This will be as it should be. A day has been found in which all may have an occasion for present pleasure; some (and most) to be active in the circulation of those delicate compositions or handy-works which express regard and sometimes promote affection; others will look back upon the years past, and remember with a silent tear how the beautiful and beloved ones, that made them happy by the transmission or the acceptance of the token, are now mouldering in the earth, insensible to all those affections which once made them happy, unconscious even of the regret which their departure created and their absence keeps alive. Mournful indeed is it to take from the secret ark, where affection has enshrined it, the emblem of a love that death has severed; and still more painful is it to gaze on the return of the anniversary of proffered vows, upon that pledge which time never redeemed, and to feel that she who might have been happy in ministering to your happiness, is miserable in a union (the only point of union) with another. We saw a lad conveying to the residence of the loved one the Valentine, whose form and decoration told of its donor—no record of name was made, nor was it necessary to the receiver—none was _politic_ for the witnesses. There was a secret love—a love unannounced to the world, yet not unknown. The giver and the receiver of the Valentine were married before July—yet not to each other. That Valentine was the cause of misery. The new husband knew that she loved another, yet persisted in his courtship, and with the influence of his wealth over the mother, procured marriage. He knew during the honeymoon all that had ever occurred, and yet was content with his winnings—the accidental discovery of the Valentine, though not where it could have been hoarded away, as if of value, not placed as a memento of affection, but as if thrown aside, because useless, and left as forgotten—the accidental discovery of that Valentine awakened the bitterness of jealousy—not jealousy of honor, but that contemptible narrowness of selfish esteem, which demands that the eyes of a wife should always _have been_ closed—while the eyes and appetites of the husband _are_ always roving. Was the Valentine then an evil? Nay—rather would not any object, or rather no object, in two months have roused the unreasonableness of the discoverer? Where there is much filth, spontaneous combustion will save the application of the lighted match. One who is reading the preceding paragraph while we are preparing for _this_, tells us she obtained the best husband in the world by means of a Valentine, and she has never forgotten the saint’s day since. It would, probably, be more germain to the matter to say, that her husband got the best wife in the country by a Valentine—though on second thought, she may be right—women generally know best, and remember most.