The New Land Part 12

There was a long silence between them, then, the two books pressed again his cheek, the young man burst into a fit of pa.s.sionate 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 friends.h.i.+p 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 Was.h.i.+ngton 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 a.s.sociate 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 ma.n.u.script 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, flus.h.i.+ng 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 Was.h.i.+ngton 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 Was.h.i.+ngton 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 inst.i.tution 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 pa.s.sed 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 cla.s.ses. 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."

A PRESENT FOR MR. LINCOLN

_How President Lincoln Set Out for Was.h.i.+ngton and How He Returned._

Little Morris Rosenfelt stirred uneasily on the hard bench as he tried in vain to concentrate his wandering thoughts on his Hebrew lesson. It happened to be all about the building of the Tabernacle in the wilderness, but Morris was not at all interested in Bezalel, the artist of old, who built the first sanctuary for his people. Instead, although his eyes were fastened to the coa.r.s.e black characters in the page before him, the boy was living over again the scene that had pa.s.sed in the parlor of his father's house, the night before.

Mr. Abraham Kohn, city clerk of Chicago, had dropped in to talk over congregational matters with Morris's father, for Mr. Kohn was one of the early presidents of _Kehilath Anshe Ma'arav_, Chicago's first synagogue, and one of its most active members. Morris, busy in the next room with his lessons for the next day, had paid scant attention to their conversation, until the words, "Mr. Lincoln," and "flag"

caught his ear. Then he closed his geography with a slam, for like every other nine-year-old boy of his day, he had heard much of the "rail splitter from Illinois," as his opponents called him, and shared his state's enthusiasm for the man who had just been elected president.

"I'm glad we Jews did our part in electing him," said Mr. Kohn. "He will make a strong president in these uncertain times; perhaps, the only man who can keep this country out of civil war if the southern states attempt to secede."

"They'll not fight, especially as Mr. Lincoln has promised not to interfere with slavery in the states where it now exists," Mr.

Rosenfelt answered easily. He was a stout, cheerful man who refused to borrow trouble, very unlike Morris's mother who always saw sorrow and accident for her family hovering in the near future. "With a strong man like Mr. Lincoln in Was.h.i.+ngton, we can stop worrying for a while."