Praise be to the first pastrycook who discovered the important fact that giving novices the unlimited range of the tarts and cakes for a few days is the certain way to insure their subsequent temperance! Philippa had enjoyed the sugarplums and confections of society without restriction, and rated them at their real value. When first introduced to Janet, she felt considerably disappointed; she had hoped (for she was incapable of envy) that her companion would have been still livelier and more attractive than herself; but faithful to her habit of always looking on the sunny side of a question, she soon took warm interest in the poor, timid, sorrowful girl who felt such warm gratitude for her kindness. She cheered her with smiles and kind words, divided with her the fruits and flowers presented to her by her suitors, and was even anxious to divide with her their attentions; for soft looks and flattering speeches were so liberally bestowed on Philippa, that she did not prize them as those do to whom they are seldom and sparingly administered. Few men, however, are willing to be transferred on loan to a young lady of crippled proportions and stunted fortune; and poor Janet was compelled to sustain a great deal of rudeness and inattention from the lords of the creation, and indeed only met with kindness and civility from one of them--the handsome and intellectual Heathcote, of whom more anon. I will now return to the point at which my story began. It was the morning of St. Valentine's Day, that strange, mysterious day, when men go out of their national character, become tender, sentimental, and manœuvring, purchase exquisite sheets of paper embellished with wreaths of flowers, write love verses on them in a studiously neat, prim hand, seal them with a fanciful device, and drop them into a post-office a mile or two from their own residence. Philippa was seated at a small table covered with these little fanciful productions, some of which were yet unopened; she was laughing in the exuberance of youthful spirits at the hyperbole contained in one of them. "And yet, Philippa," said Janet, "I could almost feel disposed to envy you even for such light-passing tokens of admiration as are now lying before you; it is hard, in the very spring of youth, to feel one's self quite slighted and forgotten." "Dear Janet," said the heiress good-humoredly, "can you really attach any importance to such a graceful gallantry of society as a valentine? Depend upon it, the greater number of those who send them do it merely in observance of the courteous custom of the day, and forget, in the formal realities of the next morning, the fascinations of the goddess whom they have so recently deified in poetry, or I should rather say in rhyme."