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                                  THEO.

                        _A SPRIGHTLY LOVE STORY._

                     BY MRS. FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT

AUTHOR OF "KATHLEEN," "PRETTY POLLY PEMBERTON," "LINDSAY'S LUCK," "IN
CONNECTION WITH THE DE WILLOUGHBY CLAIM," "THE MAKING OF A MARCHIONESS,"
"THE METHODS OF LADY WALDERHURST," ETC.


NEW YORK
HURST & COMPANY
PUBLISHERS

COPYRIGHT, 1877
By T. B. PETERSON & BROTHERS.




MRS. BURNETT'S NOVELETTES.


_Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett is one of the most charming among American
writers. There is a crisp and breezy freshness about her delightful
novelettes that is rarely found in contemporaneous fiction, and a close
adherence to nature, as well, that renders them doubly delicious. Of all
Mrs. Burnett's romances and shorter stories those which first attracted
public attention to her wonderful gifts are still her best. She has done
more mature work, but never anything half so pleasing and enjoyable.
These masterpieces of Mrs. Burnett's genius are all love stories of the
brightest, happiest and most entertaining description; lively, cheerful
love stories in which the shadow cast is infinitesimally small compared
with the stretch of sunlight; and the interest is always maintained at
full head without apparent effort and without resorting to the
conventional and hackneyed devices of most novelists, devices that the
experienced reader sees through at once. No more sprightly novel than
"Theo" could be desired, and a sweeter or more beautiful romance than
"Kathleen" does not exist in print, while "Pretty Polly Pemberton"
possesses besides its sprightliness a special interest peculiar to
itself, and "Miss Crespigny" would do honor to the pen of any novelist,
no matter how celebrated. "Lindsay's Luck," "A Quiet Life," "The Tide on
the Moaning Bar" and "Jarl's Daughter" are all worthy members of the
same collection of Mrs. Burnett's earlier, most original, best and
freshest romances. Everybody should read these exceptionally bright,
clever and fascinating novelettes, for they occupy a niche by themselves
in the world's literature and are decidedly the most agreeable, charming
and interesting books that can be found anywhere._




CONTENTS.



I. PREPARING FOR A JOURNEY

II. THE ARRIVAL

III. THE MEETING

IV. THEO'S DIARY

V. THE SEPARATION

VI. THEO GOES TO PARIS

VII. "PARTING IS SWEET SORROW"

VIII. THEO'S FIRST TROUBLE

IX. WHAT COMES OF IT ALL




"THEO."




CHAPTER I.

PREPARING FOR A JOURNEY.


A heavy curtain of yellow fog rolled and drifted over the waste of
beach, and rolled and drifted over the sea, and beneath the curtain the
tide was coming in at Downport, and two pair of eyes were watching it.
Both pair of eyes watched it from the same place, namely, from the
shabby sitting-room of the shabby residence of David North, Esq.,
lawyer, and both watched it without any motive, it seemed, unless that
the dull gray waves and their dull moaning were not out of accord with
the watchers' feelings. One pair of eyes--a youthful, discontented black
pair--watched it steadily, never turning away, as their owner stood in
the deep, old-fashioned window, with both elbows resting upon the broad
sill; but the other pair only glanced up now and then, almost furtively,
from the piece of work Miss Pamela North, spinster, held in her slender,
needle-worn fingers.

There had been a long silence in the shabby sitting-room for some
time--and there was not often silence there. Three rampant,
strong-lunged boys, and as many talkative school-girls, made the house
of David North, Esq., rather a questionable paradise. But to-day, being
half-holiday, the boys were out on the beach digging miraculous
sand-caves, and getting up miraculous piratical battles and excursions
with the bare-legged urchins so numerous in the fishermen's huts; and
Joanna and Elinor had been absent all day, so the room left to Theo and
her elder sister was quiet for once.

It was Miss Pamela herself who broke the stillness. "Theo," she said,
with some elder-sister-like asperity, "it appears to me that you might
find something better to do than to stand with your arms folded, as you
have been doing for the last half hour. There is a whole basketful of
the boys' socks that need mending and--"

"Pam!" interrupted Theo, desperately, turning over her shoulder a face
more like the face of some young Spanish gipsy than that of a poor
English solicitor's daughter. "Pam, I should really like to know if life
is ever worth having, if everybody's life is like ours, or if there are
really such people as we read of in books."

"You have been reading some ridiculous novel again," said Pamela,
sententiously. "If you would be a little more sensible, and less
romantic, Theodora, it would be a great deal better for all of us. What
have you been reading?"

The capable gipsy face turned to the window again half-impatiently.

"I have been reading nothing to-day," was the answer. "I should think
you knew that--on Saturday, with everything to do, and the shopping to
attend to, and mamma scolding every one because the butcher's bill can't
be paid. I was reading Jane Eyre, though, last night. Did you ever read
Jane Eyre, Pamela?"

"I always have too much to do in attending to my duty," said Pamela,
"without wasting my time in that manner. I should never find time to
read Jane Eyre in twenty years. I wish I could."

"I wish you could, too," said Theo, meditatively. "I wish there was no
such thing as duty. Duty always appears to me to be the very thing we
don't want to do."

"Just at present, it is your duty to attend to those socks of Ralph and
Arthur's," put in Pamela, dryly. "Perhaps you had better see to it at
once, as tea will be ready soon, and you will have to cut bread for the
children."

The girl turned away from the window with a sigh. Her discussions on
subjects of this