When Miss Tuttle and Leola were alone together they talked over the news, and neither one was very well pleased, the girl, since their coming would break up her happy days with Ray, and the governess, because the Stirlings were always supercilious1 with her, and naturally made more work for the household.
“I do not see why I should put myself out to wait on pretentious2 fine ladies this warm weather, especially when my employer has not paid a dollar of my salary for five months,” she complained, and Leola added:
“There will be no more good times with Ray, for like as not they will join hands with Uncle Hermann in persecuting3 him, and try to have me marry old Bennett because he is rich. Oh, dear! I’m sorry Ray isn’t coming back to-night, so I could tell him not to come to-morrow.”
“You might send word to him in the morning before they come,” suggested Miss Tuttle, and Leola agreed to the plan, which would have worked itself out all right had not fate decreed that Leola’s little black messenger should lose the note and Widower4 Bennett find it.
He was riding briskly toward Wheatlands when his fine bay mare5 shied, wildly, at a square white envelope blowing about in the dusty road, and an impulse of curiosity made him dismount and pick it up.
When he saw Leola’s familiar writing on the sealed envelope, he was seized with such poignant6 wrath7 and jealousy8 that no scruple9 of honor prevailed to prevent his becoming master of the contents.
“To Ray Chester, the young dandy—wonder if she’s giving him the mitten10 as she did me yesterday!” he muttered, wrathfully, and broke the pretty seal of blue wax with a ruthless hand.
“My Own Darling Ray:
“You must not come in the morning as usual, because the Stirlings are coming, Uncle Hermann says, and I do not want them to know of our engagement yet, for they both are very mercenary, and would take sides against you, and want me to marry old Bennett, because he is rich, while you are poor! As if I would have that dumpy old fright on any terms—no, not even if he were President of the United States! Oh, why didn’t the old silly lose his heart to dear Miss Tuttle instead of me, when she loves the very ground he walks on, and would make him such a suitable wife? Fate seems to play at cross purposes with us, my darling Ray, but we will outwit our enemies and be happy yet.
“You had better not come to Wheatlands to-day, but if you will stay in all afternoon, I will try to make an errand to Widow Gray’s, and we can talk things over and make plans for the future.
“Oh, isn’t it just hateful the way things seem to work against our happiness? Just think, if only Jessie Stirling hadn’t got engaged to a fortune already, we might get my rotund suitor in love with her, and she could have all the money she craves12.
“Be sure to stay in until I come this afternoon.
Your own loving
“Leola.”
Widower Bennett stamped upon the ground in a fury, hissing13 out the epithets14 she had used in writing of him in the bitterest voice ever heard:
“‘Old Bennett!’ ‘Dumpy old fright!’ ‘Old silly!’ ‘My rotund suitor!’ She would not marry me if I were President of the United States! Why, now, I swear I will marry the little spitfire if it costs me my fortune!”
In this rage he remounted his mare and galloped15 on to Wheatlands, between whose master and himself there ensued an excited interview.
“She would prefer to marry a younger man than me, and she recommends me to take Miss Tuttle—that skinny, homely17 old maid, almost as old as I am!” he blustered18, wrathfully, adding:
“You promised faithfully she should marry me, Hermann, but instead of watching her as you ought, you go poking19 among your old chemicals, as blind as a bat, and let her get engaged to a pretty-faced young jackanapes from the city—a pauper20 without a dollar to support his wife on, sir, and yet it lacks only a few days of the time set for my marriage to that saucy21 girl, and, mind you, if the ceremony is not pulled off in due time, I’ll lose not a day, I swear, in foreclosing the mortgage.”
It was in vain that Wizard Hermann tried to pacify22 him, saying that he would certainly keep his promise, and that he was sure that there was some mistake about Leola’s engagement to young Chester, who was almost a stranger.
But at this point Bennett produced his proof in the shape of Leola’s letter to Ray.
[Pg 15]
“This is worse than I thought, but it does not alter the fact that the girl shall be your wife, Bennett, for I have sworn to keep my promise, and I will not fail you, by Heaven!” vowed23 Hermann, continuing:
“As for neglecting to get matters into shape, that is false, for I have been quietly working to the promised end all these weeks, but, having encountered such determined24 opposition25 from the girl, I thought it expedient26 not to press her too hard, but to depend on force and cunning, since fair means failed. In fact, one of my objects in going to New York was to enlist27 the aid of my clever half-sister, Mrs. Stirling, in accomplishing the end in view. She will arrive with her daughter this morning, and although I admit that the case looks unpromising now, I believe we will soon wind a web around Leola from which she cannot escape. Go home, Bennett, and rest easy in the thought that before the end of a week she will be your charming bride.”
The prospective28 bridegroom beamed with joy and assured Hermann that he was ready to co-operate in any plan proposed for Leola’s subjugation29.
“I will go to any length now to punish her for her contempt, and for advising me to marry a skinny old maid like Amanda Tuttle when I’m rich enough to buy a lovely young girl for a bride!” he vowed, coarsely, and took leave with renewed hope.
In the hall, as he was going out, he encountered Miss Tuttle, and fancied she might have been eavesdropping30 from her air of confusion, but he stalked past her with a curt31 nod that cut to her tender heart like a knife.
“Oh, what has come over him when he used to be so friendly? Can it be that he is angry at Leola’s suggestion that he should court me?” sighed the poor thing, deprecatingly.
It would have been well indeed if she had been listening, as Bennett suspected, for then she might have been able to inform Leola of the perils32 that threatened her in the joining of forces of Wizard Hermann and his worldly-wise sister, but she had only been loitering about the hall in hopes of a little interview when he came out, and tears of disappointment brimmed over in her kind gray eyes, when he passed her with so indifferent a greeting.
As she followed to the door and watched him galloping33 away toward home, she saw the carriage coming with the Stirlings, and ran to tell Leola the news.
点击收听单词发音
1 supercilious | |
adj.目中无人的,高傲的;adv.高傲地;n.高傲 | |
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2 pretentious | |
adj.自命不凡的,自负的,炫耀的 | |
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3 persecuting | |
(尤指宗教或政治信仰的)迫害(~sb. for sth.)( persecute的现在分词 ); 烦扰,困扰或骚扰某人 | |
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4 widower | |
n.鳏夫 | |
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5 mare | |
n.母马,母驴 | |
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6 poignant | |
adj.令人痛苦的,辛酸的,惨痛的 | |
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7 wrath | |
n.愤怒,愤慨,暴怒 | |
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8 jealousy | |
n.妒忌,嫉妒,猜忌 | |
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9 scruple | |
n./v.顾忌,迟疑 | |
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10 mitten | |
n.连指手套,露指手套 | |
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11 veins | |
n.纹理;矿脉( vein的名词复数 );静脉;叶脉;纹理 | |
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12 craves | |
渴望,热望( crave的第三人称单数 ); 恳求,请求 | |
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13 hissing | |
n. 发嘶嘶声, 蔑视 动词hiss的现在分词形式 | |
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14 epithets | |
n.(表示性质、特征等的)词语( epithet的名词复数 ) | |
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15 galloped | |
(使马)飞奔,奔驰( gallop的过去式和过去分词 ); 快速做[说]某事 | |
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16 recipient | |
a.接受的,感受性强的 n.接受者,感受者,容器 | |
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17 homely | |
adj.家常的,简朴的;不漂亮的 | |
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18 blustered | |
v.外强中干的威吓( bluster的过去式和过去分词 );咆哮;(风)呼啸;狂吹 | |
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19 poking | |
n. 刺,戳,袋 vt. 拨开,刺,戳 vi. 戳,刺,捅,搜索,伸出,行动散慢 | |
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20 pauper | |
n.贫民,被救济者,穷人 | |
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21 saucy | |
adj.无礼的;俊俏的;活泼的 | |
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22 pacify | |
vt.使(某人)平静(或息怒);抚慰 | |
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23 vowed | |
起誓,发誓(vow的过去式与过去分词形式) | |
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24 determined | |
adj.坚定的;有决心的 | |
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25 opposition | |
n.反对,敌对 | |
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26 expedient | |
adj.有用的,有利的;n.紧急的办法,权宜之计 | |
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27 enlist | |
vt.谋取(支持等),赢得;征募;vi.入伍 | |
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28 prospective | |
adj.预期的,未来的,前瞻性的 | |
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29 subjugation | |
n.镇压,平息,征服 | |
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30 eavesdropping | |
n. 偷听 | |
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31 curt | |
adj.简短的,草率的 | |
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32 perils | |
极大危险( peril的名词复数 ); 危险的事(或环境) | |
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33 galloping | |
adj. 飞驰的, 急性的 动词gallop的现在分词形式 | |
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