原文
Anne longed to get home to read her precious letters; but she made one
little pilgrimage first. She went alone to the green corner of the "old"
Bolingbroke cemetery where her father and mother were buried, and left
on their grave the white flowers she carried. Then she hastened back
to Mount Holly, shut herself up in her room, and read the letters.
Some were written by her father, some by her mother. There were not
many--only a dozen in all--for Walter and Bertha Shirley had not been
often separated during their courtship. The letters were yellow and
faded and dim, blurred with the touch of passing years. No profound
words of wisdom were traced on the stained and wrinkled pages, but only
lines of love and trust. The sweetness of forgotten things clung to
them--the far-off, fond imaginings of those long-dead lovers. Bertha
Shirley had possessed the gift of writing letters which embodied the
charming personality of the writer in words and thoughts that retained
their beauty and fragrance after the lapse of time. The letters were
tender, intimate, sacred. To Anne, the sweetest of all was the one
written after her birth to the father on a brief absence. It was full
of a proud young mother's accounts of "baby"--her cleverness, her
brightness, her thousand sweetnesses.
語彙など
- long:切望する
- pilgrimage:巡礼
- cemetery:墓地
- courtship:婚約以前の交際,求婚
- faded:色あせた
- dim:ぼやけた
- blur:ぼやける,汚れる
- profound:意味深い
- stain:染みをつける
- wrinkle:皺が寄る
- cling to:〜にしっかりつかまる
- far-off:はるかかなたの
- fond:愛情のこもった
- imaginings:想像上の物
- embody:体現する
- retain:保持する
- fragrance:芳香
- lapse:経過
- tender:思いやりのある
- intimate:親密な
- sacred:神聖な
- account:詳細,報告