章节正文
"Who is `us'? The aunts are not here, are
they? Oh, you mean the rich blacksmith's daughter,
whose name I can never remember. Is she
here?"
"Yes, and my room-mate," answered Rebecca,
who thought her own knell of doom had sounded,
if he had forgotten Emma Jane's name.
The light in the room grew softer, the fire
crackled cheerily, and they talked of many things,
until the old sweet sense of friendliness and
familiarity crept back into Rebecca's heart. Adam
had not seen her for several months, and there was
much to be learned about school matters as viewed
from her own standpoint; he had already inquired
concerning her progress from Mr. Morrison.
"Well, little Miss Rebecca," he said, rousing
himself at length, "I must be thinking of my drive
to Portland. There is a meeting of railway
directors there to-morrow, and I always take this
opportunity of visiting the school and giving my
valuable advice concerning its affairs, educational
and financial."
"It seems funny for you to be a school trustee,"
said Rebecca contemplatively. "I can't seem to
make it fit."
"You are a remarkably wise young person and
I quite agree with you," he answered; "the fact
is," he added soberly, "I accepted the trusteeship
in memory of my poor little mother, whose last
happy years were spent here."
"That was a long time ago!"
"Let me see, I am thirty-two; only thirty-two,
despite an occasional gray hair. My mother was
married a month after she graduated, and she lived
only until I was ten; yes, it is a long way back to
my mother's time here, though the school was fifteen
or twenty years old then, I believe. Would
you like to see my mother, Miss Rebecca?"
The girl took the leather case gently and opened
it to find an innocent, pink-and-white daisy of a
face, so confiding, so sensitive, that it went straight
to the heart. It made Rebecca feel old, experienced,
and maternal. She longed on the instant to comfort
and strengthen such a tender young thing.
"Oh, what a sweet, sweet, flowery face!" she
whispered softly.
"The flower had to bear all sorts of storms," said
Adam gravely. "The bitter weather of the world
bent its slender stalk, bowed its head, and dragged
it to the earth. I was only a child and could do
nothing to protect and nourish it, and there was no
one else to stand between it and trouble. Now I
have success and money and power, all that would
have kept her alive and happy, and it is too late.
She died for lack of love and care, nursing and
cherishing, and I can never forget it. All that has
come to me seems now and then so useless, since I
cannot share it with her!"
This was a new Mr. Aladdin, and Rebecca's heart
gave a throb of sympathy and comprehension. This
explained the tired look in his eyes, the look that
peeped out now and then, under all his gay speech
and laughter.
"I'm so glad I know," she said, "and so glad I
could see her just as she was when she tied that
white muslin hat under her chin and saw her yellow
curls and her sky-blue eyes in the glass. Mustn't
she have been happy! I wish she could have been
kept so, and had lived to see you grow up strong
and good. My mother is always sad and busy, but
once when she looked at John I heard her say, `He
makes up for everything.' That's what your mother
would have thought about you if she had lived,
and perhaps she does as it is."
"You are a comforting little person, Rebecca,"
said Adam, rising from his chair.
As Rebecca rose, the tears still trembling on her
lashes, he looked at her suddenly as with new vision.
"Good-by!" he said, taking her slim brown
hands in his, adding, as if he saw her for the first
time, "Why, little Rose-Red-Snow-White is making
way for a new girl! Burning the midnight oil and
doing four years' work in three is supposed to dull
the eye and blanch the cheek, yet Rebecca's eyes
are bright and she has a rosy color! Her long braids
are looped one on the other so that they make a
black letter U behind, and they are tied with grand
bows at the top! She is so tall that she reaches
almost to my shoulder. This will never do in the
world! How will Mr. Aladdin get on without his
comforting little friend! He doesn't like grown-up
young ladies in long trains and wonderful fine
clothes; they frighten and bore him!"
"Oh, Mr. Aladdin!" cried Rebecca eagerly,
taking his jest quite seriously; "I am not fifteen
yet, and it will be three years before I'm a young
lady; please don't give me up until you have to!"
"I won't; I promise you that," said Adam.
"Rebecca," he continued, after a moment's pause,
"who is that young girl with a lot of pretty red
hair and very citified manners? She escorted me
down the hill; do you know whom I mean?"
"It must be Huldah Meserve; she is from Riverboro."
Adam put a finger under Rebecca's chin and
looked into her eyes; eyes as soft, as clear, as
unconscious, and childlike as they had been when she
was ten. He remembered the other pair of challenging
blue ones that had darted coquettish glances
through half-dropped lids, shot arrowy beams from
under archly lifted brows, and said gravely, "Don't
form yourself on her, Rebecca; clover blossoms
that grow in the fields beside Sunnybrook mustn't
be tied in the same bouquet with gaudy sunflowers;
they are too sweet and fragrant and wholesome."
XXIII
THE HILL DIFFICULTY
The first happy year at Wareham, with
its widened sky-line, its larger vision, its
greater opportunity, was over and gone.
Rebecca had studied during the summer vacation,
and had passed, on her return in the autumn,
certain examinations which would enable her, if she
carried out the same programme the next season,
to complete the course in three instead of four
years. She came off with no flying colors,--that
would have been impossible in consideration of her
inadequate training; but she did wonderfully well
in some of the required subjects, and so brilliantly
in others that the average was respectable. She
would never have been a remarkablescholar under
any circumstances, perhaps, and she was easily out-
stripped in mathematics and the natural sciences
by a dozen girls, but in some inexplicable way she
became, as the months went on, the foremost figure
in the school. When she had entirely forgotten the
facts which would enable her to answer a question
fully and conclusively, she commonly had some
original theory to expound; it was not always
correct, but it was generally unique and sometimes
amusing. She was only fair in Latin or French
grammar, but when it came to translation, her freedom,
her choice of words, and her sympathetic
understanding of the spirit of the text made her the
delight of her teachers and the despair of her rivals.
"She can be perfectlyignorant of a subject,'
said Miss Maxwell to Adam Ladd, "but entirely
intelligent the moment she has a clue. Most of the
other girls are full of information and as stupid as
sheep."
Rebecca's gifts had not been discovered save by
the few, during the first year, when she was adjusting
herself quietly to the situation. She was distinctly
one of the poorer girls; she had no fine
dresses to attract attention, no visitors, no friends
in the town. She had more study hours, and less
time, therefore, for the companionship of other girls,
gladly as she would have welcomed the gayety of
that side of school life. Still, water will find its own
level in some way, and by the spring of the second
year she had naturally settled into the same sort of
leadership which had been hers in the smaller
community of Riverboro. She was unanimously elected
assistant editor of the Wareham School Pilot, being
the first girl to assume that enviable, though somewhat
arduous and thankless position, and when her
maiden number went to the Cobbs, uncle Jerry and
aunt Sarah could hardly eat or sleep for pride.
"She'll always get votes," said Huldah Meserve,
when discussing the election, "for whether she
knows anything or not, she looks as if she did, and
whether she's capable of filling an office or not, she
looks as if she was. I only wish I was tall and dark
and had the gift of making people believe I was
great things, like Rebecca Randall. There's one
thing: though the boys call her handsome, you
notice they don't trouble her with much attention."
It was a fact that Rebecca's attitude towards the
opposite sex was still somewhat indifferent and
oblivious, even for fifteen and a half! No one could
look at her and doubt that she had potentialities of
attraction latent within her somewhere, but that side
of her nature was happily biding its time. A human
being is capable only of a certain amount of activity
at a given moment, and it will inevitably satisfy
first its most pressing needs, its most ardent desires,
its chief ambitions. Rebecca was full of small
anxieties and fears, for matters were not going well
at the brick house and were anything but hopeful
at the home farm. She was overbusy and overtaxed,
and her thoughts were naturally drawn towards the
difficult problems of daily living.
It had seemed to her during the autumn and
winter of that year as if her aunt Miranda had
never been, save at the very first, so censorious and
so fault-finding. One Saturday Rebecca ran upstairs
and, bursting into a flood of tears, exclaimed,
"Aunt Jane, it seems as if I never could stand her
continual scoldings. Nothing I can do suits aunt
Miranda; she's just said it will take me my whole
life to get the Randall out of me, and I'm not
convinced that I want it all out, so there we are!"
they? Oh, you mean the rich blacksmith's daughter,
whose name I can never remember. Is she
here?"
"Yes, and my room-mate," answered Rebecca,
who thought her own knell of doom had sounded,
if he had forgotten Emma Jane's name.
The light in the room grew softer, the fire
crackled cheerily, and they talked of many things,
until the old sweet sense of friendliness and
familiarity crept back into Rebecca's heart. Adam
had not seen her for several months, and there was
much to be learned about school matters as viewed
from her own standpoint; he had already inquired
concerning her progress from Mr. Morrison.
"Well, little Miss Rebecca," he said, rousing
himself at length, "I must be thinking of my drive
to Portland. There is a meeting of railway
directors there to-morrow, and I always take this
opportunity of visiting the school and giving my
valuable advice concerning its affairs, educational
and financial."
"It seems funny for you to be a school trustee,"
said Rebecca contemplatively. "I can't seem to
make it fit."
"You are a remarkably wise young person and
I quite agree with you," he answered; "the fact
is," he added soberly, "I accepted the trusteeship
in memory of my poor little mother, whose last
happy years were spent here."
"That was a long time ago!"
"Let me see, I am thirty-two; only thirty-two,
despite an occasional gray hair. My mother was
married a month after she graduated, and she lived
only until I was ten; yes, it is a long way back to
my mother's time here, though the school was fifteen
or twenty years old then, I believe. Would
you like to see my mother, Miss Rebecca?"
The girl took the leather case gently and opened
it to find an innocent, pink-and-white daisy of a
face, so confiding, so sensitive, that it went straight
to the heart. It made Rebecca feel old, experienced,
and maternal. She longed on the instant to comfort
and strengthen such a tender young thing.
"Oh, what a sweet, sweet, flowery face!" she
whispered softly.
"The flower had to bear all sorts of storms," said
Adam gravely. "The bitter weather of the world
bent its slender stalk, bowed its head, and dragged
it to the earth. I was only a child and could do
nothing to protect and nourish it, and there was no
one else to stand between it and trouble. Now I
have success and money and power, all that would
have kept her alive and happy, and it is too late.
She died for lack of love and care, nursing and
cherishing, and I can never forget it. All that has
come to me seems now and then so useless, since I
cannot share it with her!"
This was a new Mr. Aladdin, and Rebecca's heart
gave a throb of sympathy and comprehension. This
explained the tired look in his eyes, the look that
peeped out now and then, under all his gay speech
and laughter.
"I'm so glad I know," she said, "and so glad I
could see her just as she was when she tied that
white muslin hat under her chin and saw her yellow
curls and her sky-blue eyes in the glass. Mustn't
she have been happy! I wish she could have been
kept so, and had lived to see you grow up strong
and good. My mother is always sad and busy, but
once when she looked at John I heard her say, `He
makes up for everything.' That's what your mother
would have thought about you if she had lived,
and perhaps she does as it is."
"You are a comforting little person, Rebecca,"
said Adam, rising from his chair.
As Rebecca rose, the tears still trembling on her
lashes, he looked at her suddenly as with new vision.
"Good-by!" he said, taking her slim brown
hands in his, adding, as if he saw her for the first
time, "Why, little Rose-Red-Snow-White is making
way for a new girl! Burning the midnight oil and
doing four years' work in three is supposed to dull
the eye and blanch the cheek, yet Rebecca's eyes
are bright and she has a rosy color! Her long braids
are looped one on the other so that they make a
black letter U behind, and they are tied with grand
bows at the top! She is so tall that she reaches
almost to my shoulder. This will never do in the
world! How will Mr. Aladdin get on without his
comforting little friend! He doesn't like grown-up
young ladies in long trains and wonderful fine
clothes; they frighten and bore him!"
"Oh, Mr. Aladdin!" cried Rebecca eagerly,
taking his jest quite seriously; "I am not fifteen
yet, and it will be three years before I'm a young
lady; please don't give me up until you have to!"
"I won't; I promise you that," said Adam.
"Rebecca," he continued, after a moment's pause,
"who is that young girl with a lot of pretty red
hair and very citified manners? She escorted me
down the hill; do you know whom I mean?"
"It must be Huldah Meserve; she is from Riverboro."
Adam put a finger under Rebecca's chin and
looked into her eyes; eyes as soft, as clear, as
unconscious, and childlike as they had been when she
was ten. He remembered the other pair of challenging
blue ones that had darted coquettish glances
through half-dropped lids, shot arrowy beams from
under archly lifted brows, and said gravely, "Don't
form yourself on her, Rebecca; clover blossoms
that grow in the fields beside Sunnybrook mustn't
be tied in the same bouquet with gaudy sunflowers;
they are too sweet and fragrant and wholesome."
XXIII
THE HILL DIFFICULTY
The first happy year at Wareham, with
its widened sky-line, its larger vision, its
greater opportunity, was over and gone.
Rebecca had studied during the summer vacation,
and had passed, on her return in the autumn,
certain examinations which would enable her, if she
carried out the same programme the next season,
to complete the course in three instead of four
years. She came off with no flying colors,--that
would have been impossible in consideration of her
inadequate training; but she did wonderfully well
in some of the required subjects, and so brilliantly
in others that the average was respectable. She
would never have been a remarkablescholar under
any circumstances, perhaps, and she was easily out-
stripped in mathematics and the natural sciences
by a dozen girls, but in some inexplicable way she
became, as the months went on, the foremost figure
in the school. When she had entirely forgotten the
facts which would enable her to answer a question
fully and conclusively, she commonly had some
original theory to expound; it was not always
correct, but it was generally unique and sometimes
amusing. She was only fair in Latin or French
grammar, but when it came to translation, her freedom,
her choice of words, and her sympathetic
understanding of the spirit of the text made her the
delight of her teachers and the despair of her rivals.
"She can be perfectlyignorant of a subject,'
said Miss Maxwell to Adam Ladd, "but entirely
intelligent the moment she has a clue. Most of the
other girls are full of information and as stupid as
sheep."
Rebecca's gifts had not been discovered save by
the few, during the first year, when she was adjusting
herself quietly to the situation. She was distinctly
one of the poorer girls; she had no fine
dresses to attract attention, no visitors, no friends
in the town. She had more study hours, and less
time, therefore, for the companionship of other girls,
gladly as she would have welcomed the gayety of
that side of school life. Still, water will find its own
level in some way, and by the spring of the second
year she had naturally settled into the same sort of
leadership which had been hers in the smaller
community of Riverboro. She was unanimously elected
assistant editor of the Wareham School Pilot, being
the first girl to assume that enviable, though somewhat
arduous and thankless position, and when her
maiden number went to the Cobbs, uncle Jerry and
aunt Sarah could hardly eat or sleep for pride.
"She'll always get votes," said Huldah Meserve,
when discussing the election, "for whether she
knows anything or not, she looks as if she did, and
whether she's capable of filling an office or not, she
looks as if she was. I only wish I was tall and dark
and had the gift of making people believe I was
great things, like Rebecca Randall. There's one
thing: though the boys call her handsome, you
notice they don't trouble her with much attention."
It was a fact that Rebecca's attitude towards the
opposite sex was still somewhat indifferent and
oblivious, even for fifteen and a half! No one could
look at her and doubt that she had potentialities of
attraction latent within her somewhere, but that side
of her nature was happily biding its time. A human
being is capable only of a certain amount of activity
at a given moment, and it will inevitably satisfy
first its most pressing needs, its most ardent desires,
its chief ambitions. Rebecca was full of small
anxieties and fears, for matters were not going well
at the brick house and were anything but hopeful
at the home farm. She was overbusy and overtaxed,
and her thoughts were naturally drawn towards the
difficult problems of daily living.
It had seemed to her during the autumn and
winter of that year as if her aunt Miranda had
never been, save at the very first, so censorious and
so fault-finding. One Saturday Rebecca ran upstairs
and, bursting into a flood of tears, exclaimed,
"Aunt Jane, it seems as if I never could stand her
continual scoldings. Nothing I can do suits aunt
Miranda; she's just said it will take me my whole
life to get the Randall out of me, and I'm not
convinced that I want it all out, so there we are!"
- occasional [ə´keiʒənəl]
a.偶然的；临时的 (初中英语单词) - gently [´dʒentli] ad.温和地；静静地 (初中英语单词)
- innocent [´inəsənt] a.无罪的；单纯的 (初中英语单词)
- instant [´instənt] a.立即的 n.紧迫；瞬间 (初中英语单词)
- strengthen [´streŋθən, ´strenθən] vt.加强 vi.变强 (初中英语单词)
- gravely [´greivli] ad.庄重地，严肃地 (初中英语单词)
- slender [´slendə] a.细长的；微薄的 (初中英语单词)
- useless [´ju:sləs] a.无用的，无价值的 (初中英语单词)
- sympathy [´simpəθi] n.同情，怜悯 (初中英语单词)
- midnight [´midnait] n.午夜；漆黑 (初中英语单词)
- supposed [sə´pəuzd] a.想象的；假定的 (初中英语单词)
- frighten [´fraitn] vt.吓唬，使惊惧 (初中英语单词)
- seriously [´siəriəsli] ad.严肃；严重，重大 (初中英语单词)
- vision [´viʒən] n.视觉；想象力；幻影 (初中英语单词)
- enable [i´neibəl] vt.使能够；赋予权力 (初中英语单词)
- consideration [kən,sidə´reiʃən] n.考虑；原因；体谅 (初中英语单词)
- remarkable [ri´mɑ:kəbl] a.值得注意的；显著的 (初中英语单词)
- scholar [´skɔlə, ´skɑ-] n.学者；奖学金获得者 (初中英语单词)
- despair [di´speə] vi.&n.绝望 (初中英语单词)
- ignorant [´ignərənt] a.无知的，愚昧的 (初中英语单词)
- stupid [´stju:pid] a.愚蠢的；糊涂的 (初中英语单词)
- therefore [´ðeəfɔ:] ad.&conj.因此；所以 (初中英语单词)
- election [i´lekʃən] n.选举；选择 (初中英语单词)
- capable [´keipəbəl] a.有能力；能干的 (初中英语单词)
- amount [ə´maunt] n.总数；数量 v.合计 (初中英语单词)
- learned [´lə:nid] a.有学问的，博学的 (高中英语单词)
- concerning [kən´sə:niŋ] prep.关于 (高中英语单词)
- sensitive [´sensitiv] a.敏感的；感光的 (高中英语单词)
- nourish [´nʌriʃ] vt.养育；施肥于 (高中英语单词)
- comprehension [,kɔmpri´henʃən] n.理解；领悟 (高中英语单词)
- clover [´kləuvə] n.三叶草 (高中英语单词)
- fragrant [´freigrənt] a.芳香的，芬芳的 (高中英语单词)
- studied [´stʌdid] a.故意的；有计划的 (高中英语单词)
- respectable [ri´spektəbəl] a.可敬的；有身价的 (高中英语单词)
- foremost [´fɔ:məust] a.最重要的；最先的 (高中英语单词)
- commonly [´kɔmənli] ad.一般地；通常 (高中英语单词)
- unique [ju:´ni:k] a.唯一的 n.独一无二 (高中英语单词)
- translation [træns´leiʃən, trænz-] n.翻译；译文；译本 (高中英语单词)
- perfectly [´pə:fiktli] ad.理想地；完美地 (高中英语单词)
- companionship [kəm´pæniənʃip] n.伴侣关系；友谊 (高中英语单词)
- indifferent [in´difrənt] a.不关心的；中立的 (高中英语单词)
- cheerily [´tʃiərili] ad. 高兴地；愉快地 (英语四级单词)
- standpoint [´stændpɔint] n.立场；观点 (英语四级单词)
- remarkably [ri´mɑ:kəbli] ad.非凡地；显著地 (英语四级单词)
- soberly [´səubəli] ad.严肃地；清醒地 (英语四级单词)
- maternal [mə´tə:nl] a.母亲的；母性(系)的 (英语四级单词)
- flowery [´flauəri] a.多花的 (英语四级单词)
- muslin [´mʌzlin] n.平纹细布，薄纱织物 (英语四级单词)
- bouquet [bu:´kei] n.花束；恭维话 (英语四级单词)
- wonderfully [´wʌndəfuli] ad.令人惊讶地；奇妙地 (英语四级单词)
- mathematics [,mæθə´mætiks] n.数学 (英语四级单词)
- inevitably [in´evitəbli] ad.不可避免地；必然地 (英语四级单词)
- ardent [´ɑ:dənt] a.热心的；热情洋溢的 (英语四级单词)
- friendliness [´frendlis] n.友爱，友好，友谊 (英语六级单词)
- taking [´teikiŋ] a.迷人的 n.捕获物 (英语六级单词)
- blanch [blɑ:ntʃ] v.(使)变苍白 (英语六级单词)
- inexplicable [,inik´splikəbəl] a.难以理解的 (英语六级单词)
- unanimously [ju:´næniməsli] ad.一致同意的 (英语六级单词)
- latent [´leitənt] a.潜在的，潜伏的 (英语六级单词)
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章节正文
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