The musings of this dreamer in a tree-top were interrupted by the peremptory2 notes of a tin horn from the farmhouse3 below. The boy recognized this not only as a signal of declining day and the withdrawal4 of the sun behind the mountains, but as a personal and urgent notification to him that a certain amount of disenchanting drudgery5 called chores lay between him and supper and the lamp-illumined pages of The Last of the Mohicans. It was difficult, even in his own estimation, to continue to be a hero at the summons of a tin horn--a silver clarion6 and castle walls would have been so different--and Phil slid swiftly down from his perch7, envying the squirrels who were under no such bondage8 of duty.
Recalled to the world that now is, the lad hastily gathered a bouquet9 of columbine and a bunch of the tender leaves and the red berries of the wintergreen, called to "Turk," who had been all these hours watching a woodchuck hole, and ran down the hill by leaps and circuits as fast as his little legs could carry him, and, with every appearance of a lad who puts duty before pleasure, arrived breathless at the kitchen door, where Alice stood waiting for him. Alice, the somewhat feeble performer on the horn, who had been watching for the boy with her hand shading her eyes, called out upon his approach:
"Why, Phil, what in the world--"
"Oh, Alice!" cried the boy, eagerly, having in a moment changed in his mind the destination of the flowers; "I've found a place where the checker-berries are thick as spatter." And Phil put the flowers and the berries in his cousin's hand. Alice looked very much pleased with this simple tribute, but, as she admired it, unfortunately asked--women always ask such questions:
"And you picked them for me?"
This was a cruel dilemma11. Phil was more devoted12 to his sweet cousin than to any one else in the world, and he didn't want to hurt her feelings, and he hated to tell a lie. So he only looked a lie, out of his affectionate, truthful13 eyes, and said:
"I love to bring you flowers. Has uncle come home yet?"
"Yes, long ago. He called and looked all around for you to unharness the horse, and he wanted you to go an errand over the river to Gibson's. I guess he was put out."
"Did he say anything?"
"He asked if you had weeded the beets14. And he said that you were the master boy to dream and moon around he ever saw." And she added, with a confidential15 and mischievous16 smile: "I think you'd better brought a switch along; it would save time."
Phil had a great respect for his uncle Maitland, but he feared him almost more than he feared the remote God of Abraham and Isaac. Mr. Maitland was not only the most prosperous man in all that region, but the man of the finest appearance, and a bearing that was equity17 itself. He was the first selectman of the town, and a deacon in the church, and however much he prized mercy in the next world he did not intend to have that quality interfere18 with justice in this world. Phil knew indeed that he was a man of God, that fact was impressed upon him at least twice a day, but he sometimes used to think it must be a severe God to have that sort of man. And he didn't like the curt19 way he pronounced the holy name--he might as well have called Job "job."
Alice was as unlike her father, except in certain race qualities of integrity and common-sense, as if she were of different blood. She was the youngest of five maiden20 sisters, and had arrived at the mature age of eighteen. Slender in figure, with a grace that was half shyness, soft brown hair, gray eyes that changed color and could as easily be sad as merry, a face marked with a moving dimple that every one said was lovely, retiring in manner and yet not lacking spirit nor a sly wit of her own. Now and then, yes, very often, out of some paradise, no doubt, strays into New England conditions of reticence22 and self-denial such a sweet spirit, to diffuse23 a breath of heaven in its atmosphere, and to wither24 like a rose ungathered. These are the New England nuns25, not taking any vows27, not self-consciously virtuous28, apparently29 untouched by the vanities of the world. Marriage? It is not in any girl's nature not to think of that, not to be in a flutter of pleasure or apprehension30 at the attentions of the other sex. Who has been able truly to read the thoughts of a shrinking maiden in the passing days of her youth and beauty? In this harmonious31 and unselfish household, each with decided32 individual character, no one ever intruded33 upon the inner life of the other. No confidences were given in the deep matters of the heart, no sign except a blush over a sly allusion34 to some one who had been "attentive35." If you had stolen a look into the workbasket or the secret bureau-drawer, you might have found a treasured note, a bit of ribbon, a rosebud36, some token of tenderness or of friendship that was growing old with the priestess who cherished it. Did they not love flowers, and pets, and had they not a passion for children? Were there not moonlight evenings when they sat silent and musing1 on the stone steps, watching the shadows and the dancing gleams on the swift river, when the air was fragrant37 with the pink and the lilac? Not melancholy38 this, nor poignantly39 sad, but having in it nevertheless something of the pathos40 of life unfulfilled. And was there not sometimes, not yet habitually41, coming upon these faces, faces plain and faces attractive, the shade of renunciation?
Phil loved Alice devotedly42. She was his confidante, his defender43, but he feared more the disapproval44 of her sweet eyes when he had done wrong than the threatened punishment of his uncle.
"I only meant to be gone just a little while," Phil went on to say.
"And you were away the whole afternoon. It is a pity the days are so short. And you don't know what you lost."
"No great, I guess."
"Celia and her mother were here. They stayed all the afternoon."
"Celia Howard? Did she wonder where I was?"
"I don't know. She didn't say anything about it. What a dear little thing she is!"
"And she can say pretty cutting things."
"Oh, can she? Perhaps you'd better run down to the village before dark and take her these flowers."
"I'm not going. I'd rather you should have the flowers." And Phil spoke45 the truth this time.
Celia, who was altogether too young to occupy seriously the mind of a lad of twelve, had nevertheless gained an ascendancy46 over him because of her willful, perverse47, and sometimes scornful ways, and because she was different from the other girls of the school. She had read many more books than Phil, for she had access to a library, and she could tell him much of a world that he only heard of through books and newspapers, which latter he had no habit of reading. He liked, therefore, to be with Celia, not withstanding her little airs of superiority, and if she patronized him, as she certainly did, probably the simple-minded young gentleman, who was unconsciously bred in the belief that he and his own kin21 had no superiors anywhere, never noticed it. To be sure they quarreled a good deal, but truth to say Phil was never more fascinated with the little witch, whom he felt himself strong enough to protect, than when she showed a pretty temper. He rather liked to be ordered about by the little tyrant49. And sometimes he wished that Murad Ault, the big boy of the school, would be rude to the small damsel, so that he could show her how a knight50 would act under such circumstances. Murad Ault stood to Phil for the satanic element in his peaceful world. He was not only big and strong of limb and broad of chest, but he was very swarthy, and had closely curled black hair. He feared nothing, not even the teacher, and was always doing some dare-devil thing to frighten the children. And because he was dark, morose51, and made no friends, and wished none, but went solitary52 his own dark way, Phil fancied that he must have Spanish blood in his veins53, and would no doubt grow up to be a pirate. No other boy in the winter could skate like Murad Ault, with such strength and grace and recklessness--thin ice and thick ice were all one to him, but he skated along, dashing in and out, and sweeping54 away up and down the river in a whirl of vigor55 and daring, like a black marauder. Yet he was best and most awesome56 in the swimming pond in summer--though it was believed that he dared go in in the bitter winter, either by breaking the ice or through an air-hole, and there was a story that he had ventured under the ice as fearless as a cold fish. No one could dive from such a height as he, or stay so long under water; he liked to stay under long enough to scare the spectators, and then appear at a distance, thrashing about in the water as if he were rescuing himself from drowning, sputtering57 out at the same time the most diabolical58 noises--curses, no doubt, for he had been heard to swear. But as he skated alone he swam alone, appearing and disappearing at the swimming-place silently, with never a salutation to any one. And he was as skillful a fisher as he was a swimmer. No one knew much about him. He lived with his mother in a little cabin up among the hills, that had about it scant59 patches of potatoes and corn and beans, a garden fenced in by stumproots, as ill-cared for as the shanty60. Where they came from no one knew. How they lived was a matter of conjecture61, though the mother gathered herbs and berries and bartered62 them at the village store, and Murad occasionally took a hand in some neighbor's hay-field, or got a job of chopping wood in the winter. The mother was old and small and withered63, and they said evil-eyed. Probably she was no more evil-eyed than any old woman who had such a hard struggle for existence as she had. An old widow with an only son who looked like a Spaniard and acted like an imp10! Here was another sort of exotic in the New England life.
Celia had been brought to Rivervale by her mother about a year before this time, and the two occupied a neat little cottage in the village, distinguished64 only by its neatness and a plot of syringas, and pinks, and marigolds, and roses, and bachelor's-buttons, and boxes of the tough little exotics, called "hen-and-chickens," in the door-yard, and a vigorous fragrant honeysuckle over the front porch. She only dimly remembered her father, who had been a merchant in a small way in the city, and dying left to his widow and only child a very moderate fortune. The girl showed early an active and ingenious mind, and an equal love for books and for having her own way; but she was delicate, and Mrs. Howard wisely judged that a few years in a country village would improve her health and broaden her view of life beyond that of cockney provincialism. For, though Mrs. Howard had more refinement65 than strength of mind, and passed generally for a sweet and inoffensive little woman, she did not lack a certain true perception of values, due doubtless to the fact that she had been a New England girl, and, before her marriage and emigration to the great city, had passed her life among unexciting realities, and among people who had leisure to think out things in a slow way. But the girl's energy and self-confidence had no doubt been acquired from her father, who was cut off in mid-career of his struggle for place in the metropolis66, or from some remote ancestor. Before she was eleven years old her mother had listened with some wonder and more apprehension to the eager forecast of what this child intended to do when she became a woman, and already shrank from a vision of Celia on a public platform, or the leader of some metempsychosis club. Through her affections only was the child manageable, but in opposition67 to her spirit her mother was practically powerless. Indeed, this little sprout68 of the New Age always spoke of her to Philip and to the Maitlands as "little mother."
The epithet69 seemed peculiarly tender to Philip, who had lost his father before he was six years old, and he was more attracted to the timid and gentle little widow than to his equable but more robust71 Aunt Eusebia, Mrs. Maitland, his father's elder sister, whom Philip fancied not a bit like his father except in sincerity72, a quality common to the Maitlands and Burnetts. Yet there was a family likeness73 between his aunt and a portrait of his father, painted by a Boston artist of some celebrity74, which his mother, who survived her husband only three years, had saved for her boy. His father was a farmer, but a man of considerable cultivation75, though not college-bred--his last request on his death-bed was that Phil should be sent to college--a man who made experiments in improving agriculture and the breed of cattle and horses, read papers now and then on topics of social and political reform, and was the only farmer in all the hill towns who had what might be called a library.
It was all scattered77 at the time of the winding78 up of the farm estate, and the only jetsam that Philip inherited out of it was an annotated79 copy of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, Young's Travels in France, a copy of The Newcomes, and the first American edition of Childe Harold. Probably these odd volumes had not been considered worth any considerable bid at the auction80. From his mother, who was fond of books, and had on more than one occasion, of the failure of teachers, taught in the village school in her native town before her marriage, Philip inherited his love of poetry, and he well remembered how she used to try to inspire him with patriotism81 by reading the orations82 of Daniel Webster (she was very fond of orations), and telling him war stories about Grant and Sherman and Sheridan and Farragut and Lincoln. He distinctly remembered also standing48 at her knees and trying, at intervals83, to commit to memory the Rime76 of the Ancient Mariner84. He had learned it all since, because he thought it would please his mother, and because there was something in it that appealed to his coming sense of the mystery of life. When he repeated it to Celia, who had never heard of it, and remarked that it was all made up, and that she never tried to learn a long thing like that that wasn't so, Philip could see that her respect for him increased a little. He did not know that the child got it out of the library the next day and never rested till she knew it by heart. Philip could repeat also the books of the Bible in order, just as glibly85 as the multiplication-table, and the little minx, who could not brook86 that a country boy should be superior to her in anything, had surprised her mother by rattling87 them all off to her one Sunday evening, just as if she had been born in New England instead of in New York. As to the other fine things his mother read him, out of Ruskin and the like; Philip chiefly remembered what a pretty glow there was in his mother's face when she read them, and that recollection was a valuable part of the boy's education.
Another valuable part of his education was the gracious influence in his aunt's household, the spirit of candor88, of affection, and the sane89 common-sense with which life was regarded, the simplicity90 of its faith and the patience with which trials were borne. The lessons he learned in it had more practical influence in his life than all the books he read. Nor were his opportunities for the study of character so meagre as the limit of one family would imply. As often happens in New England households, individualities were very marked, and from his stern uncle and his placid91 aunt down to the sweet and nimble-witted Alice, the family had developed traits and even eccentricities92 enough to make it a sort of microcosm of life. There, for instance, was Patience, the maiden aunt, his father's sister, the news-monger of the fireside, whose powers of ratiocination93 first gave Philip the Greek idea and method of reasoning to a point and arriving at truth by the process of exclusion94. It did not excite his wonder at the time, but afterwards it appeared to him as one of the New England eccentricities of which the novelists make so much. Patience was a home-keeping body and rarely left the premises95 except to go to church on Sunday, although her cheerfulness and social helpfulness were tinged96 by nothing morbid97. The story was--Philip learned it long afterwards--that in her very young and frisky98 days Patience had one evening remained out at some merry-making very late, and in fact had been escorted home in the moonlight by a young gentleman when the tall, awful-faced clock, whose face her mother was watching, was on the dreadful stroke of eleven. For this delinquency her mother had reproved her, the girl thought unreasonably99, and she had quickly replied, "Mother, I will never go out again." And she never did. It was in fact a renunciation of the world, made apparently without rage, and adhered to with cheerful obstinacy100.
But although for many years Patience rarely left her home, until the habit of seclusion101 had become as fixed102 as that of a nun26 who had taken the vows, no one knew so well as she the news and gossip of the neighborhood, and her power of learning or divining it seemed to increase with her years. She had a habit of sitting, when her household duties permitted, at a front window, which commanded a long view of the river road, and gathering103 the news by a process peculiar70 to herself. From this peep-hole she studied the character and destination of all the passers-by that came within range of her vision, and made her comments and deductions104, partly to herself, but for the benefit of those who might be listening.
"Why, there goes Thomas Henry," she would say (she always called people by their first and middle names). "Now, wherever can he be going this morning in the very midst of getting in his hay? He can't be going to the Browns' for vegetables, for they set great store by their own raising this year; and they don't get their provisions up this way either, because Mary Ellen quarreled with Simmons's people last year. No!" she would exclaim, rising to a climax105 of certainty on this point, "I'll be bound he is not going after anything in the eating line!"
Meantime Thomas Henry's wagon106 would be disappearing slowly up the sandy road, giving Patience a chance to get all she could out of it, by eliminating all the errands Thomas Henry could not possibly be going to do in order to arrive at the one he must certainly be bound on.
"They do say he's courting Eliza Merritt," she continued, "but Eliza never was a girl to make any man leave his haying. No, he's never going to see Eliza, and if it isn't provisions or love it's nothing short of sickness. Now, whoever is sick down there? It can't be Mary Ellen, because she takes after her father's family and they are all hearty107. It must be Mary Ellen's little girls, and the measles108 are going the rounds. It must be they've all got the measles."
If the listeners suggested that possibly one of the little girls might have escaped, the suggestion was decisively put aside.
"No; if one of them had been well, Mary Ellen would have sent her for the doctor."
Presently Thomas Henry's cart was heard rumbling109 back, and sure enough he was returning with the doctor, and Patience hailed him from the gate and demanded news of Mary Ellen.
"Why, all her little girls have the measles," replied Thomas Henry, "and I had to leave my haying to fetch the doctor."
"I want to know," said Patience.
Being the eldest110 born, Patience had appropriated to herself two rooms in the rambling111 old farmhouse before her brother's marriage, from which later comers had never dislodged her, and with that innate112 respect for the rights and peculiarities113 of others which was common in the household, she was left to express her secluded114 life in her own way. As the habit of retirement115 grew upon her she created a world of her own, almost as curious and more individually striking than the museum of Cluny. There was not a square foot in her tiny apartment that did not exhibit her handiwork. She was very fond of reading, and had a passion for the little prints and engravings of "foreign views," which she wove into her realm of natural history. There was no flower or leaf or fruit that she had seen that she could not imitate exactly in wax or paper. All over the walls hung the little prints and engravings, framed in wreaths of moss116 and artificial flowers, or in elaborate square frames made of pasteboard. The pasteboard was cut out to fit the picture, and the margins117, daubed with paste, were then strewn with seeds of corn and acorns118 and hazelnuts, and then the whole was gilded119 so that the effect was almost as rich as it was novel. All about the rooms, in nooks and on tables, stood baskets and dishes of fruit-apples and plums and peaches and grapes-set in proper foliage120 of most natural appearance, like enough to deceive a bird or the Sunday-school scholars, when on rare occasions they were admitted into this holy of holies. Out of boxes, apparently filled with earth in the corners of the rooms, grew what seemed to be vines trained to run all about the cornices and to festoon the pictures, but which were really strings121, colored in imitation of the real vine, and spreading out into paper foliage. To complete the naturalistic character of these everlasting123 vines, which no scale-bugs could assail124, there were bunches of wonderful grapes depending here and there to excite the cupidity125 of both bird and child. There was no cruelty in the nature of Patience, and she made prisoners of neither birds nor squirrels, but cunning cages here and there held most lifelike counterfeits126 of their willing captives. There was nothing in the room that was alive, except the dainty owner, but it seemed to be a museum of natural history. The rugs on the floor were of her own devising and sewing together, and rivaled in color and ingenuity127 those of Bokhara.
But Patience was a student of the heavens as well as of the earth, and it was upon the ceiling that her imagination expanded. There one could see in their order the constellations128 of the heavens, represented by paper-gilt129 stars, of all magnitudes, most wonderful to behold130. This part of her decorations was the most difficult of all. The constellations were not made from any geography of the heavens, but from actual nightly observation of the positions of the heavenly bodies. Patience confessed that the getting exactly right of the Great Dipper had caused her most trouble. On the night that was constructed she sat up till three o'clock in the morning, going out and studying it and coming in and putting up one star at a time. How could she reach the high ceiling? Oh, she took a bean-pole, stuck the gilt star on the end of it, having paste on the reverse side, and fixed it in its place. That was easy, only it was difficult to remember when she came into the house the correct positions of the stars in the heavens. What the astronomer131 and the botanist132 and the naturalist122 would have said of this little kingdom is unknown, but Patience herself lived among the glories of the heavens and the beauties of the earth which she had created. Probably she may have had a humorous conception of this, for she was not lacking in a sense of humor. The stone step that led to her private door she had skillfully painted with faint brown spots, so that when visitors made their exit from this part of the house they would say, "Why, it rains!" but Patience would laugh and say, "I guess it is over by now."
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musing
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| n. 沉思，冥想 adj. 沉思的, 冥想的 动词muse的现在分词形式 | |
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peremptory
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| adj.紧急的，专横的，断然的 | |
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farmhouse
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| n.农场住宅（尤指主要住房） | |
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withdrawal
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| n.取回，提款；撤退，撤军；收回，撤销 | |
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drudgery
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| n.苦工，重活，单调乏味的工作 | |
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clarion
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| n.尖音小号声；尖音小号 | |
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perch
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| n.栖木，高位，杆；v.栖息，就位，位于 | |
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bondage
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| n.奴役，束缚 | |
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bouquet
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| n.花束，酒香 | |
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imp
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| n.顽童 | |
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dilemma
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| n.困境，进退两难的局面 | |
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devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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truthful
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| adj.真实的，说实话的，诚实的 | |
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beets
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| 甜菜( beet的名词复数 )； 甜菜根； （因愤怒、难堪或觉得热而）脸红 | |
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confidential
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| adj.秘（机）密的，表示信任的，担任机密工作的 | |
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mischievous
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| adj.调皮的，恶作剧的，有害的，伤人的 | |
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equity
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| n.公正，公平，（无固定利息的）股票 | |
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interfere
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| v.(in)干涉，干预；(with)妨碍，打扰 | |
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curt
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| adj.简短的，草率的 | |
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maiden
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| n.少女，处女；adj.未婚的，纯洁的，无经验的 | |
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kin
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| n.家族，亲属，血缘关系；adj.亲属关系的，同类的 | |
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reticence
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| n.沉默，含蓄 | |
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diffuse
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| v.扩散；传播；adj.冗长的；四散的，弥漫的 | |
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wither
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| vt.使凋谢，使衰退，(用眼神气势等)使畏缩；vi.枯萎，衰退，消亡 | |
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nuns
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| n.（通常指基督教的）修女， （佛教的）尼姑( nun的名词复数 ) | |
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nun
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| n.修女，尼姑 | |
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vows
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| 誓言( vow的名词复数 )； 郑重宣布，许愿 | |
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virtuous
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| adj.有品德的，善良的，贞洁的，有效力的 | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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apprehension
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| n.理解，领悟；逮捕，拘捕；忧虑 | |
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harmonious
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| adj.和睦的，调和的，和谐的，协调的 | |
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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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intruded
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| n.侵入的，推进的v.侵入，侵扰，打扰( intrude的过去式和过去分词 )；把…强加于 | |
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allusion
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| n.暗示，间接提示 | |
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attentive
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| adj.注意的，专心的；关心(别人)的，殷勤的 | |
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rosebud
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| n.蔷薇花蕾，妙龄少女 | |
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fragrant
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| adj.芬香的，馥郁的，愉快的 | |
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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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poignantly
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pathos
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| n.哀婉，悲怆 | |
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habitually
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| ad.习惯地，通常地 | |
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devotedly
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| 专心地； 恩爱地； 忠实地； 一心一意地 | |
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defender
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| n.保卫者，拥护者，辩护人 | |
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disapproval
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| n.反对，不赞成 | |
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45
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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46
ascendancy
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| n.统治权，支配力量 | |
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47
perverse
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| adj.刚愎的；坚持错误的，行为反常的 | |
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48
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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49
tyrant
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| n.暴君，专制的君主，残暴的人 | |
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50
knight
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| n.骑士，武士；爵士 | |
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51
morose
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| adj.脾气坏的，不高兴的 | |
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52
solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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53
veins
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| n.纹理；矿脉( vein的名词复数 )；静脉；叶脉；纹理 | |
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54
sweeping
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| adj.范围广大的，一扫无遗的 | |
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55
vigor
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| n.活力，精力，元气 | |
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56
awesome
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| adj.令人惊叹的，难得吓人的，很好的 | |
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57
sputtering
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| n.反应溅射法；飞溅；阴极真空喷镀；喷射v.唾沫飞溅( sputter的现在分词 )；发劈啪声；喷出；飞溅出 | |
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58
diabolical
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| adj.恶魔似的，凶暴的 | |
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59
scant
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| adj.不充分的，不足的；v.减缩，限制，忽略 | |
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60
shanty
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| n.小屋，棚屋；船工号子 | |
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61
conjecture
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| n./v.推测，猜测 | |
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62
bartered
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| v.作物物交换，以货换货( barter的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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63
withered
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| adj. 枯萎的，干瘪的，（人身体的部分器官）因病萎缩的或未发育良好的 动词wither的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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64
distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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65
refinement
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| n.文雅；高尚；精美；精制；精炼 | |
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66
metropolis
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| n.首府；大城市 | |
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67
opposition
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| n.反对，敌对 | |
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68
sprout
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| n.芽，萌芽；vt.使发芽，摘去芽；vi.长芽，抽条 | |
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69
epithet
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| n.（用于褒贬人物等的）表述形容词，修饰语 | |
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peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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71
robust
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| adj.强壮的，强健的，粗野的，需要体力的，浓的 | |
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72
sincerity
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| n.真诚，诚意；真实 | |
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73
likeness
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| n.相像，相似（之处） | |
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74
celebrity
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| n.名人，名流；著名，名声，名望 | |
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75
cultivation
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| n.耕作，培养，栽培（法），养成 | |
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76
rime
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| n.白霜；v.使蒙霜 | |
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77
scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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78
winding
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| n.绕，缠，绕组，线圈 | |
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79
annotated
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| v.注解，注释( annotate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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80
auction
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| n.拍卖；拍卖会；vt.拍卖 | |
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81
patriotism
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| n.爱国精神，爱国心，爱国主义 | |
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82
orations
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| n.（正式仪式中的）演说，演讲( oration的名词复数 ) | |
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83
intervals
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| n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息 | |
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84
mariner
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| n.水手号不载人航天探测器，海员，航海者 | |
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glibly
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| adv.流利地，流畅地；满口 | |
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86
brook
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| n.小河，溪；v.忍受，容让 | |
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87
rattling
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| adj. 格格作响的, 活泼的, 很好的 adv. 极其, 很, 非常 动词rattle的现在分词 | |
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88
candor
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| n.坦白，率真 | |
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89
sane
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| adj.心智健全的，神志清醒的，明智的，稳健的 | |
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90
simplicity
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| n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯 | |
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91
placid
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| adj.安静的，平和的 | |
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92
eccentricities
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| n.古怪行为( eccentricity的名词复数 )；反常；怪癖 | |
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93
ratiocination
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| n.推理；推断 | |
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94
exclusion
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| n.拒绝，排除，排斥，远足，远途旅行 | |
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95
premises
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| n.建筑物，房屋 | |
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96
tinged
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| v.（使）发丁丁声( ting的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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97
morbid
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| adj.病的；致病的；病态的；可怕的 | |
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98
frisky
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| adj.活泼的，欢闹的；n.活泼，闹着玩；adv.活泼地，闹着玩地 | |
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99
unreasonably
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| adv. 不合理地 | |
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100
obstinacy
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| n.顽固；（病痛等）难治 | |
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101
seclusion
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| n.隐遁，隔离 | |
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102
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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103
gathering
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| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
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104
deductions
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| 扣除( deduction的名词复数 )； 结论； 扣除的量； 推演 | |
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105
climax
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| n.顶点；高潮；v.(使)达到顶点 | |
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106
wagon
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| n.四轮马车，手推车，面包车；无盖运货列车 | |
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107
hearty
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| adj.热情友好的；衷心的；尽情的，纵情的 | |
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108
measles
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| n.麻疹，风疹，包虫病，痧子 | |
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109
rumbling
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| n. 隆隆声, 辘辘声 adj. 隆隆响的 动词rumble的现在分词 | |
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110
eldest
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| adj.最年长的，最年老的 | |
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111
rambling
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| adj.[建]凌乱的，杂乱的 | |
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112
innate
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| adj.天生的，固有的，天赋的 | |
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113
peculiarities
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| n. 特质, 特性, 怪癖, 古怪 | |
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114
secluded
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| adj.与世隔绝的；隐退的；偏僻的v.使隔开，使隐退( seclude的过去式和过去分词) | |
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115
retirement
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| n.退休，退职 | |
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116
moss
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| n.苔，藓，地衣 | |
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117
margins
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| 边( margin的名词复数 )； 利润； 页边空白； 差数 | |
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118
acorns
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| n.橡子，栎实( acorn的名词复数 ) | |
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119
gilded
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| a.镀金的，富有的 | |
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120
foliage
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| n.叶子，树叶，簇叶 | |
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121
strings
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| n.弦 | |
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122
naturalist
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| n.博物学家(尤指直接观察动植物者) | |
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123
everlasting
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| adj.永恒的，持久的，无止境的 | |
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124
assail
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| v.猛烈攻击，抨击，痛斥 | |
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125
cupidity
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| n.贪心，贪财 | |
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126
counterfeits
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| v.仿制，造假( counterfeit的第三人称单数 ) | |
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127
ingenuity
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| n.别出心裁；善于发明创造 | |
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128
constellations
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| n.星座( constellation的名词复数 )；一群杰出人物；一系列（相关的想法、事物）；一群（相关的人） | |
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129
gilt
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| adj.镀金的；n.金边证券 | |
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130
behold
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| v.看，注视，看到 | |
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131
astronomer
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| n.天文学家 | |
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132
botanist
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| n.植物学家 | |
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