Usually she was ashamed of these outbursts afterwards, for it always happened that after each one she found her Aunt Allison had planned something especially pleasant for her entertainment.  Miss Allison felt sorry for the lonely child, who had never been separated from her father and mother before, so she devoted her time to her as much as possible, telling her stories and entering into her plays and pleasures as if they had both been the same age.

Since the boys had come, Virginia had not had a single homesick moment.  While she was at school in the primary department of the Girls’ College, Malcolm and Keith were reciting their lessons to the old minister who lived across the road from Mrs. MacIntyre’s.  They were all free about the same hour, and even on the coldest days played out-of-doors from lunch-time until dark.

To-night Virginia had so many experiences to tell them of her day in town that the boys seemed unusually long in dressing.  She was so impatient for them to hear her news that she could not settle down to anything, but walked restlessly around the room, wishing they would hurry.

“Oh, I haven’t sorted my valentines!” she exclaimed, presently, picking up a fancy box which she had tossed on the bed when she first came in.  “I’ll take them down to the library.”

There was no one in the room when she peeped in.  It looked so bright and cosy with the great wood fire blazing on the hearth and the rose-coloured light falling from its softly shaded lamps, that she forgot the coldness of the night outside.  Sitting down on a pile of cushions at one end of the hearth-rug, she began sorting her purchases, trying to decide to whom each one should be sent.

“The prettiest valentine of all must go to poor papa,” she said to herself, “’cause he’s been so sick away down there in Cuba; and this one that’s got the little girl on it in a blue dress shall be for my dear, sweet mamma, ’cause it will make her think of me.”

For a moment, a mist seemed to blur the gay blue dress of the little valentine girl as Virginia looked at her, thinking of her far-away mother.  She drew her hand hastily across her eyes and went on: 

“This one is for Sergeant Jackson out at Fort Dennis, and the biggest one, with the doves, for Colonel Philips and his wife.  Dear me!  I wish I could send one to every officer and soldier out there.  They were all so good to me!”

The pile of lace-paper cupids and hearts and arrows and roses slipped from her lap, down to the rug, as she clasped her hands around her knees and looked into the fire.  She wished that she could be back again at the fort, long enough to live one of those beautiful old days from reveille to taps.  How she loved the bugle-calls and the wild thrill the band gave her, when it struck up a burst of martial music, and the troops went dashing by!  How she missed the drills and the dress parades; her rides across the open prairie on her pony, beside her father; how she missed the games she used to play with the other children at the fort on the long summer evenings!