, "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