Munson Aldrich Havens

“ Long before I was born, and long before they were married, my papa gave my mamma valentines, new ones and old ones too but mostly old ones. They were the prettiest. Some of them are a hundred years old. They are ever so pretty, Uncle Peter, and she let me play with them, whole boxes full of them. I loved them best of all my playthings. Sometimes my papa called me his little Valentine, but they named me Phyllis, after my grandmamma, my papa's mamma. Why, Uncle Peter, she was your mamma, too, wasn't she?" Phyllis, sitting on Sir Peter's lap, regarded him gravely, with new interest. ”

“ Charming were their afternoons among the curio shops, and their return, laden with loot too precious to wait over night for delivery. Glorious were their holidays in Paris and Vienna; wonderful nights in Venice! Always together! To their sudden migration to Egypt, whence he returned with a portfolio of exciting promise. Alas, the slender fulfilment! for then was the time for work,—the sobering thought of Baby Phyllis.
But to Valentine and Robert Oglebay, Baby Phyllis soon meant a new frolic. Nurse Farquharson's were the competent hands. Their life went on unchanged. ”

“ At the moment, wrapped in a blanket, Phyllis was conscious only of security and warmth. She smiled up at the big fisherman who had rescued her, and made friendly advances to the cluster of ragged little ones who gathered around her, with scared faces and brown, bare legs and feet. When the fisherman's wife tucked her into a warm bed, she inquired sleepily for her mamma. A reassuring caress was the response: the language of motherhood is universal, and requires no words. ”