"Deftly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... children alone. But that did not disconcert them, as might have been expected. From the first moment they felt at home with each other. Walter was the first to speak. He leaned up against the chimneypiece, and meditatively watched the girl as she began deftly to clear ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... the Philadelphia Times, and suggested that perhaps he might write a similar department for The Ladies' Home Journal. Bok saw no reason why he should not, and told Mr. Curtis so, and promised to send over a trial installment. The Philadelphia publisher then deftly went on, explained editorial conditions in his magazine, and, recognizing the ethics of the occasion by not offering Bok another position while he was already occupying one, asked him if he knew the ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)
... looked and listened carefully. He seemed reassured by the silence, and made a swift dash across the open for the very patch of cover where his opponents were in hiding. Both were ready for him, but he came in on Billy's side, and fell to Billy's deftly-thrown ball. ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... imperturbable manner, as he slowly freed himself from my grasp and made for the camp fire, which being to a great extent sheltered by an overhanging rock, was still smouldering in spite of the drenching rain. Raking the ashes until he found a red glowing coal, Pete deftly picked it up and by juggling it from one hand to the other, he conducted the live ember to his pipe-bowl, then he puffed away as calmly as if there was nothing in this ...
— The Black Wolf Pack • Dan Beard
... color is this story, so crowded with figures, it seems like a bit of old Italian wall painting, a piece of modern tapestry, rather than a modern fabric woven deftly from the threads of fact and fancy gathered up in this new and essentially practical country, and therein lies its distinctive ...
— The Passenger from Calais • Arthur Griffiths
... and hence question after question racked his mind. On her part a dead silence reigned. The anxious questionings of his mind were redoubled; his suspicions burst forth, and he was seized with forebodings of future calamity! Now, on this occasion, he deftly applied a Japanese blister, which burned as fiercely as an auto-da-fe of the year 1600. At first his wife employed a thousand stratagems to discover whether the annoyance of her husband was caused by the presence of her lover; it was her first intrigue and ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... him deftly back to music, to the opera, to the night of Iphigenia. No jarring there! Each mind kindled the other, in a common delight. Presently they swung along, hand in hand, laughing, quoting, reminding each other of this fine thing, and that. Newbury was a considerable musician; ...
— The Coryston Family • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... high those Phantom-fiddlings rise!— All jocund June with palsying terror thrills; Fashion sits frozen dead with staring eyes. How that dread dirge the ambient Summer fills Savage and shrill! Smart frocks, soft snowy frills, Long trains which dancing Beauty deftly steers. Through waltzes wild or devious quadrilles,— All vanish; bosoms white, beset with fears; Beat flight as that fell strain falls harsh on ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, June 18, 1892 • Various
... were lacerated. He had poured gently upon me a story that I might have used. There was a little of the breath of life in it, and some of the synthetic atmosphere that passes, when cunningly tinkered, in the marts. And, at the last it had proven to be a commercial pill, deftly coated with the sugar of fiction. The worst of it was that I could not offer it for sale. Advertising departments and counting-rooms look down upon me. And it would never do for the literary. Therefore I sat upon a bench with other disappointed ones ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... the required implement. Kerry caught it deftly, and in a very few minutes had wrenched away the rough planking nailed over one of the lower windows, without ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... Cherry most deftly and seemed anxious to direct David in the landing though she was most willing to trust it entirely to him. After hurrying Phoebe to the top rail he vaulted lightly to the side of David and departed in haste, taking the reluctant widow ...
— Andrew the Glad • Maria Thompson Daviess
... only watched every operation, but eagerly lent a hand where he could. Hammer, chisel, and plane were in turn used as deftly as if he had served an apprenticeship to the trade. He especially distinguished himself in planing the boards ready for the carpenter, who declared that James was equal to a trained workman. He did the work well and quickly, ...
— The Story of Garfield - Farm-boy, Soldier, and President • William G. Rutherford
... chauffeur for interrupting your conversation," protested Polly, turning round and deftly missing a venturesome banana cart; "but you grabbed off half a million of it on ...
— Five Thousand an Hour - How Johnny Gamble Won the Heiress • George Randolph Chester
... was one of what Welles called "Vincent's sidewipes," which he could inlay so deftly that they seemed an integral part of the conversation. He wondered what Mrs. Crittenden would say, if Vincent ever got through his gabble and gave her a chance. She was turning to him now, smiling, and beginning to speak. What a nice voice she had! How nice ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... she retorted, and sullenly counted one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight long weeping willow leaves which had died that day and had fallen to the ground. She gathered each leaf between her great bare toe and its next-door neighbor, deftly throwing them aside ...
— Tess of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... no other earthly appellation by which to describe him—had wrought so remarkable a transformation in both Thuvan Dihn and myself that our own wives would never have known us. Our skins were of the same lemon color as his own, and great, black beards and mustaches had been deftly affixed to our smooth faces. The trappings of warriors of Okar aided in the deception; and for wear beyond the hothouse cities we each had suits of the black- and ...
— Warlord of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... deftly change the color of his talk; his chattiness has all gone from him. Nor does it revive on reaching home. Good Mrs. Elderkin says, "What makes you so ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... feet and launched himself at the puncher. Dave flung the smaller of his opponents back against Steve, who was sitting tailor fashion beside him. The gunman tottered and fell over Russell, who lost no time in pinning his hands to the ground while Hart deftly removed ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... it unmistakably. One evening he called on the Farnsworths; the ladies were not at home to him. The next night he saddled Saladin and rode over to Fairmont; the Misses Harrison were also unable to see him, and the butler conveyed a deftly-worded intimation pointing to future invisibilities on the part of his mistresses. The evening being still young, Tom tried Rockwood and the Dell, suspicion settling into conviction when the trim maidservant at the Stanley villa went near to shutting the door in his face. ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... fanning him till a feeble daylight through an uncurtained window warned her to switch off the electricity. Coming back to her place, she continued to fan him, quietly and deftly, with no more than a motion of the wrist. She had the nurse's wrist, slender, flexible; the nurse's hand, strong, shapely, with practical spatulated finger-tips. After all, he was in some degree the drowning unconscious prince, and she ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... Eveley, deftly slipping a dish of sweet pickles beyond the reach of the covetous fat fingers of little niece Nathalie,—"to-morrow ...
— Eve to the Rescue • Ethel Hueston
... any one but the depositors in the Payley Bank, and if DeLancey caused any Homeburger to stalk down to his father's bank and extract a thousand-dollar savings deposit, old man Payley would thrash DeLancey and set him to work on his farm. They have to show their superiority over us so deftly and pleasantly that we don't mind it. They have to keep us good-natured while despising us. With half the genius for contemptuous conciliation that the Payley and Singer children have displayed in the last five years, the French nobility ...
— Homeburg Memories • George Helgesen Fitch
... Upper school, were invited to assemble in the drawing-room on the occasions of the weekly conversazione, as it was called, and a special subject was then introduced, which the girls were obliged to handle as deftly and ...
— A Bunch of Cherries - A Story of Cherry Court School • L. T. Meade
... desperate struggle, the poor creature scattering the water with its great flippers, and the next minute, to Steve's great relief, it was dead and beginning to sink; but Johannes seized the line, and deftly threw a ring round the walrus's neck, gave it a few twists, and made the monster fast, in case the harpoon should after all give way, as it had with the other boat, which was now returning disconsolate, it being impossible to ...
— Steve Young • George Manville Fenn
... they were undeniably ugly and repulsive of feature, the expression being that of mingled cunning and cruelty. As they drew nearer, King Cole, the black panther, began to snarl and show his fangs in an exceedingly hostile fashion, whereupon Dick hurriedly seized one of the tent ropes and deftly looped it about the animal's neck in a standing bowline knot, at the same time soothing ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... was too busy to talk. She deftly searched the girl's pocket and found the notebook. The shorthand writing caught her eye at once but the ...
— Mary Louise • Edith van Dyne (one of L. Frank Baum's pen names)
... now all fear of these left him. He heaved painfully up the mountain again, and along under a six-foot ledge, then up and back to the top of the bank, where he lay flat. On came the Indian, armed with knife and gun; deftly, swiftly keeping on the trail; gloating joyfully over each bloody print that meant such anguish to the hunted Bear. Straight up the slide of broken rock he came, where Wahb, ferocious with pain, was waiting on the ledge. On sneaked the dogged hunter; ...
— The Biography of a Grizzly • Ernest Thompson Seton
... these along, and eat them when it suits you," said the girl, deftly thrusting a plateful of hot cakes upon him. Divided between gratitude and annoyance, Geoffrey stood still, stupidly holding out the dainties at arm's length, while flavored syrup dripped from them. It was equally impossible ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... the door upon them, slipped the padlock through the two rings and turned the key. Then, walking around the coach, he pretended to drop his whip before the other door, and, in stooping for it, slipped the second padlock through the rings, deftly turned the key as he straightened up, and, assured that the two officers were securely locked in, he sprang upon his horse, grumbling at the conductor who had left him to do his work. In fact the conductor was still squabbling with the landlord over his bill when ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... but minted them for him, gave him spontaneously the short homely phrase which sank his meaning into the minds of his hearers. Mallinson took refuge in a criticism of Drake's speeches from the standpoint of literary polish. He recast them in his thoughts, turning this sentence more deftly, whittling that repartee to a finer point. The process consoled him for Drake's misreckoning of his purpose in the matter of A Man of Influence, since it pointed to a certain lack of delicacy, say at once to crassness in the ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason
... his "Giojelli della Madonna." However, that is not the question I am desirous to discuss just now when the first impressions of "Le Donne Curiose" come flocking back to my memory. The book is a paraphrase of Goldoni's comedy of the same name, made (and very deftly made) for the composer by Count Luigi Sugana. It turns on the curiosity of a group of women concerning the doings of their husbands and sweethearts at a club from which they are excluded. The action is merely ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... Deftly she laid out the four aces beside the four deuces, the four kings beside the four queens. It was done so quickly that even Halsey, in his amazement, could find nothing to say. Mrs. Noble paled and was speechless. As for Bella and Watson, nothing could have ...
— Constance Dunlap • Arthur B. Reeve
... multitude of fantastic designs, the broad roofs of thatched grass or plaited palm-leaves extending in penthouse eaves above carven panels let into the gables. A riot of glorious vegetation frames and overshadows the clustering huts of deftly-woven cane. Dark faces peer through the narrow slits of bamboo window-spaces, but Makassar pride contains the elements of self-respect, and though the stranger attracts a certain amount of interest, no discourtesy mars the pleasure of exploration. ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings
... League had jubilantly explained to Mr. Mix that he was a liberator and a saviour of humanity from itself, and Mr. Mix had deftly caught whatever bouquets were batted up to him. He had allowed the fragrance of them to waft even as far as the Herald office, to which he sent a bulletin every forty-eight hours. Mr. Mix's salary was comforting, his expense accounts were paid as soon as vouchers were submitted, ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall
... found much pleasure in my society; I was a stranger; this was exactly one of those rare conjunctures.... Without being very clear-seeing, I can still perceive the sun at noonday; and the coloured gentleman deftly ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... coincidentally with the drying of his hands. The impatient Cazi Moto snatched the towel deftly but respectfully and packed it away. Simba, who had listened with deference until his bwana should finish ...
— The Leopard Woman • Stewart Edward White et al
... mounted. As she gave Ginger his head Ambrose deftly caught her hand and kissed it. Colina was not displeased. If it had been self-consciously done ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... which leads to the river, and he took the paddle with which he had so deftly sculled the boat across the mere, and as we left the overhanging trees and saw the faint glow of the rising moon across the open river we breathed more freely, and ...
— King Olaf's Kinsman - A Story of the Last Saxon Struggle against the Danes in - the Days of Ironside and Cnut • Charles Whistler
... beard, and his intrusively fine eyes, conveyed a continual courteous invitation to inspect their infallibilities. He stood, like a City "Atlas," with his legs apart, his coat-tails gathered in his hands, a whole globe of financial matters deftly balanced on his nose. "Look at me!" he seemed to say. "It's heavy, but how easily I carry it. Not the man to let it ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... as yet observed upon the excellent bearing of the two men. They were dark, undersized, and well set up; stepped softly, waited deftly, brought on the wines and dishes at a look, and their eyes attended studiously on ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... overcoat and gripsack, fortunately unharmed, then the paper parcels of oatmeal and hominy, sticky and dripping. Swiftly corking the jug, he lifted it out of the carryall, together with the oilcloth strip, and deftly stood both against a fence by the roadside. Flint watched him with admiration. He felt himself supremely helpless in the presence of the direful calamity. How was he ever to get these bundles into condition ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... interest of curiosity, especially during a first perusal. But afterwards they fade from the mind, while the characters, if highly vitalized and strong, will stand out in our thoughts, fresh and full coloured, for an indefinite time. Scott's "Guy Mannering" is a well-constructed story. The plot is deftly laid, the events are prepared for with a cunning hand; the coincidences are so arranged as to be made to look as probable as may be. Yet we remember and love the book, not for such excellences as these, but for Dandie Dinmont, the Border farmer, and Pleydell, the Edinburgh ...
— Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials
... do you think of these yer herrings?"—three in his hand, while the remaining stock are deftly balanced in the basket on his head. "Don't you think they're good?" and he offered me the opportunity of testing them by scent, which I courteously but firmly declined, "and don't you think they're cheap ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... even guessed, that she instinctively pushed the old woman aside from tasks which involved any physical effort. Maggie now swung the back of a laundry bench up to form a table-top, and upon it proceeded to spread a cloth and arrange a medley of chipped dishes. As she moved swiftly and deftly about, the Duchess watching her with immobile features, these two made a strangely contrasting pair: one seemingly spent and at life's grayest end, the other electric with vitality and giving off the essence of ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott
... wonder, he said to himself, as he went up the hill, if they'd take interest in my craft, I could talk to them for a long while of the thread which should always be carefully chosen, and which should be smooth and of equal strength, else, however deftly the shuttle be passed, the woof would be rough. But no matter, if they'll get news of Timothy for me I'll listen to their talk of rams and ewes without complaint. It was kind of Jacob to say he ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... of Latin for them in his beloved Horace: Tibi splendet focus (For you the hearth-fire shines). Olive had painted the motto on a long narrow panel of canvas, and, giving it to Mr. Popham, stood by the fireside while he deftly fitted it into the place prepared for it. The family had feared that he would tell a good story when he found himself the centre of attraction, but he was as dumb as Peter, and for ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... petition from the "Society" to the Prime Minister, Canovas del Castillo, praying for the liberation of Rizal in exchange for his professional services in the Spanish army operating in Cuba, where army doctors were much needed. Hints were deftly thrown out about the "Society's" relations with other European capitals, and the foreign lady-secretary played her part so adroitly that the Prime Minister pictured to himself ambassadorial intervention and foreign ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... bedclothes off him and was lying all uncovered. Ruth obeyed passively when Slyme told her to sit down, and, lying back languidly in the armchair, she watched him through half-closed eyes and with a slight flush on her face as he deftly covered the sleeping child with the bedclothes and settled him ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... marred their pleasure in the adventure. Presently there was a tap-tap-tapping of crutches on the heavy gallery that fronted the Cunzie Neuk, and on the stairs that descended from it to the steep and curving row. The lassie draped a fragment of an old plaid deftly over her thinly clad shoulders, climbed through the window, to the pediment of the classic tomb that blocked it, and dropped into the kirkyard. To her surprise Bobby was there at her feet, frantically ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson
... them taken separately would have been capable, even in their dreams. Here was a bunch of average nice Leesville boys, employees of the shops near-by, "soda-jerkers" and "counter-jumpers", clerks who had deftly fitted shoes on to the feet of pretty ladies. Now they were submitting themselves to this deforming discipline, undergoing this ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... spoke, Mr. Dunbar knelt beside the bench, and with a small, sharp pen-knife ripped the seam from elbow to shoulder, from elbow to wrist, swiftly and deftly folding back the sleeve, and exposing the perfect ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... on the sofa. Was not the burlesque well conceived and deftly fashioned? True, I did not seem to myself much like Struboff. There was no comfort in that; Struboff did not seem to himself much like what he was. "Am I repulsive, am I loathsome?" he cried indignantly, and my diplomacy ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... the leading strands of causation, and should be discarded unless it serves that purpose. There is no reason, however, why a novel should not tell at once several stories of equal importance, provided that these stories be deftly interlinked, as in that masterpiece of plotting, "Our Mutual Friend." In this novel, the chief expedient which Dickens has employed to bind his different stories together is to make the same person ...
— A Manual of the Art of Fiction • Clayton Hamilton
... battered, and weather-stained almost out of recognition. We steered so as to shave past her close to windward, and as she came drifting in under our fore chains, the man who was waiting there with a rope's-end dropped neatly into her, and, springing lightly along the thwarts into the eyes of her, deftly made fast the rope to the iron ring bolt in her stem. Then he turned himself, and looked at the ghastly cargo that the boat carried, and as he gazed he whitened to the lips, and a look of unspeakable horror crept into his eyes as he involuntarily ...
— A Pirate of the Caribbees • Harry Collingwood
... all level and one direction was no more inviting than another. Henry paused, at a loss, but as he looked around his eyes caught a gleam of white. It came from a spot on a hickory tree where the bark had been deftly chipped away with a hatchet or a tomahawk, leaving the white body of the tree, exposed for two or three square inches. Henry read it as clearly as if it had been print. In fact, it was print to him, and he knew that it had ...
— The Riflemen of the Ohio - A Story of the Early Days along "The Beautiful River" • Joseph A. Altsheler
... and rights, To Geraldine's were frights; And I trow, The damsel, deftly shod, Has dutifully trod ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... than anything she had met for months, and the Royal Analostan was proportionately attracted. The cook, when she learned that fears were entertained about the Cat staying, said: "Shure, she'd 'tind to thot; wanst a Cat licks her futs, shure she's at home." So she deftly caught the unapproachable royalty in her apron, and committed the horrible sacrilege of greasing the soles of her feet with pot-grease. Of course Kitty resented it—she resented everything in the place; but on being set down she began to dress her paws ...
— Animal Heroes • Ernest Thompson Seton
... its work more thoroughly than Willon and the welsher had intended; they had meant that the opiate should be just sufficient to make the favorite off his speed, but not to make effects so palpable as these. It was, however, so deftly prepared that under examination no trace could be found of it, and the result of veterinary investigation, while it left unremoved the conviction that the horse had been doctored, could not explain when or how, or by what medicines. Forest ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... drink, I hope"; Fatty at the same time mollified and invited, with his one hand deftly pulling the slip-knots ...
— The Red One • Jack London
... and the stock of water so singularly obtained and so deftly stored away, might, if properly kept and carefully used, last them for many days; and to the preservation of these stores the thoughts of the sailor and his young companion were ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... sleighs were beginning to jingle up, but most of the girls assumed moccasins, clouds, and furs, and kilting their petticoats as deftly and mysteriously as only Canadians can, set out in parties, escorted by their partners, and stepped briskly over the moon lit ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... one he took his place among the men who sat on the rails with which the car was loaded. Then, as the big locomotive slowly pulled them out, some of his new companions vituperated the station-agent for stopping them, and one came near braining him with a deftly-flung bottle when he retaliated. There were a good many more men perched on the other cars, and Weston concluded, from the burst of hoarse laughter that reached him through the roar of wheels, that all ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... Jim. "Never mind, we've got everything ready. Look sharp and shy down the hooks, Billy—they're in that tin, and the lines are tied on to it, in a parcel. That's right," as the black boy tossed the tackle down and he caught it deftly. "Now, you chaps, get to work, ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... am likely to get," rattled on Beecot, deftly frying the sausages, after placing his visitor on the sofa. "The grub will soon be ready. I'm a first-class cook, bless you, old chap. Housemaid too. Clean, eh?" He waved the fork proudly round the ill-furnished room. "I'd dismiss myself if ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume
... appeared, Julia fell back, and, having deftly caught a fly on the doorpost, occupied herself in plucking it to pieces, while she listened to ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... myself or utter a word, the pair dashed towards me, seized my hands deftly and secured them behind ...
— Hushed Up - A Mystery of London • William Le Queux
... pondered, he was none the less watchful; he saw the change on the still face as soon as it showed. With a quick exclamation he crossed to the bed. Regnault's jaw had set; his eyes were wide and rigid. On the instant his forehead shone with sweat. Deftly and swiftly O'Neill laid his hands on a capsule, crushed it in his palm, and held it to the sick man's face. The volatile ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... their lips instead of crying out when they missed their fish, there was a continuous ring of their weapons on the stones, and every irrepressible imprecation was echoed up and down the black glen. Two or three of the gang were told off to land the salmon, and they had to work smartly and deftly. They kept by the side of the spears-man, and the moment he struck a fish they grabbed at it with their hands. When the spear had a barb there was less chance of the fish's being lost; but often this was not ...
— Auld Licht Idyls • J.M. Barrie
... erect. Another of those who had accompanied them from the fields approached with the harness and collar that had been taken from the dead body that the head had formerly topped. The new body now appropriated these and the hands deftly adjusted them. The creature was now as good as before Tara of Helium had struck down its former body with her slim blade. But there was a difference. Before it had been male—now it was female. That, however, seemed to make no difference to the head. ...
— The Chessmen of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Sarmean had procured a forked pole, between the prongs of which the neck of the absconder was placed; and a cross stick, firmly lashed, effectually prevented him from relieving himself of the incumbrance attached to him so deftly. ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... unusually quick for a big man. He handled his big sword deftly. After much sparring he was too quick for Almo, and the point of his slender blade scratched Almo's splay vizor, nicked his chin, and tore a long shallow slash in the skin ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... you ever, in earlier years, sought the comforting society of the cook and hung over the kitchen table while she rolled out sugar gingerbread? Perhaps then, in some unaccustomed moment of amiability, she made you a dough lady, cutting the outline deftly with her pastry knife, and then, at last, placing the human stamp upon it by sticking in two black currants for eyes. Just call to mind the face of that sugar gingerbread lady and you will have an exact portrait of Huldah's mother,—Mis' Peter Meserve, she was ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... Max and I, all danced when the tiny white hand of Yolanda pulled the strings. A kiss or a saucy nod for Castleman or Twonette, a smile or a frown for Max and me, were the instruments wherewith she worked. Deftly she turned each situation as she desired. Max made frequent efforts to obtain a private moment with her, that he might ask a few questions concerning her wonderful knowledge of his ring—they had been burning ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... she took from among several others held in her mouth. At length she patted down her gown, and frowned with a sigh of satisfaction, as she looked down over her long and adequate curves. Discovering a wrinkle in the skirt of her gown, she smoothed it out deftly ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough
... heavy cord and started operations. While the boy deftly worked, the man continued to plead, trying to claw at him also; but Obed managed to get his job completed notwithstanding the interruptions. He was at the same time telling the unfortunate man to keep quiet, and he would be ...
— At Whispering Pine Lodge • Lawrence J. Leslie
... least annoyed or surprised; both horses, I also, noticed, seemed equally used to the situation. We got out, and he got down. He took from under the seat a huge clasp-knife, evidently kept there for the purpose, and deftly cut the traces. The horse, thus released, rolled over and over until he struck the road again some fifty feet below. There he regained his feet and stood waiting for us. We re-entered the carriage and descended with the single horse until we came to him. There, with the help ...
— Three Men on the Bummel • Jerome K. Jerome
... of the conversation, though he approached as if ignorant of it. Apparently catching the drift, he deftly urged her, but Eva tactfully changed the subject, greatly to Paul's chagrin and his ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... exclaimed Lake, telegraphing, at the same time, with a bow and a smile of deferential alacrity, and making his way through the crowd as deftly as he could; what a —— fool I was to ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... all was still. No light shone upon the tuneful beaks. Like Theseus, I picked my way along, guided by an Ariadne's thread. My Ariadne was a slumbering orchestra deftly spinning out a thick proboscis-chord of such stuff as dreams are made of. Taking this web in my ear, I safely traversed the labyrinth, and meandered at last into pen No. 1. In placing my foot on the edge of the under-world crib, I unwittingly ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... he carried his enthusiasm so far as to require that all the scions of the aristocracy should be instructed in the Chinese classics. Junna had less ability, but his admiration was not less profound for a fine specimen of script or a deftly turned couplet. It is, nevertheless, difficult to believe that these enthusiasts confined themselves to the superficialities of Chinese learning. The illustrations of altruism which they furnished by abdicating in one another's favour may well have been inspired by perusing the writings of Confucius.** ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... practically impassable. Then, running far enough round the outer margin of the glass-sown ground to secure a clear shot in through the doorway, he threw back to Drake first one boot, then the other, and finally the stick, and had the satisfaction of seeing his friend deftly catch each of them. Five minutes later the little skipper was ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... me dive." And then, turning heels upwards in the water, he went down out of sight, to Fred's great horror, but came up again directly, and then floated upon his back, swam sideways, and did other feats that seemed to Fred little short of wonders—so easily and deftly ...
— Hollowdell Grange - Holiday Hours in a Country Home • George Manville Fenn
... were here," declared Hippy with emphasis. "I should like to have her tell that bronco what my opinion of him is and hear what he says in reply," added Lieutenant Wingate, flipping a biscuit, which Hindenburg deftly caught and gulped down at ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders in the Great North Woods • Jessie Graham Flower
... one among them who did not cheer. This one was a square-jawed person who, shoving and scrooging, cleft a passage through the applauding multitude, and slipped deftly under the ropes and laid a detaining grasp upon the peltry-clad shoulder of the astonished Riley. With his free hand he flipped back the lapel of his coat to display a badge of authority pinned on the breast ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... deftly lulled to sleep by British influence, public opinion in the United States will not wake up until the 'yellow New England' of the Orient, nurtured and deflected from Australia by England herself, knocks at the gates of the new world. ...
— The Conquest of America - A Romance of Disaster and Victory • Cleveland Moffett
... absolutely uncalculating life, without any idea of making any position for herself at all; and it sickened Howard to think how so much of his own existence had been devoted to getting on the right side of people, driving them on a light rein, keeping them deftly in his own control. Maud laughed at this description of himself, and said, "Yes, but of course that was your business. I should have been a very tiresome kind of Don; we don't either of us want to punish people, ...
— Watersprings • Arthur Christopher Benson
... to Ayesha, who deftly ran it across the gulf so that one end of it rested on the rocking-stone, the other remaining on the extremity of the trembling spur. Then placing her foot upon it to prevent it from being blown away, ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... freshness; and as she drew the fastenings the lace fell from her shoulder, disclosing her too-low cut bodice, and Cedric's quick eye saw why the screen of lace was used, and with trembling fingers caught up the lace and drew from his steenkirk a rare jewel and pinned it safe as deftly as her maid. He touched her hand with his warm red lips, saying in a voice resonant as music: "God bless thee, Kate, for thy sweet modesty!" He thought if the modish beauties in yonder rooms could boast of such perfect charm, 'twould not be hid by a fall of lace and a shoulder ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... for her class, with a weather- worn bonnet on her grey head and a sacking-covered bundle in her arms. As she talked to him, he reached forward, caught the one stray wisp of the white hair that was flying wild, deftly twirled it between his fingers, and tucked it back properly behind her ear. From all of which one may conclude many things. He certainly liked her well enough to wish her to be neat and tidy. He was proud of her, standing there in the spike line, and it was his desire that ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London
... to slice the onions very deftly with a tuning-fork, after which she rubbed the ice-cream of the pavement with the slices, making a circle all around the Teacup, and another all around Sara, somewhat like the ring they used to burn about a ...
— The Garden of the Plynck • Karle Wilson Baker
... since and sere, that might lightly float for him. Now after she had shown him where the tall trees grew, Calypso, the fair goddess, departed homeward. And he set to cutting timber, and his work went busily. Twenty trees in all he felled, and then trimmed them with the axe of bronze, and deftly smoothed them, and over them made straight the line. Meanwhile Calypso, the fair goddess, brought him augers, so he bored each piece and jointed them together, and then made all fast with trenails and dowels. ...
— DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE • S. H. BUTCHER, M.A.
... by the little Chinaman whom I had seen before, who deftly set up a small table on deck, drew chairs round it, and a few minutes later spread out all the necessaries of a dainty afternoon tea. And in the centre of them was a plum cake. I saw Miss Raven glance at it; I glanced at her; ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... That on thy tongue the words of counsel sit, Ready to fly to our right greedy ears, That long for them." And Satan, flattered thus (Forever may the serpent kind be charmed, With soft sweet words, and music deftly played), Replied, "Whereas I surely rule the world, Behoves that ye prepare for me a path, And that I, putting of my pains aside, Go stir rebellion in the mighty hearts O' the giants; for He loveth them, ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Jean Ingelow
... sober, even stately. But soon, either from the steep, insecure nature of the ground or from less obvious and material cause, her pace quickened until it became a run. She ran neatly, deftly, all of a piece as a boy runs, no trace of disarray or feminine floundering in her action. More than ever, indeed, did she appear a fine nymph-like creature; so that, watching her flight Tom Verity was touched alike with self-reproach and ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... was shooting, while Michael, who was very small, had a flamingo with lagoons flying over it. John lived in a boat turned upside down on the sands, Michael in a wigwam, Wendy in a house of leaves deftly sewn together. John had no friends, Michael had friends at night, Wendy had a pet wolf forsaken by its parents; but on the whole the Neverlands have a family resemblance, and if they stood still in a row you could say of them that they have each other's nose, and so forth. On these magic ...
— Peter and Wendy • James Matthew Barrie
... dismissed, by the District Attorney's consent. So lawyer and client walked out of court together, happy and triumphant, to Colonel Conwell's office, where the pick-pocket paid Colonel Conwell his fee out of the lawyer's own pocketbook which he had deftly abstracted during the course of ...
— Russell H. Conwell • Agnes Rush Burr
... timidly and cast furtive glances to see what Vankin was doing. Vankin stood near the piano and, deftly bending down, whispered something to the inspector's sister-in-law, who ...
— The Slanderer - 1901 • Anton Chekhov
... trained to the business, it's fearfully hard to slip your hand deftly into some one else's pocket. Margery bungled, and Janet, impatient at her slowness, loosened slightly her own hold. On the instant, Willie Jones wrenched one arm free, dived into his pocket, and before his captors knew ...
— A Little Question in Ladies' Rights • Parker Fillmore
... returned deftly and nimbly. He was talking to Mrs. Bretton when she came back, and she waited with the handkerchief in her hand. It was a picture, in its way, to see her, with her tiny stature, and trim, neat shape, ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... closely, then he pressed on the paper. There was a small cylinder under the paper. He grinned at Sim and O'Malley. Deftly he slit the paper with his fingernail and removed a strip of it, revealing a listening device. Taking out his pocketknife he neatly snipped one of the ...
— A Yankee Flier Over Berlin • Al Avery
... was done, and nothing seemed capable of being done; those on deck rushed towards the bows, and stood eyeing the boom as if it were the lower jaw of an exasperated whale. In the midst of this consternation, Queequeg dropped deftly to his knees, and crawling under the path of the boom, whipped hold of a rope, secured one end to the bulwarks, and then flinging the other like a lasso, caught it round the boom as it swept over his head, and at the next jerk, the spar was that way ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... other sounds, not unlike a bell which would have sounded marvellously familiar to English ears had they been listening. This was the ringing of the anvil of the village blacksmith. Yes, savage though they were, these natives had a blacksmith who wrought in iron, almost as deftly, and to the full as vigorously, as any British son of Vulcan. The Manganja people are an industrious race. Besides cultivating the soil extensively, they dig iron-ore out of the hills, and each village has its smelting-house, its charcoal-burners, its forge ...
— Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne
... sir and lady." Garlock began deftly to repair the morale he had shattered. "Merely younger. With your system of genetics, so much more logical and efficient than our strict monogamy, your race will undoubtedly make more progress in a few centuries ...
— The Galaxy Primes • Edward Elmer Smith
... the old Italian, slipped the white dress deftly over the mutinous head, so muffling the half-shriek. The manager laughed. "Hurry up then—on with you!" The child sprang away with a bound. "I've seen this too many times before," he added; "it's an attack of 'the ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... freshly laundered linen covers and then climbed into the old coach and deftly fastened them with ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... scamps his "shells"! How deftly spreads his sludge! And labours to defend his sells ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari Volume 98, January 4, 1890 • Various
... wrenching himself away, he drew his revolver and put it in the open mouth of Lyamshin, who was still yelling and was by now tightly held by Tolkatchenko, Erkel, and Liputin. But Lyamshin went on shrieking in spite of the revolver. At last Erkel, crushing his silk handkerchief into a ball, deftly thrust it into his mouth and the shriek ceased. Meantime Tolkatchenko tied his hands with what was ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky |
