"Demure" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... exquisite felicity of Adelaide Neilson's acting of Juliet that she glided into harmony with that tragical undertone, and, with seemingly a perfect unconsciousness of it—whether prattling to the old nurse, or moving, sweetly grave and softly demure, through the stately figures of the minuet—was already marked off from among the living, already overshadowed by a terrible fate, already alone in the bleak loneliness of the broken heart. Striking the keynote thus, ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... Cloaths to 'Squire'em up and down; have Wit enough to Chat, and make'em Giggle, and Sense enough to keep their Favours secret—But from Romantick Love, Good Heav'n defend me. A Moment's Joy's not worth an Age's Courtship; and when the Nymph's Demure, and Dull and Shy, and Foolish and Freakish, and Fickle, there are Billiards at the Smyrna, Bowles at Marybone, and Dice at the Groom-Porter's—Are you ...
— The Fine Lady's Airs (1709) • Thomas Baker
... deep-recessed windows on the street, which somehow are always covered in these pictures with a fine rain. Then a coach passes,—a mahogany coach emblazoned with the Manners's coat of arms, and Mistress Dorothy and her mother within. And my young lady gives me one of those demure bows which ever set my heart agoing like a smith's ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... A very quiet, demure little woman was Helen now-a-days. I deplored the necessity for the graceful French governess who was polishing her into a conventional manner and preparing her for the dull routine which other girls must follow. I never analyzed my impressions of Helen then, but I am sure ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... been new christened, just as there reeled out of it a young gentleman whom every one had deemed a most hopeful pious youth, Mr. Truelocke in particular having a great opinion of him, though I never liked his demure looks for my part, nor his stiff way of dressing himself. He was called Ralph Lacy, and was son and heir to old Mr. Lacy of Lacy Manor, a worthy old gentleman, though somewhat austere, who was lately dead; which I suppose partly accounted for the mighty ...
— Andrew Golding - A Tale of the Great Plague • Anne E. Keeling
... on Abbie's face, and a little sparkle in her eye, as she turned and gave her hand to the minister, and then said in a demure and softly tone: "Cousin Ester, let me make you acquainted with ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)
... all the long week to flutter their magnificence in. Their lunches, dinners, teas, dances, games, yachts, links, race-courses—everyone gives occasion for glorious display. Will they not, then, be sweetly demure on Sunday for the sake of the "picture," spare their sisters the agony of craving for like beautiful apparel? for God has made them so, and they can't help wanting to ...
— Stage Confidences • Clara Morris
... set to defend. All its lies are echoes of the avarice and inhumanity sitting in the pews; and when, in the rough old figure, it is a dumb dog that will not bark at the robber or warn us of danger, the real mutes, whom its silence but copies, are those demure men below who seem to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... loosed the butterflies that soared or flitted or flipped about in joy of long awaited warmth. Broad wings of gold-margined, brown Vanessa antiopa soared serenely along under overarching white oaks. "Little Miss Lavender" folded her gray-blue wings in demure beauty on the gray cladium-mossed stumps by the roadside, and dusky-winged species of the skipper brood were agile with new-born life, yet glad to fold wings and sleep in the sun on the road. These were sprites of the deep forest. None were visible ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... demure and monotonous under the attack of friendly desires. "No, Miss Percival," she said, and added, "I am sure I couldn't say." She stood aside from the doorway as the young lady entered the billiard-room, saying, as she went, "Ask Mrs. Benson to come to my room, Minnie, please; and tell ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... cheek-boned, monosyllabic Finns in grey sweaters, workaday trousers and coats and bubble-toed boots. A vivid Canadian girl in semi-evening dress went round in the jazz with a guard of the Royal train. A policeman from the train danced with a Finnish girl, demure and well-dressed, who might have been anything from the leader of local Society to a clerk (i.e., a counter hand) in one of the shops. For all we knew, the plumber might have been dancing with the leading citizen's daughter, ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton
... a rather old-fashioned custom, and is appropriate only for a very young bride of a demure type; the tradition being that a maiden is too shy to face a congregation unveiled, and shows her face only when ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... compelled Egyptian local colour; and I was therefore dying to get to Egypt, if chance so willed it. I submitted a few of my picked manuscripts accordingly to Mr. Elworthy, in fear and trembling. He read them, cruel man, before my very eyes; I sat and waited, twiddling my thumbs, demure but apprehensive. ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... It was not commonplace but extraordinary. Roby Osborn's garb is thus described by her biographer: "Her wedding gown was a thick, lustreless silk, of a delightful yellowish olive, her bonnet white. Beneath it her dark hair was smoothly banded, and from its demure shelter her eyes looked gravely out. Her vest was a fine tawny brown, of a sprigged pattern, both gown and vest as artistically harmonious as the product of an Eastern loom. Pieces of both were sewn into a patchwork quilt, now a ...
— Quaker Hill - A Sociological Study • Warren H. Wilson
... energetically whisking his little tail with every squeaking cry he uttered. Prairie dogs are not fastidious in their choice of companions; various long, checkered snakes were sunning themselves in the midst of the village, and demure little gray owls, with a large white ring around each eye, were perched side by side with the rightful inhabitants. The prairie teemed with life. Again and again I looked toward the crowded hillsides, and was sure I saw horsemen; and riding near, with a mixture of hope and dread, for Indians ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... fully subservient. Ostensibly to carry out Vanderbilt's plans he persuaded that magnate to allow him to bring in as directors two men whose pliancy, he said, could be depended upon. These were Jay Gould, demure and ingratiating, and James Fisk, Jr., a portly, tawdry, pompous voluptuary. In early life Fisk had been a peddler in Vermont, and afterwards had managed an itinerant circus. Then he had become a ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... on the moral victory he had achieved, Guy Elersley walked along, sunk in deep reflection. His long strides brought him over many crossings and round many corners, till at length he stopped before a demure, respectable looking hall door. Thrusting a key into the lock, he opened it and stepped into the hall, from which place he admitted himself into a small and silent apartment. Guy's room presented a strange spectacle. ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... exercised. To be sensitive to them all the faculties must be acutely strained. With this lisping, coaxing, companionable sea the serene and sparkling sky, the glow beyond the worlds, the listening isles—demure and dim—the air moist, pacific and fragrant—what concern of mine if the smoky messenger from the stuffy town never comes? This is the quintessence of life. I am alive at last. Such keen tingling, thrilling perceptions were never mine before. Now do I realise the magnificent, ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... peacock chairs, paying twenty minutes after-dinner standing penance. Men with Wall Street eyes and blood pressure, slid surreptitious celluloid toothpicks, and gathered around the cigar stand. Orchestra music flickered. Young girls, the traditions of demure sixteen hanging by one inch shoulder-straps and who could not walk across a hardwood floor without sliding the last three steps, teetered in bare arm-in-arm groups, swapping persiflage with pimply, patent-leather haired young men who were full of nervous excitement and eager ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... scenes from Martin Chuzzlewit. Their full dress rehearsal was held last night at 203 Post street. Tigg and Mark Tapley, the youthful Bailey, Charity with upturned nose, the sanctimonious Mercy and her Pecksniffian airs were all made up to perfection. The demure Ruth buttered her pudding-pan and talked to gentle Tom as a genuine Miss Pinch should. Jonas played his ace of hearts to the entertainment alike of himself and friends. Sairy Gamp and the stolid Betsy drank tea and quarreled with equal industry. The list of thirteen ...
— Sixty Years of California Song • Margaret Blake-Alverson
... But father failed to see the fun and was very angry at David, heaved the bur-oak outside and passionately demanded his reason for fetching "sic a muckle rail like that instead o' a switch? Do ye ca' that a switch? I have a gude mind to thrash you insteed o' John." David, with demure, downcast eyes, looked preternaturally righteous, but as usual prudently ...
— The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir
... kind of like what I do," she said. She was demure about what she did. What she did was make people comfortable ...
— 2 B R 0 2 B • Kurt Vonnegut
... one good precept. Nay, the rude outbreak had even a beneficial effect, for it cut short the orgie, which might, and probably would, have otherwise been prolonged for hours. There was no dissentient voice when Mr. Byam Ryll arose and observed, in demure accents: "Suppose, my dear friends, that ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... consul in a queer little arched chamber, with a strange old picture of the King's arms to decorate one side of it: and here the consul, a demure old man, dressed in red flowing robes, with a feeble janissary bearing a shabby tin-mounted staff, or mace, to denote his office, received such of our nation as came to him for hospitality. He distributed pipes and coffee to all and every one; he made us a present of his house ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... and went about his operations with an activity which nothing could abate, neither Oriental cajolery, that refined honey-sweet courtesy beneath which lurk savage ferocity and dissolute morals, nor the hypocritically indifferent smiles, nor the demure airs, the folded arms which invoke divine fatalism when human falsehood fails of its object. The sang-froid of that cool-headed little Southerner, in whom all the exuberant qualities of his countrymen were condensed, stood him in at least as good stead ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... maid demure, Long of lash and coy of mien, Seemed a conquest swift and sure, Fiercer monsters stepped between: Mrs. Grundies, grey and grim, Kept Miss Proper closely tied; Beaus dissolved before the prim ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, May 13, 1914 • Various
... pajamas in the closet and fade away back to Broadway, but times are changed, and you must serve six months or the Judge's wife will not let you have a divorce. The Judge's house is next to mine and the way I look demure when I pass, is a heathenism hypocrisy. But he is under petticoat tyranny and ...
— Letters of a Dakota Divorcee • Jane Burr
... is!" Mrs. Gelbraith cried, unexpectedly, and a dark-haired, demure person entered the room wearing a look of gracious social expectancy. In years she was eleven, in manner about sixty-five, and evidently had lived much at court. She performed a curtsey in acknowledgment of Mrs. Schofield's greeting, and bestowed her hand upon Penrod, who had entertained ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... with demure lips, though the eyes above them were blazing and dancing at high tension, "I'm sure that the editor is attaching a husband, and a house having a well-ordered kitchen, and rather wide culinary experience to ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... a certain thin man, dressed in mourning, in whose house, in Shrewsbury, the Judge's lodgings used to be, until a scandal of ill-treating his wife came suddenly to light? A grocer with a demure look, a soft step, and a lean face as dark as mahogany, with a nose sharp and long, standing ever so little awry, and a pair of dark steady brown eyes under thinly-traced black brows—a man whose thin lips wore always ...
— Green Tea; Mr. Justice Harbottle • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... with cruel clearness, only to find that Roberts, self-absorbed, did not notice her. He seemed to have lost the vivid interest in the work which aforetime had characterized him, and the happiness of the man was only less tell-tale than the pretty contentment and demure approval of all he said which May scarcely tried to conceal. Wild with fear, blinded by temper, Ida resolved ...
— Elder Conklin and Other Stories • Frank Harris
... intrepid meets his Fate; So they withdrew to quench their glowing Flame, And to preserve the Honour of her Name; For oh! sad Fate as they ascend the Stairs, At the Room Door her good Mamma appears, Soon as she spies her Child with Looks demure, She charges her to keep her Vessel pure: Miss pertly answers to avoid her Doom, Mamma, whose Hat and Wig is in the Room? The good old Dame yeilds at the just Reproach, Cries—Well my Dear, ...
— The Ladies Delight • Anonymous
... why you follered me." Hale looked up quickly. Her face was demure, but her eyes danced. She ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.
... as you say, be content with the mug of milk and piece of bread you offer me," I said, with a demure countenance, glad to escape any questioning. "I shall have a better appetite for dinner, when I hope you will allow these fish to be cooked, and I fancy that you will find them very good, ...
— Dick Cheveley - His Adventures and Misadventures • W. H. G. Kingston
... Betty sighed also, and the corners of her mouth fell—their eyes met—something like a blush crimsoned Betty's sleek, shining cheek, when, on raising her eyes again, her master was still staring at her. Betty simpered, and, in her very soft, very demure voice ventured to say, "Was there any thing she could do?" Mr. Vanderclump rose up from his chair. Betty, for the first time, felt awed by his approach. "Batee!" he said, "my poor Batee! Hah! you ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, No. - 288, Supplementary Number • Various
... the blue frock among them, rather like Alice, the real Alice, Tenniel's Alice. She was always feeling that Rosalie, thus guised, was held off from their circle, not welcomed, not understood, as certainly they did not care for the demure, quaint ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... kind of short jogg trot, such as is used by women going to market, with butter and eggs.—he looks as if butter would not melt in her mouth, yet I warrant you cheese would not choak her; a saying of a demure looking woman, of suspected character. Don't make butter dear; a ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... watching her graceful motions, as if taking heed for future imitation. If Kit and Tabby really did regard Laura with admiration and complacency, it was more than I can say for Mrs. Jaynes, in whose heart a secret rage was burning, though her aspect and demeanor were as placid and demure as if the butter she held in her hand would not have melted in her ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... could have wept in the intensity of my joy at finding myself so near them, and breathing the same free, pure, health-giving air that had nurtured my childhood. But was there not sitting directly opposite to me one of the most exquisitely beautiful of God's lovely women; and did not her saucy, demure eyes seem to read my very soul? I therefore restrained a display of my feelings, for it would not have appeared in the least dignified or proper in a fine-looking young man (such as I imagined myself to be) of ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various
... 'Demure' conveyed no hint, as it does now, of an overdoing of the outward demonstrations of modesty; a 'leer' was once a look with nothing amiss in it (Piers Plowman). 'Daft' was modest or retiring; 'orgies' were religious ceremonies; ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench
... addressing her by her Christian name the mother started somewhat, and the demure eyes of the girls were turned to the floor, lest they ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... The little witch! I thought her so demure! I should never have imagined she was a wild flower. But the matter is difficult. There are only the parents and the daughter in that house, and the father is dangerous. He keeps a damnably suspicious watch over his door. How could you get in? ...
— Eastern Shame Girl • Charles Georges Souli
... his notes as clear and delicate as a silver bell. He evidently believes that singing lightens his labors, for he is industriously gathering material for the new home he is building close at hand aided by his demure mate, who, in reality, does most ...
— Byways Around San Francisco Bay • William E. Hutchinson
... face looked forth like a girl's from the shadow of her scoop bonnet. While she was greeting Abraham Bradbury, the two daughters, Sylvia and Alice, who had been standing shyly by themselves on the edge of the group of women, came forward. The latter was a model of the demure Quaker maiden; but Abraham experienced as much surprise as was possible to his nature on observing Sylvia's costume. A light-blue dress, a dark-blue cloak, a hat with ribbons, and hair in curls—what Friend of good standing ever allowed his daughter thus to array herself ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor
... me waiting," said Mr. Richard, well-nigh in the very words of Louis XIV. But the fear was not realized,—the door opened; a well-fed servant out of livery presented himself. There was no hearty welcoming smile on his face, but he opened the chaise-door with demure and ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... kitchen. We had begun to roll popcorn balls with syrup when we heard a knock at the back door, and Tony dropped her spoon and went to open it. A plump, fair-skinned girl was standing in the doorway. She looked demure and pretty, and made a graceful picture in her blue cashmere dress and little blue hat, with a plaid shawl drawn neatly about her shoulders and a clumsy ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather
... the Duke of Hamilton!" announces Mrs Abigail, very demure in her pinners at the door; and in walks his Grace, magnificent in manners and dress, and Mr Lepel's fury stopped on a breath, though he could not regain countenance as readily as Elizabeth. She rose to meet the visitor— a rose in June; and he might take ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... however, the oaks and beeches still wore their liveries of rustling amber, the short grass on hill-side pastures was intensely green, flocks of thistle-birds disguised in demure russet passed in wavering flight from thicket to thicket, and over all a hot sun blazed in a sky of sapphire, linking summer and autumn together in the ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... The demure and somewhat stately spinster he was expecting to see was certainly not en evidence in this gray-haired, radiant-looking woman; the soft, girlish bloom and the silvery hair were wonderfully attractive; and yet what struck him most, with ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... tree, and passed jauntily up the winding way that led to them, hopping from branch to branch, pausing on each, and circling the trunk as he went; now showing his trim violet-blue coat, now his demure Quaker-drab vest and black necklace; and so he ascended his ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller
... at their ease, and they fell into conversation freely, though Errington allowed Lorimer to tell the story of their trespass in his own fashion without interference. He instinctively felt that the young lady who listened with so demure a smile to that plausible narrative, knew well enough the real motive that had brought them thither though she apparently had her own reasons for keeping silence on the point, as whatever she may have thought, she ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... very innocently, "Why?" Harry looked up and saw her beautiful face meek and appealing, with something of a demure smile in the eyes. "Come, sir, what have I asked of you? You have done me something of a great service. There was a man handling me—do you know what that means? "—she made a wry face and gave ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... cloak, to turn it, and piece it, and at last quite disguise it with a new preface. If he have waded farther in his profession, and would shew reading of his own, his authors are postils, and his school-divinity a catechism. His fashion and demure habit gets him in with some town-precisian, and makes him a guest on Friday nights. You shall know him by his narrow velvet cape, and serge facing; and his ruff, next his hair, the shortest thing about him. The companion of his walk is some zealous tradesman, whom he astonishes with strange ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... really now nothing of that sort left for her to do; and she remained in complexion much as before. O, the mockery of it! That secret dream—that sweet word 'Baroness!'—which had sustained her all the way along. Instead of a Baron there stood Jim, white-waistcoated, demure, every hair in place, and, if she mistook not, even a deedy spark ...
— The Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid • Thomas Hardy
... talk with the cowboys, Dick was hard put to it to dictate any kind of a creditable letter. Nell met his gaze once, then no more. The color came and went in her cheeks, and sometimes, when he told her to write so and so, there was a demure smile on her lips. She was laughing at him. And Belding was talking over the risks involved in a ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... what sounded like a rough ejaculation, gazing into her demure eyes as if she strongly suspected a joke hid in their depths. "Do—do you mistake me for an ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... o'clock next morning my friend and I were walking up the famous yew avenue of Holdernesse Hall. We were ushered through the magnificent Elizabethan doorway and into his Grace's study. There we found Mr. James Wilder, demure and courtly, but with some trace of that wild terror of the night before still lurking in his furtive eyes ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... for those poor men who haven't the means to get married," replied his demure little wife kindly, "for I am sure, if they had the means they ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... harbored any idea that she might run into his embrace, it was doomed to disappointment, for, with the habiliments of city civilization, Smiles had acquired its reserve. Her greeting was a very demure and somewhat weary one,—it both pleased and irritated him, somehow. Indeed, she spoke scarcely a word, and it was not until they had finished dinner in the quiet, homelike hotel, whither Donald had taken them, that her new shyness began ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... a little priest; so rosy and young that they called him the 'Reverend Boy.' He seemed rather dismayed at first; but, finding the ladies silent and demure, he took heart, and read diligently in a dingy little prayer-book, stealing shy glances now and then from under his broad-brimmed hat at Amanda's white hands, or Matilda's yellow locks, as if these vanities of the flesh had not quite lost their charms ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... go to Indianapolis," Sukey responded, with a demure glance. "Dear old Blue is good enough for me. The nearer I can live to it, the better I shall be satisfied." Dic's lands were on the river banks, while those of Sukey's father were a mile ...
— A Forest Hearth: A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties • Charles Major
... Both, both. He thought, wise youth! that while he was swallowing draught after draught of this delicious poison, no one perceived the deep intoxication he was revelling in. Just as wisely some veritable toper, by putting on a grave and demure countenance, cheats himself into the belief that he conceals from every eye that delectable and irresistible confusion in which his brain is swimming. His love was seen. How could it be otherwise? That instantaneous, that complete delight which he felt when she joined him in his rambles, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... Street proved to be a line of fine houses lying in the vague borderland between Notting Hill and Kensington. The particular one at which my cabman pulled up had an air of smug and demure respectability in its old-fashioned iron railings, its massive folding-door, and its shining brasswork. All was in keeping with a solemn butler who appeared framed in the pink radiance of a ...
— The Adventure of the Dying Detective • Arthur Conan Doyle
... a final descent brought them to the shore of a demure little river flowing softly between high banks—Musquasepi, that they were to know so well. Off to the left it merged into the muddier waters of the "big" river. On the further shore stood the Warehouse they had heard of ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... impervious to their flustered anxiety, also to the tributes to her importance betrayed therein. In vain they argued no fewer than two emperors to dissuade her. She meant to have a walk on the shore and—a demure Parisian shrug ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... sat by me, quiet and demure, as usual. He looked as if he had known nothing of all this wonder-working; and when I charged him solemnly with being chief organizer, builder, framer, and designer in all this magic, ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... mephitic gas. Whatever his grace may think of himself, they look upon him, and everything that belongs to him, with no more regard than they do upon the whiskers of that little long-tailed animal, that has been long the game of the grave, demure, insidious, spring-nailed, velvet-pawed, green-eyed philosophers, whether going upon ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... the United States government in the Canyon, and could speak a little English. Chunky entered into conversation with them at once, asking the names of each, but he never remembered the name of any of them afterwards. There was little Pu-ut, a demure faced savage with a string of glass beads around her neck; Somaja, round and plump, because of which she got her name, which, translated meant "watermelon." Then there was Vesna and many other names not so easy. Chunky decided that he would like ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Grand Canyon - The Mystery of Bright Angel Gulch • Frank Gee Patchin
... enjoining the boy to be ready against his return (and you may be sure Mr. Clive was on the look-out long before his sire appeared), the Colonel whirled away in his cab to the City to shake hands with his brothers, whom he had not seen since they were demure little men in blue jackets, under charge of ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the demure little sinner! Knew that I was worrying all this time and never let me see that she understood me at all! What a little hypocrite you are! But I forgive you, ...
— Doctor Jones' Picnic • S. E. Chapman
... bold smiles and arch glances. She displayed her person less freely than her colleagues, being, not more modest, but more skilful in the art of seduction. The slang that served for dialogue in her part was delivered in all sorts of intonations, now demure and mischievous, anon strident and mock tragic. Marmaduke ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... the woman just now had the damnable effrontery to request me to take her rascally paramour into my service, in place of my faithful Dennis! She wishes to carry on her amours under my very nose! And that scoundrel Davis—how demure, how innocently he looks—and yet how suspiciously he glanced at me, when I emphasized honest servants! He is a cursed villain, and yet not one-tenth part so guilty as this woman, whom I espoused in ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... exhibited itself in the lad, and a liking for some of the old man's pursuits, the first of the twins was the grandfather's favourite and companion, and would laugh and talk out all his infantine heart to the old gentleman, to whom the younger had seldom a word to say. George was a demure, studious boy, and his senses seemed to brighten up in the library, where his brother was so gloomy. He knew the books before he could well-nigh carry them, and read in them long before he could understand them. Harry, on the other hand, was all alive in the stables or ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... black periwig, has a most vinegar-like aspect, and looks with great contempt at the frippery gentlewoman immediately before him. The woman, with a demure countenance, seems very piously considering how she can contrive to pick the embroidered beau's pocket. Two old sybils joining their withered lips in a chaste salute, is nauseous enough, but, being ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... Lady Castlewood and her son and daughter passed through one door of the saloon where they had all been seated, my Lord Castlewood departed by another issue; and then the demure eyes looked up from the tambour-frame on which they had persisted hitherto in examining the innocent violets and jonquils. The eyes looked up at Harry Warrington, who stood at an ancestral portrait under the great fireplace. He had gathered a great heap of blushes (those ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... left the passage, another knock was given at Eleanor's door, and Mrs. Grantly's very demure own maid, entering on tiptoe, wanted to know would Mrs. Bold be so kind as to speak to the archdeacon for two minutes in the archdeacon's study, if not disagreeable. The archdeacon's compliments, and he ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... would certainly be with him. I breakfasted at home therefore, but was punctual to the latter engagement. "I hope you have breakfasted?" cried the captain, rather fiercely, as I entered. I satisfied him on this point; and then, after a minute of demure reflection, he resumed, "You are lucky; for Marie boiled the cocoa, and, after throwing away the liquor, she buttered and peppered the shells, and served them for me to eat! I don't see how she ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... her walk, she came in, patting her lips with her apron, her roguish head still decorated with the strawberry-pottle. Her eyes sparkled with an innocent baby devilry, but the rest of her face was as demure as a Quakeress's bonnet Her hair was of an extraordinary fineness and plenty, and as wayward as it was fine, so that with the shadow of the doorway round her, and the bright sunlight in every thread of it, it ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... lawns and great trees on the bank of the blue Hudson. White driveways circled it, great stables and garages across a curve of green meadows had their own invisible domain, and on the shining highway there was a full mile of high brick fence, a marching line of great maples and sycamores, and a demure lodge ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris
... with him," returned Judith, her red lips demure, her brown eyes laughing above them through their thick fringe of lashes. "Elder Drane was consulting me about church matters—sech as children like you have no call to ...
— Judith of the Cumberlands • Alice MacGowan
... to Town precise, Demure, yet fire in her Eyes; So did she look confounded civil; With Grace and Beauty like a Devil; But soon her Eyes drew in some Hearts, } And some Things else like Cupid's Darts, } Which gave her ...
— The Merry-Thought: or the Glass-Window and Bog-House Miscellany - Parts 2, 3 and 4 • Hurlo Thrumbo (pseudonym)
... of maid Sets my heart a flame-a? Eyes must be downcast and staid, Cheeks must flush for shame-a! She may neither dance nor sing, But, demure in everything, Hang her head in modest way With pouting lips that seem to say, "Kiss me, kiss me, kiss me, kiss me, Though I die of shame-a!" Please you, that's the kind of maid Sets my ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... and pleasant sight, if any one had stopped to think of it—the old man with his bright, wistful eyes, his tool box on his shoulder, and his three companions, walking home together. Demure Katherine, dainty Rosalind, saucy Belle,—all as merry as merry could be,—and Curly Q. running in and out among them in an ecstasy of delight, and at imminent danger ...
— Mr. Pat's Little Girl - A Story of the Arden Foresters • Mary F. Leonard
... fooled me!" Mrs. Montague exclaimed, flushing hotly. "If I had only acted upon my first impressions, I should have sent you adrift at once—I should not have tolerated your presence a single hour; but you were so demure and innocent that you deceived me completely, and I never found you out until the morning after my high-tea. Then I understood your game, and resolved to so effectually clip your wings that you could never ...
— True Love's Reward • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... Goethe at once transports us into the midst of a Germanic Feiertag in spring-time, with its bright sunlight, its throngs of townspeople streaming into the country—happy and merry without vulgar rowdyism; the smugly dressed apprentice and the servant-girl in her Sonntagsputz; the pert student and the demure Buergermaedchen with her new Easter hat and her voluminous-waisted Frau Mama; the sedate school-master or shopkeeper, leading his toddling child; sour-faced officials; grey-locked and spectacled professors ...
— The Faust-Legend and Goethe's 'Faust' • H. B. Cotterill
... grey pearls, from which hung a chaplet of sapphires and opals, lying on her forehead. A veil fell over the back of her head and she sat gazing into her lap as if she were absorbed in prayer; her hands were folded and held a cross. This placid and demure attitude she deemed becoming to a Christian matron and widow. Everyone might see that she had not come for worldly pleasure, but merely to be present at a triumph of her fellow-Christians—and especially her son—over the idolaters. Everything about her bore witness ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... may put on that demure look, expand your right-hand fingers across the region where the courtesy of anatomy awards to politicians a heart, and talk about truth as a certain old lady with a paper lanthorn before her door may talk of chastity—you may do all this on the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari. Vol. 1, July 31, 1841 • Various
... superbly tall, stately and self-possessed in her transforming costume, a woman of full stature, her countenance gravely demure yet reserving near the surface the playful dimples and mischievous smiles so characteristic of her more usual manner. A sudden mood of the varium et mutabile semper femina had led her to wear the dress, and ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... which she refused the hand of a staid and respectable townsman, who, in her father's words, was ready to take her with all her follies. David Price was disappointed. He loved this independent daughter, and he had hopes that her demure and reticent deportment signified that the effervescence of youth had evaporated. But it was only an effort on Flossy's part to imitate the young ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... polite, little boy." He turned quickly—Margaret had not gone around the corner: she, too, was coming through the campus and there she stood, grave and demure, though ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... fish, and hunt, and shoot, and play the fiddle, and attend feasts and merry-makings, with such a happy consciousness of being found in the path of duty, that it would give a double zest to enjoyment. Now don't be envious, my dear demure cousin, and forestall me in my project. I am sure to gain my father's consent. It will save him so ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... the little girls had their dolls with them; all, in fact, excepting Beth and the "Cherub." The latter sat apart from the other children. She looked so very demure that Beth thought her bashful, and took pity on her. Seating herself beside her, ...
— A Little Florida Lady • Dorothy C. Paine
... that there is any appearance at present, of an intention to rise in this island," said Dillon, with demure gravity; "though the riots in London warrant any precautionary measures on the part of his majesty's ministers, even to a suspension of the habeas corpus. But you have had your suspicions concerning two certain vessels that have ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... hostility or openly-avowed contempt; and, in the more rude regions, the refusal to partake in the very social employments of wrestling or whiskey-drinking, has brought the scrupulous personage to the more questionable enjoyments of a regular gouging match and fight. A demure habit is the most unpopular among all classes. Freedom of manner, on the other hand, obtains confidence readily, and the heart is won, at once, by an off-handed familiarity of demeanor, which fails to recognise any inequalities in human condition. The ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... happiness. These long, open cars, where people can see from end to end what every one is doing, are hateful inventions. It is perfectly absurd, when one finds one's self the happiest fellow living, that one is obliged to look as demure and solemn as if ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... an April day, he cantered up the road to Patricia's home, and I dare say the heart of the owner of those bright eyes which peeped out upon him from an upper window beat faster when they saw him coming. But it was a very demure little maiden who met him at the great door as he entered, and gave him her hand to kiss. She was all in white, with a sprig of blossoms in her hair, and she must have made a pretty picture standing there, and one to warm the ...
— A Soldier of Virginia • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... speak without warrant, Miss Mohun. She is one of those demure, proper-behaved sort that are really the worst flirts of all, if ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... her; even in those days it did its best according to its lights," she answered bitterly. "Only in these days there are no heroines to burn. No heroines . . . no fires . . . and even in our needlework we must be demure, and not touch a garment that has been touched with blood! Monsieur, was this man a coward?" She ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... village swains await One dear lily-girl demure, Saucy, dancing, cold and pure, Elf who ...
— The Congo and Other Poems • Vachel Lindsay
... nothing of very great importance, sire," said the lady, with a look of demure triumph ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... mixture was not held a stain: Oft in glimmering bowers and glades He met her, and in secret shades Of woody Ida's inmost grove, Whilst yet there was no fear of Jove. Come, pensive nun, devout and pure, Sober, steadfast, and demure, All in a robe of darkest grain Flowing with majestic train, And sable stole of cypres lawn Over thy decent shoulders drawn: Come, but keep thy wonted state, With even step, and musing gait, And looks commercing with the skies, Thy rapt soul sitting in thine eyes: There, held in holy passion ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... if so that any be Known guilty here of incivility; Let what is graceless, discomposed, and rude, With sweetness, smoothness, softness be endued: Teach it to blush, to curtsey, lisp, and show Demure, but yet full of temptation, too. Numbers ne'er tickle, or but lightly please, Unless they have some wanton carriages:— This if ye do, each piece will here be good And graceful ...
— A Selection From The Lyrical Poems Of Robert Herrick • Robert Herrick
... late afternoon, and on the demure little breeze that marched behind us came far-flung sighs of spice-trees and nutmeg flowers. The slow prodigious swells of the Pacific lifted us in gentle, giant hands and sent us as gently down the long, blue wave slopes to the next ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt
... She looked demure enough as she stooped to pet the cat, but really her eyes were sparkling with mischief, for truth to tell, she had heard Nannie's story and was ready to adopt a big yellow cat as her coat ...
— The Gentle Art of Cooking Wives • Elizabeth Strong Worthington
... streaming down the lawn behind them. The girls were dressed alike in dark skirts, with light pink tennis blouses and pink bands on their straw hats, so that as they stood with the soft red of the setting sun tinging their faces, Clara, demure and quiet, Ida, mischievous and daring, it was a group which might have pleased the eye of a more exacting critic than ...
— Beyond the City • Arthur Conan Doyle
... to time; and when this failed, and he became impatient to move, I endeavoured to remind him that we wished him to keep his position, by placing my hands before me, holding up my head and assuming a grave and demure look. We now found that the old gentleman was a mimic, as well as a very good-natured and obliging man; for, whenever I did this he always imitated me in such a manner as to create considerable diversion among his own people as well as ours, and then very quietly kept his seat. While he was sitting ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... Mariquinha is taught to read, write, and sew; she is as carefully looked after as if the world wished to steal her; she wears shoes and stockings and an embroidered kerchief and a hooded cloak; and she never steps outside the door alone. You meet her, pale and demure, plodding along to mass with her mother. The sisters will marry laborers and fishermen; Mariquinha will marry a small shop-keeper or the mate of a vessel, or else die single. It is not very pleasant for the poor girl in the mean time; ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... give demure good-morrow, With soft-slow tongue, true mark of modesty, And sorts a sad look to her lady's sorrow, (For why her face wore sorrow's livery,) But durst not ask of her audaciously Why her two suns were cloud-eclipsed so, Nor why her fair cheeks ...
— The Rape of Lucrece • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... played only less well than her remarkable brother, was a charmingly pretty, piquant little girl, whose manner, both in society and in the concert hall, was winning and demure, while Wolfgang's grace and elegance of manner were striking. Wherever the children went, people went mad over them. They were the fashion, the furore, no musical entertainment was a success without them, and they were so ...
— Ten Boys from History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... Colonel shakes his head indulgently. 'I don't know how we are to make a demure young lady ...
— Echoes of the War • J. M. Barrie
... said voice was propounding to the solitary lamp-post of Kennedy Place. On descending the landlady discovered that the author of this disturbance was a fashionably dressed gentleman, who, upon closer inspection, proved to her great surprise to be none other than the usually demure part proprietor of her fourth floor. As to the major, he walked in quietly the next day about twelve o'clock, looking as trim and neat as ever, but minus the balance of the fifty pounds, nor did he think fit ever to make any allusion to this some ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... in large numbers, and waited with patience for the proper season of repentance. At the intervals between the "preachments," the young married and unmarried women promenaded round the tents, and their smiling faces formed a striking contrast to the demure countenances of their more experienced sisters, who, according to their age or temperament, descanted on the folly, or condemned the sinfulness of such conduct. Some of those old dames, I was informed, were decoy birds, who shared the ...
— A Ramble of Six Thousand Miles through the United States of America • S. A. Ferrall
... Pomander had drawn his breath and realized this discovery, he darted upstairs, and with all the demure calmness he could assume, told Mr. Vane, whom he met descending, that he was happy to find his engagements permitted him to join the party in Bloomsbury Square. He then flung himself upon his ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... king had received him so well, and without any suspicions of M. de Guise. As he crossed the drawbridge, he heard behind him steps which seemed to be the echo of his own. He turned, thinking that the king had sent some message to him, and great was his stupefaction to see behind him the demure face of Robert Briquet. It may be remembered that the first feeling of these two men about one another had not been ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas
... in silence, and tried to eat, though without much success. When chatting voices and jokes were to be heard at the Cottage, the sound of her voice was usually the foremost; but now she sat demure and quiet. She was realizing the danger from which she had escaped, and, as is so often the case, was beginning to fear it now that it ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... me, Colonel, for my seeming inquisitiveness," and her eyes sparkled with demure mischief. "Yet I cannot quite understand. I was at school in Connecticut with a Miss Curran whose father was an officer of artillery from Ohio, and, naturally, I at once thought of her when the Major pronounced your name; yet it certainly cannot be you—you are altogether ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... silent. She was very demure, and her manner was somewhat stiff; therefore, seeing that his experiences had exhilarated him, Jack said, "I've had a great day. Two of the prettiest girls I ever saw ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... I feel, that traditional Witch of Endor; but a stroke of wonderful good fortune has so elated my spirits, that despite the fatigue of outraged muscles and persecuted nerves, my exultant pride and delight paint my cheeks in becoming tints. How puzzled you look! You pretty, sober, solemn, demure blue-eyed Annunciation lily, is there such a thing among flowers? If I tripped in the metaphor, recollect that I am no adept in floriculture, only know which blossoms look best on a velvet bonnet or a chip hat, and which dainty leaves and petals laid upon ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... "How demure the fellow looks!" said Monsieur Papalier, a planter, to Bayou, his neighbour in the plain, who now sat opposite to him; "what an air of infinite modesty he put on! At this moment, I daresay he is snapping his fingers, and telling ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... Sally Alsop and Amy Erskine; Alice Gibbons, one of the new scholars, whom they all liked, but did not know very well; and Ellen Gray, a pale, quiet girl, with droll blue eyes, a comical twist to her mouth, and a trick of saying funny things in such a demure way that half the people who listened never found out that they were funny. All Rose's chairs had been borrowed for the occasion. Three girls sat on the bed, and three on the floor. With a little squeezing, there was plenty of ...
— What Katy Did At School • Susan Coolidge
... only when her head is swung forward, with a passive pride which forbids a resistance to the force of circumstance. Look at the pretty pout on the mouths of that family there, retaining no traces of being arranged beforehand, so well is it done. Look at the demure close of the little fists holding the parasols; the tiny alert thumb, sticking up erect against the ivory stem as knowing as can be, the satin of the parasol invariably matching the complexion of the face beneath it, yet seemingly ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... of comeliness. As the carriages passed along in review, every now and then an occupant, unable or unwilling to repress her natural promptings, would indulge in a mild flirtation, making overtures by casting demure side-glances, throwing us coquettish kisses, or waving strings of amber beads with significant gestures, seeming to say: "Why don't you follow?" But this we could not do if we would, for the Esplanade throughout its entire length was lined with soldiers, put there especially to guard ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. II., Part 6 • P. H. Sheridan
... Frelinghuysen and with him Postmaster-General Howe. A little to the left, resplendent in gilt trappings and buttons, sat General Sherman, with his weather-beaten and kindly face, and by his side plucky Phil. Sheridan, now gray and demure, and Hancock, of stately bearing. There, too were Admiral Porter and Rear-Admiral Worden of the navy, ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... neatness of dress were, to me, attractive. She was a dainty little thing, and yet her plain black dress, so well cut, was really very severe. She had the manner of a lady, sweet and demure. The air of the woman-of-the-world ...
— The Count's Chauffeur • William Le Queux
... had taken off his great-coat and was standing with his back to the hearth. He loomed up very big in the demure room, a slender, boyish figure, still too slim for his shoulder-width and height, clad in a ragged uniform, a pistol bulging from one hip at his belt. He looked about him at the bright hangings, with a wandering gaze that ...
— Four Days - The Story of a War Marriage • Hetty Hemenway
... miss, rights are well mixed up all through this region," said old Vittum, who had been spokesman for his fellows on her first meeting with them. He gave her a demure wink. "The main idea is, God is making this water run downhill just now, and it doesn't seem right for mortal man ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... participator of the feast, dared to publicly flout me, defiantly sweeping with their tails the air, as an Irishman, "blue mouldy for want of a bateing," sweeps the floor with his coat, and chattered and scolded in every tone of elated bravado. The bibacious drongo can be as demure as any. When he comes to dart among the eddying insects, glorying in the first cool gleams of the sunshine, he will take his ease on a mango branch, make jerky bows and flick the fine feathers of his tail, and ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... these promises so seriously, and with so demure and innocent an expression, that no one could doubt but that he would keep them strictly, nor, indeed, did any idea of exceeding these limits occur to him. He was so overjoyed at the vast extent of territory, ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies
... a woman's subtlety said nothing, but quietly pondered it, and went on watching for more. The black sheep themselves, in their efforts to partake in the general gloom and sorrow, succeeded so far as to impose upon their father and Giles: but the demure satisfaction that lay at their bottom could not escape these ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... town, as we have said, is no very grand thing, and as a mere question of fun it is no doubt amusing only to people who are ready to be amused. And yet there is a quaint fascination in it as a whole, in the rows of old women with demure little children in their laps ranged on the stone seats along the bridge, the girls on the pavement, the grotesque figures dancing along the road, the harlequins, the mimic Capuchins, the dominoes with big noses, the carriages rolling along amidst a ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... immense quarto volume under his arm . . . an early copy of his forthcoming 'Female Poets of America'"; or as Lewis Gaylord Clark, the "sunnyfaced, smiling" editor of the Knickerbocker Magazine, "who don't look as if the Ink-Fiend had ever heard of him," as he stands up to dance a polka with "a demure lady who has evidently spilled the inkstand over her dress"; or as "the stately Mrs. Seba Smith, bending aristocratically over the centre-table, and talking in a bright, cold, steady stream, like an antique fountain by moonlight"; or as "the spiritual ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... turban set all askew on her bright, black hair, her cheeks flushed from the jumping of fences and running of races that had been going on since she left the house, and that saucy twinkle in her eyes. Joy was always somewhat more demure, but she looked, too, that morning, as if she were quite as ready to have a good time as any ...
— Gypsy's Cousin Joy • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... only continued to laugh, until, seeing his companion's horrified face, he became demure. "I suppose Bill didn't, for Bill had sense enough to know that otherwise he would have to take a ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... gaze was certainly not a little amusing. On the top of a log which we sometimes used as a table, sat the black cat, with a very demure expression on its countenance; and in front of it, sitting on the ground, with his legs extended on either side of the log, was Peterkin. At the moment we saw him he was gazing intently into the cat's face, with his nose ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne |
