Vocabulary Test 33

[passage-header]Read the passage given below and answer the question that follows. [/passage-header]    There comes to the house of Yen Chow a Chinese merchant of wealth and influence. His eyes dwell often upon Ah Leen. He whispers to her father. Yen Chow puffs his pipe and muses, assuredly a 50231great slight has been put upon his family. A divorce would show proper pride. It was not the Chinese way, but was not the old order passing away and the new order taking its place? Aye, even in China, the old country that had seemed as if it would ever remain old. He speaks to Ah Leen.
   "Nay, father, nay," she returns. "Thou hast the power to send my love away from me, but thou canst not compel me to hold out my arms to another."
   "But," protests her mother, "thy lover hath forgotten thee. Another hath borne him a child."
    A flame rushes over Ah Leen's face; then she 42349becomes white as a water lily. She plucks a leaf of scented geranium, crushes it between her fingers and casts it away. The 21728perfume clings to the hands, she lays on her mother's bosom.
   "Thus," says she, "the fragrance of my crushed love will ever cling to Ming Hoan."
    It is evening. The electric lights are shining through the vines. Out of the gloom beyond their radius comes a man. The American girl, seated in a quiet corner of the veranda, sees his face. It is eager and the eyes are full of love and fate. Then she sees Ah Leen. Tired of women's gossip, the girl has come to gaze upon the moon, hanging in the sky above her like a pale yellow pearl.
   There is a cry from the approaching man. It is echoed by the girl. In a moment she is leaning upon his breast.
   "Ah!" she cries, raising her head and looking into his eyes. "I knew that though another had bound you by human ties, to me you were linked by my love divine."
   "Another! Human ties!" exclaims the young man. He exclaims without explaining---for the sins of parents must not be uncovered---why there has been silence between them for so long. Then he lifts her face to his and gently reproaches her. "Ah Leen, you have dwelt only upon your love for me. Did I not bid thee, 'Forget not to remember that I love thee!'"
   The American girl steals away. The happy Ming Hoan is unaware that as she flits lightly by him and his bride she is repeating to herself his words, and hoping that it is not too late to send to someone a message of recall.
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[passage-header]Read the passage given below and answer the question that follows:[/passage-header]   77941While they had been young, no event in the social world of Elsinore had been a success without the lovely De Coninck sisters. They were the heart and soul of all the gayety of the town. When they entered its ballrooms, the ceilings of sedate old merchants' houses seemed to lift a little, and the walls to spring out in luminous Ionian columns, bound with a vine. 84433When one of them opened the ball, light as a bird, bold as a thought, she consecrated the gathering to the gods of true joy of life, from whose presence care and envy are banished23578. They could sing duets like a pair of nightingales in a tree, and imitate without effort and without the slightest malice the voices of all the beau monde of Elsinore, so as to make the paunches of their father's friends, the matadors of the town, shake with laughter around their card tables. They could make up a charade or a game of forfeits in no time, and when they had been out for their music lessons, or to the Promenade, they came back brimful of tales of what had happened, or of tales out of their own imaginations, one whim stumbling over the other94702.
   And then, within their own rooms, they would walk up and down the floor and weep, or sit in the window and look out over the harbor and wring their hands in their laps, or lie in bed at night and cry bitterly, for no reason in the world. They would talk, then, of life with the black bitterness of two Timons of Athens, and give Madam back an 24931uncanny feeling, as in an atmosphere of corrodent rust. Their mother, who did not have the curse50091 in her blood, would have been badly frightened had she been present at these moments, and would have suspected some unhappy love affair. Their father would have understood them, and have grieved on their behalf, but he was occupied with his affairs and did not come into his daughters' rooms. Only this elderly female servant, whose temperament was as different as possible from theirs, would understand them in her way, and would keep it all within her heart, as they did themselves, with mingled despair and pride. Sometime she would try to comfort them. When they cried out, "Hanne, is it not terrible that there is so much lying, so much falsehood, in the world?" she said, "Well, what of it? It would be worse still if it were actually true, all that they tell."
   Then again the girls would get up, dry their tears, try on their new bonnets before the glass, plan their theatricals and sleighing parties, shock and gladden the hearts of their friends, and have the whole thing over again. They seemed as unable to keep from one extremity as from the other. In short, they were born melancholiac, such as make others happy and are themselves helplessly unhappy, creatures of playfulness, charm, and salt tears, of fine fun and everlasting loneliness.                [passage-footer]
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[passage-header]"We Too Shall Sleep"[/passage-header]Not, not for thee,
Beloved child, the burning grasp of life
Shall bruise the tender soul. The noise, and [passage-footer]
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[passage-header]"We Too Shall Sleep"[/passage-header]Not, not for thee,
Beloved child, the burning grasp of life
Shall bruise the tender soul. The noise, and [passage-footer]
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[passage-header]Read the passage and answer the question that follows: [/passage-header]  In the mind of the mariner, there is a superstitious horror connected with the name of Pirate; and there are few subjects that interest and excite the curiosity of mankind generally, more than 10513the desperate exploits, foul doings, and diabolical career of these monsters in human form. A piratical crew is generally formed of 41406the desperadoes and runagates of every clime and nation. The pirate, from the perilous nature of his occupation, when not crushing on the ocean, 58038the great highway of nations selects the most lonely isles of the sea for his retreat, or 26085secretes himself near the shores of rivers, bays and lagoons of thickly wooded and uninhabited countries, so that if pursued he can escape to the woods and mountain glens of the interior. The islands of the Indian Ocean, and the east and west coasts of Africa, as well as the West Indies, have been 36478their haunts for centuries, and vessels navigating the Atlantic and Indian Ocean, are often captured by them, the passengers and crew murdered, the money and most valuable part of the cargo plundered, the vessel destroyed, thus obliterating all trace of their unhappy fate, and leaving friends and relatives to mourn their loss from the inclemencies of the elements, when they were butchered in cold blood by their fellow men, who by 56008practically adopting the maxim that "dead men tell no tales," enable themselves to pursue their a diabolical career with impunity...
   But 16958the apprehension and foreboding of the mind, when under the influence of remorse, are powerful, and every man, whether civilized or savage has interwoven in his constitution a moral sense, which secretly condemns him when he has committed an atrocious action, even when he is placed in situations which raise him above the fear of human punishment, for "Conscience, the torturer of the soul, unseen. Does fiercely brandish a sharp scourge within; Severe decrees may keep our tongues in awe, but to our minds what edicts can give law? Even you yourself to your own breast shall tell Your crimes, and your own conscience be your hell."
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