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More "Ruffle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... under an air-pump. Miss Pew had a horror of draughts, so the upper sashes were only lowered a couple of inches, to let out the used atmosphere. There was no chance of a gentle west wind blowing in to ruffle the loose hair upon the foreheads of ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... wish I were a Robin, A Robin or a little Wren, everywhere to go; Through forest, field, or garden, And ask no leave or pardon, Till winter comes with icy thumbs To ruffle up ...
— Required Poems for Reading and Memorizing - Third and Fourth Grades, Prescribed by State Courses of Study • Anonymous
... 'Siah, shaking his head thoughtfully. "I know the red scamp. If he was treated right by the settlers, though, he'd be decent enough. But he got angry at Breckenridge's yesterday, they tell me. Somebody spoke roughly to him. You can ruffle the feathers of them ...
— With Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga • W. Bert Foster
... answered Louisa Helen with a pert little toss of her curly head as she passed him and stood by Rose Mary's table. "Miss Rose Mary, I wanter to show you this Sunday waist I've done made Maw and get you to persuade her some about it for me. I put this little white ruffle in the neck and sleeves and a bunch of it down here under her chin, and now she says I've got to take it right off. Paw's been dead five years, and I've most forgot how he looked. Oughtn't ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess
... l in the following terminations: ble, cle, dle, fle, gle, kle, ple, tle, zle; as in able, manacle, cradle, ruffle, mangle, wrinkle, supple, rattle, puzzle, which are pronounced a'bl, mana'cl, cra'dl, ruf'fl, man'gl, ...
— The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing - A Manual of Ready Reference • Joseph Triemens
... discovered your ruffle with Sir Willmott Burrell after the funeral," interrupted the other; "but be not afraid of meeting him: he left Cecil Place some days ago, to arrange some business. Nay, now, do not crow loudly your ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... happy, while these accord together: and as they disagree, prove unhappy: and I think it true, that it is better to be heady than wary; because Fortune is a mistresse; and it is necessary, to keep her in obedience to ruffle and force her: and we see, that she suffers her self rather to be masterd by those, than by others that proceed coldly. And therefore, as a mistresse, shee is a friend to young men, because they are lesse respective, more rough, and command her with ...
— Machiavelli, Volume I - The Art of War; and The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... intimate observer it is strangely similar in many of its aspects to a great newspaper office, with its diverse and highly specialised duties all tending to one common end. The headquarters staff is a big one. There are superintendents in charge of the departments, men whom no emergency can ruffle—calm, methodical and alert, ready to act in the time one can ...
— Scotland Yard - The methods and organisation of the Metropolitan Police • George Dilnot
... first conclusion. "She is quite too handsome; she cannot have those looks without knowing it. Better have brought a plain face to Fiji, than a spirit of vanity. Hair done as if she was just come out of a hair-dresser's!—hum—ruffle all down the neck of her dress—flowing sleeves too, and ruffles round them. And a buckle in her belt—a gold buckle, ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner
... a volume! Briefly, it is the mark of a well-disciplined mind to be able to meet all emergencies calmly. Though china break, and gravy spill, the hostess and the guest must not allow the accident to ruffle their perfect serenity of manner. Nor is it merely a point of etiquette to be thus self-controlled. Serious accidents sometimes happen, like the igniting of fancy lamp-shades or filmy curtains, and then the calm poise of a well-bred man becomes of practical value ...
— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton
... a stiff Ruffle, for shou'd the Wind blow it aside, your Ladyship's Elbow might catch cold, but I'll slacken my Hand i'the next.—Does your Ladyship want ...
— The Fine Lady's Airs (1709) • Thomas Baker
... set of fine gentlemen, of whom the present world would not be worthy, tricked out for show, fitted only to drive out fading majesty in a stage coach; exquisite in every personal appendage, too fine for the common usages of society; point-device, not only in every curl and ruffle, but in every attitude and step; men with full satin roses on their shining shoes; diamond tablet rings on their forefingers; with snuff-boxes, the worth of which might almost purchase a farm; lace worked by the delicate fingers of some religious recluse of an ancestress, ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... quickly be cleared away: as if it had come unbidden and been driven away from a sense of expediency. As I passed him on the way out he touched his cap to me politely, and the sleeve of his rough jerkin falling away a little in the act, I thought I caught a glimpse of a lace wrist-ruffle. ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... the sails when the wind catches them on the leeches and causes them to ruffle slightly. Also implies help in work in hand, as "give us ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... worked, and not meeting in front, in order to reveal a smart silk stomacher beneath; full white linen sleeves, trimmed at the elbow with broad somewhat coarse Bohemian lace; and a square collar, with a ruffle of the same to match. The cloth dress is, however, completely concealed, except a few inches at the bottom, by the huge apron, which is on all occasions considered an indispensable addition, no Tyrolese woman feeling modest without it. The dainty white knitted cotton stockings, with the large ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various
... thrust itself into companionship with a handsome English horse, whose owner is graced by the most unexceptionable habit and other appliances. Even the very donkeys walk along with dignified resolution, as if determined to ruffle it with the best, and not yield an inch of their prerogative. In fact, they evidently know their own value, and remember that not one of the hills around—not the giant tree on the heights of Lugliano, nor the tempting strawberry-gardens on the mountain of Benabbio—could be attained ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 431 - Volume 17, New Series, April 3, 1852 • Various
... to the Most High. You can teach it this from the book of nature and of revelation,—from the daisies that spring up among the grass upon which it frolics, by the mellow fruits after which it longs, by the stars that shine in unclouded luster above it, and by the breezes which ruffle its silken curls, and bring ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips
... of dark-blue velvet, came to his knees, and were held together at the waist by a blue silk sash, whose lace- tipped ends fell at his left side. He wore a blue velvet jacket, with a tastefully embroidered lace ruffle around the neck. The round, rosy face, with the ruby lips, the dimple in the chin, the large blue eyes, shaded by long, dark lashes, and crowned by the broad, lofty brow, was rimmed around with a profusion ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... imperturbable outwardly, but very ill at ease within, smiled and waved the delicate hand that appeared through the heavy ruffle at his wrist. "Madam, indeed—ah—your ladyship goes very fast. You leap so at conclusions for which no grounds can exist. His lordship is so overwrought—as well he may be, alas!—that he cares not before whom he speaks. Is it not ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... saw the world full of beauty and adventure. Ah, to be once more as he was when the princess beamed on him; to throw away his cares, his ails, his conscience, his regrets; to sing and dance, to ruffle it with other cavaliers, to dice, to drink, to feast, to win the smiles of ladies! It was a joy worth ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... scanty reward, but their eyes are scarcely fixed upon mundane munificence, already their scale of values is a spiritual one. But it is just these delicate, sensitive folk, susceptible to the gossamer impulses that would never even ruffle the surface of the average man's mind, who are open to the urge of spirit and responsive to its "drive." So they answer to the helm and steer out into the unknown, while the more sleek, comfortable, and ...
— Spirit and Music • H. Ernest Hunt
... gaiety; they have not sufficient steadiness for the uninterrupted avocations of graver life. In the midst of the most serious or deep discussion, a Frenchman will suddenly stop, and, with a look of perhaps more solemn importance than he bestowed upon the subject of debate, will adjust the ruffle of his brother savant, adding some observation on the propriety of adorning the exterior as well as the interior of science. [48]"Leur badinage," says Montesquieu, "naturellement fait pour las toilettes, semble etre provenu a former le caractere general de la nation. On badine au conseil, on badine ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... head, rested his strangely lean hands on his plump knees, and fixed T. A. Junior with a shrewd blue eye. "That suits me fine," he agreed. "I never was one to beat around the bush. Look here. I know skirts from the draw-string to the ruffle. It's a woman's garment, but a man's line. There's fifty reasons why a woman can't handle it like a man. For one thing the packing cases weigh twenty-five pounds each, and she's as dependent on a packer and a porter as a baby is on ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber
... reflected on the sea. The men of the Dogana watch-boat challenged us and let us pass. Madonna's lamp was twinkling from her shrine upon the harbour-pile. The city grew before us. Stealing into Venice in that calm—stealing silently and shadowlike, with scarce a ruffle of the water, the masses of the town emerging out of darkness into twilight, till San Giorgio's gun boomed with a flash athwart our stern, and the gas-lamps of the Piazzetta swam into sight; all this was like ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... And the isolation of the moment weighed upon him like an omen and an emblem of his destiny in life. Bred up in unbroken fear himself, among trembling servants, and in a house which (at the least ruffle in the master's voice) shuddered into silence, he saw himself on the brink of the red valley of war, and measured the danger and length of it with awe. He made a detour in the glimmer and shadow of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... sparingly, but that a certain degree of mental repose—or what may possibly be called imperturbableness—is necessary to influence. Mrs. Flutter Budget always talks in a hurry, and talks of a thousand things, and is easily excited. Her neighbor, carefully avoiding the causes which ruffle her, and preserving the poise of her faculties, insists on her point quietly, and carries it. The repose of equanimity is a charm which dissolves all opposition. The mind which shows itself open to influences from every ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... needed but that Judge Douglas should point it out, and I would have taken it back, with all the kindness in the world. I do not deal in that way. If I have brought forward anything not a fact, if he will point it out, it will not even ruffle me to take it back. But if he will not point out anything erroneous in the evidence, is it not rather for him to show, by a comparison of the evidence, that I have reasoned falsely, than to call the "kind, amiable, intelligent ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... would know at sight; a man might only feel the general effect of clear, well-matched colors, of harmonious proportions, of the cut which makes everything cling like a bather's sleeve where a natural outline is to be kept, and ruffle itself up like the hackle of a pitted fighting-cock where art has a right to luxuriate in silken exuberance. How this city-bred and city-dressed girl came to be in Rockland Mr. Bernard did not know, but he knew at any rate that she ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... fashion! Of course, when it came to the last, he was simply afraid of her, and of the scene she would make him. Bravery has as little room in his soul as honesty or manliness. He would always prefer a back-door exit. Such things excite a man, don't you know?—and ruffle the necessary artistic composure." She laughed scornfully. "However, I'm glad to say, he didn't escape scot-free after all. Everything went well till yesterday afternoon, when Louise, who was as unsuspecting as a child, heard of it from some one—they say it ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... tucked! If there could be a white dress it would have to have ruffles on it; all the other girls' white dresses had ruffles on them somewhere. Carrie's had two ruffles on the skirt, and Mamie Cole's had three. Bertha Dean's had only one ruffle around the shoulders and the skirt was tucked, but it was very pretty; and if Tabitha could not have ruffles on the skirt, she would want at least a shoulder ruffle with lace around it. Well, there was no use in planning, she ...
— Tabitha at Ivy Hall • Ruth Alberta Brown
... appears with the face of an angel; he soars away into those regions of exalted devotion where his people can but faintly gaze after him; he tells them of the victory that overcometh the world, of an unmoved faith that fears no evil, of a serenity of love that no outward event can ruffle; and all look after him and wonder, and wish they ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... the whole matter, "I am going to do it." And, having thus "consulted" me, Polly goes away; and I put in the turnip-seeds quite thick, determined to raise enough to sell. But not even this mercenary thought can ruffle my mind as I rake off the loamy bed. I notice, however, that the spring smell has gone out of the dirt. That went into the ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... shoreward, the Pomerania rode home. She knew her landfall and seemed to quicken. Steadily swinging on the jade-green surges, she buried her nose almost to the hawse-pipes, then lifted until her streaming forefoot gleamed out of a frilled ruffle of foam. ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... under the limbs of the trees had begun to grow more liquid. The currents of warm breeze streaming through the cooler body of the air had ceased to ruffle the lakelet round the fountain, and the naiads rode their sea-horses through a perfect calm. A damp, pierced with the fresh odour of the water and of the springing grass, descended upon them. The saunterers ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... he get out?" said Moppet, giving way to laughter. "Oh, what a ruffle Oliver must ...
— An Unwilling Maid • Jeanie Gould Lincoln
... interrupted by hoots and cat-calls but he waited calmly for silence and seeing that they couldn't ruffle him by buffoonery they ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs
... Province!" said William, her chin on her hand, as she leaned forward among the wine-glasses. Her cheeks had fallen in, and the scar on her forehead was more prominent than ever, but the well-turned neck rose roundly as a column from the ruffle of the blouse which was the ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... your own nature than ever the angels could. They bring forth what is evil in you, that it may be conquered. Do not understand me to mean that you should ever seek those who may harm you. But a day can hardly pass over our heads, that we do not meet with persons who ruffle that harmony of soul we so labour after. It is keenly felt when one is as young in a better life as you are. You need strength, and then you will be calm and even. Time, patience, combating, prayer, good-will to man, must bring your soul to order, then you will bear upon the spirits of others ...
— Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing • T. S. Arthur
... the table; he saw nothing about him. The beautiful woman in the fanciful dress described that morning by Felicite appeared to him crowned with light; she smiled to him, she waved her fan; the other hand, issuing from its ruffle of lace, fell white and pure on the heavy folds ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... set of people, and then to present him at last in their houses as a man of rare and exquisite conversation; and, there, just as a musician sings or a lute-player touches his lute before the people who have engaged him, Cydias, after having coughed, and lifted the ruffle from his wrist, stretched out his hand and opened his fingers, begins to retail his quintessential thoughts and his sophistical arguments.... He opens his mouth only to contradict. 'It seems to me,' he gracefully says, 'that the truth is exactly the contrary of what you say,' ...
— Three French Moralists and The Gallantry of France • Edmund Gosse
... small bantam hen ruffle up all her feathers in angry defense of her chick? So did poor little, timid Mrs. Rockharrt in protection of her pet. She ventured to expostulate with her tyrant for, perhaps, the first time ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... What a remarkable occurrence!" exclaims Cecil. "Now, what can have happened to ruffle so serene a nature ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... with misrepresentations of the President's course, but they failed to ruffle him. On his asking if I was taking any part in the campaign, I referred to a speech that I had made on the Fourth of July in Leipsic, and another to the Cornell University students just before my departure, with the remark that I felt that ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... her waist to fit smoothly and plainly, unbroken by any conspicuous lines. If bands must be used to remedy the deficiencies of ungenerous Nature, let them be at the neck and waist; and if the back is unconscionably long, a band, or fold, or ruffle across the shoulders ...
— What Dress Makes of Us • Dorothy Quigley
... with your composure, that the rugged cares and disturbance that public affairs brings with it, which does so vexatiously affect the heads of other great men of business, &c. does scarce ever ruffle your unclouded brow so much as with a frown. And what above all is praiseworthy, you are so far from thinking yourself better than others, that a flourishing and opulent fortune, which by a certain natural corruption in its quality, seldom fails ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... It is also recorded, that Pope Sylvester II. constructed an organ, that was worked by steam. As compared with recent ingenuity, however, these applications may fairly bring to mind the Frenchman's boast of his countryman's invention of the frill and the ruffle; while his English opponent claimed for his native land the honour of suggesting the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 388 - Vol. 14, No. 388, Saturday, September 5, 1829. • Various
... about in ecstasy, picking great bunches of the flowers, and running from clump to clump with thrills of delight. Surely even Freckles's "Limberlost" could not be more beautiful than this. A persistent cuckoo was calling in the meadow close by; a thrush with his brown throat all a-ruffle trilled in a birch tree overhead, and a blackbird warbled his heart out among the hazel bushes by the fence. The girls went peeping here and there and everywhere in quest of birds' nests, and their diligent search was amply ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... fellow with the sneer; The axe's weight could not ruffle his brow,— How signed it is ...
— Emblems Of Love • Lascelles Abercrombie
... with sight and respiration, and makes the eyes sore. Even such winds as these have their own merit in proper time and place. It is pleasant to see them brandish great masses of shadow. And what a power they have over the colour of the world! How they ruffle the solid woodlands in their passage, and make them shudder and whiten like a single willow! There is nothing more vertiginous than a wind like this among the woods, with all its sights and noises; and the effect gets between some painters and ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... sentenced the other day," he said humbly, as if fearing to ruffle the temper of the officer, who seemed to ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... something must have occurred seriously to ruffle him, even if he had not slammed the door of the smoking-room so violently behind him. It did not take Carrissima long to draw her own conclusions. It is true she was ignorant of her father's engagement to Bridget, but she had anticipated ...
— Enter Bridget • Thomas Cobb
... patience; with a keen relish for and appreciation of everything beautiful, great, and good, but with a temper so genial that the friction [20] of the world shall not wear upon our sensibilities; with an equanimity so settled that no passing breath nor accidental disturbance shall agitate or ruffle it; with a charity broad enough to cover the whole world's evil, and sweet enough to neutralize what is bitter in it,—de- [25] termined not to be offended when no wrong is meant, nor even when it is, unless the ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... she is notional in the making of her dresses," said the sewing teacher. "She is apt to want the skirt a little wider and the hem a half-inch deeper than the regular uniform. And she asks to have more buttonholes, which means more buttons, and an extra ruffle on the waist. But she begs me so politely and appears so thankful, if I grant these trifling favors, that I find myself indulging her too frequently. She does the extra work herself, cheerfully and neatly, if not speedily, but closely watched by others. ...
— Big and Little Sisters • Theodora R. Jenness
... Why do you add up and consult and consider in the pauses of the sermon, or make opportunity for a business whisper in the porch, and on the way home? Why do you let the perplexities of servants, of means, of plans, ruffle your spirits on the one great day of freedom? Do not you know that even a debtor may walk abroad on Sunday, with no fear of a prison; and house doors may stand open, and no sheriff can enter. Shall it be worse with your ...
— Tired Church Members • Anne Warner
... (fol. 38,) that Cardinal Wolsey endeavored to terrify the citizens of London into the general loan exacted in 1525, and told them plainly, that "it were better that some should suffer indigence than that the king at this time should lack and therefore beware and resist not, nor ruffle not in this case, for it may fortune to cost some people their heads." Such was the style employed by this ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume
... to dogs are described by Darwin: Mr. Colquhoun winged two wild ducks, which fell on the farther side of a stream; his retriever tried to bring over both at once, but could not succeed; she then, though never before known to ruffle a feather, deliberately killed one, brought over the other, and returned for the dead bird. Colonel Hutchinson relates that two partridges were shot at once—one being killed, the other wounded; the latter ran away, ...
— Was Man Created? • Henry A. Mott
... of withered leaves; her bosoms, of an exceeding beauty, lay bare to the wind, and an infant was clasped between them, hushed into a sleep so still, that neither the roar of the thunder, nor the livid lightning flashing from cloud to cloud, could even ruffle, much less arouse, the slumberer. And the face of the female was unutterably calm and sweet (though with a something of severe); there was no line nor wrinkle in the hueless brow; care never wrote its defacing characters upon that everlasting beauty. It knew no sorrow or change; ghostlike ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... mischievous urchins would often decapitate the illustrious sunflowers, the glory of the garden, as they lolled their heads so fondly over the walls. Still all these were petty grievances, which might now and then ruffle the surface of his mind, as a summer breeze will ruffle the surface of a mill-pond; but they could not disturb the deep-seated quiet of his soul. He would seize a trusty staff, that stood behind the ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... does not matter, would mount a ringstraked horse and ride scores of miles to Simla-town to confer with the Lieutenant-Governor on matters of state, or to assure the Viceroy that his sword was at the service of the Queen-Empress. Then the Viceroy would cause a ruffle of drums to be sounded, and the ringstraked horse and the cavalry of the State—-two men in tatters—and the herald who bore the silver stick before the King would trot back to their own place, which lay between the tail of a heaven-climbing glacier ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... their minds so close to the idea that they are trying to get the better of you, but as Major Jackman says to me, "I know the ways of this circular world Mrs. Lirriper, and that's one of 'em all round it" and many is the little ruffle in my mind that the Major has smoothed, for he is a clever man who has seen much. Dear dear, thirteen years have passed though it seems but yesterday since I was sitting with my glasses on at the open front parlour window one evening in August (the parlours being then vacant) reading yesterday's ...
— Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings • Charles Dickens
... sister Swum halfway already. Fortu, shall we sail there together And see from the sides 210 Quite new rocks show their faces, new haunts Where the siren abides? Shall we sail round and round them, close over The rocks, tho' unseen, That ruffle the grey glassy water To glorious green? Then scramble from splinter to splinter, Reach land and explore, On the largest, the strange square black turret With never a door, 220 Just a loop to admit the quick lizards; Then, stand there and hear The birds' quiet singing, that tells us ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning
... lion—perchance also for the consul—Achmet possessed too much native dignity and common-sense to allow such an accident to ruffle his temper. He rose and resumed his seat with a hearty ...
— The Pirate City - An Algerine Tale • R.M. Ballantyne
... snare-drum; base-drum; kettle-drum; tabor, taborine. Associated Words: reveille, rappel, chamade, ruff, tattoo, ruffle, roll, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... the Marquis, felicitously sensible that such vermin were not to ruffle him, "to see a thief accompanying my carriage, and not open that great mouth of yours. Bah! ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... Pardee came on later. She was a woman of great energy, and brought up her sons so well that they all became leading men in the communities in which they lived. Grandmother Butler was also a capable, fearless woman, and so calm and firm that it was said no vexation was ever known to ruffle her temper. ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler
... have fallen from my bosom during our ruffle. I can ill afford to leave it, for I travel light in such matters. Eight hundred men, quoth the major, and three thousand to follow. Should I meet this same Oglethorpe or Ogilvy when the little business is over, I shall read him a lesson on thinking less of chemistry and more of the ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... her which hangs over our parlor mantelpiece, I see the face of a hard, determined-looking woman with cold gray eyes and rigidly set mouth, in a funny-looking black dress, neither high-necked nor low-necked, having a starchy white ruffle round the edge, in vivid white contrast to the yellow skin; with grizzly, iron-gray curls peeping out from under a cap that is fearfully and wonderfully made, with a huge ruffled border radiating in a circumference of several feet, ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... look over her shoulder, she made him, somehow, think of a hollyhock, by the tilt of her tall, slim, young figure, and by the colors of her hat from which her face flowered; no doubt the deep-crimson silk waist she wore, with its petal-edged ruffle flying free down her breast, had something to do with his fantastic notion. She was a brunette, with the lightness and delicacy that commonly go with the beauty of a blonde. She could not have been more than fifteen; her skirts ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells
... battle, it appears that his party soon hoped, or pretended to hope, "to pay Cumberland back in his own coin." A review of the fragment of the army was projected at Fort-Augustus, on the seventeenth of April; and amends were promised to be made for the "ruffle at Culloden."[200] "For God's sake," wrote Mr. Macleod, "make haste to join us; and bring with you all the people that can possibly be got together. Take care in particular of Lumisden and Sheridan, as they carry with them the ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson
... leaves. All this could be marked from the hall, for the front door stood wide open, and a fresh cool breeze came floating into the mansion, to flirt with the high and mighty curtains upon the landing, jostle the stately palms, and ruffle up the pompous atmosphere with gay irreverence. The air itself would have told you the hour. The intermittent knocks of a retreating postman declared the time even ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... two had dropt from Grief, And Jealousy would, now and then, Ruffle in haste some snow-white leaf, Which Love ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... rug from curling up at edges when finished, as it would be apt to do if too tightly crocheted. If necessary, occasionally add an extra stitch. Avoid also crocheting it too loosely, as it would then appear like a ruffle. The advantage of crocheting over a heavy cord is that the work may be easily drawn up more tightly ...
— Mary at the Farm and Book of Recipes Compiled during Her Visit - among the "Pennsylvania Germans" • Edith M. Thomas
... over Barnes' store, Janie Clifton sat humming cheerfully, her needle flying in and out of the long ruffle ...
— Randy and Her Friends • Amy Brooks
... the old crone, leaping from her seat and dancing about the room, "the dhrame's come true at last! Och, hullybaloo! didn't I know that the pretty Paudeen wasn't born for the pig-stye! Bedad, but he'll ruffle the gentles! Wont you, darlint?" and the old woman fell upon her son's neck, smothering him with kisses, while the poor youth could hardly keep his legs under the vigor ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various
... "I won't ruffle a feather," Wade assured her. "But you'd better come before dinner time or I may get hungry and eat ...
— The Lilac Girl • Ralph Henry Barbour
... drawn in just above the elbow and confined by knots of ribbon; in one case with very narrow ribbon loops. Randle Holme says that a sleeve thus tied in at the elbow was called a virago sleeve. Madam Shrimpton's sleeve has also a falling frill of embroidery and lace and a ruffle around the armsize. The question of sleeves sorely vexed the colonial magistrates. Men and women were forbidden to have but one slash or opening in each sleeve. Then the inordinate width of sleeves became equally trying, and all were ordered to restrain themselves to ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... before Ali could bid for another of the slaves he desired to acquire, a tall, elderly Jew, dressed in black doublet and hose like a Castilian gentleman, with a ruffle at his neck, a plumed bonnet on his grey locks, and a serviceable dagger hanging from his girdle of hammered gold, had claimed the attention of ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... Perfect equality is to be the rule; no rising, or notice taken, when anybody enters or leaves. Let the entering man take his place and pipe, without obligatory remarks: if he cannot smoke, which is Seckendorf's case for instance, let him at least affect to do so, and not ruffle the established stream of things. And so, Puff, slowly Pff!—and any comfortable speech that is in you; or none, if ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume V. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... excited," said Reddy; "don't let these sublunary trifles ruffle your temper—you see how I bear it; and to recall you to yourself, I will remind you of the question we started from, 'What do you think of the world?' There's a general question—a broad question, upon which one may talk with temper and soar above the ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... perturb, annoy, disquiet, agitate, incommode, ruffle, disarrange, derange, unsettle, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... Yeo; "he will make a brave gamecock in a year or two, if he dares ruffle up so early at a tough old hen-master like ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... of a poniard, and might just be suspected of manhood enough to squire a proud dame-citizen to the lecture at Saint Antonlin's, and quarrel in her cause with any flat-capped threadmaker that would take the wall of her. He must ruffle it in another sort that would walk to court in ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... have mentioned that the lady explained to me what the one thing was that she was afraid might happen to ruffle her. It was the apprehension of what may result from a visit which Col. Morden, as she is informed, designs to ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... gone back to the cover where she clucks them together. But if you first turn your attention to the chicks the mother will turn on her trail, stretch out her long, broad, banded tail into a beautiful fan, ruffle up the feathers on either side of her neck and come straight towards you. Often she will stretch her neck and hiss at you like a barn-yard goose. There is a picture of the ruffed grouse worth while. ...
— Some Summer Days in Iowa • Frederick John Lazell
... O monstrous, what reproachfull words are these? Sat. But goe thy wayes, goe giue that changing peece, To him that flourisht for her with his Sword: A Valliant sonne in-law thou shalt enioy: One, fit to bandy with thy lawlesse Sonnes, To ruffle in the Common-wealth ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... ordinary observer it would have seemed that the chief characteristic of this pale, still day, was extreme and settled calm. There was not a breath of wind to ruffle the surface of the sea; but there was a slight, glassy swell, and that only served to show curious opalescent tints under the suffused light of the sun. There were no clouds; there was only a thin veil of faint and sultry mist all across the sky; the sun was ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... We did but break branches, and make tracks on the edges of the pools, and ruffle the long grass, and they did read for themselves that those they sought were just ahead of them. We have hope that the young lord be, by this time, well and ...
— A Boy's Ride • Gulielma Zollinger
... practice of the chapel choir; and the study of sonatas and concertos for public performance. But all the leisure that could be made or stolen was occupied in labours which proved their own reward. Straight from the concert-platform rushed the musician to his workshop, and many a lace ruffle was torn by nails or bespattered by molten pitch; to say nothing of the positive danger to which Herschel continually exposed himself by the precipitancy of his movements. For example: one Saturday evening, when the two brothers returned from a concert between ...
— The Story of the Herschels • Anonymous
... her— (She did so ruffle her hair; If ever she plays that trick again She'll have ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... drawn up in what are called festoons, with light wreaths of beautiful flowers; the sleeves, white crape drawn over the silk, with a row of lace round the sleeve near the shoulder, another half-way down the arm, and a third upon the top of the ruffle,—a little stuck between,—a kind of hat-cap with three large feathers and a bunch of flowers,—a wreath of flowers on ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... is no pen worthy to write of Lyddy. Her joy lay deep in her heart like a jewel at the bottom of a clear pool, so deep that no ripple or ruffle on the surface could disturb the hidden treasure. If God had smitten these two with one hand, he had held out the other ...
— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin
... these chickens; ain't they pretty? Tom sent all the way to Indiany fer the settin' of eggs fer me and I've just been a-watching the day for 'em to hatch. I feel they are a-going to be a credit to me and I'm glad I gave 'em to Ruffle Neck to set on. She's such a good hoverer and can be depended on to run from the rain. Now ain't they pretty?" and Mother even looked at Mrs. Peavey with hope for a word of sympathy in her pleasure—after a thirty years' ...
— The Road to Providence • Maria Thompson Daviess
... to his side the moment she had finished a hurried toilet. She got herself impatiently into a wrapper of dark red cashmere, which fastened at the waist with cords and heavy tassels. A little ruffle of lace bound her throat, and her feet were thrust into dainty slippers, her beautiful hair hung in two long braids down her back, making a perfect picture of her en deshabille. She walked stealthily to ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... which looked out to the front of the house, and he, seated in his accustomed chair near the window, could see the arrival. For a moment or two he remained quiet in his chair, as though he would not allow so insignificant a thing as his cousin's coming to ruffle him but he could not maintain this dignified indifference, and before Belton was out of the gig he had shuffled out ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope
... prepared for further losses; he has adjusted himself to the fact of death. At first, we cannot believe that it can happen to us and to our love; or, if the thought comes to us, it is an event too far in the future to ruffle the calm surface of our heart. And yet, it must come; from it none can escape. Most can remember a night of waiting, too stricken for prayer, too numb of heart even for feeling, vaguely expecting the blow to strike us ...
— Friendship • Hugh Black
... inflicted serious injury on the farmers. They are, as a rule, a loyal class of men, but their loyalty will probably be shaken when they realise that the Lord has spoiled their crops to provide Queen's weather for the Jubilee. An occasional shower might wet the Queen's parasol or ruffle the plumage of the princes and princelings in her train. Occasional showers, however, are just what the farmers want. The Lord was therefore in a fix. Though the Bible says that with him nothing is impossible, he was unable to please both ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote
... similarly arrayed for an Occasion. She could admire whole-heartedly the soft sweep of the folds of Elinor's gown without one iota of unhappiness because her own frock hung in straight thick gathers with but a ruffle edged with lace at the bottom of ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox
... moan from reverend ministers and deacons. John Eliot, one of the sweetest and most saintly spirits among them, wrote that it was a "luxurious feminine prolixity for men to wear their hair long and to ... ruffle their heads in excesses of this kind," but in later years, with many another wearied antagonist of this abomination, added hopelessly—"the lust is insuperable." Tobacco was fulminated against with equal energy, but no decree of court could stamp out the beloved vice. Winthrop yielded to it, but ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... the lieutenant, looking very penitent, and offering his hand. "I wouldn't say a word to ruffle your sensitive feelings, I do assure you." Miss Pemberton, being appeased, gave her hand to the lieutenant, and though she at first showed some signs of trepidation, stepped without difficulty into the sternsheets of the boat. She was ...
— Clara Maynard - The True and the False - A Tale of the Times • W.H.G. Kingston
... plans," I acknowledged with a lack of cordiality that failed to ruffle him. He had hung up his overcoat and installed himself facing me, and was now making preparations for ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... ruffle human feeling to compel a man to do harm to his own Fatherland, and indirectly to fight his own troops, none the less no army operating in an enemy's country will altogether renounce this ...
— Gems (?) of German Thought • Various
... luxurious sheets, Placing instead harsh briers and rough sticks, So that their sluggish bodies might not sleep, Unroused by morning bell; or when perforce, From leaden syringe, engine of fierce might, I drave black ink upon their ruffle shirts, Or drenched with showers of melancholy hue, The new-fledged dickey peering o'er the stock, Fit emblem of a young ambitious mind! Harvardiana, Vol. ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... harpsichord, to rescue times without number skeins of silk and balls of wool as well as lacy bits of linen continually dropped by fair hands; he was taught the latest dance step from London and learned the most elegant of court bows. In those days the turn of a wrist and the flip of a lace ruffle were not considered inconsequential. It was here he acquired that never-failing interest in the "newest ...
— Seaport in Virginia - George Washington's Alexandria • Gay Montague Moore
... breeze, towards noon of the following day, had come up in a gentle air from the westward, and we were gliding along before it like a spread eagle, with all our light sails abroad to catch the sweet zephyr, which was not even strong enough to ruffle the silver surface of the landlocked sea, that glowed beneath the blazing midday sun, with a dolphin here and there cleaving the shining surface with an arrowy ripple, and a brown—skinned shark glaring on us, far down in the deep, clear, green profound, like a water fiend, and ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... to feed cleanly at your ordinary, sit melancholy, and pick your teeth when you cannot speak: and when you come to plays, be humorous, look with a good starch'd face, and ruffle your brow like a new boot, laugh at nothing but your own jests, or else as the noblemen laugh. That's a ...
— Every Man Out Of His Humour • Ben Jonson
... be absorbing, but we can all sit hard on him and perhaps put him in his place," responded Letitia Cockrell, as she drew a fine thread through a ruffle she was making to adorn some part of the person of one of Nell's progeny. "I do not believe in ever allowing a man to take more than his share of ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... pleasant little branch, is there regard in you for the last words of the dead woman?" The old cailleach had come again to ruffle the grave silence about ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... felt discouraged on our return to the city, the morning following our exciting adventure at the mysterious house in the Ramapo valley, Garrick, who never let anything ruffle ...
— Guy Garrick • Arthur B. Reeve
... swept me from the log upon which I sat. Then again all was a perfect calm, and the young leaves over the stream hung heavily on their tender foot-stalks, and the points of the breeze-swept grass turned back, and the ruffle of all things smoothed itself. But there seemed to be a sense of fear in the waiting silence of earth ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... is ours? It is meant that there should never pass across a Christian's soul more than a ripple of agitation, which may indeed ruffle and curl the surface; but deep down there should be the tranquillity of the fathomless ocean, unbroken by any tempests, and yet not stagnant, because there is a vital current running through it, and every drop is being drawn ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... the cigarette in his long holder had gone out, but Billy was disposing of eggs, toast, bacon, and cream with youthful zest. Clarence's hot, sick gaze rested almost with hostility upon his wife's cool beauty; in a gray linen gown, with a transparent white ruffle turned back from her white throat, she looked as fresh as the ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... as he waited for an answer, of what the old books call "quizzical"—a sort of half-caressing irony, which was very attractive. He had an impatient little frown which passed over his face, like a ruffle of wind, if things went too slowly or heavily for his taste; and he had, too, on occasions a deep, abstracted look, as if he were following a thought far. There was also another look, well known to ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... least cloud between them. If this perfect wife of his had any little weakness, it was a tendency to slight jealousies, so slight as to be nameless, yet she allowed them at times to ruffle her calm, serene repose. Her husband was very handsome—there was a picturesque, manly beauty about his dark head and face, a grandeur in his grand, easy figure that was irresistible. Women followed him wherever he went with admiring eyes. As he ...
— A Mad Love • Bertha M. Clay
... us not this thought allow; The heat, the dust upon our brow, Signs of the contest, we may wear; Yet thus we shall appear more fair In our Almighty Master's eye, Than if in fear to lose the bloom, Or ruffle the soul's lightest plume, We from ...
— Daily Strength for Daily Needs • Mary W. Tileston
... however, dearest, need ruffle no feather between you and me, who love each other better than we love either the Fawns or the Lizzies. Let me find a line at my chambers to say that it is so, and always shall ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... country places almost every other person one meets is a councillor of some sort, and inclined to be proud of the distinction. These Councils are excellent safety-valves for parochial malcontents who thus harmlessly let off superfluous steam which might otherwise ruffle the abiding calm of peaceful inhabitants, but their powers are really very limited. In a village in Worcestershire where an approach road crossed a brook by a ford, during floods the current was sometimes ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... had a reg'lar weddin' dress made out of pretty white swiss trimmed wid lots of lace and it had a long train. I wore long white gloves. Tucks went 'round my petticoat from de knees to de lace what aidged de bottom, and my draw's was white cambric, gathered at de knee wid a wide ruffle what was tucked and trimmed up pretty. I married on Saddy night and dat called for a second day dress, 'cause I jus' had to go to church next day and show dat man off. Anyhow, my second day dress was blue cotton wid white lace on it, and I wore a big white plumed hat draped down ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... were opened, and the coach rumbled away. Anders let the horses go gently, for now there was no hurry. Now and then he stole a glance at the guard by his side; he was still sitting smiling to himself, and letting the wind ruffle his hair. ...
— Norse Tales and Sketches • Alexander Lange Kielland
... deeply; but Freddie had come nearer to doing it than anybody else in the world. There had been a consistency, a perseverance, about his irritating performances that had acted on the placid peer as dripping water on a stone. Isolated acts of annoyance would have been powerless to ruffle his calm; but Freddie had been exploding bombs under his nose since he went ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... down at her own dress; at her rounded arms shining white under the little ruffle of fine lace. Her dress was pretty, the prettiest she'd ever had, and gratitude toward the woman at her side overcame for the moment her embarrassment. Presently Waldstricker came to them with the request for a song, and Deforrest Young escorted Tess ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... of miles to Simla-town to confer with the Lieutenant-Governor on matters of state, or to assure the Viceroy that his sword was at the service of the Queen-Empress. Then the Viceroy would cause a ruffle of drums to be sounded, and the ringstraked horse and the cavalry of the State—-two men in tatters—and the herald who bore the silver stick before the King would trot back to their own place, which lay between the ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... an hour sat the shikarree watching every ruffle upon the water, and every motion of the floats, but no movement, either of wood or water, seemed to indicate that there were fish in the lake. Once or twice there appeared a little "purl" on the surface, near the line of the floats, and Ossaroo fancied he had made a "take" of it; but, on wading ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid
... the corner, who, from having the Craftsman and London Evening in his pocket, we determine to be a politician, very unluckily mistakes his ruffle for the bowl of his pipe, and sets fire ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... I'd like to be a bird," murmured the Babe, wistfully gazing up at the dark green, feathery top of the great pine, certain of whose branches were tossing and waving excitedly against the blue, although there was not a breath of wind to ruffle the expanse of Silverwater. "I think I'd like it—rather." He added the qualification as a prudent after-thought, lest Uncle Andy should think ...
— Children of the Wild • Charles G. D. Roberts
... breast-high and steady From under the rock, her bold sister Swum halfway already. Fortu, shall we sail there together And see from the sides 210 Quite new rocks show their faces, new haunts Where the siren abides? Shall we sail round and round them, close over The rocks, tho' unseen, That ruffle the grey glassy water To glorious green? Then scramble from splinter to splinter, Reach land and explore, On the largest, the strange square black turret With never a door, 220 Just a loop to admit the quick lizards; Then, ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning
... notional in the making of her dresses," said the sewing teacher. "She is apt to want the skirt a little wider and the hem a half-inch deeper than the regular uniform. And she asks to have more buttonholes, which means more buttons, and an extra ruffle on the waist. But she begs me so politely and appears so thankful, if I grant these trifling favors, that I find myself indulging her too frequently. She does the extra work herself, cheerfully and neatly, ...
— Big and Little Sisters • Theodora R. Jenness
... that! and don't say it!" exclaimed the young fellow in dismay. "Father and Shiela and I are counting on this trip. There's a butterfly or two I want to get at Ruffle Lake. Don't you think it extremely necessary that you go over the entire territory?—become thoroughly saturated with ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... left arm in the air, the forearm gracefully bent, the ruffle drooping, and my wrist curved, while my right arm, half extended, securely covered my waist with the elbow, and my ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... and his brows drawn up, as he waited for an answer, of what the old books call "quizzical"—a sort of half-caressing irony, which was very attractive. He had an impatient little frown which passed over his face, like a ruffle of wind, if things went too slowly or heavily for his taste; and he had, too, on occasions a deep, abstracted look, as if he were following a thought far. There was also another look, well known to his companions, when he turned his eyes upwards with a sort of resignation, generally accompanied ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... O pleasant little branch, is there regard in you for the last words of the dead woman?" The old cailleach had come again to ruffle the grave silence about young ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... parasol for that Elegant Ella. Not a silk one, you know, Uncle, but a sateen one, with a little ruffle around it, and a white handle. She'd be so ...
— Marjorie's Vacation • Carolyn Wells
... perceived that something must have occurred seriously to ruffle him, even if he had not slammed the door of the smoking-room so violently behind him. It did not take Carrissima long to draw her own conclusions. It is true she was ignorant of her father's engagement to Bridget, but she had anticipated ...
— Enter Bridget • Thomas Cobb
... a complimentary critic of this school should propose to place it as a frontispiece to a new edition of Potter or of Adam—applauding you the while for having faithfully preserved the classic costume. I tell you that the classic costume must ruffle and stir with passions kindred to our own, or it had better be left hanging against the wall. And what a deception it is that the scholastic imagination is perpetually imposing on itself in this matter! Accustomed to dwell on the points of difference between the men ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... those regions of exalted devotion where his people can but faintly gaze after him; he tells them of the victory that overcometh the world, of an unmoved faith that fears no evil, of a serenity of love that no outward event can ruffle; and all look after him and wonder, and wish ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... Englishmen were elderly, and the smaller one had perfectly white hair, glossy and silken. It did not make him in the least venerable, however, but took his own character of neatness and prettiness. He carried his well-brushed and glossy hat in his hand in such a way as not to ruffle its surface; and I wish I could put into one word or one sentence the pettiness, the minikinfinical effect of this little man; his self-consciousness so lifelong, that, in some sort, he forgot himself even in ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... small person in surprise, "I guess that's the petticoat Miss Florence basted a ruffle on. I must have forgotten to ...
— Four Little Blossoms on Apple Tree Island • Mabel C. Hawley
... feelings; they teach you better your own nature than ever the angels could. They bring forth what is evil in you, that it may be conquered. Do not understand me to mean that you should ever seek those who may harm you. But a day can hardly pass over our heads, that we do not meet with persons who ruffle that harmony of soul we so labour after. It is keenly felt when one is as young in a better life as you are. You need strength, and then you will be calm and even. Time, patience, combating, prayer, good-will to man, must bring your soul to order, ...
— Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing • T. S. Arthur
... old the first time I married. It was almost a run-a-way marriage. I was married in San Antonio. My first husband's name was Henry Hall. My first wedding dress was as wide as a wagon sheet. It was white lawn, full of tucks, and had a big ruffle at the bottom. I had a wreath and a veil, too. The veil had lace all around it. We danced and had a supper. We danced all the dances they danced then; the waltz, square, quadrille, polka, and the gallopade—and that's what it was, all right; you shore galloped. You'd start ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Texas Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... twelve feet in height, and by broad clusters of grotesque cactus plants, which thrive so wonderfully in spite of drought, hanging like vines along the base of the adobe cabins and creeping up their low sides, the leaves edged here and there by a dainty ruffle of scentless yellow flowers. Beside a very lowly mud cabin was a tall oleander, branches and leaves hidden in gorgeous bloom, imparting a cheerful, joyous aspect even amid all this squalor and poverty. Close at hand upon the adobe wall hung a willow cage imprisoning a tropical bird ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou
... Of course, when it came to the last, he was simply afraid of her, and of the scene she would make him. Bravery has as little room in his soul as honesty or manliness. He would always prefer a back-door exit. Such things excite a man, don't you know?—and ruffle the necessary artistic composure." She laughed scornfully. "However, I'm glad to say, he didn't escape scot-free after all. Everything went well till yesterday afternoon, when Louise, who was as unsuspecting as a child, heard of it ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... make mention of the people on board of her. They, too, were all of glass, as beautiful little glass sailors as any body ever saw, with hats and shoes on, just like living men, and curious blue jackets with a sort of ruffle round the bottom. Four or five of these sailors were very nimble little chaps, and were mounting up the rigging with very long strides; but for all that, they never gained a single inch in the year, as I can take ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... understand how a man of weak principle and violent temper, or a man possessed of a desire to get to a particular spot not favoured by Jane, or by a wish to reach any spot by a certain hour,—I can understand how such a man, carried away by helpless wrath, might possibly ruffle Jane's sad-coloured hair with the toe of ...
— Penelope's English Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... muslin stuff was caught up around her in airy draperies—nothing stiff or frilled about her: all was soft and flowing, from the falling sleeve that showed the fair curve of her arm to the fold of her dress, the ruffle under which her little foot was tapping, impatiently now. A little white hat with a curling blue feather shaded her face—a face I won't trust myself to describe, save by saying that it was the brightest and truest, as I then ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various
... be angry. No, you can not be angry. You never are. The most trying and provoking things, I observe, can not ruffle you. So I will venture to say, that I think you don't play fair by me. We are both here chiefly to make ourselves agreeable, I believe; and I sometimes wish I had a little more assistance in that duty from one who, I am sure, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... night. On the whole, however, he preferred them sleeping to waking. He sent his thoughts, on tiptoe, as it were, across the room. How exquisite she was, with her slim bare feet, and the hint of a chaste little ruffle showing at throat and wrist! Those drowsy, dewy eyes—the fluttering pulse in her soft throat—her clinging lips, which kissed as unconsciously as a child's until suddenly ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... go before the Honourable Sir William Thompson,[77] in order to procure a warrant. There they made an affidavit of the several circumstances attending their discovery, and Sir William upon the examination also of a lady (who produced a piece of lace before she had seen the ruffle, and declared that if it were Mr. Darby's it must tally therewith, which on a comparison it did exactly) granted a warrant. It appeared also at the same time, upon the oath of Mr. Willoughby, that the day Mr. Darby was murdered, Fisher borrowed half-a-crown of ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... "Oh, I'm not mad," he answered cheerfully. "I make it a rule in all my business dealings not to get mad, or, more especially, not to let the other fellow know that I'm getting that way. My temper hasn't a ruffle in it just now, and I am leaving merely because I want it to remain smooth. I judge that you and I aren't going to agree. All right, then we'll differ, but we'll differ without a fight, that's ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... to say nothing of his subsequent plunge into London, which filled up the measure. But brave enough though his descent to English earth, he had passed, by the way, through zones of air that had left their ruffle on his wings, had been exposed to initiations ineffaceable. Something had happened to him ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James
... "You will ruffle the temper of the child, with your abusive language," said the cautious trapper, "while the lad, if left to human feelings, will bring her down to the meekness of a fawn. Ah! you are like myself, little knowing in the natur' ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... line which nights of dissipation pencil too infallibly, seemed larger, more liquid than ever. His face, a little elongated, had gained in calm dignity what it had lost in feverish excitement. His hand, always wonderfully beautiful and strong, was set off by a ruffle of lace, like certain hands by Titian and Vandyck. He was less stiff than formerly. His long, dark hair, softly powdered here and there with silver tendrils, fell elegantly over his shoulders in wavy curls; his voice was still youthful, as if belonging to a Hercules of twenty-five, and his ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... life and the mighty joy of it, they found the going unusually easy that day. The water was like the kiss of new life, crisp, tonic, vitalising. There was no more than a breath of wind, no more than a ruffle on the backs of the long blue rollers that came sweeping slowly in out ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham
... the Pauper Province!' said William, her chin in her hand, as she leaned forward among the wine-glasses. Her cheeks had fallen in, and the scar on her forehead was more prominent than ever, but the well-turned neck rose roundly as a column from the ruffle of the blouse which was ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling
... amend these misfortunes by sewing a sort of canvas ruffle round the skirts, by way of a continuation or supplement to the original work, and by doing ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... awhile she put on the brown gingham. It had a little ruffle basted round the neck. Candace tried the effect of a large blue bow, and then of a muslin one, very broad, with worked ends; but neither pleased her exactly. She recollected that Georgie and Gertrude had worn simple little ruches the ...
— A Little Country Girl • Susan Coolidge
... musingly, "the big love of a true and simple heart like his. It would probably be idyllic to live a life of love up here in these hills with the man of one's choice, I suppose, but a happiness too tame for me. To be sure, there would be the excitement of trying to ruffle the love-feathers, but that, too, in time would pall. I wonder how much longer I shall stay hidden up here before my past finds me out. Any minute something is sure to drop and I will be called back—back to my other life that is ...
— Penny of Top Hill Trail • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... hung two little AEolian harps, which at the least ruffle of the breeze running through their blades of grass, emit a gentle tinkling sound, like the harmonious murmur of a brook; outside, to the very furthest limits of the distance, the cicalas continue their great and everlasting concert; over our heads, on the black roof, is heard ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti
... season. He also did a father's share of work with the children. I think he hated hatching them. He would settle upon the roof above the nest, and chirp in a crabbed, imposed-upon tone until his wife came out. As she flew briskly away, he would look disconsolately around at the bright busy world, ruffle his feathers, scold to himself, and then crawl dutifully in upon ...
— Roof and Meadow • Dallas Lore Sharp
... right, my good Master Tyrrel," said the Captain, pulling down the sleeves of his coat, adjusting his handkerchief and breast-ruffle, and endeavouring to recover the composure of manner becoming his mission, but still adverting indignantly to the usage he had received—"By Cot! if she had but been a man, if it were the King himself—However, Mr. Tyrrel, I am come on a civil errand—and very civilly ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... knowledge is of itself of some value. There is nothing so minute or inconsiderable, that I would not rather know it than not. In the same manner, all power, of whatever sort, is of itself desirable. A man would not submit to learn to hem a ruffle, of his wife, or his wife's maid; but if a mere wish could attain it, he would rather wish to be able ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... the appearance of four horns. Her stately figure showed strength and passion, still further heightened by her costume. Her bodice, extending below the hips, was of brown and yellow stripes two fingers wide, a true tiger's skin, and instead of the stiff ruffle around the neck was a border of feathers. Below the hips hung a dagger from a Turkish girdle; and the skirt of heavy flowered brocade was festooned with strings of gold and silver coins that rattled as she walked; the skirt, made short in front, as she stamped her foot, ...
— Peter the Priest • Mr Jkai
... favourite of the gods—shall the guest of Hypatia—earn his breakfast, while I have an obol to share with him? Base thought! Youth! I have wronged you. Unphilosophically I allowed, yesterday morning, envy to ruffle the ocean of my intellect. We are now friends and brothers, in hatred to the ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... CLARISSA!—Thou art happy, I doubt not, as thou assuredst me in thy last letter!—O may we meet, and rejoice together, where no villanous Lovelaces, no hard-hearted relations, will ever shock our innocence, or ruffle our felicity! ...
— Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... not broken to public life and he doesn't ruffle well, that's all; and, after all, it isn't every man who enjoys being called a liar to his face and before some hundreds ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... gloom. They went into the dining-car to breakfast, where Frieda was so unfortunate as to be shot from her seat as the train dashed around a curve, a glass of milk following her, anointing her hair and face in a manner calculated to ruffle the serenest temper. Hannah and the too friendly waiter helped her up with an effort at self-control, but Frieda had ...
— The Wide Awake Girls in Winsted • Katharine Ellis Barrett
... delicate vase-like lines, swelling and expanding at last into the rounded curves of her bosom; here the colour seemed to glow deeper and warmer where her heart was beating tumultuously, and then towards her neck it paled again, beneath ruffle and ruffle of lace that lay like foam against the soft, snow-white throat. It was a symphony of colour. A perfect harmony of perfect tones in union with the brilliant fairness of her skin. The sleeves, half open to the elbow, revealed a white, ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross
... Poorhouse, mending stockings. She was not in the pleasantest humor, for one of the paupers had managed to break a plate at tea-table (if that can be called tea where no tea is provided), and trifles were sufficient to ruffle Mrs. ...
— Paul Prescott's Charge • Horatio Alger
... have left her would have been worse than death: How fondly did my eyes devour whatever they could gaze on without being perceived! the flowers on her gown, the point of her pretty foot, the interval of a round white arm that appeared between her glove and ruffle, the least part of her neck, each object increased the force of all the rest, and added to the infatuation. Gazing thus on what was to be seen, and even more than was to be seen, my sight became confused, my chest seemed contracted, respiration was every moment more painful. ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... 'Can you ruffle your fur when you are angry, or purr when you are pleased?' said she. And again the duckling had to admit that he could do nothing but swim, which did not seem of much ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... and looked at it in reverent silence. Oh, how pretty it was—a lovely soft brown gloria with all the gloss of silk; a skirt with dainty frills and shirrings; a waist elaborately pintucked in the most fashionable way, with a little ruffle of filmy lace at the neck. But the sleeves—they were the crowning glory! Long elbow cuffs, and above them two beautiful puffs divided by rows of shirring and bows ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... the barn-yard bars as if they thought it was milking-time, and the sheep huddled together under the great elms. Grandpa and his big man commenced raking the hay together vigorously, and a sudden, cool, puffy breeze began to ruffle the little rings of hair on Lily-toes' head, and send the small chickens careening over the knot-grass in such fashion that the careful mother-hen put her head out of her little house and called them in. And still in the cool, pleasant sitting-room, with its cheerful talk and laughter, the ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 • Various
... I said, "perhaps you have—still I don't see them"; and I handed him the paper without additional remark, not wishing to ruffle his temper; but I was much surprised at the turn affairs had taken; his ill humor puzzled me—and as for the drawing of the beetle, there were positively no antennae, visible, and the whole did bear a very close resemblance to the ordinary ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith
... that she did not yet wear high on her head, for Madam Wetherill hated to have her leave the cloisters of girlhood. And her frock was white muslin, lengthened down a little and the piece covered with an artful ruffle. There was a silver buckle at her belt, and on each shoulder a knot of ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... incommode her, as she walks to and fro upon the Stage. It is, in my Opinion, a very odd Spectacle, to see a Queen venting her Passion in a disordered Motion, and a little Boy taking care all the while that they do not ruffle the Tail of her Gown. The Parts that the two Persons act on the Stage at the same Time, are very different: The Princess is afraid lest she should incur the Displeasure of the King her Father, or lose the Hero her ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... it," I answered; "he would take very good care of that. Just look at the chap. . . . And I—I did not ruffle a hair of your head. He is very good at picking violets; but, take my word for it, in a case of danger, don't make him ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... loud and rubbing against Betty's gown, and was promptly lifted into her lap for a little patting and cuddling before she must run back again to the aunts. This cat had been known to Betty as a young kitten, and she and Becky had sometimes dressed her with a neat white ruffle about her neck to which they added a doll's dress. She was one of the limp obliging kittens which make such capital playmates, and the two girls laughed a great deal now as they reminded each other of certain frolics that had taken place. Once Mrs. Beck had entertained ...
— Betty Leicester - A Story For Girls • Sarah Orne Jewett
... Barnabas across the yard to a certain wing or off-shoot of the inn, where beneath a deep, shadowy gable was a door. Yet here he must needs pause a moment to glance down at himself to settle a ruffle and adjust his hat ere, lifting the latch, he ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... score round us when the fool, little knowing the man with whom he had to deal, and as little how to lose like a gentleman, flung the words in my teeth. He thought, I'll be sworn, that I should storm and swear and ruffle it like any common cock of the hackle. But that was never Gil de Berault's way. For a few seconds after he had spoken I did not even look at him. I passed my eye instead—smiling, BIEN ENTENDU—round the ring of waiting faces, saw that there was no one except De Pombal I had ...
— Under the Red Robe • Stanley Weyman
... Sylvia could not remember, even when she was asked later to repeat as much as she could of what she had heard. She was resolving when she was grown-up to have a ruffle of creamy lace falling away from her neck and wrists as Aunt Victoria did. She had not only forgotten Arnold's story, she had forgotten that such a boy existed. She was living in a world all made up of radiance and bloom, lace and sunshine and velvet, and bright hair and gleaming cloth ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... need of all my quiet and self-command. My governess stretched out her hand, drew me to her side and kissed me; then with the other hand went on to arrange the ruffle round my neck, stroking it and pulling it into order, and even taking out a little bit of a pin I wore, and putting it in again to suit herself. It annoyed me excessively. I knew all was right about my ruffle and pin; I never left them carelessly ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... know you were there, Del Pinzo," went on Bud, soothingly. "I was just showing these tenderfeet how to throw a rope, pronto,—when up you sprout, and get the benefit of it. Hope I didn't ruffle you any?" asked Bud. ...
— The Boy Ranchers - or Solving the Mystery at Diamond X • Willard F. Baker
... quarter, and if you will have the complaisance to step in, it will be ready in a moment, and he shall attend you to the place.—So I walk'd in with her to the far side of the shop: and taking up the ruffle in my hand which she laid upon the chair, as if I had a mind to sit, she sat down herself in her low chair, and I instantly sat myself down ...
— A Sentimental Journey • Laurence Sterne
... evidence I had stated anything which was false or erroneous, it needed but that Judge Douglas should point it out, and I would have taken it back, with all the kindness in the world. I do not deal in that way. If I have brought forward anything not a fact, if he will point it out, it will not even ruffle me to take it back. But if he will not point out anything erroneous in the evidence, is it not rather for him to show, by a comparison of the evidence, that I have reasoned falsely, than to call the "kind, amiable, intelligent gentleman" a liar? If I have reasoned to a false conclusion, it is ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... himself as any, and as ready for trouble, but the man of the mountain-desert has a peculiar dread for the practiced, known gun-fighter. In the days of the rapier when the art of fence grew so complicated that half a life was needed for its mastery, men would as soon commit suicide as ruffle it with an assured duellist; and the man of the mountain-desert has a similar respect for those who are born, it might be said, gun in hand. There was ample reason for the prickling in his scalp, Vic felt, for here he sat on an errand of consummate danger with ...
— The Seventh Man • Max Brand
... lounge, can require. Perfect equality is to be the rule; no rising, or notice taken, when anybody enters or leaves. Let the entering man take his place and pipe, without obligatory remarks: if he cannot smoke, which is Seckendorf's case for instance, let him at least affect to do so, and not ruffle the established stream of things. And so, Puff, slowly Pff!—and any comfortable speech that is in you; or none, if you authentically ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume V. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... irresponsible Radicals," etc. "In this hall we welcome all creeds. We have no hostility against any honest belief; but only against that black priestcraft and superstition which can accept such a doctrine as," etc. "I would not say one word that could ruffle our relations with Germany. But this I will say; that when I see ceaseless and unscrupulous armament," etc. Please don't do it. Decide to make a remark or not to make a remark. But don't fancy that you have somehow softened ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton
... you; but, then, you must have a deal of practice, and be accustomed to hear and use it. You embrace after a quarrel and mutual bad language. Heaven bless us! Bad words are nothing when one is accustomed to them, and scarce need ruffle the temper ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... go thy ways; go, give that changing piece To him that flourish'd for her with his sword; A valiant son-in-law thou shalt enjoy; One fit to bandy with thy lawless sons, To ruffle in the ...
— The Tragedy of Titus Andronicus • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... change in his appearance. Cheerfulness and alertness seemed to return to him, and a quietness which no insult or injury could ruffle seemed to ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... avocations of graver life. In the midst of the most serious or deep discussion, a Frenchman will suddenly stop, and, with a look of perhaps more solemn importance than he bestowed upon the subject of debate, will adjust the ruffle of his brother savant, adding some observation on the propriety of adorning the exterior as well as the interior of science. [48]"Leur badinage," says Montesquieu, "naturellement fait pour las toilettes, semble etre provenu a former le caractere general de la nation. On badine au conseil, on badine ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... wrote, "they are coming. They are going to give us a [v]ruffle. Their dogs are good, but they lack form and finish as well as discipline—plenty of bottom but no confidence. I haven't hesitated to put up our horn as the prize. Get the boys together and tell them about it, and see that our own eleven are in fighting trim. You won't believe ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... them and shut their minds so close to the idea that they are trying to get the better of you, but as Major Jackman says to me, "I know the ways of this circular world Mrs. Lirriper, and that's one of 'em all round it" and many is the little ruffle in my mind that the Major has smoothed, for he is a clever man who has seen much. Dear dear, thirteen years have passed though it seems but yesterday since I was sitting with my glasses on at the open front parlour window one evening in August (the parlours being then ...
— Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings • Charles Dickens
... years the junior of the heir of Maxfield, a rotund, matter-of-fact, jovial-looking lad, sturdy in body, easy in temper, and perhaps by no means brilliant in intellect. The turmoil of debarkation failed to ruffle him, and the information given him in sundry quarters that he was the fons et origo of all the confusion in the cabin failed to impress him. Everything that befell Tom Oliphant came in the day's work, and would probably vanish with the night's sleep. Meanwhile it was the duty ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed
... and irons every day while I'm deciding how to hand out the first sip of my trousseau to the neighbors, when Tom, in a dangerous blue-striped shirt, with a tie that melted into it in tone, blew over my hedge and landed at my side. He kissed the lace ruffle on my sleeve while I reproved him severely and settled down to enjoy him. But I didn't have such an awfully good time as I generally do with him. He was too full of another woman, and even a first cousin can be an ...
— The Melting of Molly • Maria Thompson Daviess
... for the dregs of men, And scrawl strange words with the barbarous pen, And mingle among the jostling crowd, Where the sons of strife are subtle and loud— I often come to this quiet place, To breathe the airs that ruffle thy face, And gaze upon thee in silent dream, For in thy lonely and lovely stream An image of that calm life appears That won my heart ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... Gheta was freely discussed, and she hoped that her sister would not make difficulties. She wouldn't have dresses so fussy as Gheta's—in figure, anyhow, she was perhaps her sister's superior—fine materials, simply cut, with a ruffle at the throat and hem, a satin wrap pointed at the back, with a ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... the great new venture that was afoot—"The Yellow Book"? And hadn't Henry Harland, as editor, accepted my essay? And wasn't it to be in the very first number? At Oxford I was still in statu pupillari. In London I regarded myself as very much indeed a graduate now—one whom no Soames could ruffle. Partly to show off, partly in sheer good-will, I told Soames he ought to contribute to "The Yellow Book." He uttered from the throat a sound of scorn ...
— Enoch Soames - A Memory of the Eighteen-nineties • Max Beerbohm
... priest took off his hat, knelt on the ground, and kissed the priest's hand. "But now," he added, "you only take off your salakot or your felt hat, which you have placed on the side of your head in order not to ruffle your nicely combed hair! You content yourself with saying, 'good day, among,' and there are proud dabblers in a little Latin who, from having studied in Manila or in Europe, believe that they have the right to ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... mind, they were similarly arrayed for an Occasion. She could admire whole-heartedly the soft sweep of the folds of Elinor's gown without one iota of unhappiness because her own frock hung in straight thick gathers with but a ruffle edged with lace at the bottom of the ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox
... your hollow tree," cried the Eagle sternly; "and when winter comes may you shiver with cold as you would have left the brave little Wren to shiver this day. You shall ruffle your feathers as much as you like, but you will always feel cold at heart, because your ...
— The Curious Book of Birds • Abbie Farwell Brown
... repose—or what may possibly be called imperturbableness—is necessary to influence. Mrs. Flutter Budget always talks in a hurry, and talks of a thousand things, and is easily excited. Her neighbor, carefully avoiding the causes which ruffle her, and preserving the poise of her faculties, insists on her point quietly, and carries it. The repose of equanimity is a charm which dissolves all opposition. The mind which shows itself open to influences from every quarter, and is swayed ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... he flung a wrathful answer back: 'And if there were an hundred in the wood, And every man were larger-limbed than I, And all at once should sally out upon me, I swear it would not ruffle me so much As you that not obey me. Stand aside, And if I fall, cleave to ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson
... among them, and the painter had apparently wished to suggest a family, resemblance among them all. To this end he had emphasized some facts of the girl's dress, accessories to his purpose, the petal-edged ruffle of her crimson silk waist, the flower-like flare of her red hat, and its finials of knotted ribbon; and in the hollyhocks he had recognized a girlishness of bearing, which he evidently hoped would appeal to a fantastic sympathy ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells
... excessively bitter, and so heavy that the most impetuous waves can scarcely ruffle its surface is now perfectly transparent. M. de Chateaubriand who mentions this also informs us that he heard a noise upon the lake about midnight, which the Bethlehemites who accompanied him told him, proceeded from legions of small fish, which come and leap about on the shore.—(Travels, ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... failings are just those which are least to be commended to the emulation of youth. It is, for instance, constitutionally timid. Violent action of any kind will stampede it in a panic, and, like the Countess in Evan Harrington, it "does not ruffle well." It betrays (I think) ill-breeding in its disproportionate terror whenever an anarchist bomb explodes, and in the ferocity of its terror it can be crueller than the assailant. "My good people," it provokes one to say, "by all means stamp out these dangers, ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... was sentenced the other day," he said humbly, as if fearing to ruffle the temper of the officer, who seemed ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... risen from the tea table, had followed his son into the farmyard, but finding no trace of him there, his face had taken a troubled and anxious expression, for Will was the idol of his soul, the apple of his eye, and a ruffle upon that young man's brow meant a furrow on the old man's heart. He reproached himself for having allowed "the boy" to proceed too far with his plans for entering college before he had suggested that there might be a difficulty in finding the required funds. After a long ...
— Garthowen - A Story of a Welsh Homestead • Allen Raine
... as they came up. Large oval spots of changeable green water, moving silently and shadow-like along, in strong contrast with the surrounding dark, marked the places where the monsters were gliding below. When their broad, blackish backs were above the waves, there was frequently a ring or ruffle of snowy surf, formed by the breaking of the swell around the edges of the fish. The review of whales, the only review we had witnessed in Her Majesty's dominions, was, on the whole, an imposing spectacle. We turned from it to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... either shore of the bay the houses began to dwindle, giving place to open fields, brown and sear under the scudding sea-fog, for now a wind was building up from out the east, and the surface of the bay had begun to ruffle. ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris
... buy nothing with it so good as his happiness,—) why then, my hands were seized and tied—and then and there, in the midst of the trouble, came the end of all! I tell you all this, just to make you understand a little. Did I not tell you before? But there is no danger at present—and why ruffle this present with disquieting thoughts? Why not leave that future to itself? For me, I sit in the track of the avalanche quite calmly ... so calmly as to surprise myself at intervals—and yet I know the ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... again this morning. It seems exceedingly difficult to tell one night before what the tide is going to do the next morning. At ten o'clock we walked to the same place we were yesterday. It was a bright, warm day, with just enough breeze to ruffle the water and make fishing pleasant, and we certainly expected to have good luck. But we fished for about three hours without any sign of a fish. This was discouraging and we could not account ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey
... aside to let a lady pass. The Earl seemed immediately to forget my presence. He began at once to make himself uncomfortable in his bed. Then he cried fretfully: "Come, Mary, what caused you to be so long? Make me easy! Ruffle my ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... of her chair, without ending her sentence, but the gesture admirably completed the speech. She saw d'Arthez watching her flexible figure, gracefully bending in the depths of her easy-chair, noting the folds of her gown, and the pretty little ruffle which sported on her breast,—one of those audacities of the toilet that are suited only to slender waists,—and she resumed the thread of her thoughts as if she ...
— The Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan • Honore de Balzac
... dressed in some thin gray stuff that singularly became her; and with the gray dress she wore a collar or ruffle of soft white that gave it a slight ascetic touch. But the tumbling red-gold of the hair, the frank dignity of expression, belonged to no ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... are still weak, but the situations are often well thought out and treated with dramatic effect. The action indeed is slow, but it moves; and in the story of Fidus it moves comparatively quickly. Such motion of course can scarcely ruffle the mental waters of those accustomed to the breathless whirlwinds which form the heart of George Meredith's novels; but these whirlwinds are as directly traceable to the gentle but fitful agitation of Euphues, ...
— John Lyly • John Dover Wilson
... sensibilities of the true author, for it saves her from the danger of an excess of pride which is the greatest foe to individual progress, while it spurs her on to loftier flights and nobler deeds. A poor writer is bad, but a poor critic is worse, therefore, unjust criticism should never ruffle the temper of its victim. The author of these pages belongs to that type of the "brave new woman who scorns to sigh," but feels that she has something to say, and says it to the best of her ability, and leaves the verdict ...
— Violets and Other Tales • Alice Ruth Moore
... but she has it just where it should be,—on the bottom of her gown, which is edged with black,—in the flowered border of her kerchief,—on the edge of her bonnet, where there is a narrow line of yellow,—and in the lace or muslin ruffle of the cape which falls from it If she were a queen, or the wife of a Russian prince who owned thousands of girls like her, she might have trimming of greater cost and beauty, but not a shred more without deterioration ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... back into his face. Nor would he enjoy being beaten. Greater than any value he would set on the ownership of the March Hare would loom the consciousness that he had been defeated, balked by a lot of schoolboys, by one boy in particular. The incident would ruffle his vanity and annoy ...
— Paul and the Printing Press • Sara Ware Bassett
... course the ferry-boat was on the opposite side, and we had to wait for its return, which seemed the climax to the day's worries. We growled audibly, feeling that we were entitled to do so, having had enough provocation to ruffle the most angelic tempers. With scarcely room to sit, and nowhere, to speak of, to put our feet, bodily discomfort helped to put us ...
— A Trip to Manitoba • Mary FitzGibbon
... contradictory tendencies. When, however, these embryonic disorders are once righted, each possible life knows its natural paradise, and what some unintelligent outsider might say in dispraise of that ideal will never wound or ruffle the self-justified creature whose ideal it is, any more than a cat's aversion to water will disturb ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... bore from S to S W by W, and the northernmost from N by W 1/2 W to N E 1/2 E. At six o'clock I was nearly mid-way between them, and about 6 leagues distant from each shore, when I fell in with a coral bank, where I had only four feet water, without the least break on it, or ruffle of the sea to give us warning. I could only see that it extended about a mile on each side of us; but, as it is probable that it extends much farther, I have laid it down so ...
— A Narrative Of The Mutiny, On Board His Majesty's Ship Bounty; And The Subsequent Voyage Of Part Of The Crew, In The Ship's Boat • William Bligh
... and perplexed him, continually returning to disturb the memory of those holy moments in the twilight dell, and to ruffle the bright current of joy which seemed to gather up and sweep away with it all the forces of his life. Any fate but to lose her, he said to himself; let the shadow fall anywhere, except between them! There would be other troubles, he foresaw,—the ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... RED HAIR indicates a quick and fiery disposition. Persons with such hair generally have intense feelings—love and hate intensely—yet treat them kindly, and you have the warmest friends, but ruffle them, and you raise a hurricane on short notice. This is doubly true of auburn curls. It takes but little kindness, however, to produce a calm and render them as fair as a Summer morning. Red-headed people in general are not given to hold a grudge. ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... was sunshine in his glance—a lustrous gem—like grace; one realized from his conversation, from his every word, that he had discarded superfluities of thought and browsed for a lifetime, in leisurely fashion, upon all that purifies and exalts the spirit. Nothing, one felt, would avail to ruffle ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... was often irritable, and the least contradiction—even the assertion of an opinion—would ruffle him. Once, when Marcus had proposed discontinuing his evening visits, Mr. Gaythorne had appeared ...
— Doctor Luttrell's First Patient • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... silent. The surface is steeply inclined, but it is perfectly unbroken. There are no lateral waves, no ripples with their breaking bubbles to raise a murmur; while the depth is here too great to allow the inequality of the bed to ruffle the surface. Nothing can be more beautiful than this sloping liquid mirror formed by the Niagara, in sliding ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... six o'clock we were nearly midway between them and about 6 leagues distant from each shore when we fell in with a coral bank, on which we had only four feet water, without the least break on it or ruffle of the sea to give us warning. I could see that it extended about a mile on each side of us, but as it is probable that it may extend much further I have laid it down so in ...
— A Voyage to the South Sea • William Bligh
... set off from beneath the sweet-scented shade, and now no doubt remained that I was the object of very hostile evolutions. Sometimes these smooth-hooved battalions would advance, cloudlike, to within fifty yards of us, and, snorting, ruffle their manes and wheel swiftly away; only once more in turn to advance, and stand, with heads exalted, gazing wildly on us till we were passed on a little. But my guide gave them very little heed. Did they pause a moment too long ...
— Henry Brocken - His Travels and Adventures in the Rich, Strange, Scarce-Imaginable Regions of Romance • Walter J. de la Mare
... drew near without anything occurring to ruffle the quiet life of the Cathedral. Sometimes in the upper cloister they spoke of His Eminence's health. His serious quarrels with the Chapter had obliged him to keep his bed, and he had just had an attack which made them fear ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... heard by a soul, and they were not such fools when they had gained the outworks as not to close the door after them and take out the key, and then, without more ado, each picked out a bed-fellow, and began to ruffle her as well as ...
— One Hundred Merrie And Delightsome Stories - Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles • Various
... drooping eyelashes. She had braids of dark hair wreathed around her head, a soft pink color in her cheeks, and a rosebud mouth, womanly, fresh, and lovely. Kate was clad in a pink muslin dress, with a tiny white ruffle around her white throat. She was armed with four steely needles, which were so many bright arrows that pierced my heart through and through. Over her fingers glided a small blue thread, which proceeded from the ball of yarn I held in ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... that the lady explained to me what the one thing was that she was afraid might happen to ruffle her. It was the apprehension of what may result from a visit which Col. Morden, as she is informed, ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... dear Friend,—It is so long since I wrote that I must write, I must ruffle your thoughts with a little breath from my side. Listen to me, my dear friend. That I have not written has scarcely been my fault, but my misfortune rather, for I have been quite unstrung and overcome by agitation and anxiety, and thought that I should ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... appeared to ruffle the Countess more than Isabel's expression of gratitude pleased her. She gave her companion a bold stare, with which, "Let us assume that I've invented it!" she cried. She too, however, suddenly changed her tone and, ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James
... Mrs. Hawley-Crowles, who saw not, neither heard, and who longed for no further taste of heaven than this stupendous triumph which she had won for herself and the girl. Her heavy, unshapely form was squeezed into a marvelous costume of gold brocade. A double ballet ruffle of stiff white tulle encircled it about the hips as a drapery. The bodice was of heavy gold net. A pleated band of pale moire, in a delicate shade of pink, crossed the left shoulder and was caught at the waist in a large rose bow, ambassadorial style. A double necklace ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... will be absorbing, but we can all sit hard on him and perhaps put him in his place," responded Letitia Cockrell, as she drew a fine thread through a ruffle she was making to adorn some part of the person of one of Nell's progeny. "I do not believe in ever allowing a man to take more than his share of a ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... outwardly, but very ill at ease within, smiled and waved the delicate hand that appeared through the heavy ruffle at his wrist. "Madam, indeed—ah—your ladyship goes very fast. You leap so at conclusions for which no grounds can exist. His lordship is so overwrought—as well he may be, alas!—that he cares not before whom he speaks. Is it not ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... had been wont to visit me regularly; once Selwyn had dropped in on me; but I had not before been honoured by a visit from Sir Robert Volney. He sauntered into my cell swinging a clouded cane, dressed to kill and point device in every ruffle, all dabbed with scented powder, pomatum, and jessamine water. To him, coming direct from the strong light of the sun, my cell was dark as the inside of Jonah's whale. He stood hesitating in the doorway, groping with his cane for ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... of them Lawrenceville boys, ain't you?" she said, eyeing with curiosity the oozy ruffle of ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson
... it would have seemed that the chief characteristic of this pale, still day, was extreme and settled calm. There was not a breath of wind to ruffle the surface of the sea; but there was a slight, glassy swell, and that only served to show curious opalescent tints under the suffused light of the sun. There were no clouds; there was only a thin veil of faint and sultry mist all across the sky; the ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... rag or a bone or a hank of hair in our house, all you will have to do is to pull out an easy sliding drawer without opening a door that sticks, or crawling into a dark corner, or having to light a candle, or doing anything to ruffle your temper or your hair. A flood of brilliant sunlight or moonlight will pour into my rag-drawer, and a few pawings of your unoccupied hand will bring everything to the ...
— At Home with the Jardines • Lilian Bell
... the pew who had already attracted her notice. She waited complacently for the moment when Hiram should be led up to her for presentation, and she had already decided just how she should receive him. She was resolved to ruffle his complacency, and thus punish him for not paying his first tribute to her charms; then, so she settled it, she would relax, and permit him to waltz ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... it looks like it," said Helen, scornfully, "it hasn't a single ruffle and not one bit of lace! I guess your father must be ...
— Mary Jane—Her Visit • Clara Ingram Judson
... at the Castle in the midst of the ruffle, but old Bridgenorth has carried him down prisoner to the hall," answered Cisly. "There was never faith nor courtesy in an old Puritan who never had pipe and tabor in his house since it ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... cast in his mind if he himself come upon a fervent longing for something which he cannot get (as a good man will not), as perchance his pleasure of some certain good woman who will not be caught. And then let him tell me whether the ruffle of his desire shall not so torment his mind that all the pleasures that he can take beside shall, for lack of that one, not please him a pin! And I dare be bold to warrant him that the pain in resisting, and the great fear of falling, that many ...
— Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation - With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens • Thomas More
... tips, covered his little feet; broad trousers, of dark-blue velvet, came to his knees, and were held together at the waist by a blue silk sash, whose lace- tipped ends fell at his left side. He wore a blue velvet jacket, with a tastefully embroidered lace ruffle around the neck. The round, rosy face, with the ruby lips, the dimple in the chin, the large blue eyes, shaded by long, dark lashes, and crowned by the broad, lofty brow, was rimmed around with a profusion of golden hair, which fell in long, heavy locks upon his shoulders ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... wouldst make of me should wear a book at his girdle instead of a poniard, and might just be suspected of manhood enough to squire a proud dame-citizen to the lecture at Saint Antonlin's, and quarrel in her cause with any flat-capped threadmaker that would take the wall of her. He must ruffle it in another sort that would walk to court in a ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... you're such a dear little innocent baby. Of course, I can quite understand. And does she suppose I'll ruffle her pretty little feathers? No, not I. I'd rather invent a new cradle song for ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... Paper for Dish Closet.—A pretty effect for the dish closet may be found in crepe paper. Some prefer white, but a tint harmonizing well with the china is pretty too. Have it to fall about three inches below the edge of the shelves and ruffle the edge of the paper by stretching it lightly between ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... up-stairs in a burning excitement. I think I had some wild notion of locking myself into my room and defying the house, for the idea of facing that terrible man with his wild terror-stricken face threw me into a panic. But Abby screamed at me that I was treading on my ruffle as I came up-stairs, and captured me; and I let her put another gown on me and my turban and a heavy veil without lifting a finger to help her, as if I had been a child. I knew father was waiting for me at the foot of the stairs, and there was no escape, I must go down. When I got into ...
— The Other Side of the Door • Lucia Chamberlain
... of trees are washed by many a stream That breezes ruffle; and the flowers' red gleam Is dimmed by pious smoke; and fearless fawns Move softly on ...
— Translations of Shakuntala and Other Works • Kaalidaasa
... sometimes (I wish it were oftener) are bonds of union to man. In us you more easily pardon faults than excellences in each other. Your tempers are such, my beloved scholars, that even this truth does not ruffle them; and such is your affection, that I look with confidence to its ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... not a muscle twitching in his face as he talked to Nellie Logan, not a break in his voice, not a ruffle of a hair, to tell her that John Barclay had broken with the friend of his boyhood and the partner of his youth, and that he had closed and bolted the Door of Hope on Molly Culpepper. He drawled on: "Jane was saying that you were going to have Bob and Molly ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... and under a broad-brimmed straw hat, with one stocking about his ankle, and two shoes, averaging about two buttons each, I recognized my nephew, Budge! About the same time there emerged from the bushes by the roadside a smaller boy in a green gingham dress, a ruffle which might once have been white, dirty stockings, blue slippers worn through at the toes, and an old-fashioned straw-turban. Thrusting into the dust of the road a branch from a bush, and shouting, "Here's ...
— Helen's Babies • John Habberton
... of sunlight and clear-cut shadows and the soft swish of leaves. All this could be marked from the hall, for the front door stood wide open, and a fresh cool breeze came floating into the mansion, to flirt with the high and mighty curtains upon the landing, jostle the stately palms, and ruffle up the pompous atmosphere with gay irreverence. The air itself would have told you the hour. The intermittent knocks of a retreating postman declared the time ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... suit, with the coat tails falling to his knees behind, the body cut square to the hips, and the collar raised high upon his stock of white enamelled English leather. His low-buttoned vest exposed his shirt-buttons of crystal and gilt, and a ruffle, ironed by Roxy's slender hands with nimble touches, parted down the middle like sea foam on shell, and similar ruffles at the wrists were clasped by chain buttons of pearl and silver. His vest was of figured Marseilles stuff, and gaiters of the same material ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... Scotch tea the centerpiece is an oblong piece of satin in any preferred color edged with a ruffle of white lace. In the center of this is a tall vase holding a miscellaneous bouquet, and at the corners of the centerpiece are small vases of similar design holding similar bouquets. All edibles are on the table at once, there is no removing of courses. ...
— Breakfasts and Teas - Novel Suggestions for Social Occasions • Paul Pierce
... circle, in her huffing, puffing gasoline-car, fleeing the monster of ennui; the bride and bridegroom at the altar or before the mayor putting on their already heavy-ruffled garments the sacred ruffle of law or religion; the babe brought to church by his mother and kindred to have the priest-tailor sew on his new garment the ruffle of baptism; the soldier in his gaudy uniform; the king in his ermine with a crown and sceptre appended; the Nabob of Ind in his gorgeous ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... lift. And window after window showed women, sewing. They were sewing at machines, and at hand-work, but not as women are accustomed to sew, with leisurely stitches, stopping to pat a seam here, to run a calculating eye along hem or ruffle. It was a dreadful, mechanical motion, that sewing, a machine-like, relentless motion, with no waste in it, no pause. Fanny's mind leaped back to Winnebago, with its pleasant porches on which leisurely women sat stitching ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... street there comes A blare of bugles, a ruffle of drums, A flash of color beneath the sky: Hats off! The flag ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various
... I have not put pen to paper these several months. Convinced of our superiority by the issue of every campaign, I was inclined to hope, that that which all the rest of the world now see, would become visible to you, and therefore felt unwilling to ruffle your temper by fretting you with repetitions and discoveries. There have been intervals of hesitation in your conduct, from which it seemed a pity to disturb you, and a charity to leave you to yourselves. You have often stopped, ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... comic. The disposition to mirth is a forgetfulness of all gloomy considerations in the pleasant feeling of present happiness. We are then inclined to view every thing in a sportive light, and to allow nothing to disturb or ruffle our minds. The imperfections and the irregularities of men are no longer an object of dislike and compassion, but serve, by their strange inconsistencies, to entertain the understanding and to amuse the fancy. The ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... dogs are described by Darwin: Mr. Colquhoun winged two wild ducks, which fell on the farther side of a stream; his retriever tried to bring over both at once, but could not succeed; she then, though never before known to ruffle a feather, deliberately killed one, brought over the other, and returned for the dead bird. Colonel Hutchinson relates that two partridges were shot at once—one being killed, the other wounded; the latter ran away, and was caught by the retriever, who, on her return, came across ...
— Was Man Created? • Henry A. Mott
... rough apparently in his handling of the men but always accomplishing his work with marvellous efficiency, abusing the nurses and sanitars without hesitation if they did not do as he wished, but never raising his soft ironic voice, his square body of a solidity and composure that nothing could ruffle, his fair beard, his blue eyes, his spotless linen all sharing in his self-assured superiority to us all; one of the Division doctors, Alexei Ivanovitch, a man from Little Russia, beloved of us all, whether in the Otriad or the army, a character possessing it ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... also for the consul—Achmet possessed too much native dignity and common-sense to allow such an accident to ruffle his temper. He rose and resumed his seat with a hearty laugh, as ...
— The Pirate City - An Algerine Tale • R.M. Ballantyne
... men's blood:—I only speak right on; I tell you that which you yourselves do know; Show you sweet Csar's wounds, poor, poor, dumb mouths, And bid them speak for me. But, were I Brutus, And Brutus, Antony, there were an Antony, Would ruffle up your spirits, and put a tongue In every wound of Csar, that should move The stones of Rome to rise and ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... sturdy trees; dwarf alders and squat firs that shake their white-backed leaves, and swing their needle clusters, merrily if the breeze is mild, obstinately if the gale is rousing and seem to proclaim: "Here are we, well and secure. Ruffle and toss, and lash, O winds, the faithless waters, we shall ever cling to this hospitable footing, the only kindly soil amid this dreariness; here you once wafted our seed; here shall we live and perpetuate ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... away. But you mustn't think this is the only place you will have to do your shopping when you're at the Valley Farm. Wait till you see Hermann's Corners. There's a great Emporium there, and you'll ruffle the feelings of half the ladies of Summer County if you don't fall in love with it, and its proprietor, Whit Walker. Promise you'll let me be the first one ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... pig-stye: there, in a room with two straw beds, they had two pigeons for supper, on a dirty cloth, with wooden handled knives. "Oh!" exclaimed he, "what a transition from happy England!" But they laughed at the repast; and went to bed with a determination that nothing should ruffle their temper. In their way to St. Omer's, they passed through a very fine corn country, diversified with woods; and Captain Nelson, though a Norfolk man, acknowledged it to be the best place for game he had ever known. Partridges, at Montrieul, ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison
... me it was capital: 'It came down like a sledge-hammer.' His little satirical remarks were such as these: It was March and I took a bunch of violets to Rosa; notched white paper was wound around them, and Mr. Hawthorne said, 'They have on a cambric ruffle." ...
— Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals • Maria Mitchell
... cruel-looking mouth, like that belonging to Hookbeak, the hawk, who sometimes passed over the garden, and such bright yellow and black piercing eyes, that as soon as Bluescrags felt their glance meet his, he turned all of a shiver, and his feathers began to ruffle up as though he were wet. But there was no time to shiver or shake, for the great bird was coming after him at a terrible rate, every beat of his pointed wings sending him dashing through the air, and in ...
— Featherland - How the Birds lived at Greenlawn • George Manville Fenn
... packet into that quarter, and if you will have the complaisance to step in, it will be ready in a moment, and he shall attend you to the place.—So I walk'd in with her to the far side of the shop: and taking up the ruffle in my hand which she laid upon the chair, as if I had a mind to sit, she sat down herself in her low chair, and I instantly sat ...
— A Sentimental Journey • Laurence Sterne
... infallibly, seemed larger, more liquid than ever. His face, a little elongated, had gained in calm dignity what it had lost in feverish excitement. His hand, always wonderfully beautiful and strong, was set off by a ruffle of lace, like certain hands by Titian and Vandyck. He was less stiff than formerly. His long, dark hair, softly powdered here and there with silver tendrils, fell elegantly over his shoulders in wavy curls; his voice was still youthful, ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... been so extremely Jealous of the least Ruffle offer'd to their Beard, that they seem to have fixed the Point of Honour principally in that Part. The Spaniards were wonderfully tender in ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... give you, besides, her modest attire for a token: Mark, then, the stomacher's scarlet, that sets off the arch of her bosom, Prettily laced, and the bodice of black fitting close to her figure; Neatly the edge of her kerchief is plaited into a ruffle, Which with a simple grace her chin's rounded outline encircles; Freely and lightly rises above it the head's dainty oval; And her luxuriant hair over silver bodkins is braided; Down from under her bodice, the full, blue petticoat falling, Wraps ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... to the window to greet him as she generally did. She sat still, by the fire, her knitting on her knee. Her black dress was very black, with the plainest white ruffle at her throat. She looked very small and pitiful. Perhaps she meant to look it! The weak in dealing with the strong have ...
— Missing • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... silent after l in the following terminations: ble, cle, dle, fle, gle, kle, ple, tle, zle; as in able, manacle, cradle, ruffle, mangle, wrinkle, supple, rattle, puzzle, which are pronounced a'bl, mana'cl, cra'dl, ruf'fl, man'gl, ...
— The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing - A Manual of Ready Reference • Joseph Triemens
... then by disappointing flaws of wind. The crews were busy repairing damages and transferring the wounded to the lighter craft. All day the only shots fired were discharged by a couple of brass toy cannon mounted on a pleasure yacht which Rupert had brought with him. Taking advantage of a mere ruffle of wind, so light that it could not move the big ships, the Cavalier Prince ran his yacht under the stern of the huge flagship of De Ruyter, and fired into him. The Dutchman had no guns bearing dead aft, and the Prince was able to worry him for a while, till there came one of those stronger ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale
... person; disorderly persons offence; misdemeanor. [moral disorder] slattern, slut (libertine) 962. V. be disorderly &c adj.; ferment, play at cross-purposes. put out of order; derange &c 61; ravel &c 219; ruffle, rumple. Adj. disorderly, orderless; out of order, out of place, out of gear; irregular, desultory; anomalous &c (unconformable) 83; acephalous^, deranged; aimless; disorganized; straggling; unmethodical, immethodical^; unsymmetric^, unsystematic; untidy, slovenly; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... the first conclusion. "She is quite too handsome; she cannot have those looks without knowing it. Better have brought a plain face to Fiji, than a spirit of vanity. Hair done as if she was just come out of a hair-dresser's!—hum—ruffle all down the neck of her dress—flowing sleeves too, and ruffles round them. And a buckle in her belt—a gold buckle, I ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner
... purchased and paid for her own homestead and farm, and laid by enough for a comfortable old age? Not one! She therefore was justified in respecting herself and exacting respect from others, and it pleased me that she should have satisfaction as well in my advancement. But she did ruffle me sometimes by seeking to manage my business for me—she never for a moment doubting that it was within her ability to make a much better major than I was—and by ever and anon selecting some Valley maiden for me ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... is notional in the making of her dresses," said the sewing teacher. "She is apt to want the skirt a little wider and the hem a half-inch deeper than the regular uniform. And she asks to have more buttonholes, which means more buttons, and an extra ruffle on the waist. But she begs me so politely and appears so thankful, if I grant these trifling favors, that I find myself indulging her too frequently. She does the extra work herself, cheerfully and neatly, ...
— Big and Little Sisters • Theodora R. Jenness
... hast thou so soon returned from the audience? Did aught transpire to ruffle thy temper? Or, mayhap," he continued with a laugh, "His Majesty did read thee an essay on How to Take Snuff Without a Nose, or some other learned subject dear to ...
— The Fifth of November - A Romance of the Stuarts • Charles S. Bentley
... a man in private life of astonishingly even temper. The only thing that appeared to have the power to ruffle him to the slightest extent was the contemplation of what he described as the bunch of cheeses who pretended to fight nowadays. He would have considered it a privilege, it seemed, to be allowed to encounter all the middle-weights in the country in one ring in a single night without training. ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... inch wide laid in box pleats, chain-stitch it on the foundation along the inner edges with gold thread. Underlay the velvet with wadding, and line it with satin; join the two pieces of satin designed for the bottom over wadding, and edge the bottom with a ruffle of Bordeaux satin ribbon seven-eighths of an inch wide. The case is joined with narrow white satin ribbon. Bows of olive and Bordeaux satin ribbon trim the case as shown by the illustration. A full-sized design of the embroidery was given ...
— Harper's Young People, November 11, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... in his mouth. Back of him marched the twins, Twaddles' face shining with soap and water he had evidently applied himself, for it had dried in streaks, and Dot in a frock so stiffly starched that each separate ruffle stood out around ...
— Four Little Blossoms at Oak Hill School • Mabel C. Hawley
... you, Mr. Troy. Take care how you ruffle Miss Pink's sense of her own importance. Another word for your private ear. ...
— My Lady's Money • Wilkie Collins
... threads diagonally across the woof threads. These strips for facings, pipings, ruffles, etc., should be cut exactly even in width. All bands, ruffles, etc., of serge, twilled, or diagonal materials should be cut across the twill and not with it, in order to have the ruffle ...
— Textiles and Clothing • Kate Heintz Watson
... ceased to weep, and went about the cottage in a weary, disconsolate way that cut Antoine to the heart. A long-tailed paroquet, which she had brought with her in the ship, walked solemnly behind her from room to room, mutely pining, it seemed, for those heavy orient airs that used to ruffle its brilliant plumage. ...
— Pere Antoine's Date-Palm • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... Mickey, stepping from one toe to the other. "Don't ruffle your down about that. If 'darling old Daddy' has bad luck, and for staking his money and his honour on his friend, he's going to get picked clean and dished up himself, why it's fixed so he ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter
... above me, thinking that I slept And could not hear him; but I heard him say: 'Poor child, poor child:' and as he turned away Came a deep silence, and I knew he wept. He did not touch the shroud, or raise the fold That hid my face, or take my hand in his, Or ruffle the smooth pillows for my head: He did not love me living; but once dead He pitied me; and very sweet it is To know he still is ...
— Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems • Christina Rossetti
... prophecies to yourself. Why don't you rise up, man alive," she added, turning to him, "and let her hear how much of the divil's lingo you can give?—It's hard, if you can't prophesy as much evil as she can. Shake yourself, ruffle your feathers, or clap your wings three times, in the divil's name, an' tell her she'll be hanged; or, if you wish to soften it, say she'll go to Heaven in a string. Ha, ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton
... peoples, with many a gibe at the English, but always turning to their advantage, the preference given to the philosophical system of Newton over that of Descartes, lastly the attacks upon religion concealed beneath the cloak of banter—all this was more than enough to ruffle the tranquillity of Cardinal Fleury. The book was brought before Parliament; Voltaire was disquieted. "There is but one letter about Mr. Locke," he wrote to M. de Cideville; "the only philosophical matter I have treated of in it is the little trifle of the immortality of the soul, but ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... kindly rescued her— (She did so ruffle her hair; If ever she plays that trick again She'll have to be left ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... dresses, head bent over her dainty stitching or laying out before him for the hundredth time the tiny articles she had collected or her friends donated, made too pretty a picture; he had not the heart to ruffle it with discussions of economy. And when, her time drawing near, she complained of the work in the flat, a maid was installed. He was glad summer was coming; his overcoat was getting shabby and he felt he could ...
— The House of Toys • Henry Russell Miller
... I grew dizzy at the main-truck, I will only make mention of the people on board of her. They, too, were all of glass, as beautiful little glass sailors as any body ever saw, with hats and shoes on, just like living men, and curious blue jackets with a sort of ruffle round the bottom. Four or five of these sailors were very nimble little chaps, and were mounting up the rigging with very long strides; but for all that, they never gained a single inch in the year, as I ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... it was usually pronounced—an epithet first given in scorn, but afterwards generally used without any unkindly feeling. Indeed, he was rather proud of it than otherwise; nor could the taunts and gibes which not unfrequently accompanied it ever ruffle in the least his good- ...
— True to his Colours - The Life that Wears Best • Theodore P. Wilson
... barn-yard, Where muster daily the prime cocks o' the game, Ruffle their pinions, crow till they are hoarse, And spar about a barleycorn. Here too chickens, The callow, unfledged brood of forward folly, Learn first to rear the crest, and aim the spur, And tune their note like ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... travelled to Bendigo, where the tour finished. There, says a pressman, "she lived on terms of the most cordial amity with the entire populace, and without a single disturbing incident to ruffle the ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... nearly reached the caves when a roll of thunder like the ruffle of muffled drums came over the water, but they got under shelter before the rain began to fall, just a few heavy drops, at first, and then in a moment ...
— The Beach of Dreams • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... welcome in the best houses of Seville. Here I took that share of our business which my master could not take, for now he never mixed among the fashion of the city. Money I was supplied with in abundance so that I could ruffle it with the best, but soon it became known that I looked to business as well as to pleasure. Often and often during some gay ball or carnival, a lady would glide up to me and ask beneath her breath if Don Andres de Fonseca would consent to see ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... hearty handshake to the thirty-ninth and presented him to Mrs. Todd. She assured me that it was a great pleasure to meet me, a statement entirely at variance with the severity of her countenance and the promptness with which she passed me on to Professor Ruffle, who combined the chair of modern languages with the business management of the college. He with a dexterous twist consigned me to his good lady, and thus I passed from hand to ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... people, and then to present him at last in their houses as a man of rare and exquisite conversation; and, there, just as a musician sings or a lute-player touches his lute before the people who have engaged him, Cydias, after having coughed, and lifted the ruffle from his wrist, stretched out his hand and opened his fingers, begins to retail his quintessential thoughts and his sophistical arguments.... He opens his mouth only to contradict. 'It seems to me,' he ...
— Three French Moralists and The Gallantry of France • Edmund Gosse
... sunlight and clear-cut shadows and the soft swish of leaves. All this could be marked from the hall, for the front door stood wide open, and a fresh cool breeze came floating into the mansion, to flirt with the high and mighty curtains upon the landing, jostle the stately palms, and ruffle up the pompous atmosphere with gay irreverence. The air itself would have told you the hour. The intermittent knocks of a retreating postman declared the ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... Ever watchful to hear, Ever active to peer, Ever deft to career,— All ear, vision, and limb. And though Cult[121] and Cuchullin, With their horses and following, Should rush to her dwelling, And our prince[122] in his trim, They might vainly aspire Without rifle and fire To ruffle or nigh her, Her mantle to dim. Stark-footed, lively, Ever capering naively With motion alive, aye, And wax-white, in shine, When her startle betrays That the hounds are in chase, The same as the base ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... was but an appearance, and that his great scheme of Lutheranising England to the greater glory of himself was irrevocably wrecked, and his own fate sealed. The king went on to say that if it were not that the lady had come so far, and for fear of making a ruffle in the world, and of driving her brother into the emperor's arms and those of the French king, he would not go through with ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... England is an improvement upon its predecessor. The story and plot are still weak, but the situations are often well thought out and treated with dramatic effect. The action indeed is slow, but it moves; and in the story of Fidus it moves comparatively quickly. Such motion of course can scarcely ruffle the mental waters of those accustomed to the breathless whirlwinds which form the heart of George Meredith's novels; but these whirlwinds are as directly traceable to the gentle but fitful agitation of Euphues, as was the storm that overtook Ahab's chariot to the ...
— John Lyly • John Dover Wilson
... to amend these misfortunes by sewing a sort of canvas ruffle round the skirts, by way of a continuation or supplement to the original work, and by doing ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... than some people buy a ninepenny calico. And to see that man stand there, balancing probabilities over a piece of ground no bigger than a bed-quilt, as if a nation's fate were at stake, was enough to ruffle a calmer temper than mine. My impetuosity impressed him, however, and he began to lay about him vigorously with hoe and rake and lines, and, in an incredibly short space of time, had a bit of square flatness laid out with wonderful precision. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... are often wholly wanting; and even when, as in 1770, such proofs abound, there is generally no lack of evidence on the other side. The Bengali bears existence with a composure that neither accident nor chance can ruffle. He becomes silently rich or uncomplainingly poor. The emotional part of his nature is in strict subjection, his resentment enduring but unspoken, his gratitude of the sort that silently descends from generation to generation. The passion for privacy reaches its climax in the domestic relations. ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... the liquor from the oysters; add the water, and heat. When near the boil, add the seasoning, then the oysters. Cook about five minutes from the time they begin to simmer, until they "ruffle." Stir in the butter, cook one minute, and pour into the tureen. Stir in the boiling milk and send to table. Some prefer all water ...
— The Whitehouse Cookbook (1887) - The Whole Comprising A Comprehensive Cyclopedia Of Information For - The Home • Mrs. F.L. Gillette
... the rock, her bold sister Swum halfway already. Fortu, shall we sail there together And see from the sides 210 Quite new rocks show their faces, new haunts Where the siren abides? Shall we sail round and round them, close over The rocks, tho' unseen, That ruffle the grey glassy water To glorious green? Then scramble from splinter to splinter, Reach land and explore, On the largest, the strange square black turret With never a door, 220 Just a loop to admit the quick lizards; ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning
... next arrivals was a stout, heavily built young man with close-cropped hair, spectacles, the light-colored breeches fashionable at that time, a very high ruffle, and a brown dress coat. This stout young man was an illegitimate son of Count Bezukhov, a well-known grandee of Catherine's time who now lay dying in Moscow. The young man had not yet entered either the military or civil service, as he had only just returned from abroad where he had been ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... framed To brook the harsh confinement of the cage. Oft, when returning with her loaded bill, The astonished mother finds a vacant nest, By the rude hands of unrelenting clowns Robbed: to the ground the vain provision falls. Her pinions ruffle, and low drooping, scarce Can bear the mourner to the poplar shade; Where all abandoned to despair, she sings Her sorrows ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 442 - Volume 17, New Series, June 19, 1852 • Various
... somehow, think of a hollyhock, by the tilt of her tall, slim, young figure, and by the colors of her hat from which her face flowered; no doubt the deep-crimson silk waist she wore, with its petal-edged ruffle flying free down her breast, had something to do with his fantastic notion. She was a brunette, with the lightness and delicacy that commonly go with the beauty of a blonde. She could not have been more than fifteen; her skirts had not yet matured to the ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells
... the time when she was least troubled, and had he humoured her then they would often have been easy hours for him. But it was the time when he tried most doggedly, with a gentleness she could not ruffle, to teach her the alphabet of who she was. She coaxed him to let her off those mental struggles; she turned petulant and sulky; she was willing to be good and sweet if he would permit her to sew or to sing to herself instead, or to sit staring at ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... stopped in his walk, and, leaning upon the table with the tips of two fingers and the thumb of his left hand, he thrust the right hand into his waistcoat, by the side of the ruffle of his shirt, as if he were about to address the house upon a very ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... Friend,—It is so long since I wrote that I must write, I must ruffle your thoughts with a little breath from my side. Listen to me, my dear friend. That I have not written has scarcely been my fault, but my misfortune rather, for I have been quite unstrung and overcome by agitation and anxiety, and thought that ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... On his way he hit his head against a splintered board, which was hanging from the floor above, partly detached by his movement through the structure. It scratched the top of his head, already tender from rough usage, and thereby vexed and angered him, as slight accidents often ruffle even great minds. With a gesture of impatience, and a petulant word not in good taste for a drawing-room, he seized the projecting board, and gave it ...
— Freaks of Fortune - or, Half Round the World • Oliver Optic
... foolish not to go this morning and let your writing wait. We shall be certain to have something worth listening to; it is a strange time to select for absence." This was Ruth's quiet answer, as she pinned her lace ruffle with a ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy
... mortification since his arrival at M'Loughlin's. There was observable in this honest fellow's bearing something that vexed his oppressor sorely, and which consisted in a kind of easy, imperturbable serenity, that no threat could disturb or ruffle. Nay, there appeared a kind of lurking good-humored defiance in his eye, which, joined to the irony of his manner, aggravated the resentment of M'Clutchy ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... said, "we are not living in a poetry book bound with gilt edges. We are living in a paper-backed volume of prose. Be sensible. Don't ruffle yourself on account of other people. Don't even trouble to criticize them; it is only a nuisance to yourself. All this simply points back to my first suggestion: fill up your time with some hobby, cheese-mites or the influenza bacillus, and then you will be quite content to let ...
— Ships That Pass In The Night • Beatrice Harraden
... this ruffle put the town in great disorder, Some knaves (in office) smiled, expecting 'twould go furder; But at the last, "My life on't! George is no Rumper," said the Recorder, "For there never was either honest man or monk of that order." From a ...
— Cavalier Songs and Ballads of England from 1642 to 1684 • Charles Mackay
... birds might be blown from their roosts, the squirrels shaken from their nests. Under the shelter of the trees themselves I knew they were as safe as I from any harm from the wind. There was not enough of it below the tree-tops to ruffle ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... as becomes the Frau Freiherrinn," said the housewife aunt, looking with concern at the coarse texture of her black sleeve. "I long to see our own lady ruffle it in her new gear. I am glad that the lofty pointed cap has passed out; the coif becomes my child far better, and I see our tastes ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the change in his appearance. Cheerfulness and alertness seemed to return to him, and a quietness which no insult or injury could ruffle seemed ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... been In that so much unhappy, had not he That honoured then his sword with victory, Half-brother to Janusa been, a bright But cruel lady, whose refined delight Her slave (though husband), Ammurat, durst not Ruffle with discontent; wherefore, to cool that hot Contention of her blood, which he foresaw That heavy news would from her anger draw, To quench with the brave Christian's death, he sent Him living to her, that ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... go, give that changing piece To him that flourish'd for her with his sword; A valiant son-in-law thou shalt enjoy; One fit to bandy with thy lawless sons, To ruffle in ...
— The Tragedy of Titus Andronicus • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... then in strength, reflected on the sea. The men of the Dogana watch-boat challenged us and let us pass. Madonna's lamp was twinkling from her shrine upon the harbour-pile. The city grew before us. Stealing into Venice in that calm—stealing silently and shadowlike, with scarce a ruffle of the water, the masses of the town emerging out of darkness into twilight, till San Giorgio's gun boomed with a flash athwart our stern, and the gas-lamps of the Piazzetta swam into sight; all this was like a long enchanted chapter of ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... chance to trip up her heels, or incommode her, as she walks to and fro upon the stage. It is, in my opinion, a very odd spectacle to see a queen venting her passion in a disordered motion, and a little boy taking care all the while that they do not ruffle the tail of her gown. The parts that the two persons act on the stage at the same time are very different. The princess is afraid lest she should incur the displeasure of the king her father, or lose the hero, her lover, whilst her attendant ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... Morocco boots, with red tips, covered his little feet; broad trousers, of dark-blue velvet, came to his knees, and were held together at the waist by a blue silk sash, whose lace- tipped ends fell at his left side. He wore a blue velvet jacket, with a tastefully embroidered lace ruffle around the neck. The round, rosy face, with the ruby lips, the dimple in the chin, the large blue eyes, shaded by long, dark lashes, and crowned by the broad, lofty brow, was rimmed around with a profusion of golden hair, which fell in long, heavy locks upon his shoulders ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... mouthpiece, madame. What I threaten, I threaten in her name. Ruffle it no longer, I beseech you. It will prove little worth your while. You are deposed, madame, and you had best take your deposition with dignity and calm—in all friendliness do ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... The Chilians, I believe, are the brightest and most energetic of any of the South American peoples, but that, you know, is not saying a great deal. Cochrane is sure to be maddened by delays and difficulties of all kinds, and if so he will certainly speak out in a way that will ruffle their feelings greatly, ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty
... trifles, as men that make not the living by their study the end of their purposes, which is a lamentable hearing. Beside this, being for the most part either gentlemen or rich men's sons, they often bring the universities into much slander. For, standing upon their reputation and liberty, they ruffle and roist it out, exceeding in apparel, and banting riotous company (which draweth them from their books unto another trade), and for excuse, when they are charged with breach of all good order, think it sufficient to say that they ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed
... steady and regular in his life, and parsimonious in his disposition,—worth $ 50,000, made by his profession.—A clergyman, elderly, with a white neckcloth, very unbecoming, an unworldly manner, unacquaintance with the customs of the house, and learning them in a childlike way. A ruffle to his shirt, crimped.—A gentleman, young, handsome, and sea-flushed, belonging to Oswego, New York, but just arrived in port from the Mediterranean: he inquires of me about the troubles in Canada, which were first beginning ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... in the garden, or bounding over the lawns; too often might she be found reclining on the couch, in spite of all the temptations of the spring; while her temper, once so singularly sweet that it seemed there was not in the world a word that could ruffle it, and which required so keenly and responded so quickly to sympathy, became reserved, if not absolutely sullen, or at ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... so secure and happy and calm now with such a man to lean upon as Sasha Roumovski. Nothing need ruffle or frighten her ever any more. And then she read the love sentences again and thrilled and quivered there in the warm, soft night. Sasha Roumovski's influence over her had grown so strong that not a questioning speculation ...
— The Point of View • Elinor Glyn
... led him on to a future gilded by Sir Hugh Johnstone's money. He longed to ruffle it bravely with the best. To hold up his head once more in official circles, and to smother the ugly floating memories ef a renegade who had served those English guns under the fierce Sikkim hill ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... I do not know, because this time I could hear no sound in the starry obscurity of the Western Catskills, save only those familiar forest sounds which never cease by night—unseen stirrings of sleeping birds, the ruffle, of feathers, the sudden rustle of some furry thing alarmed, the scratchings and pickings in rotting windfalls, the whisper of some falling leaf severed by insects or relaxing its brief clasp of the mother stem in the precocity of ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... almost every other person one meets is a councillor of some sort, and inclined to be proud of the distinction. These Councils are excellent safety-valves for parochial malcontents who thus harmlessly let off superfluous steam which might otherwise ruffle the abiding calm of peaceful inhabitants, but their powers are really very limited. In a village in Worcestershire where an approach road crossed a brook by a ford, during floods the current was sometimes so strong as to constitute ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... with a keen relish for and appreciation of everything beautiful, great, and good, but with a temper so genial that the friction [20] of the world shall not wear upon our sensibilities; with an equanimity so settled that no passing breath nor accidental disturbance shall agitate or ruffle it; with a charity broad enough to cover the whole world's evil, and sweet enough to neutralize what is bitter in it,—de- [25] termined not to be offended when no wrong is meant, nor even when it is, unless the ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... peevish folks swear, Remember to ruffle thy brows, friend, ne'er; And let not the fancies of women so fair E'er serve thy pleasure in life ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... the world; and although the boy trembles and turn pale, and forgets to be boyish when, the fit is on him, nevertheless he goes near and worships, and loses his heart in learning a new language. So kind and soft is love, so tender and sweet-spoken, that you would think he would not so much as ruffle the leaf of a rose, nor breathe too sharply on a violet, lest he should hurt the flower-soul within; and if you treat him hospitably he is kind to the last, so that when he is gone there is still a sweet savor of him left. But if you would drive him roughly away with scorn ...
— An American Politician • F. Marion Crawford
... is the form of the fashion that man may behold of it wrought: Of iron and truth is the mystic mid altar, where worship is none but of thought. No prayer may go up to it, climbing as incense of gladness or sorrow may climb: No rapture of music may ruffle the silence that guards it, and hears not of time. As the winds of the wild blind ages alternate in passion of light and of cloud, So changes the shape of the veil that enshrouds it with darkness and light for a shroud. And the winds and the clouds and ...
— A Channel Passage and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... self-excuse,—nothing more. In general they are as easy and careless, and dispute as seldom, as any common acquaintances may; for it is neither worth their while to put each other out of the way, nor to ruffle themselves. ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... endeavored to terrify the citizens of London into the general loan exacted in 1525, and told them plainly, that "it were better that some should suffer indigence than that the king at this time should lack and therefore beware and resist not, nor ruffle not in this case, for it may fortune to cost some people their heads." Such was the style employed by this ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume
... for the bandy-legged man! He could not ruffle and swagger it off as Gaston Carew had done of old; a London apprentice was harder nuts than his cowardly ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... zamuros took no heed of him, deeming, perhaps, that, although he had come in by the back-door, he might have as good a right upon the premises as themselves. Their pacific attitude, however, was but of short duration; something occurred to ruffle their temper—some silent affront, no doubt, for the bark-hunters heard nothing. Perhaps the tatou had run against the legs of one, and scraped it with the sharp edge of his corslet. Whether this was the cause or no, a scuffle commenced, ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... texture, garnished with chiffon and illusion and tulle—the most crushable, airy, inflammable, unserviceable material one can think of. Now, I am a utilitarian. When I see a white gown I always wonder if it will wash. If I see lace on the foot ruffle of a dress I think how it will sound when the wearer steps on it going up-stairs. But anything would be serviceable to wear driving in a victoria in the Bois between five and seven, and as that is where I have seen the most beautiful costumes I have no right ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell
... else. Todd's chief private moan was that he never had any money. His father was a rich man, but had some ideas which were rather rough on his weak-kneed son. He tipped poor Gus as though he were some thrifty hairdresser's son, and Todd had to try to ruffle it with young Amorians on as many shillings as they had crowns. Not a lad who ever had naturally any large amount of self-respect, the little he had soon went, and he became, while still a fag, a hewer of wood ...
— Acton's Feud - A Public School Story • Frederick Swainson
... principle and violent temper, or a man possessed of a desire to get to a particular spot not favoured by Jane, or by a wish to reach any spot by a certain hour,—I can understand how such a man, carried away by helpless wrath, might possibly ruffle Jane's sad-coloured hair with the toe of ...
— Penelope's English Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... it is profoundly enjoyable, to sit on the margin of the sea during the dead calm that not unfrequently succeeds a wild storm, and watch the gentle undulations of the glass-like surface, which the very gulls seem to be disinclined to ruffle with their wings as they descend to hover above their own ...
— The Lighthouse • R.M. Ballantyne
... sauntering down to the barn-yard bars as if they thought it was milking-time, and the sheep huddled together under the great elms. Grandpa and his big man commenced raking the hay together vigorously, and a sudden, cool, puffy breeze began to ruffle the little rings of hair on Lily-toes' head, and send the small chickens careening over the knot-grass in such fashion that the careful mother-hen put her head out of her little house and called them in. And still in the cool, pleasant sitting-room, with its cheerful ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 • Various
... Pepper!" Clem hugged her so tightly by the neck that the neat little ruffle Mamsie sewed in that very morning was quite crushed. When she saw that, Clem was in worse ...
— Five Little Peppers and their Friends • Margaret Sidney
... had gone Beth appeared. To please Arthur, she had covered her cropped head with a white muslin mob-cap bound round with a pale pink ribbon, and put on a high ruffle and a large white apron, in which she looked pretty and prim, like a sweet little Puritan, in spite of the pale pink vanity; and Arthur smiled when he saw her, but afterwards grumbled: "Why did you cut your pretty ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... the old Augustan Days Of formal courtesies and formal Phrase; That like along the finish'd Line to feel The Ruffle's Flutter and the Flash of Steel; That like my Couplet as Compact as Clear; That like my Satire sparkling tho' severe, Unmix'd with Bathos and unmarr'd by trope, I fling my Cap for Polish—and for ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... you make it longer, and lower in the neck?" inquired Betty impatiently. Helen was as conscientiously slow about making up her mind as she was about learning her Livy. "It's hemmed, isn't it? Anyhow you could piece it under the ruffle." ...
— Betty Wales Freshman • Edith K. Dunton
... touched a plaited ruffle of the wide sleeve, and Mary felt that he had never less thought of her than when he so touched her dress. She put aside the deep little pang that gave her to say: "It's true, Jack, she ought to have young things, just because they ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... this, sent out ten warriors to spy on the approach of the foreigners and their equipment. One of these, being quick-witted, slipped past the sentries, pertinaciously made his way up, and took away the shield, which Amleth had chanced to set at his head before he slept, so gently that he did not ruffle his slumbers, though he was lying upon it, nor awaken one man of all that troop; for he wished to assure his mistress not only by report but by some token. With equal address he filched the letter entrusted to Amleth ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... directness of her desire to be well with her observer became in itself a grace; it led Bernard afterward to say to himself that the natural vocation and metier of little girls for whom existence was but a shimmering surface, was to prattle and ruffle their plumage; their view of life and its duties was as simple and superficial as that of an Oriental bayadere. It surely could not be with regard to this transparent little flirt that Gordon Wright desired advice; you could literally see the daylight—or rather ...
— Confidence • Henry James
... women repeating his words took them up in chorus delightfully. They were all in a row gesticulating, and anger, vengeance, jealousy, terror, and stupefaction breathed forth at once from their half-opened mouths. The outraged lover brandished his naked sword; his guipure ruffle rose with jerks to the movements of his chest, and he walked from right to left with long strides, clanking against the boards the silver-gilt spurs of his soft boots, widening out at the ankles. He, she thought must have an inexhaustible love to lavish ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... hall. There, of course, Master Page had been engulfed in the galimafre, and not only forming one of the swarm around the pedlar, but was actually aping courtly grimaces as he tried a delicate lace ruffle on the hand of a silly little smirking maiden, no older than himself! But this little episode was, like many others, overlooked by Madame de Quinet, as her eye fell upon the little figure of Rayonette standing ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... that her eyes looked no worse than if she'd been indulging in a "good cry." She decided, however, that if Somerled came she would bandage them again and continue to resemble Justice. I didn't ruffle her feelings by remarking that morally the ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... my left arm in the air, the forearm gracefully bent, the ruffle drooping, and my wrist curved, while my right arm, half extended, securely covered my wrist with the elbow, and my breast ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... for further losses; he has adjusted himself to the fact of death. At first, we cannot believe that it can happen to us and to our love; or, if the thought comes to us, it is an event too far in the future to ruffle the calm surface of our heart. And yet, it must come; from it none can escape. Most can remember a night of waiting, too stricken for prayer, too numb of heart even for feeling, vaguely expecting the blow to strike us out of ...
— Friendship • Hugh Black
... however—as, for instance, about her presentation. I know I was in quite a flutter of excitement for days before I was presented, and was quite bewildered with agitation at the time; but Evadne displayed no emotion whatever. I never knew anyone so equable as she is; in fact, nothing seems to ruffle her wonderful calm; it is almost provoking sometimes! On the way home she would not have made a remark, I think, if I had not spoken to her. 'Don't you think it was a very pretty sight?' I said at last. 'Yes,' she answered doubtfully; and then she added with genuine feeling: 'Mais ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... sat the shikarree watching every ruffle upon the water, and every motion of the floats, but no movement, either of wood or water, seemed to indicate that there were fish in the lake. Once or twice there appeared a little "purl" on the surface, near the line of ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid
... her, but she would never let him),—she would take a motherly interest in her brother's work. She would hear him his lessons, read his exercises, and even look up certain words in the dictionary for him, always taking care not to ruffle up his sensitive little soul. They would spend the evening at their one table at which they had both to eat and write. He would do his homework, she would sew or do some copying. When he had gone to bed she would sit mending his clothes or doing ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... the ruffle of the land stream merges into the heavier disquietude of sea, slopes of shell sand and white gravel give welcome pillow to the weary keel. No southerly tempest smites the bark, no long groundswell upheaves her; for a bold point, known as the "Haven-head," baffles the storm ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... for him under the tree! He was so finely dressed that, for a moment, Fairyfoot scarcely knew him. His suit was made out of the purple velvet petals of a pansy, which was far finer than any ordinary velvet, and he wore plumes and tassels, and a ruffle around his neck, and in his belt was thrust a tiny sword, not half as big ...
— Little Saint Elizabeth and Other Stories • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... towards the end of the season, when, in sportsman's language, they are said to flock or crowd, attracted together by the sound of each others' triumphant crow, even so did the pipers, swelling their plaids and tartans in the same triumphant manner in which the birds ruffle up their feathers, begin to approach each other within such distance as might give to their brethren a sample of their skill. Walking within a short interval, and eyeing each other with looks in which self-importance and defiance might ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... and mock point lace, over a hoop of enormous extent; there is only a narrow train of about three yards in length to the gown waist, which is put into a ribbon upon the left side, the Queen only having her train borne. Ruffle cuffs for married ladies, treble lace lappets, two white plumes, and a blond lace handkerchief. This is my rigging, I should have mentioned two pearl pins in my hair, earrings and necklace ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... odds were equal, and all men his rivals. What he did in Galway City, that bizarre, half-foreign town of the west, how long he tarried there, and whither he went afterwards, in the vain search for a place where a man could swagger without courage and ruffle it without consequences, it matters not to inquire. A time came when his kin knew not whether he lived or ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... brides with a sort of proud complacency; that they felt superior to other human beings, and secretly scorned the unwed. It was astonishing to find herself still concerned with the tiny questions of yesterday: the ruffle torn on the bureau, the little infection that swelled and inflamed her chin, the quarter of a dollar her Chinese laundryman swore he had never received. It was always tremendously thrilling to have Wallace give her money: delightful gold ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris
... recklessness of danger, fell upon the deck of his galley, torn to pieces with twenty-four wounds from a stone gun of the Black Galley, while at nearly the same, moment a gentle breeze began in the distance to ruffle the surface of the waters. More than a thousand men had fallen in Spinola's fleet, inclusive of the miserable slaves, who were tossed overboard as often as wounds made them a cumbrous part of the machinery, and the galleys, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... into bands; finishing ends of hems; putting on pockets—straight and shaped; plain placket; cutting bias strips; piecing bias strips; facing curved and straight edges (armholes, neck, waist, points); joining waist and skirt with bias facing; making straight tucked ruffle; inserting ruffle under ...
— The Making of a Trade School • Mary Schenck Woolman
... your Army or Navy officers hadn't been doing any hard work that would ruffle the neatness of their uniforms," finished Tom triumphantly, "and there you are! I can dress up on Sundays or holidays, but on the work days, when I'm a civil engineer, I want to wear clothes that show that I'm not afraid to tackle the rough ...
— The High School Boys' Training Hike • H. Irving Hancock
... in each other's footsteps. The hare's track when running is two holes abreast and then two single ones. The fox runs rather like a dog. The squirrel hops two feet at a time, often leaving a slight ruffle on the snow as he swishes his tail. Among the cembra trees in the Engadine the snow may be sprinkled with the nuts out of the cones. They are delicious eating, being very like the Italian stone pine nut, or pinelli, and they attract the squirrels as much as they ...
— Ski-running • Katharine Symonds Furse
... dangled from this liquid chain—depending from the vest of a landscape which ended in a ruffle of woods toward the north, overtopped by the head of a mountain—was a huge factory that had been added to from time to time, as necessity demanded, until it had become an imposing and not uncomely pile. Below this were two or ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... merry time dressing the room. They stuck good big bushes of pine in each window; they put a little ruffle of ground-pine round mother's Bible, and they fastened the beautiful red cross up over the table, and they stuck sprigs of pine or holly into every crack that could be made, by fair means or foul, to accept it, and they were immensely satisfied and delighted. Tottie insisted on hanging ...
— Betty's Bright Idea; Deacon Pitkin's Farm; and The First Christmas - of New England • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... left Winnipeg. When we arrived at the river, of course the ferry-boat was on the opposite side, and we had to wait for its return, which seemed the climax to the day's worries. We growled audibly, feeling that we were entitled to do so, having had enough provocation to ruffle the most angelic tempers. With scarcely room to sit, and nowhere, to speak of, to put our feet, bodily discomfort helped to put us ...
— A Trip to Manitoba • Mary FitzGibbon
... a moment. "I'll give you a piece of my petticoat. It's an old one, and the ruffle ...
— Marjorie's Busy Days • Carolyn Wells
... is at war with two or three of the facts of Providence, and yet will have Providence for her ally, can hardly ruffle well. Do not imagine that the Countess's love for her brother was hollow. She was assured when she came up to the spot where he fell, that there was no danger; he had but dislocated his shoulder, and bruised his head a little. Hearing this, she rose out of her clamorous heart, and ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... crone, leaping from her seat and dancing about the room, "the dhrame's come true at last! Och, hullybaloo! didn't I know that the pretty Paudeen wasn't born for the pig-stye! Bedad, but he'll ruffle the gentles! Wont you, darlint?" and the old woman fell upon her son's neck, smothering him with kisses, while the poor youth could hardly keep his legs under the vigor of ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various
... could be a white dress it would have to have ruffles on it; all the other girls' white dresses had ruffles on them somewhere. Carrie's had two ruffles on the skirt, and Mamie Cole's had three. Bertha Dean's had only one ruffle around the shoulders and the skirt was tucked, but it was very pretty; and if Tabitha could not have ruffles on the skirt, she would want at least a shoulder ruffle with lace around it. Well, there was no ...
— Tabitha at Ivy Hall • Ruth Alberta Brown
... advantage throw away the long growth of good-will nurtured by wise and patient men and who cannot see the lasting and far greater future evil they do. Of all the years since 1776 this great war-year is the worst to break the 100 years of our peace, or even to ruffle it. I pray you, good friend, get us out of ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... but was not received very amiably by that gentleman, who proved to be in a somewhat bad temper. He was not altogether pleased with Lucian finding out more about the case than he had discovered himself, and also—to further ruffle his temper—the clever Lydia had given him the slip. He had called at her Mayfair house with a warrant for her arrest, only to find out that—having received timely warning from Ferruci's servant—she had fled. In vain the railway ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume
... would mount a ringstraked horse and ride scores of miles to Simla-town to confer with the Lieutenant-Governor on matters of state, or to assure the Viceroy that his sword was at the service of the Queen-Empress. Then the Viceroy would cause a ruffle of drums to be sounded, and the ringstraked horse and the cavalry of the State—-two men in tatters—and the herald who bore the silver stick before the King would trot back to their own place, which lay between the tail of a heaven-climbing ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... inward peace is ours? It is meant that there should never pass across a Christian's soul more than a ripple of agitation, which may indeed ruffle and curl the surface; but deep down there should be the tranquillity of the fathomless ocean, unbroken by any tempests, and yet not stagnant, because there is a vital current running through it, and every drop is ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... malice, pride, cruelty, revenge, undutifulness in their words and actions? Are they seduced to lewdness or scandalous marriages? It is all by our servants. Nay, the very mistakes, follies, blunders, and absurdities of those in our service, are able to ruffle and discompose the mildest nature, and are often of such consequence, as to put whole ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift
... thee, malapert knave," said the young man, in his vexation, "and know to respect thy betters. Truly, the world is come to a pretty pass, when a fowl like thee is permitted to ruffle ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... interruption, under such comfortable circumstances, was enough to ruffle any one's temper; but I was still more distressed on opening the drawer to take out the wine and renew our orgies to discover, that either the cork had not been firmly fixed, or omitted altogether, ...
— Confessions of an Etonian • I. E. M.
... made the air gladder. As for Master Udal himself, when he opened the door, I could have laughed to see the change in him. His hair was kempt, and the rents in his garments were mended; there was a peep of ruffle at his wrists, and his stockings, which had ever lagged down at his heels, now held up bravely by the buckle at his knee. More than that, he looked scared and jaded, like a man undergoing some penance, and doubtful what will be wanted ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... infect not, nor contagion soil, Indulgence weaken, or example spoil, Nor mastered science tempt her to look down On humbler talent with a pitying frown, Nor genius swell, nor beauty render vain, Nor envy ruffle to ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... time of its birth, if she had not something short and plain that she could wear. She looked very thoughtful for a moment and then said that she thought she did have one night-dress that did not have a ruffle or embroidery around the bottom. She could wear that. It certainly is not from motives of economy that our wealthy patients do not have these most sensible of garments. I think they know nothing about them, and they should have their virtues ...
— Making Good On Private Duty • Harriet Camp Lounsbery
... of Insects. The eyes of insects are sometimes so large as to envelop the head like an Elizabethan ruffle, and the creature's head, as in the common house fly, seems all eyes. And this is almost literally the case, as the two great staring eyes that almost meet on the top of the head to form one, are made up of myriads of simple eyes. Each facet ...
— Our Common Insects - A Popular Account of the Insects of Our Fields, Forests, - Gardens and Houses • Alpheus Spring Packard
... and astonishment of the Duke can hardly be conceived, unless we could estimate the surprise of a falcon against whom a dove should ruffle ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... think he hated hatching them. He would settle upon the roof above the nest, and chirp in a crabbed, imposed-upon tone until his wife came out. As she flew briskly away, he would look disconsolately around at the bright busy world, ruffle his feathers, scold to himself, and then crawl dutifully ...
— Roof and Meadow • Dallas Lore Sharp
... known to fly from a nobleman covered with lace, and powdered, and perfumed to the very tip of the mode, to follow the standard of a commoner whose coat has been stained with claret, and who has not had a ruffle to his shirt. My lord, if common fame may be trusted, these puppies are literally tasteless enough to admire wit, though the man who utters it be ever so corpulent, and to discover eloquence in the mouth of one, who can suffer himself to spit in an honourable assembly. I am a plain ...
— Four Early Pamphlets • William Godwin
... past the smooth apron and ran through the entry to Lot's room, with the housekeeper staring after her in a helpless ruffle ...
— Madelon - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... figure, still arrayed in his bridegroom's finery of sky-blue satin, loomed in the doorway. He was serene and calm as ever. Neither the discovery of the plot by the abstraction of the messenger's letter, nor Ruth's strange conduct—of which he had heard from Lord Gervase—had sufficed to ruffle, outwardly at least, the inscrutable serenity of his air and manner. He paused to make his bow, then advanced into the room, with a passing glance at Richard still spurred and ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... they present a very different appearance. Then all the open space beneath the cabins is filled by a mass of cotton-bales. The hull is so sunken in the water that the lowest tier of cotton-bales is lapped by the little waves that ruffle the surface of the river. The stokers and furnaces are hid from view, and the cabins appear to be floating on one huge cotton bale. Generally a great wooden stern-wheel propels this strange craft, adding to the ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... shall allow me," and he began to play with her hand and ruffle up the lace that covered her ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... A neck-ruffle originally worn by QUEEN ELIZABETH has been stolen from a house in Manchester and has not yet been recovered. Any reader noticing a suspicious-looking person wearing such an article over her decollete should immediately communicate with the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 1st, 1920 • Various
... served in the armies of the Republic and of the Empire, who had won the cross at Austerlitz and had been made colonel at Waterloo. "He is the disgrace of my family," said the old bourgeois. He took an immense amount of snuff, and had a particularly graceful manner of plucking at his lace ruffle with the back of one hand. He believed very little ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... in the cloud-flecked heavens and the little winds blowing up from the south to ruffle the hair at the girl's temples, these two sat by the Silver Hollow and talked of a thousand things, after the manner of the young, for Kenset found himself reverting to the things of youth in the light ...
— Tharon of Lost Valley • Vingie E. Roe
... turning yellow in autumn, coriaceous; outline reniform; margin coarse-toothed or sinuate-lobed, the short lobes ending in a sharp point; base heart-shaped to nearly truncate; leafstalk 1-2 inches long, swollen at the base; stipules sheathing, often united, forming a sort of ruffle. ...
— Handbook of the Trees of New England • Lorin Low Dame
... departure of the big brothers, the little girl came home radiant, brushes dangling from her apron ruffle like scalps. Then, one evening, when four catches should have made her happy, she ate her supper with a sad and puzzled face, and afterward added only two tails to her string. Her mother, seeing that something was troubling her, inquired what it was; but, on hearing the story, ...
— The Biography of a Prairie Girl • Eleanor Gates
... almost swept me from the log upon which I sat. Then again all was a perfect calm, and the young leaves over the stream hung heavily on their tender foot-stalks, and the points of the breeze-swept grass turned back, and the ruffle of all things smoothed itself. But there seemed to be a sense of fear in the waiting silence ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... procedure in an affair of this kind would have been to advance quickly, ruffle his victim's hair in a goading kind of swaggerish good humor and send him sprawling. He would not really have hurt a youngster like Pee-wee but he would have made him ...
— Pee-wee Harris • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... beneath the sweet-scented shade, and now no doubt remained that I was the object of very hostile evolutions. Sometimes these smooth-hooved battalions would advance, cloudlike, to within fifty yards of us, and, snorting, ruffle their manes and wheel swiftly away; only once more in turn to advance, and stand, with heads exalted, gazing wildly on us till we were passed on a little. But my guide gave them very little heed. ...
— Henry Brocken - His Travels and Adventures in the Rich, Strange, Scarce-Imaginable Regions of Romance • Walter J. de la Mare
... have been so extremely Jealous of the least Ruffle offer'd to their Beard, that they seem to have fixed the Point of Honour principally in that Part. The Spaniards were wonderfully tender in ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... Bull, "you oughtn't to let a little rain ruffle your feathers that way. Cheer up, sonny; you may be rich some day yet and walk on brussels ...
— The Log of a Cowboy - A Narrative of the Old Trail Days • Andy Adams
... so close to the oldest Corner House girl now that she could view his countenance easily without appearing to be curious. But she was curious about the old gentleman. However, being Ruth Kenway, she would not have shown this in any way to ruffle his feelings; for, despite her own youth, Ruth had mothered her three orphaned sisters for so long that she was more sedate and thoughtful than most ...
— The Corner House Girls Growing Up - What Happened First, What Came Next. And How It Ended • Grace Brooks Hill
... man in private life of astonishingly even temper. The only thing that appeared to have the power to ruffle him to the slightest extent was the contemplation of what he described as the bunch of cheeses who pretended to fight nowadays. He would have considered it a privilege, it seemed, to be allowed to encounter all the middle-weights in the country in one ring in a single night ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... There is no pen worthy to write of Lyddy. Her joy lay deep in her heart like a jewel at the bottom of a clear pool; so deep that no ripple or ruffle on the surface could disturb the hidden treasure. If God had smitten these two with one hand, he had held out the ...
— A Village Stradivarius • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... up Mrs. Beaton's cookery-book with a bang, rose from her seat at the table, and opening the window sat down where the wind could ruffle her hair and cool her ...
— Polly - A New-Fashioned Girl • L. T. Meade
... the clothing of her spirit; and like Moses viewing from the Mount the Promised Land, she seemed almost to live above the trials and temptations of time; nothing appeared materially to disturb or ruffle the repose of her soul, deeply centred in God. Her ministry was often strikingly beautiful and impressive, especially exhorting to unreserved dedication, and dwelling on the glories of the ...
— The Annual Monitor for 1851 • Anonymous
... the river swift though silent. The surface is steeply inclined, but it is perfectly unbroken. There are no lateral waves, no ripples with their breaking bubbles to raise a murmur; while the depth is here too great to allow the inequality of the bed to ruffle the surface. Nothing can be more beautiful than this sloping liquid mirror formed by the Niagara, in sliding from ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... sewing the sides together nearly to the top, and tying the strings in great bows to answer as shoulder straps, the dress was declared perfect. A dainty sunbonnet, with a wide fluffy ruffle, which was a part of Bertha's own wardrobe, was taken also, and with a string of large blue beads, and an enormous baby's rattle which Bertha unearthed from her treasure-chest, the ...
— Patty's Summer Days • Carolyn Wells
... were lying in this port, one morning at daylight we heard firing at a distance. I took a spy-glass, and from aloft could clearly see three gunboats engaged with a large ship. It was a fine, clear morning, with scarcely wind enough to ruffle the glass-like surface of the water. During the first hour or two of this engagement the gunboats had an immense advantage; being propelled both by sails and oars, they were enabled to choose their own position. While the ship lay becalmed and unmanageable they poured grape ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... her hair was red-gold and abundant. Moreover, she was clever in a strictly practical sense. She enjoyed life in spite of straitened circumstances. And she possessed a serenity of temperament that no amount of adversity ever seemed to ruffle. ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... article of wearing apparel was of outing flannel, roomy where amplitude was most needed, gathered at the waist with a drawstring, confined at the ankle by a deep ruffle—a ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... which dashes a sensitive man and makes him resentfully conscious that he has been rendered incapable of doing himself justice. And Rem could neither define the sense of humiliation he felt, nor yet ruffle the courteous urbanity of Hyde; though he tried in various ways to introduce some conversation which would afford him the pleasure of contradiction. Equally he failed to consider that his barely veiled antagonism compelled ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... marry an American? You are not satisfied, then, with Italians?" said Papa playfully leaning over to ruffle Mamma's soft, light hair and at his movement Maria Angelina fled swiftly from those curtains back to her post, and sat very still, a book in front of her, a haze of romance swimming between ...
— The Innocent Adventuress • Mary Hastings Bradley
... been the least cloud between them. If this perfect wife of his had any little weakness, it was a tendency to slight jealousies, so slight as to be nameless, yet she allowed them at times to ruffle her calm, serene repose. Her husband was very handsome—there was a picturesque, manly beauty about his dark head and face, a grandeur in his grand, easy figure that was irresistible. Women followed him wherever he went with admiring eyes. As he walked along the streets they said ...
— A Mad Love • Bertha M. Clay
... some ramifications. On the third day, the germination being more advanced, many more of the sporidia were as completely changed, and presented, in consequence of the elongation, the appearance of a cylindrical ruffle, the cellular prolongations arising from the germination having a tendency towards one of the extremities of the longer axis of the sporidium, and more often to the two opposed extremities, either simultaneously ...
— Fungi: Their Nature and Uses • Mordecai Cubitt Cooke
... that small person in surprise, "I guess that's the petticoat Miss Florence basted a ruffle on. I must have forgotten to take ...
— Four Little Blossoms on Apple Tree Island • Mabel C. Hawley
... is to be the rule; no rising, or notice taken, when anybody enters or leaves. Let the entering man take his place and pipe, without obligatory remarks: if he cannot smoke, which is Seckendorf's case for instance, let him at least affect to do so, and not ruffle the established stream of things. And so, Puff, slowly Pff!—and any comfortable speech that is in you; or none, if you authentically have ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume V. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... stunted, but sturdy trees; dwarf alders and squat firs that shake their white-backed leaves, and swing their needle clusters, merrily if the breeze is mild, obstinately if the gale is rousing and seem to proclaim: "Here are we, well and secure. Ruffle and toss, and lash, O winds, the faithless waters, we shall ever cling to this hospitable footing, the only kindly soil amid this dreariness; here you once wafted our seed; here shall we live ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... sixteenth century in "doublet and hose." This consists first of a richly embroidered waistcoat, the most effective part of the dress. The sleeves are made of the same material and are gathered at the wrists in a ruffle. The lower part of the doublet is a skirt falling ...
— Sir Joshua Reynolds - A Collection of Fifteen Pictures and a Portrait of the - Painter with Introduction and Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... you for the compliment, Mistress Alice," said Chaloner; "but I think, if necessary, I could ruffle and swear with the best, or rather the worst of them. We passed for troopers very well ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat
... seized him by the nose. They went out and fought. The account being conveyed to Lord Orford, he sent his son to make inquiries; who, on coming into the House of Commons, found his uncle speaking with the same composure as if nothing had happened to ruffle his tamper or endanger his life. Mr. Chetwynd was ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... glanced for courage at an ancestor who looked magnificently down at him over a ruffle. He adjusted his own cravat and spoke in nicely modulated accents: 'Sybil, nothing can change me on this point. In spite of what you say, it is my intention to keep to the tradition of the Durwents, and that is that the occupant ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... strangely lean hands on his plump knees, and fixed T. A. Junior with a shrewd blue eye. "That suits me fine," he agreed. "I never was one to beat around the bush. Look here. I know skirts from the draw-string to the ruffle. It's a woman's garment, but a man's line. There's fifty reasons why a woman can't handle it like a man. For one thing the packing cases weigh twenty-five pounds each, and she's as dependent on a packer and a porter as a baby is on its mother. Another ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber
... too delicately framed To brook the harsh confinement of the cage. Oft, when returning with her loaded bill, The astonished mother finds a vacant nest, By the rude hands of unrelenting clowns Robbed: to the ground the vain provision falls. Her pinions ruffle, and low drooping, scarce Can bear the mourner to the poplar shade; Where all abandoned to despair, she sings Her sorrows ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 442 - Volume 17, New Series, June 19, 1852 • Various
... weakness which came from his own in other fields, he would yet have proved as fit for the play of fence as any youngster of them all. So, at least, he averred. And to-night the wind was southerly, and his old hurts irked him not. Faith he was almost minded to try a ruffle with the cocks of the ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... my ruffle stained With grease from my new telescope! Ach, to-morrow How Caroline will be vexed, although she grows Almost as bad as I, who cannot leave My work-shop for one evening. I must give One last recital at St. Margaret's, And then—farewell to ...
— Watchers of the Sky • Alfred Noyes
... gallinaceous birds is extremely limited. America can, however, boast of its native wild turkey—one of the most magnificent game-birds in existence. There is also the pinnated or Cupid Grouse. The Barren Grounds of Kentucky, and a few other districts, are inhabited by the ruffle grouse, which is also often called the pheasant. It ranges to a considerable distance northward, and Dr Richardson found it even on the borders of the Polar regions. There is likewise a small-sized partridge, which is improperly ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... mind,[ry] Which Flattery fooled not, Baseness could not blind, Deceit infect not, near Contagion soil, Indulgence weaken, nor Example spoil,[rz] Nor mastered Science tempt her to look down On humbler talents with a pitying frown, Nor Genius swell, nor Beauty render vain, Nor Envy ruffle to retaliate pain,[sa] Nor Fortune change, Pride raise, nor Passion bow, Nor Virtue teach austerity—till now. 30 Serenely purest of her sex that live,[sb] But wanting one sweet weakness—to forgive; Too shocked at faults her soul ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... Elsie," was the impetuous reply. "I must sing and dance my joy, it's such a splendid opportunity. Why shouldn't I crow over the nasty proud thing? She needs somebody to ruffle her, and I can do that part better than any one else in the school.—You don't mind my having a little fun, do you, Nellie? she's ...
— Aunt Judith - The Story of a Loving Life • Grace Beaumont
... the modest and forbearing carriage which is supposed to belong more distinctly to civil than to military life. No novelty of situation, no provocation of circumstance, nothing in the shape of annoyance or disaster, was suffered so to ruffle his mood as to make him heedless or indifferent to the claims or sensibilities of others. He never conceived that any of his virtues gave him a right to trespass upon the proprieties of social ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms
... had taken in the situation, this had seemed the only possible way to stop trouble without making any, and therefore, even now, bayonets were not fixed. Best not ruffle Price's Left Wing just now, if you could avoid it. For a new corporal it was well thought and done. But it was high noon, the clock not pushed back, and punctual Representatives strolling innocently towards their expected pay. There must be no time for a gathering and possible reaction. ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... Judy washes and irons every day while I'm deciding how to hand out the first sip of my trousseau to the neighbors, when Tom, in a dangerous blue-striped shirt, with a tie that melted into it in tone, blew over my hedge and landed at my side. He kissed the lace ruffle on my sleeve while I reproved him severely and settled down to enjoy him. But I didn't have such an awfully good time as I generally do with him. He was too full of another woman, and even a first cousin can be an exasperation in ...
— The Melting of Molly • Maria Thompson Daviess
... plain speaking, but it did not ruffle Elvira's composure in the slightest. She laughed and began to caress her spaniel. "Mad. Oh yes, we are all mad, and growing madder, but it is because they have huddled us together at the point of the sword, until now to be a Mormon means to be ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... parcel of gloves. I am just going to send him, said she, with a packet into that quarter, and if you will have the complaisance to step in, it will be ready in a moment, and he shall attend you to the place.—So I walk'd in with her to the far side of the shop: and taking up the ruffle in my hand which she laid upon the chair, as if I had a mind to sit, she sat down herself in her low chair, and I instantly sat ...
— A Sentimental Journey • Laurence Sterne
... stops and he looks angry. He looks quite furious, she thinks, and she almost calls to Maurits to take care. But it is too late, for Uncle Theodore has seized Maurits, crushed his ruffle, and is shaking him till he twists like an eel. Then he slings him from him with such force that Maurits staggers backwards any! would have fallen if he had not found support in a tree trunk. And there Maurits stands and gasps "What?" Yes, what else ...
— Invisible Links • Selma Lagerlof
... Pomerania rode home. She knew her landfall and seemed to quicken. Steadily swinging on the jade-green surges, she buried her nose almost to the hawse-pipes, then lifted until her streaming forefoot gleamed out of a frilled ruffle of foam. ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... business on the Lord's own day of rest? Why do you add up and consult and consider in the pauses of the sermon, or make opportunity for a business whisper in the porch, and on the way home? Why do you let the perplexities of servants, of means, of plans, ruffle your spirits on the one great day of freedom? Do not you know that even a debtor may walk abroad on Sunday, with no fear of a prison; and house doors may stand open, and no sheriff can enter. Shall it be worse with your ...
— Tired Church Members • Anne Warner
... tried to dress in imitation of the moneyed ones whom she served. The other girls were wont to wear severely tailored shirts, mannish ties, stocks, flat-heeled shoes, rough tweed skirts. Not so Myra. That delicate cup-like hollow at the base of her white throat was fittingly framed in a ruffle of frilly georgette. She did her hair in soft undulations that flowed away from forehead and temple, and she powdered her nose a hundred times a day. Her little shoes were high-heeled and her hands were miraculously white, and if you prefer Rosalind ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber
... playfully ruffle her feathers, and she would respond by turning to him so coquettishly that they would touch their bills together, so the hours would as they billed and cooed ...
— Chico: the Story of a Homing Pigeon • Lucy M. Blanchard
... secession in sight his one aim was to get out of the White House before the scrap began. He was of course on terms of intimacy with all the secession leaders, especially Mr. Slidell, of Louisiana, like himself a Northerner by birth, and Mr. Mason, a thick-skulled, ruffle-shirted Virginian. It was not in him or in Mr. Pierce, with their antecedents and associations, to be uncompromising Federalists. There was no clear law to go on. Moderate men were in a muck of doubt just what to do. With Horace Greeley Mr. Buchanan was ready to say "Let the erring sisters ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... veranda are hung two little AEolian harps, which, at the least ruffle of the breeze running through their blades of grass, emit a gentle tinkling sound, like the harmonious murmur of a brook; outside, to the very farthest limits of the distance, the cicalas continue their ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... place the flask of Green Chartreuse and a liqueur-glass on the table, drop one drip of the liquid into the glass, burn a stinking pastille of incense, place a Birmingham "god" or an opening lily before him, ruffle his hair, and sprawl on the sofa with a wicked French novel he could not read—hoping for visitors and ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... a great matter, in praying to God, not to go too far; nor come too short; and a man is very apt to do one or the other. The Pharisee went so far, he was too bold; he came into the temple making, such a ruffle with his own excellencies, there was in his thoughts no need of ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin
... where Syd was gazing down fifty feet or so at his friend, who still swam on toward where the sailor was waiting, and in happy ignorance of the nearness of one of the sharks. Syd could see right down into the clear water whenever the disturbance made by the lad's strokes did not ruffle the surface, and his starting eyes were plunged down into the depths in search ...
— Syd Belton - The Boy who would not go to Sea • George Manville Fenn
... dress, covered and drawn up in what are called festoons, with light wreaths of beautiful flowers; the sleeves, white crape drawn over the silk, with a row of lace round the sleeve near the shoulder, another half-way down the arm, and a third upon the top of the ruffle,—a little stuck between,—a kind of hat-cap with three large feathers and a bunch of flowers,—a wreath ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... angry. No, you can not be angry. You never are. The most trying and provoking things, I observe, can not ruffle you. So I will venture to say, that I think you don't play fair by me. We are both here chiefly to make ourselves agreeable, I believe; and I sometimes wish I had a little more assistance in that duty ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... arrayed as becomes the Frau Freiherrinn," said the housewife aunt, looking with concern at the coarse texture of her black sleeve. "I long to see our own lady ruffle it in her new gear. I am glad that the lofty pointed cap has passed out; the coif becomes my child far better, and I see our tastes still ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the moment she had finished a hurried toilet. She got herself impatiently into a wrapper of dark red cashmere, which fastened at the waist with cords and heavy tassels. A little ruffle of lace bound her throat, and her feet were thrust into dainty slippers, her beautiful hair hung in two long braids down her back, making a perfect picture of her en deshabille. She walked stealthily to the door of the sick room, and seeing the dim eyes of her loved invalid ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... afoot—"The Yellow Book"? And hadn't Henry Harland, as editor, accepted my essay? And wasn't it to be in the very first number? At Oxford I was still in statu pupillari. In London I regarded myself as very much indeed a graduate now—one whom no Soames could ruffle. Partly to show off, partly in sheer good-will, I told Soames he ought to contribute to "The Yellow Book." He uttered from the throat a sound of scorn for ...
— Enoch Soames - A Memory of the Eighteen-nineties • Max Beerbohm
... his cap and bells, dancing to the god of laughter; mylady of the pink-tea circle, in her huffing, puffing gasoline-car, fleeing the monster of ennui; the bride and bridegroom at the altar or before the mayor putting on their already heavy-ruffled garments the sacred ruffle of law or religion; the babe brought to church by his mother and kindred to have the priest-tailor sew on his new garment the ruffle of baptism; the soldier in his gaudy uniform; the king in his ermine with a crown and sceptre appended; the Nabob of Ind in his gorgeous and ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... singularly long ramble with no other companion than a young gentleman, whom he did not exactly expect to see; all these are circumstances, individually perhaps slight, and yet, encountered collectively, it may be doubted they would not a little ruffle even the sweetest temper. ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... quarrelsome one. Quite the contrary. These differences are only occasions for a little self-excuse,—nothing more. In general they are as easy and careless, and dispute as seldom, as any common acquaintances may; for it is neither worth their while to put each other out of the way, nor to ruffle themselves. ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... place, power, was hushed to repose. Silence reigned through the halls of the capitol, save the cautious tread and whispered inquiry of anxious questioners. The soul of a sage, a patriot, a Christian, is preparing to depart from the world!—no sound is heard to ruffle its sweet serenity!—a calmness and peace, fitting ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... parties got most potently convinced, or rather confounded, by liquor. Now came on confusion and uproar. The free trappers were no longer suffered to have all the swagger to themselves. The camp bullies and prime trappers of the party began to ruffle up, and to brag, in turn, of their perils and achievements. Each now tried to out-boast and out-talk the other; a quarrel ensued as a matter of course, and a general fight, according to frontier usage. The two ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... cap ruffle and tucker, the lace 5 shillings per Yard, 1 pair White Stays, 8 pair White Kid gloves, 2 pair coloured kid gloves, 2 pair worsted hose, 3 pair thread hose, 1 pair silk shoes laced, 1 pair morocco shoes, 1 Hoop Coat, 1 Hat, 4 pair plain Spanish shoes, 2 pair calf shoes, 1 mask, ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle
... women; nevertheless, I can understand how a man of weak principle and violent temper, or a man possessed of a desire to get to a particular spot not favoured by Jane, or by a wish to reach any spot by a certain hour,—I can understand how such a man, carried away by helpless wrath, might possibly ruffle Jane's sad-coloured hair with the toe ...
— Penelope's English Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... well as I that it does make a difference with nearly everyone, so don't ruffle up like a dear, motherly hen, when your chickens get pecked by smarter birds. The ugly duckling turned out a swan, you know." and Amy smiled without bitterness, for she possessed a happy temper and ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... of which set all the youth of Alverstoke—and Gosport too, for that matter—by the ears, a wealth of long silky golden hair, which persisted in twisting itself into a most distracting conglomeration of wavy curls, and a temper which nothing—not even her mother's querulousness—could ruffle. ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... mother of Dora Holmes, was the original owner of the dresses. She died at the age of ninety-eight two or three years ago. One of the dresses is still in the possession of the daughter. It has a skirt with nine gores and a twelve-inch headed ruffle. ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Arkansas Narratives Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... an' whis'len squall Do sheaeke the ivy by the wall, An' meaeke the plyen tree-tops rock, But never ruffle her white frock; An' slammen door an' rattlen lock, That in thik empty house do sound, Do never seem to meaeke look round Thik ever ...
— Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes
... then were covered with fringed, drooping eyelashes. She had braids of dark hair wreathed around her head, a soft pink color in her cheeks, and a rosebud mouth, womanly, fresh, and lovely. Kate was clad in a pink muslin dress, with a tiny white ruffle around her white throat. She was armed with four steely needles, which were so many bright arrows that pierced my heart through and through. Over her fingers glided a small blue thread, which proceeded from the ball of yarn ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... prosperous circumstances had his bands made entirely of point lace, or of fine lawn edged with point lace; and as he wore them in society as well as in court, he was constantly requiring a fresh supply of them. Few accidents were more likely to ruffle a Templar's equanimity than a mishap to his band occurring through his own inadvertence or carelessness on the part of a servant. At table the pieces of delicate lace-work were exposed to many dangers. Continually were they stained ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... auricle continually bobbing into the aperture. She made, however, every exertion to keep her mouth closed and look dignified, in a dress consisting of a newly starched and ironed shroud coming up close under her chin, with a crimpled ruffle of cambric muslin. ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... therefore, to Arethusa's mind, they were similarly arrayed for an Occasion. She could admire whole-heartedly the soft sweep of the folds of Elinor's gown without one iota of unhappiness because her own frock hung in straight thick gathers with but a ruffle edged with lace at the bottom of the skirt ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox
... from the oysters; add the water, and heat. When near the boil, add the seasoning, then the oysters. Cook about five minutes from the time they begin to simmer, until they "ruffle." Stir in the butter, cook one minute, and pour into the tureen. Stir in the boiling milk and send to table. Some prefer all water ...
— The Whitehouse Cookbook (1887) - The Whole Comprising A Comprehensive Cyclopedia Of Information For - The Home • Mrs. F.L. Gillette
... tea the centerpiece is an oblong piece of satin in any preferred color edged with a ruffle of white lace. In the center of this is a tall vase holding a miscellaneous bouquet, and at the corners of the centerpiece are small vases of similar design holding similar bouquets. All edibles are on the table at once, there is no removing of courses. The teacups, silver teapot with satin ...
— Breakfasts and Teas - Novel Suggestions for Social Occasions • Paul Pierce
... irritable, and the least contradiction—even the assertion of an opinion—would ruffle him. Once, when Marcus had proposed discontinuing his evening visits, Mr. Gaythorne had appeared ...
— Doctor Luttrell's First Patient • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... like the first volume of a novel the end of which is lost. We are tempted to question this unknown person, and say, "Who are you?" "Why are you lounging here?" "By what right do you wear that pleated ruffle, that faded waistcoat, and carry that cane with an ivory top; why those blue spectacles; for what reason do you cling to that cravat of a dead and gone fashion?" Among these wandering creations some belong to the species of the Greek Hermae; ...
— Ferragus • Honore de Balzac
... swiftly, deftly, combing a refractory curl into fluffiness, perking up a drooping ruffle at the neck, or shaking a pillow into plumpness so that the head might have a better pose. Meanwhile the sick woman, frowning prodigiously, and openly scoffing at the whole procedure, was, in spite of herself, beginning to tingle with a ...
— Pollyanna • Eleanor H. Porter
... followed led us lengthwise through the wonderful Santa Clara country, straight up a wide box plait of valley tucked in between an ornamental double ruffle of mountains. I suppose if we passed one ranch we passed a thousand—cattle ranches, fruit ranches, hen ranches, chicken ranches, bee ranches—all the ...
— Roughing it De Luxe • Irvin S. Cobb
... that a certain degree of mental repose—or what may possibly be called imperturbableness—is necessary to influence. Mrs. Flutter Budget always talks in a hurry, and talks of a thousand things, and is easily excited. Her neighbor, carefully avoiding the causes which ruffle her, and preserving the poise of her faculties, insists on her point quietly, and carries it. The repose of equanimity is a charm which dissolves all opposition. The mind which shows itself open to influences from every quarter, and is swayed by them, ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... bonny mare! I've ridden you when Claver'se rode behind, And from the thumbscrew and the boot you bore me like the wind; And while I have the life you saved, on your sleek flank, I swear, Episcopalian rowel shall never ruffle hair! Though sword to wield they've left me none—yet Wallace wight I wis, Good battle did, on Irvine side, wi' waur weapon ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... as you please," replied the pedagogue; "it certainly does ruffle people's temper when there is a verdict of wilful murder, and two hundred pounds for apprehension and conviction ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat
... answered Rosemary, blowing out the candle. "I'm not afraid of the dark." Moreover, it was not the general policy of the household to ruffle Grandmother's ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... so long since I wrote that I must write, I must ruffle your thoughts with a little breath from my side. Listen to me, my dear friend. That I have not written has scarcely been my fault, but my misfortune rather, for I have been quite unstrung and overcome by agitation and anxiety, and ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... alcove of the Anchorage Restaurant, a feeding-ground which had lately sprung into favour. Opposite her sat Ronnie, confronting the ruins of what had been a dish of prawns in aspic. Cool and clean and fresh-coloured, he was good to look on in the eyes of his companion, and yet, perhaps, there was a ruffle in her soul that called for some answering disturbance on the part of that superbly tranquil young man, and certainly called in vain. Cicely had set up for herself a fetish of onyx with eyes of jade, and doubtless hungered at times with an unreasonable but perfectly ...
— When William Came • Saki
... and of change is the form of the fashion that man may behold of it wrought: Of iron and truth is the mystic mid altar, where worship is none but of thought. No prayer may go up to it, climbing as incense of gladness or sorrow may climb: No rapture of music may ruffle the silence that guards it, and hears not of time. As the winds of the wild blind ages alternate in passion of light and of cloud, So changes the shape of the veil that enshrouds it with darkness and light for a shroud. And the winds and the clouds and the suns fall silent, and fade out of ...
— A Channel Passage and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... something; and 'twou'd anger us vilely to be truss'd up for a Rape upon a Maid of Quality, when we only believe we ruffle a Harlot. ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... it may ruffle human feeling to compel a man to do harm to his own Fatherland, and indirectly to fight his own troops, none the less no army operating in an enemy's country will altogether renounce this ...
— Gems (?) of German Thought • Various
... the dress was simplicity itself. There was not a superfluous ruffle or ribbon. Its sole design was not to attract attention to itself, but to reveal the superb charms of the woman who wore it, with every breath she breathed, ...
— The One Woman • Thomas Dixon
... heated affray with a dirty cook, and was inclined to battle when he presented himself. In a few minutes she was inclined to battle no longer. She let him have the room. Cantankerous restrictions did not ruffle him. ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... before the Honourable Sir William Thompson,[77] in order to procure a warrant. There they made an affidavit of the several circumstances attending their discovery, and Sir William upon the examination also of a lady (who produced a piece of lace before she had seen the ruffle, and declared that if it were Mr. Darby's it must tally therewith, which on a comparison it did exactly) granted a warrant. It appeared also at the same time, upon the oath of Mr. Willoughby, that the day Mr. Darby was murdered, Fisher borrowed half-a-crown ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... accomplished, with a wit Lambent yet bland, like summer lightning; Venomless rapier-point, whose "hit" Was palpable, yet painless. Brightening E'en, party conflict with a touch Of old-world grace fight could not ruffle! Faith, GRANVILLE, we shall miss thee much Where kites and ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, April 11, 1891 • Various
... rattlesnake uses its rattle, the cobra expands its frill and the puff-adder swells while hissing so loudly and harshly, in order to alarm the many birds and beasts which are known to attack even the most venomous species. Snakes act on the same principle which makes the hen ruffle her feathers and expand her wings when a dog approaches her chickens. But I have not space here to enlarge on the many ways by which animals endeavour to frighten ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin
... couple of belligerent puppies. Another moment and they would have forgotten the sacred traditions of their class and flown at each other's hair. But Miss Bascom interposed. Even the loss of her uninsured million did not ruffle her, for she had another in Government and railroad bonds, and full confidence in her brother, who was an admirable business man, and not in the ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... soon returned from the audience? Did aught transpire to ruffle thy temper? Or, mayhap," he continued with a laugh, "His Majesty did read thee an essay on How to Take Snuff Without a Nose, or some other learned ...
— The Fifth of November - A Romance of the Stuarts • Charles S. Bentley
... were a Robin, A Robin or a little Wren, everywhere to go; Through forest, field, or garden, And ask no leave or pardon, Till Winter comes with icy thumbs To ruffle up our wing. ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... been this woman's companion for more than five weeks; that she had accepted each new discomfort and peril without complaint; that he had guarded her night after night in the lonely forests? A slender thread of golden flame encircled her throat, and disappeared below the ruffle of lace. Doubtless it was a locket; and perchance poor Victor's face lay close to that warmly beating heart. What evil star shone over him that day when he crushed her likeness beneath his foot without looking ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... believe it," I answered; "he would take very good care of that. Just look at the chap. . . . And I—I did not ruffle a hair of your head. He is very good at picking violets; but, take my word for it, in a case of danger, don't make ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... presence, yet to have left her would have been worse than death: How fondly did my eyes devour whatever they could gaze on without being perceived! the flowers on her gown, the point of her pretty foot, the interval of a round white arm that appeared between her glove and ruffle, the least part of her neck, each object increased the force of all the rest, and added to the infatuation. Gazing thus on what was to be seen, and even more than was to be seen, my sight became confused, my chest seemed contracted, respiration was every moment more painful. I had ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... but we can all sit hard on him and perhaps put him in his place," responded Letitia Cockrell, as she drew a fine thread through a ruffle she was making to adorn some part of the person of one of Nell's progeny. "I do not believe in ever allowing a man to take more than his ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... reward, but their eyes are scarcely fixed upon mundane munificence, already their scale of values is a spiritual one. But it is just these delicate, sensitive folk, susceptible to the gossamer impulses that would never even ruffle the surface of the average man's mind, who are open to the urge of spirit and responsive to its "drive." So they answer to the helm and steer out into the unknown, while the more sleek, comfortable, and well-fed do not so much as guess that there has been any impulse at all. "H'm," say ...
— Spirit and Music • H. Ernest Hunt
... first, and then in strength, reflected on the sea. The men of the Dogana watch-boat challenged us and let us pass. Madonna's lamp was twinkling from her shrine upon the harbour-pile. The city grew before us. Stealing into Venice in that calm—stealing silently and shadowlike, with scarce a ruffle of the water, the masses of the town emerging out of darkness into twilight, till San Giorgio's gun boomed with a flash athwart our stern, and the gas-lamps of the Piazzetta swam into sight; all this was like a long enchanted chapter of romance. ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... Silence and coolness now the earth enfold: Jewels of glittering green, long mists of gold, Hazes of nebulous silver veil the height, And shake in tremors through the shadowy night. Heard through the stillness, as in whispered words, The wandering God-guided wings of birds Ruffle the dark. The little lives that lie Deep hid in grass join in a long-drawn sigh More softly still; and unheard through the blue The falling of innumerable dew, Lifts with grey fingers all the leaves that lay Burned in the heat of the consuming ...
— By Still Waters - Lyrical Poems Old and New • George William Russell
... night. Grandmother Pardee came on later. She was a woman of great energy, and brought up her sons so well that they all became leading men in the communities in which they lived. Grandmother Butler was also a capable, fearless woman, and so calm and firm that it was said no vexation was ever known to ruffle her temper. ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler
... disconsolate way that cut Antoine to the heart. A long-tailed paroquet, which she had brought with her in the ship, walked solemnly behind her from room to room, mutely pining, it seemed, for those heavy orient airs that used to ruffle its brilliant plumage. ...
— Pere Antoine's Date-Palm • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... a plaited ruffle of the wide sleeve, and Mary felt that he had never less thought of her than when he so touched her dress. She put aside the deep little pang that gave her to say: "It's true, Jack, she ought to have young ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... a long time finding that for which she was searching among the clothes hanging on a row of nails, and Susie, rolling her eyes in that direction, was sure, very sure, that she saw Teacher dab at her lashes with the frilly ruffle of a petticoat before she ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart
... fig for dreams and visions! Yes, for shame, dearest! Drive away those fancies; try to despise them. Why do I sleep so well? Why am I never ailing? Look at ME, beloved. I live well, I sleep peacefully, I retain my health, I can ruffle it with my juniors. In fact, it is a pleasure to see me. Come, come, then, sweetheart! Let us have no more of this. I know that that little head of yours is capable of any fancy—that all too easily you take to dreaming and repining; but for my ...
— Poor Folk • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... straw beds, they had two pigeons for supper, on a dirty cloth, with wooden handled knives. "Oh!" exclaimed he, "what a transition from happy England!" But they laughed at the repast; and went to bed with a determination that nothing should ruffle their temper. In their way to St. Omer's, they passed through a very fine corn country, diversified with woods; and Captain Nelson, though a Norfolk man, acknowledged it to be the best place for game he had ever known. Partridges, ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison
... too far, it becomes a vice. I think I could commit a murder with less hesitation than some people buy a ninepenny calico. And to see that man stand there, balancing probabilities over a piece of ground no bigger than a bed-quilt, as if a nation's fate were at stake, was enough to ruffle a calmer temper than mine. My impetuosity impressed him, however, and he began to lay about him vigorously with hoe and rake and lines, and, in an incredibly short space of time, had a bit of square ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... in uncaptured parts of the redoubt still beat a tattoo like the ruffle of war-drums, and from behind the barriers in the Big Willie trench came the sharp crack of English rifles, and dull explosions of other bombs flung by other Englishmen very hard ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... course," continued Portsmouth, dangling the coat before the wondering eyes of all. "The lace, the ruffle, becomes his complexion. He fits everything here ...
— Mistress Nell - A Merry Tale of a Merry Time • George C. Hazelton, Jr.
... straw-bonnet, with a shawl pinned across the saddle, will unblushingly thrust itself into companionship with a handsome English horse, whose owner is graced by the most unexceptionable habit and other appliances. Even the very donkeys walk along with dignified resolution, as if determined to ruffle it with the best, and not yield an inch of their prerogative. In fact, they evidently know their own value, and remember that not one of the hills around—not the giant tree on the heights of Lugliano, nor the tempting strawberry-gardens ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 431 - Volume 17, New Series, April 3, 1852 • Various
... brought quickly to him a fresh cigarette, and he savored its rank smoke with satisfaction. The slender canoe swung like a hammock in the long, sluggish rollers. The sun blazed pitilessly upon us, and no slightest ruffle of white broke the surface of the calm, unrelenting sea that ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... Attorney-General of James I., the commentator of Littleton. As a man, his name ought to arouse our indignation, for his licentious tongue, his fierce brutality, and his cold and tasteless genius. He whose vileness could even ruffle the great spirit of Rawleigh, was the shameless persecutor of the ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... "I shall like the ruffle of tonight," said he, "better than I ever thought to do the clashing of steel, if it brings my daughter to her senses, Harry, and teaches her what thou art worth. By St. Macgrider! I even love these roysterers, and am sorry for that poor lover who will never wear left handed ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... had been placed under an air-pump. Miss Pew had a horror of draughts, so the upper sashes were only lowered a couple of inches, to let out the used atmosphere. There was no chance of a gentle west wind blowing in to ruffle the loose hair upon the ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... lace and it had a long train. I wore long white gloves. Tucks went 'round my petticoat from de knees to de lace what aidged de bottom, and my draw's was white cambric, gathered at de knee wid a wide ruffle what was tucked and trimmed up pretty. I married on Saddy night and dat called for a second day dress, 'cause I jus' had to go to church next day and show dat man off. Anyhow, my second day dress was blue cotton wid white lace on it, and I wore a big white plumed hat draped ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... season when the children make a row, And you have to bear it patiently—although you don't know how— When they will not let you slumber in your comfortable chair, But crawl and tumble over you and ruffle up your hair— When TOM and DICK are home from school with all their nasty tricks, And have terrific combats with a pair of single-sticks— When Auntie comes to stay with us, and always takes their parts. And you smile a sickly smile, and murmur, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 7, 1893 • Various
... point it out, and I would have taken it back, with all the kindness in the world. I do not deal in that way. If I have brought forward anything not a fact, if he will point it out, it will not even ruffle me to take it back. But if he will not point out anything erroneous in the evidence, is it not rather for him to show, by a comparison of the evidence, that I have reasoned falsely, than to call the "kind, amiable, intelligent gentleman" a liar? ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... think at last youth and nature began to rebel, and secretly to crave some little change or incident to ruffle the stagnant pool. Yet she would not go into society, and would only receive two or three dull people at the villa; so she made the very monotony which was beginning to tire her, and nursed a sacred grief she had no need to nurse, it ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... that strange chain of circumstances in which his race had been involved, had run its course, and had spent itself in the conflict with a woman's love. Beyond that there was nothing but the smooth haven of rest, which no blast of evil could ruffle, and into which no overwhelming wave ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... tell me everything. Does she pet you and call you funny names and ruffle your hair the ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... great scheme of Lutheranising England to the greater glory of himself was irrevocably wrecked, and his own fate sealed. The king went on to say that if it were not that the lady had come so far, and for fear of making a ruffle in the world, and of driving her brother into the emperor's arms and those of the French king, he would not go ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... private matters amongst themselves—but with brightening eyes) to women friends over tea; and always to a new woman friend. And on such occasions she would be particularly tender towards the unconscious Job, and ruffle his thin, sandy hair in a way that embarrassed him in company—made him look as sheepish as an old big-horned ram that has just been shorn and turned amongst the ewes. And the woman friend on parting would give Job's ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson
... brows drawn up, as he waited for an answer, of what the old books call "quizzical"—a sort of half-caressing irony, which was very attractive. He had an impatient little frown which passed over his face, like a ruffle of wind, if things went too slowly or heavily for his taste; and he had, too, on occasions a deep, abstracted look, as if he were following a thought far. There was also another look, well known to ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... Mary Bell, crimping a pink ruffle with careful finger-tips. "I was working on this when he came, and after he'd gone I crumpled it all up and cried all over it! Well, I guess I didn't sleep much, and finally, I got up early, and wrote a letter to Aunt ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris
... above suspicion; and benefit of clergy is nothing to the privilege and virtue of a handsome exterior. That the skin is nearer than the shirt, is a most false and mistaken idea. The smoothest skin in Christendom would not weigh with a jury like a cambric ruffle; and moreover, there is not a poor devil in town striving to keep up appearances in spite of fortune, who would not far rather tear his flesh than his unmentionables; which can only arise from their being so much more important a part of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 392, Saturday, October 3, 1829. • Various
... noted again his snowy, waving hair, thin only on his pink crown. It shone like silk. He still kept a soft flush of unimpaired health and an air of inner cleanness equal to that which showed outwardly from gaitered shoes to the bell-crowned beaver in his hand. She observed the wide cambric ruffle that ran down his much-displayed, much-pleated shirt-front. His stiff, high stock was tied with a limp white bow-knot. His standing collar covered half of either cheek. He wore a jewelled breastpin and a heavy gold fob-chain and seal. In his too delicate hand, along with the ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... sacrificed, as some people would call it, to the scraps. When you want a rag or a bone or a hank of hair in our house, all you will have to do is to pull out an easy sliding drawer without opening a door that sticks, or crawling into a dark corner, or having to light a candle, or doing anything to ruffle your temper or your hair. A flood of brilliant sunlight or moonlight will pour into my rag-drawer, and a few pawings of your unoccupied hand will bring everything to the top. Won't that ...
— At Home with the Jardines • Lilian Bell
... misfortunes by sewing a sort of canvas ruffle round the skirts, by way of a continuation or supplement to the original work, and by doing the same with ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... how pretty he is. His back has the most beautiful smooth shining stripes of reddish brown and black, his eyes shine like bright glass beads, and he sits up jauntily on his hind quarters, with his little tail thrown over his back like a ruffle. ...
— Queer Little Folks • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... uniformly grey of late, with no wind to ruffle its surface or to speed the barges dropping slowly and sullenly down with the tide through a blurring haze. I watched one yesterday, its useless sails half-furled and no sign of life save the man at the helm. It drifted stealthily past, and a little behind, flying low, came a solitary seagull, ...
— The Roadmender • Michael Fairless
... feelings as a daughter, all that I know, all that I answer for, is that you can have given him no just cause of offence. He certainly is greatly, very greatly discomposed; I have seldom seen him more so. His temper is not happy, and something has now occurred to ruffle it in an uncommon degree; some disappointment, some vexation, which just at this moment seems important, but which I can hardly suppose you to have any concern in, for how ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... Lecount's resolution not to be offended, Captain Wragge's exasperating insensibility to every stroke she aimed at him began to ruffle her. She was conscious of some little difficulty in securing her self-possession before she could say ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... reformed in the church of England. Is it so hard, is it so great a matter for you to see many abuses in the clergy, many in the laity? What is done in the Arches? Nothing to be amended? What do they there? Do they evermore rid the people's business and matters, or cumber and ruffle them? Do they evermore correct vice, or else defend it, sometime being well corrected in other places? How many sentences be given there in time, as they ought to be? If men say truth, how many without bribes? Or if all things be well done there, what ...
— Sermons on the Card and Other Discourses • Hugh Latimer
... resources; was charmed to know he should not run in debt, and entertained them magnificently. His end was calm and gay, like his life, though he suffered terribly, and he said so extraordinary a life could not finish in a common way. To a lady who had set her ruffle on fire, and scorched her arm about the same time, he said, "Madame, nous brulons du meme feu." The poor Queen had sent him the very night-gown that occasioned his death: he wrote to her, "C'etoit pour me tenir chaud, mais il m'a ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... rescued her— (She did so ruffle her hair; If ever she plays that trick again She'll have to be left ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... looked at it in reverent silence. Oh, how pretty it was—a lovely soft brown gloria with all the gloss of silk; a skirt with dainty frills and shirrings; a waist elaborately pintucked in the most fashionable way, with a little ruffle of filmy lace at the neck. But the sleeves—they were the crowning glory! Long elbow cuffs, and above them two beautiful puffs divided by rows of shirring and bows ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... young Van Ariens with that negative politeness which dashes a sensitive man and makes him resentfully conscious that he has been rendered incapable of doing himself justice. And Rem could neither define the sense of humiliation he felt, nor yet ruffle the courteous urbanity of Hyde; though he tried in various ways to introduce some conversation which would afford him the pleasure of contradiction. Equally he failed to consider that his barely veiled antagonism compelled from the Doctor, and even from Cornelia and Arenta, attentions ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... and parsimonious in his disposition,—worth $ 50,000, made by his profession.—A clergyman, elderly, with a white neckcloth, very unbecoming, an unworldly manner, unacquaintance with the customs of the house, and learning them in a childlike way. A ruffle to his shirt, crimped.—A gentleman, young, handsome, and sea-flushed, belonging to Oswego, New York, but just arrived in port from the Mediterranean: he inquires of me about the troubles in Canada, which were first beginning to make a noise when ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Mademoiselle Claire," Pierre said reverently. "Of what good would that disguise be to you, when your face would betray you in the darkest street? You must ruffle your hair, and pull that hood over your face, so as to hide it ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty
... Tracts," or "Tracks," as it was usually pronounced—an epithet first given in scorn, but afterwards generally used without any unkindly feeling. Indeed, he was rather proud of it than otherwise; nor could the taunts and gibes which not unfrequently accompanied it ever ruffle in the least his good- ...
— True to his Colours - The Life that Wears Best • Theodore P. Wilson
... aoibhinn! O pleasant little branch, is there regard in you for the last words of the dead woman?" The old cailleach had come again to ruffle the grave silence about young Shane ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... the knight. "Avaunt! Conduct the lady hither, hostess; Bardolph, another cup of sack. We will ruffle it, lad, and go to France all gold, like Midas! Are mine eyes too red? I must look sad, you know, and sigh very pitifully. Ah, we will ruffle it! Another cup of sack, Bardolph;—I am a rogue if I have drunk to-day. And avaunt! ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... said the lieutenant, looking very penitent, and offering his hand. "I wouldn't say a word to ruffle your sensitive feelings, I do assure you." Miss Pemberton, being appeased, gave her hand to the lieutenant, and though she at first showed some signs of trepidation, stepped without difficulty into the sternsheets of the boat. She was followed by ...
— Clara Maynard - The True and the False - A Tale of the Times • W.H.G. Kingston
... clouds were breaking before the wind, which was rising steadily, and some stars shone out, giving a little light. The dike lay deep between its banks and was not more than twenty feet in width, so that the air did not ruffle it; moreover, as any observer of nature will have noticed, the surface of still water is never quite dark, even on much ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... Love would smile, and ruffle up, The hair above my brow; And we would laugh at all that seems So very sober, now. And monkey-folk, and scarlet birds, Would peer from every tree, And try to understand the words My True Love ...
— Cross Roads • Margaret E. Sangster
... Charles Herle, who, after the death of Dr. Twisse, was made prolocutor in the Westminster Assembly, has been represented to have said, "The difference between us, and our brethren who are for independency, is nothing so great as some may conceive; at most, it does but ruffle the fringe, not any way rend the garment of Christ. It is so far from being a fundamental, that it is scarce a material difference."(20) We are informed that Richard Baxter was likewise accustomed to observe, that "if all the Presbyterians ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... the Viscount led Barnabas across the yard to a certain wing or off-shoot of the inn, where beneath a deep, shadowy gable was a door. Yet here he must needs pause a moment to glance down at himself to settle a ruffle and adjust his hat ere, lifting the latch, he ushered Barnabas ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... remonstrance. Field never used the rod; and in truth he wielded the cane with no great good will—holding it "like a dancer." It looked in his hands rather like an emblem than an instrument of authority; and an emblem, too, he was ashamed of. He was a good easy man, that did not care to ruffle his own peace, nor perhaps set any great consideration upon the value of juvenile time. He came among us, now and then, but often staid away whole days from us; and when he came, it made no difference to us—he had his ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... morning dress of soft pearl grey, over which she had tied an apron of white lawn with a dainty ruffle of embroidery below its hem. The peas danced merrily against the sides of an old-fashioned china bowl. Miss Diana had an aesthetic repugnance to the use of tin utensils ...
— A Beautiful Possibility • Edith Ferguson Black
... he would never suffer himself to be entrapped into a marriage with his cousin, even though she had bags of gold, and finally—and that was perhaps the sweetest thought of all—did she not know whether in faded homespun, guiltless of lace or ruffle, or in her best array, no one could look twice at Dorothy Ratcliffe ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall
... arm in the air, the forearm gracefully bent, the ruffle drooping, and my wrist curved, while my right arm, half extended, securely covered my wrist with the elbow, and ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... more like a pig-stye: there, in a room with two straw beds, they had two pigeons for supper, on a dirty cloth, with wooden handled knives. "Oh!" exclaimed he, "what a transition from happy England!" But they laughed at the repast; and went to bed with a determination that nothing should ruffle their temper. In their way to St. Omer's, they passed through a very fine corn country, diversified with woods; and Captain Nelson, though a Norfolk man, acknowledged it to be the best place for game he had ever known. Partridges, at Montrieul, were sold ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison
... perversion by that youthful mind, Which flattery fooled not, baseness could not blind, Deceit infect not, nor contagion soil, Indulgence weaken, or example spoil, Nor mastered science tempt her to look down On humbler talent with a pitying frown, Nor genius swell, nor beauty render vain, Nor envy ruffle to retaliate pain.' ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... prove happy, while these accord together: and as they disagree, prove unhappy: and I think it true, that it is better to be heady than wary; because Fortune is a mistresse; and it is necessary, to keep her in obedience to ruffle and force her: and we see, that she suffers her self rather to be masterd by those, than by others that proceed coldly. And therefore, as a mistresse, shee is a friend to young men, because they are lesse respective, more rough, and ...
— Machiavelli, Volume I - The Art of War; and The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... silver. He wore a long, hooded mantle reaching to the feet, and showing where it fell back in front a brown gaberdine clasped by a girdle. These sombre-colored robes were second-hand, as the austere simplicity of the Pragmatic required. The Jewish Council of Sixty did not permit its subjects to ruffle it like the Romans of those days of purple pageantry. The young bloods, forbidden by Christendom to style themselves signori, were forbidden by Judea to vie ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... Confederacy, when overwhelming forces from all sides pressed back her defenders, Lee for a year held his ground with a constantly-diminishing army, fighting battle after battle in the forests and swamps around Richmond. No reverses seemed to dispirit him, no misfortune appeared to ruffle his calm, brave temperament. Only at last, when he saw the remnants of his noble army about to be ridden down by Sheridan's cavalry, when eight thousand men, half-starved and broken with fatigue, were surrounded by the net which Grant and Sherman had spread around them, did ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke
... You're young and don't know the ways o' men. The first man I see you talking with, I shoot. You needn't fear, my dear, for accidents. I kin shoot all round you, under your arm, across your shoulders, over your head and between your fingers, my dear, and never start skin or fringe or ruffle. But I don't miss HIM. You sorter understand what I mean,' sez I,'so don't!' Ye noticed how my wife is respected, Mr. Wayne? Queen Victoria sittin' on her throne ain't in it with my Safie. But when I see YOU not herdin' with that cattle, never liftin' your eyes to me or ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... and spread running layers of froth in their hurry shoreward, the Pomerania rode home. She knew her landfall and seemed to quicken. Steadily swinging on the jade-green surges, she buried her nose almost to the hawse-pipes, then lifted until her streaming forefoot gleamed out of a frilled ruffle of foam. ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... Closet.—A pretty effect for the dish closet may be found in crepe paper. Some prefer white, but a tint harmonizing well with the china is pretty too. Have it to fall about three inches below the edge of the shelves and ruffle the edge of the paper by stretching it lightly between forefinger ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... was a candy and notion store, kept by an old woman with a queer wrinkled face framed in with a wide cap-ruffle. She had a funny turned-up nose, as if it had hardly known which way to grow, and such round red-apple cheeks. When it was pleasant, she sat in the doorway, regardless of the fate of the heroic young woman ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas
... said she, with a packet into that quarter, and if you will have the complaisance to step in, it will be ready in a moment, and he shall attend you to the place.—So I walk'd in with her to the far side of the shop: and taking up the ruffle in my hand which she laid upon the chair, as if I had a mind to sit, she sat down herself in her low chair, and I instantly sat myself ...
— A Sentimental Journey • Laurence Sterne
... and up the street, in whispering or boisterous gangs. And the isolation of the moment weighed upon him like an omen and an emblem of his destiny in life. Bred up in unbroken fear himself, among trembling servants, and in a house which (at the least ruffle in the master's voice) shuddered into silence, he saw himself on the brink of the red valley of war, and measured the danger and length of it with awe. He made a detour in the glimmer and shadow of the streets, came into ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... grim old Solomon, and Peter tried most desperately hard to ruffle his feathers, but he had none. Then he rose up, quaking, and for the first time since he stood on the window ledge, he remembered a lady who had been very ...
— Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie
... down into his glass tub and began to ruffle and splash, but Benjamin Wright did not notice him. Dr. Lavendar beamed. "You ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... qualm or two at my spiritual diet, Or (who can tell?) perchance even mustered Somewhat to urge in behalf of the sermon: But the flock sat on, divinely flustered, Sniffing, methought, its dew of Hermon With such content in every snuffle, As the devil inside us loves to ruffle. My old fat woman purred with pleasure, And thumb round thumb went twirling faster, While she, to his periods keeping measure, Maternally devoured the pastor. The man with the handkerchief untied it, Showed us a horrible wen inside it, Gave his eyelids ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... forced to drudge for the dregs of men, And scrawl strange words with the barbarous pen, And mingle among the jostling crowd, Where the sons of strife are subtle and loud— I often come to this quiet place, To breathe the airs that ruffle thy face, And gaze upon thee in silent dream, For in thy lonely and lovely stream An image of that calm life appears That won my heart ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... "Ruffle his hair, Turkey. Now you get down, too. 'The bleatin' of the kid excites the tiger.' You two are in such a sweatin' wax with me that you only curse. 'Member that. I'll tickle you up with a stump. You'll have to ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... sweet to stretch one's cramped wings to the sun, to ruffle and spread them, as a released bird will, but it was startling to find already little stiff habits arisen, little creaks and hindrances never suspected, that made flight in the high air not quite ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... wafted towards them a last farewell. The oars were shipped immediately and the sails hoisted, and, to the satisfaction of all on board, the Maid of the Isle gave indications of being a swift sailer, for, although the puff of wind was scarcely sufficient to ruffle the glassy surface of the sea, she glided through the water under its influence a good deal faster than she ...
— The Red Eric • R.M. Ballantyne
... a wrathful answer back: 'And if there were an hundred in the wood, And every man were larger-limbed than I, And all at once should sally out upon me, I swear it would not ruffle me so much As you that not obey me. Stand aside, And if I fall, cleave to the ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson
... a ruffle of tante-gra'mere's nightcap and whispered in her ear. She stirred, and struck out with one hand, encountering the candle flame. That brought her upright, staring with indignant black eyes ...
— Old Kaskaskia • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... his head and show his spirit before all these influential persons, who were laughing with all their might. He knew very well that he should look hopelessly ridiculous, and yet he felt consumed by a fierce desire to catch the bookseller by the throat, to ruffle the insolent composure of his cravat, to break the gold chain that glittered on the man's chest, trample his watch under his feet, and tear him in pieces. Mortified vanity opened the door to thoughts of vengeance, and inwardly he swore eternal enmity to that ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... please," replied the pedagogue; "it certainly does ruffle people's temper when there is a verdict of wilful murder, and two hundred pounds for apprehension and conviction of the ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat
... about the sloop, green and sleek and greedy. There was scarcely a ruffle on the water; only a huge slow heaving, as of some monster breathing deeply, and licking its lips ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... the other day," he said humbly, as if fearing to ruffle the temper of the officer, who seemed to be ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... Sometimes he would playfully ruffle her feathers, and she would respond by turning to him so coquettishly that they would touch their bills together, so the hours would as they billed ...
— Chico: the Story of a Homing Pigeon • Lucy M. Blanchard
... plump, curly-headed cherub of four years, with widely-opened grey eyes and a Cupid's bow of a mouth. Margot let Jim pass by with a nod, but her hand stretched out involuntarily to stroke Pat's cheek, and ruffle ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... large sharp-winged bird, with a cruel-looking mouth, like that belonging to Hookbeak, the hawk, who sometimes passed over the garden, and such bright yellow and black piercing eyes, that as soon as Bluescrags felt their glance meet his, he turned all of a shiver, and his feathers began to ruffle up as though he were wet. But there was no time to shiver or shake, for the great bird was coming after him at a terrible rate, every beat of his pointed wings sending him dashing through the air, and in another moment the strange, ...
— Featherland - How the Birds lived at Greenlawn • George Manville Fenn
... off! Along the street there comes A blare of bugles, a ruffle of drums, A flash of color beneath the sky: Hats off! The flag ...
— The Little Book of the Flag • Eva March Tappan
... is evenness of temper. In the wooing days everyone is a lamb, and only becomes the howling wolf after marriage. Circumstances that ruffle the temper in the presence of the intended are but like the harmless squib, but would become like the explosive torpedo in his or her absence or in after-marriage. Quarreling caused by matrimonial differences is the most frequent cause of infelicity, and most of it is caused by ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous
... a few steps that Deronda had to go for the water. Gwendolen was wrapped in the lightest, softest of white woolen burnouses, under which her hands were hidden. While he was gone she had drawn off her glove, which was finished with a lace ruffle, and when she put up her hand to take the glass and lifted it to her mouth, the necklace-bracelet, which in its triple winding adapted itself clumsily to her wrist, was necessarily conspicuous. Grandcourt saw it, and saw that it was attracting ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... any day if he could roll them in a piece of fudge," he called. Slim only smiled sweetly as he watched the experimental spoonful being dropped into the cup of water. Nothing could ruffle ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... afterward, as sometimes happens. Right then I heard Sally coming, so I grabbed Miss Amelia and dragged her under the fourposter, where I always hid when caught doing something I shouldn't. But Sally had so much stuff she couldn't keep all of it on the bed, and when she stooped and lifted the ruffle to shove a box under, she pushed it right against us, and knelt to look, and there ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter
... shines upon the tranquil scene. Dark, heavy clouds obscure the sky; a suffocating heat depresses the spirits and enervates the frame; sharp, short gusts of wind now ruffle the inky waters, and the floating islands sink into insignificance as the deceptive haze which elevated them flies before the approaching storm. The ducks are gone, and the plaintive notes of the whip-poor-will are hushed as the ...
— Hudson Bay • R.M. Ballantyne
... sailor-suit, and under a broad-brimmed straw hat, with one stocking about his ankle, and two shoes, averaging about two buttons each, I recognized my nephew, Budge! About the same time there emerged from the bushes by the roadside a smaller boy in a green gingham dress, a ruffle which might once have been white, dirty stockings, blue slippers worn through at the toes, and an old-fashioned straw-turban. Thrusting into the dust of the road a branch from a bush, and shouting, "Here's my grass-cutter!" he ran toward us enveloped in a "pillar of cloud," which might have served ...
— Helen's Babies • John Habberton
... him to Mrs. Todd. She assured me that it was a great pleasure to meet me, a statement entirely at variance with the severity of her countenance and the promptness with which she passed me on to Professor Ruffle, who combined the chair of modern languages with the business management of the college. He with a dexterous twist consigned me to his good lady, and thus I passed from hand to ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... bent her beautiful head, observing him closely. Following her eyes, Ronnie saw a ruffle of old lace falling from the 'cellist's throat, a broad crimson ribbon crossing his breast, on ...
— The Upas Tree - A Christmas Story for all the Year • Florence L. Barclay
... explanation possible, I am sure. See how the skirt is stained, and the lace ruffle is almost ...
— Gordon Craig - Soldier of Fortune • Randall Parrish
... not unwelcome, though, indeed, ashy enough way, reminded of the ultimate exhaustion even of the most fiery life; judge how to me this unwarrantable vitality in my wife must come, sometimes, it is true, with a moral and a calm, but oftener with a breeze and a ruffle. ...
— I and My Chimney • Herman Melville
... butter a while in this shade," she said to herself, "and pick a bouquet for my knight's mom." From the grassy roadside she gathered yellow and gold butter-and-eggs, blue spikes of false dragon's head, and edged them with a lacy ruffle of wild carrot flowers. ...
— Amanda - A Daughter of the Mennonites • Anna Balmer Myers
... had been true to me, and he had clung to me stanchly in this, my greatest peril. Thankful that he was here, I searched his handsome person with my eyes. He was dressed as usual, with care and fashion, in linen breeches and a light gray coat and a filmy ruffle at his neck. But I thought there had come a change into his face. The reckless quality seemed to have gone out of it, yet the spirit and daring remained, and with these all the sweetness that was once in his smile. There were lines under his eyes ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... matter—by the ears, a wealth of long silky golden hair, which persisted in twisting itself into a most distracting conglomeration of wavy curls, and a temper which nothing—not even her mother's querulousness—could ruffle. ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... present him at last in their houses as a man of rare and exquisite conversation; and, there, just as a musician sings or a lute-player touches his lute before the people who have engaged him, Cydias, after having coughed, and lifted the ruffle from his wrist, stretched out his hand and opened his fingers, begins to retail his quintessential thoughts and his sophistical arguments.... He opens his mouth only to contradict. 'It seems to me,' ...
— Three French Moralists and The Gallantry of France • Edmund Gosse
... after you have repelled us by some frigid formal figure, a complimentary critic of this school should propose to place it as a frontispiece to a new edition of Potter or of Adam—applauding you the while for having faithfully preserved the classic costume. I tell you that the classic costume must ruffle and stir with passions kindred to our own, or it had better be left hanging against the wall. And what a deception it is that the scholastic imagination is perpetually imposing on itself in this matter! ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... sets of white even teeth were bared. They looked like a couple of belligerent puppies. Another moment and they would have forgotten the sacred traditions of their class and flown at each other's hair. But Miss Bascom interposed. Even the loss of her uninsured million did not ruffle her, for she had another in Government and railroad bonds, and full confidence in her brother, who was an admirable business man, and ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... with olive-colored satin ribbon half an inch wide laid in box pleats, chain-stitch it on the foundation along the inner edges with gold thread. Underlay the velvet with wadding, and line it with satin; join the two pieces of satin designed for the bottom over wadding, and edge the bottom with a ruffle of Bordeaux satin ribbon seven-eighths of an inch wide. The case is joined with narrow white satin ribbon. Bows of olive and Bordeaux satin ribbon trim the case as shown by the illustration. A full-sized design ...
— Harper's Young People, November 11, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... smooth hair and a fresh ruffle which Prudy had basted in the neck of her dress. She looked very neat and prim, and, as Percy had predicted, carried ...
— Dotty Dimple at Play • Sophie May
... at last youth and nature began to rebel, and secretly to crave some little change or incident to ruffle the stagnant pool. Yet she would not go into society, and would only receive two or three dull people at the villa; so she made the very monotony which was beginning to tire her, and nursed a sacred grief she had no need to nurse, it was ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... whose Sad proof reduces all things from their hues: She feared no ill, because she knew it not, Or what she knew was soon—too soon—forgot: 150 Her smiles and tears had passed, as light winds pass O'er lakes to ruffle, not destroy, their glass, Whose depths unsearched, and fountains from the hill, Restore their surface, in itself so still, Until the Earthquake tear the Naiad's cave, Root up the spring, and trample ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... the while her thoughts are my thoughts; her... But this will never do. It is enough that she trusts me, and that I deserve that she should. This is all that I can ever have or hope for; but I have won thus much; and I shall keep it. Not a doubt or fear, not a moment's ruffle of spirits, shall she ever experience from me. As for my own poor sufferer—what months and years are before us both! What a discipline before she can be at peace! If she were to look forward as I do, her heart would sink as mine does, and perhaps she would try... But we must ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... pretty. The little Queen I pity so much, for the poor child dislikes her cousin, and she is said to have consented against her will. We shall see if she really does marry him. Altogether, it is most annoying, and must ruffle our happy intercourse with the French family for a time ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... pain. But, above all, I remarked his progress in the path of holiness; he had succeeded in obtaining a complete mastery over the impetuosity of his natural disposition, and earthly things were unable to ruffle his calm. Let me give ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)
... very different in appearance, the pouter, for example, has the power of inflating his crop until it puffs out in front as large as a baseball. Jacobins or as they are commonly called, "ruffle-necks," have an immense ruffle of feathers like a feather boa. Dragoons have a huge wart on the bill as large as an almond. The tumblers are so named from their habit of ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller
... blooming. A fig for dreams and visions! Yes, for shame, dearest! Drive away those fancies; try to despise them. Why do I sleep so well? Why am I never ailing? Look at ME, beloved. I live well, I sleep peacefully, I retain my health, I can ruffle it with my juniors. In fact, it is a pleasure to see me. Come, come, then, sweetheart! Let us have no more of this. I know that that little head of yours is capable of any fancy—that all too easily ...
— Poor Folk • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... may not have been fairly tested," admitted Sir Manuel, "since the sea was serene, the sky brilliant, and the breeze insufficient to ruffle the water." ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... together with my own appearance and manners, ensured me a welcome in the best houses of Seville. Here I took that share of our business which my master could not take, for now he never mixed among the fashion of the city. Money I was supplied with in abundance so that I could ruffle it with the best, but soon it became known that I looked to business as well as to pleasure. Often and often during some gay ball or carnival, a lady would glide up to me and ask beneath her breath if Don Andres de Fonseca would consent to see her privately on a matter of some importance, and ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... as quickly be cleared away: as if it had come unbidden and been driven away from a sense of expediency. As I passed him on the way out he touched his cap to me politely, and the sleeve of his rough jerkin falling away a little in the act, I thought I caught a glimpse of a lace wrist-ruffle. ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... a pair of trousers, with rather a short, full skirt gathered into the body with the trousers, so as to form one whole, the whole being ruffled with the finest jindelly, a cloth which is not unlike cambric, every ruffle being plaited in the most delicate manner. These ruffles are doubled and trebled on the top of the arm, forming there a substitute for a sleeve; and the same is done around the ankle, answering the purpose almost of a stocking, or at least concealing ...
— The Fairchild Family • Mary Martha Sherwood
... Through the golden-tufted wattle, Music low and strange; Like the marriage peal of fairies Comes the tinkling sound, Or like chimes of sweet St. Mary's On far English ground. How my courser champs the snaffle, And with nostril spread, Snorts and scarcely seems to ruffle Fern leaves with his tread; Cool and pleasant on his haunches Blows the evening breeze, Through the overhanging branches Of the wattle trees: Onward! to the Southern Ocean, Glides the breath of Spring. Onward! with a dreary motion, I, too, glide and sing— Forward! forward! still we wander— Tinted ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... have done anything,' said Little Dorrit, rather alarmed, and meaning anything calculated to crack varnish and ruffle surface. ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... Pauper Province!' said William, her chin in her hand, as she leaned forward among the wine-glasses. Her cheeks had fallen in, and the scar on her forehead was more prominent than ever, but the well-turned neck rose roundly as a column from the ruffle of the blouse which was the accepted evening-dress ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling
... observed that she is notional in the making of her dresses," said the sewing teacher. "She is apt to want the skirt a little wider and the hem a half-inch deeper than the regular uniform. And she asks to have more buttonholes, which means more buttons, and an extra ruffle on the waist. But she begs me so politely and appears so thankful, if I grant these trifling favors, that I find myself indulging her too frequently. She does the extra work herself, cheerfully and neatly, if not speedily, but closely watched by others. She has learned as if by intuition that ...
— Big and Little Sisters • Theodora R. Jenness
... to breathe in her presence, yet to have left her would have been worse than death: How fondly did my eyes devour whatever they could gaze on without being perceived! the flowers on her gown, the point of her pretty foot, the interval of a round white arm that appeared between her glove and ruffle, the least part of her neck, each object increased the force of all the rest, and added to the infatuation. Gazing thus on what was to be seen, and even more than was to be seen, my sight became confused, my chest seemed contracted, respiration was every moment more painful. I had the utmost ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... pure simplicity. I fancied again that she might have breakfasted late, or that she might have a wish to eat alone, and more at liberty. These considerations prevented me from saying more to her then, to ruffle her temper, by shewing any sign of dissatisfaction. After dinner I left her, but not with an air that shewed ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 3 • Anon.
... fortnight one or two little matters, just sufficiently laden with care to ruffle the rose-leaves of our hero's couch. Lady Eardham thought that both the dining-room and drawing-room should be re-furnished, that a bow-window should be thrown out to the breakfast-parlour, and that a raised conservatory should be constructed into which Augusta's own morning sitting-room ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... divisions and some ramifications. On the third day, the germination being more advanced, many more of the sporidia were as completely changed, and presented, in consequence of the elongation, the appearance of a cylindrical ruffle, the cellular prolongations arising from the germination having a tendency towards one of the extremities of the longer axis of the sporidium, and more often to the two opposed extremities, either simultaneously or successively. Out of many hundreds ...
— Fungi: Their Nature and Uses • Mordecai Cubitt Cooke
... to improve, James? There is a trace of a smile in the left-hand corner of the patient's mouth. Ruffle up his hair and give him another while ...
— Stanford Stories - Tales of a Young University • Charles K. Field
... other in the sociable silence that seemed to come so easily to them. The wind had risen again, until now it had once more attained the proportions of a respectable gale. Bobby liked to watch the brisk puffs as they hit, spread in a fan-shaped ruffle of dark water and skittered away. In the miniature wavelets possible under the lea, the decoys bobbed gravely, swinging to their anchor strings. The sun flashed from their backs, and from the little waves. ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White
... thy head. Beneath a verdant roof of leaves, Arching a flow'ry carpet o'er, Thou mayst list to lutes on summer eves Their lays of rustic freshness pour, While upon the grassy floor Light footsteps, in the hour of calm, Ruffle ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... big love of a true and simple heart like his. It would probably be idyllic to live a life of love up here in these hills with the man of one's choice, I suppose, but a happiness too tame for me. To be sure, there would be the excitement of trying to ruffle the love-feathers, but that, too, in time would pall. I wonder how much longer I shall stay hidden up here before my past finds me out. Any minute something is sure to drop and I will be called back—back ...
— Penny of Top Hill Trail • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... man: Goshawk's my title. Guy the Goshawk! so they called me in my merry land. The cap sticks when it no longer fits. Then I drove the arrow, and was down on my enemy ere he could ruffle a feather. Now, what would be ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... opposite side of this little bay was a piece of perfectly smooth water, the softly breathing wind did not ruffle the bay at all. The long arm of the shore that was thrust out into the lake was heavily wooded. Rows of dark, almost black, northern spruce stood shouldering each other on that farther shore, making a perfect wall of verdure. Their deep shadow was already beginning to ...
— Janice Day at Poketown • Helen Beecher Long
... that day, if I survived, though the down upon my lip was as yet imperceptible, I could take my place as a man among men. No longer would my boyish face keep me out of the councils of my elders, but I would have the right to take my stand and ruffle it with the best of them all. I was there to win my spurs as a man and a duellist, and to show to all the world that I had the courage of my race. For then, as it has ever been in the fair province ...
— The Tory Maid • Herbert Baird Stimpson
... not be angry. No, you can not be angry. You never are. The most trying and provoking things, I observe, can not ruffle you. So I will venture to say, that I think you don't play fair by me. We are both here chiefly to make ourselves agreeable, I believe; and I sometimes wish I had a little more assistance in that duty from one who, I am sure, could perform it ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... made out of pretty white swiss trimmed wid lots of lace and it had a long train. I wore long white gloves. Tucks went 'round my petticoat from de knees to de lace what aidged de bottom, and my draw's was white cambric, gathered at de knee wid a wide ruffle what was tucked and trimmed up pretty. I married on Saddy night and dat called for a second day dress, 'cause I jus' had to go to church next day and show dat man off. Anyhow, my second day dress was blue cotton wid white lace on it, and I wore a big white plumed ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... me everything. Does she pet you and call you funny names and ruffle your hair the way ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... child had lisped, and she had caught him suddenly to her lean old breast, but he had broken into peevish cries and struggled free, tearing with his foot the ruffle ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... his appearance. Cheerfulness and alertness seemed to return to him, and a quietness which no insult or injury could ruffle seemed to ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... too lazy to keep up a pretense when his chief object was gained. He really cared for Lois, but he had wilfully exaggerated the role she played in his life. Always good-natured and kindly, he never allowed her to ruffle or anger him. She had never seen him rough or cruel to any human being, and all these superficial virtues forced her ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... enough, and that my fingers wander in unnecessary places; she gets fidgety, leaves me, tears the breeches, and manages in her own way. Then I help her to put her shoes on, and I pass the shirt over her head, but as I am disposing the ruffle and the neck-band, she complains of my hands being too curious; and in truth, her bosom was rather scanty. She calls me a knave and rascal, but I take no notice of her. I was not going to be duped, and I thought that a ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... be worthy, tricked out for show, fitted only to drive out fading majesty in a stage coach; exquisite in every personal appendage, too fine for the common usages of society; point-device, not only in every curl and ruffle, but in every attitude and step; men with full satin roses on their shining shoes; diamond tablet rings on their forefingers; with snuff-boxes, the worth of which might almost purchase a farm; lace worked by the delicate fingers of some religious recluse of an ancestress, and ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... took him out to the paddock where the hares were. All morning he herded them there as his brother had done before him, and that was an easy task. But it was in the afternoon that the trouble began. For no sooner did the fresh wind of the hillside ruffle up their fur than away they fled, this way and that, kicking up their heels behind them. It was in vain the lad chased after them and shouted and sweated; he could not keep them together. In the end he ...
— Tales of Folk and Fairies • Katharine Pyle
... by and by, the cows came sauntering down to the barn-yard bars as if they thought it was milking-time, and the sheep huddled together under the great elms. Grandpa and his big man commenced raking the hay together vigorously, and a sudden, cool, puffy breeze began to ruffle the little rings of hair on Lily-toes' head, and send the small chickens careening over the knot-grass in such fashion that the careful mother-hen put her head out of her little house and called them in. And still ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 • Various
... and the least contradiction—even the assertion of an opinion—would ruffle him. Once, when Marcus had proposed discontinuing his evening visits, Mr. ...
— Doctor Luttrell's First Patient • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... had made a very picture of herself that morning, as I have said. Some soft blue muslin stuff was caught up around her in airy draperies—nothing stiff or frilled about her: all was soft and flowing, from the falling sleeve that showed the fair curve of her arm to the fold of her dress, the ruffle under which her little foot was tapping, impatiently now. A little white hat with a curling blue feather shaded her face—a face I won't trust myself to describe, save by saying that it was the brightest and truest, as I then thought, ...
— On the Church Steps • Sarah C. Hallowell
... of wind to ruffle the surface of the glassy sea, as the captain of the sandal-wood trader reached the shore and uttered a low cry like the hoot of an owl. The cry was instantly replied to, and in a few minutes a boat crept noiselessly towards ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... he said, "we are not living in a poetry book bound with gilt edges. We are living in a paper-backed volume of prose. Be sensible. Don't ruffle yourself on account of other people. Don't even trouble to criticize them; it is only a nuisance to yourself. All this simply points back to my first suggestion: fill up your time with some hobby, cheese-mites or the influenza bacillus, and then you will ...
— Ships That Pass In The Night • Beatrice Harraden
... by broad clusters of grotesque cactus plants, which thrive so wonderfully in spite of drought, hanging like vines along the base of the adobe cabins and creeping up their low sides, the leaves edged here and there by a dainty ruffle of scentless yellow flowers. Beside a very lowly mud cabin was a tall oleander, branches and leaves hidden in gorgeous bloom, imparting a cheerful, joyous aspect even amid all this squalor and poverty. Close at hand upon the adobe wall hung a willow cage imprisoning ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou
... and of revelation,—from the daisies that spring up among the grass upon which it frolics, by the mellow fruits after which it longs, by the stars that shine in unclouded luster above it, and by the breezes which ruffle its silken curls, and bring perfume ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips
... from the kitchen, where she herself slept. It was a little place, bare enough, but very neat and clean, as all things belonging to Wealthy were sure to be. Then, she washed Eyebright's face and hands, and brushed her hair, retying the brown bow, crimping with her fingers the ruffle round Eyebright's neck, and putting on a fresh white apron to conceal the ravages of play in the school frock. Eyebright was quite able to wash her own face, but Wealthy was not willing yet to think so; she liked to do ...
— Eyebright - A Story • Susan Coolidge
... some years the junior of the heir of Maxfield, a rotund, matter-of-fact, jovial-looking lad, sturdy in body, easy in temper, and perhaps by no means brilliant in intellect. The turmoil of debarkation failed to ruffle him, and the information given him in sundry quarters that he was the fons et origo of all the confusion in the cabin failed to impress him. Everything that befell Tom Oliphant came in the day's work, and would probably vanish with the night's ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed
... complaint! Calling at the chemist's will make him late at the office! etc. etc. But then his skilled, efficient brain intervenes: 'What peculiarly interesting material this mean and petty circumstance yields for the practice of philosophy and right living!' And again: 'Is this to ruffle you, O my soul? Will it serve any end whatever that I should buzz nervously round this circumstance instead of attending to ...
— The Human Machine • E. Arnold Bennett
... face of a happy young wife and mother. She sits close by her baby's bedside that she may listen to his gentle breathing as he sleeps, and she smiles softly to herself while she sews. It is a sweet face which bends over the work, and it is framed in the daintiest of white caps edged with a wide ruffle which is turned back over the hair above the forehead, that it may not ...
— Jean Francois Millet • Estelle M. Hurll
... attacks us at sundry times and places. It is in vain that we lengthen our limbs into an awakening stretch—that we yawn with the expressive suavity of yawning no more—that we dislocate our knuckle bones, and ruffle the symmetry of our visage, with a manual application; like the cleft blaze of a candle, drowsiness returns again. Well, then, what manner of reader is he that hath never sinned by drowsing in church ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 266, July 28, 1827 • Various
... may be as he says, but surely it is for your father to inquire into that, when the gentleman comes forward in due course and presents himself as a suitor. Fine feathers do not always make fine birds, and a man may ruffle it at King Charles's Court without ten guineas ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty
... capable of independent and enlightened deliberations; placed by his fortune above the reach of temptation—but I shall not go any farther, for the portraiture of a member of Parliament of those days suggests such a humiliating and bitter contrast, that I shall not ruffle either my own or my reader's temper by sketching one of modern days. On the occasions I have been alluding to, Mr. Aubrey was not only condescending and generous, but practically acute and discriminating; ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... on the earth, though such was absent in the starting ground. This is more particularly the case when the landing chances to be on high ground in the neighbourhood of the sea. In these circumstances, the careful balloonist, who will generally be forewarned by the ruffle on any water he may pass, or by the drift of smoke, the tossing of trees, or by their very rustling or "singing" wafted upwards to him, will, if possible, seek for his landing place the lee of a wood or some other sheltered spot. But, even with all his care, he will sometimes ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon
... of it, too. Pretty cute of her, too, wasn't it? Still it's just as well she's gone back to school, I think myself. She's been repressed and held back so long, that when she did let loose, it was just like cutting the puckering string of a bunched-up ruffle—she flew in all directions, and there was no holding her back anywhere; and I suppose she has been a bit foolish and extravagant in the things she's asked for. Poor dear, though, she did ...
— Oh, Money! Money! • Eleanor Hodgman Porter
... In truth this ruffle put the town in great disorder, Some knaves (in office) smiled, expecting 'twould go furder; But at the last, "My life on't! George is no Rumper," said the Recorder, "For there never was either honest man or monk of that order." ...
— Cavalier Songs and Ballads of England from 1642 to 1684 • Charles Mackay
... before, a sudden influx of joy testified itself by very active demonstrations. She was quite sure that she had never in her life been so happy as now; yet she never had felt less disposed to leap and dance and sing. The non-solution of the problem, however, did not ruffle her serenity. She was content to accept the facts, and await patiently ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... book at his girdle instead of a poniard, and might just be suspected of manhood enough to squire a proud dame-citizen to the lecture at Saint Antonlin's, and quarrel in her cause with any flat-capped threadmaker that would take the wall of her. He must ruffle it in another sort that would walk to court ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... Millner" continued to the southward, gliding quietly over the oil-smoothness of the ocean under airs so light as hardly to ruffle the surface. Sometimes at high noon the shimmer of the ocean floor blended into the shimmer of the sky at the horizon, and then it was no longer water and blue heavens; the little craft seemed to be poised in a vast crystalline sphere, where there was ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris
... is thy Breath, thou breeze of night! Oh! ruffle not those lids of Snow; For only Morning's cheering light May wake the beam that ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
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