But Penrod was
unaffected by the general gaze; he rose, still blinking from his
lethargy, and in no true sense wholly alive.
He had one idea: to read as rapidly as possible, so as to be done
with the task, and he began in a high-pitched monotone, reading
with a blind mind and no sense of the significance of the words.
"'Dear friend,"' he declaimed. "'You call me beautiful, but I am
not really beautiful, and there are times when I doubt if I am
even pretty, though perhaps my hair is beautiful, and if it is
true that my eyes are like blue stars in heaven--'"
Simultaneously he lost his breath and there burst upon him a
perception of the results to which he was being committed by this
calamitous reading. And also simultaneous the outbreak of the
class into cachinnations of delight, severely repressed by the
perplexed but indignant Miss Spence.
"Go on!" she commanded grimly, when she had restored order.
"Ma'am?" he gulped, looking wretchedly upon the rosy faces all
about him.
"Go on with the description of yourself," she said. "We'd like to
hear some more about your eyes being like blue stars in heaven.
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