the novel. It goes haltingly. 
 My hero is made of sawdust, and my girl I 
 don't know what ails her. Perhaps she is too 
 sane. I don't like her, and neither does the hero. 
 
 " CALEY." 
 
 " Deep Harbor, N. Y. 
 
 " Aug. 22, 191 
 
 " Dear Rad : 
 
 " Something has happened. I have a clue 
 very slight, but a clue. I give it to you for what 
 it's worth. 
 
 " Yesterday the novel dragged. I can't make 
 my sane hero very convincing. Sanity in love is 
 all very well in real life I wish there were more 
 of it but on paper it's dull. I got discouraged 
 and nervous. The hens clucked too loud : Abby 
 said ' For pity sakes ' once too often. Sometime 
 in the middle of the afternoon I picked up my
 
 MY LADY VALENTINE 37 
 
 papers, stuck them in my pocket and went forth 
 in search of peace. 
 
 " The bluffs which form the shores of the bay 
 are of a soft limestone. They look, from the 
 ferry, exactly like children's slates piled neatly 
 one on top of the other. I walked along the nar- 
 row beach for a mile or more, enjoying the quiet 
 and the smell of the water. Sometimes the beach 
 disappeared altogether, and then I clung to the 
 cliffs and crept along the rocks until I found an- 
 other footing. Well, when I had done this for 
 an hour, the beach suddenly came to such an ab- 
 rupt end that there was no hope of continuing 
 my walk unless I wanted to swim ! Rather than 
 retrace my steps, I managed to pull myself up the 
 steep cliff it was some fifty feet high so it 
 was no easy task. 
 
 " When I reached the summit, decidedly the 
 worse for the scramble, there, to my surprise, was 
 a most charming old brick mansion, the kind with 
 fire wings on the sides. I felt as if it were look- 
 ing at my untied cravat, my stained trousers and 
 my sandy shoes, in dignified surprise. 
 
 ' Hello,' I said, * where did you come from ? ' 
 But, the mansion making no answer except to 
 stare harder out of its eight eye-like windows that 
 faced the road, I approached it and stared over the 
 hedge by which it was surrounded. A flag stone 
 walk, sunken and worn, led through tall grass 
 to the loveliest old doorway you ever saw : a door 
 painted white, with a brass knocker, at the top of
 
 38 MY LADY VALENTINE 
 
 long steps crowned by a small latticed porch; all 
 overgrown with some flowering vine, and look- 
 ing like a sweet face peering out of a poke bonnet. 
 
 " There was something about the place that 
 said, * Nobody at home.' Most of the shades were 
 drawn. The steps were littered with the leaves 
 which drifted from the vine every time a fresh 
 puff of wind came off the lake; so I made bold to 
 push open the gate, walk up the steps and pull the 
 bell, which jangled lonesomely through the silence. 
 
 " Nobody came. I grew bolder and pressed 
 my nose to the slits of windows on either side of 
 the door and found myself looking directly into 
 a wide hall, hung with family portraits, furnished 
 in old mahogany. A delicately balustraded stair- 
 way wound upward, hinting at bed chambers sweet 
 with lavender and orris. Through an open door 
 I caught a glimpse, a very small glimpse, of the 
 state room, papered with one of those old land- 
 scape papers we sometimes see reproduced. I 
 have no doubt it's been there since 1812, and that 
 the oriental figures in turbans, majestically ascend- 
 ing and descending the broad steps, have seen 
 history made. 
 
 " I wandered around to the rear of the place. 
 The grounds, some four acres I should say, are 
 all to the back, the mansion itself being com- 
 fortably near the front gate. 
 
 " A path led me through some funereal ever- 
 greens into a thicket, at the far end of the garden, 
 near the road that runs past the rear ; and here I
 
 MY LADY VALENTINE 39 
 
 found a summer house, completely concealed in 
 the thicket. Inside there was a rustic table, and 
 a rough seat encircled the walls. 
 
 "I seated myself as if I were the owner I 
 wish I were brushed off the leaves that covered 
 the table and began to revise my novel then and 
 there. I am going to have my heroine live in 
 that house and see if her surroundings won't 
 humanize her. I am going to write every day un- 
 til somebody comes home and drives me out. 
 
 " The clue ! I almost forgot. On the rustic 
 table, among the leaves, I found a bit of cross 
 barred paper, torn across, on which some one had 
 written in angular characters, ' Dear Editor of 
 Better Every Week:' I suppose you will argue, 
 Rad, that any one could have written those words 
 some old lady who meant to subscribe for the 
 magazine, for instance. Think what you will. 
 As for me well, I'll tell you what I think when 
 I write again. 
 
 " Yours, 
 
 " CALEY."
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THREE days passed. Each afternoon Caleb 
 Whitman put his manuscript under his arm 
 and sought the garden. He skirted the curious 
 village in a wide circle, and came upon the red walls 
 of the mansion by the little used road that ran past 
 the rear of its grounds. 
 
 The place was still deserted. He was free to 
 drink from the open well, to pick the grapes which 
 were ripening slowly on the untrimmed vines that 
 covered the long arbor stretching from the kitchen 
 door to the stile. Above all he was free to make use 
 of the woodland bower hidden securely in the far 
 corner. Here he spread his papers broadcast and 
 worked on his novel, heavily, laboriously, hour after 
 hour. Sometimes he paused to sigh, sometimes 
 to listen. 
 
 A bird chirped contentedly in a bush. A wood- 
 pecker drummed on a tree. Insects whirred faintly 
 in the grass. The wind rustled in the woodbine 
 that covered the bower. Far in the distance a cock 
 sent forth his triumphant cry. And that was all 
 no other sound of life for three long summer 
 afternoons. 
 
 It was natural, therefore, that Whitman should be 
 startled as he approached the house on the fourth 
 
 40
 
 MY LADY VALENTINE 41 
 
 day, to see a huckster's wagon standing near the stile. 
 As he hesitated whether to turn back, the huckster 
 came toward him down the arbor. " Know when 
 the folks are expected back ? " he called, as he caught 
 sight of Whitman. 
 
 " I do not," answered Whitman ; " I'm a stranger 
 here." Then he put the question that he had hesi- 
 tated to put to the captain. " Who lives in this 
 beautiful old place?" 
 
 " Old Miss Lowell." 
 
 "Old Miss" 
 
 " Yes, a maiden lady, Miss Roxana Lowell. 
 She's our aristocracy about here. Brought up 
 proud, you might say. Been here pretty near as 
 long as the house and that's some time, I can tell 
 you. . . . You can't use no huckleberries, I sup- 
 pose, if you are a stranger here? " 
 
 " No," Whitman smiled ; and he waited to enter 
 the garden until the huckster had rattled down the 
 road and disappeared. 
 
 " Miss Roxana Lowell," he murmured, seating 
 himself at the table in the retreat. " That's one on 
 both Rad and me." And he began to write, impul- 
 sively. 
 
 " Dear Rad : 
 
 " Alas for Henry ; alas for Lady Valentine ; 
 alas for romance ! " 
 
 Then he pushed the paper away. " Old Miss 
 Lowell," he repeated ironically, and lost himself in
 
 42 MY LADY VALENTINE 
 
 reverie. Quite suddenly the garden seemed to him 
 the loneliest spot in the world. The bower where he 
 sat ceased to be a snug retreat; it became simply a 
 summer house, with unpainted, rotting latticed walls, 
 damp and a little cold. 
 
 He took up a fresh sheet of paper and began 
 
 " Dear Rad : 
 
 " I'm coming back. This place has gotten on 
 my nerves. The novel won't go " 
 
 Something snapped. He raised his head to listen. 
 Only silence, except for the whir of a thrush in the 
 woods, and the distant plaintive cry of a gull. 
 Again he bent over the paper. 
 
 And then the branches of the low hanging trees 
 parted like a screen, the bows snapped back into 
 place, and a girl stood in the archway of the bower. 
 
 " Who are you ? What are you doing in my sum- 
 mer house? " 
 
 The voice was clear and sweet. Caleb Whitman 
 raised his head and looked into gray eyes with long 
 dark lashes, eyes that did not fall nor quiver, though 
 the color that flooded the girl's cheeks and the quick 
 breathing that stirred her quaint muslin gown, at- 
 tested suppressed excitement. There was something 
 birdlike in the quick startled glance of her eyes, in 
 the poise of her vibrant little figure as she hovered at 
 the door ready for instant flight. Whitman sprang 
 to his feet. 
 
 " Is this Miss Roxana Lowell? "
 
 MY LADY VALENTINE 43 
 
 " No, I'm just Nancy, her niece." 
 
 She waited for him to continue, a hand on either 
 side of the doorway barring all retreat. 
 
 " I'm a summer visitor," he hastened to explain. 
 " I am staying in the village. I found your house 
 deserted I supposed for the summer and I have 
 been making bold to bring my papers out here and 
 make use of your bower for a study. I'm going to 
 make bolder, and ask you if it would be possible 
 for me to continue to come? Your garden is so 
 large I've become so attached to it " 
 
 " Oh, I'm so sorry. For you see you must go 
 this instant, never to come back." 
 
 " Are you in earnest ? Couldn't we make some 
 arrangement ? I can get letters, you know, to prove 
 I'm a respectable person that sort of thing." 
 
 " You couldn't get letters proving you weren't a 
 man," said Nancy, " and above all things a man is 
 what Aunt Roxana most abhors. She won't have 
 one about the premises. She won't let even a very 
 little boy come to weed the garden. She hires a 
 woman to cut the grass." 
 
 "And are men equally distasteful to you?" 
 
 " I've never known any, except the village people ; 
 and they're quite old. But Aunt Roxana says that 
 men, especially young men, are the cause of all the 
 trouble in the world. . . . And they certainly have 
 been the cause of her trouble." 
 
 " We haven't always made a good record for our- 
 selves," Whitman confessed, smiling into the earnest 
 little face across the table. " But if one man would
 
 44 MY LADY VALENTINE 
 
 promise, very solemnly, to try to the best of his 
 ability " 
 
 " It wouldn't do any good. She wouldn't believe 
 you," the girl sighed. 
 
 " Wouldn't it melt her heart, ever so little, if I 
 went in and told her " 
 
 Nancy's hands tightened on the arched door- 
 way. 
 
 " No," she said fearfully, looking over her shoul- 
 der in the direction of the house. " No, you 
 mustn't ask her anything. If she knw you were 
 here, you would have to go at once." 
 
 A smile quivered on Whitman's lips. 
 
 " Then I don't have to go at once? " 
 
 Nancy sank provisionally onto the round seat that 
 circled the latticed house, and Caleb, after a mo- 
 ment, seated himself also, on the far end. 
 
 " You may stay just long enough to tell me 
 what you were doing here when I came." 
 
 " I was writing a novel." 
 
 " A novel " 
 
 " Yes, and I've been so bold as to put your house 
 and your garden in my story." 
 
 " Oh, if Aunt Roxana knew that! " 
 
 "Would it please her? It's such a beautiful 
 old place, I really couldn't help it." 
 
 " Please her ! She dislikes novels almost as much 
 as men. If she knew there was a man in her 
 garden, writing a novel " 
 
 Nancy did not try to complete her sentence, leav- 
 ing it to Whitman to imagine the state of Aunt
 
 MY LADY VALENTINE 45 
 
 Roxana's mind under the double provocation. She 
 lightly touched one of the pages 
 
 " Perhaps, though, this is not a love story? It's 
 love stories she dislikes most." 
 
 " This isn't much of a love story," the young man 
 explained eagerly, hoping to gain favor. He moved 
 a very little nearer, and took up the pages as if to 
 outline the plot. " You see, this novel endeavors to 
 deal truthfully with life," he began. 
 
 " Yes; that's what Aunt Roxana thinks they fail 
 to do." 
 
 " My hero is a sane hero " 
 
 " A sane hero ? " questioned Nancy. She had 
 propped her elbow on the table and supported her 
 chin in the cup of one pink palm. Her eyes, soft 
 and trusting, were fixed intently on the young man's 
 face. 
 
 " Yes," continued Whitman, his mind wandering 
 from his hero to the way Nancy's black, silky hair 
 grew about her white brow and waved over her little 
 ears. " A sensible chap," he went on automatically, 
 " who doesn't fall in love " 
 
 " Never in his whole life? " 
 
 Whitman stopped short. " I didn't mean to have 
 him do so," he said, doubtfully. " You see he picked 
 out his intended wife with his head " 
 
 " Like Aunt Roxana does her dresses," mused 
 Nancy. 
 
 " He didn't think she was the most beautiful 
 woman in the world " 
 
 "Was she?"
 
 46 MY LADY VALENTINE 
 
 " No," the author said gayly, with joyful recogni- 
 tion of the fact. 
 
 "What was she like?" 
 
 " She was a great raw boned creature, that could 
 walk ten miles at a stretch and leap higher than any 
 girl in the gymnasium." 
 
 "That wasn't quite genteel, was it?" Nancy 
 smiled, as if they must be of one accord on that point. 
 
 " It wasn't very attractive someway." 
 
 " Were her clothes pretty? " 
 
 The gray eyes dropped to the skirt of her muslin 
 dress, the white hands played with a tiny brooch of 
 pearls at her throat. 
 
 " She wore mostly a short skirt and a jumper, 
 and large loose shoes." 
 
 " Didn't they make her feet look very large ? " 
 
 Whitman caught a glimpse of a small foot in a 
 black slipper with a peep of white stocking. 
 
 " Yes," he smiled, " they looked exactly like flat 
 boats." 
 
 " Was her hair pretty ? " A delicate hand 
 smoothed back one soft lock at the nape of her 
 neck. 
 
 " No, she wore it short to save time for more 
 important things." 
 
 "What kind of things?" 
 
 " I hadn't gotten that far." 
 
 Whitman paused, in doubt. But the eager ques- 
 tions continued. 
 
 " What did your lovers call each other ? " 
 
 " What do you mean ? "
 
 MY LADY VALENTINE 47 
 
 " What names ? Aunt Roxana always crossed 
 out the love names, with a black pencil, in my sto- 
 ries." 
 
 " He called her ' Mary.' She called him ' John,' " 
 he admitted. Then he asked eagerly, " Do you like 
 love names? " 
 
 Nancy's answer was indirect. " In the Song of 
 Songs," she murmured dreamily, " the lovers called 
 each other ' beloved ' and ' he whom my soul loves ; ' 
 and they said but maybe you aren't interested? 
 I don't think King Solomon was a very sensible 
 lover " 
 
 " Yes, yes, I am interested. What did they call 
 each other? " 
 
 The girl's lashes veiled her bright eyes, the roses 
 sprang to her cheeks as she repeated the ardent 
 words softly, for the ear so near her own. " Solo- 
 mon said to the Shulamite, ' As a lily among thorns, 
 so is my love among the daughters " 
 
 " Yes," murmured Whitman, his eyes on Nancy's 
 face, and his heart, he did not pretend to explain 
 why, giving an extra beat. 
 
 " And the Shulamite said of Solomon " the girl 
 raised her lashes and spoke clearly, looking straight 
 ahead, " ' As the apple tree among the trees of the 
 wood, so is my beloved among the sons of men.' 
 And I've always thought," said Nancy, " that un- 
 less a man felt that way about a girl, and a girl felt 
 that way about a man, it wasn't love." 
 
 " Nor is it," cried Whitman, with conviction. He 
 drew a long breath; then he deliberately took up
 
 48 MY LADY VALENTINE 
 
 his papers and tore them straight through the 
 middle. 
 
 " Oh," said Nancy, " why did you do that? " 
 
 " To mark the end," said he, " once for all, of that 
 sane love story." 
 
 " Will you write another? " 
 
 " Yes, if I may come here again to-morrow." 
 
 She hesitated as she rose. " I don't know " 
 
 " Just once for luck," he urged. 
 
 " Well just once more." 
 
 " And you will come, too ? " 
 
 "HI do," said Nancy, moving towards the door, 
 and looking back irresolutely over one shoulder, " it 
 will be just to tell you to go." 
 
 " Of course," Whitman agreed. And then, as 
 she disappeared, he picked up the scattered papers 
 and stuffed them in his pocket. 
 
 ' There's no doubt about it," he whispered softly 
 as he left the garden ; " I've found you, my little 
 Lady Valentine."
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE Luffkins' twelve o'clock dinner left Whit- 
 man free to seek the bower the next day when 
 the sun was still high in the zenith. He told him- 
 self that he went early in order to have a long after- 
 noon to devote to the revised version of his book 
 and there were moments when he believed himself. 
 
 When he reached the Lowell place, he slackened 
 his step and loitered by, letting his eyes roam boldly 
 over such portions of the grounds as he could 
 glimpse between the tall, untrimmed boughs of the 
 hedge. He had approached by the rear so that he 
 looked onto the comfortable kitchen porch, the vege- 
 table garden, Nancy's flowers and the clothes line 
 where white fluttering garments proclaimed the fam- 
 ily's return. At the turnstile he paused to peer 
 down the arbor's leafy tunnel. Surely, a woman 
 moved toward the gate. 
 
 " It's Nancy," he said, and waited. 
 
 In another moment he saw his mistake. Though 
 erect as a poplar, the woman was no longer young. 
 Her carriage, straight and unyielding, was that of a 
 past generation. 
 
 " It's Aunt Roxana," Whitman decided, and he 
 strolled on his way in some trepidation, just as the 
 old lady turned the stile and walked down the road 
 
 49
 
 5 o MY LADY VALENTINE 
 
 in the direction of the village, holding her gray skirts 
 just high enough to reveal congress gaiters and 
 white stockings. 
 
 " Well," the young man sighed, " if the angel with 
 flaming sword leaves Eden unguarded, I suppose no 
 one can blame Adam for stealing back " ; and a mo- 
 ment after, he found the break in the thicket he had 
 used the day before as an exit, and made his way to 
 the bower. 
 
 He had half hoped to find Nancy awaiting him; 
 but the little retreat was empty. The sun played 
 through the woodbine, making patterns on the rustic 
 table and on the round seat where he and Nancy had 
 sat such a short time since. In its rays gleamed a 
 bit of folded paper, on the center of the table. 
 
 " A note," said the young man ; and his heart sank 
 with foreboding even as his eager fingers reached 
 for it. 
 
 " For the Man in the Garden," the note was ad- 
 dressed. Unfolding it, he read : 
 
 "If you are in the garden, will you please go 
 away at once, or at least before three o'clock ; for 
 at that hour I am coming out with my cross stitch 
 and of course I can't stay if you are there. 
 
 " NANCY ROSE." 
 
 Whitman's laugh startled a curious sparrow. 
 " Nancy Rose," he said, " if you'd ever had any 
 practice, I should say you were past mistress of the 
 art of flirting. Did you really think any son of
 
 MY LADY VALENTINE 51 
 
 Adam would obey an order like that?" and he 
 folded the little note into his pocket book. As he 
 did so, he came upon the three letters, with the mas- 
 culine signature, which had so whetted his curiosity 
 less than a month past. Spreading them out before 
 him, he now compared the penmanship with that of 
 the note he had just found. Again he laughed and 
 shook his head. For all the writer's determined 
 boldness on the pen's downward stroke, the note and 
 the letters were unmistakably by the same hand. 
 
 And then, while the minutes crawled toward the 
 promised hour of three, he read all the letters again, 
 trying to deduce the motive that had led the girl to 
 borrow the captain's honest name. 
 
 If Nancy had literary ambitions, he reasoned, she 
 would have deluged the magazine with further con- 
 tributions, once her little verses had been accepted. 
 If she had masqueraded for mere love of adventure, 
 she would have gained more by dropping the mask 
 once her letter had been answered. If she had only 
 wanted money for some girlish whim, why was such 
 secrecy necessary? 
 
 He could not guess her motive, but whatever it 
 was, he determined to respect the innocent incognito 
 until Nancy herself should care to throw it aside. 
 In the meantime he would become her friend, he 
 decided; not a shadowy well wisher in the editorial 
 office of Better Every Week, pretending to age, but 
 a young friend such as he was sure she needed ; such 
 as with care he might hope to become even in the 
 fortnight left him.
 
 52 MY LADY VALENTINE 
 
 He turned to his book. He had worked on the 
 new chapters all the evening before in the expecta- 
 tion that he would have something to show two 
 bright eyes when they peeped through the trees. 
 
 At last she came. Her reproachful, " Oh ! you 
 stayed!" brought him back from the world of his 
 dreams. She was standing in the door irresolutely, 
 a little beaded reticule on her arm from which some 
 needlework protruded. 
 
 " Is it three? " he said, with a poor feint of sur- 
 prise. 
 
 " Yes, it is three." 
 
 He pretended preoccupation. " I'm in a very im- 
 portant place in the novel; would you mind very 
 much if I finished a paragraph, just a word or two 
 describing the new heroine, before I go away? " 
 
 " N-o-o, not if you'll make haste." 
 
 She stood patiently by the door, her black head 
 against the crimson vines. Whitman looked up. 
 
 " Oh, if you won't sit down and sew," he said, 
 " just exactly as if I were not here, I shall feel too 
 guilty to linger. And I have just a word more 
 then I'll be off for good and all." 
 
 She dropped onto the seat. After a moment's 
 hesitation he saw her fingers slide into the depths of 
 the reticule and bring forth a tiny square of linen. 
 A moment later bright cotton threads lay on her lap, 
 her needle pricked the pattern and drew the gay 
 strands through the cloth. 
 
 The man at the table wrote on, more silent than 
 the afternoon.
 
 MY LADY VALENTINE 53 
 
 " Is she pretty? " asked Nancy. 
 
 The writer pulled himself together, apparently 
 from deep abstraction. 
 
 "Who?" 
 
 " Your heroine." 
 
 " I don't know. Ideas of beauty differ so rad- 
 ically." 
 
 He bent again over the table. Nancy selected a 
 long crimson thread. 
 
 " Does she live in my house? " 
 
 "Yes; you don't mind?" 
 
 " No, not if she's not that bold jumping woman 
 you described yesterday." 
 
 " She's not." 
 
 " I hate to disturb you ; but naturally I feel in- 
 terested in a girl that lives here." 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 " Would you mind telling me what color her eyes 
 are and what kind of hair she has, and if she's 
 tall?" 
 
 Whitman looked up and met the wistful eagerness 
 of Nancy's eyes. 
 
 " They're gray," he said, making a sudden deci- 
 sion, " hazel gray. Her hair is black, black as the 
 black bird's wing; and around her white neck and 
 around her little white ears it looks blacker still." 
 
 " I suppose she's very tall," ventured Nancy, 
 threading her needle with a long orange thread. 
 
 " Not very. She's small and piquant, quick in 
 her motions like a bird. If she should peep into this 
 summer house this minute you might easily take her
 
 54 MY LADY VALENTINE 
 
 for a wood pecker, with her bright eyes, black head 
 and top knot of scarlet ribbon." 
 
 "Does she wear a red ribbon?" Nancy's hand 
 strayed to her own dark hair. " These are berries, 
 rowan berries from the tree across the road." 
 
 The author courageously faced his mistake. 
 " This girl wears a red ribbon," he said. 
 
 He did not pretend to resume his writing; but, his 
 arms locked on the table before him, he leaned for- 
 ward watching Nancy sew. 
 
 " Would you mind," she said, after another pause, 
 " telling me a little about the hero ? I feel interested 
 on account of the girl living in my house, you see." 
 
 " My hero is a little shadowy," he confessed ; " I 
 can't seem to see him myself. I may sketch from 
 life though I don't allow myself to do that very 
 often and give the heroine the best man I know." 
 
 " Who's that ? " she asked, looking up from her 
 work. 
 
 " My chum, Jim Radding," he said, with a reluc- 
 tance he could not quite fathom for making Radding 
 the hero. 
 
 " What color hair has he? " 
 
 Whitman laughed. " Rad isn't much on hair. 
 It's, let me see, brown, a little thin, but he brushes 
 it over the bald spots." 
 
 " Not bright like yours, then? " 
 
 Again the young man laughed. " No, fortu- 
 nately for his own peace, he's not cursed with a head 
 like a bon-fire." 
 
 " I think red hair is cheerful," Nancy said judi-
 
 55 
 
 cially. " I always notice that when any one with 
 red hair appears, interesting things begin to 
 happen." 
 
 " Do you ? " he glowed. " Well, interesting 
 things begin to happen when Rad comes, too, for 
 he's the best fellow in the world. You might not 
 think so to look at him; his eyes are sad and his 
 mouth droops at the corners a little when he's quiet, 
 but it turns up into the funniest, driest kind of smile 
 when he begins to talk. You'd like Rad, there's no 
 doubt about it." 
 
 " Umph, umph," she said dubiously. " Umph, 
 umph, but I never did like a drooping mouth ; they're 
 like flags on a still day." 
 
 The young man's own lips curved into a smile at 
 this announcement, so gay, so joyous that she might 
 well have likened it to a flag in the wind. 
 
 " I'll tell you," he bargained, " as long as I've put 
 your house into my story, I don't know why you 
 shouldn't order a hero to suit yourself. What kind 
 of man do you prefer? " 
 
 She considered his offer gravely, her eyes drifting 
 from her work to the face across the table. Then 
 she asked : 
 
 " Could you make a hero who would take the 
 lonesomeness out of the world?" 
 
 " Yes, I can make that kind of man," was the 
 eager promise. 
 
 " Out of everything? " Her voice was wistful, 
 as if warning him he might be promising more than 
 he would find it easy to perform.
 
 56 MY LADY VALENTINE 
 
 " Out of everything for the girl who loved 
 him." 
 
 "Out of moonlight nights in this great empty 
 garden ? " 
 
 " Yes, even out of moonlight nights in Venice." 
 
 " Out of Sunday afternoons, when all the world 
 is asleep and the lake shines blue for miles and 
 miles?" 
 
 " Yes, and out of long city streets, when the rain 
 comes down, and the lights of the boulevard shine 
 through the mist." 
 
 " Even out of frosty nights, when one looks out 
 of the long window up, up into the sky full of stars, 
 and then back into a great long room, with nobody 
 there but just Aunt, asleep by the Franklin stove? " 
 
 " Yes," said Whitman boldly, " for the man would 
 be there beside her, looking up into the stars, too, 
 and they'd stand close to the window so that the cur- 
 tain would fall behind them, and his arm would go 
 round her waist, and her head would find its place 
 on his shoulder, and they'd discover that the whole 
 wide universe isn't lonely to lovers " 
 
 " Lovers ! " exclaimed Nancy. " Is your hero go- 
 ing to fall in love after all? " 
 
 " Yes," the author affirmed positively. " Yes, he 
 is. I'm not sure but he is going to fall madly in 
 love." 
 
 "What's it like to be madly in love?" asked 
 Nancy with frank curiosity. " How does it differ 
 from friendship? " 
 
 "There's as much difference between love and
 
 MY LADY VALENTINE 57 
 
 friendship," began the young man, without hesita- 
 tion, " as there is between the waters of a fountain, 
 sparkling, leaping, breaking in the air, and rain 
 water standing in a barrel." 
 
 " That's a very vivid contrast," Nancy decided 
 after a moment's consideration. " Could you tell 
 me anything more about love ? You see, Aunt Rox- 
 ana holding the views she does, it is the only chance 
 I'm ever likely to have to learn. ... Is there any 
 more to it? " 
 
 " Yes," Whitman asserted, losing himself in 
 thought for a few minutes before speaking, as if to 
 gather his material. " There's a good deal more to 
 it. It's funny, love is; it upsets all the accepted 
 standards." 
 
 "How?" 
 
 " Well, it upsets all one ever learned about space, 
 at least as I see it." 
 
 " For instance? " 
 
 " For instance, a mile isn't always the same 
 length." 
 
 "Really?" 
 
 " No. When it stands between a man and the 
 girl he loves, it's much longer than when it lies 
 between the man and even his very best friend." 
 
 " That's very curious," mused Nancy. 
 
 " Love does funnier things than that to Time," 
 moralized the instructor, in a kind of growing sur- 
 prise at the discoveries he was making. 
 
 " What does Love do to Time? " 
 
 " The very same thing it does to space it over-
 
 58 MY LADY VALENTINE 
 
 throws all the old gauges. Sixty minutes spent with 
 even the best of friends is about ten times longer 
 than sixty minutes spent with the girl one's been 
 longing to see since day break." 
 
 " How do you know all these things ? " asked 
 Nancy suddenly. 
 
 " How do I know them ? Why, why " the 
 young man flushed and hesitated. " Why, I don't 
 know how I know them. I just dug them out of my 
 inner consciousness somewhere, I suppose. I didn't 
 know I had such knowledge myself an hour ago." 
 
 " An hour ago ! " cried Nancy ; and she rose to her 
 feet in alarm. " Aunt Roxana was to be back from 
 sewing circle at four. She will be looking for me. 
 It must be four now." She peeped up at the sky, 
 through the trees that screened them from the house. 
 
 Whitman looked at his watch. "By Jove!" he 
 cried. "It's five!" 
 
 " Five ! " gasped Nancy, gathering up her needle- 
 work. " Five ! are you sure, Mr. " 
 
 " Caleb Whitman," he supplied. 
 
 " Five ! " she said again ; and then she laughed in 
 surprise. "Well, then, Mr. Caleb Whitman, it's 
 not only with lovers that time runs fast, is it? for 
 these hours have run fast just for us."
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 "T PRESUME," began Captain Luffkin in a con- 
 
 * fidential rumble, addressing Caleb Whitman, 
 " that a young feller like you knows all there's to 
 know about girls." 
 
 " It's the last claim I should make for myself," 
 his companion deprecated, smilingly. 
 
 The Captain ruminated, his hand on the tiller, his 
 eyes straying from the face of his passenger to the 
 mark on the shore toward which he automatically 
 steered. 
 
 " Knowed no end of 'em, I presume," he con- 
 tinued, after a pause. 
 
 " Considerably fewer than that," Whitman cor- 
 rected. 
 
 The Captain did not heed the denial. " What I'd 
 like to know," he began again, puckering his brow 
 in a troubled frown, " is what makes 'em cry." 
 
 "Cry! Do girls cry?" 
 
 " One I know does," the Captain confided, lower- 
 ing his voice and looking uneasily over the water as 
 if he would guard his confidence even from the gulls. 
 " Cries her pretty eyes out," he added for good 
 measure. 
 
 ' Tell me something about her." Whitman's 
 manner, in spite of himself, was indifferent; for his 
 
 59
 
 60 MY LADY VALENTINE 
 
 thoughts were far from the good captain that after- 
 noon, circling instead about a leafy nook and a dark 
 haired girl, with a tempting mouth and a piquant 
 chin, whom with stern self denial he had not sought 
 for three interminable days. 
 
 " Well," the Captain began again, " I don't want 
 to tell tales, but I suspect I'm responsible for one 
 girl's tears." 
 
 " Really ! " There was something so absurd in 
 the prospect of sentimental confidences from the 
 gruff old captain, that Whitman found it hard not 
 to smile. And yet one look into the weather-beaten 
 face and honest eyes opposite, sobered him. There 
 was a natural dignity in the ferryman's manner that 
 made mockery impossible. 
 
 " You see," the Captain continued, " I'm one of 
 this girl's few friends, having knowed her since she 
 was about so high." (At this point, the Captain 
 measured off about six inches.) " Well, some time 
 back, I seed she was low in her mind, and well she 
 might be, for this town ain't what it should be for 
 young folks these days. So one day when she come 
 to me and asked if she could borrow my name, re- 
 ceiving a few letters addressed to Luff kin " 
 
 There was no question of the passenger's interest 
 now. " Yes," he prompted eagerly. 
 
 " I was willing enough," the Captain went on, 
 " for I knowed how strict she was held down and 
 hedged in, and how curious the postmaster was. 
 So, sez I, ' Sure, get all the mail you want ' ; and I 
 give her a key to my box, No. 37."
 
 MY LADY VALENTINE 61 
 
 "Yes; and then?" 
 
 " Well, her spirits come up, and nobody could be 
 gladder than I was. I saw she had something to in- 
 terest her, and, sez I, * That's good.' But suddenly 
 the wind shifted and another spell of bad weather 
 set in." 
 
 " Since when ? " The young man's hand trem- 
 bled as he rolled one of the cigarettes the Captain 
 scorned. 
 
 " Well, I can't say just when the trouble set in, 
 because I ain't seen her until to-day." 
 
 "To-day?" 
 
 " She crossed with me last trip. I presume she's 
 waiting on the other side now to be fetched back. 
 She never lifted her pretty head from her arm all 
 the way over." 
 
 " Didn't she ! " The sole passenger's voice was 
 husky with emotion. He looked straight out to sea, 
 wondering if Nancy's fall in spirits could possibly 
 be coincident with the neglect his conscience had 
 dictated. 
 
 " Now," asked the Captain, loosening the main 
 sheet from the cleat, preparatory to going about, " to 
 come back to where we started, what makes her 
 cry?" 
 
 " What's your theory? " Whitman forced himself 
 to say, overcoming the temptation to tell the Captain 
 what he knew of Nancy. 
 
 " I suspect a man," said the Captain with energy. 
 
 "A man?" 
 
 " Yes ; you know we've an army post some ten
 
 62 MY LADY VALENTINE 
 
 miles from here, and I've been wondering if my lit- 
 tle girl hadn't gotten in with one of them yellow 
 jackets. I've had several things to make me think 
 that might be so, and that he ain't treating her right. 
 Why else would she want to get letters unbeknownst 
 to those that has her in charge ? " 
 
 " She might be attempting some business venture," 
 Whitman suggested, " writing for a magazine, sell- 
 ing drawings, something of that kind. Has she lit- 
 erary ambitions ? " 
 
 " Not that I ever heard of. It strikes me natur' 
 made her too pretty to be a lady writer." 
 
 " Does she lack for money? " 
 
 The Captain considered the possibilities suggested 
 by this question. " It don't seem likely," he said. 
 " Old Miss Lowell is reputed well to do." 
 
 He brought the ferry about and made a neat land- 
 ing at the port called Fair View, where a group of 
 country folk waited. A quick glance showed Whit- 
 man that Nancy was not among them; but just as 
 the Captain cast off for the return voyage, she ran 
 breathlessly down the pier. 
 
 " Well," said the Captain, sighting her at the same 
 moment that Whitman did. " Here's my girl. I 
 was afraid she wasn't coming." And he held the 
 bobbing cat boat to the pier with one hairy hand 
 while Nancy clambered aboard. 
 
 " I was delayed," she explained confusedly, seat- 
 ing herself between two substantial village women. 
 
 If she saw Caleb Whitman, she made no sign of 
 recognition, unless a shy flutter of her eyelids in
 
 MY LADY VALENTINE 63 
 
 his direction, and a cheek that grew a little rosier 
 could be called an acknowledgment of their former 
 meetings. 
 
 The man who had denied himself a sight of her 
 for three long days let his eyes rest hungrily on the 
 little figure squeezed between the village women. 
 The Captain was right. She had been crying. 
 Could it be, Whitman wondered, that his avoidance 
 accounted for the change. The thought was so dis- 
 turbing, so deliciously disturbing, that he refrained 
 with difficulty from forcibly removing the stout pro- 
 tectors on either side of Nancy and taking his place 
 beside her. 
 
 Suddenly, as if he read Whitman's thoughts, the 
 good old Captain spoke. " Nancy," he said, 
 " would you mind setting on this side ? The boat 
 don't ride right." 
 
 The girl looked at him demurely, as the cat boat 
 stole steadily across the bay in the light summer 
 wind. " Wouldn't you rather have somebody a lit- 
 tle heavier, Captain?" she teased; and her glance 
 suggested a fat woman with a basket. 
 
 " You're just the right weight," the Captain af- 
 firmed shamelessly; and he made room for her be- 
 tween Whitman and himself. " Miss Rose," he 
 said formally, when the change had been made, " let 
 me make you acquainted with Mr. Whitman. He's 
 summering with me. Mr. Whitman, let me make 
 you acquainted with Miss Rose. She lives down 
 the road about a mile from the village, in a house 
 you may have noticed, built before the war. A
 
 64 MY LADY VALENTINE 
 
 British ball took off part of the roof, didn't it, 
 Nancy?" 
 
 " Yes," the girl nodded listlessly. 
 
 " I've seen the house," Whitman managed to say. 
 "I don't wonder the British singled it out I've 
 done the same thing myself." 
 
 " Did you like it ? " Nancy asked. 
 
 Whitman's answer was prompt. " So much that 
 I haven't been able to forget it for the past three 
 days." 
 
 Nancy did not answer but leaned over the gun- 
 wale, letting one small hand drag in the water. 
 Whitman leaned towards her. " Nancy," he whis- 
 pered under his breath, "is something wrong? 
 What's the matter? Won't you tell me? Don't 
 you know I want to help you ? " 
 
 " Do you ? " The luminous eyes that had been 
 fixed on the dancing water searched his face. 
 
 " I do, indeed. You must know that." 
 
 "Then where have you been?" 
 
 The words so innocently uttered, accompanied by 
 a glance from soft gray eyes where tears still lurked, 
 gave Whitman a thrill of joy. " Why, Nancy," he 
 whispered ardently, "you yourself told me I was 
 not to come." 
 
 " I hadn't finished telling you so," said Nancy 
 tremulously. 
 
 " Hadn't you ? " The man's voice was very ten- 
 der. " I've only stayed away from a sense of duty. 
 I thought about you every hour of the day. I've 
 been trying to find some excuse to appear openly.
 
 MY LADY VALENTINE 65 
 
 Isn't there some way I can meet you with your aunt's 
 consent? " 
 
 She shook her head. " Not yet. Not unless I 
 can bring the Great Happiness to pass." 
 
 "The Great Happiness?" he questioned. 
 
 " Yes." She sighed. " It seems a long way off 
 to-day." 
 
 " Won't you tell me what you mean? " 
 
 " No. I can tell no one. It's a secret. But once 
 it comes, everything will change." She lifted her 
 eyes to the sky line, like a prophet who sees a vision. 
 
 " Is the Great Happiness so much to you, 
 Nancy?" Whitman murmured, struck by the so- 
 lemnity of her manner. 
 
 " It's everything," she said unsmilingly, turning 
 her earnest eyes to his. " It's what I live for. 
 When I think it will never come, my heart is like 
 a stone. When I think it will come and it must, 
 oh, it must then my heart is like thistledown." 
 
 " Nancy," Whitman said, " surely you will let 
 me help you to bring your joy to pass. Have you 
 any other friend to whom to turn ? " 
 
 " One other," was the unexpected answer. 
 
 "The Captain?" 
 
 " No, not the Captain." 
 
 " Tell me who it is." He did not know that the 
 emotion that welled in his breast was jealousy. 
 
 " I can't." 
 
 "Is it a man?" 
 
 " Yes, it's a man. The best man in the world, I 
 fancy."
 
 66 MY LADY VALENTINE 
 
 " Nancy, are you joking? " 
 
 " No, just telling the truth." 
 
 Captain Luffkin's supposition of a soldier at the 
 post, flashed across Whitman's mind. " Does he 
 live near here? " he demanded. 
 
 " Would you call New York near? " 
 
 " He lives in New York, then? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 "A man who lives in New York, who would do 
 more for you than I would." 
 
 " I didn't say that." 
 
 " It amounted to the same thing." Whitman 
 stared gloomily across the boat, scowling uncon- 
 sciously at the row of passengers opposite. " What's 
 his name ? " 
 
 " I can't tell you." 
 
 " You mean you don't choose to tell me." 
 
 " I mean what I say." Nancy was dimpling. 
 " I can't tell you." 
 
 " Well," he began after a moment's stormy 
 thought, " it's not my affair, but I have your welfare 
 at heart, Miss Rose " (Nancy started in surprise at 
 the formality of his address), " and so I can't help 
 warning you against confiding in strange men. I 
 hope you understand the spirit in which I say 
 this." 
 
 " What spirit is it ? " Nancy asked innocently. 
 
 Caleb Whitman hesitated, checked for a moment 
 in his moralizing. Then he said with conviction, 
 " It's the spirit of a big brother." 
 
 " Oh," said Nancy.
 
 MY LADY VALENTINE 67 
 
 " You're an inexperienced girl," Whitman went 
 on. 
 
 " Yes, I am." 
 
 " And so I'm going to be very bold indeed, and 
 ask you a few questions, which of course you need 
 not answer." 
 
 "Of course not," Nancy disconcertingly agreed. 
 
 " And yet I hope you will answer." 
 
 " What's the first question? " 
 
 " Where did you meet this man from New 
 York?" 
 
 " I've never really met him." 
 
 " Never really met him ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Then how can you say that you know him? " 
 
 " I know him from his letters and his presents." 
 
 " Nancy ! " Caleb Whitman cried aghast ; and 
 then he added with conviction, " He's a scoundrel. 
 New York is full of them. Did he see you some- 
 where and force a correspondence upon you ? " 
 
 " No," Nancy weighed the question. " I sup- 
 pose you would say I forced it on him," she said. 
 
 " For heaven's sake, Nancy, tell me what you 
 mean. Speak low, one of those women opposite 
 is trying to hear what we are saying." 
 
 " I wrote to him first. He answered very 
 kindly. I sent him a present. He sent me two." 
 
 " Nancy Rose, are you teasing me? " 
 
 " I'm answering your question." 
 
 Whitman was silent a moment, racked by a 
 thousand fears. He forced his lips to ask one
 
 68 MY LADY VALENTINE 
 
 more question. "What kind of a man is your 
 friend?" 
 
 " He's very old," said Nancy, turning her candid 
 eyes to his ; " that's the only thing I'd like to change 
 about him." 
 
 " Old ! " The young man by her side gave a 
 start of joyful recognition. He had forgotten the 
 past shadowy acquaintance with Nancy in the in- 
 toxication of actual meeting. "Old, Nancy?" his 
 voice shook with eagerness. 
 
 " Yes, old and fat, with chin whiskers, a white 
 waistcoat and a thick watch chain. Old and kind. 
 Don't you think it's safe to trust him ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Whitman softly. " Yes, trust him, 
 Nancy. But promise me one thing." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " Don't make any other friend by correspond- 
 ence." 
 
 " I won't," she- promised sweetly. And the cat 
 boat having crept to the pier at Deep Harbor, she 
 followed in the wake of the other passengers, clam- 
 bered out the boat and disappeared down the street. 
 
 " Well," said the Captain as he and Whitman 
 were left alone, "wasn't I right? Hadn't she 
 been crying? " 
 
 " Yes," the young man admitted. 
 
 " What I want to know," the Captain continued, 
 " is who's making her cry." 
 
 " You think it's a person ? " 
 
 "I'm sure it is. Moreover, I think I've spotted 
 him."
 
 MY LADY VALENTINE 69 
 
 For a moment Whitman feared the Captain's 
 glance, bent upon himself, was accusing. Then the 
 ferryman asked : " See any one loitering on the 
 bank across the water ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Well, I did. And he was one of them yellow 
 jackets. As soon as he sighted the ferry he disap- 
 peared into the trees. Notice the little girl was late 
 in getting aboard? " 
 
 Unwillingly Whitman was forced to admit that 
 Nancy had been late, and flustered in her manner. 
 
 " Well," the Captain finished grimly, " I'll bet you 
 dollars to doughnuts that the yellow jacket has 
 coaxed her over there to meet him, and what's more 
 that it's not the first time he's done it."
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 "\T7ELL," said the Captain with heavy jocu- 
 ^ * larity, extending half a dozen letters to his 
 boarder, " when you get done reading that batch of 
 mail, you might give it to me for ballast." 
 
 From his seat on the Captain's lawn Whitman 
 smiled, and taking out his knife he slit open the en- 
 velopes one by one. The editor-in-chief assured 
 him everything was going well at the office. Rad- 
 ding chid him for his silence and pretended to find 
 it ominous. A real estate broker wanted to sell 
 him some land. A man who owed him money asked 
 for more. An acquaintance announced his mar- 
 riage. 
 
 To Whitman mail had never been very interest- 
 ing. He had wondered sometimes at other men's 
 eagerness for letters. With a yawn he opened the 
 last envelope. Then he started, and by the northern 
 twilight he read twice over the words that were 
 written in a familiar hand on cross-barred stationery. 
 
 " Deep Harbor, N. Y. 
 " Dear Editor of Better Every Week: 
 
 " In one of your kind and beautiful letters, you 
 told me that if you ever could be of service, I 
 was to call upon you. I am sure that you meant 
 70
 
 MY LADY VALENTINE 71 
 
 what you said, and so I am turning to you for help 
 once more. Do you think there is any one in 
 New York who would be willing to give money 
 for the following articles (they are my very 
 own. I have the right to sell them) : 
 
 " One bridal veil of real lace, one hundred 
 years old. 
 
 " One cameo pin; head of cherub. 
 
 "One bracelet; chased gold. (Clasp broken.) 
 
 " One man's watch ; hunting case ; gold face ; 
 won't go any more, but might be repaired. 
 
 " One pink coral necklace. (I hate to sell this ; 
 it's perfectly beautiful.) 
 
 "If you think there is a chance of getting 
 money for any of these things, I will send them 
 to you at once. I must have fifty dollars, and I 
 must have it soon. 
 
 " Very truly yours, 
 
 " HENRY B. LUFFKIN." 
 
 As usual, the writer had not dated the letter, but 
 Whitman made out from the postmark that it had 
 reached New York some days ago. On the margin 
 his stenographer, Smith, had written : " This let- 
 ter has been to every one on the staff but you. No 
 one seems to know anything about the writer." 
 Whitman winced. He did not fancy Nancy's let- 
 ters making the rounds of the office. A moment 
 after, he left the Captain beneath the trees, engaged 
 in mending a net, and began to tramp up and down 
 the bluff, looking out over the waters as if the even-
 
 72 MY LADY VALENTINE 
 
 ing breeze that rippled their wide expanse might 
 waft an idea to him for helping Nancy. 
 
 At last he went into the cottage, and seating him- 
 self beneath the oil lamp, he drew out paper and ink 
 and wrote his friend. 
 
 " Deep Harbor, N. Y., 
 
 "Aug. 21, 191 
 " Dear Rad : 
 
 " I have become interested in helping Henry 
 Luffkin dispose of some heirlooms. I can't buy 
 them myself very well, and I want you to pretend 
 to be a dealer in antiques and buy them for me. 
 Write this letter for me, Rad, and write it at 
 once, enclosing fifty dollars in currency. Here's 
 my check for the amount. ' Henry Luffkin. 
 Dear Sir: The Editor of Better Every Week 
 has told me that you want to dispose of some old 
 lace and pieces of jewelry, of which he has given 
 me a description. I am a collector of antiques 
 and I am willing to pay fifty dollars for the lace, 
 the bracelet, the watch and the cameo. I am not 
 interested in coral. You may send your goods to 
 the following address.' Then sign your own 
 name, Rad, and give your address. 
 
 " I find this is an ideal spot for my vacation. 
 You will be glad to know that I am making good 
 progress with my novel, although it has taken a 
 more romantic turn that I had planned. 
 
 " Yours, 
 " CALEY."
 
 MY LADY VALENTINE 73 
 
 The letter finished, Whitman turned to the Cap- 
 tain, who was seated on the other side of the table, 
 lost in his weekly paper. 
 
 " Captain," he began, " I have been thinking about 
 what you told me concerning Miss Rose and her 
 mail." 
 
 The Captain looked furtively toward the kitchen, 
 where Sister Abby washed the evening dishes, and 
 Whitman lowered his voice. 
 
 "If you get the mail and give her the letters/' he 
 continued, " you can surely tell the nature of her 
 correspondence." 
 
 The Captain shook his head. " No, I can't," he 
 said. " I give her an extra key to the box. She 
 gets there first and takes what's coming to her and 
 leaves me the rest." 
 
 " Have you ever seen anything that made you sus- 
 picious?" Whitman inquired. 
 
 " Well," said the Captain, " a check come once I 
 didn't like the looks of; but she said it was prize 
 money she'd got in some kind of a contest, so I en- 
 dorsed it and said nothing." 
 
 " She's an interesting girl. I wish I might get 
 better acquainted with her." Whitman hoped his 
 manner was casual. 
 
 " I wish you might," said the Captain. " I've 
 kind of had it in mind from the first. I done what 
 I could for you the other day in the boat. Don't 
 know as you seen through it or not." 
 
 Whitman repressed a smile. " How can I see 
 more of her? " he asked.
 
 74 MY LADY VALENTINE 
 
 " That's hard to say. She don't cross with me 
 more than once or twice a month. She goes to 
 church Sundays, 'but her aunt's always with her. 
 Sometimes she sets in the graveyard with her sew- 
 ing." 
 
 "The graveyard?" 
 
 " Yes. Haven't you passed it out on the wagon 
 road near her place ? It's pleasant there ; quiet and 
 shady, and makes a change from the garden. You 
 ought to go out and see the monuments. Lots of 
 soldiers buried there, that fell in 1812. Summer 
 folks are always interested in the old stones, though 
 the new ones are a sight handsomer." 
 
 " A graveyard seems a strange place for a young 
 girl to sit," Whitman mused. 
 
 " Well, it's one of the few places her aunt ap- 
 proves," the Captain chuckled, one eye on the paper ; 
 " and when you come to think of it, a pretty girl is 
 mighty safe in the company of dead generals and 
 admirals who, even if they come to life, would be 
 kin to her." 
 
 Whitman smiled absently at the Captain's jocu- 
 larity. " I'll go to town and post this letter," he 
 said. " I want to get it off to-night." 
 
 On his walk to the village, Caleb Whitman turned 
 Nancy's latest letter over and over in his mind, try- 
 ing to reconcile his conception of her character with 
 her eager, insatiable desire for money. Sometimes 
 he told himself that the desire sprang merely from 
 the wish to gratify some girlish fancy. Again he 
 was half convinced that she was planning to run
 
 MY LADY VALENTINE 75 
 
 away, to escape forever the tedium of life in the 
 garden ; but her own words echoed in his heart, over- 
 turning his fears. " I don't want to escape," she 
 had said. " I want to open the gate and let the 
 world in." Was she in debt? The thought was 
 absurd. With her comfortable home, her guarded, 
 restricted circuit, she had small temptation and lit- 
 tle opportunity to incur obligations. 
 
 " I give it up," said Whitman to himself, at last. 
 " All I know is that I want for you what you want 
 for yourself, Nancy Rose, and that I'll give it to 
 you, if it lies in my power to do so." 
 
 "Want a lift?" 
 
 Whitman started, and looked up through the dusk 
 to see the covered van of the army post which he 
 had learned to call a " daugherty." A young man 
 in olive drab uniform on the front seat had drawn 
 four mules to a standstill and was good-naturedly 
 offering the pedestrian a seat. 
 
 " Thank you," Whitman answered, " but I'm only 
 going to the village to post this letter." 
 
 " Want me to take it to Jackson ? " the soldier 
 asked obligingly. " It will make better time." 
 
 Whitman handed the letter over the high wheel. 
 " That's awfully good of you." Then he asked, 
 before the soldier had started the mules on their 
 way: " Haven't we met before, somewhere? " 
 
 The man in uniform, who was a dashing, well- 
 built fellow, looked uneasily at Caleb Whitman's 
 upturned face, and muttered, " I think not." Then,
 
 76 MY LADY VALENTINE 
 
 without another word, he put the letter in his pocket, 
 cut the mules lightly with his whip and drove on his 
 way. 
 
 Lost in thought, Caleb Whitman looked after the 
 van for a long moment. " I have seen you," he said 
 to himself, " though I can't tell where, for the life 
 of me." And he recalled again the ruddy face, the 
 gay, dark eyes, the splendid shoulders of the man in 
 the daugherty. " I don't know so many army peo- 
 ple that I ought to confuse them," he said to him- 
 self, " and that particular chap is too good looking 
 to be easily forgotten. He didn't fancy my claim- 
 ing acquaintance, however. High spirited chap," 
 Whitman concluded. " I don't wonder the ' yellow 
 jackets/ as the Captain calls them, play havoc with 
 the girls, if they're all as good looking as he." 
 
 His excuse for the trip to the village gone, he re- 
 traced his way back to the cottage, trying idly to 
 recall the identity of the man who drove the daugh- 
 erty. " I have it," he said aloud, just as he reached 
 the cottage door. " You're Sergeant Wilson, the 
 chap I ate supper with the night I got to Jackson."
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 I sell you a ticket for the box sociable, 
 Mr. Whitman?" Sister Abby's lack lustre 
 eyes shone with something akin to excitement as she 
 reached into the pocket of her apron and extended 
 a bit of cardboard. 
 
 "A box sociable, Miss Abby? I don't believe I 
 know what you mean; but you can sell me a ticket 
 to anything you'll recommend." 
 
 The afternoon was fair, the sun shone on the 
 sparkling expanse of the lake below the bluffs, the 
 summer wind was fresh and sweet, the morning's 
 work on the novel had gone well : Caleb Whitman, 
 on his way out of the Captain's gate, listened to Miss 
 Abby's plea with good-humored tolerance. 
 
 " The money's for a new carpet for the minister's 
 study," Abby explained further. " The tickets are 
 ten cents each. If you draw a good box, you'll not 
 think they're dear." 
 
 Whitman produced a dime with cheerful alacrity. 
 " But, Miss Abby," he asked, " I don't know yet 
 what I'm in for. Why do I draw a box and what 
 do I do with it when I get it ? " 
 
 Sister Abby stared at him. " Don't you know 
 what a box sociable is, and you living in New York 
 City?" 
 
 " No," the young man confessed with becoming 
 77
 
 7 8 MY LADY VALENTINE 
 
 humility, "they have almost everything in New 
 York, to be sure, but I don't believe I ever went to 
 a box sociable." 
 
 "Well, they're grand," Sister Abby sighed in 
 pleasant retrospection. "We give one every year 
 on somebody's lawn. There's long tables under the 
 trees, and lanterns strung everywhere. I can't tell 
 you how pretty it looks. Then every girl and 
 woman in the village brings a box with supper put 
 up for two." 
 
 " I see." 
 
 " Sam Tupman gets the boxes all together and 
 auctions them off. Some boxes fetches as much as 
 a dollar." 
 
 "Is it possible?" 
 
 " Yes, the boys gets excited and bids kind of 
 reckless. When everybody has got a box, they open 
 them up and find the cards of the ladies who have 
 put up the lunches. Then each man finds his part- 
 ner, and her and him eats supper together." 
 
 " Well, that's very interesting. I should think, 
 however, the custom of bidding in the dark, as one 
 might say, would bring all sorts of queer people to- 
 gether." 
 
 " Well, you might say it does," admitted Sister 
 Abby ; " but when a body is eating, he don't care 
 much who his company happens to be. Then there's 
 ways of getting around it, too. Nearly every girl 
 ties up her box in some special way and gives the 
 secret to somebody particular." 
 
 " Ah, I see, that makes a difference."
 
 MY LADY VALENTINE 79 
 
 " The girls ties their boxes with ribbons, and we 
 old folks mostly ties ours with twine. One year I 
 got kind of tired of string, and I tied up my box 
 with blue ribbon. Well, young Sammy Brown bid 
 for it and run the price up to seventy-five cents. 
 When he opened the box and found my name, he 
 looked real disappointed ; but he got over it when he 
 tasted my crullers. You think you'd like to come, 
 don't you ? " 
 
 " I wouldn't miss it for a good deal." Whit- 
 man's hand stole to the latch of the gate. The day 
 was fair and time was fleeting. 
 
 " Going anywhere particular ? " 
 
 " Well," Whitman hesitated, " I had thought of 
 going out to the old burying ground to see the 
 head stones. The Captain said some of them were 
 quite historic." 
 
 " Yes, summer folks seem to care for them." 
 Sister Abby's manner had changed from expectancy 
 to mild disappointment. 
 
 " Can I do anything for you, Miss Abby? " 
 
 " No, nothing particular. I kind of hoped that 
 you'd stop at the post office and see if the lanterns 
 had come." 
 
 " Surely, I will." 
 
 "If they have, you might just drop in at the min- 
 ister's the sociable is to be there and offer to 
 help him string them up. He's kind of sawed off, 
 the minister is, and he can't reach anything but the 
 low boughs on the trees." 
 
 " Surely, I'll offer to string them up for him,"
 
 80 MY LADY VALENTINE 
 
 Whitman promised. Then in order to keep the 
 afternoon free for possible adventure, he added: 
 " Late in the afternoon will do, I presume? " 
 
 " Sure, if you've your mind set on seeing the 
 monuments." 
 
 " I should like to see them," Whitman stoutly 
 averred. " You see my vacation is drawing to an 
 end, and every moment of it seems precious." He 
 smiled back at the drab figure of Sister Abby. " I 
 won't forget the lanterns," he promised, and he 
 started down the road, his mind drifting from Sister 
 Abby and her affairs to the possibility of meeting 
 Nancy on the road. 
 
 If Radding had followed instructions, the letter 
 for Nancy, alias Henry Luffkin (the pseudonym al- 
 ways made Whitman smile) must lie in the post of- 
 fice box by this time. He was determined not to 
 lose the pleasure of seeing Nancy's joy. 
 
 He did not know why he found all that concerned 
 Nancy Rose so engrossing. He only knew that her 
 first letter had diverted and amused him; that each 
 letter that followed had quickened his interest; and 
 that since he had met her face to face, his interest 
 had deepened into absorption. 
 
 He had made up his mind to find her before the 
 close of this long bright day; and he recalled, one by 
 one, the clues to her possible haunts which the Cap- 
 tain had let fall. It was not patriotic interest, but 
 the Captain's hint that Nancy was often to be found 
 there, that led him to the ancient burying ground. 
 
 It lay close to the Lowell place, on the other side
 
 MY LADY VALENTINE 81 
 
 of the wagon road that ran from Deep Harbor past 
 the rear of the mansion. The young man could 
 already discern the arch of the wooden gate which 
 shut the sleeping soldiers from the world. And 
 then he saw what made his pulses leap. A woman 
 turned the Lowell stile, crossed the road and disap- 
 peared among the trees in the graveyard. It was 
 Nancy, he concluded; and quickening his steps, he 
 entered the silent acres and looked about him. At 
 the far end of the quiet spot, he could see a woman's 
 form bending over some flower beds. 
 
 He strolled cautiously in that direction, saying to 
 himself that he must not startle Nancy. In the 
 hope that she would turn and see him before he was 
 forced to break in upon her solitude, he paused be- 
 fore an old wooden monument, swaying uncertainly 
 on its base, and tried to decipher the inscription. 
 Suddenly, when he had gotten no further than, 
 "Killed in battle on these shores in 1813," a voice 
 behind him asked : " Are you interested in the his- 
 toric past of our little town ? " 
 
 With a start, Caleb Whitman turned from the 
 battered inscription and faced Aunt Roxana. 
 He knew her instantly by her erect carriage, her wide 
 skirt of stiff silk, her white stockings she carried 
 her dress high to avoid the grass stains. 
 
 Caleb Whitman raised his hat and smiled down 
 into Aunt Roxana's face as fearlessly as he smiled 
 at Sister Abby and all the village world. " I am in- 
 deed," he said. " I was only wishing that I might 
 find some one to give me accurate information."
 
 82 MY LADY VALENTINE 
 
 The lady hesitated. Whitman had rightly 
 guessed that her vulnerable point was Deep Har- 
 bor's past. She unbent enough to say : ' This 
 monument was erected over the graves of gallant 
 men who died in defense of these shores," and she 
 repeated the inscription, even supplying the obliter- 
 ated words of the scriptural line. 
 
 " My own people were all soldiers," she vouch- 
 safed, " and did their part by giving their life blood 
 to save this nation." 
 
 The summer visitor had an inspiration. " Then 
 you must be one of the Lowell family," he said. 
 " I've promised myself to see your stones. But of 
 course if I am intruding " 
 
 A flush of pleasure mingled with pride swept over 
 the good lady's austere countenance. 
 
 " You are quite welcome to view them," she said. 
 " I am glad that I happen to be here to assist you in 
 your studies. The contemplation of the last resting 
 places of patriots must ever be an inspiration to 
 youth." 
 
 " Yes, indeed," the pilgrim murmured, as the lady 
 led the way through the long grass to a line of tinfe- 
 worn head stones, with inscriptions faint and illeg- 
 ible. 
 
 " This," she said, " was my great uncle, who died 
 in service. This, my grandfather. This a more 
 distant kinsman, who died of wounds," and so on 
 and on she read the names, giving the man by her 
 side, in many a touching anecdote, the history of the 
 past, when Deep Harbor had been glowing with life 
 and high enterprise.
 
 MY LADY VALENTINE 83 
 
 " You have had many soldiers in your family," 
 Whitman said, his eyes searching the road for some 
 glimpse of Nancy. 
 
 The lady's head tossed high. " Yes," she said 
 proudly, " we have done our part." She sighed. 
 " As a child I could not forgive myself for being 
 born a girl." 
 
 " I see." Whitman was quick to catch her mean- 
 ing. " You would have liked to have been a gen- 
 eral." 
 
 " Or an admiral," she said gravely. " Our men 
 fought by sea as well as by land." 
 
 She led the way toward the gate, and Whitman 
 followed meekly in her train. There was something 
 in the stately lady's devotion to the past that touched 
 his imagination. For her sake, he could almost have 
 wished that Nancy might have been of the sex out 
 of which generals and admirals are made. 
 
 And then, at that very moment, Nancy tripped 
 across the road and entered the gate, a little poke 
 bonnet shading her eyes, a funny pair of old fash- 
 isned mits, that displayed her pink finger tips, drawn 
 over her hands and arms. 
 
 " Aunt," she called ; and then, seeing Whitman, 
 she stopped short, the color sweeping her face to the 
 rim of the poke hat. 
 
 Miss Roxana ignored the girl's surprise. As if 
 it had been an every-day occurrence for her to stroll 
 through the graveyard with a good-looking young 
 man in flannels, she said with her unbroken dignity : 
 " This young man is interested in Deep Harbor's
 
 84 MY LADY VALENTINE 
 
 past. I have been reading and explaining the in- 
 scriptions." 
 
 Her manner said as plainly as words, " The inter- 
 view is over." And Whitman, surmising that there 
 was nothing to be gained by lingering, lifted his hat 
 and wandered a step or two in another direction, 
 making a feint of further study of the old head 
 stones. 
 
 " You are going to the village? " he heard Aunt 
 Roxana question Nancy.. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Have you the list of commodities to be pur- 
 chased?" * 
 
 " I think so." 
 
 " Read it." Aunt Roxana might have been one of 
 the sleeping generals of her line, issuing military 
 commands. 
 
 " * Three pounds of sugar/ " Nancy obediently 
 began ; " ' pound of coffee, pound of tea ' " 
 
 " Half a pound," corrected Aunt Roxana. 
 
 " ' Go to library. Get copy of Bunyan's " Holy 
 War." Nancy looked up. " That's all." 
 
 " The ribbon," Aunt Roxana prompted. 
 
 " Oh, yes, the ribbon. What color did you tell 
 the minister it would be this year ? " The girl's tone 
 was listless. 
 
 " Seal brown. I thought it a decorous shade, 
 that would not attract unseemly attention." 
 
 " I hate seal brown," said Nancy wilfully. " Why 
 can't I have a bright color, cherry red? " 
 
 " Seal brown," repeated Aunt Roxana, unmoved.
 
 MY LADY VALENTINE 85 
 
 " A yard and a half ought to be a great suffi- 
 ciency." 
 
 At this point Whitman gave up the hope that 
 Aunt Roxana would go her way. With a slight 
 bow, therefore, he passed the two ladies, and slowly 
 returned to the village, hoping that Nancy would 
 soon overtake him. 
 
 " A passing traveller," he heard Aunt Roxana ex- 
 plain to her niece, as he made his retreat, " com- 
 mendably interested in his country's history."
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 STROLL as slowly as he would, stop as often as 
 he dared, Caleb Whitman reached the village 
 streets without being overtaken by Nancy. Aunt 
 Roxana had decided to keep her at home, he con- 
 cluded rebelliously, and he remembered with con- 
 cern how soon he was due in New York. 
 
 As he passed the post office, he remembered his 
 promise to Sister Abby to ask for the package of 
 Chinese lanterns. Upon entering the building, he 
 found that the distribution of a late mail was in 
 progress, so that he was obliged to await the comple- 
 tion of that work before he could hope for atten- 
 tion. With interest that bordered on excitement, he 
 watched the Captain's box, and drew a breath of 
 relief when a letter on the granite gray paper Rad- 
 ding affected was thrust into the pigeon hole. 
 
 A moment later the postmaster appeared at the 
 delivery window and Whitman remembered to ask 
 for his own mail as well as for the lanterns. The 
 single letter the postmaster produced was enclosed in 
 a granite gray envelope like the one that awaited 
 Nancy. 
 
 " New York, Sept. i, 191 
 
 "Dear Caley : " (Rad had written in his small, 
 
 crabbed hand) 
 
 " I have sent the fifty per instructions. I hate 
 86
 
 MY LADY VALENTINE 87 
 
 to take the Captain's bracelet and cameo pin from 
 him. I am sure they were becoming or you 
 wouldn't be so philanthropic. 
 
 " Yours, 
 
 " RAD." 
 
 The note made the reader laugh in spite of him- 
 self. " That letter is like Rad," he said to himself. 
 " I'd give a good deal to know if he followed my 
 instructions about writing to Nancy." 
 
 " Here are the lanterns you were asking for," the 
 postmaster reminded him, and pushed a clumsy 
 bundle out the little window. 
 
 " I'll take them to the minister's and be rid of 
 them," Whitman concluded; and, leaving the post 
 office, he went slowly down the one business street, 
 peering into the grocer's, the milliner's, the store of 
 small wares, in search of a shopper in a poke bonnet. 
 So far she was still nowhere in sight. 
 
 It was not until after he had left the bundle at 
 the minister's that he remembered that Nancy had 
 been bidden to go to the library. Where was it? 
 He looked in vain down the long shady street, slop- 
 ing to the wharfs. He searched his memory. 
 " Where's the library ? " he finally asked a solitary 
 passer-by. 
 
 The woman pointed to the church. " There," she 
 said, and plodded on her way. " The church ? " 
 Whitman called after her. " The tower," she said. 
 
 The church did indeed boast a tower, and upon 
 approach Whitman saw that a sign on the door an-
 
 88 MY LADY VALENTINE 
 
 nounced that the library was open Tuesday and 
 Thursday afternoons. He determined to wait here 
 for Nancy. From the windows in the church's 
 square tower he could sweep half the countryside. 
 He entered eagerly, and following the directions of 
 a painted arrow, ran up a winding stair. At the 
 top of the first flight he paused at the door of a 
 small room stacked with books. An attendant rose 
 as he entered. 
 
 " I'm a stranger in Deep Harbor " he began. 
 
 " Boarding with the Captain," she supplied glibly. 
 
 " Yes," Whitman admitted, wondering if anything 
 above the earth or under the waters of the earth was 
 hidden from the inhabitants of a small village. 
 
 " Look around and make yourself at home," the 
 attendant looked up from her crocheting to say. 
 
 It occurred to the visitor that this would not take 
 long to do, as the tower room was only some ten feet 
 square. 
 
 "Any book you want particular?" the attendant 
 asked. 
 
 " No, I just came to make a general survey." 
 
 " Like to go upstairs ? " 
 
 "Upstairs?" 
 
 " Yes, the library goes on up the tower ; next floor 
 is Religion and Non-Fiction ; top floor Juvenile." 
 
 " I'd like to look over the religious books," said 
 Whitman. 
 
 This pious desire sprang from a sudden recollec- 
 tion of the book Aunt Roxana had put on Nancy's 
 list.
 
 MY LADY VALENTINE 89 
 
 "Shall I go with you?" the attendant asked, as 
 the visitor started up the second flight. 
 
 " No, indeed, I just want to look about a bit. I 
 fancy there's a fine view up higher ? " 
 
 " I suppose there is," the girl conceded indiffer- 
 ently. " You can see out as far as the cemetery, 
 and all over the town." 
 
 As these were the points of interest to Whitman, 
 he quickly ascended another flight of stairs and sta- 
 tioned himself in the window. As the girl had 
 promised, his view commanded the country side. 
 He looked down on the beautiful little village, with 
 its white spires and gray roofs peeping through the 
 trees. He identified the Captain's cottage on its 
 lonely bluff. He found the chimney of the mansion 
 where Nancy lived. Dear old town, steeped in mem- 
 ories! He had grown to love it. There was a 
 charm in the sagging wharfs, in the sleepy street 
 bordered with little stores with diamond paned shop 
 windows. 
 
 Abruptly his revery ended. A little figure in a 
 poke bonnet, whose presence lent enchantment to 
 every corner of the town, had just come out of the 
 post office. She was hastening down the street, a 
 basket on her arm, walking rapidly in the direction 
 of the tower. A few minutes later Whitman 
 heard her step on the stair. Evidently she knew the 
 library sufficiently well to come directly to the shelves 
 where the religious books were stacked, for she did 
 not pause on the floor below. 
 
 " Oh," she said, breathlessly, appearing in the
 
 90 MY LADY VALENTINE 
 
 doorway and discovering the young man, " I thought 
 there was no one here." 
 
 The man in the window seat arose. " I'll go, 
 Nancy, if you want to be alone/' 
 
 " No," she said, after a momentary pause, " I 
 don't mind; but go on reading, please. I want to 
 look over a letter." 
 
 She took a hat pin from her bonnet and slit open 
 a gray envelope as she spoke. Caleb Whitman did 
 not raise his eyes from his book. 
 
 " Oh ! " cried Nancy, after a long moment, as if 
 she were smothering, " oh ! " and again, " oh ! " 
 
 Whitman sprang from his seat and hurried to her 
 side. The face she lifted to his was bathed in tears. 
 She let them fall quite openly as she pressed the 
 letter to her breast. 
 
 "What's the matter, dearest?" Whitman cried, 
 unconscious of using the endearing term. " Tell me 
 Nancy, has something hurt you ? " 
 
 His hands clenched. If Radding had played false, 
 he would not be forgiven in a hurry. 
 
 "Matter!" she sobbed. "I'm just smothering 
 with joy, that's all." 
 
 She let him seize her hand, without protest, her 
 pink fingers curling around his, her overflowing eyes 
 on his eager face. 
 
 " If you are happy, Nancy," he pleaded, " why do 
 you cry ? " 
 
 He stooped over her trembling little form, and 
 taking out a generous sized handkerchief, he wiped 
 her eyes as if she had been a child.
 
 MY LADY VALENTINE 91 
 
 " I don't know," she sobbed on a long, uneven 
 breath. " Don't you ever cry when you are 
 happy ? " An uncertain smile broke through her 
 tears. " April is the happiest month of all, and she 
 cries all the time." 
 
 He laughed his delight in her fancy. " Is it the 
 Great Happiness, Nancy ? " 
 
 " It's the key to it," she said. " Everything is 
 going to begin now, for me and for those I love." 
 
 " I'm so glad, so glad," he glowed, his warm hand 
 enclosing hers. " Will it mean anything for me, 
 Nancy, or am I quite on the outside ? " 
 
 Two eyes like stars were raised to his. " The 
 gate of the garden will open," she said. 
 
 " When it does, Nancy, may I be the first to en- 
 ter?" 
 
 " I want you to be," she murmured. . . . 
 
 " Get what you wanted, Miss Rose ? " The voice 
 was that of the attendant at the bottom of the stairs. 
 Nancy dried her eyes. 
 
 " I forget what I came for," she whispered to 
 Whitman in consternation. 
 
 ' Bunyan's Holy War,' " he prompted, and he 
 found the volume on the shelf and gave it into 
 Nancy's keeping before the head of the attendant 
 had more than appeared at the top step of the 
 stairs. 
 
 '' Yes," said Nancy, handing over the heavy 
 volume for registration, " I've found it." 
 
 " Going to the box social? " the girl asked, stamp- 
 ing Nancy's card.
 
 92 MY LADY VALENTINE 
 
 "Yes." Nancy stole a glance at the summer 
 visitor, fumbling among the book shelves. 
 
 " That's good," said the attendant. " I hope for 
 your, sake the minister doesn't draw your box again. 
 It's awful dull for you to eat with him every year." 
 
 " He'll always draw my box," said Nancy in a 
 clear, sweet voice. 
 
 "How's that?" 
 
 " Because Aunt ties it up herself, and tells him the 
 color of the ribbon. It's the only way she'll let me 
 go. She says she couldn't consider leaving it to 
 chance." 
 
 " I see," said the girl. 
 
 " Good-bye," said Nancy, with a glance so tender, 
 a face so suffused with joy that it was like an April 
 sun. 
 
 "Going straight home?" the attendant called 
 after her. 
 
 "No," said Nancy; and her voice rang clear. 
 " I've another errand to do first. I have to get some 
 seal brown ribbon at the store."
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 **T T OW much for this box, gentlemen?" Sam 
 * -1 Tupman begged, from his stand on a pack- 
 ing case. " Ten cents! " the auctioneer reproached. 
 " I'm ashamed of you, Jim Lyman. There's more 
 than ten cents' worth of butter on the bread. 
 Twenty-five? That's better. Don't insult the 
 young lady who put up this box. Thirty-five? 
 Come, thirty-five. That's right, Henshaw. A fel- 
 low with a mouth as large as yours ought to pay 
 thirty-five cents for looking at a box like this." 
 
 The laughter that rolled up from, the village peo- 
 ple who had gathered on the minister's lawn added 
 to the fun at the grinning country boy's expense. 
 The bidding mounted. It soared. A box, tied with 
 flaming orange, was knocked down to the boy with 
 the large mouth for sixty cents! The minister's car- 
 pet began to assume reality. 
 
 From his seat under the trees, Caleb Whitman 
 laughed and enjoyed the fun with the others. It 
 seemed to him that nothing the city offered could 
 compare with this little village fete for pure and 
 innocent enjoyment. The spirit of neighborliness 
 everywhere manifested, the tingling excitement of 
 the young people in the auction, the hearty enjoy- 
 ment the country found in Sam Tupman's humor, 
 
 93
 
 94 MY LADY VALENTINE 
 
 all gave to the simple entertainment an air, or so the 
 man from the city thought, as wholesome as the 
 breeze that came in exhilarating puffs from the blue 
 waters of Ontario. He thought of New York, with 
 its chill indifference and hard worldliness with pro- 
 found distaste. 
 
 And then from his seat under the bobbing lanterns 
 which he had helped to suspend from the splendid 
 old maple trees, he turned his eyes again to Nancy, 
 who sat with the neighbors to whom Aunt Roxana 
 had entrusted her, persons whose dress and manner 
 proclaimed for them special distinction in the com- 
 munity. At each successive meeting he had told 
 himself that Nancy's beauty and charm had reached 
 their height. But never before had he seen her with 
 her eyes shining with ecstasy, her cheeks flying ban- 
 ners of joy, her girlish throat encircled by a coral 
 necklace, her happy face peeping from beneath a 
 white lace hat, with a rose tucked beneath the brim. 
 It was plainly Nancy's gala hat, and Nancy's gala 
 day. 
 
 The Captain, looking very spruce in his black Sun- 
 day suit, his white collar, dazzlingly polished, scrap- 
 ing his ears, leaned toward his summer boarder. 
 ' The boxes are going fast ; you'd better begin bid- 
 ding unless you want to go hungry," he warned. 
 
 " I've got my eye on one." 
 
 Whitman's assurance made the Captain chuckle. 
 " Don't need no looking after by me," he said ; and 
 he settled back to enjoy the fun of Sam Tupman's 
 antics.
 
 MY LADY VALENTINE 95 
 
 The auction was coming to a close. Most of the 
 men present were balancing generous boxes on their 
 knees, awaiting the signal to open them, to search 
 for the packers' names. 
 
 Sam Tupman looked at the minister, a fat, short, 
 benevolent little man of sixty years, in a rusty coat. 
 Then he picked up a box from among the few left 
 on the table, a box that looked as if it had once con- 
 tained five pounds of candy, wrapped neatly in white 
 tissue paper, bound sedately with seal brown ribbon ; 
 but, alas for Aunt Roxana's decorum, with a big 
 moss rose thrust coquettishly through the bow. 
 
 " How much ? " said Sam Tupman, omitting his 
 usual raillery. 
 
 The minister murmured : " Twenty-five cents." 
 
 " Fifty," said Whitman promptly. 
 
 The auctioneer hesitated. The minister put on his 
 glasses and looked his flock over to see whence the 
 voice of the interloper came. " Fifty-five," he said 
 at last, with careful deliberation. The Captain 
 shook with inward laughter. " Go it," he challenged 
 Whitman admiringly. 
 
 " Seventy-five," said the stranger within the gates. 
 
 " Eighty," said the minister. 
 
 " One dollar! " Whitman's voice rang out. 
 
 The auctioneer paused. " Parson," he cried 
 above the laughter, " if you'd auctioned as long as I 
 have, you'd know when to quit by the ring in the 
 other fellow's voice. That boy ain't got onto his 
 real wind yet." 
 
 " A dollar ten," said the minister firmly.
 
 96 MY LADY VALENTINE 
 
 " Two dollars," from Whitman. 
 
 The minister wiped his forehead. !t You're right, 
 Sam," he called good-naturedly. " I can't tire him 
 out; but I gave him a run for his money." 
 
 The worldly phrase from the guileless little min- 
 ister caused a rumble of laughter from his flock, that 
 died only to rise again. 
 
 " Well," sighed Miss Abby, leaning toward Whit- 
 man, " there ain't been such excitement in Deep 
 Harbor in many a day. I hope you got a good box. 
 I meant to give you a hint about mine." 
 
 Ten minutes later the tables were spread. The 
 young people as well as the elderly folk (age far out- 
 numbered youth in the old town) opened the boxes 
 and found their partners' names. 
 
 Caleb Whitman left his seat with the Luffkins and 
 crossed the lawn. " Come, Nancy," he said. 
 
 The friends to whom she had been entrusted had 
 wandered away, leaving her for the moment alone. 
 With an adorable readiness, quite unlike the giggling 
 reluctance the village girls were feigning, Nancy 
 arose. 
 
 " Oh," she reproached the young man, her lips 
 parting in a smile. " How did you dare ? " 
 
 " They told me to bid on a box." Whitman 
 laughed down into her upturned face. "If it hap- 
 pened to be yours " His gesture implied that 
 such being the case, he was not to blame. 
 
 " I did not tell you the color of the ribbon, did 
 I? " She waited anxiously for his answer, as if to 
 gather assurance for future defense.
 
 MY LADY VALENTINE 97 
 
 " Certainly not," he affirmed unblushingly, leading 
 her to a seat between two maple trees. 
 
 " But," Nancy persisted, " how did you know that 
 it was my box, if you didn't know the color of my 
 ribbon? You haven't opened it to find my name." 
 
 Whitman's answer was ready. " I knew it by the 
 sign of the rose," he said, taking the flower from 
 the box, to pin it on his coat. " It's your symbol, 
 Nancy a moss rose in an old fashioned garden." 
 
 When they were seated on the board seat Nancy 
 opened her box revealing a loaf of almond cake 
 (made with orange flower wine) and piles of little 
 sandwiches, tied bewitchingly with cherry colored 
 ribbons. 
 
 " I'm sorry for the minister," the man beside her 
 said, making one mouthful of a little square of bread 
 and butter, " he'll miss the cherry ribbons." 
 
 " He's never had them," Nancy replied quickly ; 
 and then she blushed. 
 
 " Were they for me, Nancy? " 
 
 " For the highest bidder," said Nancy. Aunt 
 Roxana's lessons in discretion had not been in vain. 
 Then she added, anxiously : " Those sandwiches 
 look very small, some way, for your mouth." 
 
 " They were measured for a rose bud," he replied, 
 looking straight at two red lips. 
 
 " The minister never said things like that." 
 
 " Perhaps he did not dare." 
 
 " No," Nancy decided judicially. " I think it was 
 because he was too busy eating bread and butter. 
 On the way home, though, he sometimes paid me the
 
 98 MY LADY VALENTINE 
 
 compliment of telling me I was a good girl, and a 
 comfort to my Aunt." 
 
 " On the way home ? Has it been his custom to 
 take you home?" 
 
 She sighed and nodded. 
 
 " He's not going to do it, to-night. You're going 
 with me." 
 
 She looked her longing. Then she sighed again. 
 " No, it would never do." 
 
 " Yes," he pleaded. 
 
 She hesitated, catching her breath. " Then we 
 must start early before nine," she decided. 
 
 " Well," he conceded, wondering if the earlier 
 hour would appease Aunt Roxana's disapproval. 
 
 " What are you going to say to the minister ? " 
 
 " I'll trust to inspiration. It's never hard to per- 
 suade a fat man to sit still. I'll tell him that the 
 privilege of taking you home goes with the box." 
 
 He picked up the cover, which had served him for 
 a plate. " Hello," he said, " a New York candy 
 box." 
 
 " Yes," said Nancy. " The old man with gray 
 whiskers, of whom I told you, sent me the candy. 
 It was a wonderful box. A revelation in candy, 
 after peppermint sticks in paper bags. I have 
 thought of New York ever since as a splendid box 
 of bon bons, each layer more wonderful than the 
 last. Is it like that?" 
 
 The city which had seemed so distasteful a mo- 
 ment before, assumed brighter form with Nancy's 
 words. He thought suddenly of all the treasures
 
 MY LADY VALENTINE 99 
 
 of art gathered there, of the shops and the play 
 houses, the ships on the river, the gayety of the 
 avenue; and he began to tell Nancy of the side of 
 New York that was indeed like a candy box, lined 
 with paper lace, all ready, should she come there, for 
 the pinch of her golden tongs. 
 
 " And you will come, Nancy ? " he pleaded as the 
 shadows lengthened. 
 
 " Maybe," she promised. " Anything seems pos- 
 sible now." And then she asked, quite suddenly, 
 " Didn't you once mention a man named Radding to 
 me?" 
 
 " Perhaps," he said, startled. 
 
 "Who is he?" 
 
 ' There are dozens of people of that name in New 
 York. The one I know is a scholar and a gentle- 
 man." 
 
 " What does he do for his living? " 
 
 " He writes a little and lives on his income." 
 
 "Ah!" Her sigh was one of relief. 
 
 " Do you write, Nancy ? I should think you 
 might, with that pretty fancy of yours." He waited 
 expectantly, hoping for her confession of the author- 
 ship of the poem. 
 
 She shook her head. " No. I feel things, but 
 I don't draw them, or sing them, or write them." 
 
 The long northern twilight grew dimmer. Black 
 night set in. Some one lighted the lanterns, which 
 bobbed from the high branches where Whitman had 
 strung them, like huge fire flies among the trees. A 
 vast content with the present, an eager expectancy of
 
 ioo MY LADY VALENTINE 
 
 the future, flooded his being. Life was a spring of 
 living water, to which he pressed his lips. 
 
 " Come," said Nancy suddenly. " We must start. 
 I did not know it was so late. Time had wings, to- 
 night." 
 
 When Whitman begged for the privilege of tak- 
 ing Nancy home the minister demurred. ' You are 
 a stranger to Miss Roxana," he said. 
 
 " I spent all yesterday afternoon with her," Whit- 
 man argued. 
 
 "Well," the minister gave in, "if she says 
 anything, send her to me. If she never finds it out, 
 let it be on my conscience." He patted Nancy on 
 the shoulder and gave his fat little hand to Whitman 
 in farewell. " It was good of you," he said, his eyes 
 twinkling, "to bid so generously this evening in 
 order to help the church."
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE walk home, down the long country road, 
 under the summer stars, was at an end. 
 Nancy paused decisively at the stile. " Good night," 
 she said. " I can find my way in alone." 
 
 " I don't like to leave you, Nancy, for that great 
 black, shuttered house to swallow up." 
 
 " I'm used to it, Mr. Whitman." 
 
 " What will you tell Aunt Roxana about to- 
 night?" 
 
 " I'll tell her - " the Cupid's bow arched over the 
 white, even teeth. 
 
 " Yes," eagerly, his hand retaining hers. 
 
 " That miles aren't always the same length ; that 
 the walk to the village to buy brown ribbon is much 
 longer than the walk back in the evening after the 
 ribbon has been untied." 
 
 " Ah, Nancy." 
 
 But she had darted from him, to run fleetly toward 
 the house, like a Cinderella who hears the strike of 
 the clock. He watched the shadowy form disap- 
 pear into the deep blackness of the tunneled arbor, 
 hoping to learn through the sound of her great door 
 key in the lock or the flicker of her candle at some 
 window, that she was safe within the lonely dwell- 
 
 101
 
 102 MY LADY VALENTINE 
 
 ing. No such signal came to him, but still he lin- 
 gered at the gate, his thoughts tumultuous. 
 
 To return to the village fete without Nancy, after 
 those wonderful moments together, beneath the old 
 trees, seemed impossible an anti-climax to an 
 evening that had mounted steadily in significance and 
 enjoyment. How much they had found to say to 
 one another. How much they had left unsaid. He 
 was haunted by the thought that in spite of the long, 
 uninterrupted tete-a-tete, he had let Nancy go with- 
 out telling her something of the utmost importance. 
 What was it? He searched his memory. Ah, at 
 last he knew. Sweet and disturbing, for the first 
 time the truth swept over him. He wanted to tell 
 Nancy that he loved her. 
 
 His mind leaped to their next meeting, only to be 
 stunned by the thought that his last days in the old 
 town might yield him no opportunity to pour out to 
 Nancy the new and amazing discovery. Against 
 such a possibility his will beat with stubborn resist- 
 ance, as he pondered the question of how to bring 
 about a tryst. A penciled note, written by the light 
 of a match, and left in the bower, might catch her 
 eye, with slight risk of being found by any one 
 else. He would take that chance; and, having so 
 decided, he strolled down the road until he came to 
 the corner of the hedge that surrounded the estate 
 where the latticed summer-house rose black among 
 the shrubbery. In order to leave no betraying foot- 
 steps in Aunt Roxana's realm, he planned to enter 
 by the break in the thicket.
 
 MY LADY VALENTINE 103 
 
 The trees sighed and creaked as he bent his head 
 to creep under their branches. The woodbine that 
 draped Nancy's bower rustled ominously. The 
 night, under the overhanging boughs of the trees, 
 among the tangle of syringa and lilacs, was an un- 
 broken sheet of black. Suddenly Whitman paused, 
 and looked again. From within the summer-house's 
 inky interior a tiny spark of fire pricked the dark- 
 ness with an intermittent glow. No man could mis- 
 take that light. Whitman stopped short. " A man 
 in the bower," he said to himself, even before the 
 odor of tobacco mingled with the garden scents. A 
 moment after, a burnt out cigarette was flung care- 
 lessly through the brush. A man came to the door 
 and whistled a faint bugle call, softly, persistently. 
 Even in the dim light of stars his service hat, his 
 tight blouse and his high leggins gave to his silhouete 
 a distinctive outline not to be mistaken for that of a 
 civilian. 
 
 Caleb Whitman could not have taken a step with- 
 out betraying his presence. Uncertain what course 
 to pursue, torn with vague fears, he waited. The 
 stone nymph with the broken arm was not more 
 silent than he. 
 
 Again the guarded whistle fluted through the 
 silence. 
 
 " I'm coming," cried a sweet voice, down the 
 gravel path. And now Whitman could not have 
 moved had he wished. His feet, his hands, his very 
 tongue in his parched mouth, seemed paralyzed with 
 foreboding.
 
 io 4 MY LADY VALENTINE 
 
 The boughs overhanging the path parted wide and 
 Nancy's white form flashed into the grassy plot 
 before the bower. 
 
 "Is that you, Bob?" The voice was gay with 
 expectation. 
 
 " Yes. A pretty time you've kept me waiting. I 
 was just about to give you up." 
 
 Whitman's hands clenched at the easy nonchalance 
 of that reply, and then his fingers loosened lifelessly; 
 for the girl he loved had tripped toward the waiting 
 soldier and flung her arms about his neck. 
 
 " Oh, Bob, Bob, precious," her voice came to the 
 man who watched. " I'm so happy. Did you get 
 my note ? " 
 
 "Yes, I got it, Nance; that's why I'm here. 
 Don't break my ribs even if you are glad to see 
 me." 
 
 A primitive instinct to grapple with a man who 
 treated Nancy's love with that easy tolerance swept 
 over Whitman. 
 
 " What kept you so late? " The soldier lighted 
 another cigarette. By the glow of the match Whit- 
 man recognized the handsome face of Sergeant Wil- 
 son with sickening certainty. 
 
 " I came home promptly, Bob," Nancy explained ; 
 " but some one who came with me lingered at the 
 gate. I did not dare come out to you until I was 
 sure he had gone." 
 
 " Well, now I'm here, what do you want ? I gave 
 up a jolly good game of pool to come." 
 
 The tone was one of affectionate indulgence, with
 
 MY LADY VALENTINE 105 
 
 no hint of a lover's rapture. Its assurance struck a 
 chill to Whitman's heart. 
 
 " I wanted to tell you, Bob, that we can send 
 old Goldstein about his business. Your trouble is 
 over. I have the money." 
 
 " You haven't ! " The soldier seized something 
 which Nancy took from her bosom, felt it, then drew 
 her to him with one strong arm, kissed her soundly, 
 and said : " All I can say is that you're a brick. 
 How did you do it? Appeal to the Czarina? " 
 
 " No, that would have spoiled everything. I did 
 it in my own way. I'll tell you how some day. 
 Now go, or you'll be late." 
 
 " Let me go then." The tone was bantering, but 
 Whitman winced. " I'll not forget what you've 
 done, Nance. I'll make you proud of me yet. 
 That's the only way I can repay you." 
 
 " I've always known you would, Bob," she said, 
 sealing the promise with a kiss. 
 
 " Good-bye, kid. I'll be late for * check ' if I 
 don't skip." 
 
 He strode toward the path that led to the stile, 
 with Nancy in his wake. Whitman waited until he 
 heard the sergeant's gay whistle well down the road 
 before he moved. Then he staggered into the 
 bower, and bowed his head on his arms over the 
 rustic table, his brain whirling with agonizing, dis- 
 cordant thoughts. How long he sat there he could 
 not remember ; nor how long it took him to stumble 
 blindly back to the village, silent and sleeping, and 
 out the country road to the Captain's cottage.
 
 io6 MY LADY VALENTINE 
 
 At his step in the house, Miss Abby appeared at 
 her door. " Well," she said, " Henry and I thought 
 you must have got drowned. I couldn't sleep for 
 thinking of you." She held a candle aloft and 
 peered from her room at Whitman, whose step was 
 already on the stair. 
 
 " What time does the first train leave for New 
 York to-morrow, Miss Abby ? " he asked heavily. 
 
 " There's none until night, unless you want to go 
 over to Fairview with Brother Henry on his first 
 trip and catch the interurban to Adams." 
 
 " Yes, I'll do that. Something has come up to 
 shorten my vacation. I'm going back to work as 
 quick as I can." 
 
 Miss Abby stared. " Well, for pity's sakes," she 
 said.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE fourteenth of February had come. The 
 windows of candy shops were stacked high 
 with heart shaped boxes. The girls behind the 
 counters of sweets took orders with lightning rapid- 
 ity. The florists were hurrying off bouquets of vio- 
 lets and roses which must be delivered before the day 
 died, without fail. Little boys tip-toed up steps, 
 rang bells and ran away, leaving embossed envelopes 
 on the stoops. From the news stands Better Every 
 Week, in its new dress, cried to the world in bold, 
 black letters that the Valentine Special was on the 
 market. From its cover, Cupid in a biplane winged 
 a world with his arrows. 
 
 " Looks pretty good, doesn't it ? " Radding sug- 
 gested to the young editor, as they paused for a 
 fleeting moment in the subway to ask the girl behind 
 the news stand how the edition was going. 
 
 " Yes, Rad, it does. I worked hard on it. 
 Funny, isn't it, that I should have edited a valentine 
 number, when I have neither sent nor received a 
 valentine in my life? " 
 
 " How did that happen ? " asked Radding, as they 
 found seats in the train. 
 
 " You know my boyhood. An orphan on my 
 107
 
 io8 MY LADY VALENTINE 
 
 uncle's farm, small chance I had of receiving or 
 sending sentimental offerings." 
 
 "Caley" said Radding whimsically, say 
 word and I'll send you a tribute to-day, 
 shall it be, violets or mixed chocolates? " 
 
 Radding's foolery made Whitman smile at 
 own expense. "The new magazine is valentine 
 enough for me, Rad," he said; " I'm feeling pretty 
 
 good over it." 
 
 He suddenly noticed that a man beside him was 
 lost in the pages of the number. " Funny, isn't 
 Rad," he whispered, indicating the reader, ' 
 a bullet headed chap like that likes sentiment as wel 
 as a girl? I never get over it." 
 
 At this moment, the man took out his knife am 
 cut something from a column of the magazine, whicl 
 he folded into his bill case before he flung the 
 "Special" down and left the car. Whitman 
 reached for the paper. 
 
 " I'm curious to see what caught his fancy, 
 
 said. 
 
 " Yes," Rad drawled, " when a writer s stuff gei 
 into vest pockets and shopping bags, an editor had 
 better hold onto him." 
 
 He watched with interest as Whitman turned the 
 pages to see what was missing. 
 
 " What was it? " he asked, as Whitman gazed at 
 the hole the knife had made. 
 
 " Nothing." The words came stiffly. " Just " 
 Whitman turned his eyes heavily toward his friend. 
 "Just Nancy's poem. You know, Lady Valen- 
 tine."
 
 MY LADY VALENTINE 109 
 
 He looked steadily in front of him for a long mo- 
 ment, without a word. 
 
 Radding watched him narrowly. It was the first 
 time either of them had mentioned the girl in Deep 
 Harbor since that day last September when Whitman 
 had come back, looking worn and haggard. " Don't 
 chaff me, Rad, please. I can't stand it," was all he 
 had said in response to his friend's badinage over 
 his unexpected return. And Radding had respected 
 that request. The subject had been dropped. Now, 
 however, Radding seized the chance to say something 
 that had long been in his mind. 
 
 " Caley," he began gently, " I haven't had a 
 chance to tell you that I felt pretty bad over the out- 
 come of our fun. I've never ceased to blame myself 
 for fanning your interest in that girl ; for teasing you 
 to go up there." 
 
 " You didn't know You thought it was the 
 Captain who wrote the letters." 
 
 Radding shook his head. " No, I didn't. I can't 
 excuse myself that way." 
 
 " Then why " 
 
 " I wanted to get you out of the bachelor's rut you 
 were falling into from my bad example." 
 
 " It wouldn't have made any difference, Rad. I'd 
 have gone anyway. I was taken with her from the 
 first." 
 
 " Are you sure," Radding began carefully, " that 
 there was no mistake? Are you sure that she didn't 
 feel the same way about you? " 
 
 Whitman's laugh was bitter. " I'm certain," he 
 said.
 
 no 
 
 " Did she tell you so? Forgive my persistence." 
 "She didn't have to. There was another 
 
 man." 
 
 " How do you know? " 
 
 " I learned it accidentally." 
 
 " Have you ever heard from her since? " 
 
 " Early in the year I had a letter from Luffkin - 
 the real Luffkin corroborating all my fears. A 
 week ago, I had one from her, asking me not to pub- 
 lish her poem, written as usual under the Captain s 
 name. The poem was already in press and had to 
 go through, of course. I wrote a line telling her so, 
 and that's the end of it all." 
 
 " Let me see the Captain's letter some time, if yoi 
 haven't destroyed it," Radding suggested. 
 
 Whitman promptly produced it from his pocket. 
 " I saved it," he said, " to keep me from indulging in 
 any more foolish hopes." 
 
 Rad pinched on his glasses and read : 
 
 " Deep Harbor, N. Y. 
 
 " Jan. 3, 191 
 
 " Friend Whitman : 
 
 " Concerning suspicions I had last summer of 
 a certain party, would say all come out well long 
 since, as you have probably heard. My girl 
 her secret well, and Aunt was about struck dea( 
 when the sergeant walked in on her and told her 
 that he'd got a commission. Aunt's head was 
 pretty high before. Now, I'm thinking, it won't 
 never come down no more. With a lieutenant in
 
 Ill 
 
 the family, things are settling back like they used 
 to be. 
 
 " Hoping this finds you in health. 
 " Respectfully, 
 
 " HENRY B. LUFFKIN." 
 
 " Was the sergeant the fellow ? " asked Radding, 
 when he had come to the Captain's carefully lettered 
 signature. 
 
 Whitman nodded, his face set. 
 
 Further comment was impossible, for at this mo- 
 ment the train pulled into Radding' s station. 
 
 " Wait for me at your office," he said, as he rose. 
 " I'll be there about five." 
 
 " It's a half holiday," Whitman reminded him. 
 
 " Better yet. Make it two, then. We'll do some- 
 thing together." And Radding was gone. 
 
 It was a quarter after two by the office clock. 
 Whitman was about to close his desk and give Rad- 
 ding up, when the janitor, a draggled individual with 
 the discouraged slant of a worn out broom, appeared 
 in the door and croaked : " Party outside asking for 
 a Mr. Radding. There's no such person here, is 
 there?" 
 
 " He'll be here any minute," Whitman replied. 
 " Show the visitor in. I'll talk to him." 
 
 The janitor ambled down the long hall in the direc- 
 tion of the waiting room. Whitman once more took 
 up the proofs of his novel, which he had laid aside 
 preparatory to leaving. The visitor's coming gave
 
 ii2 MY LADY VALENTINE 
 
 him fresh hope that Radding would finally appear. 
 Engrossed in his work, Whitman had forgotten the 
 invitation he had sent by the janitor, when he was 
 aroused by a timid knock on the door. It was fol- 
 lowed, upon his giving permission to enter, by the 
 turning of the knob, the soft rustle of a woman's 
 garments, and an exclamation that was stifled almost 
 before it escaped. 
 
 The young man raised his eyes. In the doorway 
 stood a girl, in a fur hat and sable furs upon which 
 the snow had frozen in glistening crystals. At the 
 sight of Whitman, her face blanched beneath her 
 veil. 
 
 " Nancy ! " Whitman breathed, doubting the evi- 
 dence of his eyes. 
 
 It was some moments before she attempted to 
 speak. Then her lips moved stiffly: 
 
 "Who are you?" she said. "Why are you 
 here?" 
 
 Whitman got to his feet. He did not move 
 toward her, but steadying himself by a hand that 
 found his desk, he spoke, the length of the room 
 between them : 
 
 " I'm the Editor of Better Every Week, Nancy." 
 
 " You deceived me, then. If I'd known " 
 
 The young man finished the sentence for her, bit- 
 terly : 
 
 "You mean if you'd known that, you wouldn't 
 have come ? " 
 
 " No, I would not have come." 
 
 "Are you sorry, Nancy, to find me here? "
 
 MY LADY VALENTINE 113 
 
 " I'm sorry that the old man in whom you let me 
 believe is not a reality. I liked to think that I had 
 a friend." 
 
 " You surely know that I am your friend, Nancy ; 
 a thousand fold more sincerely your friend than he 
 could ever have been had he existed. I was your 
 friend from the beginning. I am your friend now." 
 
 To these protestations she made no answer. 
 
 "If Mr. Radding is not here," she said at last, 
 with an effort to control her voice, " I think that I 
 must go." 
 
 The dignity inherited from a long line of gentle- 
 women showed in the slight inclination of her head 
 in his direction. 
 
 " He'll be here," Whitman promised, recklessly, 
 feeling anything was more bearable than her going. 
 " What did you want of him, Nancy? " 
 
 " I wanted to buy back some heirlooms I sold 
 him when I was in trouble. Bob won't hear of 
 anything else, now that our necessity is over." 
 
 " Is Bob Sergeant Wilson? " 
 
 " He was ; but the War Department has allowed 
 him to change his name." 
 
 " Is he with you ? " 
 
 " Yes. He came to get measured for some new 
 uniforms, and I came with him. He's to call here 
 for me and take me back to the hotel." 
 
 " Nancy," Whitman pleaded, looking down at her 
 averted eyes, " tell me, are you happy ? I can bear 
 anything if you are." 
 
 " I have everything to make me happy," Nancy
 
 ii 4 MY LADY VALENTINE 
 
 evaded him. "Aunt Roxana is radiant." She 
 cmiled faintly. " She is going to give a ball to the 
 whole regiment. She is so happy she has even for- 
 given me about the poem." 
 
 "The poem?" 
 
 " The one you bought." 
 
 " What was there to forgive? " 
 
 "It was her heart's secret. She had written it 
 when she was a girl like me. I did not know that, 
 of course, when I sent it to you. I found it in a 
 secret drawer. I thought some one long dead had 
 written it." 
 
 It was Whitman's turn to be silent. When he 
 spoke his voice trembled. "You can't realize, 
 Nancy, what it means to me to learn that those 
 verses were not yours. I seem to have lost my last 
 illusion." 
 
 " You mean it was wicked to sell them? That's 
 what Aunt said until she learned what I wanted to 
 do with the money." 
 
 "Of course I don't mean any such thing," Whit- 
 man protested, indignantly. " I mean that I loved 
 to think that it was your heart that waited there 
 * Like violets under snow.' ' 
 
 Nancy shook her head. "I didn't write them, 
 but I loved them. They taught me something that 
 has helped me to go on." 
 
 " What did they teach you, Nancy? " 
 "They taught me that love is always answered 
 by love, at last. Aunt Roxana never had a lover, 
 but Bob came, and filled her heart. Perhaps," the
 
 MY LADY VALENTINE 115 
 
 sweet voice quavered, " it will be Bob's son who will 
 fill mine." 
 
 Whitman's voice was so tense it sounded hard. 
 
 " Nancy," he said sternly, "did you marry with- 
 out loving? " 
 
 " Marry ! " A deep flush swept the pale cheeks, 
 to the brim of the little fur hat. " I am not mar- 
 ried." 
 
 "Not yet?" 
 
 " Certainly not." 
 
 " But you have a lover? " 
 
 The ghost of the old Nancy flickered in her un- 
 certain smile. " I'm not sure," she breathed. 
 
 " Please don't tease me, Nancy." A hot hand 
 locked over hers. " Once for all, tell me who it was 
 that came to you in the bower, that you kissed, that 
 you let clasp you in his arms." 
 
 " Why, Mr. Whitman," she laughed on a long 
 sobbing breath, while one little hand stole contritely 
 into his. " Didn't you know? That was Bob, my 
 brother." 
 
 "Your brother!" 
 
 Without waiting for another word; without ask- 
 ing where he stood in her affections, Whitman gath- 
 ered the slight figure, muffled in furs, tight within his 
 arms. He kissed the beautiful eyes until they 
 laughed up at him once more. He kissed the cheeks 
 until they bloomed. He kissed the mouth until the 
 Cupid's bow arched in its old, playful smile. 
 
 " Why, Caleb," she gasped between his kisses, 
 " didn't you really know ? "
 
 ii6 MY LADY VALENTINE 
 
 " Know ! Did you suppose if I had known I 
 should have left Deep Harbor without one word, 
 after that last night together? What did you think 
 of me, Nancy? What could you have thought of 
 
 me?"' 
 
 The dark head drooped against his shoulder, as 
 glad to be at rest. " At first I thought all that Aunt 
 had said of men was true. Then I found the moss 
 rose I had given you, in the bower. I knew you 
 must have seen me meet Bob, and I thought you 
 could not have understood. And so, the moment the 
 secret was out and Bob had his commission, I asked 
 Captain Luffkin to write you and still you did not 
 come. Didn't you get the letter ? " 
 
 " Get the letter ! " roared Whitman. "Of course 
 I got the letter. It destroyed the last spark of hope 
 within me. The blundering old walrus ! He never 
 once mentioned your relationship to the sergeant. 
 If he steered a boat with no more skill than he 
 writes letters, he'd be aground in five minutes." 
 
 Nancy laughed softly. " It's all over now," she 
 sighed contentedly. " My troubles and yours have 
 vanished, as well as Bob's." 
 
 " Did Bob have such heavy troubles, dear? " 
 "Yes; I forgot you didn't know. They explain 
 everything. You see, Bob had been in the Academy 
 West Point, you know but something hap- 
 pened, and they dismissed him." 
 
 " That was hard, wasn't it, Sweetheart ? " 
 " Aunt Roxana wrote him a terrible letter, and 
 told him that he had disgraced his forefathers ; that 
 he must never enter our gate again."
 
 MY LADY VALENTINE 117 
 
 " Poor chap! Pretty rough on him, wasn't it? " 
 " I used to think so, but it made a man of him. 
 He enlisted in the ranks under the name of Wilson, 
 and won his commission the very year his class grad- 
 uated. In all that time Aunt Roxana had not heard 
 one word of his whereabouts. I alone knew the 
 secret. Oh! If you had seen her the day when 
 Bob threw open the garden gate and strode up the 
 walk with his head as high as hers, the straps on his 
 shoulders." 
 
 " She was pleased, was she, darling? " 
 " Pleased ! " Nancy ejaculated, smiling. " She's 
 never talked of anything else since. She's never 
 looked at another person. And to think," she sighed 
 reminiscently, " how near he came to failing. If it 
 hadn't been for your buying my poem and your tell- 
 ing Mr. Radding, the collector, about my things, 
 Bob might never have got his commission." 
 " What had that to do with it, my own? " 
 " Ah, you don't know. There was an old debt 
 from Academy days that had to be paid. A cruel 
 creature named Goldstein found out that Bob was 
 in the ranks, and he threatened to tell the command- 
 ing officer the whole story, unless he was paid. It 
 was life or death with us at that crucial time, to get 
 the money. Bob raised all that he could " 
 " Then my little general took a hand." 
 " What sweet things you always say." Her cheek 
 caressed his sleeve. " I missed you so when you 
 went away. It was winter in the garden and winter 
 in my heart."
 
 1 18 MY LADY VALENTINE 
 
 " It's spring now, beloved, forever and forever." 
 
 A discreet knock on the wall of the corridor, well 
 outside the open door, caused Nancy to retreat from 
 Whitman's arms and hurriedly put her hat to rights. 
 
 " Yes ? " shouted Whitman fiercely, peering out 
 to find the intruder. 
 
 The janitor coughed and smiled apologetically, 
 " Sorry to interrupt you, Mr. Whitman, but this 
 note just came for you." 
 
 Whitman opened it, while his arm again drew 
 Nancy close. 
 
 "DearCaley:" (He read) 
 
 " I hope the ' Valentine ' I ventured to send 
 met with your approval. I'm afraid the dinner 
 is on me, after all. I have ordered covers laid for 
 four at Delmonico's at eight. I insist that the 
 sergeant come, to keep me company. 
 
 " * If her name is Mary, call her Mary; if she 
 was christened Susan, call her Susan.' 
 
 " As ever, 
 
 " RAD." 
 
 " What does he mean ? " asked Nancy, reading the 
 note from the shelter of her lover's arm. 
 
 " He'll tell you at dinner, Rose of the World, in 
 his own whimsical way." 
 
 THE END
 
 A 000128811 7
 
 
 *: 
 
 
 
 
 
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