There was something pathetic in these three women's idealization of him—even Selina's who though quarrelling with him to his face always praised him behind his back,—that great, good-looking, lazy lad; who, every body else saw clearly enough, thought more of his own noble self than of all his aunts put together.
The only person he stood in awe3 of was Mr. Lyon—for whom he always protested unbounded respect and admiration4. How far Robert Lyon liked Ascott even Hilary could never quite find out; but he was always very kind to him.
There was one person in the house who, strange to say, did not succumb5 to the all-dominating youth. From the very first there was a smouldering feud6 between him and Elizabeth. Whether she overheard, and slowly began to comprehend his mocking gibes7 about the "South Sea Islander," or whether her sullen8 and dogged spirit resisted the first attempts the lad made to "put upon her"—as he did upon his aunts, in small daily tyrannies—was never found out; but certainly Ascott, the general favorite, found little favor with the new servant. She never answered when he "hollo'd" for her; she resisted blacking his boots more than once a day; and she obstinately9 cleared the kitchen fire-place of his "messes," as she ignominiously10 termed various pots and pans belonging to what he called his "medical studies."
Although the war was passive rather than aggressive, and sometimes a source of private amusement to the aunts, still, on the whole, it was a relief when the exciting cause of it departed; his new and most gentlemanly port manteau being carried down stairs by Elizabeth herself, of her own accord, with an air of cheerful alacrity11, foreign to her mien12 for some weeks past, and which, even in the midst of the dolorous13 parting, amused Hilary extremely.
"You may say that, my dear; for she brightens up whenever she looks at you."
"Does she? Oh, that must be because I have most to do with her. It is wonderful how friendly one gets over sauce pans and brooms; and what reverence16 one inspires in the domestic mind when one really knows how to make a bed or a pudding."
"How I wish you had to do neither!" sighed Johanna, looking fondly at the bright face and light little figure that was flitting about putting the school-room to rights before the pupils came in.
"Nonsense—I don't wish any such thing. Doing it makes me not a whit17 less charming and lovely." She often applied18 these adjectives to herself, with the most perfect conviction that she was uttering a fiction patent to every body. I must be very juvenile19 also, for I'm certain the fellow-passenger at the station to-day took me for Ascott's sweetheart. When we were saying good by an old gentleman who sat next him was particularly sympathetic, and you should have seen how indignantly Ascott replied, "It's only my aunt!"
Miss Leaf laughed, and the shadow vanished from her face, as Hilary had meant it should. She only said, caressing20 her, "Well, my pet, never mind. I hope you will have a real sweetheart some day."
"I'm in no hurry, thank you, Johanna."
But now was heard the knock after knock of the little boys and girls, and there began that monotonous21 daily round of school labor22, rising from the simplicities23 of c, a, t, cat, and d, o, g, dog—to the sublime24 heights of Pinnock and Lennie, Telemaque and Latin Delectus. No loftier; Stowbury being well supplied with first class schools, and having a vague impression that the Misses Leaf, born ladies and not brought up as governesses, were not competent educators except of very small children.
Which was true enough until lately. So Miss Leaf kept contentedly25 to the c, a, t, cat, and d, o, g, dog, of the little butchers and bakers26, as Miss Selina, who taught only sewing, and came into the school-room but little during the day, scornfully termed them. The higher branches such as they were, she left gradually to Hilary, who, of late, possibly out of sympathy with a friend of hers, had begun to show an actual gift for teaching school.
It is a gift—all will allow; and chiefly those who have it not, among which was poor Johanna Leaf. The admiring envy with which she watched Hilary, moving briskly about from class to class, with a word of praise to one and rebuke27 to another, keeping every one's attention alive, spurring on the dull, controlling the unruly, and exercising over every member in this little world that influence, at once the strongest and most intangible and inexplicable—personal influence—was only equaled by the way in which, at pauses in the day's work, when it grew dull and monotonous or when the stupidity of the children ruffled28 her own quick temper beyond endurance, Hilary watched Johanna.
The time I am telling of now is long ago.
The Stowbury children, who were then little boys and girls, are now fathers and mothers—doubtless a large proportion being decent tradesfolk in Stowbury still; though, in this locomotive quarter, many must have drifted elsewhere—where, Heaven knows. But not a few of them may still call to mind Miss Leaf, who first taught them their letters—sitting in her corner between the fire and the window, while the blind was drawn29 down to keep out, first the light from her own fading eyes, and, secondly30, the distracting view of green fields and trees from the youthful eyes by her side. They may remember still her dark plain dress and her white apron31, on which the primers, torn and dirty, looked half ashamed to lie; and above all, her sweet face and sweeter voice, never heard in any thing sharper than that grieved tone which signified their being "naughty children." They may recall her unwearied patience with the very dullest and most wayward of them; her unfailing sympathy with every infantile pleasure and pain. And I think they will acknowledge that whether she taught them much or little—in this advancing age it might be thought little—Miss Leaf taught them one thing—to love her. Which, as Ben Johnson said of the Countess of Pembroke, was in itself a "liberal education."
Hilary, too. Often when Hilary's younger and more restless spirit chafed32 against the monotony of her life; when, instead of wasting her days in teaching small children, she would have liked to be learning, learning—every day growing wiser and cleverer, and stretching out into that busy, bright, active world of which Robert Lyon had told her—then the sight of Johanna's meek33 face bent34 over those dirty spelling books would at once rebuke and comfort her. She felt, after all, that she would not mind working on forever, so long as Johanna still sat there.
Nevertheless, that winter seemed to her very long—especially after Ascott was gone. For Johanna, partly for money, and partly for kindness, had added to her day's work four evenings a week when a half educated mother of one of her little pupils came to be taught to write a decent hand, and to keep the accounts of her shop. Upon which Selina, highly indignant, had taken to spending her evenings in the school room, interrupting Hilary's solitary36 studies there by many a lamentation37 over the peaceful days when they all sat in the kitchen together and kept no servant. For Selina was one of those who never saw the bright side of any thing till it had gone by.
"I'm sure I don't know how we are to manage with Elizabeth. That greedy—"
"And growing," suggested Hilary.
"I say that greedy girl eats as much as any two of us. And as for her clothes—her mother does not keep her even decent."
"She would find it difficult upon three pounds a year."
"Hilary, how dare you contradict me! I am only stating a plain fact."
"And I another. But, indeed, I don't want to talk Selina."
"You never do except when you are wished to be silent; and then your tongue goes like any race horse."
"Does it? Well, like Gilpin's,
'It carries weight: it rides a race,
'Tis for a thousand pound?'
—and I only wish it were. Heigh ho! if I could but earn a thousand pounds!"
Selina was too vexed38 to reply and for five quiet minutes Hilary bent over her Homer which Mr. Lyon had taken such pleasure in teaching her, because he said, she learned it faster than any of his grammar school boys. She had forgotten all domestic grievances39 in a vision of Thetis and the water nymphs; and was repeating to herself, first in the sonorous40 Greek and then in Pope's small but sweet English, that catalogue of oceanic beauties ending with
"Black Janira and Janassa fair,
"Black, did you say? I'm sure she was as black as a chimney sweep all to-day. And her pinafore"
"Her what? Oh, Elizabeth, you mean—"
"Her pinafore had three rents in it, which she never thinks of mending though I gave her needles and thread myself a week ago. But she does not know how to use them any more than a baby."
"Possibly, nobody ever taught her."
"Yes; she went for a year to the National School, she says, and learned both marking and sewing."
"Perhaps she has never practiced them since. She could hardly have had time, with all the little Hands to look after, as her mother says she did. All the better for us. It makes her wonderfully patient with our troublesome brats42. It was only to day, when that horrid43 little Jacky Smith hurt himself so, that I saw Elizabeth take him into the kitchen, wash his face and hands, and cuddle him up and comfort him, quite motherly. Her forte44 is certainly children."
"You always find something to say for her."
"I should be ashamed if I could not find something to say for any body who is always abused."
Another pause—and then Selina returned to the charge.
"Have you ever observed, my dear, the extraordinary way she has of fastening, or rather, not fastening her gown behind? She just hooks it together at the top and at the waist, while between there is a—"
"Hiatus valde deflendus. Oh dear me! what shall I do? Selina, how can I help it if a girl of fifteen years old is not a paragon45 of perfection? as of course we all are, if we only could find it out."
And Hilary, in despair, rose to carry her candle and books into the chilly46 but quiet bedroom, biting her lips the while lest she should be tempted47 to say something which Selina called "impertinent," which perhaps it was, from a younger sister to an elder. I do not set Hilary up as a perfect character. Through sorrow only do people go on to perfection; and sorrow, in its true meaning, the cherished girl had never known.
But that night, talking to Johanna before they went to sleep—they had always slept together since the time when the elder sister used to walk the room of nights with that pulling, motherless infant in her arms—Hilary anxiously started the question of the little servant.
"I am afraid I vexed Selina greatly about her to-night, and yet what can one do? Selina is so very unjust—always expecting impossibilities. She would like to have Elizabeth at once a first rate cook, a finished house-maid, and an attentive48 lady's maid, and all without being taught! She gives her things to do, neither waiting to see if they are comprehended by her, nor showing her how to do them. Of course the girl stands gaping49 and staring and does not do them, or does them so badly, that she gets a thorough scolding."
"Is she very stupid, do you think?" asked Johanna, in unconscious appeal to her pet's stronger judgment50.
"No, I don't. Far from stupid; only very ignorant, and—you would hardly believe it—very nervous. Selina frightens her. She gets on extremely well with me."
"Any one would, my dear. That is," added the conscientious51 elder sister, still afraid of making the "child" vain, "any one whom you took pain with. But do you think you can ever make any thing out of Elizabeth? Her month ends to-morrow. Shall we let her go?"
"And perhaps get in her place a story-teller—a tale-bearer—even a thief. No, no; let us
'Rather bear the ills we have,
Than fly to others that we know not of;'
and a thief would be worse than even a South Sea Islander."
"Oh yes, my dear," said Johanna, with a shiver.
"By-the-by, the first step in the civilization of the Polynesians was giving them clothes. And I have heard say that crime and rags often go together; that a man unconsciously feels that he owes something to himself and society in the way of virtue52 when he has a clean face and clean shirt, and a decent coat on. Suppose we try the experiment of dressing53 Elizabeth. How many old gowns have we?"
The number was few. Nothing in the Leaf family was ever cast off till its very last extremity54 of decay; the talent that
being specially35 possessed56 by Hilary. She counted over her own wardrobe and Johanna's but found nothing that could be spared.
"Yes, my love, there is one thing. You certainly shall never put on that old brown merino again; though you have laid it so carefully by, as if you meant it to come out as fresh as ever next winter. No, Hilary, you must have a new gown, and you must give Elizabeth your brown merino."
Hilary laughed, and replied not.
Now it might be a pathetic indication of a girl who had very few clothes, but Hilary had a superstitious57 weakness concerning hers.—Every dress had its own peculiar58 chronicle of the scenes where it had been, the enjoyments59 she had shared in it. Particular dresses were special memorials of her loves, her pleasures, her little passing pains; as long as a bit remained of the poor old fabric60 the sight of it recalled them all.
This brown merino—in which she had sat two whole winters over her Greek and Latin by Robert Lyon's side, which he had once stopped to touch and notice, saying what a pretty color it was, and how he liked soft-feeling dresses for women—to cut up this old brown merino seemed to hurt her so she could almost have cried.
Yet what would Johanna think if the refused? And there was Elizabeth absolutely in want of clothes. "I must be growing very wicked," thought poor Hilary.
She lay a good while silent in the dark, while Johanna planned and replanned—calculating how, even with the addition of an old cape61 of her own, which was out of the same piece, this hapless gown could be made to fit the gaunt frame of Elizabeth Hand.—Her poor kindly62 brain was in the last extremity of muddle63, when Hilary, with a desperate effort, dashed in to the rescue, and soon made all clear, contriving64 body, skirt, sleeves and all.
"You have the best head in the world, my love. I don't know whatever
I should do without you."
"Luckily you are never likely to be tried. So give me a kiss; and good night, Johanna."
I misdoubt many will say I am writing about small, ridiculously small, things. Yet is not the whole of life made up of infinitesimally small things? And in its strange and solemn mosaic65, the full pattern of which we never see clearly till looking back on it from far away, dare we say of any thing which the hand of Eternal Wisdom has put together, that it is too common or too small?
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1
maidenhood
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| n. 处女性, 处女时代 | |
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sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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awe
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| n.敬畏，惊惧；vt.使敬畏，使惊惧 | |
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admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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succumb
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| v.屈服，屈从；死 | |
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feud
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| n.长期不和；世仇；v.长期争斗；世代结仇 | |
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gibes
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| vi.嘲笑，嘲弄（gibe的第三人称单数形式） | |
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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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obstinately
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| ad.固执地，顽固地 | |
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ignominiously
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| adv.耻辱地，屈辱地，丢脸地 | |
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alacrity
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| n.敏捷，轻快，乐意 | |
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mien
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| n.风采；态度 | |
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dolorous
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| adj.悲伤的；忧愁的 | |
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afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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reverence
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| n.敬畏，尊敬，尊严；Reverence:对某些基督教神职人员的尊称；v.尊敬，敬畏，崇敬 | |
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whit
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| n.一点，丝毫 | |
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applied
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| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
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19
juvenile
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| n.青少年，少年读物；adj.青少年的，幼稚的 | |
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caressing
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| 爱抚的，表现爱情的，亲切的 | |
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21
monotonous
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| adj.单调的，一成不变的，使人厌倦的 | |
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labor
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| n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦 | |
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23
simplicities
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| n.简单，朴素，率直( simplicity的名词复数 ) | |
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sublime
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| adj.崇高的，伟大的；极度的，不顾后果的 | |
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contentedly
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| adv.心满意足地 | |
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bakers
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| n.面包师( baker的名词复数 )；面包店；面包店店主；十三 | |
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rebuke
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| v.指责，非难，斥责 [反]praise | |
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28
ruffled
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| adj. 有褶饰边的, 起皱的 动词ruffle的过去式和过去分词 | |
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29
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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secondly
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| adv.第二，其次 | |
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apron
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| n.围裙；工作裙 | |
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32
chafed
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| v.擦热（尤指皮肤）( chafe的过去式 )；擦痛；发怒；惹怒 | |
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33
meek
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| adj.温顺的，逆来顺受的 | |
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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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35
specially
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| adv.特定地；特殊地；明确地 | |
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36
solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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lamentation
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| n.悲叹，哀悼 | |
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vexed
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| adj.争论不休的；（指问题等）棘手的；争论不休的问题；烦恼的v.使烦恼( vex的过去式和过去分词 )；使苦恼；使生气；详细讨论 | |
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39
grievances
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| n.委屈( grievance的名词复数 )；苦衷；不满；牢骚 | |
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40
sonorous
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| adj.响亮的，回响的；adv.圆润低沉地；感人地；n.感人，堂皇 | |
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amber
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| n.琥珀；琥珀色；adj.琥珀制的 | |
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brats
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| n.调皮捣蛋的孩子( brat的名词复数 ) | |
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horrid
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| adj.可怕的；令人惊恐的；恐怖的；极讨厌的 | |
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forte
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| n.长处，擅长；adj.(音乐)强音的 | |
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paragon
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| n.模范，典型 | |
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chilly
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| adj.凉快的，寒冷的 | |
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tempted
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| v.怂恿（某人）干不正当的事；冒…的险（tempt的过去分词） | |
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48
attentive
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| adj.注意的，专心的；关心(别人)的，殷勤的 | |
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49
gaping
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| adj.口的；张口的；敞口的；多洞穴的v.目瞪口呆地凝视( gape的现在分词 )；张开，张大 | |
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50
judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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conscientious
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| adj.审慎正直的，认真的，本着良心的 | |
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virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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53
dressing
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| n.(食物)调料；包扎伤口的用品，敷料 | |
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extremity
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| n.末端，尽头；尽力；终极；极度 | |
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auld
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| adj.老的，旧的 | |
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possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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superstitious
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| adj.迷信的 | |
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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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enjoyments
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| 愉快( enjoyment的名词复数 )； 令人愉快的事物； 享有； 享受 | |
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fabric
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| n.织物，织品，布；构造，结构，组织 | |
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cape
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| n.海角，岬；披肩，短披风 | |
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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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63
muddle
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| n.困惑，混浊状态；vt.使混乱，使糊涂，使惊呆；vi.胡乱应付，混乱 | |
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64
contriving
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| （不顾困难地）促成某事( contrive的现在分词 )； 巧妙地策划，精巧地制造（如机器）； 设法做到 | |
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mosaic
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| n./adj.镶嵌细工的，镶嵌工艺品的，嵌花式的 | |
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