The Kiss: Love Stories from North America. Jennifer Bassett

JENNIFER BASSETT

      THE KISS Love Stories from North America

      THE KISS

      Love Stories from North America

      There are many different kinds of love story. There are simple love stories, where a boy meets a girl, they fall in love, get married, and everything ends happily. There are stories where everything does not end happily, and stories where the path of true love is full of problems and arguments, mistakes and misunderstandings.

      In The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky, Jack and his new wife are returning to Jack’s home in Yellow Sky, Texas, and they find a most surprising – and dangerous – welcome waiting for them. In A Seashore Wooing a girl meets a boy, but they have a great problem – and the name of the problem is Aunt Martha. A White Heron is a very different kind of love story. A little girl discovers in herself a love for the natural world – a love that is stronger than the need for money or the wish to please a new friend. And in By Courier a young lady refuses to speak to her young man. But why? What has he done wrong?

      But the volume begins with the story called The Kiss. Be careful who you kiss, and when you do it!

Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP, United KingdomOxford University Press is a department of the University of OxfordIt furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countriesThis simplified edition © Oxford University Press 2013The moral rights of the author have been assertedFirst published in Oxford Bookworms 201310 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1No unauthorized photocopyingAll rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the ELT Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address aboveYou must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirerLinks to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and for information only. Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials contained in any third party website referenced in this workISBN: 978 0 19 478615 7A complete recording of this Bookworms edition of The Kiss: Love Stories from North America is available in an audio pack. isbn: 978 0 19 478605 8Printed in ChinaWord count (main text): 12,732For more information on the Oxford Bookworms Library,visit www.oup.com/bookwormswww.oup.com/bookwormse-Book ISBN 978 0 19 463027 6e-Book first published 2014

      NOTE ABOUT THE LANGUAGE

      In these stories some of the characters use non-standard forms, for example: ain’t instead of am not / is not / are not; and double negatives, as in You never gave him no chance. This is how the authors of the original stories represent the spoken language that their characters would use in real life. These non-standard forms are listed in the glossary on page 61.

      The Kiss

Kate Chopin

      It was still light out of doors, but inside with the curtains closed and with only a little light from the fire, the room was full of shadows.

      Brantain sat in one of those shadows; the shadow had moved over him and he did not mind. The darkness made him feel brave enough to stare for as long as he liked at the girl who sat in the firelight.

      She was very good-looking, with that fine, rich coloring often found in women with dark brown hair and brown eyes. She sat calmly, with her hands resting on the cat that lay sleeping on her knees. From time to time she sent a slow look into the shadow where the man sat. They were talking of unimportant things, which were clearly not the things they were thinking about. She knew that he loved her – a simple, honest man, not clever enough to hide his feelings, and with no wish to do so.

      For the past two weeks, at every tea party and every dinner party, he had been always at her side. She was sure he would soon ask her to marry him, and she meant to accept him. Brantain was dull and not at all good-looking, but he was extraordinarily rich; and she liked and wanted the kind of life that a rich husband could give her.

      During one of the pauses in their conversation about the last tea party and the next dinner party, the door opened and a young man entered. Brantain knew him well. The girl turned her face toward him, but did not realize that he had not seen Brantain. In three steps he was next to her chair, and bending over her – before she had any idea what he planned to do – he gave her a long, slow, burning kiss upon her lips.