On this first morning in her home she woke of her own accord, and half-waking, half-sleeping, and with not a thought of getting up, she turned over and was about to snuggle down into the cosy1 warmth again, when across her drowsy2 eyes flashed the light from her sunny window.
"Why, how does the window get over there?" she asked herself, and then recollection came pouring over her, and sleepiness vanished, for life seemed suddenly very pleasant and interesting, and full of things to do, and see, and think about.
Presently the clock in the church-tower struck seven. "Only seven! Then I've got another hour before I need get up! But I'll just have a look out to see what it all looks like. How funny it seems to be back again!" She slipped out of bed and across the floor to draw back the curtains. Outside the narrow street stretched sunny and deserted3. The garden, drenched4 with dew, was bathed in sunshine too. But it was not on the garden or the street that her eyes lingered, but on the sea beyond the low stone wall on the opposite side of the way. Deep blue it stretched, its bosom5 gently heaving, blue as the sky above, and the jewels with which its bosom was decked flashed and sparkled in the morning sunshine.
"Oh-h-h!" gasped6 Mona. "Oh-h-h! I don't know how anyone can ever live away from the sea!"
In spite of the sun, though, the morning was cold, with a touch of frost in the air which nipped Mona's toes, and sent her scuttling7 back to her bed again. She remembered, joyfully8, from the old days, that if she propped10 herself up a little she could see the sea from her bed. So she lay with her pillow doubled up under her head, and the bedclothes drawn11 up to her chin, and gazed and gazed at the sea and sky, until presently she was on the sea, in a boat, floating through waves covered with diamonds, and the diamonds came pattering against the sides of the boat, as though inviting12 her to put out her hands and gather them up, and so become rich for ever. Strangely enough, though, she did not heed13, or care for them. All she wanted was a big bunch of the forget-me-nots which grew on the opposite shore, and she rowed and rowed, with might and main, to reach the forget-me-nots, and she put up a sail and flew before the wind, yet no nearer could she get to the patch of blue and green.
"But I can smell them!" she cried. "I can smell them!" and then remembered that forget-me-nots had no scent14 and realised that the scent was that of the wallflowers growing in her own garden; and suddenly all the spirit went out of her, for she did not care for what she could reach, but only for the unattainable; and the oars15 dropped out of her hands, and the diamonds no longer tapped against the boat, for the boat was still, and Mona sat in it disappointed and sullen16. The sun went in too, and nothing was the same but the scent of the flowers. And then, through her sullen thoughts, the sound of her father's voice came to her.
"Mona! Mona! It's eight o'clock. Ain't you getting up yet? I want you to see about the breakfast. Your mother isn't well."
Mona jumped up with a start, and felt rather cross in consequence. "All right, father," she called back. "I'll come as soon as I can," but to herself she added, in an injured tone, "I s'pose this is what I've been had home for! Hard lines, I call it, to have to get up and light the fire the very first morning."
Her father called through the door again. "The fire's lighted, and burning nicely, and I've put the kettle on. I lighted it before I went out. I didn't call 'ee then, because I thought I heard you moving."
Then her father had been up and dressed for an hour or two, and at work already! A faint sense of shame crossed Mona's mind. "All right, father," she called back more amiably17, "I'll dress as quick as I can. I won't be more than a few minutes."
"That's a good maid," with a note of relief in his voice, and then she heard him go softly down the stairs.
It always takes one a little longer than usual to dress in a strange place, but it took Mona longer than it need have done, for instead of unpacking18 her box the night before, and hanging up her frocks, and putting her belongings19 neatly20 away in their places, she had just tumbled everything over anyhow, to get at her nightdress, and so had left them. It had taken her quite as long to find the nightdress as it would have to lift the things out and put them in their proper places, for the garment was almost at the bottom of the box, but Mona did not think of that. Now, though, when she wanted to find her morning frock and apron21, she grew impatient and irritable22. "Perhaps if I tip everything out on the floor I'll find the old things that way!" she snapped crossly. "I s'pose I shan't find them until they've given me all the trouble they can," and she had actually thrown a few things in every direction, when she suddenly stopped and sat back on her heels.
"I've half a mind to put on my best dress again, then I can come and look for the old one when I ain't in such a hurry." The dress—her best one— was lying temptingly on a chair close beside her. She hesitated, looked at it again, and picked it up. As she did so, something fell out of the pocket. It was her purse, the little blue one her granny had bought for her at Christmas. She picked it up and opened it, and as she did so the colour rushed over her face. In one of the pockets was the eighteenpence which had been given to her to pay John Darbie with. "I—I suppose I ought to have given it to mother, but it went right out of my head." She completed her dressing23 in a thoughtful mood, but she did find, and put on, her old morning dress. "I suppose I had better tell her—about the money." She put the blue purse in a drawer, however, and tossed in a lot of things on top of it.
When at last she got downstairs it was already past half-past eight, and the fire was burning low again. "Oh, dear," she cried, irritably24, "how ever am I going to get breakfast with a fire like that and how am I to know what to get or where anything is kept. I think I might have had a day or two given me to settle down in. I s'pose I'd better get some sticks first and make the fire up. Bother the old thing, it only went out just to vex25 me!"
She was feeling hungry and impatient, and out of tune26 with everything. At Hillside she would have been just sitting down to a comfortable meal which had cost her no trouble to get. For the moment she wished she was back there again.
As she returned to the kitchen with her hands full of wood, her mother came down the stairs. She looked very white and ill, and very fragile, but she was fully9 dressed.
"I thought you were too bad to get up," said Mona, unsmilingly. "I was going to bring you up some breakfast as soon as I could, but the silly old fire was gone down——"
"I was afraid it would. That was why I got up. I couldn't be still, I was so fidgeted about your father's breakfast. He'll be home for it in a few minutes. He's had a busy morning, and must want something."
Mona looked glummer27 than ever. "I never had to get up early at granny's," she said in a reproachful voice. "I ain't accustomed to it. I s'pose I shall have to get so."
"Did you let your grandmother—did your grandmother come down first and get things ready for you?" asked Lucy, surprised; and something in her voice, or words, made Mona feel ashamed, instead of proud of the fact.
"Granny liked getting up early," she said, excusingly. Lucy did not make any comment, and Mona felt more ashamed than if she had.
"Hasn't father had his breakfast yet?" she asked presently. "He always used to come home for it at eight."
"He did to-day, but you see there wasn't any. The fire wasn't lighted even. He thought you were dressing, and he wouldn't let me get up. When he'd lighted the fire he went off to work again. He's painting his boat, and he said he'd finish giving her her first coat before he'd stop again; then she could be drying. I'll manage better another morning. I daresay I'll feel better to-morrow."
Lucy did look very unwell, and Mona's heart was touched. "I wish father had told me earlier," she said in a less grumbling28 tone. "I was awake at seven, and got up and looked out of the window. I never thought of dressing then, it seemed so early, and I didn't hear father moving."
"Never mind, dear, we will manage better another time. It's nice having you home, Mona; the house seems so much more cheerful. You will be a great comfort to us, I know."
Mona's ill-temper vanished. "I do want to be," she said shyly, "and I am glad to be home. Oh, mother, it was lovely to see the sea again. I felt—oh, I can't tell you how I felt when I first caught a glimpse of it. I don't know how ever I stayed away so long."
Lucy laughed ruefully. "I wish I loved it like that," she said, "but I can't make myself like it even. It always makes me feel miserable29."
A heavy step was heard on the cobbled path outside, and for a moment a big body cut off the flood of sunshine pouring in at the doorway30. "Is breakfast ready?" demanded Peter Carne's loud, good-tempered voice. "Hullo, Lucy! Then you got up, after all! Well—of all the obstinate31 women!"
Lucy smiled up at him bravely. "Yes, I've got down to breakfast. I thought I'd rather have it down here with company than upstairs alone. Isn't it nice having Mona home, father?"
Peter laughed. "I ain't going to begin by spoiling the little maid with flattery, but yet, 'tis very," and he beamed good-naturedly on both. "Now, then, let's begin. I'm as hungry as a hunter."
By that time the cloth was laid, a dish of fried bacon and bread was keeping hot in the oven, and smelling most appetisingly to hungry folk, and the kettle was about to boil over. Through the open doorway the sunshine and the scent of wallflowers poured in.
"Them there wallflowers beat anything I ever came across for smell," remarked Peter as he finished his second cup of tea.
"I dreamed about wallflowers," said Mona, "and I seemed to smell them quite strong," and she told them her dream—at least a part of it. She left out about the forget-me-nots that she rowed and rowed to try and get. She could not have told why she left out that part, but already a vague thought had come to her—one that she was ashamed of, even though it was so vague, and it had to do with forget-me-nots.
All the time she had been helping32 about the breakfast, and all the time after, when she and her stepmother were alone again, she kept saying to herself, "Shall I give her the money, shall I keep it?" and her heart would thrill, and then sink, and inside her she kept saying, "There is no harm in it?—It is all the same in the end." And then, almost before she knew what she was doing, she had taken the easy, crooked33, downhill path, with its rocks and thorns so cleverly hidden.
"Mona, haven't you got any print frocks for mornings, and nice aprons34?"
Mona's thoughts came back suddenly from "Shall I? Shall I not?" and the eyes with which she looked at her mother were half shamed, half frightened. "Any—any what?" she stuttered.
"Nice morning aprons and washing frocks? I don't like to see shabby, soiled ones, even for only doing work in."
"I hadn't thought about it," said Mona, with more interest. "What else can one wear? I nearly put on my best one, but I thought I hadn't better."
"Oh, no, not your best."
"Well, what else is there to wear? Do you always have a print one like you've got on now?"
"Yes, and big aprons, and sleeves. Then one can tell when they are dirty."
"Oh, I thought you put on that 'cause you were wearing out what you'd got left over. You were in service, weren't you, before you married father?"
"Yes."
"I haven't got any print dresses. I haven't even got a white one. I've two aprons like this," holding out a fanciful thing trimmed with lace. "That's all, and I never saw any sleeves; I don't know what they are like."
"I'll have to get you some as soon as father has his next big haul. You'd like to wear nice clean prints, if you'd got them, wouldn't you?"
"Oh, yes!" eagerly. But after a moment she added: "I do want a summer hat, though, and I don't s'pose I could have both?" Her eyes sought her mother's face anxiously. Lucy looked grave and a little troubled. "Wasn't that your summer hat that you had on yesterday? It was a very pretty one. I'm so fond of wreaths of daisies and grasses, aren't you?"
"Yes—I was—I'm tired of them now. I wore that hat a lot last summer."
"Did you? Well, you kept it very nicely. I thought it was a new one, it looked so fresh and pretty."
"I'd like to have one trimmed with forget-me-nots this year," Mona went on hurriedly, paying no heed to her mother's last remarks.
"They are very pretty," agreed Lucy, absently. In her mind she was wondering how she could find the money for all these different things.
"I've got eighteenpence," broke in Mona, and the plunge35 was taken. She was keeping the eighteen-pence, though she knew it belonged either to her granny or to Lucy. As soon as the words were spoken she almost wished them back again, but it was too late, and she went on her downhill way.
"Mother, if you'll get me the hat, I'll buy the wreath myself. They've got some lovely ones down at Tamlin's for one and five three. There are some at one and 'leven three, but that's sixpence more, and I haven't got enough."
"Very well, dear, we'll think about it. It's early yet for summer hats." She was trying to think of things she could do without, that Mona might have her hat. If she had been her own child, she would have told her plainly that she did not need, and could not have a new one, but it was not easy—as things were—to do that.
Mona's heart leaped with joy. Though she had known Lucy such a little while, she somehow felt that she could trust her not to forget. That when she said she would think about a thing, she would think about it, and already she saw with her mind's eye, the longed-for hat, the blue wreath, and the bow of ribbon, and her face beamed with happiness.
"I can do without the aprons and the print frocks," she said, in the generosity36 of her heart, though it gave her a wrench37. But Lucy would not hear of that. She had her own opinion about the grubby-looking blue serge, and the fancy apron, which were considered 'good enough' for mornings.
"No, dear, you need them more than you need the hat. If ever anyone should be clean it's when one is making beds, and cooking, and doing all that sort of thing, I think, don't you?"
Mona had never given the subject a thought before. In fact, she had done so little work while with her grandmother, and when she 'kept house' herself had cared so little about appearance or cleanliness, or anything, that it had never occurred to her that such things mattered. But now that her stepmother appealed to her in this way she felt suddenly a sense of importance and a glow of interest.
"Oh, yes! and I'll put my hair up, and always have on a nice white apron and a collar; they do look so pretty over pink frocks, don't they?"
"Yes, and I must teach you how to wash and get them up."
"Oh!" Mona's interest grew suddenly lukewarm. "I hate washing and ironing, don't you, mother?"
"I like other kinds of work better, perhaps. I think I should like the washing if I didn't get so tired with it. I don't seem to have the strength to do it as I want it done. It is lovely, though, to see things growing clean under one's hand, isn't it?"
But Mona had never learnt to take pride in her work. "I don't know," she answered indifferently. "I should never have things that were always wanting washing."
Lucy rose to go about her morning's work. "Oh, come now," she said, smiling, "I can't believe that. Don't you think your little room looks prettier with the white vallance and quilt and the frill across the window than it would without?"
"Oh, yes!" Mona agreed enthusiastically. "But then I didn't have to wash them and iron them."
"Well, I had to, and I enjoyed it, because I was thinking how nice they would make your room look, and how pleased you would be."
"I don't see that. If you were doing them for yourself, of course, you'd be pleased, but I can't see why anyone should be pleased about what other people may like."
"Oh, Mona! can't you?" Lucy looked amazed. "Haven't you ever heard the saying, 'there is more pleasure in giving than in receiving'?"
"Yes, I think I've heard it," said Mona, flippantly, "but I never saw any sense in it. There's lots of things said that ain't a bit true."
"This is true enough," said Lucy quietly, "and I hope you'll find it so for yourself, or you will miss half the pleasure in life."
"Well, I don't believe in any of those old sayings," retorted Mona, rising too. "Anyway, receiving's good enough for me!" and she laughed boisterously38, thinking she had said something new and funny.
A little cloud rested for a moment on Lucy's face, but only for a moment. "It isn't nice to hear you speak like that, Mona," she said quietly, a note of pain in her voice, "but I can't make myself believe yet that you are as selfish as you make out. I believe," looking across at her stepdaughter with kindly39, smiling eyes, "that you've got as warm a heart as anybody, really."
And at the words and the look all the flippant, silly don't-careishness died out of Mona's thoughts and manner.
Yet, presently, when in her own little room again, she opened her little blue purse and looked in it, a painful doubt arose in her mind. It was nice to be considered good-hearted, but was she really so? And unselfish? "If I was, wouldn't I make my last year's hat do? Wouldn't I give back the eighteenpence?" What tiresome40 questions they were to come poking41 and pushing forward so persistently42. Anyhow, her mother knew now that she wanted a hat, and she knew that she had the money, and that she was going to spend it on herself—and yet she had called her unselfish!
And downstairs, Lucy, with an anxious face, and a weight at her heart, was thinking to herself, "If Mona had lived much longer the idle, selfish life she has been living, her character would have been ruined, and there is so much that is good in her! Poor child, poor Mona! She has never had a fair chance yet to learn to show the best side of her, and I doubt if I'm the one to teach her. I couldn't be hard with her if I tried, and being her stepmother will make things more difficult for me than for most. I couldn't live in the house with strife43. I must try other means, and," she added softly, "ask God to help me."
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1
cosy
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| adj.温暖而舒适的，安逸的 | |
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drowsy
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| adj.昏昏欲睡的，令人发困的 | |
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3
deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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4
drenched
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| adj.湿透的；充满的v.使湿透( drench的过去式和过去分词 )；在某人（某物）上大量使用（某液体） | |
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5
bosom
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| n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的 | |
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6
gasped
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| v.喘气( gasp的过去式和过去分词 )；喘息；倒抽气；很想要 | |
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7
scuttling
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| n.船底穿孔，打开通海阀（沉船用）v.使船沉没( scuttle的现在分词 )；快跑，急走 | |
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8
joyfully
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| adv. 喜悦地, 高兴地 | |
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9
fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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10
propped
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| 支撑，支持，维持( prop的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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12
inviting
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| adj.诱人的，引人注目的 | |
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13
heed
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| v.注意，留意；n.注意，留心 | |
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14
scent
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| n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉 | |
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15
oars
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| n.桨，橹( oar的名词复数 )；划手v.划（行）( oar的第三人称单数 ) | |
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sullen
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| adj.愠怒的，闷闷不乐的，(天气等)阴沉的 | |
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amiably
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| adv.和蔼可亲地，亲切地 | |
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18
unpacking
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| n.取出货物，拆包[箱]v.从（包裹等）中取出（所装的东西），打开行李取出( unpack的现在分词 )；拆包；解除…的负担；吐露（心事等） | |
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belongings
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| n.私人物品，私人财物 | |
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neatly
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| adv.整洁地，干净地，灵巧地，熟练地 | |
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apron
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| n.围裙；工作裙 | |
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irritable
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| adj.急躁的；过敏的；易怒的 | |
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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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irritably
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| ad.易生气地 | |
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25
vex
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| vt.使烦恼，使苦恼 | |
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26
tune
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| n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整 | |
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glummer
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| adj.闷闷不乐的，忧郁的( glum的比较级 ) | |
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28
grumbling
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| adj. 喃喃鸣不平的, 出怨言的 | |
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29
miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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30
doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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obstinate
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| adj.顽固的，倔强的，不易屈服的，较难治愈的 | |
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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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33
crooked
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| adj.弯曲的；不诚实的，狡猾的，不正当的 | |
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34
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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35
plunge
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| v.跳入，(使)投入，(使)陷入；猛冲 | |
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36
generosity
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| n.大度，慷慨，慷慨的行为 | |
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37
wrench
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| v.猛拧；挣脱；使扭伤；n.扳手；痛苦，难受 | |
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38
boisterously
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| adv.喧闹地，吵闹地 | |
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39
kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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40
tiresome
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| adj.令人疲劳的，令人厌倦的 | |
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41
poking
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| n. 刺，戳，袋 vt. 拨开，刺，戳 vi. 戳，刺，捅，搜索，伸出，行动散慢 | |
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42
persistently
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| ad.坚持地；固执地 | |
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43
strife
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| n.争吵，冲突，倾轧，竞争 | |
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