A FUR JACKET

One day Hortense, walking along Baltimore Street near its junction with Fifteenth Street — the smartest portion of the shopping section of the city — at the noon hour — with Doris, another shop-girl in her department store, saw in the window of one of the smaller and less exclusive fur stores of the city, a fur jacket of beaver that to her was exactly what she needed to strengthen mightily her very limited personal wardrobe. It was not such an expensive coat, worth possibly a hundred dollars — but fashioned in such an individual way as to make her imagine that, once invested with it, her physical charm would show more than it even had.

Moved by this thought, she paused and exclaimed: "Oh, isn't that j ust classiest darlingest little coat you ever saw! Oh, look at those sleeves, Doris". She took her friend by the arm. "Look at thecollar. And the lining! And those pockets! Oh, dear!" She was trembling with intensity of her approval and delight. "Oh, isn't that just too sweet for words?¹ And the very kind of coat I've been thinking of since I don't know when!" she exclaimed. "Oh, if I could only have it".

She clapped her hands admiringly, while Isadore Rubinstein, the elderly son of the proprietor, who was standing somewhat out of the range of her gaze² at the moment, noted the gesture and her enthusiasm and decided immediately that the coat must be worth at least twenty-five or fifty dollars more to her, any how, in case she asked for it. The firm had been offering it at one hundred. He thought to himself about the probable trading value of such a coat. What would such a poor, vain and pretty girl pay for this coat?

Meanwhile, however, Hortense, having stared as long as her lunch-hour would permit, had gone away still dreaming how she would look in such a coat. But she had not stopped to ask the price. The next day, feeling that she must look at it once more, she returned, only this time alone, and yet with no idea of being able to purchase it herself. But seeing the coat once more, she finally came in.

After "An American Tragedy" by Theodore Dreiser

 

2. Говорение.

Вы выиграли поездку в Лондон. Расскажите: - где Вы собираетесь остановиться в Лондоне; - что Вы знаете об истории Лондона; - какие достопримечательности Вы хотите посмотреть и почему.

You have won a trip to London. Talk about: - where are you going to stay in London? - what do you know about its history? - what places of interest do you want to see and why?