In one part of this city there lived a family which in its character and composition might well have been considered typically American and middle western. It was not by any means poor—or, at least, did not consider itself so; it was in no sense rich. Thomas Jefferson Witla, the father, was a sewing machine agent with the general agency in that county of one of the best known and best selling machines made. From each twenty, thirty-five or sixty-dollar machine which he sold, he took a profit of thirty-five per cent. The sale of machines was not great, but it was enough to yield him nearly two thousand dollars a year; and on that he had managed to buy a house and lot, to furnish it comfortably, to send his children to school, and to maintain a local store on the public square where the latest styles of machines were displayed. He also took old machines of other makes in exchange, allowing ten to fifteen dollars on the purchase price of a new machine. He also repaired machines,—and with that peculiar3 energy of the American mind, he tried to do a little insurance business in addition. His first idea was that his son, Eugene Tennyson Witla, might take charge of this latter work, once he became old enough and the insurance trade had developed sufficiently4. He did not know what his son might turn out to be, but it was always well to have an anchor to windward.
He was a quick, wiry, active man of no great stature5, sandy-haired, with blue eyes with noticeable eye-brows, an eagle nose, and a rather radiant and ingratiating smile. Service as a canvassing6 salesman, endeavoring to persuade recalcitrant7 wives and indifferent or conservative husbands to realize that they really needed a new machine in their home, had taught him caution, tact8, savoir faire. He knew how to approach people pleasantly. His wife thought too much so.
Certainly he was honest, hard working, and thrifty9. They had been waiting a long time for the day when they could say they owned their own home and had a little something laid away for emergencies. That day had come, and life was not half bad. Their house was neat,—white with green shutters10, surrounded by a yard with well kept flower beds, a smooth lawn, and some few shapely and broad spreading trees. There was a front porch with rockers, a swing under one tree, a hammock under another, a buggy and several canvassing wagons11 in a nearby stable. Witla liked dogs, so there were two collies. Mrs. Witla liked live things, so there were a canary bird, a cat, some chickens, and a bird house set aloft on a pole where a few blue-birds made their home. It was a nice little place, and Mr. and Mrs. Witla were rather proud of it.
Miriam Witla was a good wife to her husband. A daughter of a hay and grain dealer13 in Wooster, a small town near Alexandria in McLean County, she had never been farther out into the world than Springfield and Chicago. She had gone to Springfield as a very young girl, to see Lincoln buried, and once with her husband she had gone to the state fair or exposition which was held annually14 in those days on the lake front in Chicago. She was well preserved, good looking, poetic15 under a marked outward reserve. It was she who had insisted upon naming her only son Eugene Tennyson, a tribute at once to a brother Eugene, and to the celebrated16 romanticist of verse, because she had been so impressed with his "Idylls of the King."
Eugene Tennyson seemed rather strong to Witla père, as the name of a middle-western American boy, but he loved his wife and gave her her way in most things. He rather liked the names of Sylvia and Myrtle with which she had christened the two girls. All three of the children were good looking,—Sylvia, a girl of twenty-one, with black hair, dark eyes, full blown like a rose, healthy, active, smiling. Myrtle was of a less vigorous constitution, small, pale, shy, but intensely sweet—like the flower she was named after, her mother said. She was inclined to be studious and reflective, to read verse and dream. The young bloods of the high school were all crazy to talk to Myrtle and to walk with her, but they could find no words. And she herself did not know what to say to them.
Eugene Witla was the apple of his family's eye, younger than either of his two sisters by two years. He had straight smooth black hair, dark almond-shaped eyes, a straight nose, a shapely but not aggressive chin; his teeth were even and white, showing with a curious delicacy17 when he smiled, as if he were proud of them. He was not very strong to begin with, moody18, and to a notable extent artistic19. Because of a weak stomach and a semi-anæmic condition, he did not really appear as strong as he was. He had emotion, fire, longings20, that were concealed21 behind a wall of reserve. He was shy, proud, sensitive, and very uncertain of himself.
When at home he lounged about the house, reading Dickens, Thackeray, Scott and Poe. He browsed22 idly through one book after another, wondering about life. The great cities appealed to him. He thought of travel as a wonderful thing. In school he read Taine and Gibbon between recitation hours, wondering at the luxury and beauty of the great courts of the world. He cared nothing for grammar, nothing for mathematics, nothing for botany or physics, except odd bits here and there. Curious facts would strike him—the composition of clouds, the composition of water, the chemical elements of the earth. He liked to lie in the hammock at home, spring, summer or fall, and look at the blue sky showing through the trees. A soaring buzzard poised23 in speculative24 flight held his attention fixedly25. The wonder of a snowy cloud, high piled like wool, and drifting as an island, was like a song to him. He had wit, a keen sense of humor, a sense of pathos26. Sometimes he thought he would draw; sometimes write. He had a little talent for both, he thought, but did practically nothing with either. He would sketch27 now and then, but only fragments—a small roof-top, with smoke curling from a chimney and birds flying; a bit of water with a willow28 bending over it and perhaps a boat anchored; a mill pond with ducks afloat, and a boy or woman on the bank. He really had no great talent for interpretation29 at this time, only an intense sense of beauty. The beauty of a bird in flight, a rose in bloom, a tree swaying in the wind—these held him. He would walk the streets of his native town at night, admiring the brightness of the store windows, the sense of youth and enthusiasm that went with a crowd; the sense of love and comfort and home that spoke30 through the glowing windows of houses set back among trees.
He admired girls,—was mad about them,—but only about those who were truly beautiful. There were two or three in his school who reminded him of poetic phrases he had come across—"beauty like a tightened31 bow," "thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face," "a dancing shape, an image gay"—but he could not talk to them with ease. They were beautiful but so distant. He invested them with more beauty than they had; the beauty was in his own soul. But he did not know that. One girl whose yellow hair lay upon her neck in great yellow braids like ripe corn, was constantly in his thoughts. He worshiped her from afar but she never knew. She never knew what solemn black eyes burned at her when she was not looking. She left Alexandria, her family moving to another town, and in time he recovered, for there is much of beauty. But the color of her hair and the wonder of her neck stayed with him always.
There was some plan on the part of Witla to send these children to college, but none of them showed any great desire for education. They were perhaps wiser than books, for they were living in the realm of imagination and feeling. Sylvia longed to be a mother, and was married at twenty-one to Henry Burgess, the son of Benjamin C. Burgess, editor of the Morning Appeal. There was a baby the first year. Myrtle was dreaming through algebra32 and trigonometry, wondering whether she would teach or get married, for the moderate prosperity of the family demanded that she do something. Eugene mooned through his studies, learning nothing practical. He wrote a little, but his efforts at sixteen were puerile33. He drew, but there was no one to tell him whether there was any merit in the things he did or not. Practical matters were generally without significance to him. But he was overawed by the fact that the world demanded practical service—buying and selling like his father, clerking in stores, running big business. It was a confusing maze34, and he wondered, even at this age, what was to become of him. He did not object to the kind of work his father was doing, but it did not interest him. For himself he knew it would be a pointless, dreary35 way of making a living, and as for insurance, that was equally bad. He could hardly bring himself to read through the long rigamarole of specifications36 which each insurance paper itemized. There were times—evenings and Saturdays—when he clerked in his father's store, but it was painful work. His mind was not in it.
As early as his twelfth year his father had begun to see that Eugene was not cut out for business, and by the time he was sixteen he was convinced of it. From the trend of his reading and his percentage marks at school, he was equally convinced that the boy was not interested in his studies. Myrtle, who was two classes ahead of him but sometimes in the same room, reported that he dreamed too much. He was always looking out of the window.
Eugene's experience with girls had not been very wide. There were those very minor37 things that occur in early youth—girls whom we furtively38 kiss, or who furtively kiss us—the latter had been the case with Eugene. He had no particular interest in any one girl. At fourteen he had been picked by a little girl at a party as an affinity39, for the evening at least, and in a game of "post-office" had enjoyed the wonder of a girl's arms around him in a dark room and a girl's lips against his; but since then there had been no re-encounter of any kind. He had dreamed of love, with this one experience as a basis, but always in a shy, distant way. He was afraid of girls, and they, to tell the truth, were afraid of him. They could not make him out.
But in the fall of his seventeenth year Eugene came into contact with one girl who made a profound impression on him. Stella Appleton was a notably40 beautiful creature. She was very fair, Eugene's own age, with very blue eyes and a slender sylph-like body. She was gay and debonair41 in an enticing42 way, without really realizing how dangerous she was to the average, susceptible43 male heart. She liked to flirt44 with the boys because it amused her, and not because she cared for anyone in particular. There was no petty meanness about it, however, for she thought they were all rather nice, the less clever appealing to her almost more than the sophisticated. She may have liked Eugene originally because of his shyness.
He saw her first at the beginning of his last school year when she came to the city and entered the second high school class. Her father had come from Moline, Illinois, to take a position as manager of a new pulley manufactory which was just starting. She had quickly become friends with his sister Myrtle, being perhaps attracted by her quiet ways, as Myrtle was by Stella's gaiety.
One afternoon, as Myrtle and Stella were on Main Street, walking home from the post office, they met Eugene, who was on his way to visit a boy friend. He was really bashful; and when he saw them approaching he wanted to escape, but there was no way. They saw him, and Stella approached confidently enough. Myrtle was anxious to intercept45 him, because she had her pretty companion with her.
"You haven't been home, have you?" she asked, stopping. This was her chance to introduce Stella; Eugene couldn't escape. "Miss Appleton, this is my brother Eugene."
Stella gave him a sunny encouraging smile, and her hand, which he took gingerly. He was plainly nervous.
"Oh, we don't mind," said Myrtle. "Where are you going?"
"What for?"
"We're going for hickory nuts."
"Oh, I wish I had some," said Stella.
She smiled again. "I wish you would."
She almost proposed that they should be taken along, but inexperience hindered her.
Eugene was struck with all her charm at once. She seemed like one of those unattainable creatures who had swum into his ken12 a little earlier and disappeared. There was something of the girl with the corn-colored hair about her, only she had been more human, less like a dream. This girl was fine, delicate, pink, like porcelain49. She was fragile and yet virile50. He caught his breath, but he was more or less afraid of her. He did not know what she might be thinking of him.
"Well, we're going on to the house," said Myrtle.
"I'd go along if I hadn't promised Harry I'd come over."
"Oh, that's all right," replied Myrtle. "We don't mind."
He withdrew, feeling that he had made a very poor impression. Stella's eyes had been on him in a very inquiring way. She looked after him when he had gone.
"I think so," replied Myrtle; "kind o'. He's too moody, though."
"What makes him?"
"He isn't very strong."
"I think he has a nice smile."
"I'll tell him!"
"No, please don't! You won't, will you?"
"No."
"But he has a nice smile."
"I'll ask you round to the house some evening and you can meet him again."
"I'd like to," said Stella. "It would be a lot of fun."
"Come out Saturday evening and stay all night. He's home then."
"I will," said Stella. "Won't that be fine!"
"I believe you like him!" laughed Myrtle.
The second meeting happened on Saturday evening as arranged, when he came home from his odd day at his father's insurance office. Stella had come to supper. Eugene saw her through the open sitting room door, as he bounded upstairs to change his clothes, for he had a fire of youth which no sickness of stomach or weakness of lungs could overcome at this age. A thrill of anticipation53 ran over his body. He took especial pains with his toilet, adjusting a red tie to a nicety, and parting his hair carefully in the middle. He came down after a while, conscious that he had to say something smart, worthy54 of himself, or she would not see how attractive he was; and yet he was fearful as to the result. When he entered the sitting room she was sitting with his sister before an open fire-place, the glow of a lamp with a red-flowered shade warmly illuminating55 the room. It was a commonplace room, with its blue cloth-covered center table, its chairs of stereotyped56 factory design, and its bookcase of novels and histories, but it was homey, and the sense of hominess was strong.
Mrs. Witla was in and out occasionally, looking for things which appertained to her functions as house-mother. The father was not home yet; he would get there by supper-time, having been to some outlying town of the county trying to sell a machine. Eugene was indifferent to his presence or absence. Mr. Witla had a fund of humor which extended to joking with his son and daughters, when he was feeling good, to noting their budding interest in the opposite sex; to predicting some commonplace climax57 to their one grand passion when it should come. He was fond of telling Myrtle that she would one day marry a horse-doctor. As for Eugene, he predicted a certain Elsa Brown, who, his wife said, had greasy58 curls. This did not irritate either Myrtle or Eugene. It even brought a wry59 smile to Eugene's face for he was fond of a jest; but he saw his father pretty clearly even at this age. He saw the smallness of his business, the ridiculousness of any such profession having any claim on him. He never wanted to say anything, but there was in him a burning opposition60 to the commonplace, a molten pit in a crater61 of reserve, which smoked ominously62 now and then for anyone who could have read. Neither his father nor his mother understood him. To them he was a peculiar boy, dreamy, sickly, unwitting, as yet, of what he really wanted.
"Oh, here you are!" said Myrtle, when he came in. "Come and sit down."
Stella gave him an enticing smile.
He walked to the mantel-piece and stood there, posing. He wanted to impress this girl, and he did not quite know how. He was almost lost for anything to say.
"Well—what?" he replied blankly.
"You ought to guess. Can't you be nice and guess?"
"One guess, anyhow," put in Stella.
"Toasting pop-corn," he ventured with a half smile.
"You're warm." It was Myrtle speaking.
Stella looked at him with round blue eyes. "One more guess," she suggested.
"Here's one," laughed his new acquaintance, holding out a tiny hand.
Under her laughing encouragement he was finding his voice. "Stingy!" he said.
"Now isn't that mean," she exclaimed. "I gave him the only one I had. Don't you give him any of yours, Myrtle."
"I take it back," he pleaded. "I didn't know."
"I won't!" exclaimed Myrtle. "Here, Stella," and she held out the few nuts she had left, "take these, and don't you give him any!" She put them in Stella's eager hands.
He saw her meaning. It was an invitation to a contest. She wanted him to try to make her give him some. He fell in with her plan.
"Here!" He stretched out his palm. "That's not right!"
She shook her head.
"One, anyhow," he insisted.
Her head moved negatively from side to side slowly.
"One," he pleaded, drawing near.
Again the golden negative. But her hand was at the side nearest him, where he could seize it. She started to pass its contents behind her to the other hand but he jumped and caught it.
"Myrtle! Quick!" she called.
Myrtle came. It was a three-handed struggle. In the midst of the contest Stella twisted and rose to her feet. Her hair brushed his face. He held her tiny hand firmly. For a moment he looked into her eyes. What was it? He could not say. Only he half let go and gave her the victory.
"There," she smiled. "Now I'll give you one."
He took it, laughing. What he wanted was to take her in his arms.
A little while before supper his father came in and sat down, but presently took a Chicago paper and went into the dining room to read. Then his mother called them to the table, and he sat by Stella. He was intensely interested in what she did and said. If her lips moved he noted66 just how. When her teeth showed he thought they were lovely. A little ringlet on her forehead beckoned67 him like a golden finger. He felt the wonder of the poetic phrase, "the shining strands68 of her hair."
After dinner he and Myrtle and Stella went back to the sitting room. His father stayed behind to read, his mother to wash dishes. Myrtle left the room after a bit to help her mother, and then these two were left alone. He hadn't much to say, now that they were together—he couldn't talk. Something about her beauty kept him silent.
"Do you like school?" she asked after a time. She felt as if they must talk.
"Only fairly well," he replied. "I'm not much interested. I think I'll quit one of these days and go to work."
"What do you expect to do?"
"I don't know yet—I'd like to be an artist." He confessed his ambition for the first time in his life—why, he could not have said.
Stella took no note of it.
"I was afraid they wouldn't let me enter second year high school, but they did," she remarked. "The superintendent69 at Moline had to write the superintendent here."
She got up and went to the bookcase to look at the books. He followed after a little.
"Do you like Dickens?" she asked.
He nodded his head solemnly in approval. "Pretty much," he said.
"I like Scott," he said.
"I'll tell you a lovely book that I like." She paused, her lips parted trying to remember the name. She lifted her hand as though to pick the title out of the air. "The Fair God," she exclaimed at last.
"Yes—it's fine," he approved. "I thought the scene in the old Aztec temple where they were going to sacrifice Ahwahee was so wonderful!"
"Oh, yes, I liked that," she added. She pulled out "Ben Hur" and turned its leaves idly. "And this was so good."
"Wonderful!"
They paused and she went to the window, standing72 under the cheap lace curtains. It was a moonlight night. The rows of trees that lined the street on either side were leafless; the grass brown and dead. Through the thin, interlaced twigs73 that were like silver filigree74 they could see the lamps of other houses shining through half-drawn blinds. A man went by, a black shadow in the half-light.
"Isn't it lovely?" she said.
Eugene came near. "It's fine," he answered.
"I wish it were cold enough to skate. Do you skate?" She turned to him.
"Yes, indeed," he replied.
"My, it's so nice on a moonlit night. I used to skate a lot at Moline."
"We skate a lot here. There're two lakes, you know."
He thought of the clear crystal nights when the ice of Green Lake had split every so often with a great resounding75 rumble76. He thought of the crowds of boys and girls shouting, the distant shadows, the stars. Up to now he had never found any girl to skate with successfully. He had never felt just easy with anyone. He had tried it, but once he had fallen with a girl, and it had almost cured him of skating forever. He felt as though he could skate with Stella. He felt that she might like to skate with him.
"When it gets colder we might go," he ventured. "Myrtle skates."
"Oh, that'll be fine!" she applauded.
Still she looked out into the street.
"Do you think your father will stay here?" he asked.
"He says so. He likes it very much."
"Do you?"
"Yes—now."
"Why now?"
"Oh, I didn't like it at first."
"Why?"
"Oh, I guess it was because I didn't know anybody. I like it though, now." She lifted her eyes.
He drew a little nearer.
"It's a nice place," he said, "but there isn't much for me here. I think I'll leave next year."
"Where do you think you'll go?"
"To Chicago. I don't want to stay here."
She turned her body toward the fire and he moved to a chair behind her, leaning on its back. She felt him there rather close, but did not move. He was surprising himself.
"Aren't you ever coming back?" she asked.
"Maybe. It all depends. I suppose so."
"I shouldn't think you'd want to leave yet."
"Why?"
"You say it's so nice."
He made no answer and she looked over her shoulder. He was leaning very much toward her.
"Will you skate with me this winter?" he asked meaningly.
She nodded her head.
Myrtle came in.
"What are you two talking about?" she asked.
"The fine skating we have here," he said.
"I love to skate," she exclaimed.
"So do I," added Stella. "It's heavenly."
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
varied
|
|
| adj.多样的，多变化的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
prettily
|
|
| adv.优美地；可爱地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
peculiar
|
|
| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
sufficiently
|
|
| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
stature
|
|
| n.（高度）水平，（高度）境界，身高，身材 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
canvassing
|
|
| v.（在政治方面）游说( canvass的现在分词 )；调查（如选举前选民的）意见；为讨论而提出（意见等）；详细检查 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
recalcitrant
|
|
| adj.倔强的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
tact
|
|
| n.机敏，圆滑，得体 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
thrifty
|
|
| adj.节俭的；兴旺的；健壮的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
shutters
|
|
| 百叶窗( shutter的名词复数 )； （照相机的）快门 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
wagons
|
|
| n.四轮的运货马车( wagon的名词复数 )；铁路货车；小手推车 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
ken
|
|
| n.视野，知识领域 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
dealer
|
|
| n.商人，贩子 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
annually
|
|
| adv.一年一次，每年 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
poetic
|
|
| adj.富有诗意的，有诗人气质的，善于抒情的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
celebrated
|
|
| adj.有名的，声誉卓著的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
delicacy
|
|
| n.精致，细微，微妙，精良；美味，佳肴 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
moody
|
|
| adj.心情不稳的，易怒的，喜怒无常的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
artistic
|
|
| adj.艺术(家)的，美术(家)的；善于艺术创作的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
longings
|
|
| 渴望，盼望( longing的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
concealed
|
|
| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
browsed
|
|
| v.吃草( browse的过去式和过去分词 )；随意翻阅；（在商店里）随便看看；（在计算机上）浏览信息 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
poised
|
|
| a.摆好姿势不动的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
speculative
|
|
| adj.思索性的，暝想性的，推理的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
fixedly
|
|
| adv.固定地；不屈地，坚定不移地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
pathos
|
|
| n.哀婉，悲怆 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
sketch
|
|
| n.草图；梗概；素描；v.素描；概述 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
willow
|
|
| n.柳树 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
interpretation
|
|
| n.解释，说明，描述；艺术处理 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
spoke
|
|
| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
tightened
|
|
| 收紧( tighten的过去式和过去分词 )； （使）变紧； （使）绷紧； 加紧 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
algebra
|
|
| n.代数学 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
puerile
|
|
| adj.幼稚的，儿童的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
34
maze
|
|
| n.迷宫，八阵图，混乱，迷惑 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
35
dreary
|
|
| adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
36
specifications
|
|
| n.规格；载明；详述；（产品等的）说明书；说明书( specification的名词复数 )；详细的计划书；载明；详述 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
37
minor
|
|
| adj.较小(少)的，较次要的；n.辅修学科；vi.辅修 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
38
furtively
|
|
| adv. 偷偷地, 暗中地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
39
affinity
|
|
| n.亲和力，密切关系 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
40
notably
|
|
| adv.值得注意地，显著地，尤其地，特别地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
41
debonair
|
|
| adj.殷勤的，快乐的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
42
enticing
|
|
| adj.迷人的；诱人的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
43
susceptible
|
|
| adj.过敏的，敏感的；易动感情的，易受感动的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
44
flirt
|
|
| v.调情，挑逗，调戏；n.调情者，卖俏者 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
45
intercept
|
|
| vt.拦截，截住，截击 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
46
helping
|
|
| n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
47
harry
|
|
| vt.掠夺，蹂躏，使苦恼 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
48
gallantly
|
|
| adv. 漂亮地，勇敢地，献殷勤地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
49
porcelain
|
|
| n.瓷；adj.瓷的，瓷制的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
50
virile
|
|
| adj.男性的；有男性生殖力的；有男子气概的；强有力的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
51
frankly
|
|
| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
52
awfully
|
|
| adv.可怕地，非常地，极端地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
53
anticipation
|
|
| n.预期，预料，期望 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
54
worthy
|
|
| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
55
illuminating
|
|
| a.富于启发性的，有助阐明的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
56
stereotyped
|
|
| adj.(指形象、思想、人物等)模式化的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
57
climax
|
|
| n.顶点；高潮；v.(使)达到顶点 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
58
greasy
|
|
| adj. 多脂的，油脂的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
59
wry
|
|
| adj.讽刺的；扭曲的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
60
opposition
|
|
| n.反对，敌对 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
61
crater
|
|
| n.火山口，弹坑 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
62
ominously
|
|
| adv.恶兆地，不吉利地；预示地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
63
chirped
|
|
| 鸟叫，虫鸣( chirp的过去式 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
64
chestnuts
|
|
| n.栗子( chestnut的名词复数 )；栗色；栗树；栗色马 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
65
gaily
|
|
| adv.欢乐地，高兴地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
66
noted
|
|
| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
67
beckoned
|
|
| v.（用头或手的动作）示意，召唤( beckon的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
68
strands
|
|
| n.（线、绳、金属线、毛发等的）股( strand的名词复数 )；缕；海洋、湖或河的)岸；（观点、计划、故事等的）部份v.使滞留，使搁浅( strand的第三人称单数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
69
superintendent
|
|
| n.监督人，主管，总监；(英国)警务长 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
70
cogitated
|
|
| v.认真思考，深思熟虑( cogitate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
|
71
drawn
|
|
| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
72
standing
|
|
| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
73
twigs
|
|
| 细枝，嫩枝( twig的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
74
filigree
|
|
| n.金银丝做的工艺品；v.用金银细丝饰品装饰；用华而不实的饰品装饰；adj.金银细丝工艺的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
75
resounding
|
|
| adj. 响亮的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
76
rumble
|
|
| n.隆隆声；吵嚷；v.隆隆响；低沉地说 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
77
pensively
|
|
| adv.沉思地，焦虑地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |