Good Stories for Great Holidays

A GIRL'S VALENTINE CHARM

AS TOLD BY HERSELF

(FROM THE CONNOISSEUR, 1775)

Last Friday was Valentine's Day, and I'll tell you what I did the night before. I got five bay leaves, and pinned four of them to the four corners of my pillow, and the fifth to the middle; and then if I dreamt of my sweetheart, Betty said we would be married before the year was out.

But to make it more sure, I boiled an egg hard, and took out the yolk, and filled it with salt, and when I went to bed ate it, shell and all, without speaking or drinking after it.

We also wrote our lovers' names upon bits of paper, and rolled them up in clay and put them into water; and the first that rose up was to be our valentine. Would you think it? Mr. Blossom was my man, and I lay abed and shut my eyes all the morning, till he came to our house, for I would not have seen another man before him for all the world.