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on Emmy Lou's heart, however, that there was reading
on it. She studied it surreptitiously. The reading was made up of letters.
It was the first time Emmy Lou had thought about that. She knew some
of the letters. She would ask someone the letters she did not know by
pointing them out on the chart at recess. Emmy Lou was learning. It
was the first time since she came to school.
But what did the letters make? She wondered, after recess, studying the
valentine again.
Then she went home. She followed Aunt Cordelia about. Aunt Cordelia
was busy.

"What does it read?" asked Emmy Lou.
Aunt Cordelia listened.
"B," said Emmy Lou, "and e?"
"Be," said Aunt Cordelia.
If B was Be, it was strange that B and e were Be. But many things were
strange.
Emmy Lou accepted them all on faith.
After dinner she approached Aunt Katie.
"What does it read?" asked Emmy Lou, "m and y?"
"My," said Aunt Katie.
The rest was harder. She could not remember the letters, and had to
copy them off on her slate. Then she sought Tom, the house-boy. Tom
was out at the gate talking to another house-boy. She waited until the
other boy was gone.
"What does it read?" asked Emmy Lou, and she told the letters off the
slate. It took Tom some time, but finally he told her.
Just then a little girl came along. She was a first-section little girl, and
at school she never noticed Emmy Lou.
Now she was alone, so she stopped.
"Get any valentines?"
"Yes," said Emmy Lou. Then moved to confidence by the little girl's
friendliness, she added, "It has reading on it."
"Pooh," said the little girl, "they all have that. My mamma's been
reading the long verses inside to me."

"Can you show them--valentines?" asked Emmy Lou.
"Of course, to grown-up people," said the little girl.
The gas was lit when Emmy Lou came in. Uncle Charlie was there, and
the aunties, sitting around, reading.
"I got a valentine," said Emmy Lou.
They all looked up. They had forgotten it was Valentine's Day, and it
came to them that if Emmy Lou's mother had not gone away, never to
come back, the year before, Valentine's Day would not have been
forgotten. Aunt Cordelia smoothed the black dress she was wearing
because of the mother who would never come back, and looked
troubled.
But Emmy Lou laid the blue and gold valentine on Aunt Cordelia's
knee. In the valentine's center were two hands clasping. Emmy Lou's
forefinger pointed to the words beneath the clasped hands.
"I can read it," said Emmy Lou.
They listened. Uncle Charlie put down his paper. Aunt Louise looked
over Aunt Cordelia's shoulder.
"B," said Emmy Lou, "e--Be."
The aunties nodded.
"M," said Emmy Lou, "y--my."
Emmy Lou did not hesitate. "V," said Emmy Lou, "a, l, e, n, t, i, n,
e--Valentine. Be my Valentine."
"There!" said Aunt Cordelia.
"Well!" said Aunt Katie.
"At last!" said Aunt Louise.

"H'm!" said Uncle Charlie.

GEORGE MADDEN MARTIN
In the South it is not unusual to give boys' names to girls, so it happens
that George is the real name of the woman who wrote Emmy Lou.
George Madden was born in Louisville, Kentucky, May 3, 1866. She
attended the public schools in Louisville, but on account of ill health
did not graduate. She married Atwood R. Martin, and they made their
home at Anchorage, a suburb of Louisville. Here in an old house
surrounded by great catalpa trees, with cardinals nesting in their
branches, she was recovering from an illness, and to pass the time
began to write a short story. The title was "How They Missed the
Exposition"; when it was sent away, and a check for seventy-five
dollars came in payment, she was encouraged to go on. Her next work
was the series of stories entitled Emmy Lou, Her Book and Heart. This
at once took rank as one of the classics of school-room literature. It had
a wide popularity in this country, and was translated into French and
German. One of the pleasant tributes paid to the book was a review in a
Pittsburgh newspaper which took the form of a letter to Emmy Lou. It
ran in part as follows:
Dear Little Emmy Lou:
I have read your book, Emmy Lou, and am writing this letter to tell you
how much I love you. In my world of books I know a great assembly of
lovely ladies, Emmy Lou, crowned with beauty and garlanded with
grace, that have inspired poets to song and the hearts of warriors to
battle, but, Emmy Lou, I love you better than them all, because you are
the dearest little girl I ever met.
I felt very sorry for