"Good-by," said Jean, with a spring toward the door that led to the kitchen. "I belong to the culinary department, thank goodness. Poor Florrie!"
The thump2 of the crutch3 stopped and presently the door of the dining-room swung back to admit Aunt Elsie.
"I thought likely you were sewing," she said, cheerfully. "I brought my thimble and spectacles, thinking there might be something that I can do."
Florence made haste to explain. "Oh, thank you, but this is just some fussy4 sewing that I have to do myself; I'm fixing over an old dress, and of all stupid tasks I consider that the worst."
"It is pretty," said her aunt, examining the goods with critical eye, "and the color just suits you, doesn't it? You will have to hem5 it over again, won't you? That is done by hand, of course?"
"I'm sorry to say that it is," Florence admitted, with a sigh. "The machine won't do for this thin stuff; I tried a little bit and it looked horrid6."
"Do you ever hem with ravellings? In goods of this kind they generally do nicely; here is a scrap7 that would be just right to ravel out; suppose I hem a little bit, and see if it looks well?"
Florence gave reluctant consent, with doubt in her heart; she was what Jean called "fussy" about her work, and she had never sewed with "ravellings"; she resolved to watch closely and be ready with objections at the earliest possible moment. But while the volunteer was choosing a needle Derrick came ready to do the errand that had been asked of him, and to ask innumerable questions. Just what was it she wanted at Wheeler's and where was the thing to be matched. Must he undertake to match it, or would the clerk do it for him. Just exactly how much did she want, and what would it probably cost. If he did not find it at Wheeler's was he to go elsewhere, and if so, where. Florence had to hunt through boxes and baskets for the desired samples, then go to her mother for advice as to measurements, then find her pocketbook for Derrick to use, as he announced himself "dead broke." When she at last turned from him to give belated attention to ravellings her remarks were all exclamatory:
"You don't mean that you have done it! Have you been all round that skirt already? Why it is only a few minutes since you began! Do look at it! The stitches are not there at all! I mean I can't find one of them! How perfectly8 lovely! I just dreaded9 that hem! Aunt Elsie, I believe you are a witch!"
"It doesn't take long to hem with ravellings," Aunt Elsie said when she was given a chance to speak. "I saw the stitches weren't going to grin, and as you were busy with Derrick I pushed right on. Now suppose you let me put in these sleeves? I'm a master hand at sleeves; I took lessons how to do them, of a first-class dressmaker's."
Florence, who was not a "master hand" and had dreaded the sleeves almost as much as the hem, relinquished10 them with a relieved sigh, and boasted of them the next time she made a dash to the kitchen to consult her mother.
"Don't you think, they came right the first time! and even Ray has to rip them out once. She goes at things as though she had been a dressmaker all her life; and she's quick, too."
When the garment reached the trying-on stage, and Florence was posing before the sideboard mirror, her aunt, who had worked steadily11 and skillfully on other than hems12 and sleeves, asked a question that was even then puzzling the young girl:
"How are you going to finish the neck? Is it to be faced, or bound, or what?"
"I guess it will have to be 'What,'" Florence said, trying to laugh. "I don't know how to fix it, I am sure. I suppose I shall use the old collar again in some fashion; it is too small, and not the right shape anyway, but it will have to do."
Her aunt reached for the collar in question and examined it critically.
"It could be set on with a bit of lace," she said, presently. "Wide lace, you know, falling below it, and a narrower bit above, of the same pattern; you have seen them made in that way, haven't you?"
"Oh, yes, I have; that is the very latest style; but you see the trouble is I haven't the lace. Mother used to have a piece of nice lace that she lent to us girls on occasions, but it was in that dreadful trunk that was lost in the railroad accident. It seems sometimes as though nearly everything we had that was worth much was in that burned-up trunk."
"I wonder if I haven't a bit that would do for this dress," the elder lady said, thoughtfully. "I believe I have, if there is enough for the sleeves, too. Suppose you climb up to that highest shelf in my closet and get the little green box at the left corner, and we'll measure and see."
Florence made a vigorous protest and, failing, went with a reluctance13 that covered dismay. What had she done now! She heard herself trying to argue with Aunt Elsie over a strip of cheap lace to prove, without hurting her feelings, that it was not suitable for the dress in question. What if she should fail and be obliged to accept it?
"I won't do it!" she told herself, firmly, as she climbed after the green box. "She has helped me a lot, and I'm thankful, but I simply can't reward her by tricking myself out in her old cotton finery; not if she were father's mother, instead of his half-sister. Oh, dear! If Ray were only at home, she would help me out of this scrape. I don't care! We can't sacrifice everything in order to save her feelings. I'm just going to tell her that I can't use it."
But in less than half an hour from that resolute14 moment this same maiden15 was standing16 before the sideboard mirror, aglow17 and eyes very bright, "tricked out" in Aunt Elsie's "finery," and what she was telling her was this:
"Oh, Aunt Elsie! I never saw anything so lovely in all my life! It is as fine as a cobweb, and so wide! Dear me! I should like to have Frances Powell see this; she thinks she has the most wonderful piece of old lace in the world; it was her grandmother's and it is beautiful, but nothing like this! May I just show it to her some time? Of course, I do not mean on the dress; I couldn't think of wearing it. Oh, I wouldn't for the world! It is much too fine for me."
Said Aunt Elsie, stepping back to view it with a critic's eye: "It would look better, I believe, dropped a little lower on the shoulder; just let me try it. There, isn't that more graceful18? Stand still, dear, until I pin it all around, then I can sew it on in a minute. Nonsense, child, of course you will wear it; that is what it is for; I'm glad there is enough for the sleeves; I was a little bit afraid—but there is plenty."
The lace went to the party that same evening, accompanied by a radiant girl, who, as she surveyed herself in the mirror confided19 to Jean that, thanks to Aunt Elsie, she felt herself to be really well dressed for the first time in her life.
"The idea!" Jean said, "when you have worn that same dress dozens of times."
Jean regarded her gravely, with a faraway look in her eyes; evidently her thoughts were elsewhere. Unconsciously to herself she began to sing softly:
"I shall rise again at morning's dawn, I shall put on glory then."
"What on earth!" began Florence, wheeling about to stare at her. Jean laughed shamefacedly.
"Evidently you don't think my selection fits the occasion," she said. "It was your 'glorified' dress that did it. That is a song we are to sing next week at vespers; it is a very catchy21 tune22; I find myself humming it half the time." Whereupon she sang again:
"I'm travelling toward life's sunset gate, I'm a pilgrim going home."
"To be sure, you are a pilgrim going away from home," she broke off to say, "but you have 'put on glory' all the same. You look too lovely for anything, as Florry Mitchell is always saying. Aunt Elsie ought to give you that lace; it just fits you. How queer for her to have such a costly23 cobweb as that! I wonder how it feels to be near that other home?" She was humming again:
"For the glow of eventide I wait, I'm a pilgrim going home."
"Well," said Jean, with a graver face than one often saw her wear, "things are dreadfully mixed in this life. You know that Helen Darroll who stayed to dinner here the night it rained so hard? She has been planning for more than a week for that dancing party to-night at Dr. Willard's; couldn't think or talk of anything else; and just before school closed to-day she had a telegram that her father had been thrown from his horse and killed."
"Oh, how dreadful!" said Florence.
"Isn't it? So sudden! She is travelling home to-night, instead of dancing. I wonder if her father has 'put on glory'? I hope he was a good man."
Florence gave her sister another quick, searching look, and after a moment said: "You are a very strange girl, Jean, do you know it?"
"Why?" Jean asked. "What is there strange about hoping that a man who had to exchange worlds without a moment's warning was ready for it? Florence, the way that lace falls back from your arms is exquisite25; I shouldn't wonder if you would be the most becomingly dressed girl there. Isn't it time you were off? The moon has risen. Oh, look! isn't it a glorious night!"
She drew back the curtain to gaze on the shimmering26 glory, and Florence went downstairs to the sound of her voice trilling:
"For the glow of eventide I wait, I'm a pilgrim going home."
An hour later Derrick came clattering27 downstairs and bounced into the family sitting-room28 with an imperious question: "Where is Ray?"
When his mother explained that Kendall had taken her out for a moonlight walk, he growled29: "Oh, bother Kendall! He is always carrying her off just when a fellow needs her most. I can't make any sense of this mess and I've gone over it fifty times, at least. I wish there wasn't such a language as Latin, anyhow, or else I wish that a fellow like me had—"
At that point he stopped, and his mother took up the unfinished sentence: "Had a mother who knew enough to help him out of trouble, was that what you were about to say?"
"Not much it wasn't!" with a quick little flash from expressive30 eyes. "I've got exactly the kind of mother I like best; but I wish I had brains enough to see through a thing, without everlasting31 drudgery32; I spend more time on my Latin than all the fellows do put together, and then don't more than half know. Ray, now, could tell in two minutes what all this fool stuff is about. Why can't I see it?"
Then from a voice just behind him came a surprising suggestion: "What if you should let me have a peep at it, young man? I used to be called a fairly good Latin scholar once; I may not have forgotten all of it."
Derrick turned suddenly. Up to that moment he had not noticed that his Aunt Elsie was in the room; and he thought he would not have been more astonished if the bronze figure supporting the droplight had offered to help him.
"Do you know Latin?" he asked, with an emphasis on the pronoun that marked his amazement33. His aunt laughed good-naturedly.
"Try me," she said, as she reached for the book in his hand. "I used to be somewhat familiar with this book, which is open to the very page over which I once puzzled, for—I believe I won't confess how long; but I'll venture to guess that this second paragraph is the one that you sit up nights with."
"You've guessed right the first time," he said, gleefully. "If you can help a fellow out of a snarl34 like that, I shall conclude you are a witch. None of the boys can make sense of it."
As he spoke he kicked a hassock toward her and seated himself on it; Aunt Elsie, book in hand, bent35 toward him, and for the next half hour the two were absorbed. At the end of that time, Derrick gave a triumphant36 whistle.
"There you are!" he stopped to say, pounding his translation for emphasis. "Straight as preaching; never believed it could be done. I say, Aunt Elsie, you're a trump37! Who would have thought that old—I mean that a woman of your age would—would be interested in Latin!"
Aunt Elsie laughed. "I used to be wonderfully interested in it," she said. "Very few of the girls in our neighborhood studied Latin; it wasn't as common then as it is now, but I wanted to do everything that my brother did. The brother you are named for was the best Latin scholar in our school."
At this Derrick frowned slightly, and cast a quick look at his aunt as he said: "I was named for my grandfather."
"I know—and for your Uncle Derrick as well; your father's brother; you know of him, of course?"
By this time they were alone; Jean, after yawning over her books for a while, had declared herself too sleepy to study, and said good-night. A few minutes afterwards Mrs. Forman had slipped away to see if her husband's head was better, leaving the two absorbed ones to their Latin. Derrick glanced around to make sure that no one else was within hearing before admitting that he had heard of such a person, but had never felt any great desire to claim him as an uncle.
"Then you do him very great injustice," his aunt said, quickly. "He was worthy38 of your respect, as well as your love; you didn't know him, of course, but I did; I knew him as a child, and he was the dearest big brother a little girl ever had; if you knew all that I do about him you would be proud to claim Derrick Forman as an uncle."
Derrick, the nephew, made flourishing capital D's all over the blank half page in his exercise book and considered.
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收听单词发音
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1
groaned
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| v.呻吟( groan的过去式和过去分词 )；发牢骚；抱怨；受苦 | |
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2
thump
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| v.重击，砰然地响；n.重击，重击声 | |
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3
crutch
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| n.T字形拐杖；支持，依靠，精神支柱 | |
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4
fussy
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| adj.为琐事担忧的，过分装饰的，爱挑剔的 | |
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5
hem
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| n.贴边，镶边；vt.缝贴边；(in)包围，限制 | |
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6
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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7
scrap
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| n.碎片；废料；v.废弃，报废 | |
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8
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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9
dreaded
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| adj.令人畏惧的；害怕的v.害怕，恐惧，担心( dread的过去式和过去分词) | |
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10
relinquished
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| 交出，让给( relinquish的过去式和过去分词 )； 放弃 | |
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11
steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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12
hems
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| 布的褶边，贴边( hem的名词复数 )； 短促的咳嗽 | |
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13
reluctance
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| n.厌恶，讨厌，勉强，不情愿 | |
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14
resolute
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| adj.坚决的，果敢的 | |
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15
maiden
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| n.少女，处女；adj.未婚的，纯洁的，无经验的 | |
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16
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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17
aglow
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| adj.发亮的；发红的；adv.发亮地 | |
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18
graceful
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| adj.优美的，优雅的；得体的 | |
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19
confided
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| v.吐露（秘密，心事等）( confide的过去式和过去分词 )；（向某人）吐露（隐私、秘密等） | |
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20
glorified
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| 美其名的，变荣耀的 | |
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21
catchy
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| adj.易记住的，诡诈的，易使人上当的 | |
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22
tune
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| n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整 | |
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23
costly
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| adj.昂贵的，价值高的，豪华的 | |
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24
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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25
exquisite
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| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
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26
shimmering
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| v.闪闪发光，发微光( shimmer的现在分词 ) | |
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27
clattering
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| 发出咔哒声（clatter的现在分词形式） | |
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28
sitting-room
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| n.（BrE）客厅，起居室 | |
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29
growled
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| v.（动物）发狺狺声， （雷）作隆隆声( growl的过去式和过去分词 )；低声咆哮着说 | |
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30
expressive
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| adj.表现的，表达…的，富于表情的 | |
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31
everlasting
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| adj.永恒的，持久的，无止境的 | |
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32
drudgery
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| n.苦工，重活，单调乏味的工作 | |
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33
amazement
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| n.惊奇，惊讶 | |
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34
snarl
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| v.吼叫，怒骂，纠缠，混乱；n.混乱，缠结，咆哮 | |
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35
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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36
triumphant
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| adj.胜利的，成功的；狂欢的，喜悦的 | |
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37
trump
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| n.王牌，法宝；v.打出王牌，吹喇叭 | |
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38
worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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