Delia was a young pianist with a kind, generous nature. Her husband Joe was a young painter who is honest and hardworking. They lived in a small flat after they got married.

Each of them was taking lessons—Joe with a famous art teacher, and Delia with a great pianist from Germany. They were the best teachers, so lessons were expensive, more than they could really afford, but... when you love your art, nothing is too much.

And soon the money began to run out and they couldn’t afford the lessons any more. Then one day Delia came home and told Joe that she had met a man. The man’s daughter, Sally, wanted to learn the piano and he was going to pay her 50 dollars an hour.

“Delia,” Joe said, “I’d be much happier if you go on with your lessons.” Delia said that it didn’t matter. She said, “When I’ve earned some money, I’ll start again. When you love your art, nothing is too much.” But Joe decided that he was also going to stop his lessons and paint pictures and try to sell them.

A few days later, Joe came home and proudly took 200 dollars from his pocket. Delia laughed and asked him where he’d got it from. “A man from Vermont bought one of my paintings. And he wants to buy more!” So the two of them were happy for a while. They didn’t have to worry anymore about finding the money to buy food and pay the bills. They missed their lessons, but that didn’t seem to matter.

Then, one day, Joe came home and saw that Delia’s hand was covered in a bandage(绷带). He asked her what had happened and if she was all right. “Oh,” said Delia. “My student, Sally asked me to make some coffee for her. So I did and I dropped the coffee and burned my hand. But she went straight to the medicine shop and got this bandage for me.”

Joe sat down and told Delia to sit down too. “Delia, what have you been doing the last two weeks?” he asked. She tried not to tell him, but then the tears began. “Oh Joe, I couldn’t get students so I got a job as a waitress in a restaurant. And today I burned my hand with hot water. So I can't work any more. I’m sorry, Joe, but we'll still have money from the man in Vermont, won’t we?”

Joe looked at her. “There’s no man in Vermont,” he said. “I haven’t sold any paintings. I’ve been working in a medicine shop, and today someone came from the restaurant to buy bandages fora woman who’d burned her hand. So when I saw you—well, I guessed.”

They both laughed. “So we’ve told each other lies,” said Joe. “But when you love your art, ...” Delia put her fingers to his lips. “No, Joe,” she said. “When you love someone, nothing is too much.”

In the sea, there are many islands. In its warm water，there are some We call them "coral islands".(珊瑚岛)

A coral island is very nice to look at. It looks like a ring of land with trees, grass, and flowers on it. 【小题1】 There is a little round lake inside the island.

If you look into this lake, you will see beautiful coral. You may think they are flowers. If you look at a piece of coral, you will see many little holes in it. 【小题2】 These sea animals make the coral.

They began to build under the water. Year after year, the coral grew higher and higher. 【小题3】

Then the sea brought it small trees and something else. After some years, these things changed into earth. Sometimes the wind brought seeds(种子) to this earth. Sometimes birds flew over it and brought seeds to the island.

The little seeds grew. 【小题4】 In a few more years there were trees growing there.

So you see, these islands were built little by little. 【小题5】 Don't they teach us a lesson? Can you think what the lesson is?