"Petting" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... church, and on these days Jack received there with the family. If the truth were told, it would probably have been found that Jack conceived the services to be some sort of function specially designed to do him honor at proper intervals, for he always received an extra petting on these occasions. He sat in the pew beside the deacon through the sermon as decorously as befitted a dog come to years of discretion long since, and wagged his tail in a friendly manner when the minister came down and patted him on the head after the benediction. Outside ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... been told at least a thousand times already, without the slightest result. They were dull children, wearisome and uninteresting. On the other hand, the little Morleys were full of life and eagerness. The fault in them was that they wouldn't take petting; and what's the good of a child that won't be petted? They lacked that something which makes ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... must live her own life, learn her own lessons, suffer her own experiences. Our deepest love can only enable us to help her to choose wisely, to think truly, to act judiciously. So I would have the friendship of mother and daughter something very deep and true—something more than a petting and caressing, ...
— What a Young Woman Ought to Know • Mary Wood-Allen
... murmuring little feminine, caressing phrases, secure in her power of witchery, which had never failed her before. The sound of her own voice reassured her, the quietude of the man she pleaded with. A lifetime of petting, of indulgence, threw its soothing influence over her perturbation, convincing her that somehow all this storm and stress must be phantasmagoric—a dream from which she was even now awakening into a clearer day of happiness. "For you love me, father," she concluded, ...
— Conjuror's House - A Romance of the Free Forest • Stewart Edward White
... dreaming of feeding a big flock of little chickens and little pigs, and looking after and petting the mild-eyed milch-cows, and awoke fully convinced that she was going to have the happiest time of her life with her brother and her sweetheart as ...
— Fred Fearnot's New Ranch - and How He and Terry Managed It • Hal Standish
... This much if no more, That a poet (pray, no petting!) Yes, a bard, sir, famed of yore, 10 Went where suchlike used to go, Singing for ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning
... bumps on the head. She bathed this in cold water, and in arnica, and petted, and soothed, and pacified as well as she could a child who thought it a special and unendurable state of things not to have mamma and nobody else. Between the petting she administered wholesome reproof ...
— The Chautauqua Girls At Home • Pansy, AKA Isabella M. Alden
... overt provocation, but poor Caroline, used to petting and approval, chafed and reasoned: "I don't think anything so important as a happy home for the boys, where they can have their pursuits, and ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... looked at Racey most—he was her "baby" you know, and I didn't mind even if sometimes it seemed as if she cared more for Tom and him than for me. They were such dear little boys to kiss, and they had such a pretty way of petting mother. I knew I hadn't such loving ways, and that sometimes it seemed as if I didn't care for mother—when I wanted to say nice words they wouldn't come. But I never minded a bit, however much mother petted the boys— I felt as if I was like her ...
— The Boys and I • Mrs. Molesworth
... from her perch, her yellow curls on end in the wind, her hat flapping on her back, and the fur capes of her little coat standing up straight round her ears. She threw away the reins and ran to the horse's head, putting her cheek against his nose, petting him with her hands, and pouring out flatteries enough to turn ...
— Terry - Or, She ought to have been a Boy • Rosa Mulholland
... he is or not," the speaker pulled down the veil under her hat-brim and avoided her husband's eyes, "but he's lonely and heartbroken over the way that unprincipled woman has treated him, and he needs petting and nursing and some company in that big, gloomy house to take his mind off his ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... huddled as I fell, Stood the steed beside my shoulder Faithful, fain to serve me well. Whinnying softly, then, to screen me From the foe, she knelt between me And that circling human hell. Tenderly she touched my face With the nose that knew my petting, Ripe for the last glorious race And her comrade's ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... 'You have been petting Cherry all this time! She is quite spoilt among you! It is quite true what I said, though she didn't like it. In society, I never saw a more arrant flirt, with her pathetic ill- used airs. Why, Ferdinand actually found fault to-day ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... happy for some reason," he thought. "Perhaps the rush and excitement of her new work exalts her. She has the ecstasied air of a lovely child on her birthday—with all her world filled with petting and birthday gifts." ...
— Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... them. He has their vanity; he has, if you like, their fanaticism. But he's a man. He's flattered and petted like a lap-dog, he's played with like a toy. Well, he's neither a lap-dog nor a toy, and he takes the flattery and the petting seriously. He thinks it's meant, and he behaves accordingly. What, then? The toy is thrown down on the ground, the lap-dog is kicked into the corner. But he's not a lap-dog, he's not a toy. He's a man. He has a man's resentments, a man's wounded ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason
... there for identification by friends, but still we wondered if anybody could love that repulsive object or grieve for its loss. We grew meditative and wondered if, some forty years ago, when the mother of that ghastly thing was dandling it upon her knee, and kissing it and petting it and displaying it with satisfied pride to the passers-by, a prophetic vision of this dread ending ever flitted through her brain. I half feared that the mother, or the wife or a brother of the dead man might come while we stood there, but nothing of the kind occurred. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... you and I haven't had a vast number of people to be fond of. There was Aunt Eleanor, but I defy anyone to be fond of her. Respect her one might, fear her we did, but love her—it would have been as discouraging as petting a steam road-roller. We hadn't even a motherly old nurse, for Aunt Eleanor liked machine-made people like herself to serve her. I don't think it did you much harm, you were such a sunny-tempered, affectionate little boy, but it made ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... soon she and Bunny were petting one of the calves. They were in little pens, by themselves, near the mother cows, and the children could reach over the sides of the pens, inside the barn, and ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue Playing Circus • Laura Lee Hope
... old Greek heroes fought and laboured to till the land, and rid it of giants and monsters," said Frank. "And as for the Marquesas, Mr. Melville found out, did he not—as you did once—that they were only petting and fattening him for the purpose of eating him? There is a dark side to that pretty picture, ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... did as she was bid, and Doctor and Betsy, who had sadly missed her petting, were ...
— Tattine • Ruth Ogden
... have some come looking for her before this, if it was not for you petting and pampering her the way you do, and encouraging her flightiness and follies. It is likely she will get no offers till such time as I will have taught her the manners and ...
— Three Wonder Plays • Lady I. A. Gregory
... just as real a cat as any other. My children play with it every day; and if you'll bring your little maids, I'll lay you a good venison pasty that they are petting it before they've been in the house a Paternoster. Trust a girl for that! Ah, yes! that was one reason why I thought she had some fancy of what was coming—the poor soul begged us to take old Gib. He'd ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt
... maternal temper which went with her shrewd brain seemed to need perpetually objects on which to spend itself. She could have loved the twins dearly had they let her, and day by day, in the absence of the mother, she had been accustomed to nurse, she had even positively enjoyed 'petting' Mrs. Gaddesden, holding her wool for her, seeing to her hot-water bottles, and her ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... found a Scotchman with a little literature very disagreeable. He is a superficial German or a dull Frenchman. The Scotch will attribute merit to people of any nation rather than the English; the English have a morbid habit of petting and praising foreigners of any sort, to the unjust ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... into the heads of these old women—petting and pampering them in the way you do! To organize a walking-club for them, when they've got one foot in the ...
— Polly and the Princess • Emma C. Dowd
... the easiest chair, the softest cushion, the middle of the bed, and the front of the fire, not only undisturbed, but caressed. This is a veritable history, beloved reader, and I offer it as a warning and an example: if you will be an old maid, or if you can't help it, take to petting children, or donkeys, or even a respectable cow, but beware of domestic tyranny in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... anybody unless addressed, then answering civilly, but in few words. The other week, just as quietly and unobtrusively, he was apt to be busy with his bottle, sometimes in the solitude of his little room, sometimes wandering by night down along the stream, sometimes stealing out to the herds, petting and crooning to the horses, sometimes slyly tendering the herd guard a drink, and always accompanied by a pack of the hounds, for by them he was held in reverence and esteem. He never accosted anybody, never even complained when a godless brace of soldier roughs robbed ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... with no more idea of matrimony than of murder in his heart. He was devoted to his brother's children, as well as the fair sex in general and could no more help flattering every one of them than he could help petting the children who were always crowding about him. Some of his stories of Miss Baylis' "shining up" to him had nearly convulsed his nieces. It was the memory of these which brought the smile to Sally's lips at the lady's last words. At that moment the last bell sounded and Miss Baylis ...
— A Dixie School Girl • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... well known in London by his long residence among us, and from the undisputed merit of his compositions, now inhabits this his native city, and being fond of dumb creatures, as we call them, took to petting a pigeon, one of the few animals which can live at Venice, where, as I observed, scarcely any quadrupeds can be admitted, or would exist with any degree of comfort to themselves. This creature has, ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... sister. "If you'll but learn Faith to keep that handkerchief of hers in her pocket, you'll have done the best work ever you did since we saw you last in Derwent-dale. She's for ever and the day after a-fretting and a-petting, for why she'd better tell you, for I'm a Dutchman if ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... Chief could have her opportunities for studying this little impressible, yet strangely impulsive royal nature, his severe condemnation of him would be tempered. In fact, she was doing what makes a woman excessively tender and opinionated; she was petting her idea of the misunderstood one: she was thinking that she divined the king's character by mystical intuition; I will dare to say, maternally apprehended it. And it was a character strangely open to feminine perceptions, while to masculine comprehension it remained a dead blank, done either ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... never met a man so immediately likable. Dag Daughtry knew, instinctively to be sure, how to get on with dogs. By nature there was no cruelty in him. He never exceeded in peremptoriness, nor in petting. He did not overbid for Michael's friendliness. He did bid, but in a manner that conveyed no sense of bidding. Scarcely had he given Michael that introductory jowl-shake, when he released him and apparently ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... to go to an infant whom we could hear crying in an inner room; and, when he returned, he had the child in his arms—a little girl, in a night gown. He sat down, petting her, stroking her hair with his supple lean hand, affectionately, and smiling with a sort of absentminded tenderness as he took ...
— Under the Prophet in Utah - The National Menace of a Political Priestcraft • Frank J. Cannon and Harvey J. O'Higgins
... Letty must needs flush and smile, so well she knew from his eager eye that she pleased him, that he noticed the pretty gown she had put on for luncheon, and that all the petting his absence had withdrawn from her for an hour or two had come back to her. Other women—more or less of her type—had found his ways beguiling before now. He took courtship as an art, and had his own rooted ideas as to how women should be treated. ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... manners and gentleness, and devoted her efforts to looking after Jack, finding it much easier to cure other people's faults than her own. Jack was a most engaging heathen, and needed very little instruction; therefore Jill thought her task would be an easy one. But three or four weeks of petting and play had rather demoralized both children, so Jill's Speller, though tucked under the sofa pillow every day, was seldom looked at, and Jack shirked his Latin shamefully. Both read all the story-books they could get, held daily levees in the Bird Room, and all their spare ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... bit," answered their father, whom Joy had asked. "They are practically indestructible, and they like petting." ...
— The Wishing-Ring Man • Margaret Widdemer
... woman, the mother of the tumbling youngsters, was the niece of the elder one in the rude old rocking-chair. She spoke to the two children at times, repressing them when they became too boisterous, or petting and soothing when misadventure came to either of them in their gambols. At last she moved close to the elder, and began to talk. The conversation was about the children, and there was much to say, the ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo
... of all the kindnesses he had formerly received came back to his mind. Yes, an elephant never forgets an injury, but he never forgets a kindness either. Perhaps Mukna remembered at that moment all the petting he had received when he was a good elephant, all the sugar-canes and bananas and pancakes—and all the rewards for being gentle and docile and obedient. And now he realized that, instead of receiving these good things, he was receiving ...
— The Wonders of the Jungle, Book Two • Prince Sarath Ghosh
... am quite ready to begin again. Oh, how happy that girl would be with me! I would create around her the existence of a fairy queen. In all her luxury she would feel the taste, the art, and the skill of her husband. I would pass my life in adoring her, in displaying her beauty, in petting her, in bearing her triumphant through the world. I would study her beauty in order to give it the frame that best suited it. 'If he were not there,' she would say, 'I should not be so beautiful, so dazzling.' ...
— L'Abbe Constantin, Complete • Ludovic Halevy
... couldn't compete. So, we made up our minds to compete in the only way possible. We leave off our corsets at dances so they can get a new thrill out of us, then sit out in an automobile and drink and have little petting parties of two. And we slip out and have an occasional lark like tonight. We're not to be worried ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... the routine of their former lives into a little extra rapidity. One and all—for the eyes they sought would not have looked upon them else—they had gone into the army; had fought and wrought well; and now with little to do, boon companionship and any amount of petting, they were paying for it. The constant strain of excitement produced much dissipation certainly—but it seldom took the reprehensible form of rowdyism and debauch. Some men drank deeply—at dinners, at balls and at bar-rooms; ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... firm hand, and not one of them would venture to take a liberty with him. But Bella had no fear of his grim face and stern ways, and "just twiddled her father round her finger," as her mother said, with a great show of impatience. But, in spite of all her petting from her big brothers and her father, Bella remained quite unspoiled, the light of her home and the joy of her father's heart. It had not escaped the father's jealous eye that Big Mack Cameron found occasion ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... friendly and almost unafraid. Dick took the line in the stern of the canoe, while Ned paddled from the bow. Baby was tractable and allowed himself to be towed, even swimming himself. He behaved best when his head was brought beside the canoe and seemed to like the petting that Dick gave him. When the baby had been tied in the little cove that Ned had discovered, in such a way that he could range over the whole of his nursery, the boys decided not to put a row of poles across ...
— Dick in the Everglades • A. W. Dimock
... her brother, "up to a certain point. I only warn you not to go too far and make the child unhappy by over-petting her. In a few weeks hence you will have forgotten her existence, and then the little ...
— Hetty Gray - Nobody's Bairn • Rosa Mulholland
... a beautiful morning, and Gloria and the cat were occupying the broad piazza. At last Abou Ben Adhem slid with a soft thud to the piazza floor. It was his signal that no more petting was desired for the time. Gloria, too, got out of the big rocker ...
— Gloria and Treeless Street • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... born of a line of brave men, who is conscious that early petting at home and a foreign education have developed physical cowardice. On his way home from England he falls into the hands of desperadoes who force him to fire a pistol at a bound man. The lad is almost fainting, and swoons with pain and horror ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... daughters—little children, but the parents wished them to grow up, if possible, under one instructress. The mother was young and pretty. From the first, she made a show of behaving to me with great delicacy. I kept my resentment to myself; but I knew very well that it was her way of petting the knowledge that she was my Mistress, and might have behaved differently to her servant if it had been ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... protested thornily. "I was playing again at the other table. I suppose it was about ten minutes, for Ralph and I had made another rubber, I remember.... Anyway, Karen was smiling like a baby that has had a lot of petting, but she said Hugo had promised her she wouldn't have to play bridge any more that evening, so Flora remained at that table, playing opposite Hugo, while Tracey played with Polly. As soon as Tracey became dummy, Flora suggested he go ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... come." Mrs. Bishop (Isabella Bird) eloquently describes (II, 135-136) the attachment to her of a Persian horse, and incidentally suggests the philosophy of the matter in one sentence: "To him I am an embodiment of melons, cucumbers, grapes, pears, peaches, biscuits, and sugar, with a good deal of petting and ear-rubbing thrown in." Cases of attachment between husband and wife no doubt abound among savages, even when the man is usually contemptuous and rude in his treatment of the wife. The Niam-Niam husbands ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... the county as the doctor's swiftest and wildest team, a span of bronchos whose savage spirits no journey could entirely subdue, a team he did not spare, a team that scorned petting and pity, bony, sinewy, big-headed. They never walked and had little care of ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... the animal knew that the boy was petting him, or because he had been treated harshly, and was willing to make friends with the first one who was kind to him, it is difficult to say; certain it is that as soon as he found himself in Toby's arms he nestled ...
— Mr. Stubbs's Brother - A Sequel to 'Toby Tyler' • James Otis
... bag, the gift of her uncle, packed, her room in perfect order. There was really no one or nothing to say good-by to, for she felt more pity than affection for Mrs. Peabody, and the Bramble Farm animals had been too unused to petting to respond readily to her overtures. Betty, at the breakfast table, had a swift conviction that she would be leaving with far different feelings if Bob had been there to ...
— Betty Gordon in Washington • Alice B. Emerson
... to her own room, and there the wonderful transformation began. She dressed Daisy in her own white satin dress, and twined deep crimson passion-roses in the golden curls, clapping her hands—at Daisy's wondrous beauty—kissing her, and petting her by turns. ...
— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey
... was most anxious to get me another pet. I might have had a dog of any kind. Dogs of priceless breeds, dogs for sporting, for ratting, and for petting; dogs for use or for ornament. From a bloodhound and mastiff almost large enough for me to ride, to a toy poodle that would go into my pocket—I might have chosen a worthy successor to Rubens, but ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... says Harvey. 'No,' says Safety First in a firm tone. 'I won't ever have another single thing come by mail if I can help it.' 'I bet you're superstitious,' says Harvey, climbing back to his seat and petting the new gun again. 'I bet you're so superstitious you'd take this here shiny new implement off my hands at cost if I hinted I'd part with it.' 'I almost believe I would,' says Safety First. 'Well, it don't seem like I'd have much use for it after all,' says Harvey. 'Of course I can always get ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... tricks, and are said to have very short memories. Hares which have escaped from their masters, and have been recaptured after a few days of freedom, have been found to be entirely wild, as if they retained no remembrance, even for that short time, of all the petting which had been bestowed upon them. Dr. Benjamin Franklin is said to have had a pet hare which lived on the most friendly terms with a greyhound and cat, and would share the hearth-rug with ...
— Harper's Young People, January 27, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... him the most charming old man she had ever known, and liked nothing so much as to go out a walk with him. That, indeed, was one of the signorino's pleasures; he loved to take the young girl all over his gardens and vineyards, talking to her in the amiable, half-petting, half-mocking manner that he had adopted from the first; and twice a week he gave ...
— Stories By English Authors: Italy • Various
... brother in "The Europeans," and Ralph Touchett, and such women as Isabel, Claire Belgarde, Mrs. Tristram, and certain others, with a thoroughness that is one of the best testimonies to their vitality. This comes about through their own qualities, and is not affected by insinuation or by downright petting, such as we find in Dickens nearly always ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... thing, Begot of love, and yet no love begetting; Guiltless of shame, and yet for shame to wring; And too soon banish'd from a mother's petting, To churlish nurture and the wide world's fretting, For alien pity and unnatural care;— Alas! to see how the cold dew kept wetting His childish coats, and dabbled all his hair, Like gossamers across his ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... and more were appointed to follow. Behold! some two days after, another—all the more bitter, because my conscience whispered that it was not altogether undeserved. The people's press had been hitherto praising and petting me lovingly enough. I had been classed (and heaven knows that the comparison was dearer to me than all the applause of the wealthy) with the Corn-Law Rhymer, and the author of the "Purgatory of Suicides." My class had claimed my talents ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... seen me; and, even if she did, she would not suspect the truth," was the guilty woman's thought, as, with the stolen missive in her pocket, she went down to the parlor and tried, by petting Anna more than her wont, to still the voice of conscience which clamored loudly of the wrong, and urged a restoration of the letter to the place whence ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes
... days of the continued petting, and the beef-tea and the jelly and all the rest of it, it occurred to Miss Grizzel, who had a good large bump of "common sense," that it might be possible to overdo ...
— The Cuckoo Clock • Mrs. Molesworth
... dear. You have learned all of Elise's pretty petting tricks, and some day you will be, I hope, just such a noble, tender-hearted woman. While I am gone, look after the young guineas; I have not seen them since yesterday. I shall not stay ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... fashion for a time. Dainty demoiselles preened and paced on the short sweet turf, petting and feeding the birds, and looking rather like pigeons themselves. But no one became really intimate with the carriers except Ranulph the troubadour, Lady Philippa, and Sir Gualtier Giffard, who loved them for ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... the wonder may resolve itself into that blindness which poets, no less than patrons, too frequently discover for the excellence of their contemporaries. Chatterton himself spoke with contempt of the productions of Collins. As to Walpole, he had no doubt more pleasure in petting the lap-dog that was left to his care by the old blind lady at Paris, than he could ever have felt in nursing the ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... was captured immediately and she joyfully cuddled up close to this new relative, who drew her with her to a big chair relieving her own nervousness, at this interview with dignified Mrs. Morton, by petting Chicken Little. ...
— Chicken Little Jane • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... had passed, it cannot be denied that Dreda thoroughly enjoyed her position of invalid, with all the petting and consideration which it involved. She was inclined to pose as a heroine, moreover; for had not her own sufferings been the result of standing by a companion in distress! "I could not leave her," she announced to the doctor when he cross-questioned her concerning the events of the fateful ...
— Etheldreda the Ready - A School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... had been visiting with the wives of the higher-up officials. His small paunch distended with cakes and coffee and such delicacies as he'd been plied with. He was half comatose from over-feeding and over-petting, but he was glad to see Calhoun. At the spaceport they discovered the ...
— Pariah Planet • Murray Leinster
... bringing him. He entertained the reporters affably at the hotel bar, and established a reputation for not being a "snob," though so much of a "swell." In fact he was a much less uncouth specimen than when Adelle had first encountered him in the Paris studio. A year and a half of ease and petting had served to smooth off those more obvious roughnesses that had caused Irene Paul to describe him as a "bounder." He was fashionably dressed according to the Anglo-French style, and fortunately did not affect soft shirts ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... glance at the group, Charley dismounted, and petting and soothing his trembling horse, ran his keen eyes over the animal's legs and flanks. From the little pony's left foreleg trickled a tiny ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... the development of tenderness and motherliness that goes on in her little girl through the nursing and petting and teaching and caring for her doll. There is a good deal of journalistic anxiety concerning the decline of mothers. Is it possible that fathers, too, are in any danger of decline? It is impossible to overestimate the sacredness and importance of the mother-spirit ...
— Children's Rights and Others • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... see what comes of your petting Nolla whenever she says or does anything dreadful!" exclaimed ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... search out freely his heavenly Father's works; and yet every one seems to have his antipathic animal; and I know one bred from his childhood to zoology by land and sea, and bold in asserting, and honest in feeling, that all without exception is beautiful, who yet cannot, after handling and petting and admiring all day long every uncouth and venomous beast, avoid a paroxysm of horror at the sight of the common house-spider. At all events, whether we were intruding or not, in turning this stone, we must pay a fine ...
— Glaucus; or The Wonders of the Shore • Charles Kingsley
... where, lapped in his ease, The Captain is petting the Bride on his knees, Where the whit of the bullet, the wounded man's scream Are mixed as the mist of some devilish dream— Forgotten, forgotten the sweat of the shambles Where the hill-daisy blooms and the gray monkey gambols, From the sword-belt set free and released ...
— Departmental Ditties and Barrack Room Ballads • Rudyard Kipling
... not surprised that you were not satisfied with the children; until now they have only been restrained by fear, and the circumstances of the journey to Paris brought them petting and kindness of which they have taken too much advantage. If worse trouble comes to Mme. Acquet, we will do our best to keep them in ignorance of it, and it is to be hoped the same can be done for ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre
... most magnetic as well as terrible sight: the lots of poor wounded and helpless men depending so much, in one ward or another, upon my soothing or talking to them, or rousing them up a little, or perhaps petting, or feeding them their dinner or supper (here is a patient, for instance, wounded in both arms,) or giving some trifle for a novelty or change—anything, however trivial, to break the monotony of ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... Mrs. Camp was made much of by Hilda O'Neil, June Jenrys, and Miss Ross is to put it mildly, and the good woman cared far more for the petting and praise of the two pretty girls than for the gratitude and congratulations of all the rest of us; and the friends she has found through her singular raid upon Smug and company will be her friends for all the years ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch
... with silver mane and tail, round-limbed, with a high dainty head, small ears, and big nostrils, with a human eye, spirited and docile, was brought round, caparisoned for a lady, and Julia stood by him with his bridle in her hand, caressing and petting him, while waiting for something ere she mounted. "Your name shall not be 'Silver-tail' any longer; you are 'Prince'"—whispering something in his ear. "Do you hear, Prince? You shall be my good friend, and serve me until ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... cry!" Flora begged, petting the large expanse of heaving shoulders. "I didn't mean anything. I was just silly. Of course it may be that she wants to marry him. But she never has before—at least, I mean, I don't believe she wants to now. What makes you think she does? What ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... answer. And now she was solicitous about his dinner,—anxious that he should enjoy the good things set before him, as is the manner of loving women, pressing him to take wine, and playing the good hostess in all things. He smiled, and ate, and drank, and was gracious under her petting; but he had a weight on his bosom, knowing, as he did, that he must say that before long which would turn all her playfulness either to anger or to grief. "And who had ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... suspect his intentions regarding Margaret. His manner toward her was the model of proper civility. He was a hundred times more amiable and jocular with Fanny, whom he treated with the half-familiar pleasantry of an elderly man for a child; petting her with such delicacy as precluded displeasure on either her part or mine. He pretended great dejection upon learning that her heart was already engaged; and declared that his only consolation lay in the fact that the happy ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... man of great distinction, Burlman Reynolds a fellow of small repute. When the two distinguished themselves, the Fighting Nigger claimed the lion's share of the glory; but when they disgraced themselves, then Burlman Reynolds must take the dog's share of the blame. Now, this petting and humoring had spoiled the Fighting Nigger not a little, making him arrogant and overbearing with his humbler self, even to the extent at times of a threat to kick him bodily out-of-doors. But Burlman Reynolds, the best-natured fellow ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... could no more keep them apart than the bees and the lavender. They were always together, singing, bowling, playing cup and ball, walking in the gardens, visiting the aviaries and petting her grace's trick-dogs and monkeys. The Duchess was as gay as a foal, always playing pranks and laughing, tricking out her animals like comedians, disguising herself as a peasant or a nun (you should have seen ...
— Crucial Instances • Edith Wharton
... week, letters which were a succession of fireworks embellished by caricatures of such of her teachers and acquaintance as had incurred her disapproval. Her aunt, Mrs. Edward Forbes, who was one of the leaders of New York society and a beauty, was giving her much petting and would take ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... the jealousy of my otherwise gentle rat when it saw me petting a mouse, and it would watch for an opportunity to spring upon its diminutive rival and put a speedy end ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... by me, but the influence was not, perhaps, very wholesome; or, it may be, I twisted and perverted it to ill uses. At least, I remember devious ways in which I sought to earn her admiration, and other yet more devious ways in which I schemed to win petting from her. I actually used to invent small offences and weave circumstantial romances about pretended wrong-doings, in order to have the pleasure of confessing, with mock shame, and getting absolution, along with caresses and sentimental promises of help to do better in future. In retrospect ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... Caesar, seeing some rich foreigners nursing and petting young lapdogs and monkeys, enquired whether in their parts of the world the women bore no children: a truly imperial reproof to those who waste on animals the affection which they ought to bestow upon mankind. May we not equally blame ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... instance— how much every animal has in it what men have,—a body, and brain, and heart; it hungers and thirsts as we do, it can feel pleasure and pain, anger and loneliness, and fear and madness; it likes freedom, company, and exercise, praise and petting, play and ease; it uses a great deal of cunning, and thought, and courage, to get itself food and shelter, just as human beings do: in short, it has a fleshly nature, just as we have, and yet, after all, it is but an animal, and ...
— Twenty-Five Village Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... to visit the famous trotter, and to feed him with bread and butter and sugar which David begged from the cook. They were still petting the affectionate animal ...
— Polly of Lady Gay Cottage • Emma C. Dowd
... stretching out his legs, and petting his pretty mustache with his beautiful white hand. Then he added, suddenly, surveying the brown-faced and stalwart young fellow before him, "By Jove, Macleod, I'm glad to see you in London. It's like a breath of mountain air. Don't I remember the awful mornings we've ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... peace if those murdering bandits are killed!" exclaimed Dona Pomposa. "I have said a rosary every night for five years that they might be taken. And, holy heaven! To think that we have been petting the worst of them as if he were General Castro or Juan Alvarado. To think, my Eulogia!—that thirsty wild-cat has had his arm about thy waist more times than ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... since she had seen Custance and Maude seemed to have obliterated both from her recollection. With all her faults, Custance was an affectionate mother, with that sort of affection which develops itself in petting; and it pained her to see how Isabel shrank away from her. The only comfort lay in the hope that time would accustom her to her mother again; and beyond the mere affection of custom, Isabel's nature would ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt
... everything that was beautiful, and dressed herself at haphazard; she could not endure to have young men pay court to her, but in books she read only those pages where love was the theme; she did not care to please, she did not like petting and never forgot caresses as she never forgot offences; she was afraid of death, and she had killed herself! She had been wont to say sometimes, "I do not meet the sort of man I want—and the others I will not have!"—"Well, ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... with George. Helen never went on to the moor without finding him in wait for her, and always she went as to some unworthy tryst, despising herself for the appeasement she meted out to him, daring to do nothing else. Once more, she saw him as some animal that might be soothed with petting, but, thwarted, would turn fierce and do as he would with her. Her dignity and friendship kept him off; he did not know how to pass the barrier, and to lock material doors against him would have been to tempt him to force the house. She knew that ...
— Moor Fires • E. H. (Emily Hilda) Young
... dis time," Freddie lisped, knocking the cover off the box and petting the frightened little black cat. "Hungry, Snoopy?" he asked, pressing his baby cheek ...
— The Bobbsey Twins in the Country • Laura Lee Hope
... have been thoroughly exhausted, you should suddenly say, "Well I don't think girls—nice girls—are really that way." She replies, of course, "WHAT way?" You answer, "Oh, the way they are in these modern novels. This 'petting,' for instance." She says, "WHAT petting'?" You walk over and sit down on the sofa beside her. "Oh," you say, "these novelists make me sick—they seem to think that in our generation every time a young man and woman are left alone on a lounge together, ...
— Perfect Behavior - A Guide for Ladies and Gentlemen in all Social Crises • Donald Ogden Stewart
... personality.' She probably wrote treatises left-handed and upside-down. They often begin that way. The mother, lately bereaved, was convinced of her daughter's occult powers. She nursed the delusion, formed a circle, sat in the darkness, petting the girl when things happened, mourning when the walls were silent—and there you are! 'Sludge the Medium' all over again, in a small way. Probably the girl didn't intend to deceive anybody at first, but she was tolled along from one fakery to another, till at last she found ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... Try petting a toad some time. He will get to be quite at home in a garden and pay well, for he will eat all kinds of destructive insects. Some gardeners buy toads, paying as high as a quarter apiece, for they ...
— How Girls Can Help Their Country • Juliette Low
... her well, Polly, instead of petting her; but it is always the way with the prodigal—he has the fatted calf,' said ...
— Sarah's School Friend • May Baldwin
... please, to promise me that you will not interfere with him again. I will take up the matter. I will talk very seriously to Momma and see if I cannot open her eyes to the very serious wrong and injury that we are all doing to the boy by petting and pampering him, and humouring his every whim, however outrageous it may be. So you will give me your promise to be very patient with him, won't you? I know that he has been atrociously rude and provocative to ...
— The First Mate - The Story of a Strange Cruise • Harry Collingwood |
