"Willy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a housewife of high degree, and would not have thought of leaving—perhaps for months—her immaculate window-panes and her spotless floors and furniture, had she not also left some one to take care of them. A distant cousin, Miss Willy Croup, had lived with her since her husband's death, and though this lady was willing to stay during Mrs. Cliff's absence, Mrs. Cliff considered her too quiet and inoffensive to be left in entire charge of her ...
— The Adventures of Captain Horn • Frank Richard Stockton
... soldiers, determined not to be baffled, came to yet closer quarters and drove their unresisting victims, willy nilly, before them from under the sheltering rafters of the barn. The Friends were roughly hustled down the steep hillside and driven hither and thither, but still the meeting was not interrupted, for their hearts could not be driven out from the ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... Willy, who is just thirteen, and who has already been bound out as an apprentice to a trade, comes home. He has a tale of suffering to tell. For some fault his master has beaten him until the large purple welts lie in meshes across his back from his ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur
... guess at). But at last toward the 15th of October 1900, the Learned Man began to shake in his shoes and to dread the judgement; for, you see, he had not the comfortable ignorance of his kind, and was compelled to believe in the Devil willy-nilly, and, as I say, ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... I was obliged willy nilly to go with them, and, half-dragging and half-carrying me, they brought me by the path, which now became very steep, for some hundred yards without stopping, when suddenly coming to a stand, I found myself close before the door of some house or hut, ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume III. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... you all about that whenever you want to know! However, now they've stormed him—they've smoked him out like a wasp's nest. My goodness—he did buzz! Undershaw found a man badly hurt, lying on the road by the bridge—bicycle accident—run over too, I believe—and carried him into the Tower, willy-nilly!" The speaker chuckled. "Melrose was away. Old Dixon said they should only come in over his body—but was removed. Undershaw got four labourers to help him, and, by George, they carried the man ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... one's growth. Students of child psychology are insistent that the pre-school period is the most important in the life of the individual and requires the most skilful attention. Natural affection is not enough; it must be wedded to care for the child's mind. Now, willy-nilly, modern life itself takes such toll of nervous energy that there are few educated women today who go through all the child-bearing period and have sufficient nerve force to welcome each child that may 'come along' and rear it ...
— Report of the Committee of Inquiry into the Various Aspects of the Problem of Abortion in New Zealand • David G. McMillan
... double-basses had been pupils of Joachim, the violas and 'celli having been his pupils in chamber music. They had come from all over Europe to take part in the festival. Nearly half of the violins were concert-masters, and many of them famous soloists, as Carl Halir, Henri Petri, Jeno Hubay, Willy Hess, Gustav Hollaender, Gabrielle Wietrowitz, Marie Soldat, ...
— Famous Violinists of To-day and Yesterday • Henry C. Lahee
... men-at-arms and archers; but when we have troubles such as took place but five or six years ago, when Douglas and Percy and the Welsh all joined against us, then the lords call out their vassals and the sheriffs the militia of the county, and we have to go to fight willy- nilly. Our lord had a hundred of us with him to fight for the king at Shrewsbury. Nigh thirty never came back again. That is worse than the ...
— At Agincourt • G. A. Henty
... wouldn't be so cattish about sneaking up and laying low for us until the fire died down, or till one of us happened to step out of the circle of light! He would have made a big noise from the beginning and pounced down upon us willy-nilly. And now ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... Nature call'd to Death, As Willy drew his latest breath; How shall I make a fool again? My choicest model thou ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... illness became chronic. The daughter helped out the finances of the house with her earnings as laundry-woman ... and perhaps by earnings of a different nature. Anyway, they got along. The old fellow, willy-nilly, spent his days invariably riveted to his armchair, groaning with pain at the least movement, swearing, fretting and fuming, despairing of life. And, since his daughter simply refused from the very beginning ...
— Brazilian Tales • Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis
... Willy, let me and you be wipers Of scores out with all men—especially pipers! And, whether they pipe us free from rats or from mice, If we've promised them aught, let ...
— Holiday Stories for Young People • Various
... boy, trying to draw away her hand, the kind angels will be glad to think that you are not among them, and that you stayed here to be with us. Willy went away, to join them; but if he had known how I should miss him in our little bed at night, he never would have left ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... His Majesty's demand (with reverence I speak it) is out of all order. Let the Company, through the treasurer, command us to send Captain Percy home in irons to answer for this passing strange offense, or to return, willy nilly, the lady who is now surely his wife, and we will have no choice but to obey. Until the Company commands us we will do nothing; nay we can do nothing.' And every one of my fellow Councilors (for myself, I was ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... even more depressing in its immediate effects than the cold of winter, but the heat carries with it one blessing, in that it drives us, willy-nilly, into the open air, day and night. And on looking at statistics we find precisely what might have been expected on this theory, that the death-rate for pneumonia is ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... tells them that history which she dwells on so much, and seem as if they must believe her, but the poor old dame has no hope, and tells her so. "'Tis the will of God, my lady, don't ye take on so now. It will be all one when we come to heaven, though I would have liked to have seen Willy again; but 'tis the cross the Lord sends, so don't ye take on," and then Lady Lucy sits down on the ground, and looks up in her face, as if her plain words did her more good than anything we can say, or even the clergyman, who is constantly ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... said that he contemplated sending her willy-nilly, to Aunt Almira. Yet the girl felt that daddy believed her health called for a change. And that was not what she needed. She was sure that the air of Poketown would never in this world make her feel any happier or healthier than ...
— Janice Day, The Young Homemaker • Helen Beecher Long
... Bartholomew Stibbs. Being furnished with the requisite means for sailing up the Gambia, Stibbs sailed in September, 1723, and, on the 7th of October, he arrived at James' Island, the English settlement, situate about thirty miles from the mouth of the river, whence he despatched a messenger to Mr. Willy, the governor, who happened at that time to be visiting the factory at Joar, more than a hundred miles distant, asking him to engage such vessels as were fit to navigate the upper streams of the Gambia. To his ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... wrong-doing!—"Which," said Mrs. Drayton, "is a strange thing for a minister to do. For my part, I cannot understand impoliteness in a Christian female. But we must not judge," Mrs. Drayton ended, with what Willy King called her "holy look." Without wishing to "judge," it may be said that, in the matter of manners, Miss Mary North, palpitatingly anxious to be polite, told the truth. She said things that other ...
— Quaint Courtships • Howells & Alden, Editors
... lack of breath. Dan just stared at him, shaking his head like Silly Willy on the teevies. "Find out what you're doing, Dan—before you push this universal rejuvenation idea of yours through. Find out—if you've got the guts to find out, that is. We've got a monster on our hands, and now you've got to be Big Dan Fowler playing God and turning him loose on the ...
— Martyr • Alan Edward Nourse
... perhaps you considered yourself committed to all this solemnity before your time, or willy-nilly, as the children say. What a comical idea to hang one's self up in a store in this fashion. I must have one of these. Are you going to keep yours?" And as he spoke he reached forward and possessed himself of one of the cards. "Rather odd things to be found in our possession, wouldn't ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)
... They are sociable birds, and entertain a great deal. There is a party to-night, I suppose, and that is the expression of their enjoyment. I believe," she continued, with a suppressed yawn, "it's not so painful as it sounds. Willy Wagtail, who goes a great deal amongst Humans, says they do that sort of thing also; he has often heard them when he lived near ...
— Dot and the Kangaroo • Ethel C. Pedley
... ran Diantha's borrowed reasoning) the criminal who has close friends, a wife, a mistress, children, family ties of any sort, or even body-servants, must willy-nilly repose confidence in one of these, and then inevitably will be betrayed. Depend upon envy, jealousy, spite, or plain venal disloyalty, if accident or inadvertence fail, to lay the ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... Willy, to be sure. But you have the advantage of me, for ashamed as I am to say it, I cannot quite recall you. You are not the lady who came to Bensonville and stayed ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... into a poeticle fitte, and though I was werry uneasy in my stommik, and had nothing to rite on but my chest. I threw off as follows in a few 2nds, and arterards sung it to the well-none hair of "Willy Reilly:"— ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... so silly. Her suitors are not dragged here willy-nilly; They know the journey here their heads may cost 'em, But 'tis no loss; for they've already lost 'em. Perhaps that's why the riddles they can't guess, And always fall into a hideous mess. I'm sure my charming mistress is ...
— Turandot: The Chinese Sphinx • Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
... Blur-re, willy-nilly, willy-nilly!' he calls defiantly, as if he did not like having to keep quiet all day, and meant to tell his name ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... line! For rice, pay-day, pills, and ration, For corned-willy, army fashion, In Hoboken, in the trenches, In a station with ...
— "I was there" - with the Yanks in France. • C. LeRoy Baldridge
... perhaps you don't know, wedded a foreigner—Willy Harcourt, born and raised in Brooklyn. Therefore, I am now leaving to go to a party in Brooklyn. Say that to yourself slowly—'a party in Brooklyn!' Sounds sort of ominous, doesn't it? If the worst happens, I look to you fellows to break it to my mother. Please ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... could not possibly have resisted the impulse, for assuredly it was Martha's voice that called—called him back willy nilly to the past that after all was not so far past except in a ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... and gave her joy of her brother's safe return. She bade them do homage to Salim, and they consented and sware fealty to him; after which they kept silence awhile, so they might hear what the king should command. Then quoth Salma, "Ho, ye gathering of soldiers and subjects, ye wot that ye forced me willy-nilly to accept the kingship and besought me thereof and I consented to your desires anent my being raised to rule over you; and I did this against my will; for I would have you know that I am a woman and that I disguised ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... coo— Hummle, bummle, moo!— Widin ower the Bogie, Hame to fill the cogie! Bonny hummle coo, Wi' her baggy fu' O' butter and o' milk, And cream as saft as silk, A' gethered frae the gerse Intil her tassly purse, To be oors, no hers, Gudewillie, hummle coo! Willy, wally, woo! Moo, ...
— Heather and Snow • George MacDonald
... end of her tongue to say she preferred smoking-cars, intending to duck simultaneously under the conductor's arm and enter, willy-nilly. But the words rolled no farther than the tongue's edge. She turned obediently back, re-entering the car and taking the first seat by the door. For this her memory was responsible. It had spun the day's events ...
— Seven Miles to Arden • Ruth Sawyer
... not have signified if the children had been good for anything, but all their mothers were out at work, and, of those that did come, hardly one had learned their lessons—Willy Blake had lost his spelling-card; Anne Harris kicked Susan Pope, and would not say she was sorry; Mary Hale would not know M from N, do all our Mary would; and Jane Taylor, after all the pains I have taken with her, when I asked how the Israelites crossed the Red ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... repeated reminders, that Company failed to take the necessary steps to secure its ratification by its shareholders, and the working agreement for the new line was transferred to the Oswestry and Newtown, who were already working the Newtown and Llanidloes Railway. The incipient Cambrian, in fact, willy nilly, was now beginning to experience the sensation which comes, sooner or later, to healthily expanding youth, when it has to stand alone. Tumbles there might be ahead, but the day of leading strings ...
— The Story of the Cambrian - A Biography of a Railway • C. P. Gasquoine
... not to be altogether a new life. All the friends she had in the world, excepting Captain and Mrs. Horn, lived in Plainton. She did not wish to lose these friends,—she did not wish to be obliged to make new ones. With simple-minded and honest Willy Croup, who had long lived with her and for her; with Mrs. Perley, the minister's wife; with all her old neighbors and friends, she wished to live as she had always lived, but, of course, with a difference. How to manage, arrange, and regulate that difference was ...
— Mrs. Cliff's Yacht • Frank R. Stockton
... with speed across the bridge to High Street. Mr. Traill struggled back to his shop, against wind and treacherous ice, thinking what kind of a bed might be contrived for the sick man for the night. In the morning the daft auld body could be hurried, willy-nilly, to a bed in the infirmary. As for wee Bobby ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson
... chance that helps us willy nilly," she urged. "You, to me, are such a chance. Surely it was not within my power to bring about this good fortune any more than it is within the power of some others to ...
— The Seventh Noon • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... door-keeper—is in very good humor and has the time he tells us stories of his experiences in the College of the Holy Saviour in which he has been in active service since its foundation. One of these is the wonderful history of the small Irish lad, Willy Brown, the son of a sea captain, and his friend, the Chinese foundling, Joseph. We shall tell the tale just as Brother Onufrio would tell it, beginning with the day in the first year of his residence in Hongkong when the ...
— The Shipwreck - A Story for the Young • Joseph Spillman
... continued, "is a suit of clothes such as habitues of 'The Pidgin House' rejoice to wear. I, who have studied disguise almost as deeply as the great Willy Clarkson, will transform you into a perfect ruffian. It is important, you understand, that someone should be inside the house of Ah-Fang-Fu, as otherwise by means of some secret exit the man we seek may escape. I believe that he contemplates departing at any moment, and I believe ...
— The Golden Scorpion • Sax Rohmer
... it be so late? I've kept my fly waiting half an hoar. Well, I must run away. Nothing like seeing things for one's self. Which end of the buildings does one get out at? Will you show me, Willy? Who was that boy ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... usual simplicity. To Emma he wrote a brief note upbraiding her for fearing the voices of the valley, professing his eagerness to return when the St. Michael had been put out of the reckoning, and declaring that if it were not soon, he would willy-nilly come back and see how things were between them. It was a letter that wounded Emma, yet somehow warmed her, too, and from its reception we found her in an unwonted attitude of nonconformity to the verdicts of the valley. She began to speak up in behalf ...
— The Collectors • Frank Jewett Mather
... Stadthouse rather than let him marry Margaret. Gerard turned pale with anger at this, but by a great effort held his peace. His father went on to say, "And a priest you shall be before the year is out, nilly-willy." ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... makes available to all "Internationale Scientific" members the latest news from the forefront of science in Germany, with especial reference to latest rocket interplanetary developments. Constant improvements on our monthly journal are always sought for. Contributors of well-known reputation are: Willy Ley, Earl D. Streeter, R. P. Starzl, Robt. A. Wait, Dr. Wm. Tyler Olcott, Lilith Lorraine and Dr. D. W. Morehouse, president of ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... to draw a nail, instead of the half-dozen hit-or-miss slips that are the usual fate of such attempts, the bar falls down in front of the nail as the claw grips it from the back. The nail is held in a vise and must come out willy-nilly. ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 55, November 25, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... restful night-watches, when the southern Trades blew steadily, and the braces hung untouched upon their pins for a week on end. No, in the second dog-watch here, one took a solemn constitutional preparatory to dressing for dinner; and in the first night-watch one smoked and listened willy-nilly to polite small talk, and (from the ship's orchestra) the latest and most criminal products of New York's musical genius. I never heard or saw the process of relieving wheel or look-out aboard the Oronta, and long ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... slightest degree. The difference that baffles me, I expect, is that I 've the positive, you 've the negative, temperament; I 've the active, you 've the passive; I 've the fertile, you 've the sterile. It's the difference between Yea and Nay, between Willy and Nilly. Serenely, serenely, you will drift to your grave, and never once know what it is to be consumed, harried, driven by a deep, inextinguishable, unassuageable craving to write a song. You 'll never know the heartburn, ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... first time?" etc., etc. And every time, Mr. Willson got up in the leisurely manner peculiar to him, reached for some book from the shelves that lined the room, gave the desired information, and as leisurely returned to the "pranic atom," or to "come and talk man talk, Willy," or to whatever our subject chanced to ...
— Ancient and Modern Physics • Thomas E. Willson
... complains that all commendation and promotion is reserved for the staff. Provincials complain of similar injustice, but there is this wide difference, the one has the 'Times' for its advocate, the other is unheard or unheeded. An honest statesman will not refuse to do justice—a willy poilitician will concede with grace what he knows he must soon yield to compulsion. The old Tory was a man after all, ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... not concerned here with the history of music, only with the intimate history of musicians. Piccinni's domestic life was so beautiful, that it makes it all the more pitiable that he should have been dragged willy-nilly into a contest for which he had neither inclination nor ability. Piccinni fell in love with a pupil, like him an Italian, Vicenza Sibilla. When he was twenty-eight he married her. His biographer Ginguene says: "She joined to the charms of her sex, a most beautiful ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... that kept the public-house at Tullyvernon cross-roads, a little above the. Squire's—at laste, most of you do—and ould Willy Butledge, the fiddler, that spint his time between Tom's and the big house—God,be good to Wilty!—it's himself was the droll man entirely: he died of ating boiled banes, for a wager that the Squire laid on him agin ould Captain Mint, and dhrinking porter after them till he was swelled ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... Willy's tomato from Johnny's. If Willy and Johnny were allowed to sell their crops they'd be willing to pay out of the profit for the seed they use and they'd take a lot of interest in it. The housekeeper would buy all ...
— Ethel Morton's Enterprise • Mabell S.C. Smith
... by Fancy led; Or, o'er your mountains creep, in awful gloom! Then will I dress once more the faded bower, Where Jonson[52] sat in Drummond's classic shade; 215 Or crop, from Tiviotdale, each lyric flower, And mourn, on Yarrow's banks, where Willy's laid! Meantime, ye powers that on the plains which bore The cordial youth, on Lothian's plains,[53] attend!— Where'er Home dwells, on hill, or lowly moor, 220 To him I lose, your kind protection lend, And, touch'd with love like mine, preserve my ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... playing with the grease-can and get down to the main door to let Little Willy and his junk-brokers in. You can have it all to ...
— The Velvet Glove • Harry Harrison
... being in the mob, and I was about to back my way out of the crowd and seek another route, even if a roundabout one. But just then the blockade was partially raised, an opening presented itself immediately in front of me, and I was forced forward willy-nilly. Arrived at the other side of the street, I drew out of the press as quickly as possible, and it was then that I discovered Mr. Indiman's carte de visite tightly clutched in my left hand. Impossible to conjecture how ...
— The Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen
... her of the letter Chester Hunt had written Dr. Harper and of his intention to marry her willy nilly. ...
— Mary Louise and Josie O'Gorman • Emma Speed Sampson
... a universal sob rose from all the multitude, and the sternest e'e couldna refrain from shedding a tear. We marched slowly down the stair, and on to the foot of the scaffold, where her younger brother, Willy, that was stable-boy at my lord's, was standing by himself, in an open ring made round him in the crowd; every one compassionating the dejected laddie, for he was a fine youth, and of an ...
— The Provost • John Galt
... the motion of themselves," said Joscelyn, "and it only remains to you to attract the seventh willy-nilly." ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon
... seem to suppose is A buckler and barrier against trichinosis; Bat trichinae pass without passports. Bacilli And microbes that Yankee might miss willy-nilly, Which nobody ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, Sept. 27, 1890 • Various
... though you run expectant as you always do To the uniforms we meet, You will never find Willy among all the soldiers Even in the ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... march beside him willy-nilly. "Look here, Billy," he reasoned, exasperated at this entirely fresh twist in the corkscrew business of getting Strong home. "Look here, Billy, this is tommy-rot. You haven't any date with a girl, and if ...
— A Good Samaritan • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... I'd git a chance to git ma'id I'd kinder put it off, thinkin' he mought turn up, an' every time I'd bury a husband I'd say to myself, 'Now maybe this time Billy'll be comin' along.' I been namin' my chilluns arfter him off an' on. There's Bill an' Billy an' Bildad an' William an' Willy an' one er my gals is named Willymeeter. Of course I knowed he wa' kinder 'sponsible fer Miss Ann, an' I ain't never blamed him none, but I sho' wa' glad ter see him when he come walkin' in las' Wednesday an' jes' tol' me he wa' a needin' me an' he had a home er his own with ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... secretly coveted the Superintendent's residence in the Park (so that, instead of straggling along a concrete pavement at rare intervals, held captive by the hand that was in Jane's, she might always have the right to race willy-nilly across the grass—chase the tame squirrels to shelter—even climb a tree). But more earnestly did she covet a house beyond the precipice. Were there not trees there? and rocks? Without doubt there were Johnnie Blake ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates
... was a new and comparative stranger there, and it would vastly enhance her social prestige, she argued, to be seen in such "swell" surroundings. With a little tact and management she might even arrange matters so that, willy nilly, her friends would drive her home instead of taking Colonel Armstrong back to camp. That would be a stroke worth playing. She owed Stanley Armstrong a bitter grudge, and had nursed it long. She had known him ten years ...
— Found in the Philippines - The Story of a Woman's Letters • Charles King
... Willy Wolly planned, you see, To catch a speckled trout; But caught a very different fish From what he ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... then finally seems to vanish altogether in the leaden-hued expanse of the watery horizon. Storm, rain, wind, hail and thunder will certainly follow the appearance of this fantastic rose-coloured glow, and the visitor to Capri may in consequence be compelled to remain willy-nilly upon the island until such time as communication with Naples shall be once more restored, for rough weather on Capri means complete isolation from the mainland and the outside world. A spell of four or five days without a letter or a newspaper may in certain cases be restful and even ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... Willy's loosed the nine witch knots, That were amang that ladye's locks; And Willy's ta'en out the kaims o' care, That were into that ladye's hair; And he's ta'en down the bush o' woodbine, Hung atween her bour ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Vol. II (of 3) • Walter Scott
... PHOEBE): Nay: let her go. You're young and hard: And I was hard, though far from young: I've long Been growing old; though little I realized How old. And when you're old, you don't judge hardly: You ken things happen, in spite of us, willy-nilly. We think we're safe, holding the reins; and then In a flash the mare bolts; and the wheels fly off; And we're lying, stunned, beneath the broken cart. So, let the lass go quietly; and keep Your happiness. When you're old, you'll not let ...
— Krindlesyke • Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
... unnatural. But with the advent of modern economic ideas the situation radically changed. It was above all the possession of the Dalmatian seaboard that tempted Austria to occupy Bosnia, and so conversely the acquisition of Bosnia by Serbia would at once compel the latter, willy-nilly (quite apart from all racial affinities or sentiments), to ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... other little sister. "She's 'gaged to Willy Prentiss. And she's got a 'gagement wing; only, she turns the stone round inside, so's to make people b'lieve it's a plain gold wing and she's mallied already. Isn't that cheating? It's just as bad as telling a ...
— Eyebright - A Story • Susan Coolidge
... Willy," said Mrs. Hay Denver one evening as she stood behind her husband's chair, with her hand upon his shoulder, "I think sometimes that ...
— Beyond the City • Arthur Conan Doyle
... other people's actions, you know. What I insist on to-night is that you shall envisage this affair in its proper light. We have a long way to travel before counsel rises with his smug 'May it please you, me lud, and gentlemen of the jury.' But, having persuaded you to agree that, willy nilly, Miss Doris is the hub of our little universe for the hour, I now swear you and this fire-eater in as assistants. There must be no more speeches, no punching of heads, very little love-making, and that ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy
... mixed grey cloth English clothes were passed by in scorn, but the bright trimming of a cloak was much admired by the young ladies, though they would have liked James to have been dressed in red, like his two pages and kinsfolk, Willy and Mungo Graham. Still, even in the despised grey suit they thought he made a brave show as he rode away from the door on his white pony, with his tutor, master Forrett, by his side, the pages and ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang
... ceased, for at that moment, to enforce his remark, he had placed his hand on Planchette, and at that moment his hand had been seized, as by a paroxysm, and sent dashing, willy-nilly, across the paper, writing as the hand of ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London
... merriment, entered the quadrille perforce, all giggles, not without emulation, for she likewise had the passion for the dance. Whereby it befell that the pair footed in a way to gather observant spectators; and if it had not been that the man from whom the maid was willy-nilly snatched, conceived resentment, things might have passed comfortably; for Kit's quips and cuts and high capers, and the Sunday gravity of the barge face while the legs were at their impish trickery, double motion to the music, won the crowd to cheer. They conjectured ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... blown for supper, three long blasts, and already the campers were in their places at the long table, with its shining white cover. Mr. and Mrs. Merryweather, their six children, Bell, Gertrude, and Kitty, Gerald, Philip, and Willy, the two Montforts, with the Colonel and his nephew, made a party of twelve, and filled the table comfortably, though there was still room for more. The room was a long one, with a vast open fireplace stretching half across one side. At one end were rows ...
— The Merryweathers • Laura E. Richards
... had risen, advanced stiffly and reached out her hand in gingerly fashion. But Mrs. Middleton gathered her, willy-nilly, into a warm embrace, holding her close against the ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray
... declared Roger, promptly, "but seems to me, Pitty- Pat, the colossal cowboy is already a Willing Willy to ...
— Patty's Butterfly Days • Carolyn Wells
... these Liebers is an authority which never fails, never dies—an authority which willy-nilly we obey and in which we place unbounded trust. In any one of these Registers is a potentiality which can always worst the quibbles and quiddities of lawyers and ward off the miserable technicalities of the law. Any of them, when called upon, can go into court and dictate to the ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... her, willy-nilly, and as he came down the hall towards her, she was struck by the keenness and intelligence of his dark face. She told herself grudgingly that he had certainly improved amazingly, at any rate in outward appearance, during the last ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes
... bought his copy of Gwillim, that of Mr. Gill or Gyll; "and I find in it no trace of such an entry." "Lord Derwentwater's Good-Night" is probably entirely by Surtees. "A friend of Mr. Taylor's" gave him a Tynedale ballad, "Hey, Willy Ridley, winna you stay?" which is also "aut Diabolus aut Robertus." As to "Barthram's Dirge," "from Ann Douglas, a withered crone who weeds my garden," copies with various tentative verses in Surtees' hand have been found. Oddly enough, Sir Walter had once discovered a small sepulchral ...
— Old Friends - Essays in Epistolary Parody • Andrew Lang
... were red with weeping, Her lover was no more, Beneath the billows sleeping, Near Ireland's rocky shore; She oft pray'd for her Willy, But it was all in vain, And pale as any lily Grew lovely ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... why not knowing, Nor whence, his heart with madness overflowing; Then out of it—and thence, without a pause, Into another, willy-nilly blowing. ...
— The Rubaiyat of a Bachelor • Helen Rowland
... gen. I don't know much about running a army and their plans but stragety is the same if its on the battle field or the baseball diamond you might say and it just means how can we beat them and I often say that the men that can use their brains will win any kind of a game except maybe some college Willy boy game like football or ...
— The Real Dope • Ring Lardner
... as it happened to her mother before her," answered the captain. "Whooping-cough and measles are not more certain to befall children, than love to befall a young woman. You were all made for it, my dear Willy, and no fear but the girl will catch the disease, one of these days; and that, too, ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... instant a young man, thrusting out his head and neck between two iron bars in the prison-window, exclaimed, 'Father! father! if my brother William is in life, that's he!' 'I am! — I am! — (cried the stranger, clasping the old man in his arms, and shedding a flood of tears) — I am your son Willy, sure enough!' Before the father, who was quite confounded, could make any return to this tenderness, a decent old woman bolting out from the door of a poor habitation, cried, 'Where is my bairn? where is my dear Willy?' — The captain no sooner beheld her, than he quitted ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... forced to sleep. Tired nature would be put off no longer. I simply fell asleep, willy nilly, as I sat looking out to sea. I had been very uncomfortable since my ducking in the ocean, for though I could see the sunlight on the water half-way toward the island and upon the island itself, no ray of it fell upon us. We were well within the Land of Awful Shadow. ...
— Pellucidar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... about that yisterday. She said Willy had been waitin' on Abby for four or five years, but they'd had a misunderstandin' this summer, and it was broke ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various
... know that quite well." And her head dropped on her breast and she felt sick at heart. "I'll have to say good-bye to everything. There were Betsy Jackson's children—I kissed them all this morning, and never said why—little Willy, he seemed to know, dear little fellow, ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... set out en famille. It was July. I remember the date rather particularly because it was just then that they ceased to ration bacon altogether. At 10.30 the pig was safely lost. At 11 the front-door closed upon us. At 11.1 little Willy Perkins, the butcher's son, arrived with the pig and claimed ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 12, 1919 • Various
... by my bookseller to prepare for a Second Edition of "Willy Reilly." This is at all times a pleasing call upon an author; and it is so especially to me, inasmuch as the first Edition was sold at the fashionable, but unreasonable, price of a guinea and a half—a price which, in this age of cheap literature, is almost fatal to the sale of any three-volume ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... perceive that, sorrowfully as had passed her noon of prime, an "Indian summer" of the soul was rising upon her brightened existence, and already with its first faint flushes lighting up her meek, doubting eyes, and pale, changing countenance. Willy, her feeble-minded child, frisked and gambolled by their side; and altogether, a happier group than they would, I fancy, have been difficult to ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... Sole, I supped and lay. I found a company of gentlemen in the common-room, who upon espying my motley—when I had thrown off my sodden cloak and hat—pressed me, willy-nilly, into amusing them. And so I spent the night at my Fool's trade, giving them drolleries from the works of Boccacci and Sacchetti—the ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... and toes turned out, Willy came along the passage. His manner was full of deliberation, and he carried a small brown paper parcel under his arm as if it were a sword of state. Maggie followed him up the steep and vulgarly carpeted staircase that branched into the various passages forming the upper part of the house. Willy's ...
— Spring Days • George Moore
... that Seth, and Seth alone, was all her world. Then the old mischievous leaning possessed her, and she resolved, willy-nilly, that Mrs. Rickards, whose love she had long since won, as she won everybody's with whom she came into contact, ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum
... the youth, Willy Shakspeare, jog himself by the memory, and repeat these short verses, not wide from ...
— Citation and Examination of William Shakspeare • Walter Savage Landor
... other what this meant; the old men took counsel together, the young men saddled their horses while the women held them; the boys scuffled about, in a hurry to run and fight, but did not know with whom or about what! Willy-nilly, they had to stay behind. In the priest's dwelling there was in progress a long, tumultuous, frightfully confused debate; at last, not being able to agree, they finally decided to lay the whole matter before ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... with a comparatively small degree of danger. He never made an attack until every expedient for peace was exhausted. He sent word to each barbaric tribe to come in and be lovingly annexed, or else be annexed willy-nilly. He won, but through diplomacy where it was possible. When he did strike, it was quickly, unexpectedly and hard. The priest was as great a strategist as he was a diplomat. He pardoned his opposers when they would lay down their arms—he wanted success, not vengeance. But ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... deserves special mention; for not only is he an important item in our establishment, but a very special crony of mine. This is Willy Paterson (known locally, by-the-bye, as "the Priest's Wully"), our gardener, groom, coachman (when required), and general handy man. Willy is a wiry, wrinkled, white-haired little man—little now, because stooping a ...
— Up in Ardmuirland • Michael Barrett
... my first sight of her, seeing that only once before had I been to the theatre. In those days I lived cheek by jowl with a party of five young men—a most noisy crew- and one night I accompanied them, willy-nilly, to the theatre, though I held myself decently aloof from their doings, and only assisted them for company's sake. How those fellows talked to me of this actress! Every night when the theatre was open, the entire band of them (they always seemed ...
— Poor Folk • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... balance-sheet. All sorts and conditions of possible husbands appeared at "Five Gables;" were dined, discussed, and dismissed. The older families despised him and would not be appeased. To crown his vexation, his daughter named a lover for herself. He had twice shown Captain Willy Forrest from the door and twice had the man returned. Anna seemed fascinated by this showy adventurer as by none other who visited them. Gessner, for his part, would sooner have lost the half of his fortune than that she should ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... whether I'm in Central Park, New York City, nineteen hundred and three quarters, or somewhere in Southwark, Merry England, fifteen hundred and same. The truth is that although he loves every last fat part in Shakespeare and will play the skinniest one with loyal and inspired affection, he thinks Willy S. penned Falstaff with nobody else in mind but Sidney J. Lessingham. (And no accent on ...
— No Great Magic • Fritz Reuter Leiber
... After a pause she added: "When a woman makes up her mind to marry a man, willy-nilly, she begins to hate him. It's a case of hunter and hunted. Perhaps, after she's got him, she may change. But not till the trap springs—not ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... leaning on the footboard of the bed cried out, "So you've been at your old tricks once more, Susanna! This is the third time. You are a bad woman. I will never live with you again. I am going away forever, and I'll take little Willy with me. If you aren't fit to be a mother, you aren't fit to be a wife!" She cried out pitifully, but he lifted the child in his arms ...
— The Measure of a Man • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... Read this Note with horror utter, And (assisted by the cutter) Went on eating bread-and-butter! Man will say—with due apology To alarmed Bacteriology— Spite of menacing bacilli, Man must eat, friend, willy-nilly! And where shall he find due foison If e'en bread-and-butter's poison? Science told our amorous Misses Death may be conveyed in kisses; But it did not keep the nation From promiscuous osculation. Now it warneth the "Young Person" (Whom GRANT ALLEN voids his curse on) "Bread-and-butter ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, February 4, 1893 • Various
... antique works on account of their musical substance and not for the sake of gewgaws and frills which were either induced by the imperfections of the instrument or by the vitiated taste of times to which the composer had to yield willy-nilly. ...
— Great Pianists on Piano Playing • James Francis Cooke
... she'd been plain, Willy, you'd never have so much as known she was there! Did you tell her you ...
— Missing • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... long I stay. There is still some daylight left." Kay makes answer: "You speak madness when you decline to come. I trow you will repent of it. And however much it may be against your will, you shall both go, as the priest goes to the council, willy-nilly. To-night you will be badly served, if, unmindful of my advice, you go there as strangers. Come now quickly, for I will take you." At this word Erec's ire was roused. "Vassal," says he, "you are mad to drag me thus after you by force. You have taken me quite ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes |
