and rode round it on the morning of St. Valentine’s Day to see the effect of them, meeting the postman on the road.  He gave me two for myself.  One was transparently from Janet, a provoking counterstroke of mine to her; but when I opened the other my heart began beating.  The standard of Great Britain was painted in colours at the top; down each side, encricled in laurels, were kings and queens of England with their sceptres, and in the middle I read the initials, A. F-G.  R. R., embedded in blue forget-me-hots.  I could not doubt it was from my father.  Riding out in the open air as I received it, I could fancy in my hot joy that it had dropped out of heaven.

‘He’s alive; I shall have him with me; I shall have him with me soon!’ I cried to Temple.  ’Oh! why can’t I answer him? where is he? what address?  Let’s ride to London.  Don’t you understand, Temple?  This letter’s from my father.  He knows I’m here.  I’ll find him, never mind what happens.’

‘Yes, but,’ said Temple, ’if he knows where you are, and you don’t know where he is, there’s no good in your going off adventuring.  If a fellow wants to be hit, the best thing he can do is to stop still.’

Struck by the perspicacity of his views, I turned homeward.  Temple had been previously warned by me to avoid speaking of my father at Riversley; but I was now in such a boiling state of happiness, believing that my father would certainly appear as he had done at Dipwell farm, brilliant and cheerful, to bear me away to new scenes and his own dear society, that I tossed the valentine to my aunt across the breakfast-table, laughing and telling her to guess the name of the sender.  My aunt flushed.

‘Miss Bannerbridge?’ she said.

A stranger was present.  The squire introduced us.

’My grandson, Harry Richmond, Captain William Bulsted, frigate Polyphemus; Captain Bulsted, Master Augustus Temple.’

For the sake of conversation, Temple asked him if his ship was fully manned.

‘All but a mate,’ said the captain.

I knew him by reputation as the brother of Squire Gregory Bulsted of Bulsted, notorious for his attachment to my aunt, and laughing-stock of the county.

‘So you’ve got a valentine,’ the captain addressed me.  ’I went on shore at Rio last year on this very day of the month, just as lively as you youngsters for one.  Saltwater keeps a man’s youth in pickle.  No valentine for me!  Paid off my ship yesterday at Spithead, and here I am again on Valentine’s Day.’

Temple and I stared hard at a big man with a bronzed skin and a rubicund laugh who expected to receive valentines.

My aunt thrust the letter back to me secretly.  ‘It must be from a lady,’ said she.

‘Why, who’d have a valentine from any but a lady?’ exclaimed the captain.

The squire winked at me to watch his guest.  Captain Bulsted fed heartily; he was thoroughly a sailor-gentleman, between the old school and the new, and, as I perceived, as far gone in love with my aunt as his brother was.  Presently Sewis entered carrying a foaming tankard of old ale, and he and the captain exchanged a word or two upon Jamaica.