"Offish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to now a huge success, being interesting, pleasant, and profitable. The beachcomber is perhaps the most interesting character here; the natives are very different, on the whole, from Polynesians: they are moral, stand-offish (for good reasons), and protected by a dark tongue. It is delightful to meet the few Hawaiians (mostly missionaries) that are dotted about, with their Italian BRIO and their ready friendliness. The whites are a strange lot, ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... which every one else had been in raptures over. For that matter she no longer praised anything he did, and took obvious pains to preserve toward him a distant demeanor. So much the better, he felt himself thinking. If she chose to behave in that offish and unwifely fashion, she could blame no one ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... Cal," he said. His voice was gloating. "I reckoned I'd got him; he tumbled sorta offish—like it had got him in the guts. That's what I aimed for, anyway. I reckon he done suffered ...
— Square Deal Sanderson • Charles Alden Seltzer
... by the assertion that the Williamses had been so civil she considered it would be only decent to show attention to their friends. She was unwilling to disclose her secret, lest the knowledge of it might make Wilbur offish and so embarrass her efforts. There were eight in the party, and the affair seemed to Selma to go off admirably. She was enthralled by the idea of using her own personal magnetism to promote her husband's ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... out that there was not so much luck about it as Mr. Moss appeared to think. "Never seen such a stand-offish little rip in all my life," he ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... a polite bow and, not wishing to show himself stand-offish, took the glass which she mixed and handed to him. ...
— In the Mayor's Parlour • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... you're not more stand-offish with her—you mark my words. Keep them in their place—that's what I always do with my servants and governesses," said Mrs. Rainham without the slightest idea that she was saying anything peculiar. "Now, I'll go and put my things out on my ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... always had time for a word of praise and an appreciative smile. Even the sharp eyes of little Wegstetten could look quite good-humoured on occasion. But Senior-lieutenant Brettschneider always remained stand-offish, looking as if he had ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... him out from under foot. You see, when a woman's been useter seein' her husband only 'twixt v'y'ges for forty year, I 'spect 'tis something of a cross to have him litterin' up the house ev'ry day," he confessed. "But as I can't leave the shop myself to go visitin' much in return, Joab acks offish. We Silts was always bred to be hospitable. Poor or rich, we could share what we had with another. So I keep an extry plate on ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... possibilities. It was by accident that she got her chance in the pantomime—some one wouldn't do at the last minute, and they gave Miss Dewing a trial. She was well liked by her associates in spite of the fact that she was a bit offish and vanished from their world ...
— Lady Larkspur • Meredith Nicholson
... warmth and ease. She had taken no fancy at all to the stiff, awkward little English woman, in whom her quick wits detected the lurking tendency to cavil and criticise, and was discouraging accordingly. Oddly enough, Imogen liked this offish manner of Elsie's. She set it down to a proper sense of decorum and retenue. "So different from the usual American gush and making believe to be at ease always with everybody," she thought; and she made herself as agreeable as possible to Elsie, whom she considered much prettier than Clover, ...
— In the High Valley - Being the fifth and last volume of the Katy Did series • Susan Coolidge
... nobody sees them do this but Fanny. And when this does happen they don't even have to mortify themselves by calling her. She just comes of her own accord, forgetting the cruel snubbings. She fixes that stand-offish person as comfortable as can be, makes them laugh even, and telephones to the doctor. Then she rolls up her sleeves and without so much as an apron has those strawberries scientifically canned and that ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds |
