原文
"So we were . . . twenty-five years ago . . . a lifetime ago. And we
were to have been married the next spring. I had my wedding dress made,
although nobody but mother and Stephen ever knew THAT. We'd been engaged
in a way almost all our lives, you might say. When Stephen was a little
boy his mother would bring him here when she came to see my mother; and
the second time he ever came . . . he was nine and I was six . . . he
told me out in the garden that he had pretty well made up his mind to
marry me when he grew up. I remember that I said 'Thank you'; and when
he was gone I told mother very gravely that there was a great weight off
my mind, because I wasn't frightened any more about having to be an old
maid. How poor mother laughed!"
"And what went wrong?" asked Anne breathlessly.
語彙など
- wedding dress:ウェディングドレス
- but:〜以外の
- engaged:婚約中の
- make up one's mind:決心する
- gravely:おごそかに
- old maid:オールドミス
- breathlessly:ハラハラしながら,息せき切って