My Daily Vocabulary

 adversity

bail

bleak

brisk

commotion

crude

deter

fleck

flinch away

fling

forensics team

foundling

gorge

harrumph

impede

incinerator

light beacon

penance

postmortem

self-flagellation

tend

tut

1. About Mrs. Arbuthnot there was nothing bright and ____, though much in her way with the Sunday school children that was automatic; but when Mrs. Wilkins, turning from the window, caught sight of her in the club she was not being automatic at all, but was looking fixed at one portion of the first page of the Times, holding the paper quite still, her eyes not moving.

2. Between two great mountains of grey and green as the rock cropped out between the tufts of emerald verdure, the valley, almost as narrow as a ___, ran due west towards the sea.

3. She leaped over the coffee table, with its heat stack of Las Vegas magazines and a tray of complimentary Debauve& Gallais truffles, her name written in chocolate ganache ___ with edible gold.

4. Life had been so damn hard, and she'd clawed her way up only to ____ herself back down.

5. How you handle even minor ___ might seem like nothing, but, in fact, it reveals everything. 

6. He was no longer he, it was a body, an "it, in domestic ____ beside a barn in a field beside a house at the end of a lane, off a minor road.

7. one man was able to put up ___,  and he was released.

8. Philosophy calls for simple living but not for ___ - it's quite possible to be simple without being ____.

9. There was no self- flagellation, no paying ___, no self-esteem issues from guilt or self- loathing.

10. Laying into yourself, unduly depriving yourself, punishing yourself  - that's ____, not self-improvement.

11. While it's true that someone can impede our actions, they can't ___ our intentions and attitudes, which have the power of being conditional and adaptable.

12. I had long since been disabused of the notion that I was a ____ child.

13. Nothing will ___ them from what is honorable, and nothing will lure them into what is base.

14. I'm confident the ___ will show that he was already dead.

15. She reached out, but I ___ from her.

16. Oh, these ____ winds, and bitter northern skies, and impassable roads, and dilatory country surgeons!

17. They said they would have to get a ___ straight away and that  I needed to pack a bag and leave the house, but that I must leave out the clothes I had worn the day my father died.

18. The woman guard followed me, ___.

19. The man said they'd do their best and the woman made a ___ noise.

20. They set up these huge ___ pointing towards the house and the barn.

21. I heard some ____ outside the bedroom door.

22. She walked their dogs and ___ to their chickens and designed furniture for their job.

Keys:

1. brisk; 2. gorge; 3.flecked; 4. fling; 5.adversity; 6. incinerator; 7. bail; 8. crude; 9. penance; 10. self-flagellation;11. impede; 12. foundling; 13. deter; 14. postmortem; 15. flinched away; 16. bleak; 17. forensics team; 18. tutting; 19. harrumph; 20. light beacons; 21. commotion; 22. tended