chapter 2

 Miss Nash, the baby carriage in front of her, furrowed¹ a way through the traffic of the avenue, relatively² scant³ in those days, and reaching the safety of the other side passed within the Park. She was a trained child's-nurse, and wore a uniform. England being at that time the only source of this specialty⁴, examples in New York were limited to the heirs-apparent of the noble families. Between a nursemaid and a trained child's-nurse you will notice the same distinction as between a lady's maid and a princess's lady-in-waiting.
Having entered the Park, Miss Nash stopped the carriage to lift the veil protecting her charge. He was already beyond the noises and distractions⁵ of the planet in his rosy⁶, heavenly sleep. Miss Nash smiled wistfully, because it was the only way in which she could smile at all. A superior woman by nature, she clung to that refinement⁷ which best expresses itself in something melancholic⁸. Daughter of a solicitor's clerk and niece to a curate, she felt her status as a lady most fittingly preserved in an atmosphere delicate, subdued⁹, and rather sad.
And yet when she looked on her little boy asleep she was no longer superior, and scarcely so much as a lady. She was only a woman enraptured¹⁰ before
[Pg 6]
 one of those babies so compact of sweetness, affection, and intelligence that they tug¹¹ at the heartstrings. She was on her guard as to loving her children overmuch, since it made it so hard to give them up when the minute for doing so arrived; but with this little fellow no guard had been effective. Whether he crowed, or cried, or kicked, or snuggled in her arms to croon with her in baby tunelessness, she found him adorable. But when he was asleep, chubby¹², seraphic, so awesomely¹³ undefiled, she was sure that his spirit had withdrawn¹⁴ from her for a little while to commune with the angels.
"No," she confessed one day to her friend, Miss Etta Messenger, the only other uniformed child's nurse among her acquaintance in New York, "it won't do. I must break myself. I shall have to leave him some day. But I do envy the mother who will have him always."
"It don't pay you," Miss Messenger declared, as one who has had experience. "Anyone, I always say, can hire my services; but my affections remain my own. Now this little girl I'm with while I'm in New York, I could leave her to-morrow without a pang¹⁵ if—but then I've got something to leave her for."
"And what does he say to things now?" Miss Nash inquired, with selfless interest in her friend's drama.
Miss Messenger answered, judicially¹⁶, "I've put it to him straight. I've told him he must simply fix a date to marry me, or give me up. As I know he simply won't give me up—you never knew a fellow so wild about a girl as he is about me...."
[Pg 7]
The fortnight which had intervened between that conversation and the morning when our little boy's story opens had given time for Miss Messenger's affairs to take another turn. In the hope of learning the details of this turn Miss Nash sought a corner of the Park, not much frequented by nursemaids, where she and Miss Messenger often met, but Etta was not there. Drawing the carriage within the shade of a miniature grove¹⁷ of lilacs in perfumed flower, Miss Nash once more lifted the veil, wiped the precious mouth, and adjusted the coverlet outside which lay the mittened¹⁸ baby hands. Since there was no more to be done, she sat down on a convenient bench to her reading of Juliet Allingham's Sin.
In the scene where the lover drowns she became so absorbed as not to notice that on a bench on the other side of a lilac bush Miss Messenger came and installed herself and her baby carriage in the shade of a near-by fan-shaped elm, bronze-green in its young leafage. Miss Nash looked up only when, her emotions having grown so poignant¹⁹, she could read no more. She was drying her eyes when, through the branches of the lilac, the flutter of a nurse's cape²⁰ told her that her friend must have arrived.
"Why, Etta!"
On going round the barrier she found herself greeted by what she had come to call Etta's fighting eyes. They were fine flashing black eyes, set in a face which Miss Nash was further accustomed to describe as "high-complexioned." Miss Messenger spoke²¹ listlessly, and yet as one who knew her mind.
[Pg 8]
"I saw you. I thought I wouldn't interrupt. I haven't very good news."
Miss Nash glided²² to a seat beside her friend, seizing both her hands. "Oh, my dear, he hasn't——?"
"That's just what he has." Etta nodded, drily. "Bring your baby round here and I'll tell you."
But Miss Nash couldn't wait. "He's all right there. He's sound asleep. I'll hear him if he stirs. Do tell me what's happened."
"Well, he simply says that if that's the way I feel perhaps we'd better call it off."
"And are you going to?"
Etta's eyes blazed with their black flames. "Call it off? Me? Not much, I won't."
"Still if he won't fix a date...."
"He'll jolly well fix a date—or meet me in the court."
"Oh, but, Etta, you wouldn't...."
"I don't say I would for choice. There are two or three other things I could do, and I think I'll try them first."
"What sort of things?"
In the answer to that question Miss Nash was even more absorbed than in Juliet Allingham's sin. Juliet Allingham was after all but a creature of the brain; whereas Etta Messenger's adventures might conceivably be her own. It was not merely some one else's love story that held her imagination in thrall²³; it was the possibility that one of these days she, Milly Nash, might have a man playing fast and loose with her heart's purest offering....

1 furrowed   

v.犁田，开沟( furrow的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• Overhead hung a summer sky furrowed with the rash of rockets. 头顶上的夏日夜空纵横着急疾而过的焰火。 来自辞典例句
• The car furrowed the loose sand as it crossed the desert. 车子横过沙漠，在松软的沙土上犁出了一道车辙。 来自辞典例句

2 relatively   

adv.比较...地，相对地

参考例句：

• The rabbit is a relatively recent introduction in Australia.兔子是相对较新引入澳大利亚的物种。
• The operation was relatively painless.手术相对来说不痛。

3 scant   

adj.不充分的，不足的；v.减缩，限制，忽略

参考例句：

• Don't scant the butter when you make a cake.做糕饼时不要吝惜奶油。
• Many mothers pay scant attention to their own needs when their children are small.孩子们小的时候，许多母亲都忽视自己的需求。

4 specialty   

n.(speciality)特性，特质；专业，专长

参考例句：

• Shell carvings are a specialty of the town.贝雕是该城的特产。
• His specialty is English literature.他的专业是英国文学。

5 distractions   

n.使人分心的事[人]( distraction的名词复数 )；娱乐，消遣；心烦意乱；精神错乱

参考例句：

• I find it hard to work at home because there are too many distractions. 我发觉在家里工作很难，因为使人分心的事太多。
• There are too many distractions here to work properly. 这里叫人分心的事太多，使人无法好好工作。 来自《简明英汉词典》

6 rosy   

adj.美好的，乐观的，玫瑰色的

参考例句：

• She got a new job and her life looks rosy.她找到一份新工作，生活看上去很美好。
• She always takes a rosy view of life.她总是对生活持乐观态度。

7 refinement   

n.文雅；高尚；精美；精制；精炼

参考例句：

• Sally is a woman of great refinement and beauty. 莎莉是个温文尔雅又很漂亮的女士。
• Good manners and correct speech are marks of refinement.彬彬有礼和谈吐得体是文雅的标志。

8 melancholic   

忧郁症患者

参考例句：

• A absurd tragedy accompany a melancholic song by the Tiger Lillies. 一出荒诞的悲剧，在泰戈莱利斯犹豫的歌声中缓缓上演。
• I have never heard her sing a melancholic song. 我从来没有听她唱过忧伤的曲子。

9 subdued   

adj. 屈服的，柔和的，减弱的 动词subdue的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• He seemed a bit subdued to me. 我觉得他当时有点闷闷不乐。
• I felt strangely subdued when it was all over. 一切都结束的时候，我却有一种奇怪的压抑感。

10 enraptured   

v.使狂喜( enrapture的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He was enraptured that she had smiled at him. 她对他的微笑使他心荡神驰。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• They were enraptured to meet the great singer. 他们和大名鼎鼎的歌手见面，欣喜若狂。 来自《简明英汉词典》

11 tug   

v.用力拖(或拉)；苦干；n.拖；苦干；拖船

参考例句：

• We need to tug the car round to the front.我们需要把那辆车拉到前面。
• The tug is towing three barges.那只拖船正拖着三只驳船。

12 chubby   

adj.丰满的，圆胖的

参考例句：

• He is stocky though not chubby.他长得敦实，可并不发胖。
• The short and chubby gentleman over there is our new director.那个既矮又胖的绅士是我们的新主任。

13 awesomely   

赫然

参考例句：

• The land is flat, and the views are awesomely extensive. 这里地势平坦，其视野之开阔令人敬畏。 来自互联网
• Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity. 让简单事情变复杂是平庸；让复杂事情变简单，惊人地简单，是创造力。 来自互联网

14 withdrawn   

vt.收回；使退出；vi.撤退，退出

参考例句：

• Our force has been withdrawn from the danger area.我们的军队已从危险地区撤出。
• All foreign troops should be withdrawn to their own countries.一切外国军队都应撤回本国去。

15 pang   

n.剧痛，悲痛，苦闷

参考例句：

• She experienced a sharp pang of disappointment.她经历了失望的巨大痛苦。
• She was beginning to know the pang of disappointed love.她开始尝到了失恋的痛苦。

16 judicially   

依法判决地，公平地

参考例句：

• Geoffrey approached the line of horses and glanced judicially down the row. 杰弗里走进那栏马，用审视的目的目光一匹接一匹地望去。
• Not all judicially created laws are based on statutory or constitutional interpretation. 并不是所有的司法机关创制的法都以是以成文法或宪法的解释为基础的。

17 grove   

n.林子，小树林，园林

参考例句：

• On top of the hill was a grove of tall trees.山顶上一片高大的树林。
• The scent of lemons filled the grove.柠檬香味充满了小树林。

18 mittened   

v.（使）变得潮湿，变得湿润( moisten的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He moistened his lips before he spoke. 他润了润嘴唇，接着就开始讲话。
• Although I moistened it,the flap doesn't stick to the envelope. 我把信封弄湿了，可是信封口盖还是粘不上。 来自《简明英汉词典》

19 poignant   

adj.令人痛苦的，辛酸的，惨痛的

参考例句：

• His lyrics are as acerbic and poignant as they ever have been.他的歌词一如既往的犀利辛辣。
• It is especially poignant that he died on the day before his wedding.他在婚礼前一天去世了，这尤其令人悲恸。

20 cape   

n.海角，岬；披肩，短披风

参考例句：

• I long for a trip to the Cape of Good Hope.我渴望到好望角去旅行。
• She was wearing a cape over her dress.她在外套上披着一件披肩。

21 spoke   

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

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

22 glided   

v.滑动( glide的过去式和过去分词 )；掠过；（鸟或飞机 ） 滑翔

参考例句：

• The President's motorcade glided by. 总统的车队一溜烟开了过去。
• They glided along the wall until they were out of sight. 他们沿着墙壁溜得无影无踪。 来自《简明英汉词典》

23 thrall   

n.奴隶；奴隶制

参考例句：

• He treats his wife like a thrall.他把妻子当作奴隶看待。
• He is not in thrall to the media.他不受制于媒体。