Valentine’s Day was the time my father chose to show his love for the special people in his life. Over the years I fondly (天真的) thought   1   him as my “Valentine man”.

My first recollection of the   2   he could bring to Valentine’s Day came when I was six. That morning at the breakfast table I found a card and a gift-wrapped package at my chair. The card was   3   “Love, Dad” and the gift was a ring with a small piece of red glass to   4   my birthstone, a ruby (红宝石). There is   5   difference between red glass and rubies to a child of six, and I remember   6   that ring with pride that all the cards in the world   7   not surpass (超越).

  8   I grew older, the gifts gave   9   to heart-shaped boxes filled with my   10__   chocolate and always included a   11   card signed “Love, Dad”. In those years my thank-you became   12   of a perfunctory (敷衍) response. The cards seemed less   13  , and I took for granted that the Valentine would   14   be there. I had   15   my hopes and dreams in receiving cards and gifts from “significant others” and “Love Dad” just didn’t seem quite   16  .

His final card remains on my desk today. It’s a   17   of how special fathers can be and how important it has been to me over the years to know that I had a father who continued a   18_        of love with simple acts of understanding and an ability to express happiness over the people in his life.

Those things never   19  , nor does the memory of a man who never   20   being my Valentine.

1. A. of           B. about       C. up              D. over

2. A. memory      B. magic        C. puzzle            D. presents

3. A. read           B. written             C. shown           D. signed

4. A. recover      B. resemble        C. represent              D. replace

5. A. much        B. little           C. great             D. less

6. A. having       B. owning       C. wearing         D. watching

7. A. could         B. did             C. must             D. should

8. A. Because     B. Since          C. When            D. As

9. A. room         B. way            C. honour          D. seat

10. A. favorite    B. lovely          C. dear                  D. precious

11. A. usual        B. common        C. strange         D. special

12. A. less         B. little            C. more             D. much

13. A. important     B. beautiful       C. familiar          D. standard

14. A. surely      B. always        C. regularly        D. often

15. A. let        B. kept            C. placed            D. remembered

16. A. suitable      B. enough         C. effective         D. sacred

17. A. signal        B. certificate     C. consequence      D. reminder

18. A. tradition       B. hobby        C. habit             D. custom

19. A. lose          B. die             C. miss             D. appear

20. A. thought     B. wanted           C. tried            D. stopped