ed in her lap! Where's your senior?"

"That person with the gray beard," began Bea, calmly, only to be
interrupted by, "Why, so it is! What fun! Where does she put the
envelopes addressed to herself? Oh, yes, I see. Why----" Berta caught
Bea's skirts in a firm grasp. "See here, young lady, you'll go over the
banisters head first if you don't undouble yourself pretty soon.
You'll----"

"That's the very valentine--that big, square envelope in her hand this
instant! She sent it to herself----"

Bea saw Saint Valentine read aloud the name, and then stop short, staring
at the address in a puzzled way. She turned the envelope over to examine
its back, and study the waxen seal. Suddenly she bent her head in the
delighted laughter that Bea once had thought so charming. She laughed
till the long gray beard threatened to shake itself free.

"Isn't that the greatest joke! I was scribbling verses last night till I
was too sleepy to see straight. I didn't mean to send this to myself. How
perfectly ridiculous!" and she tossed the innocent missive into the fire.

Outside on the shadowy stairway Berta gave a little squeal of pain.
"Ouch! You're pinching me black and blue! Why, Bea, Bea Leigh, whatever
in the world----"

A packet of white, bound with an elastic, went flying through the air, to
fall with a rustling plop into the half-empty caldron. An inquisitive
senior going out to investigate spied only the deserted stairs, and heard
nothing but four scampering feet on the corridor overhead. Saint
Valentine, with a voice that dropped lower and lower into a muffled
murmur, read her own name fifteen times in succession, and blushed
rose-pink, from gray beard to powdered hair, while the other seniors
laughed and laughed.

Two minutes after the valentines had been counted and the result
announced Bea was waltzing about Berta's room, with that unwilling
captive in her arms.

"Ho! Who says your senior is more popular than my senior now?" she
jeered. "Who won that time, I want to know?"

"Before I'd have a senior who sends valentines to herself!" grumbled
Berta wickedly, to the ceiling.

"Ho!" chanted shameless Bea. "I knew it was a mistake all along. That's
the reason I didn't tear up my valentines."

"Yes?" commented Miss Berta, with an inflection so maddening that in
three seconds she was fleeing for her life.

CHAPTER V

THE GIFTIE GIE US

It had been raining for a week. Berta was writing a poem, her elbows on
t