"Waif" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... good as to assist me in shepherding this obstinate little waif? It has been running hither and thither for nearly half an hour, taking every direction but the right one. If you will either walk on and lower the bars for me or drive this lamb while I go forward, you will greatly oblige me. ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... value to life." They passed an evening at Casa Guidi, and Mrs. Hawthorne recorded that in the corridor, as they entered, was a little boy who answered in the affirmative as to whether he were "Penini," and who "looked like a waif of poetry, lovelier still in the bright light of the drawing-room." Mr. Browning instantly appeared with his cordial welcome, leading them into the salon that looked out on the terrace, filled with growing plants. From San Felice there came the chanting of music, and the flowers, the melody, ...
— The Brownings - Their Life and Art • Lilian Whiting
... well-born but friendless waif, thrown at the age of thirteen upon the charity of Dr. Peters, an eccentric bachelor. She cares for his house and for him in quaint, womanly fashion, very bewitching, until she is grown. The suit of another and a younger man, makes the doctor know, to his cost, how well he loves her. He ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... is widely different. Four or five miles of cross country is reckoned a sufficient justification for the establishment of an independent company, who, without any consultation with the proprietors of the main line, or enquiry as to their ultimate intentions, seize upon the vacant ground as a waif, and throw themselves confidently upon the public. If the matter does not end in a lease, the unfortunate public will be the losers, since it is manifestly impossible that a little Lilliput line can be cheaply worked, independent of the larger ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... himself trying to study out what they were—the taller one he understood immediately must be in command, for his whole appearance indicated it, while the shorter chap was of the calibre not unlike himself, bronzed from a life in the open, and with a cheery manner that drew the waif ...
— Canoe Mates in Canada - Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan • St. George Rathborne
... the years that endure not Whose tide shall endure till we die And know what the seasons assure not, If death be or life be a lie, Sways hither the spirit and thither, A waif in the swing of the sea Whose wrecks are of memories that wither As ...
— Astrophel and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne, Vol. VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... his skilfully shaped and padded clothes the man was a mere waif of a man—as unbelievably slight as if he were the victim of a wasting disease. Ste. Marie held the body in his arms as if it had been a child, and carried it across and laid it on the bed; but it was many months before he forgot the horror of that awful thing shaking and twitching in his hold, ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... the earth am I, The waif of nature—like uprooted weed Borne by the stream, or like a shaken reed, A frail dependent of the fickle sky. Far, far away, are all my natural kin; The mother that erewhile hath hush'd my cry, Almost hath grown a mere fond memory. Where is my ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... what purpose you best know; but I think with none consistent with your present assumption of cruelty. Come, come—eyes that are so intelligent can laugh with delight, as well as gleam with scorn and anger. You are here a waif on Cupid's manor, and I must seize on you in ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... a nameless waif when the tale opens, but the way in which he takes hold of life; the nature friendships he forms in the great Limberlost Swamp; the manner in which everyone who meets him succumbs to the charm of his engaging personality; and his love-story with ...
— The Borough Treasurer • Joseph Smith Fletcher
... where she lurked bodeful under her tree. My passage toward her lay over the rank vegetation of the garth, in whose coarse herbage here and there I stumbled upon a limp white form stretched out—a waif the less in the world! I don't say it was a happy passage for me: it was made to the visible consternation of her I wished to befriend. Her piteous yellow eyes searched mine for sympathy; she wanted to tell me something and I wouldn't ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... motherless waif lived among the old monks at the White Cross on the hill, thriving and growing apace until he had reached eleven or twelve years of age; a slender, fair-haired little fellow, with a strange, quiet ...
— Otto of the Silver Hand • Howard Pyle
... saw herself in the queerly-fashioned brown dress that had seemed very nice back at Miller's Notch, but very funny when contrasted with the pretty, simple serge dresses that the other girls at Highacres wore. Perhaps they had all thought she was a "charity girl," a waif brought here by Uncle Johnny. To be sure, her schoolmates had welcomed her into all their activities, but perhaps they had felt sorry for her and, anyway, it had been after Uncle Johnny had given her the ...
— Highacres • Jane Abbott
... knew now that every good mother, when her first child is born, takes it in her arms, and, all her agony gone, and the ineffable peace of delivered motherhood come, speaks the name of its father, and calls it his child. But—she remembered it now—when her child was born, this little waif, the fruit of a man's hot, malicious hour, she wrapped it in her arms, pressed its delicate flesh to the silken folds of her bosom, and weeping, whispered only: "My child, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... himself; he would conquer it and be only hers; he would go away with her into the forests and green fields she loved, or he would share in the life of usefulness for which she yearned. But then, what was he to do with this little waif from the heart's tropics,—once tampered with, in an hour of mad dalliance, and now adhering in-separably to his life? Supposing him ready to separate from her, could ...
— Malbone - An Oldport Romance • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... with a scarcely perceptible swinging motion over the long stately slow-moving swell which followed her. The vast blue-black dome of the heavens above was devoid of the faintest trace of cloud, and the countless stars which spangled the immeasurable vault beamed down upon the tiny waif with a soft and mellow splendour which was repeated in the dark bosom of the scarcely ruffled ocean, where the reflected starbeams mingled, far down in its mysterious depths, with occasional faint gleams and flashes ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood
... man's wife, whom Meriem had christened "My Dear" from having first heard her thus addressed by Bwana, took not only a deep interest in the little jungle waif because of her forlorn and friendless state, but grew to love her as well for her sunny disposition and natural charm of temperament. And Meriem, similarly impressed by little attributes in the gentle, cultured woman, reciprocated the other's ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... get him back to his mother?" I pleaded, but as I spoke I allowed the little fingers to slip from mine and I pushed the waif towards Charlotte with the greatest confidence, which evidently communicated itself to both him and the dog, for they left me simultaneously and went towards the ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... drop of water must be sought at a distant hydrant, and carried up two or three rickety flights of stairs before available for use. This makes it so precious that they learn to do without it. Joyce never forgot the picture of one little waif of two years, brought in from the streets, taking its first warm bath in a tub, an embodiment of delight, splashing, laughing, dipping, screaming, in a very ecstasy of happiness. Repeatedly, the attendant tried to remove her, only to yield to her ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... trustfully as these little mosses sit among the clouds and find a spring to feed them even in the rock. Now I will make a speedy end of this, pleasant as it is to sit here feeling myself no longer a solitary waif. I shall spare you the stormy scenes I passed through with Ottila, because I do not care to think of my Cleopatra while I hold 'my fine spirit Ariel' in my arms. She had done her best, but had I been still heart-free I never could have married her. She is one ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... "I'd marry the Empress of China for one bowl of chop suey. I'd commit murder for a plate of beef stew. I'd steal a wafer from a waif. I'd be a Mormon for a bowl ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... success, the fishermen seized the boat as a waif, and towed it into their own fleet, filling the air with cries of triumph. Curiosity led a few to enter the hearse-like canopy, whence they immediately reissued dragging forth ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... you fool, to hope for that, When every mother's son is privileged To jerk the battle-chariot's reins I hold? Think you that fortune will eternally Award a crown to disobedience? I do not like a bastard victory, The gutter-waif of chance; the law, look you, My crown's progenitor, I will uphold, For she shall bear a ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... has a good chance to inspect this waif that's been sort of wished on us. Such a sharp, peaked little face she has, and such bright, active eyes, that it gives her a wide-awake, live-wire look, like a fox terrier. Then the freckles—just spattered with 'em, clear across the bridge of her nose ...
— Torchy, Private Sec. • Sewell Ford
... be able to help you. There is the dearest old woman in the village, Mrs. Sullivan. She lives in a pretty cottage quite close to 'The Plough,' and she was only telling me the other day that she wished that she had another child to mother. Sometimes my sister and I have a little East-end waif and stray down for a few weeks in the summer," continued Elizabeth modestly—"some sick child, or occasionally some over-burdened worker, and we always lodge them at Mrs. Sullivan's. It is not much of a place, but we call it 'The Providence House;' the cottage is really our own property, ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... not know who he was nor whence he came—he had just wandered from door to door since early childhood, seeking shelter with kindly mountaineers who gladly fathered and mothered this waif about whom there was such a mystery—a charming waif, by the way, who could play the banjo better than ...
— Janet of the Dunes • Harriet T. Comstock
... power to startle, as if the crime were a new thing, not as old (so all religions tell us) as the first brothers. As a meteoric stone falls on our planet, strange and unexplained, a waif of the universe, from a nameless system, so the horror of murder descends on us, when we meet it, with an alien dread, as of an intrusion from some lost star, some wandering world ...
— The Mark Of Cain • Andrew Lang
... first of all a while in the stable yard or garage before he goes into the gentleman's house, and he is neat and tidy at all times for messages. We have seen many of them in our young days; and even the waif has been picked up by a good master, and began in the stables and worked his way up to be a respected valet in the same household, and often and often told the story of his waif life ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... given it to her to wear, so it was her very own. But was not this a worthy occasion for bringing of one's best and most precious things? Might not this pearl locket help to bring some little outcast waif into paths of pleasantness and peace? Yes, the locket should be given to the special collection, Grace resolved; but it might not be wise, to divulge the intention to Margery, who had already replied, when she was asked ...
— Geordie's Tryst - A Tale of Scottish Life • Mrs. Milne Rae
... the Persians and rooted up the Mede. Browning has gathered into one picture and one sound the whole spirit of the story. Pan and Luna is a bold re-rendering of the myth that Vergil enshrines, and the greater part of it is of such poetic freshness that I think it must be a waif from the earlier years of his poetry. Nor is there better imaginative work in his descriptive poetry than the image of the naked moon, in virginal distress, flying for refuge through the gazing heaven to the succourable ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... stillness: not a waif of a cloud From gray-blue east sheer to the yellow west— No film of mist the utmost slopes ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... of the barrens—"straight north—between the Mackenzie and the Bay," where Snowdrift, waif of the Arctic, Indian bred, bearing a false but heavy burden of shame, and Carter Brent, Southerner, find their great happiness ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... jungle was encased in a heavy woolen straight-jacket, and there was a strap around its loins to which a stout cord was attached, running to the Root of All Evil. The pavement was hot, but there with its bare and tender feet on the hot concrete, the sad-eyed little waif painfully moved about, peering far up into the faces of passers-by for sympathy, but all the time furtively and shrinkingly watching its tormentor. Every now and then the hairy old tramp would jerk the monkey's cord, each time giving the frail creature a violent ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... Not so long a time as has elapsed since you met a waif of the streets and chastised him for some petty annoyance. But both events, the great and the little, have been well remembered here in Shelby; and when Mrs. Scoville came amongst us a month or so ago, with her late but substantial proofs ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... man, Count. Like puppy, here, I am a waif and a stray; yet, at the same time, I have my purpose and am part ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... the deceased lady's scant leavings, was one who had in her own palmetto hut an empty cradle scarcely cold, and therefore a necessity at her breast, if not a place in her heart, for the unfortunate Lufki-Humma; and thus it was that this little waif came to be tossed, a droll hypothesis of flesh, blood, nerve and brain, into the hands of wild nature with carte blanche as to the disposal of it. And now, since this was Agricola's most boasted ancestor—since it appears the darkness of her cheek had no effect to ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... if from all eternity he had loved this helpless little waif of Time, with its small, thin, blue-gray, gin-drugged face; this tiny life, so hopeless, so miserable, yet so uncomplaining: the thing that was, was the thing for it to bear; it had come into the world to bear it! Ready to die, even Death would not have it; it must live where it was not wanted, ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... incident did not damage his credit with her. However, after the little waif had been sufficiently petted and praised to gratify Master Marmaduke's paternal feelings, they came home, and, instead of holding their tongues, began to tell all our people what a dear little child Marmaduke had, and how they considered that it ought not ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... Cephalonian waif and adventurer had now mounted to the zenith, and was safe to shine for many years with unabated brilliancy; to this day he is remembered by the expressive term Vicha-yen, "the cool wisdom." The ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... certain bounds at home, after he had begun to go wrong, by the weight of opinion, he rushed into all excesses when abroad upon business, till at length the vessel of his fortune went to pieces, and he was a waif on the waters of the world. But in feeling he had never been vulgar, however much so in action. There was a feeble good in him that had in part been protected by its very feebleness. He could not sin so much against it as if it had been strong. For many years he had fits of shame, ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... over the cantle and swung down to go on one knee to my stout challenger. I can never make you understand, my dears, how the sight of this helpless waif appearing thus unaccountably in the heart of the great forest mellowed and softened me. 'Twas a little maid, not above three or four years old, and with a face that Master Raphael might have taken as a pattern for one ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... Aquitaine and Vasconia was much more keenly disputed and for a much longer time uncertain. Duke Waif re was as able in negotiation as in war; at one time he seemed to accept the pacific overtures of Pepin, or, perhaps, himself made similar, without bringing about any result; at another, he went to seek and found even in Germany allies who caused ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... the rock the prize he sought for. It had been, as he conceived, carried away by an eddy of the stream and was borne, as a true prisoner-of-war, within my grasp. I avow that from this moment my interest in the scene became considerably heightened; such a waif as a bottle of champagne was not to be despised in circumstances like mine; and I watched with anxious eyes every gesture of the impatient Frenchman, and alternately vibrated between hope and fear, as he neared or ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... mute appeal of this wee waif alone and unloved in the midst of the horrors of the savage jungle. It was this thought more than any other that had sent her mother's heart out to the innocent babe, while still she suffered from disappointment that she had been deceived in ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... once repealing Five Acts of Parliament 'gainst private stealing! 55 But yet from Chisholm who despairs of grace? There's no spring-gun or man-trap in that face! Let Moses then look black, and Aaron blue, That look as if they had little else to do: For Chisholm speaks, 'Poor youth! he's but a waif! 60 The spoons all right? the hen and chickens safe? Well, well, he shall not forfeit our regards— The Eighth Commandment was ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... little about the child I adopted," she said. "The poor waif was deserted, and as to the wrench now, why, life has taught me, also, George, to take what joy one can and be willing to pay for it. We cannot afford to let a great blessing slip because we may have to do ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... he, jumping with excitement also, for the boat Carette had sighted was evidently astray, and, moreover, it was, as they could easily see even at that distance, no Island boat, but a stranger, a waif, and so lawful prey and treasure-trove if they ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... in the great city, to which he was a stranger, towards evening. A little waif and stray in London, with only five shillings in his pocket! But no fears assailed him. He was encouraged by the great hope of the meeting on the morrow. His heart began beating at the very thought of the loving arms into which ...
— A Little Hero • Mrs. H. Musgrave
... pride if you want to! If I thought you didn't care, that you were just trying to carry on the ghastly game they call flirtation up here, I wouldn't be so angry with you. I'm not Willa Murdaugh down inside of me, and you know it!—I'm just Gentleman Geoff's Billie, a waif raised by the greatest-hearted man that ever lived, but I've got some pride myself. I don't want any man who hasn't s-spunk enough to ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant
... verse from me, the feeble prey Of this self-seeking world, a waif and stray With none to whom to cling; From me—unhappy, purblind, hopeless devil! Who e'en in what is good see only evil ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... no reason for becoming, to a sufficient intelligence. In the sufficient intelligence all things always are, and are rational. To say there is something yet to be which never was, not even in the sufficient intelligence wherein the world is rational and not a blind and orphan waif, is to ignore all reason. Aught that might be assumed as contingently coming to be could only have 'freedom' for its origin; and 'freedom' has not fertility or invention, and is not a reason for any special ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... Nan Sherwood could scarcely do less than enjoy herself during the week they remained in Tillbury. Inez, the waif, had become Inez, the home-body. She was the dearest little maid, so Momsey said, that ever was. And how ...
— Nan Sherwood at Rose Ranch • Annie Roe Carr
... of England. 'And to think that I have come to this,' he added emphatically. 'Even them boys knock me about now, and 'alf a century ago I could 'ave cleared the bloomin' place.' There was a merry little waif from the circus who loved to come and sit with Hubert. She had been a rider, she said, but had broken her leg on one occasion, and cut her head all open on another, and had ended by running away with some one who had deserted her. 'So here I am,' she remarked, with a burst of laughter, 'talking to ...
— Vain Fortune • George Moore
... destruction against regiments of engineers. Certainly, my dear minister, I shall always be delighted to give you my counsel, you whom I used to call my dear child, and if the observations of a living waif can serve you in anything, count on me. Dispose of me, and if by chance I can be useful to you, I shall feel ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... of a microscope, a 'gillyflower' was seen protecting a chrysalis. Warm leaves cherished it, dainty juices aided its digestion, wholesome offshoots nourished it to maturity. Eking out a scant existence between two granite flags, this insignificant waif reared a caterpillar. What man are you, who can say there ...
— Trifles for the Christmas Holidays • H. S. Armstrong
... out. The horror of the whole thing had crept into her blood like poison. Life was once more a dreary, profitless struggle. All the wonderful dreams, which had made existence seem almost like a fairy-tale for this last week, had faded away. She was once more a mournful little waif among ...
— Havoc • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... head struck the metal. Garay was so rejoiced that he sacrificed a pig, which was served upon this extemporaneous platter, and he boasted that there was no such dish in Europe. Twenty other ships with gold on board went down in the storm which swallowed up Garay's waif.[E] ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... daughter of a frivolous mother. Her dislike for the rugged life of Girl Scouts is eventually changed to appreciation, when the rescue of little Lucia, a woodland waif, becomes a problem ...
— Ruth Fielding in the Great Northwest - Or, The Indian Girl Star of the Movies • Alice B. Emerson
... light fellowships should take you by the arm, and walk with you an hour upon your way. You may see from afar off what it will come to in the end—the weather-beaten red-nosed vagabond, consumed by a fever of the feet, cut off from all near touch of human sympathy, a waif, an Ishmael, and an outcast. And yet it will seem well—and yet, in the air of the forest, this will seem the best—to break all the network bound about your feet by birth and old companionship and loyal love, and bear your ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... not come back with the other Icelandic fishers; and as the men of the Samuel-Azenide afterward picked up in some fjord an unmistakable waif (part of her taffrail with a bit of her keel), all ceased to hope; in the month of October the names of all her crew were inscribed upon black ...
— An Iceland Fisherman • Pierre Loti
... not only in the eyes of the little waif, but handkerchiefs were in demand among all who stood listening to the story, forgetful of sales or profits for the moment, and intent only upon feeding the little orphan ...
— The Little Gold Miners of the Sierras and Other Stories • Various
... I stand to the sun is a pathway of sapphire and gold, Like a waif of those Patmian visions that wrapt the lone seer of old, And it seems to my soul like an omen that calls me far over the sea— But I think of a little white cottage and one that is dearest ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... But I—a waif on earth where'er I roam— Uprooted with life's bleeding hopes and fears, From that one heart that was my heart's sole home, Feel the old pang pierce through the severing years, And as I think upon the years to come, That fair star trembles ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow, Vol. IV (of IV) • Harrison S. Morris
... population, and they leave behind them traces of their march. Fleets move through a desert over which wanderers flit, but where they do not remain; and as the waters close behind them, an occasional waif from the decks may indicate their passage, but tells nothing of their course. The sail spoken by the pursuer may know nothing of the pursued, which yet passed the point of parley but a few days or hours before. Of late, careful study of the winds and currents of the ocean has laid down certain advantageous ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... understand. She would have been much surprised if she could have guessed how much its emptiness interested other people in Rome; how the dowagers chattered about her over their tea, abusing her mother and all her relations for abandoning her like a waif; how the men reasoned about Baron Volterra's deep-laid schemes, trying to make out that his semi- adoption of Sabina, as they called it, must certainly bode ruin to some one, since he had never in his life done anything without a financial ...
— The Heart of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... got separated, at which time the mustang had been shut up for four days in the cellar of a ruined convent with no other food than stones and mortar! How Twidget came by his name is not clear. Perhaps it was some waif of the rider's ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid
... for Wingo of the Cree tribe, a waif among the Athabascas, whose father had been slain as they travelled, by a wandering tribe of Blackfeet. Never was there a braver rivalry, although the odds were with the Indian—in lightness, in brutal strength. With the mikonaree, however, were skill, and that sort of strength ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... Spanish or Italian blood, I think. However, I am going from my story. I hesitated what to do, but the man was in such trouble, and so insistent, repeating over and over the necessity of propitiating the "good spirit," that I called my wife, and she decided we must take the little waif, or it would die ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... for a little space Down on his pallid and careworn face, And a smile of scorn went round the band As they touched alternate with foot and hand This mortal waif, that the outer space Of dim mysterious sky and sand Flung with so little of Christian grace Down ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... Feliu's waif should never be identified;—diligent inquiry and printed announcements alike proved fruitless. Sea and sand had either hidden or effaced all the records of the little world they had engulfed: the annihilation of whole families, the extinction of races, had, in ...
— Chita: A Memory of Last Island • Lafcadio Hearn
... of these graineries, ably administered, the crown was enabled to acquire the estates of the great feudatories, and thus the whole social system of Egypt was changed. And Joseph, from being a poor waif, cast away by his brethren in the wilderness, became the foremost man in Egypt and the means of settling his compatriots in the province of Gotham, where they still lived when Moses fled from Egypt. Such facts had made a profound impression upon the mind ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams
... first time, in this beautiful waif of the big city he had found a mixture of warmth and coldness, of straightforward simplicity and boldness, which opened his eyes as to there being in her sex an attraction he had previously denied. He felt as he looked at her that he wanted her; that he could not go away and forget ...
— The Wharf by the Docks - A Novel • Florence Warden
... could it be an act of spite against Aurora Googe? Was it a final answer to any expectations of her nephew, Champney Googe, her husband's namesake and favorite? Was this little alien waif to be made a catspaw for her revenge? She was capable of such a thing, was Almeda Champney. He knew her; none better! Had not her will, thus far in her life, bent everything with which it had come in contact; crushed whatever had opposed it; broken ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... and for whom no one cared, was of less than no account; it made a small paragraph in the newspapers—it had caused some little commotion on the pier—just a little hurry at the work-house, and then it was forgotten. What was such a little waif and stray—such a small, fair, tender little ...
— The Tragedy of the Chain Pier - Everyday Life Library No. 3 • Charlotte M. Braeme
... promptly and reverently deposited among the other Vestiges of Creation, in the Royal Cabinet. In the course of years, some historian would probably have occasion to turn over these curiosities, and would presently light on the scorched but still legible waif. "Why," says he, in astonishment, "I thought the earth was burnt on the 15th of May! To be sure, it was in the night, and nobody saw it go, [think of that, conceited Worldling!] but it was missed by somebody the day after. ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 5, April 30, 1870 • Various
... was swept into my path, as a stray waif, that man who would in one little moment change my whole life! It is always so. Our life sweeps onward like a river, brushing in here a little sand, there a few rushes, till the accumulated drift-wood chokes the current, or ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... waif who rose by his own ingenuity to the office of mayor of his native city. His experiences while "climbing," make a most interesting example of the possibilities of human nature to ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... "attacked again, and from time to time added to their number" in 1893, Mr. Balfour says: "The reference to Odin [Fable XVII] perhaps is due to his reading of the Sagas, which led him to attempt a tale in the same style, called 'The Waif Woman.'" ...
— The Waif Woman • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the Mint, got out of the party he supported those of Registrar to the Court of Chancery in the Island of Barbadoes, a sinecure done by deputy, Surveyor of the Crown Lands, and Paymaster to the Board of Works. The wits of White's added the title of 'Receiver-General of Waif and Stray Jokes.' It is said that his hostility to Sheridan arose from the latter having lost him the office in the Works in 1782, when Burke's Bill for reducing the Civil List came into operation; but this is not at all probable, as his dislike was shown long before that period. Apropos ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... saved her life. And, boy, you'll be a big man of the U. P. some day. Chief engineer or superintendent of maintenance of way or some other big job. What could be finer? Romance, boy. The little waif of the caravan—you'll send her back to Omaha to school; she'll grow into a beautiful woman! She'll have a host of admirers, but you'll be the king ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... rose a hair's breadth on an almost imperceptible swell of the water, swung round, floated clear, and reached the strand. All this the young man noted, but it neither quickened his pulses, nor hastened his hand. If any one had been lying in wait for the arrival of the waif, he must be seen, and the utmost caution in approaching the shore became indispensable; if no one was in ambush, hurry was unnecessary. The point being nearly diagonally opposite to the Indian encampment, he hoped the last, though the former was ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... propound such a scheme! Would you leave this precious waif to be buffeted between the contending waves of truth and error, in the vague hope that by some lucky wind he might finally be cast upon a rock of safety? I protest against all these educational heresies—they are redolent ...
— Ginx's Baby • Edward Jenkins
... scene of explanation, in which, seconding one another's efforts, striving to hit upon simpler analogies, plainer terms, Paul the doctor, and Miss Ludington sought to make clear to this waif from eternity, so strangely stranded on the shores of Time, the conditions and circumstances under which she had resumed ...
— Miss Ludington's Sister • Edward Bellamy
... also that he had not come out of this first brush with entire distinction. Matt had been in the wrong and had shown that he was angry, yet he had a certain discipline which had enabled him to control his temper, and the issue had ended in defeat for the undisciplined waif who might well have been victorious had they come ...
— The Boy Scout Treasure Hunters - The Lost Treasure of Buffalo Hollow • Charles Henry Lerrigo
... finally sank below the horizon, leaving only its three skeleton-like towers standing against the sky—standing erect with all nerves strained, watch-dogs of the darkening sea; ears cocked, to catch a distressed cry from some waif out in the ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... Just because of the waif's helplessness was repugnance to her conquered. She had no other redeeming quality. In a certain sense she was fearsome; she required unremitting attention and care; her whimpering fits, in beast-like monotone, shook the nerve of the most patient of her attendants. She was ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... then rang, no more was said of the little waif until the sleigh was brought to the door, and Frank announced his intention of stopping for the child on his way back from the station, where he was ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... furnished houses at her feet—a man of gentlemanlike bearing, good-looking, well-informed, well-spoken, with no signs of age in his well-preserved face and figure; a man whom any woman, friendless, portionless, a mere waif upon earth's surface, at the mercy of all the winds that blow, ought proudly and gladly ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... Marat in his youth had had amorous intrigues. This was when he was a member of the household of the Comte d'Artois, in the capacity of physician to the Stables. From these love affairs, historically proved, with a great lady, he had retained this sheet. As a waif or a souvenir. At his death, as this was the only linen of any fineness which he had in his house, they buried him in it. Some old women had shrouded him for the tomb in that swaddling-band in which the tragic Friend of ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... head upon his breast and put a little hot hand into his own. A great tenderness toward her filled his whole being and brought a sense of happiness very foreign to him lately. How gentle and kindly this little waif of fortune had ever been. And how even those few weeks of a better schooling had improved her. She had shed all the old vulgarities—she was just a simple schoolgirl as he would ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... and admonitions, he laid his hand on her bowed head as if silently giving a patriarchal blessing; and Mavis watched and admired, and loved him for his noble generosity in taking so much trouble about the poor little waif that had ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... . dust to dust." . . . The clock turned back and he stood in a church by an Irish hill. White and terrified, Kenny remembered what in its vivid agony of detail he would fain have forgotten. Why, now, when Joan was slipping into his life, a lonely waif of a girl in a black gown he hated, why must he think years back to that soft-eyed Irish girl and Brian? Had he broken his pledge to her, driving her son away with a passion of self no less definite for its careless gayety? Eileen's son! Eileen's son! Sadness tore at Kenny's heart and ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... so much has been made of the humble circumstances in which Grover made his start in life that the unwary reader might easily imagine that the future President was almost a waif. Nothing could be farther from the truth. He really belonged to the most authentic aristocracy that any state of society can produce—that which maintains its standards and principles from generation ...
— The Cleveland Era - A Chronicle of the New Order in Politics, Volume 44 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Henry Jones Ford
... he arrives there none can clearly know; Athwart the mountains and immense wild tracts, Or flung a waif upon that vast sea-flow, Or down the river's boiling cataracts: To reach it is as dying fever-stricken 5 To leave it, slow faint birth intense pangs quicken; And memory swoons in ...
— The City of Dreadful Night • James Thomson
... welcomed the same circle that had met at her home the November before, and Lena's little heart glowed with the soul-satisfying sense of the difference to her. Then she had been a social waif, received on sufferance. Now she was one of them. She could even afford to have her own opinions. The very memory of past discomforts doubled the present blessedness, and Mr. Lenox looked only ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... and he did not intend to be deceived. He found the little fellow had not departed from the facts in the least particular. He belonged to nobody; but every one who knew him had a kindly word for him. He was known as an honest, good-natured little waif, with a reputation for hitting the bull's-eye every time any one would lend him a ...
— A Little Dusky Hero • Harriet T. Comstock
... these two went Christmasing in the throng. Wyoming's Chief Executive knocked elbows with the spurred and jingling waif, one man as good as another in that raw, hopeful, full-blooded cattle era, which now the sobered West remembers as the days of its fond youth. For one man has been as good as another in three places—Paradise ...
— Lin McLean • Owen Wister
... by a physician, who learned that the girl had been a waif and had been taken in charge by a Protestant clergyman when she was nine years old and brought up as his servant. This clergyman had for years been in the habit of walking up and down a passage of his house into ...
— The Trained Memory • Warren Hilton
... was the first representative sent from Cumberland to the Legislature at Halifax, and was a member of the Winslow family, so distinguished in colonial history. He was engaged at Chignecto with Capt. Huston, in the commissary business. The latter in one of his trips to Boston picked up a waif in the person of Brook Watson, a young man who had had one of his legs bitten off by a shark in West-Indian waters. Watson was trained under Winslow, and the foundation of his success was hereby laid. General Joshua was Commissary-General of the British in Nova Scotia. He left Fort Cumberland ...
— The Chignecto Isthmus And Its First Settlers • Howard Trueman
... having none other, to scrape acquaintance, where, how, and with whom he could. Many a long dull talk he held upon the benches or the grass; many a strange waif he came to know; many strange things he heard, and saw some that were abominable. It was to one of these last that he owed his deliverance from the Domain. For some time the rain had been merciless; one night after another he had been obliged to squander fourpence on a bed and ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... ribbon knotted about its neck, and vicious, amber-colored eyes that were a perpetual challenge, had fled from the tender mercies of Dick to the city of refuge under Beryl's cot; and community of suffering had kindled an attachment that now prompted the lesser waif to spring into the girl's folded arms, and rub its head against her shoulder. Mechanically Beryl's hand stroked the creature's ear, while it purred softly under the caress; but suddenly its back curved ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... finished my work, I hope to come back; to spend the residue of my earthly days, and to die here, a faithful Umilta Sister of the 'Anchorage', which opened its arms when I was a needy and desolate waif." ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... husband in cold blood: and can only think of her as having been throughout a victim. It does not absolve Violante, but it allows something for honest parental feeling in the old couple's desire for a child; and something for the good done to this human waif by its adoption into a decent home. According to this version, it is the Count and his brother who lay the matrimonial trap, and the Comparini parents and child who fall into it. "The grim Guido is at first kept in the background. Abate Paolo makes the proposal. He is oily and deferential, ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... drew her from the heights, Like witch's demon-spell, that fearful moan. She knew that somewhere in the green abyss His body swung in curves of watery force, Now in a circle slow revolved, and now Swaying like wind-swung bell, when surface waves Sank their roots deep enough to reach the waif, Hither and thither, idly to and fro, Wandering unheeding through the heedless sea. A kind of fascination seized her brain, And drew her onward to the ridgy rocks That ran a little way into the deep, Like questions asked of Fate by longing ...
— A Hidden Life and Other Poems • George MacDonald
... Ah, senor, a waif of the wind, adrift on the night's Plutonian shore; but an hour or two ago, the gale caught me up in Spain and swept me over the seas. Regard me as a voice, merely a voice that would hold speech with so ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... have known that the steel box was in that satchel this story might never have been told. But it never entered their heads that the pallid little waif had sense enough to conceal a button ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... silly, triumphant laugh, and thrust the child forward against the carriage step. The poor waif, drenched, dazed, tottering without his crutch, caught at the plated handle for support. Honoria gazed down on him with eyes which took slow and pitiless account of the deformed little body, ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... her little waif, wondering silently why it did not gain strength and agility as did the little apes of other mothers. It was nearly a year from the time the little fellow came into her possession before he would walk alone, and as for climbing—my, but how ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Julian to meet the child. The woman's heart, hungering in its horrible isolation for something that it might harmlessly love, welcomed the rescued waif of the streets as a consolation sent from God. She caught the stupefied little creature up in her arms. "Kiss me!" she whispered, in the reckless agony of the moment. "Call me sister!" The child stared, vacantly. Sister meant nothing to her mind but ...
— The New Magdalen • Wilkie Collins
... As each man from his scanty store shook out a generous half. To kiss the little mouth stooped down a score of grimy men, Until the sergeant's husky voice said,"'Tention squad!" and then We gave her escort, till good-night the pretty waif we bid, And watched her toddle out of sight—or else 'twas tears that hid Her tiny form—nor turned about a man, nor spoke a word, Till after awhile a far, hoarse shout upon the wind we heard! We sent it back, then cast sad eyes upon the scene around; ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... become of me, Steptoe? Is the best thing I can do to shoot myself? Think it over. I'm ready to. I'm not sure that it wouldn't be a relief to get out of this rotten life. I'm all on edge. I could jump out of that window as easily as not. But it wasn't the girl's fault. She's a poor little waif of a thing. You must look after her and keep me from seeing her again, but she's not bad—only—only—Oh, my God! ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... play-fellow. And now lame Tim has driven the cows home; and the dew is falling, the stars are creeping out, and the little crickets and frogs have commenced their evening concert, and still little pet hasn't come! Where is the little stray waif? ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... world 'mid double danger, groans, and tears; The toy, the sport, the waif and stray of passions, ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton
... to a Melchite! The mere idea is sacrilege, is blasphemy; I can give it no milder name! I and your father will die childless before we consent! And it is for the love of this woman, whose heart is so cold that I shiver only to think of it—for this waif and stray, who has nothing but her ragged pride and the mere scrapings of a lost fortune, which never could compare with ours—for this thankless creature, who can hardly bring herself to bid me, your mother, such a civil good-morning—by Heaven it ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... beginning of wisdom. It means caution, independence, honesty and veracity. Faith means negligence, serfdom, insincerity and deception. The man who never doubts never thinks. He is like a straw in the wind or a waif on the sea. He is one of the helpless, docile, unquestioning millions, who keep the world in a state of stagnation, and serve as a fulcrum for the lever of despotism. The stupidity of the people, says Whitman, is always inviting the insolence ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote
... how much it is to ask of you—I know, for I have been in your place, I have lived your life, and there is no man before me here tonight who knows it better. I have known what it is to be a street-waif, a bootblack, living upon a crust of bread and sleeping in cellar stairways and under empty wagons. I have known what it is to dare and to aspire, to dream mighty dreams and to see them perish—to see all the fair flowers of my spirit trampled into the mire by ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... makes me safe— I am, immediate, Of one that lives; I am no waif That haggard waters toss and chafe, But ...
— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... take the slave away, And keep her safe for yet another day, And on the morning will I think again Of some fresh task, since with so little pain She doeth what the gods find hard enow; For since the winds were pleased this waif to blow Unto my door, a fool I were indeed, If I should fail to use her for my need." So her they led away from that bright sun, Now scarce more hopeful that the task was done, Since by those bitter words she knew full well Another tale the ...
— The Earthly Paradise - A Poem • William Morris
... A waif two years of age was taken from a benevolent institution in Boston, and given to a childless sailor, on his way from a voyage to his home in Maine on the Penobscot River. The sailor knew not from what institution the child ...
— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer
... work is known." A piece of honey-comb, one day, Discovered as a waif and stray, The Hornets treated as their own. Their title did the Bees dispute, And brought before a Wasp the suit. The judge was puzzled to decide, For nothing could be testified Save that around this honey-comb There had been seen, as if at home, Some longish, ...
— The Talking Beasts • Various
... Souday, who lived close by the Fosse des Tanneurs (Tanners' Ditch.) Jean had a somewhat ancient mare to dispose of, which our landed proprietor thought might answer his purpose. Cocotte was a slight waif, sheared off by the sharp axe of the Place de la Revolution, and Souday could therefore afford to sell her cheap. Fifty francs argent metallique would, Delessert knew, purchase her; but with assignats, it was quite another affair. But, courage! He might surely play the ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 442 - Volume 17, New Series, June 19, 1852 • Various
... looking over the battlements of her palace and seeing this poor waif, takes compassion upon her, and, after giving her refreshments, questions her in regard to her origin. Damayanti simply vouchsafes the information that her husband has lost all through dicing, and volunteers to serve the rani, provided she is never expected to eat the food left ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber |
