Mis' Toplady tore off a strip of white cloth so smart it sounded saucy2.
"I'm sick to death," she said, "of the whole kit3 of them. I hate a baking sale like I hate wash-day. We've had them till we can taste them. I know just what every human one of us would bring. Bazaars4 is death on your feet. And if I sit down to another twenty-five-cent supper—beef loaf, bake' beans, pickles5, cabbage salad, piece o' cake—it seems as though I should scream."
"Me too," agrees Mis' Holcomb.
"Me too," I says myself. "Still," I says, "we want a park—and we want to name it Hewitt Park for them that's done so much for the town a'ready. And if we ever have a park, we've got to raise some money. That's flat, ain't it?"
We all allowed that this was flat, and acrost the certainty we faced one another, rocking and sewing in my nice cool sitting-room6. The blinds were open,[Pg 131] the muslin curtains were blowing, bees were humming in the yellow-rose bush over the window, and the street lay all empty, except for a load of hay that lumbered7 by and brushed the low branches of the maples9. And somewheres down the block a lawn-mower was going, sleepy.
"Who's that rackin' around so up-stairs?" ask' Mis' Toplady, pretty soon.
Just when she spoke10, the little light footstep that had been padding overhead came out in the hall and down my stair.
"It's Miss Mayhew," I told them, just before Miss Mayhew tapped on the open door.
"Come right in—what you knocking for when the door sets ajar?" says I to her.
Miss Mayhew stood in the doorway11, her rough short skirt and stout12 boots and red sweater all saying "I'm going for a walk," even before she did. Only she adds: "I wanted to let you know I don't think I'll get back for supper."
"Such a boarder I never saw," I says. "You don't eat enough for a bird when you're here. And when you ain't, you're off gallivanting over the hills with nothing whatever to eat. And me with a fresh spice-cake just out of the oven for your supper."
"I'm so sorry," Miss Mayhew says, penitent13 to see.
I laid down my work. "You let me put you up a couple o' pieces to nibble14 on," says I.
[Pg 132]
"You're so good. May I come too?" Miss Mayhew asks, and smiled bright at the other two women, who smiled back broad and almost tender—Miss Mayhew's smile made you do that.
"I s'pose them writing folks can't stop to think of food," Mis' Toplady says as we went out.
"Look at her lugging15 a book. What's she want to be bothered with that for?" Mis' Holcomb says.
But that kind of fault-finding don't necessarily mean unkindness. With us it was as natural as a glance.
Out in the kitchen, I, having wrapped two nice slices of spice cake and put them in Miss Mayhew's hand, looked up at her and was shook up considerable to see that her eyes were filled with tears.
I know I'm real blunt when I'm embarrassed or trying to be funny, but when it comes to tears I'm more to home. So I just put my hand on the girl's shoulder and waited for her to speak.
"It's nothing," Miss Mayhew says back to the question I didn't ask. "I—I—" she sobbed16 out quite open. "I'm all right," she ends, and put up her head like a banner.
To the two women in my sitting-room I didn't say a word of that moment, when I went back to them. But what I did say acted kind of electric.
"Now," says I, "day before yesterday was my sweeping17 day for the chambers18. But I hated to disturb her, she set there scribbling20 so hard when I stuck[Pg 133] my head in. She ain't been out of the house since. If you'll excuse me, I'll whisk right up there and sweep out now."
The women begun folding their work.
"Why, don't hurry yourselves!" I says. "Sit and visit till I get through, why don't you?"
"Go!" says Mis' Toplady. "We ain't a-going. We're going to help."
"I been dying to get up-stairs in that room ever since I see her fix it up," Miss Holcomb lets out, candid21.
Miss Mayhew's room—she'd been renting my front chamber19 for a month now—was little and bare, but her daintiness was there, like her saying something. And the two women began looking things over—the books, the pictures—"prints," Miss Mayhew called them—the china tea-cups, the silver-topped bottles, and the silver and ivory toilet stuff.
"My, what a homely22 picture!" Mis' Holcomb says, looking at a scene of a Japanese lady and a mountain.
"What in the world is these forceps for?" says Mis' Toplady, balancing an ivory glove-stretcher with Miss Mayhew's initials on. I knew that it was, because I'd asked her.
"What she wants of a dust-cap I dunno," Mis' Holcomb contributes, pointing to the little lace and ribbon cap hanging beside the toilet-table.
[Pg 134]
And I'd wondered that myself. She put it on for breakfast, like she was going to do some work; then she never done a thing the whole morning, only wrote.
Then all of a sudden was when I come out with something surprising.
"Why," says I, "it's gone!"
"What's gone?" they says. And I was looking so hard I couldn't answer—bureau, chest of drawers, bookshelves, I looked on all of them. "It ain't here anywhere," says I, "and he was that handsome—"
I told them about the photograph, as well as I could. It was always standing23 on the bureau, right close up by the glass—a man's picture that always made me want to say: "Well, you look just exactly the way you ought to look. And I believe you are it." He looked like what you mean when you say "man" when you're young—big and dark and frank and boyish and manly24, with eyes that give their truth to you and count on having yours back again. That kind.
"Land," I says. "I'd leave a picture like that up in my room no matter what occurred between me and the one the picture was the picture of. I couldn't take it down."
But now it was down, though I remembered seeing it stand there every time I'd dusted ever since Miss Mayhew had come, up till this day. And when[Pg 135] I'd told the women all about it, they couldn't recover from looking. They looked so energetic that finally Mis' Toplady pulled out the wardrobe a little mite25 and peeked26 behind it.
"I thought mebbe it'd got itself stuck in here," she explains, bringing her head back with a great streak27 of dust on her cheek—and I didn't take it as any reflection whatever on my housekeeping. I've always believed that there's some furniture that the dust just rises out of, in the night, like cream—and of those the backs of wardrobes are chief.
Then she shoved the wardrobe in place, and the door that I'd fixed28 at the top with a little wob of newspaper so it would stay shut, all of a sudden swung open, and the other one followed suit. We three stood staring at what was inside. For my wardrobe, that had never had anything in it better than my best black silk, was hung full of pink and blue and rose and white and lavender clothes. Dresses they were, some with little scraps29 of shining trimming on, and all of them not like anything any of us had ever seen, outside of fashion books—if any.
"My land!" says I, sitting down on the edge of the fresh-made bed—a thing I never do in my right senses.
"Party clothes!" says Mis' Holcomb, kind of awelike. "Ball-gowns," she says it over, to make them sound as grand as they looked.
[Pg 136]
"Why, mercy me," Mis' Toplady says, standing close up and staring. "She's an actress, that's what she is. Them's stage clothes."
"Actress nothing," I says, "nor they ain't ball dresses—not all anyway. They're just light colors, for afternoon wear, the most of them—but like we don't wear here in this town, 'long of being so durable-minded."
"Have you ever seen her wear any of 'em?" demands Mis' Toplady.
"I can't say I ever have," I says, "but she likely ain't done so because she don't want to do different from us. That," says I, "is the lady of it."
Mis' Holcomb leaned close and looked at the things through her glasses.
"I think she'd ought to wear them here," she says. "I'd dearly love to look at things like that. Nobody ever wore things here like that since the Hewitts went away. We'd all love to see them. We don't see things like that any too often. I s'pose—I s'pose, ladies," says she, hesitating, "I s'pose it wouldn't do for us to look at them any closer up to, would it?"
We knew it wouldn't—not, that is, to the point of touching31. But we all came and stood by the wardrobe door and looked as close up to as we durst.
"My," says Mis' Toplady, "how Mis' Sykes would admire to see these. And Mis' Hubbelthwait. And Mis' Sturgis. And Mis' Merriman."
[Pg 137]
And then she went on, real low:
"Why, ladies," she says, "why couldn't we have an exhibit—a loan exhibit? And put all those clothes on dress-makers' forms in somebody's parlor32—"
"And charge admission!" says I. "Instead of a bazaar or a supper or a baking sale—"
"And get each lady that's got them to put up her best dress too," says Mis' Holcomb. "Mis' Sykes has never had a chance to wear her navy-blue velvet33 in this town once, and she's had it three years. I presume she'd be glad to get a chance to show it off that way."
"And Mis' Sturgis her black silk that she had dressmaker made in the city," says I, "when she went to her relation's funeral. She's never had it on her back but the once—it had too much jet on it for anything but formal—and that once was to the funeral, and then it was so cold in the church she had to keep her coat on over it. She's often told me about it, and she's real bitter about it, for her."
Mis' Toplady flushed up. "I've got," she said, "that lavender silk dressing34 gown my nephew sent me from Japan. It's never been out of its box since it come, nine years ago, except when I've took somebody up-chamber to show it to them. Do you think—"
"Of course we'll have it," I said, "and, Mis' [Pg 138]Toplady, your wedding-dress that you've saved, with the white raspberry buttons. And there's Mis' Merriman's silk-embroidered long-shawl—oh, ladies," I says, "won't it be nice to see some elegant clothes wore for once here in the village, even if it's only on dressmaker's forms?"
"So be Miss Mayhew'll only let us take hers," says Mis' Holcomb, longing35.
We planned the whole thing out, sitting up there till plump six o'clock when the whistle blew, and not a scratch of sweeping done in the chamber yet. The ladies both flew for home then, and I went at the sweeping, being I was too excited to eat anyway, and I planned like lightning the whole time. And I made up my mind to arrange with Miss Mayhew that night.
I'd had my supper and was rocking on the front porch when she came home. The moon was shining up the street, and the maple8 leaves were all moving pleasant, and their shadows were moving pleasant, too, as if they were independent. Everybody's windows were open, and somewhere down the block some young folks were singing an old-fashioned love-song—I saw Miss Mayhew stand at the gate and listen after she had come inside. Then she came up the walk slow.
"Good evening and glad you're back," said I. "Ain't this a night?"
She stood on the bottom step, looking the moon in[Pg 139] the face. The air was sweet with my yellow roses—it was almost as if the moonlight and they were the same color and both sweet-smelling. And her a picture in that yellow frame.
"Oh, it is—it is," she says, and she sighs.
"This," I says, "isn't a night to sigh on."
"No," she says, "it isn't—is it? I won't do it again."
"Sit down," I says, "I want to ask you something."
So then I told her how her wardrobe door had happened to swing open, and what we wanted to do.
"—we don't see any too many pretty things here in the village," I said, "and I'd kind of like to do it, even if we didn't make a cent of money out of it for the park."
She didn't say anything—she just sat with her head turned away from me, looking down the street.
"—us ladies," I said, "we don't dress very much. We can't. We've all had a hard time to get together just what we've had to have. But we all like pretty things. I s'pose most all of us used to think we were going to have them, and these things of yours kind of make me think of the way I use' to think, when I was a girl, I'd have things some day. Of course now I know it don't make a mite of difference whether anybody ever had them or not—there's other things and more of them. But still,[Pg 140] now and then you kind of hanker. You kind of hanker," I told her.
Still she didn't say anything. I thought mebbe I'd offended her.
"We wouldn't touch them, you know," I said. "We'd only just come and look. But if you'd mind it any—"
Then she looked up at me, and I saw that her eyes were brimming over with tears.
"Mind!" she said. "Why, no—no! If you can really use those things of mine. But they're not nice things, you know."
"Well," I says, "I dunno as us ladies would know that. But you do love light things when you've had to go around dressed dark, either 'count of economy or 'count of being afraid of getting talked about. Or both."
She got up and leaned and kissed me, light. Wasn't that a funny thing to do? But I loved her for it.
"Anything I own," she says, "is yours to use just the way you want to use it."
"You're just as sweet as you are pretty," I told her, "and more I dunno who could say about no one."
I lay awake most all night planning it, like you will. I spent most of the next day tracking round seeing folks about it. And everybody pitched in to work, both on account of needing the money for[Pg 141] the little park us ladies had set our hearts on, and on account of being glad to have some place, at last, to show what clothes we'd got to some one, even if it was nobody but each other.
"Oh," says Mis' Holcomb, "I was thinking only the other day if only somebody'd get married. You know we ain't had an evening party in this town in years—not since the Hewitts went away. But I couldn't think of a soul likely to have a big evening wedding for their daughter but the Mortons, and little Abbie Morton, she's only 'leven. It'd take another good six years before we could get asked to that. And I did want to get a real chance to wear my dress before I made it over."
"The Prices might have a wedding for Mamie," says Mis' Toplady, reflective. "Like enough with a catyier and all that. But I dunno's Mamie's ever had a beau in her life."
We were to have the exhibit—the Art and Loan Dress Exhibit, we called it—at my house, and I tell you it was fun getting ready for it. But it was hard work, too, as most fun is.
The morning of the day that was the day, everybody came bringing their stuff over in their arms. We had dress-forms from all the dress-makers and all the stores in town, and they were all set up around the rim30 of my parlor. Mis' Sturgis had just got her black silk put up and was trying to make out whether side view to show the three quarters[Pg 142] train or front view to show the jet ornament36 was most becoming to the dress, when Miss Mayhew brought in her things and began helping37 us.
"How the dead speaks in clothes," Mis' Sturgis says. "This jet ornament was on my mother's bonnet38 for twelve years when I was a little girl."
"The Irish crochet39 medallion in the front of my basque," says Mis' Merriman, "was on a scarf of my mother's that come from the old country. It got old, and I took the best of it and appliqued it on a crazy quilt and slept under it for years. Then when I see Irish crochet beginning to be wore in the magazines again, I ripped it off and ragged40 out in it."
"Oh," says Miss Mayhew, all of a sudden. "What a lovely shawl! What you going to put that on?"
"Where?" says we.
"Why this," she says—but still we didn't see, for she didn't have anything but the shawl Mis' Hubbelthwait had worn in over her head. "This Paisley shawl," Miss Mayhew says.
"My land!" says Mis' Hubbelthwait, "I put that on me to go through the cold hall and bring in the kindling41, and run out for a panful of chips, and like that."
Miss Mayhew smiled. "You must put that on a figure," she says. "Why, it's beautiful. Look at those colors."
"All faded out," says Mis' Hubbelthwait, and[Pg 143] thought Miss Mayhew was making fun of her. But she wasn't. And she insisted on draping it and putting it near the front. Miss Mayhew was nice, but she was queer in some things. I'd upholstered my kitchen rocker with part of my Paisley shawl, and covered the ironing-board under the cloth with the rest of it—and nothing would do but that old chair must be toted up in her room! And yet I'd spent four dollars for a new golden-oak rocker when she'd engaged the rooms.... But me, I urged them to let her do as she pleased with Mis' Hubbelthwait's shawl that morning; because I remembered that what had been the matter in my kitchen the afternoon before was probably still the matter. And moreover, I'd looked when I made the bed, and I see that the picture hadn't been set back on the bureau.
Well, then we began putting up Miss Mayhew's own things—and I tell you they were pretty. There wasn't much to them—little slimpsey soft silk things, made real inexpensive with no lining42, and not fussed up at all—but they had an air to them that you can hardly ever get into a dress, no matter how close you follow your paper pattern. She had a pink and a blue and a white and a lavender—and one lovely rose gown that I took and held up before her.
"I'd dearly love to see you in this," says I. "I bet you look like a rose in it—or more so."
[Pg 144]
Her face, that was usually bright and soft all in one, sort of fell, like a cloud had blown over it.
"I always liked to wear that dress," she says. "I had—there were folks that liked it."
"Put it on to-night," I says, "and take charge of this room for us."
But she kind of shrunk back, and shook her head.
And I thought, like lightning, "It was the Picture Man that was on the bureau that liked to see you in that dress—or I miss my guess."
But I never said a word, and went on putting a dress-form together.
The room looked real pretty when we got all the things up. There were fourteen dresses in all, around the room. In the very middle was Mis' Toplady's wedding-dress—white silk, made real full, with the white raspberry buttons.
"For twenty years," she said, "it's been in the bottom drawer of the spare room. It's nice to see it wore."
And we all thought it was so nice that we borrowed the wax figure from the White House Emporium, and put the dress on. It looked real funny, though, to see that smirking43, red-cheeked figure with lots of light hair and its head on one side, coming up out of Mis' Toplady's wedding-dress.
Us ladies were all ready and on hand early that night, dressed in our black alpacas and wearing[Pg 145] white aprons44, most of us; and Miss Mayhew had on a little white dimity, and she insisted on helping in the kitchen—we were going to give them only lemonade and sandwiches, for we were expecting the whole town, and the admission was only fifteen cents apiece.
Then—I remember it was just after the clock struck seven—my telephone rang. And it was a man's voice—which is exciting in itself, no man ever calling me up without it's the grocery-man to try to get rid of some of his fruit that's going to spoil, or the flour and feed man to say he can't send up the corn-meal till to-morrow, after all. And this Voice wasn't like either one of them.
He asked if this was my number, brisk and strong and deep and sure, and as if he was used to everything there is.
"Is Miss Marjorie Mayhew there?" says he.
"Miss Marjorie Mayhew," says I, thoughtful. "Why, I dunno's I ever heard her front name."
"Whose front name?" says he.
"Why," says I, "Miss Mayhew's. That's who we're talking about, ain't it?"
"Oh," says he, "then there is a Miss Mayhew staying there?"
"No, sir," says I short, "there ain't. She's the Miss Mayhew—the one I mean—and anybody that's ever seen her would tell you the same thing."
[Pg 146]
He was still at that, just for a second. And when he spoke again, his voice had somehow got a little different—I couldn't tell how.
"I see," says he, "that you and I understand each other perfectly45. May I speak to the Miss Mayhew?"
"Why, sure," says I hearty46. "Sure you can."
So I went in the kitchen and found her where she was stirring lemon-juice in my big stone crock. And when I told her, first she turned red-rose red, and then she turned white-rose white.
"Me?" she says. "Who can want me? Who knows I'm here?"
"You go on and answer the 'phone, child," I says to her. "Him and me, we understand each other perfectly."
So she went. I couldn't help hearing what she said.
"Yes."
"Yes."
"You are?"
"It doesn't matter in the least."
"If you wish."
"Two automobiles47?"
"Very well. Any time."
"Oh, not at all, I assure you."
—all in a cool, don't-care little voice that I never in this wide world would have recognized as Miss Mayhew's voice. Then she hung up. And I[Pg 147] stepped out of the cloak-closet. I took hold of her two shoulders and looked in her eyes. And I saw she was palpitating and trembling and breathless and pink.
"Marjorie Mayhew," I says, "I never knew that was your name, till just now when that Nice Voice asked for you. But stranger though you are to me—or more so—I want to say something to you: If you ever love—I don't say That Nice Voice, but Any Nice Voice, don't you never, never speak cold to it like you just done. No matter what—"
She looked at me, kind of sweet and kind of still, and long and deep. And I saw that we both knew what we both knew.
"I know," she says. "Folks are so foolish—oh, so foolish! I know it now. And yet—"
"And yet you young folks hurt love for pride all the time," I says. "And love is gold, and pride is clay. And some of you never find it out till too late."
"I know," she says in a whisper, "I know—" Then she looked up. "Twelve folks are coming here in two automobiles in about half an hour. The telephone was from Prescott—that's about ten miles, isn't it? It's the Hewitts. From the city—and some guests of theirs—"
"The Hewitts?" I says over. "From the city?"
She nodded.
[Pg 148]
"The Hewitts," I pressed on, "that give us our library? And that we want to name the park for?"
Yes. It was them.
"Why, my land," I says, "my land—let me tell the ladies."
I rushed in on them, where they were walking 'round the parlor peaceful, each lady looking over her own dress and giving little twitches48 to it here and there to make the set right.
"The Hewitts," I says, "that we've all wanted to meet for years on end. And now look at us—dressed up in every-day, or not so much so, when we'd like to do them honor."
Mis' Toplady, standing by her wedding dress on the wax form, waved both her arms.
"Ladies!" she says. "S'posing we ain't any of us dressed up. Can't we dress up, I'd like to know? Here's all our best bib and tucker present with us. What's to prevent us putting it on?"
"But the exhibit!" says Mis' Holcomb most into a wail49. "The exhibit that they was to pay fifteen cents apiece for?"
"Well," says Mis' Toplady majestic50, "they'll have it, won't they? We'll tell them which is which—only we'll all be wearing our own!"
Like lightning we decided51. Each lady ripped her own dress off its wire form and scuttled52 for up-stairs. I took mine too, and headed with them; and at the[Pg 149] turn I met Marjorie Mayhew, running down the stairs.
"Oh!" she says, kind of excited and kind of ashamed. "Do you think it'd spoil your exhibit if I took—if I wore—that rose dress—"
"No, child," I says. "Go right down and get it. That won't spoil the exhibit. The exhibit," I says, "is going to be exhibited on."
We were into our clothes in no time, hooking each other up, laughing like girls.
The first of us was just beginning to appear, when the two big cars came breathing up to the gate.
In came the Hewitts, and land—in one glance I saw there was nothing about them that was like what we'd always imagined—nothing grand or sweeping or rustling53 or cold. I guess that kind of city folks has gone out of fashion, never to come back. The Hewitts didn't seem like city folks at all—they seemed just like folks. It made a real nice surprise. And we all got to be folks, short off. For when I ushered54 them into my parlor, there were all the wire dress-forms setting around with nothing whatever on.
"My land," I says, "we might as well own right up to what we done," I says. And I told them, frank. And I dunno which enjoyed it the most, them or us.
The minute I saw him, I knew him. I mean The[Pg 150] Nice Voice. I'd have known him by his voice if I hadn't been acquainted with his face, but I was. He was the picture that wasn't on Miss Marjorie Mayhew's dresser any longer—and, even more than the picture, he looked like what you mean when you say "man." When I was introduced to him I wanted to say: "How do you do. Oh! I'm glad you look like that. She deserves it!"
But even if I could, I'd have been struck too dumb to do it. For I caught his name—and he was the only son of the Hewitts, and heir-evident to all his folks.
The only fault I could lay to his door was that he didn't have any eyes. Not for us. He was looking every-which-way, and I knew for who. So as soon as I could, I slips up to him and I says merely:
"This way."
He was right there with me, in a second. I took him up the stairs, and tapped at my front chamber door.
She was setting in there on her couch, red as a red rose this time. And when she see who was with me, she looked more so than ever. But she spoke gentle and self-possessed, as women can that's been trained that way all their days.
"How do you do?" says she, and gave him her hand, stranger-cool.
That man—he pays no more attention to me than if I hadn't been there. He just naturally[Pg 151] walked across the room, put his hands on her shoulders, looked deep into her eyes for long enough to read what she couldn't help being there, and then he took her in his arms.
I slipped out and pulled the door to. And in the hall I met from six to seven folks coming up to take their things off, and heading straight for the front chamber. I stood myself up in front of the door.
"Walk right into my room," says I—though I knew full well that it looked like Bedlam55, and that I was letting good housekeepers56 in to see it. And so they done. And, more heads appearing on the stairs about then, I see that what I had to do was to stand where I was—if they were to have their Great Five Minutes in peace.
Could anybody have helped doing that? And could anybody have helped hearing that little murmur57 that came to me from that room?
"Dearest," he said, "how could you—how could you do like this? I've looked everywhere—"
"I thought," she said, "that you'd never come. I thought you weren't looking."
"You owe me," he told her solemnly, "six solid weeks of my life. I've done nothing since you left."
"When a month went by," she owned up, "and you hadn't come, I—I took your picture off my bureau."
[Pg 152]
"Where'd you put it?" he asks, stern.
She laughed out, kind of light and joyous58.
"In my hand-bag," says she.
Then they were still a minute.
"Walk right to the left, and left your things right on my bed...." I heard myself saying over, crazy, to some folks. But then of course you always do expect your hostess to be more or less crazy-headed, and nobody thought anything of it, I guess.
They came out in just a minute, and we went down the stairs together. And on the way down he says to her:
"Remember, you're going back with us to-night. And I'm never going to let you out of my sight again—ever."
And she said: "But I know why. Because it'd be hard work to make me go...."
At the foot of the stairs Mis' Holcomb met me, her silk dress's collar under one ear.
"Have you heard?" she says. "We didn't have much exhibit, but the Hewitts have give us enough for the park—outright."
I'd wanted that park like I'd wanted nothing else for the town. But I hardly sensed what she said. I was looking acrost to where those two stood, and pretty soon I walked over to them.
"Is this the Miss Mayhew you were referring to?" I ask' him, demure59.
[Pg 153]
"This," says he, his nice eyes twinkling, "is the only Miss Mayhew there is."
"You may say that now," says I then, bold. "But—I see you won't call her that long."
He looked at me, and she looked at me, and they both put out their hands to me.
"I see," says he, "that we three understand one another perfectly."
FOOTNOTES:
[6] Copyright, 1914, The Delineator.
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1
bazaar
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| n.集市，商店集中区 | |
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2
saucy
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| adj.无礼的；俊俏的；活泼的 | |
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3
kit
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| n.用具包，成套工具；随身携带物 | |
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4
bazaars
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| （东方国家的）市场( bazaar的名词复数 )； 义卖； 义卖市场； （出售花哨商品等的）小商品市场 | |
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5
pickles
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| n.腌菜( pickle的名词复数 )；处于困境；遇到麻烦；菜酱 | |
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sitting-room
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| n.（BrE）客厅，起居室 | |
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lumbered
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| 砍伐（lumber的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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maple
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| n.槭树，枫树，槭木 | |
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maples
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| 槭树，枫树( maple的名词复数 )； 槭木 | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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penitent
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| adj.后悔的；n.后悔者；忏悔者 | |
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nibble
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| n.轻咬，啃；v.一点点地咬，慢慢啃，吹毛求疵 | |
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lugging
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| 超载运转能力 | |
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sobbed
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| 哭泣，啜泣( sob的过去式和过去分词 )； 哭诉，呜咽地说 | |
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sweeping
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| adj.范围广大的，一扫无遗的 | |
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chambers
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| n.房间( chamber的名词复数 )；（议会的）议院；卧室；会议厅 | |
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chamber
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| n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所 | |
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scribbling
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| n.乱涂[写]胡[乱]写的文章[作品]v.潦草的书写( scribble的现在分词 )；乱画；草草地写；匆匆记下 | |
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candid
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| adj.公正的，正直的；坦率的 | |
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homely
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| adj.家常的，简朴的；不漂亮的 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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manly
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| adj.有男子气概的；adv.男子般地，果断地 | |
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mite
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| n.极小的东西；小铜币 | |
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peeked
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| v.很快地看( peek的过去式和过去分词 )；偷看；窥视；微露出 | |
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streak
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| n.条理，斑纹，倾向，少许，痕迹；v.加条纹，变成条纹，奔驰，快速移动 | |
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fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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scraps
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| 油渣 | |
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rim
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| n.(圆物的)边，轮缘；边界 | |
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touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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parlor
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| n.店铺，营业室；会客室，客厅 | |
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velvet
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| n.丝绒，天鹅绒；adj.丝绒制的，柔软的 | |
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dressing
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| n.(食物)调料；包扎伤口的用品，敷料 | |
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longing
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| n.（for）渴望 | |
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ornament
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| v.装饰，美化；n.装饰，装饰物 | |
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helping
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| n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的 | |
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bonnet
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| n.无边女帽；童帽 | |
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crochet
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| n.钩针织物；v.用钩针编制 | |
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ragged
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| adj.衣衫褴褛的，粗糙的，刺耳的 | |
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kindling
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| n. 点火, 可燃物 动词kindle的现在分词形式 | |
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lining
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| n.衬里，衬料 | |
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smirking
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| v.傻笑( smirk的现在分词 ) | |
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aprons
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| 围裙( apron的名词复数 )； 停机坪，台口（舞台幕前的部份） | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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hearty
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| adj.热情友好的；衷心的；尽情的，纵情的 | |
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automobiles
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| n.汽车( automobile的名词复数 ) | |
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twitches
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| n.（使）抽动， （使）颤动， （使）抽搐( twitch的名词复数 ) | |
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wail
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| vt./vi.大声哀号，恸哭；呼啸，尖啸 | |
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majestic
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| adj.雄伟的，壮丽的，庄严的，威严的，崇高的 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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scuttled
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| v.使船沉没( scuttle的过去式和过去分词 )；快跑，急走 | |
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rustling
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| n. 瑟瑟声，沙沙声 adj. 发沙沙声的 | |
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ushered
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| v.引，领，陪同( usher的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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bedlam
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| n.混乱，骚乱；疯人院 | |
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56
housekeepers
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| n.（女）管家( housekeeper的名词复数 ) | |
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57
murmur
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| n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言 | |
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58
joyous
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| adj.充满快乐的；令人高兴的 | |
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demure
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| adj.严肃的；端庄的 | |
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