請回答第 17 題至第 21 題：
    A woman repeated a bit of gossip about a neighbor. Within a few days the whole community knew the story.The person it concerned was deeply hurt and    17    . Later, the woman responsible for spreading the rumorlearned that it was completely untrue. She was very sorry and went to a wise old sage to find out what she could do to   18   the damage.
    “Go to the marketplace,” he said, “and purchase a chicken, and have it killed. Then on your way home, pluck its feathers and drop them one by one along the road.”   19   surprised by this advice, the woman did what she was told. The next day the wise man said, “Now, go and collect all those feathers you dropped yesterday and bring them back to me.”
    The woman followed the same road, but to her   20   the wind had blown all the feathers away. After
searching for hours, she returned   21   only three in her hand. “You see,” said the old sage, “it’s easy to drop them, but it’s impossible to get them back. So it is with gossip. It doesn’t take much to spread a rumor, but once you do, you can never completely undo the wrong.”
【題組】17
(A) deceived
(B) relieved
(C) delighted
(D) offended