Janet never talked on matters of church and state; such she plainly considered to be far beyond a woman’s province. But she listened with lurking13 interest in her eyes while Thomas and Eric pelted14 on each other with facts and statistics and opinions, and on the rare occasions when Eric scored a point she permitted herself a sly little smile at her brother’s expense.
Of Neil, Eric saw but little. The Italian boy avoided him, or if they chanced to meet passed him by with sullen15, downcast eyes. Eric did not trouble himself greatly about Neil; but Thomas Gordon, understanding the motive17 which had led Neil to betray his discovery of the orchard18 trysts19, bluntly told Kilmeny that she must not make such an equal of Neil as she had done.
“You have been too kind to the lad, lassie, and he’s got presumptuous20. He must be taught his place. I mistrust we have all made more of him than we should.”
But most of the idyllic21 hours of Eric’s wooing were spent in the old orchard; the garden end of it was now a wilderness22 of roses—roses red as the heart of a sunset, roses pink as the early flush of dawn, roses white as the snows on mountain peaks, roses full blown, and roses in buds that were sweeter than anything on earth except Kilmeny’s face. Their petals24 fell in silken heaps along the old paths or clung to the lush grasses among which Eric lay and dreamed, while Kilmeny played to him on her violin.
Eric promised himself that when she was his wife her wonderful gift for music should be cultivated to the utmost. Her powers of expression seemed to deepen and develop every day, growing as her soul grew, taking on new colour and richness from her ripening25 heart.
To Eric, the days were all pages in an inspired idyl. He had never dreamed that love could be so mighty26 or the world so beautiful. He wondered if the universe were big enough to hold his joy or eternity27 long enough to live it out. His whole existence was, for the time being, bounded by that orchard where he wooed his sweetheart. All other ambitions and plans and hopes were set aside in the pursuit of this one aim, the attainment28 of which would enhance all others a thousand-fold, the loss of which would rob all others of their reason for existence. His own world seemed very far away and the things of that world forgotten.
His father, on hearing that he had taken the Lindsay school for a year, had written him a testy29, amazed letter, asking him if he were demented.
“Or is there a girl in the case?” he wrote. “There must be, to tie you down to a place like Lindsay for a year. Take care, master Eric; you’ve been too sensible all your life. A man is bound to make a fool of himself at least once, and when you didn’t get through with that in your teens it may be attacking you now.”
David also wrote, expostulating more gravely; but he did not express the suspicions Eric knew he must entertain.
“Good old David! He is quaking with fear that I am up to something he can’t approve of, but he won’t say a word by way of attempting to force my confidence.”
It could not long remain a secret in Lindsay that “the Master” was going to the Gordon place on courting thoughts intent. Mrs. Williamson kept her own and Eric’s counsel; the Gordons said nothing; but the secret leaked out and great was the surprise and gossip and wonder. One or two incautious people ventured to express their opinion of the Master’s wisdom to the Master himself; but they never repeated the experiment. Curiosity was rife30. A hundred stories were circulated about Kilmeny, all greatly exaggerated in the circulation. Wise heads were shaken and the majority opined that it was a great pity. The Master was a likely young fellow; he could have his pick of almost anybody, you might think; it was too bad that he should go and take up with that queer, dumb niece of the Gordons who had been brought up in such a heathenish way. But then you never could guess what way a man’s fancy would jump when he set out to pick him a wife. They guessed Neil Gordon didn’t like it much. He seemed to have got dreadful moody31 and sulky of late and wouldn’t sing in the choir32 any more. Thus the buzz of comment and gossip ran.
To those two in the old orchard it mattered not a whit23. Kilmeny knew nothing of gossip. To her, Lindsay was as much of an unknown world as the city of Eric’s home. Her thoughts strayed far and wide in the realm of her fancy, but they never wandered out to the little realities that hedged her strange life around. In that life she had blossomed out, a fair, unique thing. There were times when Eric almost regretted that one day he must take her out of her white solitude33 to a world that, in the last analysis, was only Lindsay on a larger scale, with just the same pettiness of thought and feeling and opinion at the bottom of it. He wished he might keep her to himself for ever, in that old, spruce-hidden orchard where the roses fell.
One day he indulged himself in the fulfillment of the whim34 he had formed when Kilmeny had told him she thought herself ugly. He went to Janet and asked her permission to bring a mirror to the house that he might have the privilege of being the first to reveal Kilmeny to herself exteriorly35. Janet was somewhat dubious36 at first.
“There hasn’t been such a thing in the house for sixteen years, Master. There never was but three—one in the spare room, and a little one in the kitchen, and Margaret’s own. She broke them all the day it first struck her that Kilmeny was going to be bonny. I might have got one after she died maybe. But I didn’t think of it; and there’s no need of lasses to be always prinking at their looking glasses.”
“Well, well, have your own way. You’d have it anyway I think, lad. You are one of those men who always get their own way. But that is different from the men who TAKE their own way—and that’s a mercy,” she added under her breath.
Eric went to town the next Saturday and picked out a mirror that pleased him. He had it shipped to Radnor and Thomas Gordon brought it home, not knowing what it was, for Janet had thought it just as well he should not know.
“It’s a present the Master is making Kilmeny,” she told him.
She sent Kilmeny off to the orchard after tea, and Eric slipped around to the house by way of the main road and lane. He and Janet together unpacked38 the mirror and hung it on the parlour wall.
“I never saw such a big one, Master,” said Janet rather doubtfully, as if, after all, she distrusted its gleaming, pearly depth and richly ornamented39 frame. “I hope it won’t make her vain. She is very bonny, but it may not do her any good to know it.”
“It won’t harm her,” said Eric confidently. “When a belief in her ugliness hasn’t spoiled a girl a belief in her beauty won’t.”
But Janet did not understand epigrams. She carefully removed a little dust from the polished surface, and frowned meditatively40 at the by no means beautiful reflection she saw therein.
“I cannot think what made Kilmeny suppose she was ugly, Master.”
“Her mother told her she was,” said Eric, rather bitterly.
“Ah!” Janet shot a quick glance at the picture of her sister. “Was that it? Margaret was a strange woman, Master. I suppose she thought her own beauty had been a snare41 to her. She WAS bonny. That picture doesn’t do her justice. I never liked it. It was taken before she was—before she met Ronald Fraser. We none of us thought it very like her at the time. But, Master, three years later it was like her—oh, it was like her then! That very look came in her face.”
“Kilmeny doesn’t resemble her mother,” remarked Eric, glancing at the picture with the same feeling of mingled42 fascination43 and distaste with which he always regarded it. “Does she look like her father?”
“No, not a great deal, though some of her ways are very like his. She looks like her grandmother—Margaret’s mother, Master. Her name was Kilmeny too, and she was a handsome, sweet woman. I was very fond of my stepmother, Master. When she died she gave her baby to me, and asked me to be a mother to it. Ah well, I tried; but I couldn’t fence the sorrow out of Margaret’s life, and it sometimes comes to my mind that maybe I’ll not be able to fence it out of Kilmeny’s either.”
“That will be my task,” said Eric.
“You’ll do your best, I do not doubt. But maybe it will be through you that sorrow will come to her after all.”
“Not through any fault of mine, Aunt Janet.”
“No, no, I’m not saying it will be your fault. But my heart misgives44 me at times. Oh, I dare say I am only a foolish old woman, Master. Go your ways and bring your lass here to look at your plaything when you like. I’ll not make or meddle45 with it.”
Janet betook herself to the kitchen and Eric went to look for Kilmeny. She was not in the orchard and it was not until he had searched for some time that he found her. She was standing16 under a beech46 tree in a field beyond the orchard, leaning on the longer fence, with her hands clasped against her cheek. In them she held a white Mary-lily from the orchard. She did not run to meet him while he was crossing the pasture, as she would once have done. She waited motionless until he was close to her. Eric began, half laughingly, half tenderly, to quote some lines from her namesake ballad47:
“‘Kilmeny, Kilmeny, where have you been?
Long hae we sought baith holt and den,—
Yet you are halesome and fair to see.
Where got you that joup o’ the lily sheen?
That bonny snood o’ the birk sae green,
And those roses, the fairest that ever was seen?
Kilmeny, Kilmeny, where have you been?’
“Only it’s a lily and not a rose you are carrying. I might go on and quote the next couplet too—
“‘Kilmeny looked up with a lovely grace,
But there was nae smile on Kilmeny’s face.’
“Why are you looking so sober?”
Kilmeny did not have her slate49 with her and could not answer; but Eric guessed from something in her eyes that she was bitterly contrasting the beauty of the ballad’s heroine with her own supposed ugliness.
“Come down to the house, Kilmeny. I have something there to show you—something lovelier than you have ever seen before,” he said, with boyish pleasure shining in his eyes. “I want you to go and put on that muslin dress you wore last Sunday evening, and pin up your hair the same way you did then. Run along—don’t wait for me. But you are not to go into the parlour until I come. I want to pick some of those Mary-lilies up in the orchard.”
When Eric returned to the house with an armful of the long stemmed, white Madonna lilies that bloomed in the orchard Kilmeny was just coming down the steep, narrow staircase with its striped carpeting of homespun drugget. Her marvelous loveliness was brought out into brilliant relief by the dark wood work and shadows of the dim old hall.
She wore a trailing, clinging dress of some creamy tinted50 fabric51 that had been her mother’s. It had not been altered in any respect, for fashion held no sway at the Gordon homestead, and Kilmeny thought that the dress left nothing to be desired. Its quaint52 style suited her admirably; the neck was slightly cut away to show the round white throat, and the sleeves were long, full “bishops,” out of which her beautiful, slender hands slipped like flowers from their sheaths. She had crossed her long braids at the back and pinned them about her head like a coronet; a late white rose was fastened low down on the left side.
And all his worldly wealth for this—
To waste his whole heart in one kiss
Upon her perfect lips,’”
“Take these lilies on your arm, letting their bloom fall against your shoulder—so. Now, give me your hand and shut your eyes. Don’t open them until I say you may.”
He led her into the parlour and up to the mirror.
Kilmeny opened her eyes and looked straight into the mirror where, like a lovely picture in a golden frame, she saw herself reflected. For a moment she was bewildered. Then she realized what it meant. The lilies fell from her arm to the floor and she turned pale. With a little low, involuntary cry she put her hands over her face.
Eric pulled them boyishly away.
“Kilmeny, do you think you are ugly now? This is a truer mirror than Aunt Janet’s silver sugar bowl! Look—look—look! Did you ever imagine anything fairer than yourself, dainty Kilmeny?”
She was blushing now, and stealing shy radiant glances at the mirror. With a smile she took her slate and wrote naively56,
“I think I am pleasant to look upon. I cannot tell you how glad I am. It is so dreadful to believe one is ugly. You can get used to everything else, but you never get used to that. It hurts just the same every time you remember it. But why did mother tell me I was ugly? Could she really have thought so? Perhaps I have become better looking since I grew up.”
“I think perhaps your mother had found that beauty is not always a blessing57, Kilmeny, and thought it wiser not to let you know you possessed58 it. Come, let us go back to the orchard now. We mustn’t waste this rare evening in the house. There is going to be a sunset that we shall remember all our lives. The mirror will hang here. It is yours. Don’t look into it too often, though, or Aunt Janet will disapprove59. She is afraid it will make you vain.”
Kilmeny gave one of her rare, musical laughs, which Eric never heard without a recurrence60 of the old wonder that she could laugh so when she could not speak. She blew an airy little kiss at her mirrored face and turned from it, smiling happily.
On their way to the orchard they met Neil. He went by them with an averted61 face, but Kilmeny shivered and involuntarily drew nearer to Eric.
“I don’t understand Neil at all now,” she wrote nervously62. “He is not nice, as he used to be, and sometimes he will not answer when I speak to him. And he looks so strangely at me, too. Besides, he is surly and impertinent to Uncle and Aunt.”
“Don’t mind Neil,” said Eric lightly. “He is probably sulky because of some things I said to him when I found he had spied on us.”
That night before she went up stairs Kilmeny stole into the parlour for another glimpse of herself in that wonderful mirror by the light of a dim little candle she carried. She was still lingering there dreamily when Aunt Janet’s grim face appeared in the shadows of the doorway63.
“Are you thinking about your own good looks, lassie? Ay, but remember that handsome is as handsome does,” she said, with grudging64 admiration—for the girl with her flushed cheeks and shining eyes was something that even dour65 Janet Gordon could not look upon unmoved.
Kilmeny smiled softly.
“I’ll try to remember,” she wrote, “but oh, Aunt Janet, I am so glad I am not ugly. It is not wrong to be glad of that, is it?”
“No, I don’t suppose it is, lassie,” she conceded. “A comely67 face is something to be thankful for—as none know better than those who have never possessed it. I remember well when I was a girl—but that is neither here nor there. The Master thinks you are wonderful bonny, Kilmeny,” she added, looking keenly at the girl.
Kilmeny started and a scarlet68 blush scorched69 her face. That, and the expression that flashed into her eyes, told Janet Gordon all she wished to know. With a stifled70 sigh she bade her niece good night and went away.
Kilmeny ran fleetly up the stairs to her dim little room, that looked out into the spruces, and flung herself on her bed, burying her burning face in the pillow. Her aunt’s words had revealed to her the hidden secret of her heart. She knew that she loved Eric Marshall—and the knowledge brought with it a strange anguish71. For was she not dumb? All night she lay staring wide-eyed through the darkness till the dawn.
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1
peculiarities
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| n. 特质, 特性, 怪癖, 古怪 | |
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sterling
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| adj.英币的(纯粹的，货真价实的)；n.英国货币(英镑) | |
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sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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attain
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| vt.达到，获得，完成 | |
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fluency
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| n.流畅，雄辩，善辩 | |
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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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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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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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eloquence
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| n.雄辩；口才，修辞 | |
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torrent
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| n.激流，洪流；爆发，(话语等的)连发 | |
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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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brewing
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| n. 酿造, 一次酿造的量 动词brew的现在分词形式 | |
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lurking
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| 潜在 | |
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pelted
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| （连续地）投掷( pelt的过去式和过去分词 )； 连续抨击； 攻击； 剥去…的皮 | |
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sullen
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| adj.愠怒的，闷闷不乐的，(天气等)阴沉的 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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motive
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| n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的 | |
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orchard
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| n.果园，果园里的全部果树，(美俚)棒球场 | |
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trysts
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| n.约会，幽会( tryst的名词复数 )；幽会地点 | |
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presumptuous
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| adj.胆大妄为的，放肆的，冒昧的，冒失的 | |
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idyllic
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| adj.质朴宜人的，田园风光的 | |
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wilderness
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| n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等，荒漠 | |
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whit
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| n.一点，丝毫 | |
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petals
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| n.花瓣( petal的名词复数 ) | |
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ripening
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| v.成熟，使熟( ripen的现在分词 )；熟化；熟成 | |
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mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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eternity
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| n.不朽，来世；永恒，无穷 | |
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attainment
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| n.达到，到达；［常pl.］成就，造诣 | |
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testy
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| adj.易怒的；暴躁的 | |
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rife
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| adj.(指坏事情)充斥的，流行的，普遍的 | |
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moody
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| adj.心情不稳的，易怒的，喜怒无常的 | |
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choir
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| n.唱诗班，唱诗班的席位，合唱团，舞蹈团；v.合唱 | |
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solitude
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| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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whim
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| n.一时的兴致，突然的念头；奇想，幻想 | |
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exteriorly
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| adv.从外部，表面上 | |
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dubious
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| adj.怀疑的，无把握的；有问题的，靠不住的 | |
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skilfully
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| adv. (美skillfully)熟练地 | |
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unpacked
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| v.从（包裹等）中取出（所装的东西），打开行李取出( unpack的过去式和过去分词 )；拆包；解除…的负担；吐露（心事等） | |
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ornamented
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| adj.花式字体的v.装饰，点缀，美化( ornament的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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meditatively
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| adv.冥想地 | |
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snare
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| n.陷阱，诱惑，圈套；（去除息肉或者肿瘤的）勒除器；响弦，小军鼓；vt.以陷阱捕获，诱惑 | |
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42
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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fascination
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| n.令人着迷的事物，魅力，迷恋 | |
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misgives
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| v.使（某人的情绪、精神等）疑虑，担忧，害怕( misgive的第三人称单数 ) | |
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45
meddle
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| v.干预，干涉，插手 | |
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beech
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| n.山毛榉；adj.山毛榉的 | |
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ballad
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| n.歌谣，民谣，流行爱情歌曲 | |
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Ford
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| n.浅滩，水浅可涉处；v.涉水，涉过 | |
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49
slate
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| n.板岩，石板，石片，石板色，候选人名单；adj.暗蓝灰色的，含板岩的；vt.用石板覆盖，痛打，提名，预订 | |
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50
tinted
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| adj. 带色彩的 动词tint的过去式和过去分词 | |
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51
fabric
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| n.织物，织品，布；构造，结构，组织 | |
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quaint
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| adj.古雅的，离奇有趣的，奇怪的 | |
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bliss
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| n.狂喜，福佑，天赐的福 | |
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54
descend
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| vt./vi.传下来，下来，下降 | |
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gaily
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| adv.欢乐地，高兴地 | |
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naively
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| adv. 天真地 | |
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57
blessing
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| n.祈神赐福；祷告；祝福，祝愿 | |
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58
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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disapprove
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| v.不赞成，不同意，不批准 | |
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recurrence
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| n.复发，反复，重现 | |
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61
averted
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| 防止，避免( avert的过去式和过去分词 )； 转移 | |
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62
nervously
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| adv.神情激动地，不安地 | |
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doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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64
grudging
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| adj.勉强的，吝啬的 | |
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65
dour
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| adj.冷酷的，严厉的；（岩石）嶙峋的；顽强不屈 | |
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66
softened
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| （使）变软( soften的过去式和过去分词 )； 缓解打击； 缓和； 安慰 | |
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comely
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| adj.漂亮的，合宜的 | |
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68
scarlet
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| n.深红色，绯红色，红衣；adj.绯红色的 | |
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69
scorched
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| 烧焦，烤焦( scorch的过去式和过去分词 )； 使（植物）枯萎，把…晒枯； 高速行驶； 枯焦 | |
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70
stifled
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| （使）窒息， （使）窒闷( stifle的过去式和过去分词 )； 镇压，遏制； 堵 | |
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71
anguish
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| n.(尤指心灵上的)极度痛苦，烦恼 | |
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