“What a queer place to serve pie,” said Malcolm, in a disapproving undertone to his brother.  “Why don’t they have it in the dining-room?  It looks mighty good, but somehow it doesn’t seem proper to have it stuck out here in the hall.  Mamma would never do such a thing.”

“Aw, it’s made of paper!  She fooled us, sure, Malcolm,” called back Keith, who had run on ahead to look.  “It is only painted to look like a pie.  But isn’t it a splendid imitation?”

Virginia, pleased to have caught them so cleverly, showed them the ends of twenty-four pieces of narrow ribbon, peeping from under the delicately brown top crust.  “The white ones are for the girls, and the red ones for the boys,” she explained.  “There is a valentine on the end of each one, and those on the red ribbons match the ones on the white.  We’ll all pull at once, and the ones who have valentines alike will go out to dinner together.”

The guests came promptly.  They had been invited for half-past six, and dinner was to be served soon after that time.  The last to arrive was the Little Colonel.  She came in charge of an old coloured woman, Mom Beck, who had been her mother’s nurse as well as her own.  The child was so hidden in her wraps when Mom Beck led her up-stairs, that no one could tell how she looked.  The boys had been curious to see her, ever since they had heard so many tales of her mischievous pranks.  A few minutes later, when she appeared in the parlours, there was a buzz of admiration.  Maybe it was not so much for the soft light hair, the star-like beauty of her big dark eyes, or the delicate colour in her cheeks that made them as pink as a wild rose, as it was for the valentine costume she wore.  It was of dainty white tulle, sprinkled with hundreds of tiny red velvet hearts, and there was a coronet of glittering rhinestones on her long fair hair.

“The Queen of Hearts,” announced Aunt Allison, leading her forward.  “You know ‘she made some tarts, upon a summer day,’ and now she shall open the valentine pie and see if it is as good as her Majesty’s.”

The big music-box in the hall began playing one of its liveliest waltzes, the children gathered around the great pie, and twenty-four little hands reached out to grasp the floating ends of ribbon.

“Pull!” cried the little Queen of Hearts.  The paper crust flew off, and twenty-four yards of ribbon, each with a valentine attached, fluttered brightly through the air for an instant.

“Now match your verses,” cried her Majesty again, opening her own to read what was in it.  There was much laughing and peeping over shoulders, and tangling of white and scarlet ribbons, while the gay music-box played on.

In the midst of it Virginia beckoned to the Little Colonel.  “Come up-stairs with me for a minute, Lloyd,” she whispered, “and help me look for something.  Aunt Allison has forgotten where she put the box of arrows that we are to use in the archery contest after dinner.  There is the prettiest prize for the one who hits the red heart in the centre of the target.”