POOR ANNE

 

SHE was christened Anne Lavender, so that her full name was Anne Lavender Lavender. This was an idea of Mr. Lavender’s. He was very proud of his family, and it distressed¹ him to think that when his daughter, the beautiful Miss Lavender, married, her name might be something quite ugly, like Winks².

 

“Whereas,” he explained to Anne’s Mamma, “if we call her Anne Lavender Lavender, her name, when she marries this man Winks, will be Anne Lavender-Winks, and people will know at once that she is one of us.”

 

“They will know that anyhow,” said Mrs. Lavender, bending over her baby. “She is just like her old Daddy, aren’t you, darling?”

 

Anne, being then about none, did not reply.

 

“She has my hair, certainly,” said Mr.{52} Lavender, and he stroked³ his raven⁴ locks proudly.

 

He was very dark, and Mrs. Lavender was very fair, and they had often wondered which of them Anne would be like. He used to say “I do hope she will be like you, darling,” and she would say, “I would rather she were like you, dearest,” and he would say, “Well, well, we shall see.” And now she was dark. She was dark, like him; and she was called Anne Lavender Lavender, which was his own idea; and he felt very happy about it all.

 

And then one day a surprising thing happened. All her dark hair fell off, and she became as fair as fair—just like her Mamma.

 

“What a pity!” said Mrs. Lavender, “I did want her to be like you.”

 

“She’s much prettier like you,” said Mr.{53} Lavender gallantly⁵, though secretly he was a little hurt.

 

But he soon got over it. By the time Anne was one and a bit, he had decided⁶ that the only color for very small fat girls was fair. He used to gaze⁷ at her sometimes, and say to himself, “I shan’t let her marry that fellow Winks now, she’s much too good for him. She’s lovely—and just like her Mother.”

 

And then another very surprising thing happened. Her hair suddenly became red. Not golden-red or chestnut-red, but really-carrotty-red. Red! And nobody in Mr. Lavender’s family or Mrs. Lavender’s family had ever had red hair before!

 

It was then that one or two people began calling her Poor Anne. They didn’t all do it at first—just one or two of them. “What a pity about Poor Anne,” they said. “She used to have such lovely flaxen hair.{54}” And when they were talking about Christmas presents, they used to say, “And, of course, there’s Poor Anne; we mustn’t forget her.”

 

Mr. Lavender was terribly upset about it all. He wrote to the editors of several papers⁸, and asked them to say whether, if a child’s hair had once not been red, and then was red, whether it would ever not be red again, if it once hadn’t been. Some of them didn’t answer, and some said that Time Would Show, and two of them said that Red Hair was Very Becoming. But, of course, that wasn’t what Mr. Lavender wanted to know.

 

Mrs. Lavender didn’t mind so much. She had just decided to have another baby called David Lavender.

 

David was fair. Fairer than Anne had ever been, fairer than his Mother had ever been. All his aunts came and looked at{55} him, and they said to each other, “Isn’t his hair lovely?” And then they all said to each other, “What a pity about Poor Anne!”

 

Poor Anne didn’t mind. She was much too happy taking care of her little brother. You see, she knew why her own hair had gone red. It was because she had caught that terrible cold when she was two, through getting her feet wet. So it was most important that David should never, never catch cold, because a girl with carrotty hair was just Poor Anne, but a boy with carrotty hair was Oh-poor-David. And her Father would be so miserable⁹ that he wouldn’t ever write to the papers again, and it would be all her fault.

 

So she did all she possibly could to keep David’s hair the right color, and she did it so well that one day Mr. Lavender said:

 

“Poor Anne. She won’t be beautiful,{56} but she’ll be very useful, and I think I shall let her marry the Winks fellow after all.”

 

And then he murmured to himself, “Anne Lavender-Winks. How right I was about that!{57}”

1 distressed   

痛苦的

参考例句：

• He was too distressed and confused to answer their questions. 他非常苦恼而困惑，无法回答他们的问题。
• The news of his death distressed us greatly. 他逝世的消息使我们极为悲痛。

2 winks   

v.使眼色( wink的第三人称单数 )；递眼色（表示友好或高兴等）；（指光）闪烁；闪亮

参考例句：

• I'll feel much better when I've had forty winks. 我打个盹就会感到好得多。
• The planes were little silver winks way out to the west. 飞机在西边老远的地方，看上去只是些很小的银色光点。 来自辞典例句

3 stroked   

（用笔等）画（stroke的过去式与过去分词形式）

参考例句：

• Jim stroked his beard reflectively. 吉姆沉思着捋了捋胡子。
• The girl stroked the cat. 这个姑娘抚摸着小猫。

4 raven   

n.渡鸟，乌鸦；adj.乌亮的

参考例句：

• We know the raven will never leave the man's room.我们知道了乌鸦再也不会离开那个男人的房间。
• Her charming face was framed with raven hair.她迷人的脸上垂落着乌亮的黑发。

5 gallantly   

adv. 漂亮地，勇敢地，献殷勤地

参考例句：

• He gallantly offered to carry her cases to the car. 他殷勤地要帮她把箱子拎到车子里去。
• The new fighters behave gallantly under fire. 新战士在炮火下表现得很勇敢。

6 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

7 gaze   

v.凝视，盯，注视；n.凝视

参考例句：

• Her cheeks grew hot beneath the gaze of so many eyes.在众目睽睽之下，她的脸红了。
• He fixed his gaze on her.他凝视着她。

8 papers   

n.文件，纸币，论文

参考例句：

• I want to check with my secretary before I sign the papers.在签署这些文件前，我要与我的秘书商议。
• The lawyer read all the papers relating to the case.律师阅读了与该案有关的全部文件。

9 miserable   

adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的

参考例句：

• It was miserable of you to make fun of him.你取笑他，这是可耻的。
• Her past life was miserable.她过去的生活很苦。