The poor man felt it keenly. He longed to do some great thing. "Why did not the good God give me a voice like Vittorio or a skilled hand like Angelo?" he would often inquire of himself bitterly. One day as he sat sadly musing on these things, a voice within him said clearly and earnestly: "Do the little things, Valentine; there the blessing lies." "What are the little things?" asked Valentine, much perplexed. But no answer came to this question. Like every one else, Valentine had to find his work himself. He had a little plot where he loved to work, and the other monks said that Valentine's pinks, lilies, and violets were larger and brighter than any raised in the whole monastery garden. He used to gather bunches of his flowers and drop them into the chubby hands of children as they trotted to school under the gray monastery walls. Many a happy village bride wore his roses on her way to the altar. Scarcely a coffin was taken to the cemetery but Valentine's lilies or violets filled the silent hands. He got to know the birthday of every child in the village, and was fond of hanging on the cottage door some little gift his loving hands had made. He could mend a child's broken windmill and carve quaint faces from walnut shells. He made beautiful crosses of silvery gray lichens, and pressed mosses and rosy weeds from the seashore. The same tender hands were ready to pick up a fallen baby, or carry the water bucket for some weary mother. Everybody learned to love the good Brother Valentine. The children clung to his long, gray skirts, and the babies crept out on the streets to receive his pat on their shining hair. Even the cats and dogs rubbed against him, and the little birds fluttered near him unafraid. St. Valentine grew old, loving and beloved, never dreaming that he had found his great thing. When the simple monk died the whole countryside mourned, and hundreds came to look for the last time on the quiet face in the rude coffin. A great duke walked bare-headed after that coffin, and one of the most noted brothers of the church spoke the last words of blessing to the weeping people. After his death, it was remembered how sweet had been his little gifts, and the villagers said: "Let us, too, give gifts to our friends on the good Valentine's birthday." So ever since has the pretty custom been carried out, and on St. Valentine's day we send our friends little tokens of remembrance to say we love them. THE FIRST THANKSGIVING It is nearly three hundred years since the first Thanksgiving Day. Though we have even more to be grateful for, I think that there are not many of us who feel quite so thankful as the little handful of people who set apart the first Thanksgiving Day.