TEDDY: HER BOOK

A Story of Sweet Sixteen

BY

ANNA CHAPIN RAY

ILLUSTRATED BY VESPER L. GEORGE

BOSTON

LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY

1901

Copyright, 1898,

By Little, Brown, and Company.

University Press:

John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A.

"Spring's hands are always full of rosy flowers,
Unopened buds to deck each field and tree.
We love and watch them through the long, sweet hours,
Not for the buds, but what the buds will be.

"Life's hands are full of buds. She comes on singing,
With radiant eyes, across Youth's golden gate;
We smile to see the burden she is bringing,
And for the Summer are content to wait."

CONTENTS

List of Illustrations
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

List of Illustrations

Theodora's face, rosy with blushes, appeared in the opening.

Theodora went flying across the road.

"'What do you think of this?' she demanded."

"Teddy, dear, this is my brother Archie, come at last."

"'Give me my fan and gloves, Hu,' she said."

Something in the expression of the blue eyes above her made her own eyes droop

CHAPTER ONE

The five McAlisters were gathered in the dining-room, one rainy night in late August. In view of the respective dimensions of the family circle and the family income, servants were few in the McAlister household, and division of labor was the order of the day. Old Susan had cleared away the table and brought in the lamp; then she retired to the kitchen, leaving the young people to themselves.

Hope was darning stockings. She had one of Hubert's socks drawn on over her hand, which showed, white and dainty, through the great, ragged hole. Hubert sat near her with little Allyn on his knee, tiding over a crisis in the young man's temper by showing him pictures in the dilapidated Mother Goose which had done duty for successive McAlisters, from seventeen-year-old Hope down.

"Stop kicking