The parlour was neither very large nor at all lofty, and the shut window and fire-place closely covered by a green gauze screen, to keep the flies out, made it disagreeably stuffy3. There were two doors, but both of these were shut also, though the one at the far end of the room, facing the hearth4, nearly always stood wide open. It led down a step into a very little room where the guns were kept and old newspapers thrown, and where somebody was whistling rather sweetly as the other door opened and Mr. Teesdale entered, buggy-whip in hand.
He was a frail5, tallish old gentleman, with a venerable forehead, a thin white beard, very little hair to his pate6, and clear brown eyes that shone kindly7 upon all the world. He had on the old tall hat he always wore when driving into Melbourne, and the yellow silk dust-coat which had served him for many a red-hot summer, and was still not unpresentable. Arabella was racing8 to the end of a paragraph when he entered, and her father had stolen forward and kissed her untidy head before she looked up.
"Bad girl," said he, playfully, "to let your old father get home without ever coming out to meet him!"
"I was trying to finish this chapter," said Arabella. She went on trying.
"I know, I know! I know you of old, my dear. Yet I can't talk, because I am as bad as you are; only I should like to see you reading something better than the Family Cherub9." There were better things in the little room adjoining, where behind the shooting lumber10 was some motley reading, on two long sagging11 shelves; but that room was known as the gun-room, and half those books were hidden away behind powder-canisters, cartridge-cases, and the like, while all were deep in dust.
"You read it yourself, father," said Arabella as she turned over a leaf of her Family Cherub.
"I read it myself. More shame for me! But then I've read all them books in the little gun-room, and that's what I should like to see you reading now and then. Now why have you got yon door shut, Arabella, and who's that whistling in there?"
"It's our John William," Miss Teesdale said; and even as she spoke12 the door in question was thrown open by a stalwart fellow in a Crimean shirt, with the sleeves rolled up from arms as brown and hard-looking as mellow14 oak. He had a breech-loader in one hand and a greasy15 rag in the other.
"Holloa, father!" cried he, boisterously16.
"Well, John William, what are you doing?"
"Cleaning my gun. What have you been doing, that's more like it? What took you trapesing into Melbourne the moment I got my back turned this morning?"
"Why, hasn't your mother told you?"
"Haven't seen her since I came in."
"Well, but Arabella——"
"Arabella! I'm full up of Arabella," said John William contemptuously; but the girl was still too deep in the Family Cherub to heed17 him. "There's no getting a word out of Arabella when she's on the read; so what's it all about, father?"
"I'll tell you; but you'd better shut yon window, John William, or I don't know what your mother 'll say when she comes in and finds the place full o' flies."
It was the gun-room window that broke the law of no fresh air, causing Mr. Teesdale uneasiness until John William shut it with a grumble18; for in this homestead the mistress was law-maker, and indeed master, with man-servant and maid-servant, husband and daughter, and a particularly headstrong son, after her own heart, all under her thumb together.
"Now then, father, what was it took you into Melbourne all of a sudden like that?"
"A letter by the English mail, from my old friend Mr. Oliver."
"Never heard tell of him," said John William, making spectacles of his burnished19 bores, and looking through them into the sunlight. Already he had lost interest.
Mr. Teesdale was also occupied, having taken from his pocket a very large red cotton handkerchief, with which he was wiping alternately the dust from his tall hat and the perspiration20 from the forehead whereon the hat had left a fiery21 rim13. Now, however, he nodded his bald head and clicked his lips, as one who gives another up.
"Well, well! Never heard tell of him—you who've heard me tell of him time out o' mind! Nay22, come; why, you're called after him yourself! Ay, we called you after John William Oliver because he was the best friend that ever we had in old Yorkshire or anywhere else; the very best; and you pretend you've never heard tell of him."
"What had he got to say for himself?" said Mr. Oliver's namesake, with a final examination of the outside of his barrels.
"Plenty; he's sent one of his daughters out in the Parramatta, that got in with the mail yesterday afternoon; and of course he had given her an introduction to me."
"What's that?" exclaimed John William, looking up sharply, as he ran over the words in his ear. "I say, father, we don't want her here," he added earnestly.
"Oh, did you find out where she was? Have you seen her? What is she like?" cried Arabella, jumping up from the table and joining the others with a face full of questions. She had that instant finished her chapter.
"I don't know what she's like; I didn't see her; I couldn't even find out where she was, though I tried at half a dozen hotels and both coffee-palaces," said the farmer with a crestfallen23 air.
"All the better!" cried John William, grounding his gun with a bang. "We don't want none of your stuck-up new chums or chumesses here, father."
"I don't know that; for my part, I should love to have a chance of talking to an English young lady," Arabella said, with a backward glance at her Family Cherub. "They're very rich, the Olivers," she added for her brother's benefit; "that's their house in the gilt24 frame in the best parlour, the house with the tower; and the group in the frame to match, that is the Olivers, isn't it, father?"
"It is, my dear; that's to say, it was, some sixteen years ago. We must get yon group and see which one it is that has come out, and then I'll read you Mr. Oliver's letter, John William. If only he'd written a mail or two before the child started! However, if we've everything made snug25 for her to-night, I'll lay hands on her to-morrow if she's in Melbourne; and then she shall come out here for a month or two to start with, just to see how she likes it."
"How d'ye know she'll want to come out here at all?" asked John William. "Don't you believe it, father; she wouldn't care for it a little bit."
"Not care for it? Not want to come out and make her home with her parents' old friends? Then she's not her father's daughter," cried Mr. Teesdale indignantly; "she's no child of our good old friends. Why, it was Mr. Oliver who gave me the watch I——hush! Was that your mother calling?"
It was. "David! David! Have you got back, David?" the harsh voice came crying through the lath-and-plaster walls.
Mr. Teesdale scuttled26 to the door. "Yes, my dear, I've just got in. No, I'm not smoking. Where are you, then? In the spare room? All right, I'm coming, I'm coming." And he was gone.
"Mother's putting the spare room to rights already," Arabella explained.
"I'm sorry to hear it; let's hope it won't be wanted."
"Why, John William? It would be such fun to have a young lady from Home to stay with us!"
"I'm full up o' young ladies, and I'm just sick of the sound of Home. She'll be a deal too grand for us, and there won't be much fun in that. What's the use o' talking? If it was a son of this here old Oliver's it'd be a different thing; we'd precious soon knock the nonsense out of him; I'd undertake to do it myself; but a girl's different, and I jolly well hope she'll stop away. We don't want her here, I tell you. We haven't even invited her. It's a piece of cheek, is the whole thing!"
John William was in the parlour now, sitting on the horse-hair sofa, and laying down the law with freckled27 fist and blusterous voice, as his habit was. It was a good-humoured sort of bluster28, however, and indeed John William seldom opened his mouth without displaying his excellent downright nature in one good light or another. He had inherited his mother's qualities along with her sharp, decided29 features, which in the son were set off by a strong black beard and bristling30 moustache. He managed the farm, the men, Arabella, and his father; but all under Mrs. Teesdale, who managed him. Not that this masterful young man was so young in years as you might well suppose; neither John William nor Arabella was under thirty; but their lives had been so simple and so hard-working that, going by their conversation merely, you would have placed the two of them in their teens. For her part, too, Arabella looked much younger than she was, with her wholesome32, attractive face and dreamy, inquisitive33 eyes; and as for the brother, he was but a boy with a beard, still primed with rude health and strength, and still loaded with all the assorted34 possibilities of budding manhood.
"I've taken down the group," said Mr. Teesdale, returning with a large photograph in a gilt frame; "and here is the letter on the chimney-piece. We'll have a look at them both again."
On the chimney-piece also were the old man's spectacles, which he proceeded to put on, and a tobacco jar and long clay pipe, at which he merely looked lovingly; for Mrs. Teesdale would have no smoking in the house. His own chair stood in the cosy35 corner between the window and the hearth; and he now proceeded to pull it up to his own place at the head of the table as though it were a meal-time, and that gilt-framed photograph the only dish. Certainly he sat down to it with an appetite never felt during the years it had hung in the unused, ornamental36 next room, without the least prospect37 of the Teesdales ever more seeing any member of that group in the flesh. But now that such a prospect was directly at hand, there was some sense in studying the old photograph. It was of eight persons: the parents, a grandparent, and five children. Three of the latter were little girls, in white stockings and hideous38 boots with low heels and elastic39 sides; and to the youngest of these three, a fair-haired child whose features, like those of the whole family, were screwed up by a strong light and an exposure of the ancient length, Mr. Teesdale pointed40 with his finger-nail.
"That's the one," said he. "She now is a young lady of five or six and twenty."
"Don't think much of her looks," observed John William.
"Oh, you can't tell what she may be like from this," Arabella said, justly. "She may be beautiful now; besides, look how the sun must have been in her eyes, poor little thing! What's her name again, father?"
"Miriam, my dear."
"Miriam! I call it a jolly name, don't you, Jack41?"
"It's a beast of a name," said John William.
"Stop while I read you a bit of the letter," cried the old man, smiling indulgently. "I won't give you all of it, but just this little bit at the end. He's been telling me that Miriam has her own ideas about things, has already seen something of the world, and isn't perhaps quite like the girls I may remember when we were both young men——"
"Didn't I tell you?" interrupted John William, banging the table with his big fist. "She's stuck-up! We don't want her here."
"But just hark how he ends up. I want you both to listen to these few lines:—'It may even be that she has formed habits and ways which were not the habits and ways of young girls in our day, and that you may like some of these no better than I do. Yet her heart, my dear Teesdale, is as pure and as innocent as her mother's was before her, and I know that my old friend will let no mere31 modern mannerisms prejudice him against my darling child, who is going so far from us all. It has been a rather sudden arrangement, and though the doctors ordered it, and Miriam can take care of herself as only the girls nowadays can, still I would never have parted with her had I not known of one tried friend to meet and welcome her at the other end. Keep her at your station, my dear Teesdale, as long as you can, for an open-air life is, I am convinced, what she wants above all things. If she should need money, an accident which may always happen, let her have whatever she wants, advising me of the amount immediately. I have told her to apply to you in such an extremity42, which, however, I regard as very unlikely to occur. I have also provided her with a little note of introduction, with which she will find her way to you as soon as possible after landing. And into your kind old hands, and those of your warm-hearted wife, I cheerfully commend my girl, with the most affectionate remembrances to you both, and only regretting that business will not allow me to come out with her and see you both once more.' Then he finishes—calls himself my affectionate friend, same as when we were boys together. And it's two-and-thirty years since we said good-bye!" added Mr. Teesdale as he folded up the letter and put it away.
He pushed his spectacles on to his forehead, for they were dim, and sat gazing straight ahead, through the inner door that stood now wide open, and out of the gun-room window. This overlooked a sunburnt decline, finishing, perhaps a furlong from the house, at the crests43 of the river timber, that stood out of it like a hedge, by reason of the very deep cut made by the Yarra, where it formed the farm boundary on that side. And across the top of the window (to one sitting in Mr. Teesdale's place) was stretched, like a faded mauve ribbon, a strip of the distant Dandenong Ranges; and this and the timber were the favourite haunts of the old man's eyes, for thither44 they strayed of their own accord whenever his mind got absent elsewhere, as was continually happening, and had happened now.
"It's a beautiful letter!" exclaimed Arabella warmly.
"I like it, too," John William admitted; "but I shan't like the girl. That kind don't suit me at all; but I'll try to be civil to her on account of the old man, for his letter is right enough."
Mr. Teesdale looked pleased, though he left his eyes where they were.
"Ay, ay, my dears, I thought you would like it. Ah, but all his letters are the same! Two-and-thirty years, and never a year without at least three letters from Mr. Oliver. He's a business man, and he always answers promptly45. He's a rich man now, my dears, but he doesn't forget the early friends, not he, though they're at the other end of the earth, and as poor as he's rich."
"Yet he doesn't seem to know how we're situated46, for all that," remarked John William thoughtfully. "Look how he talks about our 'station,' and of your advancing money to the girl, as though we were rolling in it like him! Have you never told him our circumstances, father?"
At the question, Mr. Teesdale's eyes fell twenty miles, and rested guiltily upon the old green tablecloth47.
"I doubt a station and a farm convey much the same thing in the old country," he answered crookedly48.
"That you may bet they do!" cried the son, with a laugh; but he went on delivering himself of the most discouraging prophecies touching49 the case in point. The girl would come out with false ideas; would prove too fine by half for plain people like themselves; and at the best was certain to expect much more than they could possibly give her.
"Well, as to that," said the farmer, who thought himself lucky to have escaped a scolding for never having told an old friend how poor he was—"as to that, we can but give her the best we've got, with mebbe a little extra here and there, such as we wouldn't have if we were by ourselves. The eggs 'll be fresh, at any rate, and I think that she'll like her sheets, for your mother is getting out them 'at we brought with us from Home in '51. There was just two pairs, and she's had 'em laid by in lavender ever since. We can give her a good cup o' tea, an' all; and you can take her out 'possum-shooting, John William, and teach her how to ride. Yes, we'll make a regular bush-girl of her in a month, and send her back to Yorkshire the picture of health; though as yet I'm not very clear what's been the matter with her. But if she takes after her parents ever so little she'll see that we're doing our best, and that'll be good enough for any child of theirs."
From such a shabby waistcoat pocket Mr. Tees-dale took so handsome a gold watch, it was like a ring on a beggar's finger; and he fondled it between his worn hands, but without a word.
"Mr. Oliver gave you that watch, didn't he, father?" Arabella said, watching him.
"He did, my dear," said the old man proudly. "He came and saw us off at the Docks, and he gave me the watch on board, just as we were saying good-bye; and he gave your mother a gold brooch which neither of you have ever seen, for I've never known her wear it myself."
Arabella said she had seen it.
"Now his watch," continued Mr. Teesdale, "has hardly ever left my pocket—save to go under my pillow—since he put it in my hands on July 3, 1851. Here's the date and our initials inside the case; but you've seen them before. Ay, but there are few who came out in '51—and stopped out—who have done as poorly as me. The day after we dropped anchor in Hobson's Bay there wasn't a living soul aboard our ship; captain, mates, passengers and crew, all gone to the diggings. Every man Jack but me! It was just before you were born, John William, and I wasn't going. It may have been a mistake, but the Lord knows best. To be sure, we had our hard times when the diggers were coming into Melbourne and shoeing their horses with gold, and filling buckets with champagne50, and standing51 by with a pannikin to make everybody drink that passed; if you wouldn't, you'd got to take off your coat and show why. I remember one of them offering me a hundred pounds for this very watch, and precious hard up I was, but I wouldn't take it, not I, though I didn't refuse a sovereign for telling him the time. Ay, sovereigns were the pennies of them days; not that I fingered many; but I never got so poor as to part with Mr. Oliver's watch, and you never must either, John William, when it's yours. Ay, ay," chuckled52 Mr. Teesdale, as he snapped-to the case and replaced the watch in his pocket, "and it's gone like a book for over thirty years, with nothing worse than a cleaning the whole time."
"You must mind and tell that to Miriam, father," said Arabella, smiling.
"I must so. Ah, my dear, I shall have two daughters, not one, and you'll have a sister while Miriam is here."
"That depends what Miriam is like," said John William, getting up from the sofa with a Hugh and going back idly to the little room and his cleaned gun.
"I know what she will be like," said Arabella, placing the group in front of her on the table. "She will be delicate and fair, and rather small; and I shall have to show her everything, and take tremendous care of her."
"I wonder if she'll have her mother's hazel eyes and gentle voice?" mused53 the farmer aloud, with his eyes on their way back to the Dandenong Ranges.
"I should like her to take after her mother; she was one of the gentlest little women that ever I knew, was Mrs. Oliver, and I never clapped eyes——"
The speaker suddenly turned his head; there had been a step in the verandah, and some person had passed the window too quick for recognition.
"Who was that?" said Mr. Teesdale.
"I hardly saw," said Arabella, pushing back her chair. "It was a woman."
"And now she's knocking! Run and see who it is, my dear."
Arabella rose and ran. Then followed such an outcry in the passage that Mr. Teesdale rose also. He was on his legs in time to see the door flung wide open, and the excited eyes of Arabella reaching over the shoulder of the tall young woman whom she was pushing into the room.
"Here is Miriam," she cried. "Here's Miriam found her way out all by herself!"
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1
mare
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| n.母马，母驴 | |
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drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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stuffy
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| adj.不透气的，闷热的 | |
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hearth
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| n.壁炉炉床，壁炉地面 | |
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frail
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| adj.身体虚弱的；易损坏的 | |
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pate
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| n.头顶；光顶 | |
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kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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racing
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| n.竞赛，赛马；adj.竞赛用的，赛马用的 | |
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cherub
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| n.小天使，胖娃娃 | |
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lumber
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| n.木材，木料；v.以破旧东西堆满；伐木；笨重移动 | |
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sagging
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| 下垂[沉，陷]，松垂，垂度 | |
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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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rim
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| n.(圆物的)边，轮缘；边界 | |
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mellow
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| adj.柔和的；熟透的；v.变柔和；(使)成熟 | |
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greasy
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| adj. 多脂的，油脂的 | |
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boisterously
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| adv.喧闹地，吵闹地 | |
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heed
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| v.注意，留意；n.注意，留心 | |
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grumble
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| vi.抱怨；咕哝；n.抱怨，牢骚；咕哝，隆隆声 | |
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burnished
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| adj.抛光的，光亮的v.擦亮（金属等），磨光( burnish的过去式和过去分词 )；被擦亮，磨光 | |
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perspiration
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| n.汗水；出汗 | |
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fiery
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| adj.燃烧着的，火红的；暴躁的；激烈的 | |
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nay
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| adv.不；n.反对票，投反对票者 | |
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crestfallen
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| adj. 挫败的，失望的，沮丧的 | |
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gilt
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| adj.镀金的；n.金边证券 | |
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snug
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| adj.温暖舒适的，合身的，安全的；v.使整洁干净，舒适地依靠，紧贴；n.（英）酒吧里的私房 | |
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scuttled
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| v.使船沉没( scuttle的过去式和过去分词 )；快跑，急走 | |
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freckled
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| adj.雀斑；斑点；晒斑；（使）生雀斑v.雀斑，斑点( freckle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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bluster
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| v.猛刮；怒冲冲的说；n.吓唬，怒号；狂风声 | |
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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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bristling
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| a.竖立的 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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wholesome
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| adj.适合；卫生的；有益健康的；显示身心健康的 | |
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inquisitive
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| adj.求知欲强的，好奇的，好寻根究底的 | |
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assorted
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| adj.各种各样的，各色俱备的 | |
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cosy
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| adj.温暖而舒适的，安逸的 | |
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ornamental
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| adj.装饰的；作装饰用的；n.装饰品；观赏植物 | |
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prospect
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| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
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hideous
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| adj.丑陋的，可憎的，可怕的，恐怖的 | |
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elastic
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| n.橡皮圈，松紧带；adj.有弹性的；灵活的 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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jack
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| n.插座，千斤顶，男人；v.抬起，提醒，扛举；n.（Jake）杰克 | |
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extremity
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| n.末端，尽头；尽力；终极；极度 | |
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crests
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| v.到达山顶（或浪峰）( crest的第三人称单数 )；到达洪峰，达到顶点 | |
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44
thither
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| adv.向那里；adj.在那边的，对岸的 | |
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promptly
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| adv.及时地，敏捷地 | |
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situated
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| adj.坐落在...的，处于某种境地的 | |
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tablecloth
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| n.桌布，台布 | |
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crookedly
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| adv. 弯曲地，不诚实地 | |
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touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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champagne
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| n.香槟酒；微黄色 | |
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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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52
chuckled
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| 轻声地笑( chuckle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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mused
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| v.沉思，冥想( muse的过去式和过去分词 )；沉思自语说（某事） | |
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