_The Story of Rebecca Gratz and Washington Irving._
The spring rain fell on the roof with a gentle murmur, tinkling
merrily as though it were pleased to hear the happy laughter of the
children playing in the garret of Michael Gratz's house in
Philadelphia. Six children romped there that Saturday afternoon in
early springtime, away back in the year 1712, Rebecca Gratz, her
younger brothers and sister and the one guest she had invited to her
eleventh birthday party, Matilda Hoffman, a girl about her own age,
whose fair long braids formed a striking contrast to Rebecca's dusky
curls.
Just now the merriment was at its height for Rebecca, aided by
Matilda, was setting the table, while nine-year-old Rachel tried to
amuse baby Benjamin who was making violent efforts to nibble at the
trimmings of the birthday cake. Joseph and Jacob, fine sturdy fellows
of seven and six, had found a pair of fencing foils in one of the old
trunks in the corner and were engaged in a lively duel, displaying
such recklessness that had their mother seen them she would have
confiscated the weapons without delay. Perhaps Rebecca would have
stopped this dangerous play had she not been too busy with the
banquet-table--really a board placed upon two barrels and covered with
a gay red scarf Rachel had found with the fencing foils.
"It does look nice," she admitted, viewing her efforts with her head
on one side as Matilda poured out the last glass of gooseberry wine
and set it in its place. "Only," with a little sigh, "I do wish my
birthday hadn't come today so we could have had candles instead of
those wax roses on the cake."
"Why couldn't you?" Matilda asked curiously.
"It isn't right for people to light birthday candles on _Shabbas_,"
explained Rachel. "Jewish people, I mean," she qualified as she tied a
napkin around Benjamin's fat neck and deposited him in a seat at the
table furtherest from the birthday cake. "But it's different for you
'cause you're not Jewish."
"It's queer people are all different and go to different churches,"
puzzled Matilda. "My mamma says----"
But no one ever heard her mother's opinion on the subject, for Joseph
and Jacob on seeing Rebecca take her place at the head of the table
raced to their seats with howls like hungry Indians at dinner time.
For a few minutes the children's noisy tongues were hushed as the
little hostess passed out sandwiches and jelly tarts. But when all the
plates were empty to the last crumb and only the birthday cake
remained in solitary splendor, just beyond the reach of Benjamin's
greedy fingers, Joseph remarked with a satisfied sigh:
"This was just like one of those king's dinners in the fairy books.
Like the banquet Esther gave the king at Purim."
"I wish it was Purim again," observed Jacob, who, seeing that the
pitcher was empty, began to wish that he had drunk his second glass of
gooseberry wine a little more slowly. "Don't you remember last Purim,
Becky, how you wore mother's old black silk and played you were Queen
Esther? But Joe and Hyman took all the good parts and wouldn't let me
be a king or anything."
"We don't have to wait till Purim to dress up and play king and
queen," Rebecca told him, her brows knit in her effort to divide the
pink and white cake into six slices of equal thickness. "As soon as
we've finished our cake, we'll look through those old trunks over
there. There're ever so many dresses and things from Austria and an
Indian blanket and beads and such things and I know mother wouldn't
care if we played with them as long as we put 'em all back again."
Joseph sprang up, his piece of frosted cake in his hand. "I want the
Indian stuff," he cried.
"And I'll shoot you with my gun," challenged Jacob, pushing Rachel
away from the trunk. "You're so slow, Rachel, we'll never get anything
out."
The other children followed, all but little Benjamin. Benjamin was
still too young to be interested in the game of "dressing up." So he
toddled about the deserted table, picking stray crumbs from the plates
and turning over the empty glasses in the hope of finding a few drops
of gooseberry wine.
Strange, isn't it, that no matter how long it takes to get ready for
breakfast, the slowest boy or girl can button himself into a
make-believe outfit in the twinkling of an eye. In an incredibly short
time, the five youngsters were dressed, each to satisfy his own
peculiar taste: Joseph as an Indian in blanket and beads, with a
crimson band about his head; Jacob, carrying a sword, wore a
moth-eaten smoking jacket, a bright sash and crimson Turkish turban;
Rachel and Matilda were two dainty ladies in full skirts of blue and
pink, with deep bonnets; while Rebecca was rather splendid in a yellow
silk wrapper, a long veil fastened about her head with a string of
pearl beads she had found in the treasure trunk. Laughing merrily,
they all raced to the long mirror which stood at the other end of the
garret; though cracked and discolored they were able to distinguish
the gaily clad figures within its mottled depths, more like the quaint
images of an old tapestry than happy, romping children at play. Then
they scattered to their own games, the boys to stage an exciting
battle between a red skin and a gallant soldier, the little girls to
comfort Benjamin, who, having cleared the table, began to howl
dismally that he wanted to get "dwessed, too!"
Laughing at his earnestness, the girls dressed him in a bright
dressing gown striped in red and yellow, even providing him with a
cane "for a gun like brother's." Then, the boys having grown tired of
their Indian warfare, the entire company began a gay game of blind
man's buff which ended somewhat abruptly as it was easy to tell at a
touch just who was "caught" by the peculiar costume he wore.
"Ball--play ball," suggested little Benjamin, wandering from the open
trunk, a small crystal ball in his hand.
"What is it?" asked Joseph, taking it curiously, "a paper weight
or----"
"I know," cried Matilda, as she examined the crystal globe. "My aunt
has one just like it--she got it from London. You do crystal gazing in
it."
"Crystal gazing?" Rebecca was frankly puzzled.
"Yes. She showed me how to do it. You just sit with the ball in front
of you and look into it for a long time and don't think of anything
else and all of a sudden you see pictures; that's what aunt said."
"What kind of pictures?" Joseph demanded.
"Pictures of what's going to happen. You see just what you're going to
do when you grow up."
"I don't believe that nonsense," declared Rebecca, with an emphatic
shake of her dark curls. "Father says it's all foolishness--like
believing what a gypsy fortune-teller promises you."
"Well, let's try it, anyhow," suggested Rachel. "It won't do any harm
and it'll give us something to do till the rain's over and we can go
out and play again."
The crystal ball placed upon the table, the five dark and the one
flaxen head bent over it eagerly. "But we'll never see anything this
way," corrected Matilda. "It's Rebecca's party, so let her have the
ball first. No one else must look or say a single word till she's seen
her picture."
Cheeks flushed with excitement, shining dark eyes fastened upon the
crystal, Rebecca sat motionless, scarcely daring to breathe as she
waited for the picture of her future to appear in the glass. The
others clustered about her, expectant and silent. At last she shook
her head and pushed the ball aside. "I can't see a single thing," she
complained.
"But I want to try it," declared Jacob, reaching for the crystal. "Now
all keep quiet and maybe I'll see something, even if Becky couldn't."
Again patient waiting until Jacob got up in disgust. "It's a silly
game," he jeered. "Maybe your aunt could see things in an old glass
ball, but nobody else can."
"It's more fun just playing 'pretend'," declared his sister Rachel.
"Let's do it." She flung herself upon an old fur rug near the window,
pulling Benjamin down beside her. "We'll just sit in a circle and
pretend we've looked in the glass ball and it told us just what we
were going to do when we grow up. I want to tell my fortune first,"
she ended importantly.
"That's a silly girl game," objected Jacob; but, tired of romping, he,
too, threw himself upon the rug and waited with the rest of the circle
for Rachel to disclose her future.
"When I'm grown up," began Rachel very slowly, her eyes fixed on the
trees beyond the window, dripping with rain, "I'm going to be very
beautiful like Miss Franks in New York used to be, and go to parties
and balls every single night and have all the officers in the army
writing poetry about me and making toasts for me, just as she did. And
I'll always wear pink silk," she concluded, with a glance at her rosy
ruffles.
"I should think you'd get awfully tired of balls every night,"
observed Matilda. "I'd much rather be like my governess. She isn't
pretty at all but she knows just everything and she writes verses,
too. When I grow up, I'm going to write a whole book and everybody
will say how smart I am." She spoke very seriously and the others
looked at their ambitious little friend respectfully. Happy children
as they were, they could not read the future and see that Matilda
Hoffman, although one of the most accomplished young women of her
time, would never write the wonderful book of which she dreamed. Nor
could they guess that instead her lovely life would be an inspiration
to a writer whose books every American would come to know and cherish.
"And I'm going 'way west to the lands father's just bought," declared
Jacob, "and live with the Indians and wear a blanket and go hunting
all the time."
"And I'm going with you," piped Benjamin, not understanding what the
game was about, but determined not to lose any of the fun. Though
something of that afternoon's pretending came to pass for him, for
when a man he actually sought what was then the far western territory
of Kentucky and became one of the leading citizens of Lexington.
"Well, I'm going to be a merchant like father," Joseph spoke with his
usual grave determination, never dreaming of the day when he would
become a senator. "And what are you going to do, Becky?"
Rebecca considered for a moment. Although older than the others, this
child's play was very fascinating to her. "The other day," she said
slowly, "I had the legend of St. Elizabeth for my French lesson. I
think I'd like to be just like her when I grow up."
"Was she beautiful and everything like that?" asked Rachel.
"I suppose so." Rebecca's voice had grown rather dreamy. "The ladies
in stories always are beautiful, aren't they? But I liked her because
she went about doing good among the poor peasants, even if her mean
husband wanted her to stay at home."
"Did he ever find out?" asked Jacob.
"Once he thought he did." Rebecca smiled at the recollection. "She was
going through the castle courtyard with a basket on her arm and some
one told him she was taking bread to the poor people. He was very
angry and ran after her and asked her what was underneath the napkin
on her basket. You can just imagine how frightened she was!"
"Did she tell him?" Matilda wanted to know.
"I suppose she was so frightened she just didn't know she was telling
a lie," Rebecca excused her heroine, "and before she knew what she was
saying, she told her husband that she was carrying roses. And it was
in the middle of the winter, too! And when he snatched the napkin off
the basket--" the story teller paused impressively, "what do you
suppose he found there?"
"Bread," chorused her listeners.
"No!" Rebecca shook her curls. "Because she was so good, God saved her
from telling a lie and her basket was filled with beautiful red roses.
And when her husband saw how much God thought of her, he became good,
too, and tried to help Elizabeth care for all the poor people in the
country."
"She must have been very rich to help so many poor people," observed
Joseph.
"Oh, she was a real princess and I guess all princesses have plenty
of money," answered his sister easily.
"Then you can be just like her, if you want to," the admiring Matilda
assured her. "Your papa's one of the richest men in Philadelphia, I
guess, and you're beautiful like Elizabeth and with that long veil and
those pearls you look just like a real princess this minute, doesn't
she, Rachel?"
"Let's play the princess in the tower?" cried Joseph, springing up,
already weary of the game. "Becky, you get on top of that trunk and
we'll put chairs around it and play it's a high tower and Jacob and I
will be princes and come and rescue you and take you away on our
horses--the way they did in the fairy book you read us the other day."
"But what'll we be?" cried Rachel and Matilda together.
"You can be her ladies-in-waiting or something," Joseph decided, "and
Benjamin can be our page and hold our horses while we climb into the
tower." He straddled one of the fencing foils and pranced across the
room. "A rescue!" he called shrilly to his brothers, "a rescue for the
lovely Princess Rebecca."
Hyman Gratz, Rebecca's sixteen-year-old brother, entering the room at
that moment, smiled at their sport. Swinging Benjamin to his shoulder
he advanced toward the tower which sheltered the three lovely ladies
and pulled Rebecca's face down to his for a kiss. "Having a happy
birthday?" he asked.
"Just splendid." Rebecca's eyes danced with happiness. "We're playing
the princess in the tower and I'm the princess."
Hyman, his face suddenly grave, looked over the happy, dancing figures
in their fantastic dresses. Although he did not know why, he wished at
that moment that the children playing in the old attic need never grow
up, but might always be carefree and laughing in their idle games. His
eyes lingered longest on Rebecca, such a dainty little princess in her
yellow silk and pearls and he sighted a little. But all he said was:
"If I were you youngsters, I'd play in the garden. The rain's all over
and there's a fine rainbow just behind the old chestnut tree."
* * * * *
Washington Irving sat crouched in one of the great arm chairs of the
drawing room in Mr. Gratz's house in Philadelphia. His elbow on his
knee, he sat with his hand shading his face, his eyes seeking the
floor. When Rebecca Gratz entered the room, he seemed about to rise,
but with a gesture she urged him to remain seated and took a chair
beside him. For a long time they sat there in silence, Rebecca's hands
twisting a small package that lay in her lap, her face pale and tired,
her dark eyes filled with tears.
Sitting there with the soft candle light falling upon her simple blue
dress and white arms, she made a picture which young Irving would have
appreciated at any other moment. The slim little princess of the
nursery had grown into a graceful young girl of gracious, yet
dignified bearing, her abundant hair brushed simply back from her
forehead, the gravity of her sweet face increased by the earnestness
that never left her large dark eyes, even when she smiled. For even
in her gayest moments there was always a hint of gentle gravity about
Rebecca Gratz; tonight, when utterly exhausted from watching at the
deathbed of her childhood friend, Matilda Hoffman, she looked like a
beautiful graven image of Sorrow.
At last Rebecca spoke, her low voice tremulous with tears: "The end
was very easy--God was good to her at the last. And I do not think she
suffered much lately. Matilda just seemed to fade away, not like one
ill, but very tired. She often spoke of you when we were together;
that is why I asked brother Hyman to send for you. I thought you would
like to hear it all from me."
The young man in the arm chair shifted a little. "Yes, I would like to
hear everything from you," he answered, not trusting himself to meet
her eyes.
Simply, tenderly, Rebecca told young Irving of the last illness of the
young girl whom he had hoped to marry. Now and then her voice broke,
for she had loved Matilda Hoffman dearly; but she went bravely on
until the end, when she placed the little package in Irving's hand.
"She said I was to give you this," she told him, and looked away while
he opened the cord with fingers that trembled a little.
The tokens that Washington Irving now gazed upon with tear-dimmed eyes
and which were never to leave his possession during all the years when
he was to acquire fame and wealth as America's leading author were a
little prayer book and Bible. Between the pages of the latter the dead
girl had placed a lock of her bright hair; as he raised the worn
little book several faded rose leaves fell upon the carpet.
"I pressed one of the roses from her coffin for you," Rebecca told
him. "I did not think it would fade so soon."
There was a long silence between them, then, the two books pressed
again his cheek, the young man burst into a fit of passionate weeping.
"It was not right," he cried fiercely. "She was so good and beautiful
and young. And we would have been so happy together. It was not right
that she should die."
"I know--I loved her, too," said Rebecca gently.
He turned upon her almost angrily. "You can never know. I was her
lover; you were only her friend."
"'The heart knoweth its own bitterness'," quoted the girl softly.
But Irving impatiently shook off the pitying hand she had dropped upon
his arm, "What do you know of sorrow?" he demanded. "You have
everything your heart can desire; wealth, youth, beauty, friends--I
have no one."
"And with all my gifts I am more unhappy than you," Rebecca persisted.
"For I have not even the memory of a happy friendship and love like
yours to bring me comfort now."
For a moment Irving forgot his own grief. "I do not understand," he
murmured.
She smiled sadly. "You will not repeat this, I know," she told him
quietly. "Only my own family know, but you have been such a close
friend of my brother's that my secret is safe with you. I have
loved--and been loved--by a young man who was all my parents could
desire for me. But last month he went away and I shall never see him
again."
For the first time that evening Irving's eyes met hers. The girl's
glance was sad but very brave. "I do not understand," he repeated.
Again she smiled sadly. "You know how liberal my family have always
been in their religious opinions. We have always mingled freely with
non-Jews; Matilda, although not a Jewess, was my dearest friend. In
fact, a number of my relatives have married outside our faith." She
broke off a moment. "The young man was not a Jew," she said slowly.
"He loved his religion as well as I did mine. It was very hard to have
him go away." She leaned toward Washington Irving and lightly touched
the two little books she had given him. "You have lost your joy, too,"
she said, and now her clear tones trembled a little. "Neither of us
can ever be very happy again. We will both be so lonely sometimes,
that I think we must learn to be very good friends, don't you?" And
Irving pressed her hand in silence.
It was a more portly Irving, the Irving with the bright eyes and
kindly smile which we have learned to associate with the author of
"Rip Van Winkle" and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," that waited for
Rebecca Gratz in the drawing room of her father's home about ten years
later. Since the death of Matilda Hoffman, he had grown to be a very
close friend of the Gratz family, never failing when in Philadelphia
to visit their home where he might "roost," as he put it, in the
large, comfortable guest room. He had never referred to his intimate
conversation with Rebecca when she had tried to comfort him after
Matilda's death; yet their mutual grief and confidence had created a
strong bond between them, and when Irving returned from an extended
trip abroad, he welcomed the opportunity of going to Philadelphia to
see his latest book through the press. For he longed to visit Miss
Gratz, who, so the home letters had informed him, had grown to be a
famous beauty and belle during his absence.
She came into the room with her swaying, graceful carriage of old
days, but with a new dignity and reserve of manner, carrying her
lovely head with just a little more pride than in her girlhood,
greeting Irving, for all her warm friendliness, like a young queen
graciously ready to accept homage from her subjects. She sank into a
low chair beside the fire, the flames casting a warm glow over her
arms and neck from which her gold colored scarf had slipped at her
entrance. Irving thought of another night ten years ago when she had
sat in that very chair with the candle light falling upon her blue
draperies. Then she had been a lovely girl just on the threshold of
life; now she was a cultured, well-poised woman of the world, crowned
by virtue of her beauty and position as the ruler of the society in
which she moved. He sighed a little and suddenly felt that he was
growing old. For a while they spoke of what had occurred during
Irving's absence from America, the countries the young author had
visited, the great men he had met on his travels. Finally he told her
of his visit to Sir Walter Scott, "days of solid enchantment," he
described them, from the moment when the famous author had limped down
to the gate of his estate in Scotland to welcome him, his favorite
stag hound leaping about him, as he grasped his guest's hand.
"We spent much of our time in long rambles over the hills," Irving
continued, "Scott telling me legends of the countryside as only he
could tell them. And in the evenings we would sit like medieval barons
before the blazing logs in the great dim hall at Abbotsford and there
would be more stories and confidences until long after midnight. Ah,
Rebecca, it was worth a trip across the Atlantic, just to touch his
hand."
She leaned toward him, her eyes sparkling. "How I would like to know
him--not only his books, which I love so much, but the real man in his
home," she cried.
Irving smiled mysteriously. "You may not know him, but he knows you
well, my lady. I told him of my American friends, your brother Hyman
among them, and, surely, I could not omit you, another heroine to hang
in his gallery of fair ladies of romance."
Rebecca shook her head, smilingly. "But I am not a heroine nor a lady
of romance," she protested.
"Scott seemed to think you were," Irving insisted. "I told him of your
beauty, your goodness--well, you can't deny them," as she raised a
protesting hand, "and your loyalty to your people. He had not finished
his novel, 'Rob Roy,' then, but he told me he was eager to write a new
romance, with the adventures of a lovely Jewess named Rebecca to form
the silver thread of the story. He has written me from time to time,"
went on Irving, as Rebecca smiled a little incredulously, "to tell me
how the work progressed. Much of the romance was dictated when Scott
lay on a couch too ill to write. He tells me that his two secretaries
grew to love the heroine, Rebecca, as much as he did, and that once
one of them grew so impatient to hear what became of her, that he
looked up from his manuscript and cried: 'That is fine, Mr. Scott--get
on--get on!'"
"And did Mr. Scott finally 'get on' and finish his book with a Jewish
heroine?" laughed Rebecca.
Irving reached toward the table and handed her a package he had placed
there. She broke the string curiously, a slow flush mounting her cheek
as she saw the volume, the first to be read by an American, but now in
every library in the land. "'Ivanhoe'," she read the tide, softly,
"but, surely, I am not in the story."
"He sent me this letter with the volume," answered Irving, drawing a
sheet of folded taper from between the pages. "I brought it with me
because I knew it would interest you."
And Rebecca, flushing over one of the most beautiful compliments ever
paid an American girl, read: "How do you like my Rebecca? Does the
Rebecca I have pictured compare well with the pattern given?" She
folded the paper and slipped it back between the pages. "But, surely,
I am not in the story," she repeated. "I am not a lady of romance, not
a real princess since the days little Matilda and Rachel and I used to
dress up and pretend we lived in a fairy tale."
Irving's merry eyes softened at mention of their dead friend. Then:
"You are more like a lady of romance than any woman I have ever
known," he declared stoutly, "and I have met some of the greatest
ladies of all Europe. But none of them seemed half so much a queen as
you. No, I am not flattering you, Rebecca. Hasn't your brother written
me of all your triumphs in society, here in Philadelphia, when he took
you to Saratoga Springs, when you visited your brother in Lexington
and were treated like a real princess by everyone who met you from
Henry Clay down to the negro slaves?"
"Oh, that--" Rebecca shrugged a little disdainfully. "I hope the Lady
Rebecca in 'Ivanhoe' does something worth while."
"She heals the sick and comforts the suffering; she is a great lady in
the real sense of the word; lady, a loaf-giver," answered Irving.
"Just as you are," he concluded, warmly.
"What else is there for me to do?" said Rebecca. "I shall never build
a home of my own or have little ones to love and care for. So I am
glad to use my wealth and leisure in building other homes, in being
something of a mother to the little orphans of our city."
"No matter whether they are Jew or Gentile," added Washington Irving
who had heard much of her many charities.
"We have all one Father," she reminded him, gently. "But, really, I do
not do half that I would. I am not a St. Elizabeth and no miracles are
wrought for me," and she smiled a little at her childish admiration
of the generous lady. "So I am half afraid to read what you have
brought me," indicating the volume, "for I know I shall be found
wanting when I am cast in the scale with the lovely Lady Rebecca."
"No, indeed! She is all that a princess in romance should be, but I
prefer our own Princess of Philadelphia," answered Washington Irving,
gallantly.
The Princess of Philadelphia, as the great author often called her,
half in jest, half in earnest, lived to be very old, surviving many
members of her family, and the brilliant circle over which she had
long reigned as a queen. But she was not too lonely; the young girls
whom she guided as an older sister, the orphan children who found in
her a second mother, countless unfortunates, some of them needing
gold, others a word of hope and comfort, became her subjects and
enthroned her in their grateful hearts. Her life, after all, was a
placid one. Unlike the Rebecca of the romance, she never experienced
thrilling adventures; no duels were fought in her names; no gallant
knights sought to save her from her enemies. Yet even when her
marvellous beauty faded and her glossy hair became threaded with gray,
she remained as youthful as any princess in a fairy tale, for she
never grew old at heart. And little children, divining the youth in
her soul, always felt that she was one of them.
It happened one day that Rebecca Gratz visited the Hebrew School she
had founded in Philadelphia, the forerunner of our modern Jewish
Sabbath School and the first institution of its kind in America. She
had not only donated large sums of money for its support, but had
helped to select and plan text books for the students, even writing
some of the daily prayers to be used by the little Jewish children of
her native city. It was her birthday--the seventy-fifth--and as the
gentle-faced old lady passed down the quiet corridors, she thought
half-tenderly, half-sadly of the birthday party in the garret so many
years ago. What silly things children dream! she thought with a smile.
Matilda had written no wise books and her adventure-loving brother had
never lived with the Indians. For herself--well, she was not really a
princess as Matilda had declared she ought to be, but like the
Princess Elizabeth she had been allowed to go about doing good among
the people.
A sound of stiffled sobbing reached her ear. Turning, she saw a little
girl curled up in one of the low window sills, an open book on her
lap. Rebecca Gratz hurried to her and slipped a comforting arm about
the shaking shoulders.
"Tell me what is the matter?" she whispered.
The child raised a wet face. "Oh, it's you, Miss Gratz," she
exclaimed. "I know I'm just as silly, but I can't help it. I came to
the sad part of the book where they want to burn 'Rebecca' for a witch
and I just couldn't help crying. Though I know it's going to come out
all right in the end," she added, wiping her eyes, "'cause story books
always do."
"Yes, story books do, even if real people's stories don't always end
happily," agreed Miss Gratz, sitting beside her. "Do you like the
book, Helen?"
"Ever so much, Miss Gratz. Miss Cohen, my teacher, lent it to me. And
what do you suppose she said?" She hesitated a moment, then,
encouraged by the kind eyes looking down into hers, added bashfully:
"Miss Cohen said, 'You ought to enjoy 'Ivanhoe,' Helen, because a
great many people think the character of Rebecca was taken from our
Miss Gratz.' Is that really true?" she ended, shyly.
Miss Gratz laughed as gayly as a child. "I mustn't tell," she teased.
"Only it doesn't seem likely, does it? The Rebecca in the story wears
pearls and veils every day and is imprisoned in a dungeon and goes to
the tournament. While I am just a plain old lady in a bonnet and shawl
and never do anything more exciting than visit your Hebrew classes. So
it's not likely Rebecca in the story and I are the same person, is
it?"
Helen considered a moment, her eyes fastened upon Miss Gratz's face.
When she spoke it was in a tone of deep conviction. "Maybe Miss Cohen
wasn't exactly right," she admitted, "but even if you're not a real
princess, and all that, you're just as sweet and good as Rebecca in
the story book, anyhow."