"Tiptoe" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... them, my boy! See, 'night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day stands tiptoe on ...
— The Shape of Fear • Elia W. Peattie
... Roscoe Orlando Gibbons, who had been about the world not a little and who drew sanction for the young architect's doings from more quarters of the Continent than one, instantly rose to the occasion and landed on the topmost pinnacle of the shining temple at a single swoop. Here he stood tiptoe and beckoned. This confident pose, this encouraging gesture, had its effect; the others toiled and scrambled up, each after his own fashion, but they all got there. Even old Oliver Dowd, who had once been a member of the state legislature and had won ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... yet she would have despised him had he shown self-consciousness in gait or manner in the sight of her assembled guests. Nearly as tall as the Colonel himself, he is plainly seen, and Miss Puss in her corner does not have to stand on tiptoe. Mr. Carvel does the honors of ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... on tiptoe through the hall, and he kept whispering to me, "This is just like—it's just like burglary. Girls are reckless. We'd better look out. Do you hear a footstep upstairs? I hear a bell ringing. I bet he's calling up ...
— Roy Blakeley's Bee-line Hike • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... the watchman of the building, noticing the light, came to investigate. A moment he stood in the open door, an appreciative observer. On tiptoe he moved away. ...
— The Dominant Dollar • Will Lillibridge
... simmers above a vast heap of half-browned potatoes. How the young rogues clap their hands, and dance round their father, for very joy at the prospect of the feast: and how anxiously the youngest and chubbiest of the lot, lingers on tiptoe by his side, trying to get a peep into the interior of the dish. They turn up the street, and the chubby- faced boy trots on as fast as his little legs will carry him, to herald the approach of the dinner to 'Mother' who is standing with a baby ...
— Sunday Under Three Heads • Charles Dickens
... was very curious to know where I was going, and asked me many questions, which I had some trouble in answering. But at last it was night again, and the old woman went to bed and left me. Then I went on tiptoe to the kitchen, and found a skein of thread and two needles, and set ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... him with breathless anxiety on shore saw little of all this as they paid out the line or perched themselves on tiptoe on the few boulders that here and ...
— Charlie to the Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... Flying-Phalangers, or, as they are locally called, Opossum-Mice. See Opossum-Mouse, Flying-Mouse, Flying-Phalanger, and Phalanger. The genus was founded by Desmarest in 1817. (Grk. 'akrobataes, walking on tiptoe.) ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... ye phantoms of the night! if while lingering within my home after the crowing of the cock, you saw me stealing about on tiptoe in the City of Books, you certainly never cried out, as Madame Trepof did at Naples, "That old man has a good-natured round back!" I entered the library; Hannibal, with his tail perpendicularly erected, came to rub himself against my legs and purr. I seized a volume ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... look through mud," declaimed Mr. Niles, refusing to descend from polemics to plain business, "and you'll see what is the matter. You have made yourself the voice by which this district has spoken in the halls of state for fifty years, and that voice is not the voice of the people!" He stood on tiptoe and roared the charge. ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... anything sweeter than this leaking in of Nature through all the cracks in the walls and floors of cities. You heap up a million tons of hewn rocks on a square mile or two of earth which was green once. The trees look down from the hill-sides and ask each other, as they stand on tiptoe,—"What are these people about?" And the small herbs at their feet look up and whisper back,—"We will go and see." So the small herbs pack themselves up in the least possible bundles, and wait until the wind steals to them at ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... him and left the room. Bashville, awestruck, returned her salutation as best he could, and stood motionless after she disappeared; his mind advancing on tiptoe to grasp what had just passed. His chief sensation was one of relief. He no longer dared to fancy himself in love with such a woman. Her sudden consideration for him as a suitor overwhelmed him with a sense of his unfitness for such a part. He saw himself ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... can endure no longer To creep on tiptoe round this house, and lurk In ambush for a favorable moment: This loitering, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... crockery diminished, the waiters paused in their tasks or crept on tiptoe about the place. Men and women stood up at their tables that they might see the singer better; conversation ceased. And all the time the chef d'orchestre drew music from his violin, and mademoiselle, with ...
— The Mischief Maker • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... John in the smoking-room. The door was half open and she entered noiselessly. John was sitting at the table; his arms were outspread on it, and his face buried in his hands. Thinking he was asleep she approached on tiptoe and leant over his shoulder. As she did so her eyes fell on a sheet of note-paper; it was clutched in John's right hand, and the encircling grasp covered it, save at the top. The top was visible, and Mary, before she knew what she was doing, had read the embossed heading—nothing ...
— Comedies of Courtship • Anthony Hope
... Tommy Dott made his appearance; he extended his hand to me, saying, in a haw-haw way, "Keene, my dear fellow, I'm glad to see you." He certainly did look two or three inches taller, for he walked almost on tiptoe. ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... went like a young squirrel, his bare toes clutching like claws in the tangle of the stems and twigs. He gained the roof, crawled rapidly along, and reached the bath-room window, only to find he could barely clutch the sill with the tips of his fingers. Standing on tiptoe, he got a little grip, then his bare toes and knees started to work; inch by inch up they went over the rough stone wall, while his hands slipped further and further over the sill, until they could seize the ledge on the inside. Twice his knees slid back, ...
— The Shagganappi • E. Pauline Johnson
... for a little while at his bedside. I did not think he would get to sleep quickly, but soon his breathing became more even and prolonged. I went away on tiptoe, turned into my own room, and lay down on the sofa. For a long while I mused on what Pasinkov had told me, recalled many things, wondered; at last I too ...
— The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... little more than a year at Bath had but one memorable event, in its course, to me. I was looking one evening, at bedtime, over the banisters, from the upper story into the hall below, with tiptoe eagerness that caused me to overbalance myself and turn over the rail, to which I clung on the wrong side, suspended, like Victor Hugo's miserable priest to the gutter of Notre Dame, and then fell four stories down ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... and went on tiptoe to the window, where she drew the blind an inch aside. The stranger's footstep had ceased to crunch the gravel, and he stood now just beneath her, before the monthly-rose bush. Throughout the winter a blossom or two lingered in that sheltered corner; ...
— I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... halfway from the corner to his door before he stopped. He stopped suddenly and held his breath. Then he shaded his candle with the palm of his hand and looked forward. Immediately he turned, and walking on tiptoe came silently back into the big passage. Even this was not well lighted; it stretched away upon his right and left, full of shadows. But it was silent. The only sounds which reached Wogan as he stood there and listened ...
— Clementina • A.E.W. Mason
... got up in the middle of the night and started right there and then to be a burglar. I went on tiptoe as softly as I could, and was right in the middle of the kitchen floor when I stumbled over a little stool and it made a noise. It was not much of a noise, but to me it seemed like the shot out of a cannon. I thought ...
— Dave Ranney • Dave Ranney
... the stones of the Bastile," continued Rollo, "and made this tall bronze column in its place. There is a figure of a man on it, standing on tiptoe." ...
— Rollo in Paris • Jacob Abbott
... face quickly, with a look of expectation—the door never opened in those sad days without her heart beating faster with the hope of possible tidings—but it as quickly faded again. Dymock had just the same melancholy expression; he still walked on tiptoe, and spoke in a muffled voice, as if he were entering a sick-room. This was his way of showing his sympathy, which really was most deep and sincere But somehow it provoked Grandmamma, who was, it must be confessed, rather a quick-tempered old lady at ...
— "Us" - An Old Fashioned Story • Mary Louisa S. Molesworth
... they not undertake?" There are a great many unsuccessful attempts; but these are not necessarily observed, they pass quietly into obscurity, while we hasten to observe the successes, which are wonderful, and so numerous as to keep us ever on tiptoe, looking for new wonders. Having seen the railways, the magnetic telegraph, and Hoe's press, in full operation, and having been brought to accept these as a common measure of time and motion, we find ourselves indisposed for older ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... Childe, who had entered the closet and was standing a-tiptoe before a mirror to adjust a patch beneath her ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... and which I felt in my childhood. Little Annie shall take a ramble with me. See! I do but hold out my hand, and like some bright bird in the sunny air, with her blue silk frock fluttering upward from her white pantalets, she comes bounding on tiptoe across ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... friend were on the platform to meet me. We took a cab to the quay, from which a waterman rowed us across the harbour. Then a journey of another three miles in a carriage, and I was at home, sweet home. My mother and sisters, who had been on the tiptoe of expectation for the last hour, now bounded out of the room as the front door was opened, and I cannot describe what transpired in the lobby for the next few minutes. The tears of joy being wiped away, we all sat down to supper, my companion—he who tasted ...
— From Lower Deck to Pulpit • Henry Cowling
... cautiously by, on tiptoe, with his eyes all the time on the Count Chateau Blassernare, or the man he mistook for him—his dress was not what he usually wore, but the witness swore that he could not be mistaken as to his identity. He said his face looked grave and stern; but though he did not smile, it was the ...
— The Room in the Dragon Volant • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... slaves would have lighted a moss fire to cook the meat, the forbidding hand of a chief went up. No fires were to be lighted. The Indians advanced with whispers, dodging from stone to stone like raiders in ambush. Spies went forward on tiptoe. Then far down-stream below the cataracts Hearne descried the domed tent-tops of an Eskimo band sound asleep; for it was midnight, though the sun was at high noon. When Hearne looked back to his companions, he found himself deserted. The Indians were already wading the river for the ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut
... Yesterday, Prince Martin, with the palatine and the palatiness, gave me a historical account of each picture; I immediately determined to transfer them to my journal. With this intention I rose before day and visited the gallery on tiptoe while all were still sleeping. I will write down all I have been told, ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... tighter. Then she took the key from the pocket of my vest, which was hanging over a chair, unlocked my desk, took out a roll of gold pieces, locked the desk again and put back the key. I was horrified! But I restrained myself, so as not to disturb her. She went out of the room and I crept after her on tiptoe. She climbed up to the attic and threw the gold into an old chest, which has been standing there empty since the days of my grandfather. Then she glanced timidly around the room, and, without seeing me, hurried ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... in the shadows, nudged Cap'n Sproul beside him, and wagged his head toward the open door. They went out on tiptoe. ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... deadly foe of the mountain poor-whites, that Marcia Lowe heard a knock upon her cabin door. So alone and absorbed had she been for the past few days that a demand from the outer world startled and annoyed her. Martin was sleeping—he lay in the lean-to chamber—so on tiptoe the little doctor went ...
— A Son of the Hills • Harriet T. Comstock
... corner of his yard, round and round, with inconceivable rapidity and an astounding innocence, as if he imagined himself alone and unobserved, the Emu danced like a bird demented. On tiptoe, absurdly elongated, round and round, ecstatically, deliriously, he danced. He danced till his legs and his neck were as one high perpendicular pole and his body a mere whorl of feathers spinning round it, driven by the ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... this, and the girls passed into the tent as Katherine held the flap back. They were on tiptoe with excitement, and not a little embarrassed as they saw the long figure on the bed completely wrapped in blankets. A moment later the boys outside, standing around uncertainly, had their nerves shattered by a sudden loud scream of laughter which grew in volume until the tent ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... room, and returned with his nightly glass and jug of water. There could be nothing else that he would want during the night. It was all he ever had, and he would sleep so until morning. She approached the bed upon tiptoe. ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... and silks, the days of her girlhood, when half the young men in the county were wild about her. When she moved she wafted towards you a perfume of sweet lavender—the very smell that you remember came from your own mother's old-fashioned bureau drawer when she let you stand on tiptoe to see her pretty things. When you kissed her—and once I did—her cheek was as soft as a child's and ...
— Colonel Carter of Cartersville • F. Hopkinson Smith
... On tiptoe he picked his way across the corridor and slipped the note under the door. So quietly did he step that he did not hear his own footfall; but it did not escape the ears of the woman who sat stitching her life into the garment ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... talking to the superintendent of the work, a cultured archaeologist. When he began his descent of the mountain, a train on the funicular railroad was feeling its way cautiously down the steep mountainside, like a child on tiptoe. A little weak, irritable sniff came up from its engine as the toy train paused at one of the three stopping places below La Turbie. It was like a very young girl blowing her nose ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... executed strategic retreat; Chair empty; JOHN standing on tiptoe, followed retreating figure with despairing cry, "Mr. SPEAKER!" House half hoped SPEAKER would return; dying with curiosity to know what fresh irregularity on part of Government JOHN had discovered; but no help for it. Chair empty; ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, March 29, 1890 • Various
... of the council chamber the figure of a man emerged. He walked on tiptoe toward the table. The black ash on the table fascinated him. For several moments ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... stood on tiptoe to embrace the majestic Washington, and began to call him "petit," or "little," the scene was ludicrous. The French officers politely turned aside; but it was too much for General Knox, who was a big, jolly man. He simply forgot his politeness, ...
— Hero Stories from American History - For Elementary Schools • Albert F. Blaisdell
... all, do we, sister?" said Beth, stretching up on tiptoe to get her "bawheady" from the bureau. "We'd just as lief give it away as not, 'cause ...
— What Two Children Did • Charlotte E. Chittenden
... awe, and hand in hand, they entered the room on tiptoe—the darkened room where Russell was What a hush and oppression there seemed to them at first in the dim, silent chamber; what an awfulness in all the appliances which showed how long and deeply their schoolfellow had suffered. ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... upon a barrel, stood on tiptoe, grasped the rim of the box; then, using a knot-hole as a stirrup, threw one leg over the top, drew himself up, and dropped within. Standing upon the packed sawdust, he was just tall enough ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... the little boy, whose hands were extended close over the coals, turned and looked toward the bed, it seemed to her, in fear, and she saw the glare of the embers reflected on his thin cheek as he turned toward her. He rose and went, on tiptoe, quickly to the door, in silence, and let himself out as softly as ...
— J.S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 5 • J.S. Le Fanu
... laugh and call me extravagant, as others do, if I say what I think; so I will let you judge for yourself. See, your brother stands on tiptoe to peep at her. Now he goes in, and there he will stay. You do not like that, perhaps. But Ottila cannot help her beauty, nor the power she has of making all men love ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... what a clamour! Now the little torment tries, Perched on tiptoe, all the glamour Of her coaxing hands and eyes! May she hold the glass she drinks from—just one ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... brought with him as the ostensible cause of his visit, and gone on his way, thinking no more about her for another two years perhaps. But Madelon had no thought of shyness with the tall fair handsome man who had taken her fancy: she stood for a moment in the pathway before him, balancing herself on tiptoe with uplifted arms, confident in the hope of being taken up; and, as the woman recognizing M. Linders, came forward and bade the child run to Papa, with a sudden unaccustomed emotion of tenderness, almost pathetic in such a man, he stooped down ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... thinking she was asleep, or hoping her to be so, bent over Pepita, imprinted a kiss softly and slowly on her white forehead, smoothed oat the folds of her dress, arranged the windows so as to leave the room in semi-obscurity, and went out on tiptoe, closing the door behind her without making the ...
— Pepita Ximenez • Juan Valera
... heart and many sighs he took the key from the big bunch. When he had opened the door he stepped in first, and thought to cover the likeness so that the King might not perceive it; but it was hopeless: the King stood on tiptoe and looked over his shoulder. And when he saw the picture of the maid, so beautiful and glittering with gold and precious stones, he fell swooning to the ground. Trusty John lifted him up, carried him to bed, and thought sorrowfully: "The curse has come upon ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... explanation. Miss Bonnicastle broke the silence, saying they must have some tea, and calling upon Olga to help her in preparing it. For a minute or two the men were left alone. Florio, approaching Piers on tiptoe, whispered anxiously: ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... sometimes the old man upon the bed would snore a little, stop suddenly, and move as if to rise, but George Amberson would set a hand upon his shoulder, and murmur a reassuring word or two. Now and then, either uncle or nephew would tiptoe into the hall and look toward Isabel's room, then come tiptoeing back, ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... tiptoe, and out to the precise spot on which she had parted from Stephen to enable him to speak privately to her father. Thence she wandered into all the nooks around the place from which the sound seemed to proceed—among the huge laurestines, about the tufts of pampas grasses, amid the variegated hollies, ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... You will become weak. You will have to take to violence, to contortions, to romanticism, in self-defense. This sort of thing is like a man trying to lift himself up by the seat of his trousers. He may stand on tiptoe, but he can't do more. Here you stand on tiptoe, very gracefully, I admit; but you can't fly; ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... from the table as soon as the last forkfull of fried potatoes had been devoured. When Mrs. Fletcher brought the breakfast plates out to the kitchen sink, she found him on tiptoe, with one hand fumbling among the spice tins and bottles in the top bureau drawer. He turned guiltily, and yawned ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... her treasures. She took a light, observed whether any one saw her, or could follow her, and repaired to the apartment of the Countess Galeazzi, who was from home, spending the evening with an old acquaintance. Hardly breathing, and walking on tiptoe, Sophia took a key from under a bell-glass, and opened the bureau. Oh, how she felt her heart throb! She was terrified; she trembled in every movement! The noise she made in opening the money-drawer seemed to be the footsteps of ...
— Tales for Young and Old • Various
... failed. His guffaw must out, and exploded with violent effect. It drove the Marques back to the door, and sent Gil Perez scudding on tiptoe to ...
— The Spanish Jade • Maurice Hewlett
... low room, warmed by a stove, with a glazed and grated door opening on the street, and guarded by a detachment, Javert opened the door, entered with Fantine, and shut the door behind him, to the great disappointment of the curious, who raised themselves on tiptoe, and craned their necks in front of the thick glass of the station-house, in their effort to see. Curiosity is a sort of gluttony. To see ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... streaks of rain were drifting around to the left and passing out to sea, leaving the mist thin and white. Suddenly voices forward cried, excitedly: "Land ho! Land ho! There she is! Isthmus in sight! Land ho!" The cries spread, with everybody on tiptoe, peering. At one end of the mist line had been uncurtained a background of rocky, surf-washed shore, with high green hills rising behind it. Next was uncovered a lower shore, indented by a large bay, and fringed with palm-trees. Next, as on sped the mist (like a swiftly rolling ...
— Gold Seekers of '49 • Edwin L. Sabin
... stairs on tiptoe. As he paused for a moment in front of a door at the head, he heard the weak, spasmodic wail ...
— The Story of a New York House • Henry Cuyler Bunner
... the door, but she went on tiptoe toward the couch, fearing her light footsteps might disturb the emperor. Yet before she had reached the divan she stopped still, and then she heard the plaintive rattle in the sufferer's throat, and from the background ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... half way inside the door and looked about him. A grin spread across his wide, high-cheeked face. He reached down silently to the stout spruce stick, charred at one end, that stood between him and the stove. Grasping it he advanced on tiptoe, silent as a cat, toward the woman. He was convinced that her sight was poor, almost convinced that she did not see at all, because she made no move when he stopped, the stick drawn back. With a swift sweep he struck the barrel of the revolver a blow so forceful ...
— The Sagebrusher - A Story of the West • Emerson Hough
... time of tyranny and oppression for those who live in Marathon. The birds are upon us like Hindenburg in Belgium. We go about on tiptoe, speaking in whispers, for fear of annoying them. It is all the fault of the Marathon Bird Club, which has offered all sorts of inducements to the fowls of the air to come and live in our suburb, quite forgetting that humble commuters have to live there, too. Birds have moved all the way from Wynnewood ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... he forgot everything but her and this thing she was to do. He had her in his grasp—he was the man, the master—and what enchanting readiness to yield in the swaying pliant form! In the distance far away gleamed the statue of Hope, a child on tiptoe, one outstretched arm just visible from ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... and Peggy stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek, and hung on to the lapels of his coat, ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey
... said the major, standing on tiptoe to reach a downstretched hand. "If you want us, give a good blow at it. We'll be with you in a brace of shakes. If we can't get over the wall we'll have the door down. Divil a fear but we'll ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... "Hsh" and went off on tiptoe through the woods, stalking his hop-toad. He's a mighty nice little fellow, Pee-wee is. And he's a bully little scout. Scout pace and good turns, those are his specialties. He just stalks ...
— Roy Blakeley's Adventures in Camp • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... she stood taller on tiptoe than ever, put her face up to Serapion, nodding her pretty head at him again and again, and as she looked roguishly and yet imploringly into his ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... direction, Gerard presently discerned the outline of a dark wooden beam passing from pillar to pillar; and as the pair got nearer, walking now on tiptoe, one by one dark snake-like cords came out in the moonlight, each pendent from the beam to a dead ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... prolong that watch, and he sat down to his spinet. What he had foreseen happened; at the first notes which reached her, the young girl, not knowing that from the position of the light he could see her shadow through the curtains, approached the window on tiptoe, and thinking herself hidden, she listened to the melodious instrument, which, like the nightingale, awoke to sing in the middle ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... by his garment that he knew this; it was by his face then; his face, therefore, was not muffled. Upon seeing this man with the muffled face, Marcia falls a raving; and, owning her passion for the supposed defunct, begins to make his funeral oration. Upon which Juba enters listening, I suppose on tiptoe; for I cannot imagine how any one can enter listening in any other posture. I would fain know how it came to pass, that during all this time he had sent nobody, no, not so much as a candle-snuffer, to take away the dead body of Sempronius. Well! but let us regard ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... White being placed in the midst. The Rebels were soon asleep, but there was no sleep for the Major. He listened anxiously for the footsteps of his rescuers. After long, weary hours, he heard the tramp of horses. He arose, and walking on tiptoe, cautiously stepping over his sleeping guards, he reached the door and silently unfastened it. The Union men rushed into the room and took the astonished Wroton and his followers prisoners. At daybreak ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... go by the door, Tiptoe, holding their breath, And hush the talk that they held before, Lest they should waken Death, That is awake all night There ...
— Poems • William D. Howells
... of Mavriky Nikolaevitch; he has known all about you, everything, for ever so long; you can weep on his shoulder as long as you like, and he'll stand there as long as you like! ... Lift up your hat, take it off altogether for a minute, lift up your head, stand on tiptoe, I want to kiss you on the forehead as I kissed you for the last time when we parted. Do you see that young lady's admiring us out of the window? Come closer, closer! Heavens! ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... Tiptoe he stole across the floor and laid a hand lightly on the knob of the door of the captain's private room. It turned easily without any creak, and the door opened a few inches. There sat Henshaw with his back to McTee, ...
— Harrigan • Max Brand
... "wanted his little maid to sit near him for half-an-hour," he said. And he held her hand in his own hand, and gave her such looks of perfect love and blessed her so solemnly and sweetly when at length he left her that she began to sob again and to stand on tiptoe that she might throw her arms around his neck and touch his lips with hers ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... is true, But I do not sing for you. Higher yet on tiptoe rise, Don't you see a pair of eyes Peeping through the pleasant shade Which the summer leaves have made? There they watch me all day long, Brightening at my cheerful song, Turning wheresoe'er I go For the ...
— Canadian Wild Flowers • Helen M. Johnson
... M. Folgat went on tiptoe to the wicket. But Jacques had waked up. He had heard steps and voices, and he had just risen. Blangin, therefore, opened the door; and at once M. Magloire said ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... of voices and a clash of glasses followed the refrain. Master Pothier's eyes winked and blinked in sympathy. The old notary stood on tiptoe, with outspread palms, as with ore rotundo he threw in a few notes of his own to ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... this summer evening. We were preparing to return without seeing the interior when a little maiden arrived from the village, who with flushed face and timid mien drew the castle key from under a big stone, stood on tiptoe and turned the heavy lock, and the door creaking on its hinges we were left to wander at our will through old wainscoted rooms in the dreamy twilight. No spirit of modern restoration had ever reached them: they were allowed to remain just as inconvenient, but also just as quaint, as on ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various
... day, Ruth found herself the centre of attraction in Dolittle Cottage. She lay at ease on the couch, with wet compresses on her forehead. The shutters were closed to keep out the sunshine. Every one walked on tiptoe, and spoke in subdued accents. Even the fly-away Dorothy sought the invalid at frequent intervals to murmur, "Poor Rufie! Poor Rufie," and to pat Ruth's arm with a sympathetic little hand. Now that it had gained its point, the headache ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... room, and drink to the shades; we might still, from the top of Lundy at dusk, watch the dim seas break into lilac around the Shutter Rock, while the unseen kittiwakes were voices from the past; and we might still see Miss Muffet tiptoe on a June morning to smell the first rose. That is what we look for in books, or something like it, and when it is not there they are ...
— Waiting for Daylight • Henry Major Tomlinson
... gave Gwendolyn renewed encouragement. They were alone. She stood on tiptoe. "Miss Brown," she began, "did you ever hear of a—a bee that ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates
... sitting on the lime-wash bucket. We gave out to ride o' Tuesday to London and made a show of making farewells of our friends—especially of Master John Collins. But at Wadhurst Woods we turned; rode by night to the watermeadows; hid our horses in a willow-tot at the foot of the glebe, and stole a-tiptoe up hill to Barnabas's church again. A thick mist, and a moon ...
— Puck of Pook's Hill • Rudyard Kipling
... and up, ever so far," said Olly, standing on tiptoe, and stretching out his little arms as high as they would reach, "it wouldn't take us long. Mother, don't you wish you was ...
— Milly and Olly • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... door and the back to make sure no one should enter or leave too easily, and returned on tiptoe, moving to and fro like a shadow cast by a changing light, so swift ...
— The Bittermeads Mystery • E. R. Punshon
... that no lanterns illume Stand groups of slim lilies and jonquils in bloom; On tiptoe, unseen 'mid a tangle of green, They offer the midnight their cups ...
— Ponkapog Papers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... usual state of Rome is quiet and sober. One could almost fancy the actual generation held their breath, and stole by on tiptoe, in presence of so memorable a past. But during the Carnival all mankind, womankind and childkind think it unbecoming not to play the fool. The modern donkey pokes its head out of the lion's skin of old ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... soft rugs almost on tiptoe, and the colonel himself came out into the hall to meet him. 'Come in, my little man, and don't ...
— Teddy's Button • Amy Le Feuvre
... vision fair, Of candour, innocence, and truth, Stand tiptoe on the verge of air, ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... brown circlets, crumbly, delectable. Snooky, in her scarlet sweater and cap, sniffed them from afar and straightway deserted her sand pile to take her stand at the fence. She peered through the restraining bars, standing on tiptoe. Blanche Devine, glancing up from her board and rolling pin, saw the eager golden head. And Snooky, with guile in her heart, raised one fat, dimpled hand above the fence and waved it friendlily. Blanche Devine waved back. Thus encouraged, Snooky's two hands ...
— One Basket • Edna Ferber
... clipped close, and at the chin ran out into a pronounced Vandyke point. His mustaches were black, heavy, and waxed. His whole external appearance betokened wealth, and he exuded mystery. He had not taken two steps from the car before the people on the platform were standing on tiptoe ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick
... their approaches for some time. The engineer laid himself on a bench in a recess by the fire-place, and I went upstairs to have a look. I hadn't heard any sound from there for a long time. Old Viola, as soon as he saw me come up, lifted his arm for silence. I stole in on tiptoe. By Jove, his wife was lying down and had gone to sleep. The woman had actually dropped off to sleep! 'Senor Doctor,' Viola whispers to me, 'it looks as if her oppression was going to get better.' 'Yes,' ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... as a ghost, with big black eyes," was Janet's answer; and, with his curiosity awakened, Henry Warner started for the parlor, Rose following on tiptoe, and listening through the half-closed door to what their ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... silent solo, this time on the tambourine, which the boy pretended to beat with frantic energy, ending by going on tiptoe to peep through the keyhole, and satisfy himself that the doctor was ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn
... was to give me my self-promised land crept on tiptoe into the room on the third story, and touched me where I slept, and on pushing the shoji apart and looking out, I beheld as fair a day as heart could wish. A faint misty vapor, like a bridal veil, ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell
... of the stairs and Mary stood at the turn. She had one hand on the rail of the banister, the other pressed hard against the wall. She leaned forward on tiptoe, measuring her distance. When she looked at the stairs they fell from under her in a grey dizziness, so that Mark ...
— Mary Olivier: A Life • May Sinclair
... he had his way and went his way; For Gods have mastery, and a maiden's nay Grows faint ere it is whispered all. I sped Homeward with startled face and tiptoe tread, And up the stair, and ...
— Helen Redeemed and Other Poems • Maurice Hewlett
... there," he said, reassuringly; and went on tiptoe out of the darkened, cologne-scented room. But as he passed along the hall, and saw his father in his little cabin of a room, smoking placidly, and polishing his sextant with loving hands, Cyrus's ...
— An Encore • Margaret Deland
... everybody was on the tiptoe of suspense, and that the interest hanging upon the issue of this night's events swallowed up all other anxieties, of whatsoever nature. Even the battle which was now daily expected between the imperial and Swedish armies ceased to occupy the hearts and conversation of the citizens. Domestic ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... rascal, would have tempted Greta into this solitude; but she was too shrewd, the wise little woman, to-be so easily trapped. Pretending to follow him in ignorance of his manifest design, she tripped back on tiptoe, and fled away like a ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... you. When you reach the place, put the tongs in the fire, and blow the coals to a bright flame. If the black cow asks what this is for, answer her as I am about to whisper in your ear." Then the maiden crept out of the room on tiptoe as she had come, and the prince lay down ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... tiptoe to the bed, and clasping the pale hand held out to him, whispered some words that no doubt charmed and soothed the ear that heard them, for that pale hand was suddenly drawn from his own and thrown tenderly round his neck. The sound of a gentle ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... back her hair and bathed her face; then, yielding to her impatience, she again softly opened the door of her chamber and ventured to cross the vast workroom, noiselessly and on tiptoe. The shutters were still closed, but she could see clearly enough not to stumble against the furniture. When she was at the other end before the door of the doctor's room, she bent forward, holding her breath. Was he already up? What could he be doing? She heard him plainly, ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola
... On tiptoe and trembling went the General along the narrow paths, green with damp, and latticed by the shadows which branches cast in the sickly moonlight, until—just when he was almost clear of the gloom—his knees bent under him; for there, at the end of ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... quite a large Roman Catholic church in the village; but we had to be content with a tiptoe peep through its windows, as after the "angelus" the door is locked. There are some small trading stores, a few scattered houses, long, pretty winding roads up the hills, skirted by cozy little farmhouses and wheat-fields, and one or two dwellings of more pretension occupied ...
— A Trip to Manitoba • Mary FitzGibbon
... his shoes, for they were down at the heels, and he was very quick about it. When he had come down into the courtyard he walked quite softly, and the ladies were so busily engaged in counting the kisses, that all should be fair, that they did not notice the emperor. He raised himself on tiptoe. ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... an assumption. We might as well surrender to the spiritists at once. What evidence have we that Clarke did not rise and tiptoe about the room ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... on tiptoe, and knocked with his pebble against the pane too softly to break the glass, but loud enough to ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... the knob and then, a gentle push opened the door, and on tiptoe, she entered, making her way along the hall to a room where the sunlight ...
— Princess Polly's Gay Winter • Amy Brooks
... embrace, in the flushed cheeks and glittering eyes that made Johanna even more uneasy. She insisted upon Ephie lying still and trying to sleep; and, after taking off her shoes for her, and noiselessly drawing down the blinds, she went on tiptoe out of the room. ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... standing up when I went in. I dropped my curtsey at the door, which my mother had always taught me as a part of good manners, and went up instinctively to my lady. She did not put out her hand, but raised herself a little on tiptoe, and kissed me ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell
... one of these, and the cat the other. Their eyes were bandaged. The cat was armed with a cudgel and tried to catch the rat, who kept out of the way as much as he could, listening for the cat's approach—thus they kept going around on tiptoe, and exhibiting their cunning to ...
— The Conscript - A Story of the French war of 1813 • Emile Erckmann
... a person who had "had losses" and who clung to the spirit of nice habits even though the letter had been hopelessly effaced. Among other things M. Nioche had lost courage. Adversity had not only ruined him, it had frightened him, and he was evidently going through his remnant of life on tiptoe, for fear of waking up the hostile fates. If this strange gentleman was saying anything improper to his daughter, M. Nioche would entreat him huskily, as a particular favor, to forbear; but he would admit at ...
— The American • Henry James
... Lexington, "that should the state of our affairs require it, we shall be ready to sacrifice our estates and everything dear in life, yea, and life itself, in support of the common cause." Whole towns in Worcester County were on tiptoe to come down. "Go on as you have begun," wrote the committee of Leicester on the 14th; "and do not suffer any of the teas already come or coming to be landed or pay one farthing of duty. You may depend on our ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... she bounded to the top of her mistress's chair. Dandy barked defiance, all the children shouted or screamed and danced about, and the old woman gasped and shook more. Lizzie alone was almost equal to the occasion. She flew at the cat who was standing on tiptoe on the tall back of the chair, with huge tail and eyes like green lamps, swearing, hissing, and spitting, and, regardless of scratches, caught him up by the scruff of his neck and disposed of him behind the staircase ...
— The Carbonels • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and imaginary murderous-looking "niggers" were seen lurking in the grass, behind rice-dykes, and lying crouching on the ground. If "Tim" discovered something that he was certain was a death-dealing boloman, he would tiptoe over to Jones and hold a council of war. That worthy—the old "vet"—would dispense nerve-soothing whispers in his ears, and he would return to his ...
— Bamboo Tales • Ira L. Reeves
... upon the thick fold of the curtain, for all was still in his mother's room, and he was mentally going on tiptoe to the door, when there was a loud yawn from the prie dieu chair close to the bed's head, and a voice almost at his ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn
... the experiment as a dangerous one, for if Scott caught him in his quarters with his coat off he would punish him. The officer said he would risk it—that the general was asleep, and he would make no noise. He opened the door softly and went on tiptoe to the water pitcher. He had no time to drink before he heard the tinkle of the bell, and the sentinel outside the door entered. 'Take this man to the guardhouse,' was the brief order, and the coatless captain spent the night on a hard plank under guard."[E] He did not conceal ...
— General Scott • General Marcus J. Wright
... features of her she had known as Miss Grace Melbury, but now looking glorified and refined above her former level. Winterborne, being fixed to the spot by his apple-tree, could not advance to meet her; he held out his spare hand with his hat in it, and with some embarrassment beheld her coming on tiptoe through the mud to the middle of the ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... minutes before she was composed enough to enter the cottage. Betty and her mother were tiptoe with excitement. The old woman was too feeble to walk as far as the concert room, but her daughter had gone and listened outside, and as it was a hot night and the windows were open, ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... particularly gloomy course of religious reading that he has insisted upon my undertaking this winter. And, after all, father is not so far wrong as to my spiritual state, for when love becomes a woman's vocation, she carries blessings in her eyes and all her moods tiptoe reverently like young novices who follow one another down a cathedral aisle. This life of the heart becomes her piety, I think, and the highest form of religion of which she is capable. Jessica begins to magnify herself, you see! A kingdom of heaven has been set up within ...
— The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance • Paul Elmer More
... offered to go instead, she had not demurred. It would be quite as pleasant to take a book and sit out under the big elm. Esther was at that stage when everything seems to be for the best in this "best of all possible worlds." She was living through those suspended moments when life stands tiptoe, breathless with expectancy, yet calm with an assurance of joy ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay |
