Language Activities

Comprehension

1. Where does the action of the story take place?

2. Under what circumstances do we meet Deborah for the first time?

3. Did the girl’s parents spend much time with her?

4. Who took care of Deborah during the day?

5. How did Mrs. Harley and Deborah spend the days? What was the reason for Mrs. Harley to leave the girl with Renee Hall on Sundays?

6. How had Deborah made the acquaintance of Renee Hall? Why did the girl get attached to the actress?

7. Why did the Tennysons stop asking Renee to their house? How did Renee feel about this?

8. Recall the episode of Mr. Walton’s funeral. Who informed Renee of his death? Why did Renee cry at the funeral?

9. How did it come about that in spite of Renee’s determination to forget the Tennysons she resumed her meetings with Deborah?

10. Why did Mrs. Harley take Deborah to Renee’s apartment herself one day? What did the place look like? How did Renee explain the disorder?

11. How did it happen that Deborah got lost? What was her parents’ state of mind?

12. Who found Deborah? How did the girl explain to her father why she had run away?

Vocabulary

Word List

to take smb. in one’s arms

to be kind to smb.

hangover

to be reduced to smth./doing smth.

to reduce smb. to smth./doing smth.

ignorant

to walk hand in hand

to be proud of smb.

to establish a relationship

to complain about

to pray for one’s dead

downtown

to be going on sixty

to accuse smb. of smth.

to tell smth. from smth.

funeral

to call for smb.

to take smb’s hand

to kidnap

to knock on the door

imprudence

to depend on/upon smb.

vulnerable

1. Reproduce the passages from the text in which the vocabulary is used.

2. Paraphrase the following using the vocabulary:

1. The child was made to cry.

2. Mrs. Freezy was an uneducated woman of 53.

3. He could never distinguish right from wrong.

4. She’s constantly criticizing Andrew for his being unwise and thoughtless.

5. Jane is quite a young, sensitive girl.

6. City Hall has recently proposed to improve street lighting in the city’s business centre.

7. Again Jack is sick from overdrinking.

1. Translate the following using the vocabulary:

1. Том очень гордился своим старшим братом.

2. Ребёнок никогда не жаловался на свою няню.

3. Мальчику скоро исполнится пять лет.

4. Ты всегда страдаешь из-за собственного неблагоразумия.

5. Ты обвиняешь меня во лжи?

6. Не говори Марте ничего о похоронах, она такая ранимая.

7. Я зайду за вами в шесть.

1. Paraphrase or explain the following:

1. She was full of old-country blessings for the elevator man and the doorman.

2. The child had never complained about Mrs. Harley; it was as though she already understood the evil importance of appearances.

3. “I’ve always felt that there was something unsavory about that girl.”

4. “…I telephoned my wife and she went right over to St. John’s and lit a vigil light for the little girl.”

5. “The little girl was one of the fire people – banked fire…”