In the morning as Miss Brown called the roll, John gave a quick glance backward along the aisle. His lady was absent. The strangely assorted meal had been too much for her. But attacks of indigestion rarely last more than a day, and this one proved no hindrance to the series of tri-weekly skating parties, minus refreshments, in which the pair participated. After two weeks of laborious lessons, Louise found that she was able to take a few sure strokes without gulping and calling for masculine aid. The first trip around the rough ice about the island followed, sure test of a beginner's prowess, and, behold! the youthful mentor found the lessons no longer irksome. As they sauntered home, skates clashing merrily at every step over the arc-lit snow of the park driveway, one starlit February night, Louise broke into a sudden delighted giggle. "Day after tomorrow's Lincoln's birthday. Aren't you glad?" Glad? Was ever a schoolboy sorry for an added day of freedom? "Two days after that's St. Valentine's day. We'll have a box up at school then. What kind of valentines do you like best?" he quizzed in return. "Paper hearts and things with lots of lace on them, or celluloid ones in boxes?" Louise hesitated for a moment. "I like," she said finally, "any kind of valentines, but best I like lots and lots of them--more'n anyone else in the room gets. Last year I was third, and in second grade a girl got one more valentine than I did. It was only a comic, but that gave her nine, and I had eight. This year I want to be first!" It was no small honor which the girl craved. To lead in the valentine distribution is to be acknowledged the belle of the room until the June examinations break up the little, pupil cliques and send their members to the different higher-grade rooms. John resolved that her wish should be fulfilled, but that achievement lay at the end of a path beset with pitfalls. Let rumor make the rounds that he purposed stuffing the box, and others would play at the same game. Witness a girl in an early grade, the homeliest of the room, who begged a dollar from her father and filled the box to overflowing with a hundred penny valentines addressed to herself. He left for his paper route half an hour earlier, that Lincoln's birthday afternoon, and turned abruptly westward as he reached the corner where the wagon drove up with his nightly bundle. He halted a moment in front of the school store. In the window was the usual display of rubber balls, penny trinkets, and magazines, and beyond them, he could see the deserted interior. As he had foreseen, the holiday had brought the usual lack of juvenile trade, and investment in the valentine market could be made without fear. He swung the door back. The trip bell rang noisily, and tall, angular Miss Thomas came out from the suite of little rooms in the rear.