ActionScript 2.0 :: Assigning Variable Name To TextField

I've seen many times the following procedure to assign a variable name to a text field:
- We create a generic movieclip which contains a dynamic text field called "tittle" (for example)
- We add 4 instances of this movieclip to frame 1 in our main time line.
- We give them a different name (testMC1, testMC2, testMC3 and testMC4)
- We also add this little AS into frame 1:
testMC1.tittle = "Hello";
testMC2.tittle = "How";
testMC3.tittle = "are";
testMC4.tittle = "you";

If we run the fla we'll have the 4 movieclips on screen "Hello How are you". So far, it's ok, no problem and everything's understood. However I'm trying to implement a variation for this method which I need to use, but I'm not succeeding. I'd like to assign the variable values from a plain text file instead.

Hence, I create a plain text file called "Exampletext.txt". Inside this file I put the following variable values:
&variable1=Hello
&variable2=How
&variable3=are
&variable4=you

I add this piece of AS lo load the variables from the text file:
this.loadVariables ("Exampletext.txt");
And finally, I modify this bit too:
testMC1.tittle = variable1;
testMC2.tittle = variable2;
testMC3.tittle = variable3;
testMC4.tittle = variable4;
And well, it does not work at all!