“She has come to stay,” Frances said.
“What?” cried Mariuccia, making the small monosyllable sound as if it were the biggest word in her vocabulary.
“She has come to stay. She is my sister; papa’s daughter as much as I am. She has come—home.” Frances was a little uncertain about the word, and it was only “a casa” that she said—“to the house,” which means the same.
Mariuccia threw up her arms in astonishment1. “Then there has been another signorina all the time!” she cried. “Figure to yourself that I have been with the padrone a dozen years, and I never heard of her before.”
“Papa does not talk very much about his concerns,” said Frances in her faithfulness. “And what we have got to do is to make her{v1-121} very comfortable. She is very pretty, don’t you think? Such beautiful blond hair—and tall. I never shall be tall, I fear. They say she is like papa; but, as is natural, she is much more beautiful than papa.”
“Beauty is as you find it,” said Mariuccia. “Carina, no one will ever be so pretty as our own signorina to Domenico and me.—What is the child doing? She is pulling the things off her own bed.—My angel, you have lost your good sense. You are fluttered and upset by this new arrival. The blue room will be very good for the new young lady. Perhaps she will not stay very long?”
The wish was father to the thought. But Frances took no notice of the suggestion. She said briskly, going on with what she was doing, “She must have my room, Mariuccia. The blue room is quite nice; it will do very well for me; but I should like her to feel at home, not to think our house was bare and cold. The blue room would be rather naked, if we were to put her there to-night. It will not be naked for me, for, of course, I am used to it all, and know everything. But when Constance{v1-122} wakes to-morrow morning and looks round her, and wonders where she is—oh, how strange it all seems!—I wish her to open her eyes upon things that are pretty, and to say to herself, ‘What a delightful2 house papa has! What a nice room! I feel as if I had been here all my life.’”
“Constanza—is that her name? It is rather a common name—not distinguished3, like our signorina’s. But it is very good for her, I have no doubt. And so you will give her your own room, that she may be fond of the house, and stay and supplant4 you? That is what will happen. The good one, the one of gold, gets pushed out of the way. I would not give her my room to make her love the house.”
“I think you would, Mariuccia.”
“No; I do not think so,” said Mariuccia, squaring herself with one arm akimbo. “No; I do not deny that I would probably take some new things into the blue room, and put up curtains. But I am older than you are, and I have more sense. I would not do it. If she gets your room, she will get your place; and she will please everybody, and be admired, and my angel will be put out of the way.{v1-123}”
“I am such a horrid5 little wretch,” said Frances, “that I thought of that too. It was mean, oh, so mean of me. She is prettier than I am, and taller; and—yes, of course, she must be older too, so you see it is her right.”
“Is she the eldest6?” asked Mariuccia.
Frances made a puzzled pause; but she would not let the woman divine that she did not know. “Oh yes; she must be the eldest.—Come quick, Mariuccia; take all these things to the blue room; and now for your clean linen7 and everything that is nice and sweet.”
Mariuccia did what she was told, but with many objections. She carried on a running murmur8 of protest all the time. “When there are changes in a family; when it is by the visitation of God, that is another matter. A son or a daughter who is in trouble, who has no other refuge; that is natural; there is nothing to say. But to remain away during a dozen years, and then to come back at a moment’s notice—nay, without even a moment’s notice—in the evening, when all the beds are made up, and demand everything that is comfortable.—I have always thought that there was a great deal{v1-124} to be said for the poor young signorino of whom the priest speaks, he who had always stayed at home when his brother was amusing himself. Carina, you know what I mean.”
“I have thought of that too,” said Frances. “But my sister is not a prodigal9; and papa has never done anything for her. It is all quite different. When we know each other better, it will be delightful always to have a companion, Mariuccia—think how pleasant it will be always to have a companion. I wonder if she will like my pictures?—Now, don’t you think the room looks very pretty? I always thought it was a pretty room. Leave the persiani open that she may see the sea; and in the morning don’t forget to come in and close them before the sun gets hot.—I think that will do now.”
“Indeed I hope it will do—after all the trouble you have taken. And I hope the young lady is worthy10 of it.—But, my angel, what shall I do when I come in to wake her? Does she expect that I can talk her language to her? No, no. And she will know nothing; she will not even be able to say ‘Good morning.’”
“I hope so. But if not, you must call me{v1-125} first, that is all,” said Frances cheerfully.—“Now, don’t go to bed just yet; perhaps she will like something—some tea; or perhaps a little supper; or—— I never asked if she had dined.”
Mariuccia regarded this possibility with equanimity11. She was not afraid of a girl’s appetite. But she made a grimace12 at the mention of the tea. “It is good when one has a cold; oh yes,” she said; “but to drink it at all times, as you do! If she wants anything it will be a great deal better to give her a sirop, or a little red wine.”
Frances detained Mariuccia as long as she could, and lingered herself still longer after all was ready in the room. She did not know how to go back to the drawing-room, where she had left these two together, to say to each other, no doubt, many things that could be better said in her absence. There was no jealousy13, only delicacy14, in this; and she had given up her pretty room to her sister, and carried her indispensable belongings15 to the bare one, with the purest pleasure in making Constance comfortable. Constance! whom an hour ago she had{v1-126} never heard of, and who now was one of them, nearer to her than anybody, except her father. But all this being done, she had the strangest difficulty in going back, in thrusting herself, as imagination said, between them, and interrupting their talk. To think that it should be such a tremendous matter to return to that familiar room in which the greater part of her life had been passed! It felt like another world into which she was about to enter, full of unknown elements and conditions which she did not understand. She had not known what it was to be shy in the very limited society she had ever known; but she was shy now, feeling as if she had not courage to put her hand upon the handle of the door. The familiar creak and jar of it as it opened seemed to her like noisy instruments announcing her approach, which stopped the conversation, as she had divined, and made her father and her sister look up with a little start. Frances could have wished to sink through the floor, to get rid of her own being altogether, as she saw them both give this slight start. Constance was leaning upon the table, the light of the lamp shining full{v1-127} upon her face, with the air of being in the midst of an animated16 narrative17, which she stopped when Frances entered; and Mr Waring had been listening with a smile. He turned half round and held out his hand to the timid girl behind him. “Come, Frances,” he said, “you have been a long time making your preparations. Have you been bringing out the fairest robe for your sister?” It was odd how the parable—which had no signification in their circumstances—haunted them all.
“Your room is quite ready whenever you please. And would you like tea or anything? I ought to have asked if you had dined,” Frances said.
“Is she the housekeeper18?—How odd!—Do you look after everything?—Dear me! I am afraid, in that case, I shall make a very poor substitute for Frances, papa.”
“It is not necessary to think of that,” he said hastily, giving her a quick glance.
Frances saw it, with another involuntary, quickly suppressed pang19. Of course there would be things that Constance must be warned not to say. And yet it felt as if papa had{v1-128} deserted20 her and gone over to the other side. She had not the remotest conception what the warning referred to, or what Constance meant.
“I dined at the hotel,” Constance went on, “with those people whom I travelled with. I suppose you will have to call and be civil. They were quite delighted to think that they would know somebody at Bordighera—some of the inhabitants.—Yes, tea, if you please. And then I think I shall go to bed; for twenty-four hours in the train is very fatiguing21, besides the excitement. Don’t you think Frances is very much like mamma? There is a little way she has of setting her chin.—Look there! That is mamma all over. I think they would get on together very well: indeed I feel sure of it.” And again there was a significant look exchanged, which once more went like a sting to Frances’ heart.
“Your sister has been telling me,” said Mr Waring, with a little hesitation22, “of a great many people I used to know. You must be very much surprised, my dear; but I will take an opportunity——” He was confused before her, as if he had been before a judge. He gave{v1-129} her a look which was half shame and half gratitude23, sentiments both entirely24 out of place between him and Frances. She could not bear that he should look at her so.
“Yes, papa,” she said as easily as she could; “I know you must have a great deal to talk of. If Constance will give me her keys I will unpack25 her things for her.” Both the girls instinctively26, oddly, addressed each other through their father, the only link between them, hesitating a little at the familiarity which nature made necessary, but which had no other warrant.
“Oh, isn’t there a maid who can do it?” Constance cried, opening her eyes.
The evening seemed long to Frances, though it was not long. Constance trifled over the tea—which Mariuccia made with much reluctance—for half an hour. But she talked all the time; and as her talk was of people Frances had never heard of, and was mingled27 with little allusions28 to what had passed before,—“I told you about him;” “You remember, we were talking of them;” with a constant recurrence29 of names which to Frances meant nothing at all,—it seemed long to her.{v1-130}
She sat down at the table, and took her knitting, and listened, and tried to look as if she took an interest. She did indeed take a great interest; no one could have been more eager to enter without arrière-pensée into the new life thus unfolded before her; and sometimes she was amused and could laugh at the stories Constance was telling; but her chief feeling was that sense of being entirely “out of it”—having nothing to do with it—which makes people who do not understand society feel like so many ghosts standing30 on the margin31, knowing nothing. The feeling was strange and very forlorn. It is an unpleasant experience even for those who are strangers, to whom it is a passing incident; but as the speaker was her sister and the listener her father, Frances felt this more deeply still. Generally in the evening conversation flagged between them. He would have his book, and Frances sometimes had a book too, or a drawing upon which she could work, or at least her knitting. She had felt that the silence which reigned32 in the room on such occasions was not what ought to be.{v1-131} It was not like the talk which was supposed to go on in all the novels she had ever read where the people were nice. And sometimes she attempted to entertain her father with little incidents in the life of their poor neighbours, or things which Mariuccia had told her; but he listened benevolently33, with his finger between the leaves of his book, or even without closing his book, looking up at her over the leaves—only out of kindness to her, not because he was interested; and then silence would fall on them, a silence which was very sweet to Frances, in the midst of which her own little stream of thoughts flowed on continuously, but which now and then she was struck to the heart to think must be very dull for papa.
But to-night it was not dull for him. She listened, and said to herself this was the way to make conversation; and laughed whenever she could, and followed every little gesture of her sister’s with admiring eyes. But at the end, Frances, though she would not acknowledge it to herself, felt that she had not been amused. She thought the people in the village were just{v1-132} as interesting. But then she was not so clever as Constance, and could not do them justice in the same way.
“And now I am going to bed,” Constance said. She rose up in an instant with a rapid movement, as if the thought had only just struck her and she obeyed the impulse at once. There was a freedom about all her movements which troubled and captivated Frances. She had been leaning half over the table, her sleeves, which were a little wide, falling back from her arms, now leaning her chin in the hollow of one hand, now supporting it with both, putting her elbows wherever she pleased. Frances herself had been trained by Mariuccia to very great decorum in respect to attitudes. If she did furtively34 now and then lean an elbow upon the table, she was aware that it was wrong all the time; and as for legs, she knew it was only men who were permitted to cross them, or to do anything save sit with two feet equal to each other upon the floor. But Constance cared for none of these rules. She rose up abruptly35 (Mariuccia would have said, as if something had stung her),{v1-133} almost before she had finished what she was saying. “Show me my room, please,” she said, and yawned. She yawned quite freely, naturally, without any attempt to conceal36 or to apologise for it as if it had been an accident. Frances could not help being shocked, yet neither could she help laughing with a sort of pleasure in this breach37 of all rules. But Constance only stared, and did not in the least understand why she should laugh.
“Where have you put your sister?” Mr Waring asked.
“I have put her—in the room next to yours, papa; between your room and mine, you know: for I am in the blue room now. There she will not feel strange; she will have people on each side.”
“That is to say, you have given her——”
It was Frances’ turn now to give a warning glance. “The room I thought she would like best,” she said, with a soft but decisive tone. She too had a little imperious way of her own. It was so soft, that a stranger would not have found it out; but in the Palazzo they were all acquainted with it, and no one—not even{v1-134} Mariuccia—found it possible to say a word after this small trumpet38 had sounded. Mr Waring accordingly was silenced, and made no further remark. He went with his daughters to the door, and kissed the cheek which Constance held lightly to him. “I shall see you again, papa,” Frances said, in that same little determined39 voice.
Mr Waring did not make any reply, but shrank a little aside, to let her pass. He looked like a man who was afraid. She had spared him; she had not betrayed the ignorance in which he had brought her up; but now the moment of reckoning was near, and he was afraid of Frances. He went back into the salone, and walked up and down with a restlessness which was natural enough, considering how all the embers of his life had been raked up by this unexpected event. He had lived in absolute quiet for fourteen long years: a strange life—a life which might have been supposed to be impossible for a man still in the heyday40 of his strength; but yet, as it appeared, a life which suited him, which he preferred to others more natural. To settle{v1-135} down in an Italian village with a little girl of six for his sole companion—when he came to think of it, nothing could be more unnatural41, more extraordinary; and yet he had liked it well enough, as well as he could have liked anything at that crisis of his fate. He was the kind of man who, in other circumstances, in another age, would have made himself a monk42, and spent his existence very placidly43 in illuminating44 manuscripts. He had done something as near this as is possible to an Englishman not a Roman Catholic, of the nineteenth century. Unfortunately, Waring had no ecclesiastical tendencies, or even in the nineteenth century he might have found out for himself some pseudo-monkery in which he could have been happy. As it was, he had retired45 with his little girl, and on the whole had been comfortable enough. But now the little girl had grown up, and required to have various things accounted for; and the other individuals who had claims upon him, whom he thought he had shaken off altogether, had turned up again, and had to be dealt with. The monk had an easy time of it in com{v1-136}parison. He who has but himself to think of may manage himself, if he has good luck; but the responsibility of others on your shoulders is a terrible drawback to tranquillity47. A little girl! That seemed the simplest of all things. It had never occurred to him that she would form a link by which all his former burdens might be drawn48 back; or that she, more wonderful still, should ever arise and demand to know why. But both of these impossible things had happened.
Waring walked about the salone. He opened the glass door and stepped out into the loggia, into the tranquil46 shining of the moon, which lit up all the blues49 of the sea, and kindled50 little silver lamps all over the quivering palms. How quiet it was! and yet that tranquil nature lying unmoved, taking whatever came of good or evil, did harm in a far more colossal51 way than any man could do. The sea, then looking so mild, would suddenly rise up and bring havoc52 and destruction worse than an army; yet next day smile again, and throw its spray into the faces of the children, and lie like a harmless thing under the light. But a man{v1-137} could not do this. A man had to give an account of all that he had done, whether it was good or whether it was evil,—if not to God—which on the whole was the easiest, for God knew all about it, how little harm had been intended, how little anything had been intended, how one mistake involved another,—if not to God—why, to some one harder to face; perhaps to one’s little girl.
He came back from the loggia and the moonlight and nature, which, all of them, were so indifferent to what was happening to him, with a feeling that the imperfect human lamp which so easily got out of gear—as easily as a man—was a more appropriate light for his disturbed soul; and met Frances with her brown eyes waiting for him at the door.
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1
astonishment
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| n.惊奇，惊异 | |
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delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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3
distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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4
supplant
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| vt.排挤；取代 | |
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horrid
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| adj.可怕的；令人惊恐的；恐怖的；极讨厌的 | |
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6
eldest
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| adj.最年长的，最年老的 | |
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7
linen
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| n.亚麻布，亚麻线，亚麻制品；adj.亚麻布制的，亚麻的 | |
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8
murmur
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| n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言 | |
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9
prodigal
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| adj.浪费的，挥霍的，放荡的 | |
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10
worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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11
equanimity
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| n.沉着，镇定 | |
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grimace
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| v.做鬼脸，面部歪扭 | |
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jealousy
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| n.妒忌，嫉妒，猜忌 | |
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14
delicacy
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| n.精致，细微，微妙，精良；美味，佳肴 | |
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15
belongings
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| n.私人物品，私人财物 | |
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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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narrative
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| n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的 | |
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housekeeper
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| n.管理家务的主妇，女管家 | |
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pang
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| n.剧痛，悲痛，苦闷 | |
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deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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fatiguing
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| a.使人劳累的 | |
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hesitation
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| n.犹豫，踌躇 | |
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gratitude
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| adj.感激，感谢 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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25
unpack
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| vt.打开包裹（或行李），卸货 | |
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instinctively
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| adv.本能地 | |
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27
mingled
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| 混合，混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 )； 混进，与…交往[联系] | |
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28
allusions
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| 暗指，间接提到( allusion的名词复数 ) | |
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recurrence
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| n.复发，反复，重现 | |
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30
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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margin
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| n.页边空白；差额；余地，余裕；边，边缘 | |
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32
reigned
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| vi.当政，统治（reign的过去式形式） | |
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33
benevolently
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| adv.仁慈地，行善地 | |
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34
furtively
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| adv. 偷偷地, 暗中地 | |
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35
abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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36
conceal
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，隐蔽 | |
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breach
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| n.违反，不履行；破裂；vt.冲破，攻破 | |
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trumpet
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| n.喇叭，喇叭声；v.吹喇叭，吹嘘 | |
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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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heyday
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| n.全盛时期，青春期 | |
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unnatural
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| adj.不自然的；反常的 | |
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42
monk
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| n.和尚，僧侣，修道士 | |
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43
placidly
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| adv.平稳地，平静地 | |
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44
illuminating
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| a.富于启发性的，有助阐明的 | |
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45
retired
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| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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46
tranquil
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| adj. 安静的, 宁静的, 稳定的, 不变的 | |
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47
tranquillity
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| n. 平静, 安静 | |
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48
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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49
blues
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| n.抑郁，沮丧；布鲁斯音乐 | |
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50
kindled
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| （使某物）燃烧，着火( kindle的过去式和过去分词 )； 激起（感情等）； 发亮，放光 | |
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51
colossal
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| adj.异常的，庞大的 | |
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52
havoc
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| n.大破坏，浩劫，大混乱，大杂乱 | |
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