"Demure" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... mephitic gas. Whatever his Grace may think of himself, they look upon him, and everything that belongs to him, with no more regard than they do upon the whiskers of that little long-tailed animal that has been long the game of the grave, demure, insidious, spring-nailed, velvet-pawed, green-eyed philosophers, whether going upon ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... man, that was just a piece of their dirty French pride. The crowd smiled ruefully; and a French officer of the boat who was standing by the gangway scowled savagely, as the lawyer passed on with a demure face. ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... cried, unexpectedly, and a dark-haired, demure person entered the room wearing a look of gracious social expectancy. In years she was eleven, in manner about sixty-five, and evidently had lived much at court. She performed a curtsey in acknowledgment ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... has left to us more than one clear, perfect picture of these formal little routs in the great low-raftered chamber, softly alight with candles on mantel-tree and in sconces; with Lucinda, the black maid, "shrilly piping;" and rows of demure little girls of Boston Brahmin blood, in high rolls and feathers, discreetly partaking of hot and cold punch, and soberly walking and curtsying through the minuet; fantastic in costume, but proper and seemly ...
— Diary of Anna Green Winslow - A Boston School Girl of 1771 • Anna Green Winslow
... always tell you so?" she resumed. "When Doctor Minoret goes out of his head that demure little hypocrite will drag him into religion; whoever lays hold of the mind gets hold of the purse, and she'll ...
— Ursula • Honore de Balzac
... Eva, whose real name was Edith. She was a demure looking little girl, who came in every afternoon at four o'clock for her breakfast. She usually came to Jimmy's table when it was vacant, and at four o'clock she always ate alone. Later in the evening she would come in again with a male escort, who ...
— The Efficiency Expert • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... to the ground, covered himself with a wet sack, drank while eating his soup, ate his cake without bread, would bite in laughing, laugh in biting, hide himself in the water for fear of rain, go cross, fall into dumps, look demure, skin the fox, say the ape's paternoster, return to his sheep, turn the sows into the hay, beat the dog before the lion, put the cart before the horse, scratch where he did not itch, shoe the grasshopper, tickle himself to make himself laugh, know flies in milk, scrape ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... 'that would be the one chance to rally all that is left of the national and the patriotic in Gloria! Hip, hip, hurrah!—one cheer more—hurrah!' And the usually demure Hamilton actually danced then and there, in his exultation, some steps of a music-hall breakdown. His face was aflame with delight. The Dictator and Sarrasin both looked at him with an expression of sympathy and admiration. But there were different feelings in the breasts of the two sympathising ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... remembered a restaurant he had once gone to with Flynn, the very one, it seems, where I had taken refuge. And there they were, looking at each other across the table, the girl, as Jerry expressed it, a little demure, a little quizzical, possibly a little upon the defensive, but friendly enough. If she hadn't been friendly, he argued, most properly, she wouldn't ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... so does ordinary prudence. Louise, I know, will be discreet, for it is her nature; but Patsy is such a little flyaway and Beth so deep and demure, that without a chaperone they might cause you a lot ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne
... Mueller's step outside caused all the girls to scramble to their seats, so that when he entered they sat as quiet and demure as though they had not stirred during his absence. He took his seat, and opened his book again at the lesson, when the girls saw him suddenly flush up to the roots of his hair, and run his fingers nervously through his long curls. He next removed a small ...
— Harper's Young People, August 10, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... action long enough to perceive Celia, sitting in a chair drawn close to the bed. Her sturdy legs were crossed, her hands folded. She looked dangerously demure. ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... is a demure gaiety. An air of quiet festivity encompasses the streets. The houses are elegant, but sternly ordered. If they belong to the colonial style, they are exquisitely symmetrical. There is no pilaster without ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley
... between us so great; but before eleven I would certainly be with him. I breakfasted at home therefore, but was punctual to the latter engagement. "I hope you have breakfasted?" cried the captain, rather fiercely, as I entered. I satisfied him on this point; and then, after a minute of demure reflection, he resumed, "You are lucky; for Marie boiled the cocoa, and, after throwing away the liquor, she buttered and peppered the shells, and served them for me to eat! I don't see how she made such a mistake, for I was very particular in my directions, and be d——d ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... had a quiet humour of her own in spite of her demure looks, laughed at the dejection and martyrdom of Sir Harry; and taking the eagerly-proffered arm of a callow lieutenant, ostentatiously and hopelessly in love with her, went away to play her part of deputy hostess. She moved from group to group, and everywhere received smiles and ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... by her Christian name the mother started somewhat, and the demure eyes of the girls were turned to the floor, lest they should meet any ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... white lighthouse, livid against the background of clouds filling the head of the gulf, bore the lantern red and glowing, like a live ember kindled by the fire of the sky. Giselle, indolent and demure, raised the altar-cloth from time to time to hide nervous yawns, as of a ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... only conversing, but his eyes dwelt on her with loving admiration all the time. Her posture was favorable to this furtive inspection, for she leaned her fair head over her work with a pretty, modest, demure air, that seemed to say, "I suspect I am being admired: I will not look to see: I might ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... these ineffably dainty little paragraphs of gilded whim, these rainbow nuggets of wistful inquiry, these butterfly wings of fancy, these pointed sparklers of wit. A purge, by Zeus, a purge for the wicked! Irony so demure, so quaint, so far away; pathos so void of regret, merriment so delicate that one dare not laugh for fear of dispelling the charm—all this is "Trivia." Where are Marcus Aurelius or Epictetus or all the ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley
... birds, the slumber-winging bees, Alas! again for those and these Demure and sweet things drowned; Drowned in vain raucous words men made Where no lark rose with swift and sweet Ascent and where no dim sheep strayed About the stone immensities, Where no sheep strayed and where no bees Probed any flowers ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... 'Demure Dolly, as Horace calls her,' said Elizabeth, 'yes, she is a very choice specimen; but, sweet little thing as she is, she would not be half so good a subject for a story as our high-spirited Horace and wild Winifred. Dora is like peaceful ...
— Abbeychurch - or, Self-Control and Self-Conceit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... day was chiefly consumed; and I was not suffered long to remain alone. I had scarcely dined before a coach stopped at the door, and Charlotte came in with demure significance in her face. 'There is a young lady, sir,' said she, 'which says her name is Wilmot, which wants ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... his pulpit, his stern face showing white in the sunshine. The heavenly music rolled round him its angelic waves—they never touched his soul. Beneath, his simple congregation passed out, exchanging with one another demure Sunday greetings, and kindly Sunday smiles; he saw them not. He sat alone, like one who has no sympathy either with heaven ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... as might a child, turned full upon Valmond, and waited. The Cure instantly presented Valmond to her. She looked at him brightly, alluringly, apparently so simply; yet her first act showed the perception behind that rosy and golden face, and the demure eyes whose lids languished now and then—to the unknowing with an air of coquetry, to the knowing—did any know her?—as one would shade one's eyes to see a landscape clearly, or make out a distant figure. As Valmond bowed, a thought seemed to fetch ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... finding no good footing in the word for that kind of service we have treated about above, and knowing that error and human inventions in religion will not offer themselves, but with wiped lips, and a countenance as demure as may be, and also being persuaded that this opinion of Mr. K. is vagrant, yea a mere alien as to the scriptures, I being an officer, have apprehended it, and put it in the stocks, and there will keep it, till I see by what authority it has leave to pass and repass as it lists, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... that moment, but now it came back to him with added cumulative force. He recollected that he had often wondered at the child's unconscious adaptation of mood to the clothes she happened to be wearing; he recalled how he had seen her demure and distant in misty, pastel-tinted party frocks or quaintly, infantilely dignified in soberer Sunday morning garb. But that Saturday morning he realized what the woman was to be like, when the hem of the velvet skirt no ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... soon after marshalled to the supper-room. Elsie slipped in among the others, but was so stately and demure, and with her curls brushed down so straight that you would scarcely have known her. Her father caught his pet around the waist, and was about to introduce her, when George hastened to say with the solemnity of an undertaker that Elsie and Mr. ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... Dismissed from books, she met the boys, Who, with a barbarous scorn of girls, Glanced slightly at her sunny curls, And laughed and leaped as reckless by As though no pretty face were nigh! But—here the maiden grows demure— Indeed she's not so VERY sure, That in a year, or haply twain, Who looked e'er failed to look again, And sooth to say, I little doubt (Some azure day, the truth will out!) That certain baits in certain eyes Caught many ...
— Poems of Henry Timrod • Henry Timrod
... dress were, to me, attractive. She was a dainty little thing, and yet her plain black dress, so well cut, was really very severe. She had the manner of a lady, sweet and demure. The air of the woman-of-the-world was, somehow, ...
— The Count's Chauffeur • William Le Queux
... maid demure Within that garden olden, Their vows of love and constancy Pledged in the ...
— Edward MacDowell • Elizabeth Fry Page
... was still on the throne, extols Italian conduct. "I would rather," it says of the traveller, "he should come home Italianate than Frenchified: I speake of both in the better sense: for the French is stirring, bold, respectless, inconstant, suddaine: the Italian stayed, demure, respective, grave, advised."[215] But Instructions for Forreine Travell in 1642 urges one to imitate the French. "For the Gentry of France have a kind of loose, becoming boldness, and ...
— English Travellers of the Renaissance • Clare Howard
... some in blue aprons. Two figured conspicuously in the van of the party. One, a little dapper strutting man with a turned-up nose; the other a broad-shouldered fellow, distinguished no less by his demure face and cat like, trustless eyes than by a wooden leg and stout crutch. There was a kind of leer about his lips; he seemed laughing in his sleeve at some person or thing; his whole air was anything but that of ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... large room deserted and the windows thrown open to the sun and the garden. He was selecting a table, when a step on the verandah made him look up. Standing in the window, framed, as it were, by sunshine and trees, was Marguerite Wade, in a white dress, with demure lips, and the complexion of a wild rose. She was the incarnation of youth—of that spring-time of life of which the sight tugs at the strings of older hearts; for surely that is the only part of life which is really ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman
... early and the children not dismissed, but already a large group of women were waiting in the library room. Among these, so demure and still as to seem oldest of all, waited Lucy Hapgood. Camille could scarcely keep back a smile at sight of her incongruous attire. Her gown was a cotton one of a washed out indigo-blue, with large polka spots that had once been white, before ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... nature; he lived in the blessings the day brought forth, and considered not too deeply—as the poet once counselled—the questions that had kept his son in the fume and heat of unquenchable discussion. Mrs. Joyce was quiet, demure, rock-rooted in her self-respecting gravity—a sweet, sympathetic, winning little woman. She advanced at once into the bustle of the household, and it was plain that nature had endowed her with a fondness ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... had already opened his mouth to accept this demure invitation when Excalibur, rising from the hearthrug, stretched himself luxuriously and wagged his tail, thereby removing three pipes, an inkstand, a tobacco jar, and a half-completed ...
— Scally - The Story of a Perfect Gentleman • Ian Hay
... a faint moonlight; a third showed her splendidly attired in evening costume, with jewels in her hair and cars, and sparkling on her snowy bosom. The expressions were as various as the poses; now it was demure penetration, now a subtle inviting glance, now burning passion, and again a look of elfish and elusive mockery. In whatever phase, the countenance possessed a singular and poignant fascination, not of beauty merely, though ...
— David Poindexter's Disappearance and Other Tales • Julian Hawthorne
... House in a "pas de trois" with Mariette and Tullia, is thinking steadily about your affair, and so is Florine,—who has finally given up Lousteau and taken Nathan. That shrewd pair have found you a most delicious little creature,—only seventeen, beautiful as an English woman, demure as a "lady," up to all mischief, sly as Desroches, faithful as Godeschal. Mariette is forming her, so as to give you a fair chance. No woman could hold her own against this little angel, who is a devil under ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... admit, however, that after these untoward incidents of the first minute, Miss Montague and her friends behaved throughout with distinguished propriety. Her manners were perfect—I may even say demure. She asked about "Cecil" with charming naivete. She was frank and girlish. Lots of innocent fun in her, no doubt—she sang us a comic song in excellent taste, which is a severe test—but not a suspicion of double-dealing. If I had not overheard those few words ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... wine to drink? she wondered. A momentary self-distrust seized her in the matter of table-manners; but she shook it off. She would watch what Gaga did. She mustn't drink too much. She must mind her step. Then, irresistibly: "What a lark!" murmured Sally. She was very demure upon Miss Summers' return, and listened with equanimity to a few remarks made by Miss Summers as to the capacity of Miss Rapson. In reality her thoughts were occupied with speculations as to the entertainment which lay ahead. So Gaga had never given Rose anything; more fool Rose! Rose! She didn't ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... trying to catch her glance, and listening to Belding's talk with the cowboys, Dick was hard put to it to dictate any kind of a creditable letter. Nell met his gaze once, then no more. The color came and went in her cheeks, and sometimes, when he told her to write so and so, there was a demure smile on her lips. She was laughing at him. And Belding was talking over the risks involved in a trip ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... a pompadour, followed by a demure young lady, entered the room. She slipped quietly into a chair beside the president's desk and laid her copy-book on the slide of the desk and waited while her employer arranged the words in his mind. Her pencil was delicately poised above the ruled page. While she waited ...
— Mike Flannery On Duty and Off • Ellis Parker Butler
... thinking of, she whom he was speaking to, all along. Oh, why had the tale ended so soon? She would gladly have sat and wept her eyes out till midnight over one melodious misery after another; but she was quite wise enough to keep her secret to herself; and sat behind the rest, with greedy eyes and demure lips, full of strange and new happiness—or misery; she knew ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... Princess of Wales.' I fairly believed these poor people had lost their wits; they would not cease overwhelming me with noise and tumult, their joy was so great they knew not what they did. When the farce had lasted some time, they at last told me"—what our readers know. What the demure Wilhelmina professes she cared next to nothing about. "I was so little moved by it, that I answered, going on with my work, 'Is that all?' Which greatly surprised them. A while afterwards my Sisters and several Ladies ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle
... looked very pretty. Next year, I suppose, her frocks will be down to her ankles and she will be taking care of her complexion. Then, no doubt, she will look very pretty. But she will not look any more demure than ...
— Lady Bountiful - 1922 • George A. Birmingham
... Her demure unapproachableness was a growing revelation to him, and he found himself interested in spite of the new law of self-preservation he had set down for himself. He could not keep his eyes from stealing glimpses at her hair when her head was bowed a little. She had smoothed it tonight until ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood
... temples and she wore no garland, but a string of large grey pearls, from which hung a chaplet of sapphires and opals, lying on her forehead. A veil fell over the back of her head and she sat gazing into her lap as if she were absorbed in prayer; her hands were folded and held a cross. This placid and demure attitude she deemed becoming to a Christian matron and widow. Everyone might see that she had not come for worldly pleasure, but merely to be present at a triumph of her fellow-Christians—and especially her son—over the idolaters. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... hadn't meant to have a party. The subalterns must have known that he was coming and turned up simply to look at him. (I wondered afterwards whether Norah could have told them. She was dangerously demure that afternoon.) ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair
... carven tombs it flies, Where marchionesses rest demure, Weary of love, in exquisite guise, In chapels dim ...
— Enamels and Cameos and other Poems • Theophile Gautier
... merciful to Mrs. Molyneux," she remarked, with a demure gravity that did her credit under the circumstances. "She is my greatest friend, you know. When a wife is so very fond of her husband, surely there is some excuse for her adopting his ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... the more often. When associated with affectation, it is in literature what assumption of dignity, grand airs and primeness are in society; and equally intolerable. Dullness of mind is fond of donning this dress; just as an ordinary life it is stupid people who like being demure and formal. ...
— The Art of Literature • Arthur Schopenhauer
... demure in cap and kerchief as the most ravishing of young Priscillas, rose obediently at the request. "May I read to her a little if ...
— Turn About Eleanor • Ethel M. Kelley
... the stable-yard, thoughtful and intensely suspicious of the rendezvous under the keeper's tree in the out-lying coverts. He would have been more so had he guessed that Ben Davis' red beard and demure attire, with other as efficient disguises, had prevented even his own keen eyes from penetrating the identity of Willon's "Cousin" with the welsher he had seen thrust off the course the day before ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... lets the case go to the jury it is a pure gamble as to what the result will be, and it may largely turn on the girl's physical attractiveness. If she be pretty and demure a mixture of emotions is aroused in the jury. "He probably did love her," say the twelve, "because any one would be likely to do so. If he did love her, of course he didn't falsely pretend to do so; but if he deserted a woman ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train
... dipping his nose into the meal-chest, which he had opened. "Billy, what are you doing?" said auntie; and it was fun enough to see him whisk into his stall, and stand there as quiet and demure as a cat that had just been caught eating ...
— The Nursery, October 1877, Vol. XXII. No. 4 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... editor who had been a college football star, then an automobile racer, then a failure. And indeed there was a whole novel, a story told and retold, in the girls' gossip about each of the men before whom they were so demure. But it was Walter Babson whom the girls most discussed and in whom Una ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... up his lips and whistled mournfully for a few moments, but seeing no sign of forgiveness in my face he jumped down and began to turn handsprings and dance with the most demure grace. ...
— Tales of the Malayan Coast - From Penang to the Philippines • Rounsevelle Wildman
... help hersel'; and for all she looks so demure and prim now' (and then both heads were turned in the direction of Sylvia), 'I'm as sure as I'm born that Charley is not t' chap to lose his forfeit; and yet yo' see he says nought more about it, and she's left off ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. I • Elizabeth Gaskell
... was, the lady that sat near me on an old-world chair—how demure she was, and how fair, to have beside her with its jowl upon her lap a sin with such cavernous red eyes, a clear case of murder. And you, yonder lady with the golden hair, surely not you—and yet that fearful beast ...
— The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories • Lord Dunsany
... the specified time, and they whirled off in the big motor car, which seated them all comfortably without crowding anybody. Very demure they were, passing along the city streets, but in the open country their delight found vent in shouts and squeals and jubilant laughter. Dr. Dudley chose a route apart from the traveled highways, leading through ...
— Polly of the Hospital Staff • Emma C. Dowd
... gentlemen in mufti from Knightsbridge Barracks; but people who have an occult right on the premises; the uncovenanted servants of the house; gray women who are seen at evening with baskets flitting about area-railings; dingy shawls which drop you furtive curtsies in your neighborhood; demure little Jacks, who start up from behind boxes in the pantry. Those outsiders wear Thomas's crest and livery, and call him "Sir;" those silent women address the female servants as "Mum," and curtsy before ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Hazlebys, or from looking amused by what was said of them, Rupert would hardly have attempted this piece of impertinence. Helen, who considered it as a most improper proceeding, sat perfectly still and silent, with a countenance full of demure gravity, which made Elizabeth and Anne fall into fresh convulsions as they looked at her; Lucy only blushed; and as for Harriet, the last two lines could scarcely be heard, for her exclamations of, 'O Mr. ...
— Abbeychurch - or, Self-Control and Self-Conceit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... 'Instead of telling me I was wrong,' he says, 'the young brethren looked waggish, and began to laugh: when a man is cold and hungry, he can ill brook being the sport of others;' so accordingly—peppery again—he shook his stick angrily at the young monks. And at last one of the most courteous and demure of the number, coming forward, said that although theirs was not exactly a public-house, still the stranger was heartily welcome to walk in, rest, and refresh himself. Discovering his mistake, Jackson of course lost no time in making his bow, his apologies, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 420, New Series, Jan. 17, 1852 • Various
... is so pleased to describe her, it is not for me to protest," was the Baroness's demure reply, followed by suppressed but quite audible giggles from ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... to the men already on board, and to make the best of my way to Halifax. "Stay," said he, "take the master and boy with you, Mr Hurry; we shall not know what to do with them on board—and see that he plays you no trick." I laughed at the idea of having anything to dread from the demure Mr Scuttle, and, putting up a few necessaries, I tumbled into the boat which was to take me on board my new command. I thought I caught a twinkle in friend Jotham's eyes when he found that he was to be sent back to his own vessel—but this was probably fancy. He sat ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... confidence and this time forever. Jeanne was adorable; he loved her more than ever. She seemed very much changed to him. Her disposition, formerly somewhat harsh, had softened, and the haughty, capricious girl had become a mild, demure, and somewhat serious woman. Unable to read his companion's thoughts, Cayrol sincerely believed that he had been unnecessarily anxious, and that Jeanne's troubles had only been passing fancies. He took credit of the change in his wife to himself, ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... silent. She was very demure, and her manner was somewhat stiff; therefore, seeing that his experiences had exhilarated him, Jack said, "I've had a great day. Two of the prettiest girls I ever saw almost ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... them doing what they wish, because they instinctively keep it in a compartment to itself. There was no small curiosity about the mysterious rite amongst the boys who were her especial friends, and it had become rather a point of honour to be "done" together. Consequently Hilaria looked very demure as she went through her steps with the mechanical ease of long practice and the supple grace that was her own and yet had the adorable awkwardness of her age in it. She was nearly sixteen, several months younger than Ishmael, who was now just ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... in my mother's hands. Observe her rushing, scissors in hand, thread in mouth, to the drawers where her daughters' Sabbath clothes were kept. Or go to church next Sunday, and watch a certain family filing in, the boy lifting his legs high to show off his new boots, but all the others demure, especially the timid, unobservant- looking little woman in the rear of them. If you were the minister's wife that day or the banker's daughters you would have got a shock. But she bought the christening robe, and when I used to ask why, she would ...
— Margaret Ogilvy • James M. Barrie
... waving away over her temples; her lips were pouting and provokingly suggestive of kisses. The whole face was of the type which comes so near to the ideal that the least sentimentality of expression would have spoiled it. Happily the big eyes and the ripe, red mouth were both suggestive of demure humor. There was a mirthful air about the dimple which came and went in the left cheek like Cupid peeping mischievously from the folds of his mother's robe. A boa of long-haired black fur lay carelessly about her neck, pushed ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... luncheon in the remote little inn, and Mrs. Rosewarne was pleased to see her ordinarily demure and preoccupied daughter in such high and careless spirits. It was not a splendid banquet. The chamber was not a gorgeous one, for the absence of ornament and the enormous thickness of the walls told of the house being shut up in the winter months and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... me that she looked with a less demure look into my face as I did so: I think she might have cared to have me hold her hand a ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... toe of her shoe. If Bob had thought her appealing before, now, demure against the background of budding apple trees, with a shaft of sunlight on her hair, and the kitten cuddled against her breast, she put to rout the few intelligent ideas remaining to the ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... man to be born in the vale? Dare ye adventure with me a stripe or two? Go, coward, go, hide thee as thou wast wont to do! What a sort of dastards have we here! None of you to battle with me dare appear. What say you, heart of gold, of countenance so demure? Will you fight with me? no, I am right sure. Fye, blush not, woman, I will do you no harm, Except I had you sooner to keep my back warm. Alas, little pums, why are ye so sore afraid? I pray you show how long it is, since ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume I. • R. Dodsley
... you, that you are not much wiser to spend your time in reading them. Nevertheless, if you read them to make yourselves merry, as in manner of pastime I wrote them, you and I both are far more worthy of pardon than a great rabble of squint-minded fellows, dissembling and counterfeit saints, demure lookers, hypocrites, pretended zealots, tough friars, buskin-monks, and other such sects of men, who disguise themselves like masquers to deceive the world. For, whilst they give the common people to understand that they are busied about nothing but contemplation and ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... Phoebe broke in, her bosom heaving with the violence of her exercise. "But prithee, sweet, chide me not. From this on shall I be chaste, demure, and sober as an abbess in a play. But oh!—but oh!" she cried, stretching her arms high over her head, "'twas a goodly frolic, sis! I felt a three-centuries' fasting lust ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... declared, with a demure lowering of her lids. "I've allus heerd say, you only got to tell a feller don't, an' he sure does it quick. Men-folk is that ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... bla now. Too phony. There's no class to that kind of a monicker any more. And, believe me, you can't afford to overlook any bets, nowadays; you got to have class in everything. Something simple—something demure, that's what they want. You ...
— Winner Take All • Larry Evans
... in her best, with looks demure, She seeks the priest; and, to be sure, Asks if he thinks she ought to wed: "With such a business on my head, I'm worried off my legs with care, And need some help to keep things square. I've thought of Guillot, truth ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... back into the wings, and the shrieking and thumping and whistling out in front just went on—and on—and on—and on. Um! I just listened and loved it—every thump of it. And I stood there like a demure little kitten; or more like Mag Monahan after she'd had a good licking, and was good and quiet. And I never so much as ...
— In the Bishop's Carriage • Miriam Michelson
... shafts of wood; casements nobly elaborate in wood-carving and heavy with leaded panes; bay windows which should belong to nurseries and high, square-latticed windows which should light a library, delicately fastened with wrought iron; painted pillars supporting window seats for cats and demure young ladies; broad-stepped entrances to hotel halls, and archways under which barrels roll to bursting cellars; Guildford High Street is a model of what the High Street of an English town should be. Has it a single dominating feature, or is its air of distinction merely compact of the grace and ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... impossible to imagine war-hospital patients acting inconsiderately towards a distressed comrade. This observation renders all the more amusing the scandalised concern which I once beheld on the demure physiognomy of a visiting clergyman when he gathered the drift of certain allusions to a case on ...
— Observations of an Orderly - Some Glimpses of Life and Work in an English War Hospital • Ward Muir
... its sheath to soften, with a hint of tender green, the virginal stiffness and straightness of the stems. Grey among the grey tree-trunks little Mary flitted about, gathering her precious windflowers. She was clad in the demure Puritan dress worn by young and old alike in the early days of the Society of Friends. A frock of grey duffel hung in straight lines around her slight figure; a cape of the same material was drawn closely round ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... she, mighty demure, "you know my new rule,—from Monday to Wednesday my hand; from Wednesday to Saturday, my cheek; and on Sunday, my ...
— The Honourable Mr. Tawnish • Jeffery Farnol
... who lived in a maritime cavern with his wife, Tethys, and his three hundred daughters, the Oceanides. No Argonaut had ever dared to come in contact with these mysterious divinities. Only the grave Aeschylus had dared to portray the Oceanides—virgins fresh and demure, weeping around the rock to which Prometheus ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... till she herself was laid I' the earth and sainted elsewhere. The two sons Let cool the friendship: one in foreign parts Did gold and honor seek; at hall stayed one, The heir, and now of old friends negligent: Thus fortune hardens the ignoble heart. Griselda even as a little maid, Demure, but with more crotchets in the brain, I warrant ye, than minutes to the hour, Had this one much misliked; in her child-thought Confused him somehow with those cruel shapes Of iron men that up there at The Towers Quickened her pulse. For he was gaunt, his ...
— Wyndham Towers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... It burnt her; even in those days it did its best according to its lights," she answered bitterly. "Only in these days there are no heroines to burn. No heroines . . . no fires . . . and even in our needlework we must be demure, and not touch a garment that has been touched with blood! Monsieur, was this man a coward?" She lifted ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... all the long week to flutter their magnificence in. Their lunches, dinners, teas, dances, games, yachts, links, race-courses—everyone gives occasion for glorious display. Will they not, then, be sweetly demure on Sunday for the sake of the "picture," spare their sisters the agony of craving for like beautiful apparel? for God has made them so, and they can't help wanting to ...
— Stage Confidences • Clara Morris
... disposition, and melancholy turn of mind. The character of a devotee, which is hardly known in England, is very common here. You see them walking to and from church at all hours, in their hoods and long camblet cloaks, with a slow pace, demure aspect, and downcast eye. Those who are poor become very troublesome to the monks, with their scruples and cases of conscience: you may see them on their knees, at the confessional, every hour in the day. The rich devotee has ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... Quinto," said Gigia, with a demure air of speaking modestly on a subject which she perfectly well understood—"You will excuse me, if I tell you that I know a great deal better than that. There's men, Signor Quinto, who are in love because they like it; and there's others who are in love whether they like it or no, ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... to reveal any trace of him. The old couple continued to till the farm without the aid of the strong-armed son, and at the neighbor's down the road pretty Mary Barker went about her household labors with a demure air that told plainly how she regarded her lover's disappearance. She refused to "keep company" in the old-fashioned way with any of the young farmers who would willingly have taken young Craig's place. She went out very little, kept a cat and grew domestic ...
— The Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56, No. 2, January 12, 1884 - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... with ease, a little woman in widow's weeds, coquettishly displaying silken brown hair under the ruching of a demure bonnet. Taking her own account—"Which some reporter wrote for her no doubt," Grahame commented—she had been a sinner, a slave of Rome, a castaway bound hand and foot to degrading superstition, until rescued by the noblest of men and ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... haunted road for her sake—he was as well acquainted with the joys which belong to social intercourse, when instruments of music speak to the feet, when the reek of punchbowls gives a tongue to the staid and demure, and bridal festivity, and harvest-homes, bid a whole valley lift up its voice and be glad. It is more difficult to decide what poetic use he could make of his intercourse with that loose and lawless class of ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... after her ascent of the steps, had remained standing at their head, gazing dreamily downward in her own demure manner and evidently considering that she had quite properly ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... conjecture. Aeneas Sylvius gives it as his opinion that these things were used as a protection against the cold, which to his Italian blood seemed very great. But that notion was surely instilled into the courtly churchman by some fair, demure Baloise; for had it been well-founded, the sentry-boxes would have risen and fallen with the thermometer, and not with the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... had been but the daughter of a simple craftsman, her reproachful remarks would have sufficed to keep them at a distance. But such immunity was not to be granted to the emperor's sweetheart, who could so audaciously reject two brothers accustomed to easy conquests; her demure severity could hardly be meant seriously. Apollonaris therefore took no notice of her violent resistance, but held her hands forcibly, and, though he could not succeed in kissing her for her struggling, he pressed his lips to her cheek, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... doubt in honor of my arrival—and it's been up ever since. Seriously, I'm a big social success—invited everywhere—tea parties, church gatherings and other choice functions. Can you imagine yours truly, demure and penitent, taking part in bazaars, solemnly presided over by elderly spinsters in spectacles? You ask why I don't write more regularly. My dear boy—if you only knew how busy I am, what with rehearsals, social duties and so forth! What nonsense to imagine for ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... I love the discreet and tranquil Quaker dwellings, With their demure brick faces and immaculate white-stone doorsteps; And the gabled houses of the Dutch, with their high stoops and iron railings, (I can see their little brass knobs shining in the morning sunlight); ...
— The White Bees • Henry Van Dyke
... when my heart is so full of love for young girls that as I pass them on the street I feel myself smiling as one does to walk by a garden of daffodils. And when I see how careful some of them are to be circumspect and demure, I think to myself how fine a thing it is, to be sure, to have good manners! How happy the parent whose young daughter knows just how to hold her hands in company, just how and when to smile, just how to enter a room or gracefully leave it. Easy, indeed, must lie the head of that ...
— A String of Amber Beads • Martha Everts Holden
... made a rather impetuous gesture with his right hand toward the demure widow, "it was splendid of you to persuade your uncle to lend me that money for the big deal. It was the sort of thing that one never forgets. We have plenty of friends willing to help us spend our money, but only a few, a ...
— The Desert Fiddler • William H. Hamby
... impossible the demure, prim thing. Sure all the world is hypocrisy Well, I thank my stars, whatsoever sufferings I have, I have none in reputation. I wonder at the men; I could never think her handsome. She has really a good shape and complexion but no mein; and no woman ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... had been permitted to mount guard upon the stile, the better to observe and control them. She quite felt the importance of the trust, and, holding her switch as proudly as if it had been a sceptre, was eager and quick to discover occasions to use it. Many a staid and demure-looking hen, or saucy, daring young chicken, had stolen quite near to her post, stopping every few moments to peer cautiously around, or to peck at a blade of grass or an imaginary worm, as if quite indifferent to the attractions presented by the field beyond, but just as they ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... The Colonel shakes his head indulgently. 'I don't know how we are to make a demure young lady ...
— Echoes of the War • J. M. Barrie
... broken-knee'd and spavined pony you were compelled to borrow—do pray tell us how he carried you?" interposed Frank, looking as demure and ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... wishing to provide a text in his account of the bad boy, it is consoling to find that the "enfant terrible" had his counterpart in the thirteenth century, as well as the maiden known to us all, who is "demure and soft of speech, but well ware ...
— Mediaeval Lore from Bartholomew Anglicus • Robert Steele
... very prosy, tiresome, unmelodious singer, it is suddenly transformed for a brief moment into a lyric poet of great power. It is a great surprise. The bird undergoes a complete transformation. Ordinarily it is a very quiet, demure sort of bird. It walks about over the leaves, moving its head like a little hen; then perches on a limb a few feet from the ground and sends forth its shrill, rather prosy, unmusical chant. Surely it is an ordinary, common-place bird. But wait till the inspiration ...
— Ways of Nature • John Burroughs
... a skilled enchanter," says a demure voice in the dark; "and through the potency of his abominable arts, I can remember ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... by the united, but easy, and even indolent, labours of all, the entire work was completed before sunset. The islanders, while employed in erecting this tenement, reminded me of a colony of beavers at work. To be sure, they were hardly as silent and demure as those wonderful creatures, nor were they by any means as diligent. To tell the truth they were somewhat inclined to be lazy, but a perfect tumult of hilarity prevailed; and they worked together so unitedly, and seemed actuated ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... accomplishments required in fashionable society, but she was at the same time gifted with strong good sense, and could readily accommodate herself to the circumstances in which she was now placed. Her two daughters, Sophia the youngest, a lively child of thirteen, and Mary the eldest, a demure girl of sixteen, had been likewise carefully, but somewhat elaborately, educated. Attracted no less by the hearty and warm reception of the Swiss family, than determined by the state of his health and the pure air of the country, Wolston resolved to await ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... demure instantly, as the second guest came forward. "Mamma is there," she said, and made room for them ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 1 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill |
