原文
"Oh, I suppose the dying would be easy enough; it's the living an old
maid I shouldn't like," said Diana, with no intention of being humorous.
"Although I wouldn't mind being an old maid VERY much if I could be one
like Miss Lavendar. But I never could be. When I'm forty-five I'll be
horribly fat. And while there might be some romance about a thin old
maid there couldn't possibly be any about a fat one. Oh, mind you,
Nelson Atkins proposed to Ruby Gillis three weeks ago. Ruby told me all
about it. She says she never had any intention of taking him, because
any one who married him will have to go in with the old folks; but Ruby
says that he made such a perfectly beautiful and romantic proposal that
it simply swept her off her feet. But she didn't want to do anything
rash so she asked for a week to consider; and two days later she was
at a meeting of the Sewing Circle at his mother's and there was a book
called 'The Complete Guide to Etiquette,' lying on the parlor table.
Ruby said she simply couldn't describe her feelings when in a section
of it headed, 'The Deportment of Courtship and Marriage,' she found the
very proposal Nelson had made, word for word. She went home and wrote
him a perfectly scathing refusal; and she says his father and mother
have taken turns watching him ever since for fear he'll drown himself in
the river; but Ruby says they needn't be afraid; for in the Deportment
of Courtship and Marriage it told how a rejected lover should behave
and there's nothing about drowning in THAT. And she says Wilbur Blair
is literally pining away for her but she's perfectly helpless in the
matter."
語彙など
- old maid:オールドミス
- intention:意図
- humorous:ユーモアのある
- fat:太った
- proposal:結婚の申し込み
- sweep:人の心を奪う
- rash:性急な,軽はずみな
- complete:全部そろった,〜一式
- parlor:応接間
- head:見出しをつける
- deportment:態度
- courtship:求婚
- scathe:〜を痛烈に批判する
- refusal:拒絶
- take turns:交代でする
- watch over:〜を監視する
- for fear:〜することを心配して
- drown oneself:身投げする
- rejected lover:振られた男
- literally:文字どおり
- pine away for:〜を思ってやつれる