It was horrible! I suppose I no more than cleared my throat before I began to read, but to me it seemed that I stood petrified for an age, an awful silence booming in my ears.

My voice, when at last I began, sounded far away.
I thought that nobody could hear me.

But I kept on, mechanically; for I had rehearsed many times.

And as I read I gradually forgot myself, forgot the place and the occasion.

The people looking up at me heard the story of a beautiful little boy, my cousin, whom I had loved very dearly, and who died in far-distant Russia some years after I came to America.