致歉：中级故事中格列佛游记，原有书籍中音频有缺失后面四章，整个网络也没有完整版本

昔日的英国王室 完结篇

Chapter Four: The End of an Era

In 1866 Victoria opened Parliament for the first tinle after Albert's death.

She was dressed in black, the colour of mourning, which she wore for the rest of her life.

Transportation became a big problem in London because roads were always crowded. In 1863 the first underground railway in the world opened in London. Today it is called the "tube".

This was a period of social reforms . In 1870 the Education Act was passed. It introduced the first state schools for all children between the ages of five and thirteen.

Factory reforms, new laws for the poor and new hospitals improved people's lives. In 1875 many slums were destroyed and better homes were built. However, poverty was still a big problem.

In 1878 the American inventor Alexander Bell showed the Queen his invention, the telephone.

Victoria was astonished ! She was even more astonished to learn about the invention of a new means of transport: the automobile.

This was a period of revolutionary change.

At this time Victoria's favourite Prime Minister was Benjamin Disraeli, a witty, intelligent man. He got along well with the Queen and encouraged her to return to public life.

Disraeli wanted to expand the British Empire. His political rival, William Gladstone, wanted to limit it. Victoria did not like Gladstone. He complained about the cost of the Albert Memorial. Victoria liked Disraeli's idea of a bigger and stronger British Empire. In 1869 the Suez Canal, built by the French, opened and created an important trade route to India and the East.

Great Britain bought shares in the canal to secure Britain's power in the East. India was an important colony with its production of tea, silk and cotton. Victoria was fascinated by India and was delighted to become Empress of India in 1876. The British Empire expanded rapidly with the addition of Borneo, Burma and New Guinea.

David Livingstone was a British missionary and a great explorer. In the 1850s he travelled extensively in Africa and made the first maps of Central Africa. He discovered six lakes, rivers, mountains and the biggest waterfall in the world: called Victoria Falls in honour of the Queen. Henry Morton Stanley explored Lake Tanganyika and the Congo River.

In the 1880s Britain took control of large parts of Africa: Egypt, Nigeria,Kenya and Uganda. In 1883 there was a war in Sudan and rebels destroyed the British command in Khartoum. From its African colonies Britain got cocoa, coffee and diamonds.

On 20 June 1887 Victoria celebrated her 50 years as Queen. The following day she rode through London in an open carriage for the spectacular Golden Jubilee celebrations. The streets were full of cheering people.

A procession of royal guests from. all over the world rode in front of Victoria. There were Kings and Queens from Europe, the Crown Prince of Prussia and Princes from India, Japan and Siam. Victoria was very fond of music and liked singing arias from the comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan. The Milkado, The pirates of Penzance and HMS pinafore are their most famous operas. Howerver, it was the famous British composer Edward Elgar who wrote music for the great celebration.

But Victoria felt sad and lonely. "I sat alone," she wrote, "Oh! without my beloved husband!" All of her children married into royal families in different parts of Europe.

When Victoria celebrated her Diamond Jubilee in 1897 there was another gigantic procession, with 50,000 troops from all over the British Empire. On that day Victoria pressed a button to send a telegraph message around the empire: "From my heart I thank my beloved people. May God bless them!"

In 1899 the British Empire was the biggest empire in the world. It covered one-fifth of the earth's land area with 370 million people!

Victoria was now an old woman and suffered from rheumatism . She could not walk well but was still active. She worked from half past seven in the morning until late at night, studying government papers. She loved her people and her empire.

At the beginning of 1901 the Queen was very weak. On 22 January 1901 Victoria died at the age of 82 at Osborne House. Thousands of people wept during her funeral procession . She was considered the Mother of the British Empire. She was buried beside her beloved Albert at Frogmore near Windsor.

中级 化身博士

Part One: Story of the Door 

Mr Utterson was a lawyer in London. He was a very serious man, and he did not often smile or laugh. He lived alone, and he had a very quiet life. His friends liked him because he was kind. They trusted him with their secrets.

One of Mr Utterson's closest friends was Mr Richard Enfield, who was a relative of his. Mr Utterson and Mr Enfield walked together every Sunday.

They did not say much to each other, but they enjoyed their walks.

One Sunday Mr Utterson was walking with Mr Enfield. They were in a quiet street of the city. All the houses in the street were clean and cheerful ,except for one. The door of this house was dirty. No one seemed to live there.

Mr Enfield looked at the house for a moment, and then he said to Mr Utterson,

'Do you see that house? I know a strange story, and that house is part of the story.'

'Oh!' said Mr Utterson. 'What is the story?'

'I'll tell you,' Mr Enfield said. 'One night I was walking home along this street. It was winter, and it was very late. There was nobody in the street. I was frightened. Suddenly I saw two people. One was a little girl, and the other was a man. The little girl was running towards the main street. The man was walking down the main street. They ran into each other at the corner, and the little girl fell down.

Then something horrible happened, and I have never been able to forget it.

The little girl was on the ground. The man continued walking. He walked right over the girl's body! She began to scream and cry. It was very frightening, the way he walked over her.

'I went after the man, and I brought him back. He was a small man, I remember, and there was something strange about him. I hated him the moment I saw him, I don't know why.

'When we came back to the little girl, there was a crowd in the street.

The girl's family was there. There was also a doctor. Everybody was very angry. The girl was all right, but she was crying. Her family was very angry with the man.

'I hated the man, and I could see that everybody hated him. We all wanted to kill him. We decided to punish him. I told him that he had done a horrible thing.

'"We will tell everybody," I said. "You will have no friends when they know what you did tonight."

'The man was frightened. We told him to pay the girl's family some money.

We told him to give the family one hundred pounds. It was a lot of money.

'''Very well," agreed the man, "I will give the family one hundred pounds."

'It was late at night,' Mr Enfield told Mr Utterson. 'It is difficult to find one hundred pounds in the middle of the night. We went with the man, and he came to this old house. He opened the door with a key. He went inside, and he came out with the money. He had ten pounds in notes, and a cheque for ninety pounds. The cheque was not his — it was signed by another man. The other man is very well known in London.

'"This is very strange," I thought. "Perhaps the cheque is a forgery ." I told the man my suspicions. He laughed at me.

'''You don't trust me," he said. "I will stay with you until the bank opens.'"

'So the man stayed with us,' Mr Enfield went on, 'and in the morning we all went to the bank. The bank paid the cheque—it was not a forgery, after all.'

'Oh!' said Mr Utterson sadly.

'I know what you are thinking,' Mr Enfield said. 'How was it possible for this terrible man to be a friend of the man who wrote the cheque? Perhaps the terrible man is blackmailing him.'

Mr Utterson looked at the house again. Then he asked Mr Enfield a question. 'The man who wrote the cheque,' he asked, 'does he live in that house?'

'No,' said Mr Enfield, 'he doesn't live there. I discovered that later. He lives somewhere else.'

'So who actually lives in the house?' Mr Utterson asked.

'I don't know,' Mr Enfield said. 'I didn't want to ask too many questions. I don't like asking questions. But I know that the strange man uses the house very often. I have seen him come in and go out.'

Mr Utterson was silent for a moment. Then he said, 'I agree with you: it is best not to ask questions sometimes. But tell me, do you know the name of the strange man?'

'Yes,' answered Mr Enfield. 'His name is Mr Hyde.'

'What is he like?' asked Mr Utterson.

'He is small,' said Mr Enfield, 'and there is something ugly about him. I hated him the moment I saw him. So did everybody else that night.'

'You say that he had a key to the door of this house?' asked Mr Utterson.

'Yes, he did,' Mr Enfield replied. 'He opened the door with a key.'

Mr Utterson looked sad. Then he said, 'I have not asked you the name of the man who wrote the cheque. That is because I already know his name.'