"He thought at first," she continued, "that he would write on 'The Romance of Monastic Life.'"
What a strange sound these long words had, whispered from her childish lips! Her interest in her brother's work had stamped them on the child's memory, and to her they were ordinary things.
"But then," she went on, "he decided that he would write on 'Historical Parallels,' and he has a real good oration, and says it beautifully. He has said it to me a great many times. I almost know it by heart. O, it begins so pretty and so grand! This is the way it begins," she added, encouraged by the interest she must have seen in my face: "'Amid the combinations of actors and forces that make up the great kaleidoscope of history, we often find a turn of Destiny's hand.'"
"Why, bless the baby!" I thought, looking down into her proud face. I cannot describe how very odd and elfish it did seem to have those sonorous words rolling out of the smiling mouth. The band striking up put an end to the quotation and to the confidences. As the exercises progressed and approached nearer and nearer the effort on which all her interest was concentrated, my little friend became excited and restless. Her eyes grew larger and brighter; two deep red spots glowed on her cheek. She touched up the flowers, manifestly making the offering ready for the shrine.
"Now it's his turn," she said, turning to me a face in which pride and delight and anxiety seemed equally mingled. But when the overture was played through, and his name was called, the child seemed, in her eagerness, to forget me and all the earth except him. She rose to her feet and leaned forward for a better view of her beloved as he mounted to the speaker's stand. I knew by her deep breathing that her heart was throbbing in her throat. I knew, too, by the way her brother came to the front, that he was trembling. The hands hung limp: his face was pallid, and the lips blue, as with cold. I felt anxious. The child, too, seemed to discern that things were not well with him. Something like fear showed in her face.
He made an automatic bow. Then a bewildered, struggling look came into his face, then a helpless look, and he stood staring vacantly, like a somnambulist, at the waiting audience. The moments of painful suspense went by, and he still stood as if struck down. I saw how it was; he had been seized with stage fright.
Alas, little sister! She turned her large, dismayed eves on me. "He's forgotten it," she said. Then a swift change came over her face, a strong, determined look; and on the funeral-like silence of the room broke the sweet child voice:—
"'Amid the combinations of actors and forces that make up the great kaleidoscope of history, we often find that a turn of Destiny's hand—'"
Everybody about us turned and looked. The breathless silence, the sweet, childish voice, the childish face, the long, unchildlike words, produced a weird effect.
But the help had come too late; the unhappy brother was already staggering in humiliation from the stage. The band quickly struck up, and waves of lively music were rolled out to cover the defeat.