them up. The most interesting thing about them, to "grown-ups," is the
way they are made; and perhaps even you youngsters, who watch eagerly
for the postman, "sinking beneath the load of delicate embarrassments
not his own," would like to know how satin and lace and flowers and
other dainty things grew into a valentine.

It was no fairy's handiwork. It went through the hands of grimy-looking
workmen before it reached your hands.

To be sure, a dreamy artist may have designed it, but a lithographer,
with inky fingers, printed the picture part of it; a die-cutter, with
sleeves rolled up, made a pattern in steel of the lace-work on the edge;
and a dingy-looking pressman, with a paper hat on, stamped the pattern
around the picture. Another hard-handed workman rubbed the back of the
stamped lace with sand-paper till it came in holes and looked like lace,
and not merely like stamped paper; and a row of girls at a common long
table put on the colors with stencils, gummed on the hearts and darts
and cupids and flowers, and otherwise finished the thing exactly like
the pattern before them.

You see, the sentiment about a valentine doesn't begin until Tom, Dick,
or Harry takes it from the stationer, and writes your name on it.

[Illustration: ST. VALENTINE'S LETTER-CARRIERS]




=Washington's Birthday=