‘It must be something very urgent indeed to write about to-day,’ Mrs. Westbury said. ‘I am old-fashioned, and I don’t think the family quiet should be disturbed on Sunday unless it is something of importance.’
‘My dear, I can’t read these dreadful hands that people write now-a-days,’ said Mrs. Renton. ‘I can’t get the light on it, and I am too tired to sit up. If you would read it aloud, Ben——’
Ben took the little note in his hand, and put the lamp down on the nearest table. His face was in shade, and it was impossible to tell what his feelings were. He glanced over the note for a{201} second, and then read it aloud as his mother bade. It was a prayer to be allowed to visit the woods next morning with a friend who was going away, and it was signed ‘Millicent Rich.’ ‘I would not have dreamt of asking, knowing that you have all your people about you, and do not want to be troubled with strangers,’ she wrote; ‘but our friend is going off by the three o’clock train. We shall keep strictly7 to the woods, and not come near the house to worry you, when your attention must be so occupied with other things; but please let me come.’ This was what Ben read out with a perfectly8 expressionless voice, not even faltering9 over the name.
‘Of course she must come,’ said Mrs. Renton. ‘Mary, you must write a note for me. Say that the boys being here makes no difference, and that if she will come to luncheon10 and bring her friend——’
‘But, godmamma, Mr. Ponsonby is coming,’ said Mary, while Ben took up the lamp, and stood like a monument, holding it in his hand.
‘Mr. Ponsonby will not eat her, I suppose,’ said Mrs. Renton; and then there was a pause.
‘But, godmamma,’ Mary resumed after that interval11, ‘don’t you think so important a day as to-morrow is,—and so much as there will be going on——’
‘Any stranger would be a bore,’ said Frank.{202} ‘How are we to go and talk and be civil, when an hour more may see us set up or ruined——’
Here Alice plucked at his sleeve, indicating with a look of warning the stolid12 countenance13 of old Willis, who stood listening to everything. ‘If it would be any pleasure to grandmamma, I would attend to them,’ she said.
‘And I think it would be a very good thing for you all,’ said Mrs. Westbury, ‘and take your minds off yourselves a little. It is a blessing14 to have a stranger for that,—you are obliged to exert yourselves, and kept from brooding over one subject. I think your mother is quite right.’
‘Let us have them,’ said Laurie. ‘What does it matter? Old Ponsonby is always late.’
‘He will surely never be late on an occasion of such importance,’ said Laurence Westbury.
Mrs. Renton looked from one to another with an anxious countenance, and they came round the sofa, glad of the little interruption to that family quiet which was almost too much blessedness. Ben, who said nothing, lighted up the circle in a curious Rembrandtish way, holding his lamp so as to screen his mother; and outside stood old Willis, erect as a soldier, with unmoved countenance, waiting for the answer.
‘Ben, what do you say?’ said Mrs. Renton, with all the earnestness of a last appeal.{203}
‘That you must do just what you like, mother,’ said Ben.
Upon which she wrung15 her hands in despair. ‘How can I tell what I shall like if none of you will advise me?’ she said.
‘I will attend to them, if grandmamma would like it,’ said Alice, coming to the head of the sofa. ‘And I am sure you would like it, dear grandmamma; it would give you something else to think of.’
‘So it would, my dear,’ said Mrs. Renton, ready to cry; ‘and how I am to get through to-morrow without some assistance is more than I can tell.’
‘It will take all your minds off the one subject,’ added Mrs. Westbury; ‘and of course there must always be luncheon. Mary, go and do what your aunt tells you. It will be good, my dears, for you all.’
And Ben gave a little gesture with his hand, Mary caught his eye over the glowing darkness of the shaded lamp, and went and wrote her note without a word. Ben’s face had said, or seemed to say, ‘Let them come,—what does it matter?’ And if it did not matter to him, certainly it mattered nothing to any one else. When the note was despatched, Alice sat down at the piano and played to the entire satisfaction of her husband, his mother, and Laurence Westbury. Ben settled{204} down in a corner and took a book, till his aunt Lydia went and sat beside him, when an earnest conversation ensued; and Laurie stood idling by the window, beating back the moths16 that came in tribes to seek their destruction in the light, and sometimes saying a word to Mary, who, half occupied by the music and more than half by her own thoughts, sat near him within the shadow of the curtains.
‘What sort of people are those that are coming to-morrow, and why don’t you like them?’ said Laurie, under cover of a fortissimo.
‘I never said I did not like them,’ said Mary.
‘No; but I know you don’t. Who are they?’
And then the music fell low into tremulous, dying murmurs17, and all was silent in the room except for a shrill18 ‘s’ now and then of Mrs. Westbury’s half-whispered energetic conversation with Ben. When the strain rose and swelled19 into passion, the talk at the window was resumed.
‘It is not they,—it is she I don’t like;—one of my old school-fellows, and the most beautiful woman you ever saw.’
‘Hallo!’ said Laurie, ‘is that the reason why?’
‘Yes, of course. We should all like to strangle her because she is so pretty,’ said Mary, with a certain rancour in her voice.
Laurie sent a great night-moth out with a rush, and then he stooped towards his cousin’s hiding-{205}place. ‘Granted in the general,’ he said, ‘but there is something particular about this.’
What could Mary say? Her heart was quivering with that poignant20 sense of weakness and inability to resist fate which sometimes overcomes a woman in those secret machinations for somebody else’s good, which are so seldom successful. ‘I have done,’ she said; ‘I will try no more.’ And that was all the answer that was given to Laurie’s curiosity.
Alice had not fallen off in her playing. The piano, under her fingers, gave forth21 such sounds as wiled22 the very hearts out of the bosoms23 of the three who were listening. Mrs. Renton lay back on her sofa, with the tears coming to her eyes and a world of inarticulate, inexpressible feeling in her heart. Had it been poetry, the poor lady would have yawned and wished herself in bed; but now she had floated into a serene24 Eden,—a Paradise full of all vague loveliness, and sweetness, and unspeakable, indistinct emotions. As for Laurence Westbury, he dared scarcely draw breath, so entirely25 did the witchery seize him. The music to him stormed and struggled like a soul in pain, and paused and sank to give forth the cry of despair, and swelled into a gathering26 hope, into a final conflict, into delicious murmurs of sweetness and gratefulness and repose27; there was a whole drama in it, moving the real listener with such a rapid{206} succession of feeling as the highest tragic28 efforts of poetry call forth in others. While in the meanwhile Ben and Aunt Lydia talked quite undisturbed in their corner of railways and investments, and of how much Renton might be improved, and how fast Dick Westbury was making his fortune out in India; and Laurie was driving out the moths, and moralising over their eagerness to enter, and thinking of anything in the world rather than the music. Such were the strange differences of sensibility and feeling among half-a-dozen people, all of one race.
A forlorn hope that it might rain next morning, and so prevent the threatened invasion, was in Mary’s mind up to the last moment. She felt as if, having thus failed in her own person, Providence29 must aid her to save her cousin, the head of the house, who was of so much importance to the family, from such a snare30. But Providence refused, as Providence so often does in what seems the most heart-breaking emergency, to aid the plans of the schemer. As lovely a September morning as ever shone brightened all the park and the trees under her windows as she gazed out, unable to believe that she was thus abandoned of Heaven. But there could be no mistake about it. It was a lovely day, enough to tempt31 any one to the woods had there been no purpose of the kind beforehand; and as if to aggravate32 her sense of the danger of the situation,{207} Ben himself was visible from her window, coming up the river-path in boating costume, though it was only half-past seven in the morning. Had he been on the river already at this ridiculous hour? Passing The Willows33 no doubt, gazing at the closed windows, pleased with the mere34 fact of being near her, though at such an hour no one, Mary assured herself with a little scorn, had ever seen Millicent out of bed; and on such a day as this, when all his prospects35 for life hung in the balance! But, strangely enough, it never occurred to Mary in her womanish pre-occupation to think that it might be the feverish36 excitement of the crisis, and not any thought of Millicent, which had roused Ben and driven him to try the tranquillising effects of bodily exertion37. Notwithstanding the atmosphere of family anxiety by which she was surrounded, the fact was that Millicent’s visit was ten times more important in Mary’s eyes than that of Mr. Ponsonby. The one did not cost her a tenth part of the anxious cogitation38 called forth by the other. No doubt the will would be read and everything settled, ill or well. Ben would have Renton, as he ought; or Frank would have it, or it would be settled somehow; but the effect of Millicent’s appearance would be to unsettle everything. It would rouse up those embers of old love which she felt were smouldering in Ben’s mind. Smouldering! How could she tell that they were not{208} blazing with all the warmth of present passion? Else, why had he sallied out in the dawn of the morning only to pass by the sleeping, shut-up house which contained the lady of his dreams? For that he had gone out for this purpose, and no other, Mary felt as certain as if she had watched him every step of the way. But there was nothing now to be done but to submit, and to put the best face that was possible upon it. Perhaps, indeed, if anything should occur so as that Ben should not have Renton, it would no longer be an unmixed misfortune, for it would take him out of Millicent’s way.
It was hard to tell whether it was a relief or an annoyance39 to find a stranger at the breakfast-table when they all met down-stairs. ‘What a nuisance!’ Frank said to his wife, feeling that Ben’s right-hand man was not the sort of person to be admitted to familiar intercourse40 with the family at such a moment. But Mary felt, on the whole, that Hillyard’s unexpected appearance was a good thing for Ben. The stranger, who ought to have arrived some days before, had been detained, and got down to Cookesley on Sunday night, from whence it appeared Ben had gone down early to fetch him, thus explaining, to the great consolation41 of his guardian42 and watcher, his early expedition. Hillyard was very carefully dressed, too carefully for the morning, and a little impressed by the house{209} and the circumstances. His beard had been trimmed and his wardrobe renewed before he would follow his once protégé, and now patron, to the Manor43, and he was very anxious to make himself agreeable, and justify44 his presence.
‘I know I should not have come at such a time,’ he explained to Mary; ‘I told Renton so. Of course we have been so much together that I could not but know why he was coming home.’
‘I do not think it makes any difference,’ said Mary. ‘I am sure my aunt will always be glad to have any of Ben’s friends.’
‘It is very good of you to say so,’ Hillyard answered gratefully. And then he began to tell her what a fine fellow her cousin was, and what a head he had, and how he had mastered his profession while other men would have been gaping45 at it. ‘He is master and I am man now,’ he said, unconsciously using Ben’s words, ‘though I was brought up to it; and I should just like you to see the beautiful work he puts out of his hands.’
‘I daresay I should not understand it if I saw it,’ said Mary, smiling behind the urn46; but she lent a very willing ear, and thought Hillyard a very nice person. Unquestionably he was a relief to the high strain of suppressed feeling which appeared in every face at the table, except, perhaps, Laurie’s, who, late as usual, came in, carrying the baby in his arms, and did not mind.{210}
‘Here is a little waif and stray I found wandering about the passages,’ he said. ‘Little Laurie, your mamma does not care about you to-day; you had better stay with me.’
‘Doesn’t mamma care for him, the darling!’ cried Alice. And then the child was picked up, having made a rush to her arms, and set up beside her at table.
‘The heir-presumptive, I suppose?’ Hillyard said behind the urn; and Mary began to think he was not quite so nice as she had thought him before.
Then the members of the family dispersed47, to kill this lingering, weary forenoon as they best could. Ben and Hillyard went out together in earnest conversation, and Laurie established himself in a shady corner of the lawn, and made a group of Alice and her children, and began to draw them; while Frank started off, as he said, for a long walk. Mr. Ponsonby had announced that he was to come by the one o’clock train; but there was another three-quarters of an hour later, and nobody who knew him expected him to arrive by the first. And at half-past one Millicent and her friend would come to luncheon. Such a conjunction of events was very terrible to think of; though, perhaps, not so alarming to any one as to Mary, who alone knew of the motives48 of the latter visit. She had to go about her usual occupations all{211} the same. She could not cheat the sick expectations of her heart by joining the group on the lawn and chatting with the children, nor could she rush forth to still her anxieties by bodily exertion, like the boys. A woman, she thought to herself, is always tied to the stake. She had to fulfil all her little peaceful household occupations as if her heart was quite at ease, and had not even any sympathy to support her, for what was it to her any one could have said? They were all three her cousins, and it could not matter very deeply to her which of them got Renton; and as for Millicent, that was mere feminine jealousy49, and nothing else,—so Mary had to lock up her troubles carefully in her own breast.
It was only about a quarter past one when Millicent arrived at Renton, and with her came her mother and her ‘friend,’ who was the young soldier they had seen rowing her on the river. Mrs. Renton had just come down-stairs, with Davison carrying her shawls and her worsted work, and it was to her the visitors made their way. ‘Mr. Horsman is a connexion of my poor husband’s,’ Millicent said with a decent sigh. ‘He is a brother of Sir George Horsman, whom Nelly married. Nelly is my sister-in-law, Mrs. Renton; but I suppose you know?’
‘Indeed I know very well,’ said Mrs. Renton. ‘It was she who we once thought would have mar{212}ried Frank. Not that I am not perfectly satisfied with Frank’s wife. She is certainly nice, and suits him admirably, which of course is the great thing. But she had no money. And there was once a time when he saw a great deal of Miss Rich.’
‘She was quite a catch,’ said Mrs. Tracy,—a word which wounded Mrs. Renton’s ear.
‘I cannot say I looked upon it in that point of view; but the young people were thrown in each other’s way a great deal,’ Mrs. Renton said with some stateliness; and Millicent immediately rushed into the field.
‘I thought the Mr. Rentons had all arrived,’ she said, ‘and yet you are alone;’ and cast an angry glance at Mary, as if demanding of her where they were.
‘What has become of the boys?’ said Mrs. Renton, looking round her. ‘I have only just come down. The fact is, it is a very exciting day for them; we expect Mr. Ponsonby down immediately to read the will.’
Millicent and her mother exchanged glances. ‘Then the time is up?’ Mrs. Tracy said meditatively50, and bent51 with increasing solicitude52 over the invalid53 on her sofa. ‘What a trial for you!’ she said, clasping her hand in sympathy. And Mrs. Renton raised to her eyes that said unspeakable things.
‘Ah! yes,’ she murmured; ‘but nobody thinks{213} of me;’ and this balm of consolation was sweet to her heart.
They all came dropping in a few minutes later to luncheon, and Ben and Hillyard were among the first. ‘Ponsonby has not come by this train,’ said Ben, ‘but Frank is waiting at the station for the next.’ It was hard not to feel as if Frank was doing the rest an injury by waiting to have the first word with the lawyer; such, at least, was Mary’s instinctive54 feeling. But her heart was weighted now with a more painful anxiety still. She saw Ben give a brief, contemptuous glance at young Horsman, whose position was not a comfortable one, and her heart sunk. But then he turned away from Millicent,—avoided seeing her, indeed, in a curious, visible way, and that was a consolation. Mrs. Tracy, however, got up with effusion to shake hands with dear Mr. Renton, begging that she might have a good look at him, to see if he was changed. ‘Not at all changed,’ was her verdict. ‘Just the same generous face that once came to our help in our troubles. Mr. Renton, do you know I may say you saved my life?’
Then Millicent, too, rose, and, with a whole drama in her eyes, held out her hand to him. There was regret, remorse55, and a tender appeal for pardon, and a sweet self-pity in those blue, shining eyes. They seemed to say, ‘Be kind to me! Be sorry for me! I am so sorry for myself!’ But it was hard{214} to make out whether there was any answer in Ben’s looks. She stood so turned towards him, holding out her hand, that he had no choice but to draw near, and then she turned meaningly towards a vacant chair at her side. He could not have gone away without rudeness, and Ben was not disposed to be rude to anybody at such a moment of fate. He took the seat accordingly, though with grave looks, and then there came a gleam of triumph into Millicent’s eyes.
‘How curious we should have chanced to come here on this day of all others,’ she said, her voice sinking to its softest tones. ‘You told me of it the very last time we met; but, perhaps, Mr. Renton, you forget?’
‘Did I tell you of this?’ said Ben. ‘What a good memory you must have! but there are some things I do not forget.’
‘Ah! something unkind about poor me, Mr. Renton! but if you knew what I have had to go through since, you would not think anything unkind.’
‘I suppose we have all had a great deal to go through since,’ said Ben. ‘Seven years! it is a large slice out of one’s life; one’s ideas about most things change immensely in seven years.’
‘Do they?’ said Millicent, looking at him with soft, appealing eyes.
‘Very much,’ said Ben, with a smile; ‘so much that one looks back with amazement upon the {215}follies one has been guilty of. A man says to himself, “Is it possible I could have been such an ass2?” Are ladies not subject to the same effect of time?’
‘No;—ladies are more constant,’ said Millicent. ‘When our thoughts have turned one way, it does not matter what happens, they always keep the same. We may be obliged to change in outward appearance. We are not so free as you gentlemen are. One’s friends or one’s circumstances sway one sometimes, but in the heart we never change,—not half, oh! not a quarter so much as you.’
‘That may be. I have no experience,’ said Ben.
‘But I have,’ said Millicent, ‘and I do so want to tell you. You know I never was very happy in my circumstances, Mr. Renton. Mamma is very kind, but she does not understand one’s feelings; and when she got me abroad, she had me all in her own hands. Yes, you are quite right about the change time makes. When I look back I cannot think how I could have done it. But I was so young, and so used to obey mamma.’
‘And a very laudable principle, I am sure,’ said Ben, with a polite little bow. ‘I beg your pardon—I thought I saw my brother and Mr. Ponsonby coming up the avenue. You were saying,—something about obedience,—I think?’
‘You do not think it worth while to listen to me,’ said Millicent.{216}
‘Oh, yes, surely,—pray go on. I am full of interest,’ said Ben.
And then the poor creature looked at him with eyes which were pitiful in the eagerness of their appeal. She was a mercenary, wretched woman, ready to barter56 her beauty for comfort and wealth, and a fine house and a good position; and yet there was still in Mrs. Henry Rich the same redeeming57 possibility that there had been in Millicent Tracy. If he would have taken her out of that slough58 of despond, she would have been good, have made him a true wife, have grown a gentle lady, so far as it was in her. To the bottom of her soul Millicent felt this,—just as many a poor criminal feels that in other circumstances he would have been a model of all virtue59. And for her the matter was not one without hope;—marriage to a woman may always be a new life,—and the seven years had not dimmed her eyes, nor taken the roses from her cheeks. And by those roses and bright eyes and lovely looks are not a woman’s fate determined60 continually? Again, it was her last hope. For though admiration61 was always sweet, yet to be troubled with a boy like this young Guardsman, was irksome to Millicent in her maturity62. And to go through a round of such boys,—flattering, wooing them, being wooed,—good heavens! was this all that fortune had in store for a woman? Therefore she made one more effort before she yielded to fate.{217}
‘You were more interested, Mr. Renton,’ she said, with soft reproach, ‘when we talked together last,—oh, so much more interested! If I did not know you so well, I could scarcely think it was the same.’
‘That is true,’ said Ben; ‘but you taught me some things, Mrs. Rich, and I profited by the lesson. I doubt whether but for your assistance I could ever have been the man I am.’
‘Ah! then I have at least something to do with you?’ said Millicent. ‘Come and tell me, will you? It is not like London, where one was always being interrupted. In the country there is so much time for talk.’
‘But I have no time,’ said Ben. ‘After to-morrow I shall probably go away again; and when I tell you I have profited by your instructions, I think that is all I have to say.’
‘You are angry with me because of,—because of,—poor Henry,’ said Millicent, with tears coming to her eyes. ‘But ah, Mr. Renton!—ah, Ben, if you only knew!’
Ben sprang impatiently to his feet. To him, as to any other generous man, it felt like a personal pang63 and shame to see a woman thus humiliate64 herself. He made a long step towards the window, with a flush on his face. ‘Here they come!’ he said, though at the moment he was not thinking much of their coming. And then there ensued a{218} sudden inevitable65 flutter in the family which affected66 the guests. Alice, who had been charitably talking to the Guardsman, jumped up with a little cry of excitement, and sat down again, ashamed of herself, but with all possibilities of conversation quenched67 out of her; and Mrs. Renton, whom Mrs. Tracy had been occupying to the best of her ability to leave Millicent free for her important interview with Ben, was suddenly overcome, and cried a little, lying back on her pillows. ‘Oh Ben, my dear! I don’t know how I am to bear it,’ she said, holding fast by her son’s hand. Laurie was the only one who was perfectly steady. He came forward immediately from the background, and raised his mother up, supporting her on his arm. ‘You will bear it beautifully, mamma, as you always do,’ said Laurie. ‘Come and give us our luncheon. You forget we are not alone.’
And he supported her into the dining-room, holding her hand caressingly68 in his. As for Ben, he turned and gave his arm to Millicent, ‘As if I had been a cabbage,’ she said afterwards, indignantly. None of her pathetic glances, not the soft little pressure of her hand upon his arm, gained the slightest response. His face was set and stern, full of thoughts with which she had nothing to do. Mrs. Tracy ventured to whisper as she followed, ‘Ah, how sweet it is to me to see you two together again!’ But Ben did not even hear what she said.{219} He waved his hand to Mr. Ponsonby in the distance as he went across the hall. The beautiful face at his side had no more effect upon him than if it had been a hideous69 mask. He was absorbed in his own business, and careless of her very existence. Millicent, in her fury, could have struck him as he took her into the dining-room. Was this to be the end?
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1
amazement
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| n.惊奇，惊讶 | |
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ass
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| n.驴；傻瓜，蠢笨的人 | |
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touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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animated
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| adj.生气勃勃的，活跃的，愉快的 | |
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erect
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| n./v.树立，建立，使竖立；adj.直立的，垂直的 | |
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fatigued
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| adj. 疲乏的 | |
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strictly
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| adv.严厉地，严格地；严密地 | |
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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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faltering
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| 犹豫的，支吾的，蹒跚的 | |
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luncheon
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| n.午宴，午餐，便宴 | |
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interval
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| n.间隔，间距；幕间休息，中场休息 | |
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stolid
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| adj.无动于衷的，感情麻木的 | |
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countenance
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| n.脸色，面容；面部表情；vt.支持，赞同 | |
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blessing
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| n.祈神赐福；祷告；祝福，祝愿 | |
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wrung
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| 绞( wring的过去式和过去分词 )； 握紧（尤指别人的手）； 把（湿衣服）拧干； 绞掉（水） | |
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moths
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| n.蛾( moth的名词复数 ) | |
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murmurs
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| n.低沉、连续而不清的声音( murmur的名词复数 )；低语声；怨言；嘀咕 | |
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shrill
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| adj.尖声的；刺耳的；v尖叫 | |
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swelled
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| 增强( swell的过去式和过去分词 )； 肿胀； （使）凸出； 充满（激情） | |
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poignant
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| adj.令人痛苦的，辛酸的，惨痛的 | |
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forth
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wiled
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bosoms
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| 胸部( bosom的名词复数 )； 胸怀； 女衣胸部（或胸襟）； 和爱护自己的人在一起的情形 | |
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serene
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entirely
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gathering
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repose
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tragic
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| adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的 | |
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providence
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| n.深谋远虑，天道，天意；远见；节约；上帝 | |
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snare
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| n.陷阱，诱惑，圈套；（去除息肉或者肿瘤的）勒除器；响弦，小军鼓；vt.以陷阱捕获，诱惑 | |
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tempt
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| vt.引诱，勾引，吸引，引起…的兴趣 | |
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aggravate
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| vt.加重(剧)，使恶化；激怒，使恼火 | |
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willows
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| n.柳树( willow的名词复数 )；柳木 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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prospects
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| n.希望，前途(恒为复数) | |
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feverish
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| adj.发烧的，狂热的，兴奋的 | |
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exertion
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| n.尽力，努力 | |
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cogitation
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| n.仔细思考，计划，设计 | |
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annoyance
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| n.恼怒，生气，烦恼 | |
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intercourse
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| n.性交；交流，交往，交际 | |
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consolation
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| n.安慰，慰问 | |
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guardian
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| n.监护人；守卫者，保护者 | |
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manor
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| n.庄园，领地 | |
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justify
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| vt.证明…正当(或有理)，为…辩护 | |
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gaping
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| adj.口的；张口的；敞口的；多洞穴的v.目瞪口呆地凝视( gape的现在分词 )；张开，张大 | |
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urn
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| n.（有座脚的）瓮；坟墓；骨灰瓮 | |
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dispersed
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| adj. 被驱散的, 被分散的, 散布的 | |
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motives
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| n.动机，目的( motive的名词复数 ) | |
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jealousy
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| n.妒忌，嫉妒，猜忌 | |
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meditatively
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| adv.冥想地 | |
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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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solicitude
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| n.焦虑 | |
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invalid
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| n.病人，伤残人；adj.有病的，伤残的；无效的 | |
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instinctive
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| adj.(出于)本能的；直觉的；(出于)天性的 | |
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remorse
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| n.痛恨，悔恨，自责 | |
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barter
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| n.物物交换，以货易货，实物交易 | |
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redeeming
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| 补偿的，弥补的 | |
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slough
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| v.蜕皮，脱落，抛弃 | |
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virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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maturity
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| n.成熟；完成；(支票、债券等)到期 | |
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pang
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| n.剧痛，悲痛，苦闷 | |
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humiliate
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| v.使羞辱，使丢脸[同]disgrace | |
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inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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quenched
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| 解（渴）( quench的过去式和过去分词 )； 终止（某事物）； （用水）扑灭（火焰等）； 将（热物体）放入水中急速冷却 | |
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caressingly
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| 爱抚地，亲切地 | |
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hideous
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| adj.丑陋的，可憎的，可怕的，恐怖的 | |
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