A Real Cinderella by Nina Rhoades

Gretel's first sensation on waking the next morning was that something pleasant was going to happen. She could not remember for the first few moments just what it was to be, but then it all came back to her; her conversation with Dora; her crying fit over the piano, and Dora's promise to bring her sister and brother to play and sing for her. She was conscious of a little thrill of anticipation as she sprang out of bed and began putting on her stockings. She had lived with Mrs. Marsh for more than a year, but this was the first time there had ever been a question of her having visitors of her very own. Mrs. Marsh and her daughter had plenty of visitors, of course, and some of them had been kind to the little girl, but that was quite a different thing from having people coming expressly to see her. In the old days at the studio they were always having visitors, and she had had almost more friends than she could count, but since her father's death all the old friends had seemed to fade away too. They never came to Mrs. Marsh's, not even kind Fritz Lipheim or his mother, with whom she had often stayed for weeks at a time while Hermann Schiller was away on a concert tour. Old Mrs. Lipheim had been very good to the child, and had taught her how to sew on her father's buttons and mend his socks. She was sure the Lipheims would have liked to come to see her if they had not feared Mrs. Marsh would object, but Mrs. Marsh had been so very stiff and unsociable on the day when she had come to take her away from the studio, and had not even suggested that Gretel should see Mrs. Lipheim again, although the little girl had clung to her old friend, crying as if her heart would break. Gretel was very grateful to Mrs. Marsh, but there were times when she could not help thinking how much pleasanter it would have been if her brother had arranged to have her live with the Lipheims instead of with his cousins.

It was nearly eight o'clock, but Gretel's room was still very dark. Indeed, it was never very light at any hour of the day, for its only window opened on an air-shaft. It was a very small room, and before Gretel came had always been occupied by the maid-of-all-work, but the apartment was not large, and Mrs. Marsh had declared it to be the only room she could possibly spare, so the servant had been relegated to the maid's quarters at the top of the house. But small and dark as it was, Gretel loved her room. To begin with, it was the only place in the world that was all her own, and then it contained all her treasures. There was her father's photograph in a gilt frame, that Fritz Lipheim had given her as a parting gift; and his old German Bible, out of which he used to read to her and show her pictures on Sunday afternoons. There was also her old rag doll, Jemima. She was too old to play with dolls, now, but it was still very comforting to cuddle Jemima in her arms at night, when she happened to be feeling particularly lonely, or when Mrs. Marsh or Ada had been unusually cross. Then there were her father's letters tied together with a red ribbon. There were a good many of them, as there was one for every day that her father had ever been away from her.