Mr. Polly walked back to the house because he wanted to be alone. Miriam and Minnie would have accompanied him, but finding Uncle Pentstemon beside the Chief Mourner they went on in front.
“You’re wise,” said Uncle Pentstemon.
“Glad you think so,” said Mr. Polly, rousing himself to talk.
“I likes a bit of walking before a meal,” said Uncle Pentstemon, and made a kind of large hiccup1. “That sherry rises,” he remarked. “Grocer’s stuff, I expect.”
He went on to ask how much the funeral might be costing, and seemed pleased to find Mr. Polly didn’t know.
“In that case,” he said impressively, “it’s pretty certain to cost more’n you expect, my boy.”
He meditated2 for a time. “I’ve seen a mort of undertakers,” he declared; “a mort of undertakers.”
The Larkins girls attracted his attention.
“Let’s lodgin’s and chars,” he commented. “Leastways she goes out to cook dinners. And look at ’em!
“Dressed up to the nines. If it ain’t borryd clothes, that is. And they goes out to work at a factory!”
“Did you know my father much, Uncle Pentstemon?” asked Mr. Polly.
“Couldn’t stand Lizzie throwin’ herself away like that,” said Uncle Pentstemon, and repeated his hiccup on a larger scale.
“That weren’t good sherry,” said Uncle Pentstemon with the first note of pathos3 Mr. Polly had detected in his quavering voice.
The funeral in the rather cold wind had proved wonderfully appetising, and every eye brightened at the sight of the cold collation4 that was now spread in the front room. Mrs. Johnson was very brisk, and Mr. Polly, when he re-entered the house found everybody sitting down. “Come along, Alfred,” cried the hostess cheerfully. “We can’t very well begin without you. Have you got the bottled beer ready to open, Betsy? Uncle, you’ll have a drop of whiskey, I expect.”
“Put it where I can mix for myself,” said Uncle Pentstemon, placing his hat very carefully out of harm’s way on the bookcase.
There were two cold boiled chickens, which Johnson carved with great care and justice, and a nice piece of ham, some brawn5 and a steak and kidney pie, a large bowl of salad and several sorts of pickles6, and afterwards came cold apple tart7, jam roll and a good piece of Stilton cheese, lots of bottled beer, some lemonade for the ladies and milk for Master Punt; a very bright and satisfying meal. Mr. Polly found himself seated between Mrs. Punt, who was much preoccupied8 with Master Punt’s table manners, and one of Mrs. Johnson’s school friends, who was exchanging reminiscences of school days and news of how various common friends had changed and married with Mrs. Johnson. Opposite him was Miriam and another of the Johnson circle, and also he had brawn to carve and there was hardly room for the helpful Betsy to pass behind his chair, so that altogether his mind would have been amply distracted from any mortuary broodings, even if a wordy warfare9 about the education of the modern young woman had not sprung up between Uncle Pentstemon and Mrs. Larkins and threatened for a time, in spite of a word or so in season from Johnson, to wreck10 all the harmony of the sad occasion.
The general effect was after this fashion:
First an impression of Mrs. Punt on the right speaking in a refined undertone: “You didn’t, I suppose, Mr. Polly, think to ‘ave your poor dear father post-mortemed —”
Lady on the left side breaking in: “I was just reminding Grace of the dear dead days beyond recall —”
Attempted reply to Mrs. Punt: “Didn’t think of it for a moment. Can’t give you a piece of this brawn, can I?”
Fragment from the left: “Grace and Beauty they used to call us and we used to sit at the same desk —”
Mrs. Punt, breaking out suddenly: “Don’t swaller your fork, Willy. You see, Mr. Polly, I used to ‘ave a young gentleman, a medical student, lodging11 with me —”
Voice from down the table: “‘Am, Alfred? I didn’t give you very much.”
Bessie became evident at the back of Mr. Polly’s chair, struggling wildly to get past. Mr. Polly did his best to be helpful. “Can you get past? Lemme sit forward a bit. Urr-oo! Right O.”
Lady to the left going on valiantly12 and speaking to everyone who cares to listen, while Mrs. Johnson beams beside her: “There she used to sit as bold as brass13, and the fun she used to make of things no one could believe — knowing her now. She used to make faces at the mistress through the —”
Mrs. Punt keeping steadily14 on: “The contents of the stummik at any rate ought to be examined.”
Voice of Mr. Johnson. “Elfrid, pass the mustid down.”
Miriam leaning across the table: “Elfrid!”
“Once she got us all kept in. The whole school!”
Miriam, more insistently15: “Elfrid!”
Uncle Pentstemon, raising his voice defiantly16: “Trounce ‘er again I would if she did as much now. That I would! Dratted mischief17!”
Miriam, catching18 Mr. Polly’s eye: “Elfrid! This lady knows Canterbury. I been telling her you been there.”
Mr. Polly: “Glad you know it.”
The lady shouting: “I like it.”
Mrs. Larkins, raising her voice: “I won’t ‘ave my girls spoken of, not by nobody, old or young.”
Pop! imperfectly located.
Mr. Johnson at large: “Ain’t the beer up! It’s the ‘eated room.”
Bessie: “Scuse me, sir, passing so soon again, but —” Rest inaudible. Mr. Polly, accommodating himself: “Urr-oo! Right? Right O.”
The knives and forks, probably by some secret common agreement, clash and clatter19 together and drown every other sound.
“Nobody ‘ad the least idea ‘ow ‘E died,— nobody. . . . Willie, don’t golp so. You ain’t in a ‘urry, are you? You don’t want to ketch a train or anything,— golping like that!”
“D’you remember, Grace, ‘ow one day we ‘ad writing lesson. . . . ”
“Nicer girls no one ever ‘ad — though I say it who shouldn’t.”
Mrs. Johnson in a shrill20 clear hospitable21 voice: “Harold, won’t Mrs. Larkins ‘ave a teeny bit more fowl22?”
Mr. Polly rising to the situation. “Or some brawn, Mrs. Larkins?” Catching Uncle Pentstemon’s eye: “Can’t send you some brawn, sir?”
“Elfrid!”
Loud hiccup from Uncle Pentstemon, momentary23 consternation24 followed by giggle25 from Annie.
The narration26 at Mr. Polly’s elbow pursued a quiet but relentless27 course. “Directly the new doctor came in he said: ‘Everything must be took out and put in spirits — everything.’”
Willie,— audible ingurgitation.
The narration on the left was flourishing up to a climax28. “Ladies,” she sez, “dip their pens in their ink and keep their noses out of it!”
“Elfrid!”— persuasively29.
“Certain people may cast snacks at other people’s daughters, never having had any of their own, though two poor souls of wives dead and buried through their goings on —”
Johnson ruling the storm: “We don’t want old scores dug up on such a day as this —”
“Old scores you may call them, but worth a dozen of them that put them to their rest, poor dears.”
“Elfrid!”— with a note of remonstrance30.
“If you choke yourself, my lord, not another mouthful do you ‘ave. No nice puddin’! Nothing!”
“And kept us in, she did, every afternoon for a week!”
It seemed to be the end, and Mr. Polly replied with an air of being profoundly impressed: “Really!”
“Elfrid!”— a little disheartened.
“And then they ‘ad it! They found he’d swallowed the very key to unlock the drawer —”
“Then don’t let people go casting snacks!”
“Who’s casting snacks!”
“Elfrid! This lady wants to know, ‘ave the Prossers left Canterbury?”
“No wish to make myself disagreeable, not to God’s ‘umblest worm —”
“Alf, you aren’t very busy with that brawn up there!”
And so on for the hour.
The general effect upon Mr. Polly at the time was at once confusing and exhilarating; but it led him to eat copiously31 and carelessly, and long before the end, when after an hour and a quarter a movement took the party, and it pushed away its cheese plates and rose sighing and stretching from the remains32 of the repast, little streaks33 and bands of dyspeptic irritation34 and melancholy35 were darkening the serenity36 of his mind.
He stood between the mantel shelf and the window — the blinds were up now — and the Larkins sisters clustered about him. He battled with the oncoming depression and forced himself to be extremely facetious37 about two noticeable rings on Annie’s hand. “They ain’t real,” said Annie coquettishly. “Got ’em out of a prize packet.”
“Prize packet in trousers, I expect,” said Mr. Polly, and awakened38 inextinguishable laughter.
“Oh! the things you say!” said Minnie, slapping his shoulder.
Suddenly something he had quite extraordinarily39 forgotten came into his head.
“Bless my heart!” he cried, suddenly serious.
“What’s the matter?” asked Johnson.
“Ought to have gone back to shop — three days ago. They’ll make no end of a row!”
“Lor, you are a Treat!” said cousin Annie, and screamed with laughter at a delicious idea. “You’ll get the Chuck,” she said.
Mr. Polly made a convulsing grimace40 at her.
“I’ll die!” she said. “I don’t believe you care a bit!”
Feeling a little disorganized by her hilarity41 and a shocked expression that had come to the face of cousin Miriam, he made some indistinct excuse and went out through the back room and scullery into the little garden. The cool air and a very slight drizzle42 of rain was a relief — anyhow. But the black mood of the replete43 dyspeptic had come upon him. His soul darkened hopelessly. He walked with his hands in his pockets down the path between the rows of exceptionally cultured peas and unreasonably44, overwhelmingly, he was smitten45 by sorrow for his father. The heady noise and muddle46 and confused excitement of the feast passed from him like a curtain drawn47 away. He thought of that hot and angry and struggling creature who had tugged48 and sworn so foolishly at the sofa upon the twisted staircase, and who was now lying still and hidden, at the bottom of a wall-sided oblong pit beside the heaped gravel49 that would presently cover him. The stillness of it! the wonder of it! the infinite reproach! Hatred50 for all these people — all of them — possessed51 Mr. Polly’s soul.
“Hen-witted gigglers,” said Mr. Polly.
He went down to the fence, and stood with his hands on it staring away at nothing. He stayed there for what seemed a long time. From the house came a sound of raised voices that subsided52, and then Mrs. Johnson calling for Bessie.
“Gowlish gusto,” said Mr. Polly. “Jumping it in. Funererial Games. Don’t hurt him of course. Doesn’t matter to him. . . . ”
Nobody missed Mr. Polly for a long time.
When at last he reappeared among them his eye was almost grim, but nobody noticed his eye. They were looking at watches, and Johnson was being omniscient53 about trains. They seemed to discover Mr. Polly afresh just at the moment of parting, and said a number of more or less appropriate things. But Uncle Pentstemon was far too worried about his rush basket, which had been carelessly mislaid, he seemed to think with larcenous54 intentions, to remember Mr. Polly at all. Mrs. Johnson had tried to fob him off with a similar but inferior basket,— his own had one handle mended with string according to a method of peculiar55 virtue56 and inimitable distinction known only to himself — and the old gentleman had taken her attempt as the gravest reflection upon his years and intelligence. Mr. Polly was left very largely to the Larkins trio. Cousin Minnie became shameless and kept kissing him good-by — and then finding out it wasn’t time to go. Cousin Miriam seemed to think her silly, and caught Mr. Polly’s eye sympathetically. Cousin Annie ceased to giggle and lapsed57 into a nearly sentimental58 state. She said with real feeling that she had enjoyed the funeral more than words could tell.
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1
hiccup
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| n.打嗝 | |
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meditated
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| 深思，沉思，冥想( meditate的过去式和过去分词 )； 内心策划，考虑 | |
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pathos
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| n.哀婉，悲怆 | |
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collation
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| n.便餐；整理 | |
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brawn
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| n.体力 | |
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pickles
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| n.腌菜( pickle的名词复数 )；处于困境；遇到麻烦；菜酱 | |
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tart
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| adj.酸的；尖酸的，刻薄的；n.果馅饼；淫妇 | |
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preoccupied
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| adj.全神贯注的，入神的；被抢先占有的；心事重重的v.占据（某人）思想，使对…全神贯注，使专心于( preoccupy的过去式) | |
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warfare
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| n.战争(状态)；斗争；冲突 | |
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wreck
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| n.失事，遇难；沉船；vt.(船等)失事，遇难 | |
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lodging
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| n.寄宿，住所；(大学生的)校外宿舍 | |
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valiantly
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| adv.勇敢地，英勇地；雄赳赳 | |
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brass
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| n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器 | |
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steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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insistently
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| ad.坚持地 | |
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defiantly
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| adv.挑战地，大胆对抗地 | |
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mischief
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| n.损害，伤害，危害；恶作剧，捣蛋，胡闹 | |
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catching
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| adj.易传染的，有魅力的，迷人的，接住 | |
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clatter
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| v./n.(使)发出连续而清脆的撞击声 | |
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shrill
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| adj.尖声的；刺耳的；v尖叫 | |
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hospitable
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| adj.好客的；宽容的；有利的，适宜的 | |
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fowl
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| n.家禽，鸡，禽肉 | |
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momentary
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| adj.片刻的，瞬息的；短暂的 | |
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consternation
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| n.大为吃惊，惊骇 | |
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giggle
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| n.痴笑，咯咯地笑；v.咯咯地笑着说 | |
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narration
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| n.讲述，叙述；故事；记叙体 | |
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relentless
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| adj.残酷的，不留情的，无怜悯心的 | |
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climax
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| n.顶点；高潮；v.(使)达到顶点 | |
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persuasively
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| adv.口才好地；令人信服地 | |
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remonstrance
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| n抗议，抱怨 | |
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copiously
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| adv.丰富地，充裕地 | |
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remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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streaks
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| n.（与周围有所不同的）条纹( streak的名词复数 )；（通常指不好的）特征（倾向）；（不断经历成功或失败的）一段时期v.快速移动( streak的第三人称单数 )；使布满条纹 | |
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irritation
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| n.激怒，恼怒，生气 | |
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melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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serenity
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| n.宁静，沉着，晴朗 | |
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facetious
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| adj.轻浮的，好开玩笑的 | |
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awakened
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| v.（使）醒( awaken的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）觉醒；弄醒；（使）意识到 | |
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extraordinarily
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| adv.格外地；极端地 | |
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grimace
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| v.做鬼脸，面部歪扭 | |
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41
hilarity
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| n.欢乐；热闹 | |
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42
drizzle
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| v.下毛毛雨；n.毛毛雨，蒙蒙细雨 | |
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replete
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| adj.饱满的，塞满的；n.贮蜜蚁 | |
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unreasonably
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| adv. 不合理地 | |
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smitten
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| 猛打，重击，打击( smite的过去分词 ) | |
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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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47
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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48
tugged
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| v.用力拉，使劲拉，猛扯( tug的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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gravel
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| n.砂跞；砂砾层；结石 | |
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50
hatred
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| n.憎恶，憎恨，仇恨 | |
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51
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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52
subsided
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| v.（土地）下陷（因在地下采矿）( subside的过去式和过去分词 )；减弱；下降至较低或正常水平；一下子坐在椅子等上 | |
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53
omniscient
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| adj.无所不知的；博识的 | |
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larcenous
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| adj.盗窃的 | |
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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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56
virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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57
lapsed
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| adj.流失的，堕落的v.退步( lapse的过去式和过去分词 )；陷入；倒退；丧失 | |
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sentimental
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| adj.多愁善感的，感伤的 | |
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