A bright, laughing face, prettily1 framed round by a black veil passed over the head and tied under the chin — a traveling-dress of a nankeen color, studded with blue buttons and trimmed with white braid — a light brown cloak over it — little neatly-gloved hands, which seized in an instant on one of mine and on one of Owen’s — two dark blue eyes, which seemed to look us both through and through in a moment — a clear, full, merrily confident voice — a look and manner gayly and gracefully3 self-possessed4 — such were the characteristics of our fair guest which first struck me at the moment when she left the postchaise and possessed herself of my hand.
“Don’t begin by scolding me,” she said, before I could utter a word of welcome. “There will be time enough for that in the course of the next six weeks. I beg pardon, with all possible humility5, for the offense6 of coming ten days before my time. Don’t ask me to account for it, please; if you do, I shall be obliged to confess the truth. My dear sir, the fact is, this is an act of impulse.”
She paused, and looked us both in the face with a bright confidence in her own flow of nonsense that was perfectly8 irresistible9.
“I must tell you all about it,” she ran on, leading the way to the bench, and inviting10 us, by a little mock gesture of supplication11, to seat ourselves on either side of her. “I feel so guilty till I’ve told you. Dear me! how nice this is! Here I am quite at home already. Isn’t it odd? Well, and how do you think it happened? The morning before yesterday Matilda — there is Matilda, picking up my bonnet12 from the bottom of that remarkably13 musty carriage — Matilda came and woke me as usual, and I hadn’t an idea in my head, I assure you, till she began to brush my hair. Can you account for it? — I can’t — but she seemed, somehow, to brush a sudden fancy for coming here into my head. When I went down to breakfast, I said to my aunt, ‘Darling, I have an irresistible impulse to go to Wales at once, instead of waiting till the twentieth.’ She made all the necessary objections, poor dear, and my impulse got stronger and stronger with every one of them. ‘I’m quite certain,’ I said, ‘I shall never go at all if I don’t go now.’ ‘In that case,’ says my aunt, ‘ring the bell, and have your trunks packed. Your whole future depends on your going; and you terrify me so inexpressibly that I shall be glad to get rid of you.’ You may not think it, to look at her — but Matilda is a treasure; and in three hours more I was on the Great Western Railway. I have not the least idea how I got here — except that the men helped me everywhere. They are always such delightful14 creatures! I have been casting myself, and my maid, and my trunks on their tender mercies at every point in the journey, and their polite attentions exceed all belief. I slept at your horrid15 little county town last night; and the night before I missed a steamer or a train, I forget which, and slept at Bristol; and that’s how I got here. And, now I am here, I ought to give my guardian16 a kiss — oughtn’t I? Shall I call you papa? I think I will. And shall I call you uncle, sir, and give you a kiss too? We shall come to it sooner or later — shan’t we? — and we may as well begin at once, I suppose.”
Her fresh young lips touched my old withered17 cheek first, and then Owen’s; a soft, momentary18 shadow of tenderness, that was very pretty and becoming, passing quickly over the sunshine and gayety of her face as she saluted19 us. The next moment she was on her feet again, inquiring “who the wonderful man was who built The Glen Tower,” and wanting to go all over it immediately from top to bottom.
As we took her into the house, I made the necessary apologies for the miserable20 condition of the lean-to, and assured her that, ten days later, she would have found it perfectly ready to receive her. She whisked into the rooms — looked all round them — whisked out again — declared she had come to live in the old Tower, and not in any modern addition to it, and flatly declined to inhabit the lean-to on any terms whatever. I opened my lips to state certain objections, but she slipped away in an instant and made straight for the Tower staircase.
“Who lives here?” she asked, calling down to us, eagerly, from the first-floor landing.
“I do,” said Owen; “but, if you would like me to move out —”
She was away up the second flight before he could say any more. The next sound we heard, as we slowly followed her, was a peremptory21 drumming against the room door of the second story.
“Anybody here?” we heard her ask through the door.
I called up to her that, under ordinary circumstances, I was there; but that, like Owen, I should be happy to move out —
My polite offer was cut short as my brother’s had been. We heard more drumming at the door of the third story. There were two rooms here also — one perfectly empty, the other stocked with odds22 and ends of dismal23, old-fashioned furniture for which we had no use, and grimly ornamented24 by a life-size basket figure supporting a complete suit of armor in a sadly rusty25 condition. When Owen and I got to the third-floor landing, the door was open; Miss Jessie had taken possession of the rooms; and we found her on a chair, dusting the man in armor with her cambric pocket-handkerchief.
“I shall live here,” she said, looking round at us briskly over her shoulder.
We both remonstrated26, but it was quite in vain. She told us that she had an impulse to live with the man in armor, and that she would have her way, or go back immediately in the post-chaise, which we pleased. Finding it impossible to move her, we bargained that she should, at least, allow the new bed and the rest of the comfortable furniture in the lean-to to be moved up into the empty room for her sleeping accommodation. She consented to this condition, protesting, however, to the last against being compelled to sleep in a bed, because it was a modern conventionality, out of all harmony with her place of residence and her friend in armor.
Fortunately for the repose27 of Morgan, who, under other circumstances, would have discovered on the very first day that his airy retreat was by no means high enough to place him out of Jessie’s reach, the idea of settling herself instantly in her new habitation excluded every other idea from the mind of our fair guest. She pinned up the nankeen-colored traveling dress in festoons all round her on the spot; informed us that we were now about to make acquaintance with her in the new character of a woman of business; and darted28 downstairs in mad high spirits, screaming for Matilda and the trunks like a child for a set of new toys. The wholesome29 protest of Nature against the artificial restraints of modern life expressed itself in all that she said and in all that she did. She had never known what it was to be happy before, because she had never been allowed, until now, to do anything for herself. She was down on her knees at one moment, blowing the fire, and telling us that she felt like Cinderella; she was up on a table the next, attacking the cobwebs with a long broom, and wishing she had been born a housemaid. As for my unfortunate friend, the upholsterer, he was leveled to the ranks at the first effort he made to assume the command of the domestic forces in the furniture department. She laughed at him, pushed him about, disputed all his conclusions, altered all his arrangements, and ended by ordering half his bedroom furniture to be taken back again, for the one unanswerable reason that she meant to do without it.
As evening approached, the scene presented by the two rooms became eccentric to a pitch of absurdity30 which is quite indescribable. The grim, ancient walls of the bedroom had the liveliest modern dressing-gowns and morning-wrappers hanging all about them. The man in armor had a collection of smart little boots and shoes dangling31 by laces and ribbons round his iron legs. A worm-eaten, steel-clasped casket, dragged out of a corner, frowned on the upholsterer’s brand-new toilet-table, and held a miscellaneous assortment33 of combs, hairpins34, and brushes. Here stood a gloomy antique chair, the patriarch of its tribe, whose arms of blackened oak embraced a pair of pert, new deal bonnet-boxes not a fortnight old. There, thrown down lightly on a rugged35 tapestry36 table-cover, the long labor37 of centuries past, lay the brief, delicate work of a week ago in the shape of silk and muslin dresses turned inside out. In the midst of all these confusions and contradictions, Miss Jessie ranged to and fro, the active center of the whole scene of disorder38, now singing at the top of her voice, and now declaring in her lighthearted way that one of us must make up his mind to marry her immediately, as she was determined39 to settle for the rest of her life at The Glen Tower.
She followed up that announcement, when we met at dinner, by inquiring if we quite understood by this time that she had left her “company manners” in London, and that she meant to govern us all at her absolute will and pleasure, throughout the whole period of her stay. Having thus provided at the outset for the due recognition of her authority by the household generally and individually having briskly planned out all her own forthcoming occupations and amusements over the wine and fruit at dessert, and having positively40 settled, between her first and second cups of tea, where our connection with them was to begin and where it was to end, she had actually succeeded, when the time came to separate for the night, in setting us as much at our ease, and in making herself as completely a necessary part of our household as if she had lived among us for years and years past.
Such was our first day’s experience of the formidable guest whose anticipated visit had so sorely and so absurdly discomposed us all. I could hardly believe that I had actually wasted hours of precious time in worrying myself and everybody else in the house about the best means of laboriously41 entertaining a lively, high-spirited girl, who was perfectly capable, without an effort on her own part or on ours, of entertaining herself.
Having upset every one of our calculations on the first day of her arrival, she next falsified all our predictions before she had been with us a week. Instead of fracturing her skull42 with the pony43, as Morgan had prophesied44, she sat the sturdy, sure-footed, mischievous45 little brute46 as if she were part and parcel of himself. With an old water-proof cloak of mine on her shoulders, with a broad-flapped Spanish hat of Owen’s on her head, with a wild imp7 of a Welsh boy following her as guide and groom47 on a bare-backed pony, and with one of the largest and ugliest cur-dogs in England (which she had picked up, lost and starved by the wayside) barking at her heels, she scoured48 the country in all directions, and came back to dinner, as she herself expressed it, “with the manners of an Amazon, the complexion49 of a dairy-maid, and the appetite of a wolf.”
On days when incessant50 rain kept her indoors, she amused herself with a new freak. Making friends everywhere, as became The Queen of Hearts, she even ingratiated herself with the sour old housekeeper51, who had predicted so obstinately52 that she was certain to run away. To the amazement53 of everybody in the house, she spent hours in the kitchen, learning to make puddings and pies, and trying all sorts of recipes with very varying success, from an antiquated54 cookery book which she had discovered at the back of my bookshelves. At other times, when I expected her to be upstairs, languidly examining her finery, and idly polishing her trinkets, I heard of her in the stables, feeding the rabbits, and talking to the raven55, or found her in the conservatory56, fumigating57 the plants, and half suffocating58 the gardener, who was trying to moderate her enthusiasm in the production of smoke.
Instead of finding amusement, as we had expected, in Owen’s studio, she puckered59 up her pretty face in grimaces60 of disgust at the smell of paint in the room, and declared that the horrors of the Earthquake at Lisbon made her feel hysterical61. Instead of showing a total want of interest in my business occupations on the estate, she destroyed my dignity as steward62 by joining me in my rounds on her pony, with her vagabond retinue63 at her heels. Instead of devouring64 the novels I had ordered for her, she left them in the box, and put her feet on it when she felt sleepy after a hard day’s riding. Instead of practicing for hours every evening at the piano, which I had hired with such a firm conviction of her using it, she showed us tricks on the cards, taught us new games, initiated65 us into the mystics of dominoes, challenged us with riddles66, an even attempted to stimulate67 us into acting68 charades69 — in short, tried every evening amusement in the whole category except the amusement of music. Every new aspect of her character was a new surprise to us, and every fresh occupation that she chose was a fresh contradiction to our previous expectations. The value of experience as a guide is unquestionable in many of the most important affairs of life; but, speaking for myself personally, I never understood the utter futility70 of it, where a woman is concerned, until I was brought into habits of daily communication with our fair guest.
In her domestic relations with ourselves she showed that exquisite71 nicety of discrimination in studying our characters, habits and tastes which comes by instinct with women, and which even the longest practice rarely teaches in similar perfection to men. She saw at a glance all the underlying72 tenderness and generosity73 concealed74 beneath Owen’s external shyness, irresolution75, and occasional reserve; and, from first to last, even in her gayest moments, there was always a certain quietly-implied consideration — an easy, graceful2, delicate deference76 — in her manner toward my eldest77 brother, which won upon me and upon him every hour in the day.
With me she was freer in her talk, quicker in her actions, readier and bolder in all the thousand little familiarities of our daily intercourse78. When we met in the morning she always took Owen’s hand, and waited till he kissed her on the forehead. In my case she put both her hands on my shoulders, raised herself on tiptoe, and saluted me briskly on both checks in the foreign way. She never differed in opinion with Owen without propitiating79 him first by some little artful compliment in the way of excuse. She argued boldly with me on every subject under the sun, law and politics included; and, when I got the better of her, never hesitated to stop me by putting her hand on my lips, or by dragging me out into the garden in the middle of a sentence.
As for Morgan, she abandoned all restraint in his case on the second day of her sojourn80 among us. She had asked after him as soon as she was settled in her two rooms on the third story; had insisted on knowing why he lived at the top of the tower, and why he had not appeared to welcome her at the door; had entrapped81 us into all sorts of damaging admissions, and had thereupon discovered the true state of the case in less than five minutes.
From that time my unfortunate second brother became the victim of all that was mischievous and reckless in her disposition82. She forced him downstairs by a series of maneuvers83 which rendered his refuge uninhabitable, and then pretended to fall violently in love with him. She slipped little pink three-cornered notes under his door, entreating84 him to make appointments with her, or tenderly inquiring how he would like to see her hair dressed at dinner on that day. She followed him into the garden, sometimes to ask for the privilege of smelling his tobacco-smoke, sometimes to beg for a lock of his hair, or a fragment of his ragged32 old dressing-gown, to put among her keepsakes. She sighed at him when he was in a passion, and put her handkerchief to her eyes when he was sulky. In short, she tormented85 Morgan, whenever she could catch him, with such ingenious and such relentless86 malice87, that he actually threatened to go back to London, and prey88 once more, in the unscrupulous character of a doctor, on the credulity of mankind.
Thus situated89 in her relations toward ourselves, and thus occupied by country diversions of her own choosing, Miss Jessie passed her time at The Glen Tower, excepting now and then a dull hour in the long evenings, to her guardian’s satisfaction — and, all things considered, not without pleasure to herself. Day followed day in calm and smooth succession, and five quiet weeks had elapsed out of the six during which her stay was to last without any remarkable90 occurrence to distinguish them, when an event happened which personally affected91 me in a very serious manner, and which suddenly caused our handsome Queen of Hearts to become the object of my deepest anxiety in the present, and of my dearest hopes for the future.
点击收听单词发音
1 prettily | |
adv.优美地;可爱地 | |
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2 graceful | |
adj.优美的,优雅的;得体的 | |
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3 gracefully | |
ad.大大方方地;优美地 | |
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4 possessed | |
adj.疯狂的;拥有的,占有的 | |
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5 humility | |
n.谦逊,谦恭 | |
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6 offense | |
n.犯规,违法行为;冒犯,得罪 | |
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7 imp | |
n.顽童 | |
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8 perfectly | |
adv.完美地,无可非议地,彻底地 | |
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9 irresistible | |
adj.非常诱人的,无法拒绝的,无法抗拒的 | |
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10 inviting | |
adj.诱人的,引人注目的 | |
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11 supplication | |
n.恳求,祈愿,哀求 | |
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12 bonnet | |
n.无边女帽;童帽 | |
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13 remarkably | |
ad.不同寻常地,相当地 | |
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14 delightful | |
adj.令人高兴的,使人快乐的 | |
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15 horrid | |
adj.可怕的;令人惊恐的;恐怖的;极讨厌的 | |
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16 guardian | |
n.监护人;守卫者,保护者 | |
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17 withered | |
adj. 枯萎的,干瘪的,(人身体的部分器官)因病萎缩的或未发育良好的 动词wither的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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18 momentary | |
adj.片刻的,瞬息的;短暂的 | |
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19 saluted | |
v.欢迎,致敬( salute的过去式和过去分词 );赞扬,赞颂 | |
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20 miserable | |
adj.悲惨的,痛苦的;可怜的,糟糕的 | |
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21 peremptory | |
adj.紧急的,专横的,断然的 | |
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22 odds | |
n.让步,机率,可能性,比率;胜败优劣之别 | |
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23 dismal | |
adj.阴沉的,凄凉的,令人忧郁的,差劲的 | |
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24 ornamented | |
adj.花式字体的v.装饰,点缀,美化( ornament的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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25 rusty | |
adj.生锈的;锈色的;荒废了的 | |
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26 remonstrated | |
v.抗议( remonstrate的过去式和过去分词 );告诫 | |
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27 repose | |
v.(使)休息;n.安息 | |
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28 darted | |
v.投掷,投射( dart的过去式和过去分词 );向前冲,飞奔 | |
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29 wholesome | |
adj.适合;卫生的;有益健康的;显示身心健康的 | |
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30 absurdity | |
n.荒谬,愚蠢;谬论 | |
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31 dangling | |
悬吊着( dangle的现在分词 ); 摆动不定; 用某事物诱惑…; 吊胃口 | |
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32 ragged | |
adj.衣衫褴褛的,粗糙的,刺耳的 | |
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33 assortment | |
n.分类,各色俱备之物,聚集 | |
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34 hairpins | |
n.发夹( hairpin的名词复数 ) | |
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35 rugged | |
adj.高低不平的,粗糙的,粗壮的,强健的 | |
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36 tapestry | |
n.挂毯,丰富多采的画面 | |
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37 labor | |
n.劳动,努力,工作,劳工;分娩;vi.劳动,努力,苦干;vt.详细分析;麻烦 | |
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38 disorder | |
n.紊乱,混乱;骚动,骚乱;疾病,失调 | |
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39 determined | |
adj.坚定的;有决心的 | |
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40 positively | |
adv.明确地,断然,坚决地;实在,确实 | |
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41 laboriously | |
adv.艰苦地;费力地;辛勤地;(文体等)佶屈聱牙地 | |
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42 skull | |
n.头骨;颅骨 | |
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43 pony | |
adj.小型的;n.小马 | |
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44 prophesied | |
v.预告,预言( prophesy的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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45 mischievous | |
adj.调皮的,恶作剧的,有害的,伤人的 | |
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46 brute | |
n.野兽,兽性 | |
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47 groom | |
vt.给(马、狗等)梳毛,照料,使...整洁 | |
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48 scoured | |
走遍(某地)搜寻(人或物)( scour的过去式和过去分词 ); (用力)刷; 擦净; 擦亮 | |
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49 complexion | |
n.肤色;情况,局面;气质,性格 | |
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50 incessant | |
adj.不停的,连续的 | |
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51 housekeeper | |
n.管理家务的主妇,女管家 | |
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52 obstinately | |
ad.固执地,顽固地 | |
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53 amazement | |
n.惊奇,惊讶 | |
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54 antiquated | |
adj.陈旧的,过时的 | |
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55 raven | |
n.渡鸟,乌鸦;adj.乌亮的 | |
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56 conservatory | |
n.温室,音乐学院;adj.保存性的,有保存力的 | |
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57 fumigating | |
v.用化学品熏(某物)消毒( fumigate的现在分词 ) | |
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58 suffocating | |
a.使人窒息的 | |
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59 puckered | |
v.(使某物)起褶子或皱纹( pucker的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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60 grimaces | |
n.(表蔑视、厌恶等)面部扭曲,鬼脸( grimace的名词复数 )v.扮鬼相,做鬼脸( grimace的第三人称单数 ) | |
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61 hysterical | |
adj.情绪异常激动的,歇斯底里般的 | |
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62 steward | |
n.乘务员,服务员;看管人;膳食管理员 | |
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63 retinue | |
n.侍从;随员 | |
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64 devouring | |
吞没( devour的现在分词 ); 耗尽; 津津有味地看; 狼吞虎咽地吃光 | |
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65 initiated | |
n. 创始人 adj. 新加入的 vt. 开始,创始,启蒙,介绍加入 | |
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66 riddles | |
n.谜(语)( riddle的名词复数 );猜不透的难题,难解之谜 | |
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67 stimulate | |
vt.刺激,使兴奋;激励,使…振奋 | |
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68 acting | |
n.演戏,行为,假装;adj.代理的,临时的,演出用的 | |
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69 charades | |
n.伪装( charade的名词复数 );猜字游戏 | |
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70 futility | |
n.无用 | |
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71 exquisite | |
adj.精美的;敏锐的;剧烈的,感觉强烈的 | |
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72 underlying | |
adj.在下面的,含蓄的,潜在的 | |
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73 generosity | |
n.大度,慷慨,慷慨的行为 | |
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74 concealed | |
a.隐藏的,隐蔽的 | |
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75 irresolution | |
n.不决断,优柔寡断,犹豫不定 | |
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76 deference | |
n.尊重,顺从;敬意 | |
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77 eldest | |
adj.最年长的,最年老的 | |
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78 intercourse | |
n.性交;交流,交往,交际 | |
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79 propitiating | |
v.劝解,抚慰,使息怒( propitiate的现在分词 ) | |
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80 sojourn | |
v./n.旅居,寄居;逗留 | |
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81 entrapped | |
v.使陷入圈套,使入陷阱( entrap的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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82 disposition | |
n.性情,性格;意向,倾向;排列,部署 | |
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83 maneuvers | |
n.策略,谋略,花招( maneuver的名词复数 ) | |
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84 entreating | |
恳求,乞求( entreat的现在分词 ) | |
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85 tormented | |
饱受折磨的 | |
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86 relentless | |
adj.残酷的,不留情的,无怜悯心的 | |
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87 malice | |
n.恶意,怨恨,蓄意;[律]预谋 | |
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88 prey | |
n.被掠食者,牺牲者,掠食;v.捕食,掠夺,折磨 | |
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89 situated | |
adj.坐落在...的,处于某种境地的 | |
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90 remarkable | |
adj.显著的,异常的,非凡的,值得注意的 | |
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91 affected | |
adj.不自然的,假装的 | |
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