E-text prepared by Hélène Poirier
and Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders
To My Mother
Book I
Book II
The pastor's announcement had been swallowed up in a hum of truant inattention, and as the heralded speaker made his appearance upon the platform Claire Robson, leaning forward, said to her mother:
"What?... Did you catch his name?"
"A foreigner of some sort!" replied Mrs. Robson, with smug sufficiency.
For a moment the elder woman's sneer dulled the edge of Claire's anticipations, but presently the man began to speak, and at once she felt a sense of power back of his halting words, a sudden bursting fort of bloom amid the frozen assembly that sat ice-bound, refusing to be melted by the fires of an alien enthusiasm. She could not help wondering whethe