The front doorbell rang furiously and Mary, knowing that it was snowing and blowing a outside, answered the ring as fast as she was able.  
Two shivering little figures stood upon the doorstep, one a small boy, 10 or 12 years of age, who surveyed her a moment quite as coolly as she surveyed him. stepping into the lighted hallway, he dragged with him his little companion, a shivering of a girl, almost hidden in the folds of a coat. This coat he suddenly jerked from her shoulders, saying:
 
"Here's a valentine for the lady wot lives here!" Then, turning, he ran rapidly down the steps and disappeared around the corner into the snowy darkness.
 
Aunt Dorothy at that moment entered the hall, but, before she had time to speak the little waif thrust a piece of paper into, her hand, with the simple explanation, "Dick it."
 
Aunt Dorothy took the note and unfolded it carefully. After a few minutes she managed to read the letters:
 
"This little girl ain't got no folks and no place to stay; so she's been staying in a box with straw in it with me nights. I've fetched her to be your valentine. She's hungry.
 
"Dick."
Aunt Dorothy's eyes filled with tears. "Mary, take the child into the kitchen and give her something to eat. I will come presently and perhaps I can find out what is the best thing to do."
 
Mary led her down the hall.
 
"A valentine!" she ejaculated. "Blest if I don't think this is the queerest piece of business I ever seen!" Her manner a little as she watched the greediness with which the child the big slice of bread and butter, and when Aunt Dorothy came down she found her "valentine" seated in Mary's own rocking chair before the fire, while Mary herself, down on the floor, had the almost frozen feet in her lap.
 
Aunt Dorothy sat down near them and watched Mary for a few minutes in silence. "Now that you feel better, my child, tell me where you live?"
 
"I don't live nowhere," answered the child, "'cept with Dick—he's got a big box with straw in it. I crawled in one night after they took father away—the police, you know."
 
Aunt Dorothy sighed, "Give her a warm bath, Mary, and make a bed on the lounge in my room. I will try to find something whic............