NCERT Book Class 11 English (Woven Words) Short Stories 3 The Rocking-horse Winner

The Rocking-horse Winner 19

3 The Rocking-horse Winner
D.H. Lawrence

F Look for these expressions in the story and guess the meaning
from the context

turned to dust careered
sequin overwrought
reiterated brazening it out

There was a woman who was beautiful, who started with
all the advantages, yet she had no luck. She married for
love and love turned to dust. She had bonny children, yet,
she felt they had been thrust upon her and she could not
love them. They looked at her coldly as if they were finding
fault with her. And hurriedly she felt she must cover up
some fault in herself. Yet what it was that she must cover
up she never knew. Nevertheless, when her children were
present, she always felt the centre of her heart go hard.
This troubled her and, in her manner, she was all the
more gentle and anxious for her children as if she loved
them very much. Only she herself knew that at the centre
of her heart was a hard little place that could not feel love,
no, not for anybody. Everybody else said of her: ‘She is
such a good mother. She adores her children.’ Only she
herself, and her children themselves, knew it was not so.
They read it in each other’s eyes.
There were a boy and two little girls. They lived in a
pleasant house, with a garden, and they had discreet servants,
and felt themselves superior to anyone in the neighbourhood.
Although they lived in style, they felt always an anxiety
in the house. There was never enough money.
The mother had a small income and the father had a
small income but not nearly enough for the social position