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."

A PRESENT FOR MR. LINCOLN

_How President Lincoln Set Out for Washington 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 coarse black characters in the
page before him, the boy was living over again the scene that had
passed 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 president