📝 您未登录，登录后完成练习可保存成绩、查看最佳记录。
总字符
0
正确字符
0
错误字符
0
错误率
0.00%
耗时(秒)
0
速度 WPM
0
0 / 72
1Fanny's consequence increased on the departure of her cousins. Becoming, as she then did, the only young woman in the
2drawing-room, the only occupier of that interesting division of a family in which she had hitherto held so humble a
3third, it was impossible for her not to be more looked at, more thought of and attended to, than she had ever been
4before; and "Where is Fanny?" became no uncommon question, even without her being wanted for any one's convenience. Not
5only at home did her value increase, but at the Parsonage too. In that house, which she had hardly entered twice a year
6since Mr. Norris's death, she became a welcome, an invited guest, and in the gloom and dirt of a November day, most
7acceptable to Mary Crawford. Her visits there, beginning by chance, were continued by solicitation. Mrs. Grant, really
8eager to get any change for her sister, could, by the easiest self-deceit, persuade herself that she was doing the
9kindest thing by Fanny, and giving her the most important opportunities of improvement in pressing her frequent calls.
10Fanny, having been sent into the village on some errand by her aunt Norris, was overtaken by a heavy shower close to the
11Parsonage; and being descried from one of the windows endeavouring to find shelter under the branches and lingering
12leaves of an oak just beyond their premises, was forced, though not without some modest reluctance on her part, to come
13in. A civil servant she had withstood; but when Dr. Grant himself went out with an umbrella, there was nothing to be
14done but to be very much ashamed, and to get into the house as fast as possible; and to poor Miss Crawford, who had just
15been contemplating the dismal rain in a very desponding state of mind, sighing over the ruin of all her plan of exercise
16for that morning, and of every chance of seeing a single creature beyond themselves for the next twenty-four hours, the
17sound of a little bustle at the front door, and the sight of Miss Price dripping with wet in the vestibule, was
18delightful. The value of an event on a wet day in the country was most forcibly brought before her. She was all alive
19again directly, and among the most active in being useful to Fanny, in detecting her to be wetter than she would at
20first allow, and providing her with dry clothes; and Fanny, after being obliged to submit to all this attention, and to
21being assisted and waited on by mistresses and maids, being also obliged, on returning downstairs, to be fixed in their
22drawing-room for an hour while the rain continued, the blessing of something fresh to see and think of was thus extended
23to Miss Crawford, and might carry on her spirits to the period of dressing and dinner. The two sisters were so kind to
24her, and so pleasant, that Fanny might have enjoyed her visit could she have believed herself not in the way, and could
25she have foreseen that the weather would certainly clear at the end of the hour, and save her from the shame of having
26Dr. Grant's carriage and horses out to take her home, with which she was threatened. As to anxiety for any alarm that
27her absence in such weather might occasion at home, she had nothing to suffer on that score; for as her being out was
28known only to her two aunts, she was perfectly aware that none would be felt, and that in whatever cottage aunt Norris
29might chuse to establish her during the rain, her being in such cottage would be indubitable to aunt Bertram. It was
30beginning to look brighter, when Fanny, observing a harp in the room, asked some questions about it, which soon led to
31an acknowledgment of her wishing very much to hear it, and a confession, which could hardly be believed, of her having
32never yet heard it since its being in Mansfield. To Fanny herself it appeared a very simple and natural circumstance.
33She had scarcely ever been at the Parsonage since the instrument's arrival, there had been no reason that she should;
34but Miss Crawford, calling to mind an early expressed wish on the subject, was concerned at her own neglect; and "Shall
35I play to you now?" and "What will you have?" were questions immediately following with the readiest good-humour. She
36played accordingly; happy to have a new listener, and a listener who seemed so much obliged, so full of wonder at the
37performance, and who shewed herself not wanting in taste. She played till Fanny's eyes, straying to the window on the
38weather's being evidently fair, spoke what she felt must be done. "Another quarter of an hour," said Miss Crawford, "and
39we shall see how it will be. Do not run away the first moment of its holding up. Those clouds look alarming." "But they
40are passed over," said Fanny. "I have been watching them. This weather is all from the south." "South or north, I know a
41black cloud when I see it; and you must not set forward while it is so threatening. And besides, I want to play
42something more to you--a very pretty piece--and your cousin Edmund's prime favourite. You must stay and hear your
43cousin's favourite." Fanny felt that she must; and though she had not waited for that sentence to be thinking of Edmund,
44such a memento made her particularly awake to his idea, and she fancied him sitting in that room again and again,
45perhaps in the very spot where she sat now, listening with constant delight to the favourite air, played, as it appeared
46to her, with superior tone and expression; and though pleased with it herself, and glad to like whatever was liked by
47him, she was more sincerely impatient to go away at the conclusion of it than she had been before; and on this being
48evident, she was so kindly asked to call again, to take them in her walk whenever she could, to come and hear more of
49the harp, that she felt it necessary to be done, if no objection arose at home. Such was the origin of the sort of
50intimacy which took place between them within the first fortnight after the Miss Bertrams' going away--an intimacy
51resulting principally from Miss Crawford's desire of something new, and which had little reality in Fanny's feelings.
52Fanny went to her every two or three days: it seemed a kind of fascination: she could not be easy without going, and yet
53it was without loving her, without ever thinking like her, without any sense of obligation for being sought after now
54when nobody else was to be had; and deriving no higher pleasure from her conversation than occasional amusement, and
55that often at the expense of her judgment, when it was raised by pleasantry on people or subjects which she wished to be
56respected. She went, however, and they sauntered about together many an half-hour in Mrs. Grant's shrubbery, the weather
57being unusually mild for the time of year, and venturing sometimes even to sit down on one of the benches now
58comparatively unsheltered, remaining there perhaps till, in the midst of some tender ejaculation of Fanny's on the
59sweets of so protracted an autumn, they were forced, by the sudden swell of a cold gust shaking down the last few yellow
60leaves about them, to jump up and walk for warmth. "This is pretty, very pretty," said Fanny, looking around her as they
61were thus sitting together one day; "every time I come into this shrubbery I am more struck with its growth and beauty.
62Three years ago, this was nothing but a rough hedgerow along the upper side of the field, never thought of as anything,
63or capable of becoming anything; and now it is converted into a walk, and it would be difficult to say whether most
64valuable as a convenience or an ornament; and perhaps, in another three years, we may be forgetting--almost forgetting
65what it was before. How wonderful, how very wonderful the operations of time, and the changes of the human mind!" And
66following the latter train of thought, she soon afterwards added: "If any one faculty of our nature may be called more
67wonderful than the rest, I do think it is memory. There seems something more speakingly incomprehensible in the powers,
68the failures, the inequalities of memory, than in any other of our intelligences. The memory is sometimes so retentive,
69so serviceable, so obedient; at others, so bewildered and so weak; and at others again, so tyrannic, so beyond control!
70We are, to be sure, a miracle every way; but our powers of recollecting and of forgetting do seem peculiarly past
71finding out." Miss Crawford, untouched and inattentive, had nothing to say; and Fanny, perceiving it, brought back her
72own mind to what she thought must interest.
🎉 全部完成！共 72 行