When Rachel had completed her engagement with Mr. Moss15, it had been intended that they should go down to Ambleside and there spend Lord Castlewell's money in the humble16 innocent enjoyment17 of nature. There had at that moment been nothing decided18 as to the County of Cavan. A pork-butcher possessed19 of some small means and unlimited20 impudence21 had put himself forward. But The Twenty had managed to put him through his facings, and had found him to be very ignorant in his use of the Queen's English. Now of late there had come up a notion that the small party required to make up for the thinness of their members by the strength of their eloquence. Practice makes perfect, and it is not to be wondered at therefore if a large proportion of The Twenty had become fluent. But more were wanted, and of our friend O'Mahony's fluency22 there could be no doubt. Therefore he was sent for, and on the very day of his arrival he proved to the patriotic spirits of Dublin that he was the man for Cavan. Three days afterwards he went down, and Cavan obediently accepted its man. With her father went Rachel, and was carried through the towns of Virginia, Bailyborough, and Ballyjamesduff, in great triumph on a one-horse car.
This occurred about the end of August, and Lord Castlewell's ￡200 was very soon spent. She had not thought much about it, but had been quite willing to be the daughter of a Member of Parliament, if a constituency could be found willing to select her father. She did not think much of the duties of Parliament, if they came within the reach of her father's ability. She did not in truth think that he could under any circumstances do half a day's work. She had known what it was to practise, and, having determined23 to succeed, she had worked as only a singer can work who determines that she will succeed. Hour after hour she had gone on before the looking-glass, and even Mr. Moss had expressed his approval. But during the years that she had been so at work, she had never seen her father do anything. She knew that he talked what she called patriotic buncombe. It might be that he would become a very fitting Member of Parliament, but Rachel had her doubt. She could see, however, that the ￡200 quickly vanished during their triumphant24 journeyings on the one-horse car. Everybody in County Cavan seemed to know that there was ￡200 and no more to be spent by the new member. There he was, however, Member of Parliament for the County of Cavan, and his breast was filled with new aspirations25. Enmity, the bitterest enmity to everything English, was the one lesson taught him. But he himself had other feelings. What if he could talk over that Speaker, and that Prime Minister, that Government generally, and all the House of Commons, and all the House of Lords! Why should not England go her way and Ireland hers,—England have her monarchy26 and Ireland her republic, but still with some kind of union between them, as to the nature of which Mr. O'Mahony had no fixed27 idea in his brain whatsoever28. But he knew that he could talk, and he knew also that he must now talk on an arena29 for admission to which the public would not pay twenty-five cents or more. His breast was much disturbed by the consideration that for all the work which he proposed to do no wages were to be forthcoming.
But while Mr. O'Mahony was being elected Member of Parliament for County Cavan, things were going on very sadly in County Galway. Wednesday, the 31st of August, had been the day fixed for the trial of Pat Carroll; and the month of August was quickly wearing itself away. But during the month of August Captain Clayton found occasion more than once to come into the neighbourhood of Headford. And though Mr. Jones was of an opinion that his presence there was adequately accounted for by the details of the coming trial, the two girls evidently thought that some other cause might be added to that which Pat Carroll had produced.
It must be explained that at this period Frank Jones was absent from Morony Castle, looking out for emergency men who could be brought down to the neighbourhood of Headford, in sufficient number to save the crop on Mr. Jones's farm. And with him was Tom Daly, who had some scheme in his own head with reference to his horses and his hounds. Mr. Persse and Sir Jasper Lynch had been threatened with a wide system of boycotting31, unless they would give up Tom Daly's animals. A decree had gone forth30 in the county, that nothing belonging to the hunt should be allowed to live within its precincts. All the bitterness and the cruelty and the horror arising from this order are beyond the limit of this story. But it may be well to explain that at the present moment Frank Jones was away from Castle Morony, working hard on his father's behalf.
And so were the girls working hard—making the butter, and cooking the meat, and attending to the bedrooms. And Peter was busy with them as their lieutenant32. It might be thought that the present was no time for love-making, and that Captain Clayton could not have been in the mood. But it may be observed that at any period of special toil33 in a family, when infinitely34 more has to be done than at any other time, then love-making will go on with more than ordinary energy. Edith was generally to be found with her hair tucked tight off her face and enveloped35 in a coarse dairymaid's apron36, and Ada, when she ran downstairs, would do so with a housemaid's dusting-brush at her girdle, and they were neither of them, when so attired37, in the least afraid of encountering Captain Clayton as he would come out from their father's room. All the world knew that they were being boycotted38, and very happy the girls were during the process. "Poor papa" did not like it so well. Poor papa thought of his banker's account, or rather of that bank at which there was, so to say, no longer any account. But the girls were light of heart, and in the pride of their youth. But, alas39! they had both of them blundered frightfully. It was Edith, Edith the prudent40, Edith the wise, Edith, who was supposed to know everything, who had first gone astray in her blundering, and had taken Ada with her; but the story with its details must be told.
"My pet," she said to her elder sister, as they were standing41 together at the kitchen dresser, "I know he means to speak to you to-day."
"What nonsense, Edith!"
"It has to be done some day, you know. And he is just the man to come upon one in the time of one's dire42 distress43. Of course we haven't got a halfpenny now belonging to us. I was thinking only the other day how comfortable it is that we never go out of the house because we haven't the means to buy boots. Now Captain Clayton is just the man to be doubly attracted by such penury44."
"I don't know why a man is to make an offer to a girl just because he finds her working like a housemaid."
"I do. I can see it all. He is just the man to take you in his arms because he found you peeling potatoes."
"I beg he will do nothing of the kind," said Ada. "He has never said a word to me, or I to him, to justify45 such a proceeding46. I should at once hit him over the head with my brush."
"Here he comes, and now we will see how far I understand such matters."
"Don't go, Edith," said Ada. "Pray don't go. If you go I shall go with you. These things ought always to come naturally,—that is if they come at all."
It did not "come" at that moment, for Edith was so far mistaken that Captain Clayton, after saying a few words to the girls, passed on out of the back-door, intent on special business. "What a wretched individual he is," said Edith. "Fancy pinning one's character on the doings of such a man as that. However, he will be back again to dinner, and you will not be so hard upon him then with your dusting-brush."
Before dinner the Captain did return, and found himself alone with Edith in the kitchen. It was her turn on this occasion to send up whatever meal in the shape of dinner Castle Morony could afford. "There you have it, sir," she said, pointing to a boiled neck of mutton, which had been cut from the remains47 of a sheep sent in to supply the family wants.
"I see," said he. "It will make a very good dinner,—or a very bad one, according to circumstances, as they may fall out before the dinner leaves the kitchen."
"Then they will have to fall out very quickly," said Edith. But the colour had flown to her face, and in that moment she had learned to suspect the truth. And her mind flew back rapidly over all her doings and sayings for the last three months. If it was so, she could never forgive herself. If it was so, Ada would never forgive her. If it was so, they two and Captain Yorke Clayton must be separated for ever. "Well; what is it?" she said, roughly. The joint48 of meat had fallen from her hands, and she looked up at Captain Clayton with all the anger she could bring into her face.
"Edith," he said, "you surely know that I love you."
"I know nothing of the kind. There can be no reason why I should know it,—why I should guess it. It cannot be so without grievous wrong on your part."
"What wrong?"
"Base wrong done to my sister," she answered. Then she remembered that she had betrayed her sister, and she remembered too how much of the supposed love-making had been done by her own words, and not by any spoken by Captain Clayton. And there came upon her at that moment a remembrance also of that other moment in which she had acknowledged to herself that she had loved this man, and had told herself that the love was vain, and had sworn to herself that she would never stand in Ada's way, and had promised to herself that all things should be happy to her as this man's sister-in-law. Acting49 then on this idea merely because Ada had been beautiful she had gone to work,—and this had come of it! In that minute that was allowed to her as the boiled mutton was cooling on the dresser beneath her hand, all this passed through her mind.
"Wrong done by me to Ada!" said the Captain.
"I have said it; but if you are a gentleman you will forget it. I know that you are a gentleman,—a gallant50 man, such as few I think exist anywhere. Captain Clayton, there are but two of us. Take the best; take the fairest; take the sweetest. Let all this be as though it had never been spoken. I will be such a sister to you as no man ever won for himself. And Ada will be as loving a wife as ever graced a man's home. Let it be so, and I will bless every day of your life."
"No," he said slowly, "I cannot let it be like that. I have learned to love you and you only, and I thought that you had known it."
"Never!"
"I had thought so. It cannot be as you propose. I shall never speak of your sister to a living man. I shall never whisper a word of her regard even here in her own family. But I cannot change my heart as you propose. Your sister is beautiful, and sweet, and good; but she is not the girl who has crept into my heart, and made a lasting51 home for herself there,—if the girl who has done so would but accept it. Ada is not the girl whose brightness, whose bravery, whose wit and ready spirit have won me. These things go, I think, without any effort. I have known that there has been no attempt on your part; but the thing has been done and I had hoped that you were aware of it. It cannot now be undone52. I cannot be passed on to another. Here, here, here is what I want," and he put his two hands upon her shoulders. "There is no other girl in all Ireland that can supply her place if she be lost to me."
He had spoken very solemnly, and she had stood there in solemn mood listening to him. By degrees the conviction had come upon her that he was in earnest, and was not to be changed in his purpose by anything that she could say to him. She had blundered, had blundered awfully53. She had thought that with a man beauty would be everything; but with this man beauty had been nothing; nor had good temper and a sense of duty availed anything. She rushed into the dining-room carrying the boiled mutton with her, and he followed. What should she do now? Ada would yield—would give him up—would retire into the background, and would declare that Edith should be made happy, but would never lift up her head again. And she—she herself—could also give him up, and would lift up her head again. She knew that she had a power of bearing sorrow, and going on with the work of the world, in spite of all troubles, which Ada did not possess. It might, therefore, have all been settled, but that the man was stubborn, and would not be changed. "Of course, he is a man," said Edith to herself, as she put the mutton down. "Of course he must have it all to please himself. Of course he will be selfish."
"I thought you were never coming with our morsel54 of dinner," said Mr. Jones.
"Here is the morsel of dinner; but I could have dished it in half the time if Captain Clayton had not been there."
"Of course I am the offender," said he, as he sat down. "And now I have forgotten to bring the potatoes." So he started off, and met Florian at the door coming in with them. Mr. Jones carved the mutton, and Captain Clayton was helped first. In a boycotted house you will always find that the gentlemen are helped before the ladies. It is a part of the principle of boycotting that women shall subject themselves.
Captain Clayton, after his first little stir about the potatoes, ate his dinner in perfect silence. That which had taken place upset him more completely than the rifles of two or three Landleaguers. Mr. Jones was also silent. He was a man at the present moment nearly overwhelmed by his cares. And Ada, too, was silent. As Edith looked at her furtively55 she began to fear that her pet suspected something. There was a look of suffering in her face which Edith could read, though it was not plain enough written there to be legible to others. Her father and Florian had no key by which to read it, and Captain Clayton never allowed his eyes to turn towards Ada's face. But it was imperative56 on both that they should not all fall into some feeling of special sorrow through their silence. "It is just one week more," she said, "before you men must be at Galway."
"Only one week," said Florian.
"It will be much better to have it over," said the father. "I do not think you need come back at all, but start at once from Galway. Your sisters can bring what things you want, and say good-bye at Athenry."
"My poor Florian," said Edith.
"I shan't mind it so much when I get to England," said the boy. "I suppose I shall come home for the Christmas holidays."
"I don't know about that," said the father. "It will depend upon the state of the country."
"You will come and meet him, Ada?" asked Edith.
"I suppose so," said Ada. And her sister knew from the tone of her voice that some evil was already suspected.
There was nothing more said that night till Edith and Ada were together. Mr. Jones lingered with his daughters, and the Captain took Florian out about the orchard57, thinking it well to make him used to whatever danger might come to him from being out of the house. "They will never come where they will be sure to be known," said the Captain; "and known by various witnesses. And they won't come for the chance of a pop shot. I am getting to know their ways as well as though I had lived there all my life. They count on the acquittal of Pat Carroll as a certainty. Whatever I may be, you are tolerably safe as long as that is the case."
"They may shoot me in mistake for you," said the boy.
"Well, yes; that is so. Let us go back to the house. But I don't think there would be any danger to-night anyway." Then they returned, and found Mr. Jones alone in the dining-room. He was very melancholy58 in these days, as a man must be whom ruin stares in the face.
Edith had followed Ada upstairs to the bedrooms, and had crept after her into that which had been prepared for Captain Clayton. She could see now by the lingering light of an August evening that a tear had fallen from each eye, and had slowly run down her sister's cheeks. "Oh, Ada, dear Ada, what is troubling you?"
"Nothing,—much."
"My girl, my beauty, my darling! Much or little, what is it? Cannot you tell me?"
"He cares nothing for me," said Ada, laying her hand upon the pillow, thus indicating the "he" whom she intended. Edith answered not a word, but pressed her arm tight round her sister's waist. "It is so," said Ada, turning round upon her sister as though to rebuke59 her. "You know that it is so."
"My beauty, my own one," said Edith, kissing her.
"You know it is so. He has told you. It is not me that he loves; it is you. You are his chosen one. I am nothing to him,—nothing, nothing." Then she flung herself down upon the bed which her own hands had prepared for him.
It was all true. As the assertions had come from her one by one, Edith had found herself unable to deny a tittle of what was said. "Ada, if you knew my heart to you."
"What good is it? Why did you teach me to believe a falsehood?"
"Oh! you will kill me if you accuse me. I have been so true to you." Then Ada turned round upon the bed, and hid her face for a few minutes upon the pillow. "Ada, have I not been true to you?"
"But that you should have been so much mistaken;—you, who know everything."
"I have not known him," said Edith.
"But you will," said Ada. "You will be his wife."
"Never!" ejaculated the other.
Then slowly, Ada got up from the bed and shook her hair from off her face and wiped her eyes with her handkerchief. "It must be so," she said. "Of course it must, as he wishes it. He must have all that he desires."
"No, not so. He shall never have this."
"Yes, Edith, he must and he shall. Do you not know that you loved him before you ever bade me to do so? But why, oh why did you ever make that great mistake? And why was I so foolish as to have believed you? Come," she said, "I must make his bed for him once again. He will be here soon now and we must be away." Then she did obliterate60 the traces of her form which her figure had made upon the bed, and smoothed the pillow, and wiped away the mark of her tear which had fallen on it. "Come, Edith, come," said she, "let us go and understand each other. He knows, for you have told him, but no one else need know. He shall be your husband, and I will be his sister, and all shall be bright between you."
"Never," said Edith. "Never! He will never be married if he waits for me."
"My dear one, you shall be his wife," said Ada. Such were the last words which passed between them on that night.
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1
rotunda
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| n.圆形建筑物；圆厅 | |
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justified
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| a.正当的，有理的 | |
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eloquence
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| n.雄辩；口才，修辞 | |
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patriotic
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| adj.爱国的，有爱国心的 | |
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professed
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| 公开声称的，伪称的，已立誓信教的 | |
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peculiarities
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| n. 特质, 特性, 怪癖, 古怪 | |
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lash
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| v.系牢；鞭打；猛烈抨击；n.鞭打；眼睫毛 | |
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wiles
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| n.（旨在欺骗或吸引人的）诡计，花招；欺骗，欺诈( wile的名词复数 ) | |
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internecine
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| adj.两败俱伤的 | |
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foes
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| 敌人，仇敌( foe的名词复数 ) | |
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scotch
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| n.伤口，刻痕；苏格兰威士忌酒；v.粉碎，消灭，阻止；adj.苏格兰(人)的 | |
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recreant
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| n.懦夫；adj.胆怯的 | |
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hatred
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| n.憎恶，憎恨，仇恨 | |
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tribulation
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| n.苦难，灾难 | |
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moss
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| n.苔，藓，地衣 | |
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humble
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| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
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enjoyment
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| n.乐趣；享有；享用 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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unlimited
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| adj.无限的，不受控制的，无条件的 | |
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impudence
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| n.厚颜无耻；冒失；无礼 | |
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fluency
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| n.流畅，雄辩，善辩 | |
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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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triumphant
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| adj.胜利的，成功的；狂欢的，喜悦的 | |
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aspirations
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| 强烈的愿望( aspiration的名词复数 )； 志向； 发送气音； 发 h 音 | |
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monarchy
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| n.君主，最高统治者；君主政体，君主国 | |
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fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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whatsoever
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| adv.（用于否定句中以加强语气）任何；pron.无论什么 | |
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arena
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| n.竞技场，运动场所；竞争场所，舞台 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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boycotting
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| 抵制，拒绝参加( boycott的现在分词 ) | |
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lieutenant
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| n.陆军中尉，海军上尉；代理官员，副职官员 | |
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toil
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| vi.辛劳工作，艰难地行动；n.苦工，难事 | |
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infinitely
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| adv.无限地，无穷地 | |
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enveloped
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| v.包围，笼罩，包住( envelop的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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apron
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| n.围裙；工作裙 | |
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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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boycotted
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| 抵制，拒绝参加( boycott的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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alas
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| int.唉(表示悲伤、忧愁、恐惧等) | |
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prudent
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| adj.谨慎的，有远见的，精打细算的 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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dire
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| adj.可怕的，悲惨的，阴惨的，极端的 | |
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distress
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| n.苦恼，痛苦，不舒适；不幸；vt.使悲痛 | |
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penury
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| n.贫穷，拮据 | |
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justify
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| vt.证明…正当(或有理)，为…辩护 | |
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46
proceeding
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| n.行动，进行，(pl.)会议录，学报 | |
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remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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joint
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| adj.联合的，共同的；n.关节，接合处；v.连接，贴合 | |
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49
acting
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| n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的 | |
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gallant
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| adj.英勇的，豪侠的；(向女人)献殷勤的 | |
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lasting
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| adj.永久的，永恒的；vbl.持续，维持 | |
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52
undone
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| a.未做完的，未完成的 | |
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53
awfully
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| adv.可怕地，非常地，极端地 | |
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54
morsel
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| n.一口，一点点 | |
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furtively
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| adv. 偷偷地, 暗中地 | |
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imperative
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| n.命令，需要；规则；祈使语气；adj.强制的；紧急的 | |
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57
orchard
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| n.果园，果园里的全部果树，(美俚)棒球场 | |
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melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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59
rebuke
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| v.指责，非难，斥责 [反]praise | |
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obliterate
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| v.擦去，涂抹，去掉...痕迹，消失，除去 | |
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