significance of words with astonishing ease, but found some
difficulty in producing their sound. He went about it with
great patience, however, repeating the hardest words after
me until he was able to pronounce them correctly. But
although the work was often tedious we both got much fun out
of it. I had never heard the sound of laughter in that
house. One day I broke its solemn spell by laughing heartily
at the grotesque distortion of my cousin's face incidental
to the production of a difficult sound. He stopped suddenly
and looked at me, half alarmed. This made me laugh more
heartily, and he grasped my hand with the serious air of a
physician feeling the pulse of his patient. Being assured
there was no danger, he indulged in a little offhand
cachinnation himself and was, I judged, well pleased with
the trial, for he repeated it frequently afterward, and
greatly to his amusement.

The word "woman," and others related to it, puzzled him not
a little, for he had never seen a woman, except through the
medium of my own mind and that of his father. The subject
interested him, and he gave much serious thought to it,
questioning me closely at some of our interviews, as if
dissatisfied with the idea conveyed to him. Our discussions,
however, had reached some slumbering chord in him, which,
once touched, stirred his blood with its vibrations. I do
not think his isolation could have lasted much longer, for
he became restless and eager to see the world.

Rayel was greatly depressed by his father's illness. For
months after that night, the excitement of which had so