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.
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