Theo: A Sprightly Love Story

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.
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.