The world is full of Aunt Sophys, unsung. Plump, ruddy, capable women of middle age. Unwed, and rather looked down upon by a family of married sisters and tolerant, good-humoured brothers-in-law, and careless nieces and nephews.
"Poor Aunt Soph," with a significant half smile. "She's such a good old thing. And she's had so little in life, really."
She was, undoubtedly8, a good old thing—Aunt Soph. Forever sending a spray of sweeping9 black paradise, like a jet of liquid velvet10, to this pert little niece in Seattle; or taking Adele, sister Flora11's daughter, to Chicago or New York, as a treat, on one of her buying trips. Burdening herself, on her business visits to these cities, with a dozen foolish shopping commissions for the idle women folk of her family. Hearing without partisanship12 her sisters' complaints about their husbands, and her sisters' husbands' complaints about their wives. It was always the same.
"I'm telling you this, Sophy. I wouldn't breathe it to another living soul. But I honestly think, sometimes, that if it weren't for the children—"
There is no knowing why they confided13 these things to Sophy instead of to each other, these wedded14 sisters of hers. Perhaps they held for each other an unuttered distrust or jealousy15. Perhaps, in making a confidante of Sophy, there was something of the satisfaction that comes of dropping a surreptitious stone down a deep well and hearing it plunk, safe in the knowledge that it has struck no one and that it cannot rebound16, lying there in the soft darkness. Sometimes they would end by saying, "But you don't know what it is, Sophy. You can't. I'm sure I don't know why I'm telling you all this."
But when Sophy answered, sagely17, "I know; I know"—they paid little heed19, once having unburdened themselves. The curious part of it is that she did know. She knew as a woman of fifty must know who, all her life, has given and given and in return has received nothing. Sophy Decker had never used the word inhibition in her life. I doubt if she knew what it meant. When you are busy copying French models for the fall trade you have little time or taste for Freud. She only knew (without in the least knowing she knew) that in giving of her goods, of her affections, of her time, of her energy, she found a certain relief. Her own people would have been shocked if you had told them that there was about this old maid aunt something rather splendidly Rabelaisian. Without being at all what is known as a masculine woman she had, somehow, acquired the man's viewpoint, his shrewd value sense. She ate a good deal, and enjoyed her food. She did not care for those queer little stories that married women sometimes tell, with narrowed eyes, but she was strangely tolerant of what is known as sin. So simple and direct she was that you wondered how she prospered20 in a line so subtle as the millinery business.
You might have got a fairly true characterization of Sophy Decker from one of fifty people: from a dapper salesman in a New York or Chicago wholesale21 millinery house; from Otis Cowan, cashier of the First National Bank of Chippewa; from Julia Gold, her head milliner and trimmer; from almost any one, in fact, except a member of her own family. They knew her least of all, as is often true of one's own people. Her three married sisters—Grace in Seattle, Ella in Chicago, and Flora in Chippewa—regarded her with a rather affectionate disapproval22 from the snug23 safety of their own conjugal24 ingle-nooks.
"I don't know. There's something—well—common about Sophy," Flora confided to Ella. Flora, on shopping bent25 and Sophy, seeking hats, had made the five-hour run from Chippewa to Chicago together. "She talks to everybody. You should have heard her with the porter on our train. Chums! And when the conductor took our tickets it was a social occasion. You know how packed the seven fifty-two is. Every seat in the parlour car taken. And Sophy asking the coloured porter about how his wife was getting along—she called him William—and if they were going to send her west, and all about her. I wish she wouldn't."
Aunt Sophy undeniably had a habit of regarding people as human beings. You found her talking to chambermaids and delivery boys, and elevator starters, and gas collectors, and hotel clerks—all that aloof26, unapproachable, superior crew. Under her benign27 volubility they bloomed and spread and took on colour as do those tight little Japanese paper water-flowers when you cast them into a bowl. It wasn't idle curiosity in her. She was interested. You found yourself confiding28 to her your innermost longings29, your secret tribulations30, under the encouragement of her sympathetic, "You don't say!" Perhaps it was as well that sister Flora was in ignorance of the fact that the men millinery salesmen at Danowitz & Danowitz, Importers, always called Miss Decker Aunt Soph, as, with one arm flung about her plump blue serge shoulder, they revealed to her the picture of their girl in the back flap of their bill-folder.
Flora, with a firm grip on Chippewa society, as represented by the East-End set, did not find her position enhanced by a sister in the millinery business in Elm Street.
"Of course it's wonderful that she's self-supporting and successful and all," she told her husband. "But it's not so pleasant for Adele, now that she's growing up, having all the girls she knows buying their hats of her aunt. Not that I—but you know how it is."
H. Charnsworth Baldwin said yes, he knew. But perhaps you, until you are made more intimately acquainted with Chippewa, Wisconsin; with the Decker girls of twenty years ago; with Flora's husband, H. Charnsworth Baldwin; and with their children Adele and Eugene, may feel a little natural bewilderment.
The Deckers had lived in a sagging32 old frame house (from which the original paint had long ago peeled in great scrofulous patches) on an unimportant street in Chippewa. There was a worm-eaten russet apple tree in the yard; an untidy tangle33 of wild-cucumber vine over the front porch; and an uncut brush of sunburnt grass and weeds all about. From May until September you never passed the Decker place without hearing the plunketty-plink of a mandolin from somewhere behind the vines, accompanied by a murmur34 of young voices, laughter, and the creak-creak of the hard-worked and protesting hammock hooks. Flora, Ella, and Grace Decker had more beaux and fewer clothes than any other girls in Chippewa. In a town full of pretty young things they were, undoubtedly, the prettiest; and in a family of pretty sisters (Sophy always excepted) Flora was the acknowledged beauty. She was the kind of girl whose nose never turns red on a frosty morning. A little, white, exquisite35 nose, purest example of the degree of perfection which may be attained36 by that vulgarest of features. Under her great gray eyes were faint violet shadows which gave her a look of almost poignant37 wistfulness. If there is a less hackneyed way to describe her head on its slender throat than to say it was like a lovely flower on its stalk, you are free to use it. Her slow, sweet smile gave the beholder38 an actual physical pang39. Only her family knew she was lazy as a behemoth, untidy about her person, and as sentimental40 as a hungry shark. The strange and cruel part of it was that, in some grotesque41, exaggerated way, as a cartoon may be like a photograph, Sophy resembled Flora. It was as though Nature, in prankish42 mood, had given a cabbage the colour and texture43 of a rose, with none of its fragile reticence44 and grace.
It was a manless household. Mrs. Decker, vague, garrulous45, and given to ice-wool shawls, referred to her dead husband, in frequent reminiscence, as poor Mr. Decker. Mrs. Decker dragged one leg as she walked—rheumatism, or a spinal46 affection. Small wonder, then, that Sophy, the plain, with a gift for hat-making, a knack47 at eggless cake-baking, and a genius for turning a sleeve so that last year's style met this year's without a struggle, contributed nothing to the sag18 in the centre of the old twine48 hammock on the front porch.
That the three girls should marry well, and Sophy not at all, was as inevitable49 as the sequence of the seasons. Ella and Grace did not manage badly, considering that they had only their girlish prettiness and the twine hammock to work with. But Flora, with her beauty, captured H. Charnsworth Baldwin. Chippewa gasped50. H. Charnsworth Baldwin drove a skittish51 mare52 to a high-wheeled yellow runabout (this was twenty years ago); had his clothes made at Proctor Brothers in Milwaukee, and talked about a game called golf. It was he who advocated laying out a section of land for what he called links, and erecting53 a club house thereon.
"The section of the bluff54 overlooking the river," he explained, "is full of natural hazards, besides having a really fine view."
Chippewa—or that comfortable, middle-class section of it which got its exercise walking home to dinner from the store at noon, and cutting the grass evenings after supper—laughed as it read this interview in the Chippewa Eagle.
"A golf course," they repeated to one another, grinning. "Conklin's cow pasture, up the river. It's full of natural—wait a minute—what was?—oh, yeh, here it is—hazards. Full of natural hazards. Say, couldn't you die!"
For H. Charnsworth Baldwin had been little Henry Baldwin before he went East to college. Ten years later H. Charnsworth, in knickerbockers and gay-topped stockings, was winning the cup in the men's tournament played on the Chippewa golf-club course, overlooking the river. And his name, in stout gold letters, blinked at you from the plate-glass windows of the office at the corner of Elm and Winnebago:
NORTHERN LUMBER55 AND LAND COMPANY.
H. CHARNSWORTH BALDWIN, PRES.
Two blocks farther down Elm Street was another sign, not so glittering, which read:
MISS SOPHY DECKER
Millinery
Sophy's hat-making, in the beginning, had been done at home. She had always made her sisters' hats, and her own, of course, and an occasional hat for a girl friend. After her sisters had married Sophy found herself in possession of a rather bewildering amount of spare time. The hat trade grew so that sometimes there were six rather botchy little bonnets56 all done up in yellow paper pyramids with a pin at the top, awaiting their future wearers. After her mother's death Sophy still stayed on in the old house. She took a course in millinery in Milwaukee, came home, stuck up a home-made sign in the parlour window (the untidy cucumber vines came down), and began her hat-making in earnest. In five years she had opened a shop on a side street near Elm; had painted the old house, installed new plumbing57, built a warty58 stucco porch, and transformed the weedy, grass-tangled yard into an orderly stretch of green lawn and bright flower-beds. In ten years she was in Elm Street, and the Chippewa Eagle ran a half column twice a year describing her spring and fall openings. On these occasions Aunt Sophy, in black satin, and marcel wave, and her most relentless59 corsets was, in all the superficial things, not a pleat, or fold, or line, or wave behind her city colleagues. She had all the catch phrases:
"This is awfully60 good this year."
"Here's a sweet thing. A Mornet model.... Well, but my dear, it's the style—the line—you're paying for, not the material."
"I've got the very thing for you. I had you in mind when I bought it. Now don't say you can't wear henna. Wait till you see it on."
When she stood behind you as you sat, uncrowned and expectant before the mirror, she would poise61 the hat four inches above your head, holding it in the tips of her fingers, a precious, fragile thing. Your fascinated eyes were held by it, and your breath as well. Then down it descended62, slowly, slowly. A quick pressure. Her fingers firm against your temples. A little sigh of relieved suspense63.
"That's wonderful on you!... You don't! Oh, my dear! But that's because you're not used to it. You know how you said, for years, you had to have a brim, and couldn't possibly wear a turban, with your nose, until I proved to you that if the head-size was only big ... Well, perhaps this needs just a lit-tle lift here. Ju-u-ust a nip. There! That does it."
And that did it. Not that Sophy Decker ever tried to sell you a hat against your judgment64, taste, or will. She was too wise a psychologist and too shrewd a business woman for that. She preferred that you go out of her shop hatless rather than with an unbecoming hat. But whether you bought or not you took with you out of Sophy Decker's shop something more precious than any hatbox ever contained. Just to hear her admonishing65 a customer, her good-natured face all aglow66:
"My dear, always put on your hat before you get into your dress. I do. You can get your arms above your head, and set it right. I put on my hat and veil as soon's I get my hair combed."
In your mind's eye you saw her, a stout, well-stayed figure in tight brassière and scant67 petticoat, bare-armed and bare-bosomed, in smart hat and veil, attired68 as though for the street from the neck up and for the bedroom from the shoulders down.
The East-End set bought Sophy Decker's hats because they were modish69 and expensive hats. But she managed, miraculously70, to gain a large and lucrative72 following among the paper-mill girls and factory hands as well. You would have thought that any attempt to hold both these opposites would cause her to lose one or the other. Aunt Sophy said, frankly73, that of the two, she would have preferred to lose her smart trade.
"The mill girls come in with their money in their hands, you might say. They get good wages and they want to spend them. I wouldn't try to sell them one of those little plain model hats. They wouldn't understand 'em, or like them. And if I told them the price they'd think I was trying to cheat them. They want a velvet hat with something good and solid on it. Their fathers wouldn't prefer caviar to pork roast, would they? It's the same idea."
Her shop windows reflected her business acumen74. One was chastely75, severely76 elegant, holding a single hat poised77 on a slender stick. In the other were a dozen honest arrangements of velvet and satin and plumes78.
At the spring opening she always displayed one of those little toques completely covered with violets. No one ever bought a hat like that. No one ever will. That violet-covered toque is a symbol.
"I don't expect 'em to buy it," Sophy Decker explained. "But everybody feels there should be a hat like that at a spring opening. It's like a fruit centre-piece at a family dinner. Nobody ever eats it but it has to be there."
The two Baldwin children—Adele and Eugene—found Aunt Sophy's shop a treasure trove79. Adele, during her doll days, possessed such boxes of satin and velvet scraps80, and bits of lace, and ribbon and jet as to make her the envy of all her playmates. She used to crawl about the floor of the shop workroom and under the table and chairs like a little scavenger81.
"What in the world do you do with all that truck, child?" asked Aunt Sophy. "You must have barrels of it."
Adele stuffed another wisp of tulle into the pocket of her pinafore. "I keep it," she said.
When she was ten Adele had said to her mother, "Why do you always say 'Poor Sophy'?"
"Because Aunt Sophy's had so little in life. She never has married, and has always worked."
Adele considered that. "If you don't get married do they say you're poor?"
"Well—yes—"
"Then I'll get married," announced Adele. A small, dark, eerie82 child, skinny and rather foreign looking.
The boy, Eugene, had the beauty which should have been the girl's. Very tall, very blond, with the straight nose and wistful eyes of the Flora of twenty years ago. "If only Adele could have had his looks," his mother used to say. "They're wasted on a man. He doesn't need them but a girl does. Adele will have to be well-dressed and interesting. And that's such hard work."
Flora said she worshipped her children. And she actually sometimes still coquetted heavily with her husband. At twenty she had been addicted83 to baby talk when endeavouring to coax84 something out of someone. Her admirers had found it irresistible85. At forty it was awful. Her selfishness was colossal86. She affected87 a semi-invalidism and for fifteen years had spent one day a week in bed. She took no exercise and a great deal of baking soda88 and tried to fight her fat with baths. Fifteen or twenty years had worked a startling change in the two sisters, Flora the beautiful, and Sophy the plain. It was more than a mere89 physical change. It was a spiritual thing, though neither knew nor marked it. Each had taken on weight, the one, solidly, comfortably; the other, flabbily, unhealthily. With the encroaching fat Flora's small, delicate features seemed, somehow, to disappear in her face, so that you saw it as a large white surface bearing indentations, ridges90, and hollows like one of those enlarged photographs of the moon's surface as seen through a telescope. A self-centred face, and misleadingly placid91. Aunt Sophy's large, plain features, plumply padded now, impressed you as indicating strength, courage, and a great human understanding.
From her husband and her children Flora exacted service that would have chafed92 a galley-slave into rebellion. She loved to lie in bed, in a lavender bed-jacket with ribbons, and be read to by Adele or Eugene, or her husband. They all hated it.
"She just wants to be waited on, and petted, and admired," Adele had stormed one day, in open rebellion, to her Aunt Sophy. "She uses it as an excuse for everything and has, ever since 'Gene31 and I were children. She's as strong as an ox." Not a very ladylike or daughterly speech, but shockingly true.
Years before a generous but misguided woman friend, coming in to call, had been ushered93 in to where Mrs. Baldwin lay propped94 up in a nest of pillows.
"Well, I don't blame you," the caller had gushed95. "If I looked the way you do in bed I'd stay there forever. Don't tell me you're sick, with all that lovely colour!"
Flora Baldwin had rolled her eyes ceilingward. "Nobody ever gives me credit for all my suffering and ill-health. And just because all my blood is in my cheeks."
Flora was ambitious, socially, but too lazy to make the effort necessary for success in that direction.
"I love my family," she would say. "They fill my life. After all, that's a profession in itself—being a wife and mother."
She showed her devotion by taking no interest whatever in her husband's land schemes; by forbidding Eugene to play football at school for fear he might be injured; by impressing Adele with the necessity for vivacity97 and modishness98 because of what she called her unfortunate lack of beauty.
"I don't understand it," she used to say in the child's very presence. "Her father's handsome enough, goodness knows; and I wasn't such a fright when I was a girl. And look at her! Little, dark, skinny thing."
The boy Eugene grew up a very silent, handsome shy young fellow. The girl dark, voluble, and rather interesting. The husband, more and more immersed in his business, was absent from home for long periods; irritable99 after some of these home-comings; boisterously100 high-spirited following other trips. Now growling101 about household expenses and unpaid102 bills; now urging the purchase of some almost prohibitive luxury. Any one but a nagging103, self-absorbed, and vain woman such as Flora would have marked these unmistakable signs. But Flora was a taker, not a giver. She thought herself affectionate because she craved104 affection unduly105. She thought herself a fond mother because she insisted on having her children with her, under her thumb, marking their devotion as a prisoner marks time with his feet, stupidly, shufflingly, advancing not a step.
Sometimes Sophy the clear-eyed and level-headed, seeing this state of affairs, tried to stop it.
"You expect too much of your husband and children," she said one day, bluntly, to her sister.
"I!" Flora's dimpled hands had flown to her breast like a wounded thing. "I! You're crazy! There isn't a more devoted106 wife and mother in the world. That's the trouble. I love them too much."
"Well, then," grimly, "stop it for a change. That's half Eugene's nervousness—your fussing over him. He's eighteen. Give him a chance. You're weakening him. And stop dinning107 that society stuff into Adele's ears. She's got brains, that child. Why, just yesterday, in the workroom she got hold of some satin and a shape and turned out a little turban that Angie Hatton—"
"Do you mean to tell me that Angie Hatton saw my Adele working in your shop! Now, look here, Sophy. You're earning your living, and it's to your credit. You're my sister. But I won't have Adele associated in the minds of my friends with your hat store, understand. I won't have it. That isn't what I sent her away to an expensive school for. To have her come back and sit around a millinery workshop with a lot of little, cheap, shoddy sewing girls! Now understand, I won't have it! You don't know what it is to be a mother. You don't know what it is to have suffered. If you had brought two children into the world—"
So then, it had come about, during the years between their childhood and their youth, that Aunt Sophy received the burden of their confidences, their griefs, their perplexities. She seemed, somehow, to understand in some miraculous71 way, and to make the burden a welcome one.
"Well, now, you tell Aunt Sophy all about it. Stop crying, Della. How can Aunt Sophy hear when you're crying! That's my baby. Now, then."
This when they were children. But with the years the habit clung and became fixed108. There was something about Aunt Sophy's house—the old frame house with the warty stucco porch. For that matter, there was something about the very shop downtown, with its workroom in the rear, that had a cozy109, homelike quality never possessed by the big Baldwin house. H. Charnsworth Baldwin had built a large brick mansion110, in the Tudor style, on a bluff overlooking the Fox River, in the best residential111 section of Chippewa. It was expensively and correctly furnished. The hall consol alone was enough to strike a preliminary chill to your heart.
The millinery workroom, winter days, was always bright and warm and snug. The air was a little close, perhaps, and heavy, but with a not unpleasant smell of dyes, and stuffs, and velvet, and glue, and steam, and flatiron, and a certain heady scent112 that Julia Gold, the head trimmer, always used. There was a sociable113 cat, white with a dark gray patch on his throat and a swipe of it across one flank that spoiled him for style and beauty but made him a comfortable-looking cat to have around. Sometimes, on very cold days, or in the rush reason, the girls would not go home to dinner or supper, but would bring their lunches and cook coffee over a little gas heater in the corner. Julia Gold, especially, drank quantities of coffee. Aunt Sophy had hired her from Chicago. She had been with her for five years. She said Julia was the best trimmer she had ever had. Aunt Sophy often took her to New York or Chicago on her buying trips. Julia had not much genius for original design, or she would never have been content to be head milliner in a small-town shop. But she could copy a fifty-dollar model from memory down to the last detail of crown and brim. It was a gift that made her invaluable114.
The boy, Eugene, used to like to look at Julia Gold. Her hair was very black and her face was very white, and her eyebrows115 met in a thick, dark line. Her face, as she bent over her work, was sullen116 and brooding, but when she lifted her head suddenly, in conversation, you were startled by a vivid flash of teeth, and eyes, and smile. Her voice was deep and low. She made you a little uncomfortable. Her eyes seemed always to be asking something. Around the work table, mornings she used to relate the dream she had had the night before. In these dreams she was always being pursued by a lover. "And then I woke up, screaming." Neither she nor the sewing girls knew what she was revealing in these confidences of hers. But Aunt Sophy, the shrewd, somehow sensed it.
"You're alone too much, evenings. That's what comes of living in a boarding house. You come over to me for a week. The change will do you good, and it'll be nice for me, too, having somebody to keep me company."
Julia often came for a week or ten days at a time. Julia, about the house after supper, was given to those vivid splashy kimonos with big flowers embroidered117 on them. They made her hair look blacker and her skin whiter by contrast. Sometimes Eugene or Adele or both would drop in and the four would play bridge. Aunt Sophy played a shrewd and canny118 game, Adele a rather brilliant one, Julia a wild and disastrous119 hand, always, and Eugene so badly that only Julia would take him on as a partner. Mrs. Baldwin never knew about these evenings.
It was on one of these occasions that Aunt Sophy, coming unexpectedly into the living room from the kitchen where she and Adele were foraging120 for refreshments121 after the game, beheld122 Julia Gold and Eugene, arms clasped about each other, cheek to cheek. They started up as she came in and faced her, the woman defiantly123, the boy bravely. Julia Gold was thirty (with reservations) at that time, and the boy not quite twenty-one.
"How long?" said Aunt Sophy, quietly. She had a mayonnaise spoon and a leaf of lettuce124 in her hand at the time, and still she did not look comic.
"I'm crazy about her," said Eugene. "We're crazy about each other. We're going to be married."
Aunt Sophy listened for the reassuring125 sound of Adele's spoons and plates in the kitchen. She came forward. "Now, listen—" she began.
"I love him," said Julia Gold, dramatically. "I love him!"
Except that it was very white and, somehow, old looking, Aunt Sophy's face was as benign as always. "Now, look here, Julia, my girl. That isn't love and you know it. I'm an old maid, but I know what love is when I see it. I'm ashamed of you, Julia. Sensible woman like you. Hugging and kissing a boy like that, and old enough to be his mother, pretty near."
"Now, look here, Aunt Soph! I'm fond of you but if you're going to talk that way—Why, she's wonderful. She's taught me what it means to really—"
"Oh, my land!" Aunt Sophy sat down, looking, suddenly, very sick and old.
And then, from the kitchen, Adele's clear young voice: "Heh! What's the idea! I'm not going to do all the work. Where's everybody?"
Aunt Sophy started up again. She came up to them and put a hand—a capable, firm, steadying hand on the arm of each. The woman drew back but the boy did not.
"Will you promise me not to do anything for a week? Just a week! Will you promise me? Will you?"
"Are you going to tell Father?"
"Not for a week if you'll promise not to see each other in that week. No, I don't want to send you away, Julia, I don't want to—You're not a bad girl. It's just—he's never had—at home they never gave him a chance. Just a week, Julia. Just a week, Eugene. We can talk things over then."
Adele's footsteps coming from the kitchen.
"Quick!"
"I promise," said Eugene. Julia said nothing.
"Well, really," said Adele, from the doorway126, "you're a nervy lot, sitting around while I slave in the kitchen. 'Gene, see if you can open the olives with this fool can opener. I tried."
There is no knowing what she expected to do in that week, Aunt Sophy; what miracle she meant to perform. She had no plan in her mind. Just hope. She looked strangely shrunken and old, suddenly. But when, three days later, the news came that America was to go into the war she knew that her prayers were answered.
Flora was beside herself. "Eugene won't have to go. He isn't quite twenty-one, thank God! And by the time he is it will be over. Surely." She was almost hysterical127.
Eugene was in the room. Aunt Sophy looked at him and he looked at Aunt Sophy. In her eyes was a question. In his was the answer. They said nothing. The next day Eugene enlisted128. In three days he was gone. Flora took to her bed. Next day Adele, a faint, unwonted colour marking her cheeks, walked into her mother's bedroom and stood at the side of the recumbent figure. Her father, his hands clasped behind him, was pacing up and down, now and then kicking a cushion that had fallen to the floor. He was chewing a dead cigar, one side of his face twisted curiously129 over the cylinder130 in his mouth so that he had a sinister131 and crafty132 look.
"Charnsworth, won't you please stop ramping133 up and down like that! My nerves are killing134 me. I can't help it if the war has done something or other to your business. I'm sure no wife could have been more economical than I have. Nothing matters but Eugene, anyway. How could he do such a thing! I've given my whole life to my children—"
H. Charnsworth kicked the cushion again so that it struck the wall at the opposite side of the room. Flora drew her breath in between her teeth as though a knife had entered her heart.
Adele still stood at the side of the bed, looking at her mother. Her hands were clasped behind her, too. In that moment, as she stood there, she resembled her mother and her father so startlingly and simultaneously135 that the two, had they been less absorbed in their own affairs, must have marked it.
The girl's head came up, stiffly. "Listen. I'm going to marry Daniel Oakley."
Daniel Oakley was fifty, and a friend of her father's. For years he had been coming to the house and for years she had ridiculed136 him. She and Eugene had called him Sturdy Oak because he was always talking about his strength and endurance, his walks, his golf, his rugged137 health; pounding his chest meanwhile and planting his feet far apart. He and Baldwin had had business relations as well as friendly ones.
At this announcement Flora screamed and sat up in bed. H. Charnsworth stopped short in his pacing and regarded his daughter with a queer look; a concentrated look, as though what she had said had set in motion a whole maze138 of mental machinery139 within his brain.
"When did he ask you?"
"He's asked me a dozen times. But it's different now. All the men will be going to war. There won't be any left. Look at England and France. I'm not going to be left." She turned squarely toward her father, her young face set and hard. "You know what I mean. You know what I mean."
Flora, sitting up in bed, was sobbing140. "I think you might have told your mother, Adele. What are children coming to! You stand there and say, 'I'm going to marry Daniel Oakley.' Oh, I am so faint ... all of a sudden ... get the spirits of ammonia...."
Adele turned and walked out of the room. She was married six weeks later. They had a regular pre-war wedding—veil, flowers, dinner, and all. Aunt Sophy arranged the folds of her gown and draped her veil. The girl stood looking at herself in the mirror, a curious half-smile twisting her lips. She seemed slighter and darker than ever.
"In all this white, and my veil, I look just like a fly in a quart of milk," she said, with a laugh. Then, suddenly, she turned to her aunt who stood behind her and clung to her, holding her tight, tight. "I can't!" she gasped. "I can't! I can't!"
Aunt Sophy held her off and looked at her, her eyes searching the girl.
"What do you mean, Della? Are you just nervous or do you mean you don't want to marry him? Do you mean that? Then what are you marrying for? Tell me! Tell your Aunt Sophy."
But Adele was straightening herself and pulling out the crushed folds of her veil. "To pay the mortgage on the old homestead, of course. Just like the girl in the play." She laughed a little. But Aunt Sophy did not laugh.
"Now look here, Delia. If you're—"
But there was a knock at the door. Adele caught up her flowers. "It's all right," she said.
Aunt Sophy stood with her back against the door. "If it's money," she said. "It is! It is, isn't it! Listen. I've got money saved. It was for you children. I've always been afraid. I knew he was sailing pretty close, with his speculations141 and all, since the war. He can have it all. It isn't too late yet. Adele! Della, my baby."
"Don't, Aunt Sophy. It wouldn't be enough, anyway. Daniel has been wonderful, really. Don't look like that. I'd have hated being poor, anyway. Never could have got used to it. It is ridiculous, though, isn't it? Like one of those melodramas142, or a cheap movie. I don't mind. I'm lucky, really, when you come to think of it. A plain little black thing like me."
"But your mother—"
"Mother doesn't know a thing."
Flora wept mistily143 all through the ceremony but Adele was composed enough for two.
When, scarcely a month later, Baldwin came to Sophy Decker, his face drawn144 and queer, Sophy knew.
"How much?" she said.
"Thirty thousand will cover it. If you've got more than that—"
"I thought Oakley—Adele said—"
"He did, but he won't any more, and this thing's got to be met. It's this damned war that's done it. I'd have been all right. People got scared. They wanted their money. They wanted it in cash."
"Speculating with it, were you?"
"Oh, well, a woman doesn't understand these business deals."
"No, naturally," said Aunt Sophy, "a butterfly like me."
"Sophy, for God's sake don't joke now. I tell you this will cover it, and everything will be all right. If I had anybody else to go to for the money I wouldn't ask you. But you'll get it back. You know that."
Aunt Sophy got up, heavily, and went over to her desk. "It was for the children, anyway. They won't need it now."
He looked up at that. Something in her voice. "Who won't? Why won't they?"
"I don't know what made me say that. I had a dream."
"Eugene?"
"Yes."
"Oh, well, we're all nervous. Flora has dreams every night and presentiments145 every fifteen minutes. Now, look here, Sophy. About this money. You'll never know how grateful I am. Flora doesn't understand these things but I can talk to you. It's like this—"
"I might as well be honest about it," Sophy interrupted. "I'm doing it, not for you, but for Flora, and Delia—and Eugene. Flora has lived such a sheltered life. I sometimes wonder if she ever really knew any of you. Her husband, or her children. I sometimes have the feeling that Delia and Eugene are my children—were my children."
When he came home that night Baldwin told his wife that old Soph was getting queer. "She talks about the children being hers," he said.
"Oh, well, she's awfully fond of them," Flora explained. "And she's lived her little narrow life, with nothing to bother her but her hats and her house. She doesn't know what it means to suffer as a mother suffers—poor Sophy."
"Um," Baldwin grunted146.
When the official notification of Eugene's death came from the War Department Aunt Sophy was so calm that it might have appeared that Flora had been right. She took to her bed now in earnest, did Flora, and they thought that her grief would end in madness. Sophy neglected everything to give comfort to the stricken two.
"How can you sit there like that!" Flora would rail. "How can you sit there like that! Even if you weren't his mother surely you must feel something."
"It's the way he died that comforts me," said Aunt Sophy.
"What difference does that make! What difference does that make!"
This is the letter that made a difference to Aunt Sophy. You will have to read it to understand, though you are likely to skip letters on the printed page. You must not skip this.
AMERICAN RED CROSS
(CROIX ROUGE147 AMéRICAINE)
MY DEAR MRS. BALDWIN:
I am sure you must have been officially notified, by now, by the U.S. War Dept. of the death of your son Lieut. Eugene H. Baldwin. But I want to write you what I can of his last hours. I was with him much of that time as his nurse. I'm sure it must mean much to a mother to hear from a woman who was privileged to be with her boy at the last.
Your son was brought to our hospital one night badly gassed from the fighting in the Argonne Forest. Ordinarily we do not receive gassed patients, as they are sent to a special hospital near here. But two nights before the Germans wrecked148 this hospital, so many gassed patients have come to us.
Your son was put in the officers' ward96 where the doctors who examined him told me there was absolutely no hope for him, as he had inhaled149 the gas so much that it was only a matter of a few hours. I could scarcely believe that a man so big and strong as he was could not pull through.
The first bad attack he had, losing his breath and nearly choking, rather frightened him, although the doctor and I were both with him. He held my hand tightly in his, begging me not to leave him, and repeating, over and over, that it was good to have a woman near. He was propped high in bed and put his head on my shoulder while I fanned him until he breathed more easily. I stayed with him all that night, though I was not on duty. You see, his eyes also were badly burned. But before he died he was able to see very well. I stayed with him every minute of that night and have never seen a finer character than he showed during all that dreadful fight for life. He had several bad sinking attacks that night and came through each one simply because of his great will power and fighting spirit. After each attack he would grip my hand and say, "Well, we made it that time, didn't we, nurse? And if you'll only stay with me we'll win this fight." At intervals150 during the night I gave him sips151 of black coffee which was all he could swallow. Each time I gave it to him he would ask me if I had had some. That was only one instance of his thoughtfulness even in his suffering. Toward morning he asked me if he was going to die. I could not tell him the truth. He needed all his strength. I told him he had one chance in a thousand. He seemed to become very strong then, and sitting bolt upright in bed and shaking his fist, he said: "Then by the Lord I'll fight for it!" We kept him alive for three days, and actually thought we had won when on the third day....
But even in your sorrow you must be very proud to have been the mother of such a son....
I am a Wisconsin girl—Madison. When this is over and I come home will you let me see you so that I may tell you more than I can possibly write?
MARIAN KING.
It was in March, six months later, that Marian King came. They had hoped for it, but never expected it. And she came. Four people were waiting in the living room of the big Baldwin house overlooking the river. Flora and her husband, Adele and Aunt Sophy. They sat, waiting. Now and then Adele would rise, nervously152, and go to the window that faced the street. Flora was weeping with audible sniffs153. Baldwin sat in his chair frowning a little, a dead cigar in one corner of his mouth. Only Aunt Sophy sat quietly, waiting.
There was little conversation. None in the last five minutes. Flora broke the silence, dabbing154 at her face with her handkerchief as she spoke155.
"Sophy, how can you sit there like that? Not that I don't envy you. I do. I remember I used to feel sorry for you. I used to say, 'Poor Sophy.' But you unmarried ones are the happiest, after all. It's the married woman who drinks the cup to the last bitter drop. There you sit, Sophy, fifty years old, and life hasn't even touched you. You don't know how cruel life is."
Suddenly, "There!" said Adele. The other three in the room stood up and faced the door. The sound of a motor stopping outside. Daniel Oakley's hearty156 voice: "Well, it only took us five minutes from the station. Pretty good."
Footsteps down the hall. Marian King stood in the doorway. They faced her, the four—Baldwin and Adele and Flora and Sophy. Marian King stood a moment, uncertainly, her eyes upon them. She looked at the two older women with swift, appraising157 glance. Then she came into the room, quickly, and put her two hands on Aunt Sophy's shoulders and looked into her eyes straight and sure.
"You must be a very proud woman," she said. "You ought to be a very proud woman."
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1
worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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stylish
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| adj.流行的，时髦的；漂亮的，气派的 | |
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astute
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| adj.机敏的，精明的 | |
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strictly
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| adv.严厉地，严格地；严密地 | |
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6
ingenuous
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| adj.纯朴的，单纯的；天真的；坦率的 | |
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7
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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8
undoubtedly
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| adv.确实地，无疑地 | |
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9
sweeping
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| adj.范围广大的，一扫无遗的 | |
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10
velvet
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| n.丝绒，天鹅绒；adj.丝绒制的，柔软的 | |
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11
flora
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| n.(某一地区的)植物群 | |
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12
Partisanship
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| n. 党派性, 党派偏见 | |
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13
confided
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| v.吐露（秘密，心事等）( confide的过去式和过去分词 )；（向某人）吐露（隐私、秘密等） | |
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14
wedded
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| adj.正式结婚的；渴望…的，执著于…的v.嫁，娶，（与…）结婚( wed的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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15
jealousy
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| n.妒忌，嫉妒，猜忌 | |
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16
rebound
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| v.弹回；n.弹回，跳回 | |
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17
sagely
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| adv. 贤能地，贤明地 | |
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18
sag
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| v.下垂，下跌，消沉；n.下垂，下跌，凹陷，[航海]随风漂流 | |
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19
heed
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| v.注意，留意；n.注意，留心 | |
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20
prospered
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| 成功，兴旺( prosper的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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21
wholesale
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| n.批发；adv.以批发方式；vt.批发，成批出售 | |
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22
disapproval
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| n.反对，不赞成 | |
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23
snug
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| adj.温暖舒适的，合身的，安全的；v.使整洁干净，舒适地依靠，紧贴；n.（英）酒吧里的私房 | |
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24
conjugal
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| adj.婚姻的，婚姻性的 | |
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25
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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26
aloof
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| adj.远离的；冷淡的，漠不关心的 | |
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27
benign
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| adj.善良的，慈祥的；良性的，无危险的 | |
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28
confiding
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| adj.相信人的，易于相信的v.吐露（秘密，心事等）( confide的现在分词 )；（向某人）吐露（隐私、秘密等） | |
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29
longings
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| 渴望，盼望( longing的名词复数 ) | |
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30
tribulations
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| n.苦难( tribulation的名词复数 )；艰难；苦难的缘由；痛苦 | |
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31
gene
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| n.遗传因子，基因 | |
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32
sagging
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| 下垂[沉，陷]，松垂，垂度 | |
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33
tangle
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| n.纠缠；缠结；混乱；v.(使)缠绕；变乱 | |
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34
murmur
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| n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言 | |
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35
exquisite
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| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
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36
attained
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| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的过去式和过去分词 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
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37
poignant
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| adj.令人痛苦的，辛酸的，惨痛的 | |
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38
beholder
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| n.观看者，旁观者 | |
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39
pang
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| n.剧痛，悲痛，苦闷 | |
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40
sentimental
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| adj.多愁善感的，感伤的 | |
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41
grotesque
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| adj.怪诞的，丑陋的；n.怪诞的图案，怪人（物） | |
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42
prankish
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| adj.爱开玩笑的，恶作剧的；开玩笑性质的 | |
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43
texture
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| n.(织物)质地；(材料)构造；结构；肌理 | |
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44
reticence
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| n.沉默，含蓄 | |
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45
garrulous
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| adj.唠叨的，多话的 | |
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46
spinal
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| adj.针的，尖刺的，尖刺状突起的；adj.脊骨的，脊髓的 | |
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47
knack
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| n.诀窍，做事情的灵巧的，便利的方法 | |
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48
twine
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| v.搓，织，编饰；（使）缠绕 | |
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49
inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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50
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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51
skittish
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| adj.易激动的，轻佻的 | |
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52
mare
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| n.母马，母驴 | |
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53
erecting
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| v.使直立，竖起( erect的现在分词 )；建立 | |
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54
bluff
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| v.虚张声势，用假象骗人；n.虚张声势，欺骗 | |
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55
lumber
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| n.木材，木料；v.以破旧东西堆满；伐木；笨重移动 | |
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56
bonnets
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| n.童帽( bonnet的名词复数 )；（烟囱等的）覆盖物；（苏格兰男子的）无边呢帽；（女子戴的）任何一种帽子 | |
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57
plumbing
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| n.水管装置；水暖工的工作；管道工程v.用铅锤测量（plumb的现在分词）；探究 | |
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58
warty
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| adj.有疣的，似疣的；瘤状 | |
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59
relentless
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| adj.残酷的，不留情的，无怜悯心的 | |
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60
awfully
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| adv.可怕地，非常地，极端地 | |
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61
poise
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| vt./vi. 平衡，保持平衡；n.泰然自若，自信 | |
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62
descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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63
suspense
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| n.（对可能发生的事）紧张感，担心，挂虑 | |
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64
judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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65
admonishing
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| v.劝告( admonish的现在分词 )；训诫；（温和地）责备；轻责 | |
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66
aglow
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| adj.发亮的；发红的；adv.发亮地 | |
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67
scant
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| adj.不充分的，不足的；v.减缩，限制，忽略 | |
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68
attired
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| adj.穿着整齐的v.使穿上衣服，使穿上盛装( attire的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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69
modish
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| adj.流行的，时髦的 | |
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70
miraculously
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| ad.奇迹般地 | |
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71
miraculous
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| adj.像奇迹一样的，不可思议的 | |
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72
lucrative
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| adj.赚钱的，可获利的 | |
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73
frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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74
acumen
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| n.敏锐，聪明 | |
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75
chastely
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| adv.贞洁地，清高地，纯正地 | |
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76
severely
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| adv.严格地；严厉地；非常恶劣地 | |
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77
poised
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| a.摆好姿势不动的 | |
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78
plumes
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| 羽毛( plume的名词复数 )； 羽毛饰； 羽毛状物； 升上空中的羽状物 | |
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79
trove
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| n.被发现的东西，收藏的东西 | |
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80
scraps
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| 油渣 | |
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81
scavenger
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| n.以腐尸为食的动物，清扫工 | |
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82
eerie
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| adj.怪诞的；奇异的；可怕的；胆怯的 | |
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83
addicted
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| adj.沉溺于....的，对...上瘾的 | |
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84
coax
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| v.哄诱，劝诱，用诱哄得到，诱取 | |
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85
irresistible
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| adj.非常诱人的，无法拒绝的，无法抗拒的 | |
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86
colossal
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| adj.异常的，庞大的 | |
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87
affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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88
soda
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| n.苏打水；汽水 | |
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89
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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90
ridges
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| n.脊( ridge的名词复数 )；山脊；脊状突起；大气层的)高压脊 | |
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91
placid
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| adj.安静的，平和的 | |
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92
chafed
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| v.擦热（尤指皮肤）( chafe的过去式 )；擦痛；发怒；惹怒 | |
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93
ushered
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| v.引，领，陪同( usher的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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94
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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95
gushed
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| v.喷，涌( gush的过去式和过去分词 )；滔滔不绝地说话 | |
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96
ward
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| n.守卫，监护，病房，行政区，由监护人或法院保护的人（尤指儿童）；vt.守护，躲开 | |
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97
vivacity
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| n.快活，活泼，精神充沛 | |
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98
modishness
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99
irritable
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| adj.急躁的；过敏的；易怒的 | |
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100
boisterously
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| adv.喧闹地，吵闹地 | |
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101
growling
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| n.吠声, 咆哮声 v.怒吠, 咆哮, 吼 | |
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102
unpaid
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| adj.未付款的，无报酬的 | |
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103
nagging
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| adj.唠叨的，挑剔的；使人不得安宁的v.不断地挑剔或批评（某人）( nag的现在分词 )；不断地烦扰或伤害（某人）；无休止地抱怨；不断指责 | |
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104
craved
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| 渴望，热望( crave的过去式 )； 恳求，请求 | |
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105
unduly
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| adv.过度地，不适当地 | |
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106
devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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107
dinning
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| vt.喧闹（din的现在分词形式） | |
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108
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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109
cozy
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| adj.亲如手足的，密切的，暖和舒服的 | |
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110
mansion
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| n.大厦，大楼；宅第 | |
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111
residential
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| adj.提供住宿的；居住的；住宅的 | |
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112
scent
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| n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉 | |
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113
sociable
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| adj.好交际的，友好的，合群的 | |
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114
invaluable
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| adj.无价的，非常宝贵的，极为贵重的 | |
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115
eyebrows
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| 眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
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116
sullen
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| adj.愠怒的，闷闷不乐的，(天气等)阴沉的 | |
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117
embroidered
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| adj．绣花的 | |
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118
canny
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| adj.谨慎的，节俭的 | |
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119
disastrous
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| adj.灾难性的，造成灾害的；极坏的，很糟的 | |
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120
foraging
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| v.搜寻（食物），尤指动物觅（食）( forage的现在分词 )；（尤指用手）搜寻（东西） | |
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121
refreshments
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| n.点心,便餐;(会议后的)简单茶点招 待 | |
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122
beheld
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| v.看，注视( behold的过去式和过去分词 )；瞧；看呀；（叙述中用于引出某人意外的出现）哎哟 | |
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123
defiantly
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| adv.挑战地，大胆对抗地 | |
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124
lettuce
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| n.莴苣；生菜 | |
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125
reassuring
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| a.使人消除恐惧和疑虑的，使人放心的 | |
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126
doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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127
hysterical
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| adj.情绪异常激动的，歇斯底里般的 | |
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128
enlisted
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| adj.应募入伍的v.（使）入伍， （使）参军( enlist的过去式和过去分词 )；获得（帮助或支持） | |
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129
curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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130
cylinder
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| n.圆筒，柱(面)，汽缸 | |
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131
sinister
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| adj.不吉利的，凶恶的，左边的 | |
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132
crafty
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| adj.狡猾的，诡诈的 | |
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133
ramping
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| 土堤斜坡( ramp的现在分词 )； 斜道； 斜路； （装车或上下飞机的）活动梯 | |
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134
killing
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| n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财 | |
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simultaneously
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| adv.同时发生地，同时进行地 | |
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136
ridiculed
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| v.嘲笑，嘲弄，奚落( ridicule的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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137
rugged
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| adj.高低不平的，粗糙的，粗壮的，强健的 | |
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138
maze
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| n.迷宫，八阵图，混乱，迷惑 | |
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139
machinery
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| n.(总称)机械，机器；机构 | |
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140
sobbing
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| <主方>Ⅰ adj.湿透的 | |
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141
speculations
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| n.投机买卖( speculation的名词复数 )；思考；投机活动；推断 | |
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142
melodramas
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| 情节剧( melodrama的名词复数 ) | |
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143
mistily
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| adv.有雾地，朦胧地，不清楚地 | |
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144
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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145
presentiments
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| n.（对不祥事物的）预感( presentiment的名词复数 ) | |
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146
grunted
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| （猪等）作呼噜声( grunt的过去式和过去分词 )； （指人）发出类似的哼声； 咕哝着说 | |
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147
rouge
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| n.胭脂，口红唇膏；v.(在…上)擦口红 | |
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148
wrecked
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| adj.失事的，遇难的 | |
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149
inhaled
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| v.吸入( inhale的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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150
intervals
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| n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息 | |
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151
sips
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| n.小口喝，一小口的量( sip的名词复数 )v.小口喝，呷，抿( sip的第三人称单数 ) | |
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152
nervously
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| adv.神情激动地，不安地 | |
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153
sniffs
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| v.以鼻吸气，嗅，闻( sniff的第三人称单数 )；抽鼻子（尤指哭泣、患感冒等时出声地用鼻子吸气）；抱怨，不以为然地说 | |
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154
dabbing
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| 石面凿毛，灰泥抛毛 | |
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155
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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156
hearty
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| adj.热情友好的；衷心的；尽情的，纵情的 | |
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157
appraising
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| v.估价( appraise的现在分词 )；估计；估量；评价 | |
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