A REAL CINDERELLA
BOOKS BY NINA RHOADES
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Illustrated. Large 12mo. Cloth. $1.00 each
ONLY DOLLIE
THE LITTLE GIRL NEXT DOOR
WINIFRED’S NEIGHBORS
THE CHILDREN ON THE TOP FLOOR
HOW BARBARA KEPT HER PROMISE
LITTLE MISS ROSAMOND
PRISCILLA OF THE DOLL SHOP
BRAVE LITTLE PEGGY
THE OTHER SYLVIA
MAISIE’S MERRY CHRISTMAS
LITTLE QUEEN ESTHER
MAKING MARY LIZZIE HAPPY
LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO.
BOSTON
[Illustration: SHE DID NOT KNOW THAT SHE WAS A CINDERELLA.--_Page 11._]
A
REAL CINDERELLA
BY
NINA RHOADES
_ILLUSTRATED BY ELIZABETH WITHINGTON_
[Illustration]
BOSTON
LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO.
Published, August, 1915.
COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO.
_All rights reserved_
A REAL CINDERELLA
Norwood Press
BERWICK & SMITH CO.
NORWOOD, MASS.,
U. S. A.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. CINDERELLA AT HOME 11
II. MUSIC AND CREAM-PUFFS 32
III. A TICKET TO FAIRY-LAND 64
IV. THE COMING OF THE PRINCE 77
V. GRETEL’S SUNDAY OUT 94
VI. A TRANSFORMED CINDERELLA 110
VII. JERRY AND GERALDINE 130
VIII. REAL MUSIC 142
IX. THE LAW OF LOVE 161
X. LEARNING BY EXPERIENCE 178
XI. WHAT WAS “IN THE WIND” 197
XII. GOING TO A WEDDING 210
XIII. THE PALACE OF BEAUTY 220
XIV. AFTER THE CLOCK STRUCK TWELVE 236
XV. ALONE IN THE BIG CITY 247
XVI. FROM SHADOW TO SUNSHINE 260
A REAL CINDERELLA
CHAPTER I
CINDERELLA AT HOME
She did not know that she was a Cinderella, as she knelt on the floor
putting on Miss Ada Marsh’s satin slippers. She had never even thought
of such a possibility, and if any one had mentioned it to her she would
have opened her big brown eyes very wide, and felt inclined to regard
the suggestion as a rather foolish joke. In her own humble opinion
she was not a person of the very least importance, being only little
Gretel Schiller, whom nobody seemed to care very much about, and who
lived with Mrs. Marsh, because there didn’t seem to be any other place
for her to live. It seemed to her quite natural that she should make
herself useful in the family, considering--as Mrs. Marsh frequently
reminded her--that her half-brother, who lived in China, paid very
inadequately for her support. But this evening her heart was beating
fast and she was regarding Miss Ada Marsh with more interest than usual
for was not that young lady actually going to fairy-land?
The slippers were small, and Miss Ada’s feet were large, so that the
task of getting them on was a more difficult one than might have been
at first supposed.
“Aren’t they--aren’t they just a little tight?” gasped Gretel, when
several unsuccessful attempts had failed to produce the desired result.
“Not a bit,” responded Ada, with decision. “Just push the heel in more.
There, that’s better. They do pinch a little, but that’s only because
they’re new. They’ll be perfectly comfortable as soon as I’ve stretched
them.” And Ada rose, and limped painfully across the room to the bureau.
“There, I believe I’m ready now, except my gloves. You can button
them for me, and then just run and see if Mamma needs any help. It’s
ten minutes to eight, and they always begin those long German operas
promptly.”
“Oh, you mustn’t be late. It would be terrible to miss any of it,” said
Gretel, anxiously. She was drawing a long white kid glove up over Miss
Marsh’s plump arm.
Ada shrugged her shoulders indifferently.
“I shouldn’t mind missing a little,” she said. “All the Wagner operas
are so long and so heavy. I wish Mr. Pendleton had asked us to go to
the theater instead. There’s the door-bell; it must be Mr. Pendleton.
My goodness! these slippers do need stretching. I’m thankful the opera
house is just across the street; do hurry and finish Mamma. That Dora
is so stupid about hooking her up. We mustn’t keep Mr. Pendleton
waiting.”
Gretel hurried away wondering. It seemed very strange that any one
could talk about going to fairy-land as Ada did, but then she was only
eleven, and there were a great many things in the world that she did
not understand. As she was crossing the narrow hall of the apartment to
Mrs. Marsh’s room, Dora, the maid-of-all-work, opened the front door,
and a young man in a dress-suit stepped in, and greeted the little girl
good-naturedly.
“Good evening, little Miss Gretchen,” he said, with a smile. “Are your
cousins ready? Your name is Gretchen, isn’t it?”
“My name is Margareta Schiller,” said Gretel, drawing herself up with
the little air of dignity that always amused grown-up people. “They
call me Gretel, not Gretchen. Ada’s nearly ready, and I’m going to see
if I can help Mrs. Marsh with the hooks; but they’re not my cousins.”
“Not your cousins, eh? Why, I thought--” But Mr. Pendleton did not say
what he thought, for at that moment Mrs. Marsh’s door opened, and that
lady appeared, carrying her evening wrap over her arm.
“Ah, Mr. Pendleton, just in time,” she said, smiling, and speaking in
what Gretel always called “her company voice.” “Gretel, darling, run
and tell Ada, Mr. Pendleton is here. We must not lose a moment; it
would be too sad to miss that beautiful overture.”
As Gretel turned away to do as she was told, Mr. Pendleton followed her
rather curiously with his eyes.
“What a pretty child,” he remarked in a low voice to Mrs. Marsh. “I
supposed she was a relative of yours, but she says she is not.”
“No, she is not a relative, but it was a most natural mistake for any
one to make. It is rather complicated to explain. My dear husband was
a cousin of Gretel’s mother’s first husband. She is an orphan, poor
little girl, and her only relative--a half-brother--has been living in
Hong-Kong for several years. I give her a home, and Ada and I do all in
our power to make her happy, but in our straitened circumstances it is
scarcely possible for us to be as generous as we should like.”
Mrs. Marsh sighed, and Mr. Pendleton looked sympathetic, and murmured
something about being sure the little girl had a very happy home, but
just then Gretel reappeared, followed by Ada, who was still struggling
with the last button of her glove.
“Good night, Gretel dear,” said Mrs. Marsh, sweetly, as she stepped
into the elevator. “Don’t sit up too long reading fairy stories, but go
to bed early, like a good girl.”
“Ada wants me to sit up till she comes home,” began Gretel, but on
receiving a warning glance from Miss Marsh, she grew suddenly pink and
did not finish her sentence.
“Good night, Miss Margareta,” said Mr. Pendleton, pleasantly, as he
followed the others into the elevator. “Your time will come, too, some
day, and we shall have you going to the opera before we know it.”
Then the elevator door closed, and Gretel was left standing alone in
the hall. But unlike the Cinderella of fairy-tale fame, she did not
sit down among the ashes to cry. On the contrary, she smiled quite
brightly, as she closed the door of the Marshes’ apartment, and hurried
away to the parlor, the windows of which looked down on Broadway, and
over at the great opera house just across the street.
Gretel was still smiling when she pushed aside the window-curtains, and
flattened her face against the pane. To watch the people going into
fairy-land was one of her favorite amusements.
“I wonder whether I really ever shall go,” she said to herself a little
wistfully. “I don’t quite see how I can, for of course nobody will
ever take me, and it costs so much money to buy a ticket, even for the
standing-up place. But, oh, if I should--it would be something to be
happy about forever!”
It was very interesting to watch the long line of carriages and
motor-cars depositing their occupants at the doors of fairy-land.
Gretel watched them eagerly, but for the first time a little doubt had
crept into her mind.
“I used to think they must all be so happy,” she said, reflectively,
“but Ada didn’t seem to care much, and I don’t believe Mrs. Marsh did,
either, though she pretended to. Father said a person must have a soul
to love music, and I don’t believe Mrs. Marsh or Ada have souls--or at
least not the kind he meant.”
Just then some one came into the room and turned up the light. It
was Dora, the maid-of-all-work. For the first moment she did not see
Gretel, who was hidden by the curtains of the window, and going over to
the center table, she lifted the lid of a candy box, and was just about
to help herself to a caramel when she caught sight of the little girl,
and flew back hastily, with a muttered ejaculation of annoyance. But
Gretel was too much absorbed to notice what the maid was doing.
“Come and watch them go in, Dora,” she said, eagerly. “There are more
carriages and automobiles than ever to-night, I think. That’s because
it’s ‘Lohengrin.’ Father loved ‘Lohengrin’ best of all the operas; he
used to play it for me. I know the ‘Swan Song,’ and ‘Elsa’s Dream’ and
the wedding march. I can play little bits of them myself. Did you ever
go to fairy-land, Dora?”
“Fairy-land!” Dora repeated, laughing. “What a funny question! Of
course I didn’t. There isn’t any such place really; it’s just in
stories.”
“I didn’t mean to call it that,” explained Gretel, blushing. “I meant
to say the opera. Father and I used to call it fairy-land because he
loved it so, and I always call it that to myself. Father took me there
once, and it was so beautiful. I’m sure the fairy-land they tell about
in books couldn’t be any more beautiful. We sat away up in the top
gallery, so it didn’t cost so very much. It was Father’s birthday, and
he thought he would give us both a treat, but he was sorry afterwards,
because a friend of his came the next day to ask to borrow some money,
and he hadn’t any to give him. Father was so kind; he was always giving
his money away to people. Mrs. Marsh says that was why there wasn’t any
more money left for me when he died, but I’m glad he was like that; all
his friends loved him so much.”
“Has your father been dead long?” Dora asked, with a glance at the
child’s shabby black dress.
“He died a year ago this winter, just after Christmas. He was very ill
on Christmas, but he would get up and light the Christmas tree. You
see, Father was German, and in Germany every one has a Christmas tree.
We always had one, even when there wasn’t much to put on it. I didn’t
know how ill Father was, and I cried because he wouldn’t sit up and
tell me stories. You see, we lived all alone in the studio, and there
wasn’t anybody grown-up to take care of Father, and make him stay in
bed when he was ill. But the day after Christmas he was so much worse
that he couldn’t get out of bed at all and then Fritz Lipheim came and
brought a doctor.”
“Who was Fritz Lipheim?” inquired Dora, who was beginning to be
interested, and had seated herself comfortably on the sofa.
“He was a German, too,” said Gretel; “almost all Father’s friends were
German. Fritz played the violin beautifully, but he wasn’t nearly as
clever as Father.”
“What did your father do?” Dora wanted to know.
Gretel’s eyes opened wide in astonishment.
“Why, don’t you know?” she demanded incredulously. “I thought everybody
knew about Father. He was Hermann Schiller the great pianist. I don’t
believe anybody in the world ever played the piano like Father. He used
to play at concerts, and crowds of people came to hear him. He might
have been rich, only all his friends were so poor he had to keep giving
them money. Everybody loved him. My mother loved him so much that she
gave up her beautiful home, and all the money her first husband had
left her, just to marry him and take care of him. She wouldn’t let him
give away all his money, but she died when I was only four, and after
that there wasn’t any one to take care of Father but me.”
“And what relation are you to Mrs. Marsh?” inquired Dora, who had been
in the family only a few weeks.
“I’m not any relation at all to her. Mr. Marsh was a cousin of my
mother’s first husband, Mr. Douane, but I never knew her till after my
father died. You see, when the doctor told Father he was going to die,
he was dreadfully worried, because he didn’t know what was going to
become of me. He asked Fritz Lipheim to telegraph to my half-brother in
China. My brother was very kind. He telegraphed back that Father wasn’t
to worry, and afterwards he arranged with Mrs. Marsh to have me live
with her. I have to be very grateful, Mrs. Marsh says, because if he
hadn’t been willing to support me, I would have had to go to an orphan
asylum. The Lipheims would have taken care of me, only they are very
poor, and sometimes they don’t have enough money to pay the rent, so
when Mrs. Marsh came and said I was to live with her, they were very
much relieved. That was the day after Father’s funeral, and I was so
very unhappy I didn’t care where I went.”
“And was Mrs. Marsh good to you?” Dora inquired rather skeptically.
“Oh, yes; she and Ada were both very kind that day. Ada gave me
chocolates, and Mrs. Marsh explained how good my brother was, and how
fortunate it was that I didn’t have to go to an asylum.”
“I don’t think that was much,” remarked Dora. “A nice sort of man your
brother would have been if he had let you be sent to an asylum. Is he
very poor?”
“Oh, no, he isn’t poor at all. When Mother married Father all the
money her first husband had left her went to her son. I heard Mrs.
Marsh tell a lady all about it. Then after Mother died my brother went
to live with his grandfather in Virginia, and when his grandfather
died he left him all his money, too. He is a great deal older than I;
he was fourteen when Mother married Father. He used to come to see
us sometimes when I was little, and brought Father and me beautiful
presents, but I don’t remember him very well, because he went to China
when I was only six. But of course I’m very grateful to him.”
“Well, I can’t see anything to be so everlastingly grateful about,”
objected Dora. “But say, don’t you want to play me a tune? I love to
hear you play.”
Gretel sprang to her feet with sparkling eyes.
“Do you really want to hear me play?” she demanded, incredulously. “I
didn’t suppose anybody cared about it. I’m afraid I’ve forgotten most
of the things Father taught me, and Mrs. Marsh won’t let me touch the
piano when she is at home. She says the noise makes her nervous.”
“It’s too bad,” said Dora, sympathetically; “you do play so lovely,
and if you had lessons, why, my goodness, you might get to be a great
musician like your papa. I don’t suppose Mrs. Marsh would let you
take lessons. If she would I know an awful nice young man who’s a
real high-class music teacher. He plays the piano at a moving-picture
theater, and he’s been giving my sister Lillie lessons. I don’t believe
he’d charge very high.”
Gretel’s face clouded for a moment, and she shook her head sadly.
“Mrs. Marsh won’t let me,” she said, with a sigh. “She says my brother
only sends a very little money. That’s why I try to do things for Ada,
to help pay my board.”
Dora gave vent to her feelings by an indignant sniff.
“I suppose that’s why you don’t go to school,” she said.
“Oh, no; my brother sends the money for my education, but Mrs. Marsh
didn’t happen to know of any good school, so her sister Miss Talcott,
who used to teach in a school, said she would give me lessons every
afternoon. I used to go to her apartment every day till January, but
then a friend invited her to go to California, so I don’t have any
lessons now. Miss Talcott is very nice and I liked having lessons with
her, but she has a great many engagements and quite often she had to be
out all the afternoon. I didn’t mind much, because she used to let me
stay and play on her piano, and I loved that.”
“Well, come along and give us a tune now,” said Dora, good-naturedly,
and Gretel from whose face the momentary cloud had vanished, left her
seat in the window, and hastened to open the piano.
It was true that Gretel had forgotten much of the music her father had
taught her. It was more than a year since the musical education from
which poor Hermann Schiller had hoped such great things, had come to a
sudden standstill. But Gretel still played remarkably well for a child
of her age, and as her fingers wandered lovingly over the keys of Mrs.
Marsh’s rather cracked piano, a strange, rapt look came into her face,
and for the moment everything else in the world was forgotten. Dora,
secure in the knowledge that the family could not return for several
hours, curled herself up comfortably on the parlor sofa. But Dora,
though fond of music of a certain kind, was not quite up to Chopin and
Mendelssohn, and as Gretel played on and on, a sensation of comfortable
drowsiness began to steal over her, and ere long her eyes had closed,
and she was fast asleep.
Serenely unconscious of this fact Gretel played on, now a bit of one
half-forgotten melody, now another, and as she played she forgot
her present surroundings--forgot that she was no longer the child
pianist, to whom her father’s friends had listened with astonishment
and pride--but only a poor little Cinderella left alone in her shabby
black frock, while Mrs. Marsh and her daughter went to fairy-land.
She seemed to see again the big, half-furnished studio, that had once
been home, and Hermann Schiller and his German friends, smoking their
pipes as they listened to her playing, always ready with a burst of
applause when her father called out in his kind cheery voice, “Enough
for to-night, Liebchen--time to give one of the others a turn.” It all
seemed so real that for one moment she glanced up, half expecting to
see the familiar scene, and the row of kindly, interested faces, but it
was only Mrs. Marsh’s shabby little parlor, with Dora fast asleep on
the sofa. Suddenly a great wave of homesickness swept over the little
girl--the music stopped with a crash and dropping her face on the piano
keys, Gretel began to cry.
At the sudden pause in the music Dora opened her eyes, and sat up with
a start. The next moment she had sprung to her feet.
“Whatever are you crying about?” she demanded in astonishment. “I
thought you liked to play.”
“I--I don’t know,” sobbed Gretel. “I think it must be the music. I love
it so, and--and I never hear any now. I’m forgetting everything Father
taught me, and he would be so unhappy if he knew.”
“There, there, I wouldn’t cry about it if I was you,” soothed Dora,
laying a kind hand on one of the child’s heaving shoulders. “It’s too
bad, and I’m real sorry for you, but maybe we can manage for you to
hear some music if you’re so crazy about it. My sister Lillie has a
lovely voice, and she’d be real glad to come and sing for you some
time, I know. My little brother Peter plays the piano, too, though
he’s never had a lesson in his life. Music just seems to come to him
natural, and he makes up things as he goes along. Father’s going to try
and get him into vaudeville.”
Gretel dried her eyes; she was beginning to be interested.
“I should love to hear him,” she said, “and your sister, too. Do you
think Mrs. Marsh would let me?”
Dora looked a little doubtful.
“Well, I don’t know,” she admitted. “She’s got awful fussy notions
about girls having company, even their own relations. But I’ll tell you
what we might do. Mrs. Marsh and Miss Ada are both going out to dinner
to-morrow night and I might get the kids to come round and play for you
while they’re out. They’d be real proud to have the chance to show off.”
“It would be very pleasant indeed,” agreed Gretel, “only--only do you
think we ought to have them if Mrs. Marsh objects?”
Dora reddened indignantly.
“If Mrs. Marsh wants to keep a decent girl, she’s got to let her have a
little liberty,” she declared defiantly. “If anybody can show me where
the harm is in my having my little sister and brother to spend the
evening with me, I’d like to have them do it. Nobody’s going to do any
harm, and a person’s got to have a little amusement once in a while.
I’ve been in this house nearly six weeks, and not a living soul have I
had to see me since I came.”
“I’m quite sure Father wouldn’t have minded,” said Gretel; “he always
wanted people to be happy, but Mrs. Marsh isn’t the least like Father.”
“I should say she wasn’t. Why, what pleasure do you ever have yourself,
you poor little thing? It’s nothing but run errands and wait on that
lazy Miss Ada from morning till night. It makes me sick, that’s what it
does. But you’re going to have a little fun this time, and don’t you
forget it. I’m going right off this minute to send a postal to Lillie,
to tell her and Peter to come round here and play and sing to you
to-morrow evening.”
It was nearly midnight when Mrs. Marsh and her daughter reached home.
Mrs. Marsh was tired and sleepy, and she was not speaking in her
“company voice” as she let herself in with her latch key, and switched
on the electric light.
“Really, Ada, I am surprised at you. You might at least have let Mr.
Pendleton think you enjoyed it.”
“I was bored to death, and I suppose I couldn’t help showing it,”
returned her daughter, with a yawn. “I never pretended to care for
music, and I don’t see why he didn’t take us to the theater. There are
half a dozen plays I’m dying to see. I hope that child hasn’t gone to
bed, and forgotten my chocolate.”
“Really, Ada,” remonstrated her mother, “you ought not to keep Gretel
up so late. It isn’t good for her, and I expressly told her to go to
bed early.”
“Nonsense; it doesn’t hurt her a bit. Besides, she loves it. All
children adore sitting up after they are supposed to be in bed.”
Before Mrs. Marsh could say any more, a door at the back of the
apartment opened, and a little figure appeared, carrying a cup of hot
chocolate on a tray. Gretel’s cheeks were flushed, and her eyes were
shining; she did not look in the least sleepy.
“It’s all ready,” she announced cheerfully. “I heard the man calling
the carriages, so I knew ‘Lohengrin’ was finished, and I went and made
it right away. It’s nice and hot.”
Ada gave a satisfied nod.
“Take it to my room,” she said; “you can stay and brush my hair while I
drink it.”
“She must do no such thing,” objected Mrs. Marsh, who was looking both
worried and annoyed. “Gretel, didn’t you hear me tell you to go to bed
early?”
Gretel glanced from Mrs. Marsh to her daughter, and her grave little
face was troubled.
“I know you did,” she said, slowly, “but Ada told me to stay up and
make the chocolate. I did go to sleep on the sofa after Dora went to
bed, but I set the alarm-clock for half-past eleven, so as to be sure
to wake in time. I’m sorry if it was wrong, Mrs. Marsh, but it’s very
hard to know which I ought to mind, you or Ada.”
Gretel had no intention of being impertinent; she was merely stating a
puzzling fact, which she frequently found very troublesome. But Mrs.
Marsh reddened angrily.
“That is not the proper way for a little girl to speak,” she began, but
her daughter cut her short.
“Oh, for pity’s sake, don’t begin a lecture at this time of night,
Mamma. We are all much too tired to argue. Come with me, Gretel.”
And Mrs. Marsh, who was a weak woman, and who was, moreover,
considerably afraid of her tall, domineering daughter, made no further
objections, but retired in silence to her own room.
“How did you enjoy yourself all the evening?” Ada inquired,
good-naturedly, as she sipped her chocolate, while Gretel brushed out
her long hair. “I hope you weren’t lonely.”
“Oh, no,” said Gretel, cheerfully; “I had a very pleasant time. First
I watched the people going into fairy--I mean the opera, and then Dora
came and talked to me, and I played on the piano. Mrs. Marsh doesn’t
mind my playing when she’s out. I ought to be very grateful to Mrs.
Marsh, oughtn’t I?”
Ada laughed.
“You funny little thing,” she said; “I never heard a child ask such
questions. I suppose you ought to be grateful to Mamma, but what made
you think of it?”
“I--I don’t quite know,” faltered Gretel, blushing. “I was only
wondering about something Dora said. Oughtn’t it to give people
pleasure to be grateful?”
“Of course it ought, but Dora had better mind her own business, and
not put ideas into your head. You mustn’t spend your time gossiping
with her, Gretel; she’s nothing but an ignorant servant. There, I’ve
finished my chocolate, and I don’t believe my hair needs much brushing
to-night. Run off to bed; it really is terribly late for you to be up.”
Gretel obeyed, but when she had bidden Ada good night, and was taking
the empty cup back to the kitchen, she whispered softly to herself:
“I wonder what ‘gossip’ means? I hope I don’t do it if it’s something
not nice, but I do like Dora very much, and I’m very glad I’m going to
know Lillie and Peter too.”