"Instep" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to a Yorke, and from a Yorke! This fellow," he added, standing up at the table, and pointing across it to Matthew—"this fellow forgets, what every cottier in Briarfield knows, that all born of our house have that arched instep under which water can flow—proof that there has not been a slave of the blood for ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... with pain and with one leg numb to the thigh, from an adroit smiting of his instep. The little assailant's heel had come down with trained force on this nerve center. And, for the moment, Roke was not ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... himself off the bar, grasping it with both hands; then he passed the left knee through the right arm, so as to let the knee rest in the elbow; then he passed the right knee over the instep of the left foot, and letting go his left hand, he grasped his right foot with it. Thus he hung, suspended by his right hand, and coiled up like a ball. After hanging thus for a couple of minutes, he caught the bar by his ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... constructed. The fragment is of red granite, and of admirable workmanship. Unfortunately, the face is entirely obliterated. It lies upon its back, and in its fall has destroyed all the temple within reach. It measures more than sixty feet round the shoulders, the breadth of the instep is nearly seven feet, and the hieroglyphical figures engraven on the arm are large enough for ...
— Sketches • Benjamin Disraeli
... that they bore up the folds of her bodice as they had been two walnuts; so slim was she in the waist that your two hands might have clipt her; and the daisy flowers that brake beneath her as she went tiptoe, and that bent above her instep, seemed black against her feet and ankles, so white was the maiden. She came to the postern-gate, and unbarred it, and went out through the streets of Beaucaire, keeping always on the shadowy side, for the moon was shining right clear, and so wandered ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... those villainous snow-shoes for several hours, till I walked beautifully; but see what I've got by it,' he said: 'a pain across the instep as if the bones ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... to remember, where, allusively to the flight of Astrae—ultima Coelestum terras reliquit—we pronounced—in reference to the stockings still—that Modesty taking her final leave of Mortals, her last blush was visible in her ascent to the Heavens by the tract of the glowing instep. This might be called the crowning conceit; and was esteemed tolerable ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... was quite a motherly creature, and anon the sick little oyster became very much attached to her. Many times as the little invalid rested her aching head affectionately on the instep of the old gum boot, the old gum boot told her stories of the world beyond the sea: how she had been born in a mighty forest, and how proud her folks were of their family tree; how she had been taken from that forest and moulded into the shape she now bore; how she had graced and served a ...
— A Little Book of Profitable Tales • Eugene Field
... great deal too short, and disclosed above a yellow sock, on the leg nearest to him, about four inches of dark-looking skin. His boots were heavy, patched, and entirely uncleaned, and the upper toe-cap of one of them gaped from the leather over the instep. His hands were deep in his pockets, as if even in this warm room, he felt ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... first, naked except for a breadth of fawn-skin falling from waist to instep. Their bodies were painted vermilion from brow to ankle; they carried in their hands red harvest apples, which they tossed one to another as they move lightly across the open space in a slow, ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... I, "who is a-goin' to see your instep? You hain't a-goin' round in that crowd with slips ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley
... appearing as if it were filled with wind, and forming a round surface of more than a quarter of an inch diameter. Their bodies are scarred in various parts, particularly about the breast and arms, and frequently on the instep. Nor does the head always escape; one man in particular, putting aside the hair on the forepart of his head, showed a scar, and then pointing to one on the foot, and to others on different parts of ...
— The Voyage Of Governor Phillip To Botany Bay • Arthur Phillip
... and immortal; the raised hand revealed whence that hope arose. All love seemed to be concentrated in the brooding figure, so human, yet so celestial; all heaven seemed to lie an open path before those quivering wings. And see, the arching instep, the upward-springing foot, suggested that thither those wings were bound, bearing their God-given burden far from the horror of the earth, deep into the bosom of a changeless ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard
... operation of "trussing." This is performed as follows:—The hands are first tied with a handkerchief at the wrists. The ancles are tied in the same manner. The Cock then has his hands brought to his instep, while his knees pass between his arms, and a short stick is thrust in under the knees and over the joints of the elbow, and secured in this situation. The fight now begins by each Cock advancing towards his enemy, and when they come close to each other, each endeavours, by inserting ...
— The Book of Sports: - Containing Out-door Sports, Amusements and Recreations, - Including Gymnastics, Gardening & Carpentering • William Martin
... diamond—under the night of brown or of raven locks, the sunrise of golden ripples, or the moonshine of pale, interclouded, fluffy cirri—lichenous all on the ivory-white or damp-yellow naked bone. I looked down and saw the daintily domed instep; I looked up and saw the plump shoulders basing the spring of the round full neck—which withered at half-height to the fluted shaft of a ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald
... It took two grooms, two of the gentlemen guests, and her husband to assist her to the ground. Her passage down the steps of the ladder had been long enough, however, to enable her to display a series of pretty poses, each one more effective than the others. When one has an instep of ideal elevation, what is the use of being born a Frenchwoman, unless one knows how to make ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... followed it west, having heard there was a camp farther on, though his informants did not know whether it was now occupied. It was, however, a relief to stop among a clump of spruce at dusk. When he had made a fire he examined his foot. There was no sign of injury except that ankle and instep were rather red, and he went ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss
... to blame, for the foot was so little he really couldn't see it! Isn't he perfectly great? Of course that's only his way of talking, for after all I only wear a number two, but these French heels and pointed toes do certainly make your foot look smaller, and it's always said a high instep helps, too. I used to think mine was almost a deformity, but they say it's a great beauty. Just put your feet beside mine, girls, and look at the difference; not that I care much, ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... seem able to learn only by being born to it. His fine features were set off by a turban of rose-pink silk, and the only fault discoverable as he strode up the path between the shrubs was that his riding-boots seemed too tight across the instep. There was not a vestige of hair on his face. He was certainly less than twenty, perhaps seventeen years old, or even younger. Ages are hard to guess ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... are bandaged between the ages of five and seven. The toes are bent under the sole of the foot and after two or three years the heel and instep are so forced together that a dollar can be placed in the cleft; gradually also the lower limbs shrink away until only ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews
... Moccasins for winter use were made of buffalo robe, and of tanned buffalo cowskin for summer wear. The latter were always made with parfleche soles, which greatly increased their durability, and were often ornamented over the instep or toes with a three-pronged figure, worked in porcupine quills or beads, the three prongs representing, it is said, the three divisions or tribes of the nation. The men wore a shirt, breech-clout, leggings which reached to the thighs, and moccasins. In winter both men ...
— Blackfoot Lodge Tales • George Bird Grinnell
... indifferently. Antipas held his hands behind his ears that he might hear the better. The emir paid no attention at all. On his head was a conical turban; about it were loops of sapphire and coils of pearl. He wore a vest with scant sleeves that reached to the knuckles, and trousers that overhung the instep and fell in wide wrinkles on his feet; both were of leopard-skin. Over the vest was a sleeveless tunic, clasped at the shoulders and girt at the waist. His hair was long, plentifully oiled; his beard was bushy, blue-black, and specked ...
— Mary Magdalen • Edgar Saltus
... now his slobberous head, Its filamentous chaps her ankles brushing; Her twice-five roseal toes are cramped in dread, Each maidly instep mauven-pink ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... stare open-mouthed. Lewis wore the uniform of the local cow-boy: a thick, wide-brimmed leather hat, fastened under the chin with a thong; a loose deerskin jumper and deerskin breeches that fitted tightly to the leg and ended in a long flap over the instep. On his feet were sandals and grotesque, handwrought spurs. His red bundle was tied to the cantle of his saddle. At hearing precise English from such a source, the stranger felt an astonishment almost equal to Balaam's surprise ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain
... you a bad wound, too," said Mr Rawlings, who by this time had managed to take off Seth's boot and disclose the extent of the injury, a pretty deep cut right across the instep, which would probably lame the ex-mate for life, as far as ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... made a deep obeisance to the Duchess, and said, "You give me courage to speak, my noble, worthy lady. I must tell you, that if this ungodly young woman is my daughter, I shall know her by a violet mark between her shoulders, and another on the left instep. If she would but come with me ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... and easy; let the attitudes of the bending turn be agreeable; his chest be neither too full nor too narrow; his sides clean made, strong, and well turned; his knees well articulated, and supple; his legs neither too large, nor too small, but finely formed; his instep furnished with the strength necessary to execute and maintain the springs he makes; his feet in just proportion to the support of the whole frame; all these, accompanied with a regularity of motion; and yet all these, however essential, constitute but a ...
— A Treatise on the Art of Dancing • Giovanni-Andrea Gallini
... in a certain way called a "par." The game starts with the back at a given distance from the line. After each player has "overed," the back places one foot with the outer edge on the line on which he has been standing, puts the heel of the other foot against the instep so that the second foot will be at right angles to the first, and marks a new line at the point where the toes come. The new line is thus the length of one foot in advance of the first line, plus the width of ...
— Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium • Jessie H. Bancroft
... large tumbler as if he were drinking the evening sunshine. This was bad, but not the worst. The worst was, that with his big blue eyes, and his polished head, and his long white hair, and his bottle-green legs stretched out before him, terminating in his easy shoes easily crossed at the instep, he had a radiant appearance of having in his extensive benevolence made the drink for the human species, while he himself wanted nothing but his ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... she reclined, was of massive oak, inlaid richly with ivory, and canopied with purple velvet, embroidered with, flowers of gold. Her foot-encased within the smallest shoe in Burgundy, and ornamented with a flashing jewel upon the instep-rested upon a footstool of massive oak, magnificently ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray
... the end just above the outer ankle, and make two circular turns, to prevent its slipping: then bring it down from the inside of the foot over the instep towards the outer part; pass it under the sole of the foot, and upwards and inward over the instep towards the inner ankle, then round the ankle and repeat again. Use, to retain dressings to ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... the machinery up to examine its constitution and by-laws, and about two and a half pounds of wrought iron fell off and landed on my instep. ...
— You Can Search Me • Hugh McHugh
... For the instep:—Take up the 32 stitches on each side, and 16 across the toe, knit 2 plain rows all round, and cast off; then take up the same number all round, but from the bottom of these 2 rows, and knit 2 rows all round; then place the 32 stitches on each side on to separate needles. ...
— Exercises in Knitting • Cornelia Mee
... whatever she did that it was her that told her or she'd never speak to her again. No. Honour where honour is due. There was an innate refinement, a languid queenly hauteur about Gerty which was unmistakably evidenced in her delicate hands and higharched instep. Had kind fate but willed her to be born a gentlewoman of high degree in her own right and had she only received the benefit of a good education Gerty MacDowell might easily have held her own beside any lady ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... the minister's wearin' my stockin's, nor yet in Mr. Kimball's entertainin' the whole c'mmunity with 'em. A'cordin' to my manner o' thinkin', a woman as 'll give away four pair o' brand-new hand-knit stockin's for no better reason 'n 't the heels shrunk down under her instep, is doin' a deed o' Christian charity instead o' layin' herself open to all manner o' fun-makin'. 'N' I ain't the only one 's views the thing so serious, either, for Mr. Shores feels jus' 's bad 's I do about it. He come runnin' ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Friend Mrs. Lathrop • Anne Warner
... extended northward as far as we were able to make out by the aid of strong glasses. From our position about the middle of the island the two extreme points of Wrangel island bore southwest and west-by-south respectively. In shape, Herald island is something like a boot with a depression at the instep, and at the westernmost extremity, near which it may be climbed with considerable ease, are found a number of jagged peaks and splintered pinnacles of granite, some of which resemble the giant remains of ancient sculpture, all the worse for exposure to the weather. On a promontory 1,400 feet high ...
— The First Landing on Wrangel Island - With Some Remarks on the Northern Inhabitants • Irving C. Rosse
... exquisitely moulded thing; even the slender arch of the instep had been preserved in unbroken line and curve, and yet Constans wondered vaguely why it should seem so beautiful to him. He put out his own foot and compared the two, laughed, half ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... RETTENMAYER halts before LILY and kneels to her. She extends her left foot and he kisses her instep and puts her foot into her slipper. She rewards him by lightly boxing his ears. He makes way for DE CASTRO, handing him the other slipper, and DE CASTRO performs the same ceremony with LILY'S right foot. She upsets DE CASTRO'S balance ...
— The 'Mind the Paint' Girl - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero
... my old friend, the beech-tree, all along the route. His bole wore the same gray and patched appearance it does at home, and no doubt Thoreau would have found his instep even fairer; for the beech on this side of the Atlantic is a more fluent and graceful tree than the American species, resembling, in its branchings and general form, our elm, though never developing such an immense green ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... name or initials of the team. Baseball shoes are usually provided with steel plates or leather knobs. Spikes are very dangerous and should not be permitted. The regulation baseball shoe reaches just under the instep. ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller
... the figure of a man in a leather garb, and wearing a kind of gaiters bound to the legs by strips of hide which went across and across from the instep to far above the knee. There was a leathern girdle about the waist, and one hand was slightly raised, as if it had held a staff or spear, but no remains of these were to be seen. Probably the head had once been ...
— Dick o' the Fens - A Tale of the Great East Swamp • George Manville Fenn
... lightly at top of a lacquered cane which he had found within the box. Deep ruffles of white hung down from his wrists, and a fall of wide lace drooped from the bosom of his ruffled shirt. His wig, deep curled and well whitened, gave a certain austerity to his mien. At his instep sparkled new buckles of brilliants, rising above which sprang a graceful ankle, a straight and well-rounded leg. The long lapels of his rich coat hung deep, and the rich waistcoat of plum-colored satin added slimness to ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... tight green clothes and little leathern aprons, and they wore tall green hats which wobbled when they moved. They were all busily engaged making shoes. One was drawing out wax ends on his knee, another was softening pieces of leather in a bucket of water, another was polishing the instep of a shoe with a piece of curved bone, another was paring down a heel with a short broad-bladed knife, and another was hammering wooden pegs into a sole. He had all the pegs in his mouth, which gave him a widefaced, jolly expression, and according as a peg was wanted he blew ...
— The Crock of Gold • James Stephens
... white skirt hung from a plainly embroidered white waist to a silken instep; and from the crown of her charming head to the tall heels of her graceful white suede slippers, heels of a sweeter curve than the waist of a violin, she was as modern and lovely as this dingy old ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington
... with head erect, she bent it slightly to the caballeros and passed to the middle of the room, the other guests retreating to the wall. She stood for a moment, swaying her body slightly; then, raising her gown high enough for the lace to sweep the instep of her small arched feet, she tapped the floor in exact time to the music for a few moments, then glided dreamily along the sala, her willowy body falling in lovely lines, unfolding every detail of El Son, unheeding the low ripple ...
— The Doomswoman - An Historical Romance of Old California • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... Inspire enspiri. Inspire inspiri. Instalment partpago. Install logxigi. Instance ekzemplodoni. Instance ekzemplo. Instant momento. Instant, in an momente. Instantaneous subita. Instead of anstataux. Instead of, to put anstatauxi. Instep piedartiko. Instigate instigi. Instill infuzi. Instinct instinkto. Institute fondi. Institute instituto. Institution institucio. Instruct instrui. Instruction instrukcio. Instruction (teaching) instruado. Instructive instrua. Instructor instruisto. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... Lovelace is loved by all. Like gravitation, love draws all things. Our young man would have to be five feet eleven, or six feet, broad shoulders, light brown hair, deep eyes, soft and suggestive, broad shoulders, a thin neck, long delicate hands, a high instep. His nose should be straight, his face oval and small, he must be clean about the hips, and his movements must be naturally caressing. He comes into the ball-room, his shoulders well back, he stretches his hand to the hostess, he looks at her earnestly (it is characteristic ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... she really might have been dressed, would be as likely as not to be comfortable in a sack and skirt and her "points,"—as she called her black prunella shoes, that were weak at the heels and going at the sides, and kept their original character only by these embellishments upon the instep,—and to have dumped herself down on the broad lower stair in the hall, just behind the green blinds of the front entrance, with a chapter to finish in some irresistible book, or a ...
— We Girls: A Home Story • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... half-soling had evidently been home work, and the supply of pegs had been exhausted. In lieu of them, three square-headed hobnails had been driven into the center of the seam holding the patch of leather to the under part of the instep, or palm of the foot. They were off like a pack of bloodhounds, with the old millman ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... man of mirthful disposition who sees anything to laugh at in the same black face, grown older and broader and much less comical, on the shore of the same Virginia to-day. The white race and the black—the sharp profile and the broad lip—the springing instep and the protuberant heel—have been having a long tussle, with the probabilities for a while all on the side of the white: to-day the struggle is doubtful if not decided in favor of the black. "Here we go, up—up—uppy! Here we ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... Mose—which the same is short for Moses— Had one of the biggest kind of noses: It had a sort of an instep in it, And he fed it with snuff about ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... after her brilliant sally upon the public, Sir Harry Wildair came and stood beside Mr. Vane. Her bright skin, contrasted with her powdered periwig, became dazzling. She used little rouge, but that little made her eyes two balls of black lightning. From her high instep to her polished forehead, all was symmetry. Her leg would have been a sculptor's glory; and the curve from her waist to her knee ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... new," he said. "You could not have had them more than a few weeks. The soles which you are at this moment presenting to me are slightly scorched. For a moment I thought they might have got wet and been burned in the drying. But near the instep there is a small circular wafer of paper with the shopman's hieroglyphics upon it. Damp would of course have removed this. You had, then, been sitting with your feet outstretched to the fire, which a man would hardly ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... Keighley. It was open to the road, and in it hung rows and rows of clogs of all sizes—some of them big enough to fit a man, and some for children, quite tiny. They all had wooden soles, and toes slightly turned-up tipped with gleaming brass, and a brass buckle on the instep; nearly all the people in Haworth and all the factory-girls in Keighley wore such shoes, but they were always called "clogs." Inside the stall sat an old man with twinkling blue eyes, and a stumpy turned-up nose: he sat and cobbled and mended, and ...
— A Pair of Clogs • Amy Walton
... actually, as well as relatively, a little longer; the foot is an eighth, and the hand a twelfth longer than in the European. It is well known that the foot is less well formed in the Negro than in the European. The arch of the instep, the perfect conformation of which is essential to steadiness and ease of gait, is less elevated in the former than in the latter. The foot is thereby rendered flatter as well as longer, more nearly resembling the monkey's, between which and the European ...
— The Antiquity of Man • Charles Lyell
... the people is mostly white, homespun flannel "bawneens," and sandals of cowhide, fastened across the instep, ...
— The Sunny Side of Ireland - How to see it by the Great Southern and Western Railway • John O'Mahony and R. Lloyd Praeger
... was back upon him, and he was whirling to meet it, when a new and equally unprovoked assault was made upon him. This time it was Captain Duncan, in a rage at sight of his slain cat. The instep of his foot caught Michael squarely under the chest, half knocking the breath out of him and wholly lifting him into the air, so that he fell heavily on his side. The two terriers were upon him, filling ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... have ill become her present condition, the rest of her head was covered with a very small tight-fitting hood of dark blue cloth, hemmed with silver. Her shoes were red; but the roan petticoat and hose prepared the spectator's mind for the shock, and they set off the arched instep ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... deep, deep brown; Her hair was darker than her eye; And something in her smile and frown, Curled crimson lip and instep high, Showed that there ran in each blue vein, Mixed with the milder Aztec strain, The vigorous vintage of Old Spain. She was alive in every limb With feeling, to the finger tips; And when the sun is like a fire, And sky one shining, soft sapphire ...
— Songs of the Cattle Trail and Cow Camp • Various
... that rustle of delicate mourning which made the endless variety of her garments, as a painter could take heed, strike one always as the same obscure elegance. She seated herself on the floor of my mother's chair, a little too much on her right instep as I afterwards gathered, caressing her stiff hand, smiling up into her cold face, commending and approving her without a reserve and without a doubt. She told her immediately, as if it were something ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James
... and get up again, putting the right foot out first, he continued in the same unhappy state of mind. He made, as was his wont, a hasty toilet before breakfast. He wore an old shirt, and a pair of pantaloons that did not reach much above his hips. One of his slippers had no instep; the other was without a heel. His grizzly beard made him look like a wild man of the woods; a certain sardonic expression of countenance contributed to this effect. He planted his chair on its remaining hind leg at the cabin door, and commenced a systematic strain of grumbling ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman
... laughter as Boyd's heel came heavily in contact with his instep under the table. Clyde was again lost in an exposition of his fitness as a ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... walk. The bandages are specially manufactured, and are about two inches wide and two yards long for the first year, five yards long for subsequent years. The end of the strip is laid on the inside of the foot at the instep, then carried over the toes, under the foot, and round the heel, the toes being thus drawn toward and over the sole, while a bulge is produced on the instep, and a deep indentation in the sole. Successive layers of bandages are used till the strip is ...
— Scientific American, Volume XLIII., No. 25, December 18, 1880 • Various
... any girl would; and who is going to blame her? Not I! A girl doesn't know her privileges who was never just a little vain,—just a little glad to be pretty when John is by. Lizzy looked at the crimson merino, and at the smart slippers on the door with a shining black bow on each instep. There, too, on a little low table, was a green box; somebody had left it open,—mother, perhaps,—so she saw on its cotton bed a red coral bracelet, that came from Roxbury, or thereabout, last year at this time. Lizzy shut ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... knew what to do, and turning, bowed low to Nelly, who made him a deep courtesy, her toe pointed, instep high, her eyes shining, looking straight at him but evidently not seeing him. The music seemed to float ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... foot which is behind take a step forward in this manner: With the toe describe on the ground a semi-circle that bends inward toward you; this will cause the heel to pass over the instep of the other foot. The other foot now takes a straight step forward, and you pause in a respectful attitude before the personage of importance whom you wish to salute. Several steps may be taken in succession before the final pause. The ceremonious step is always taken with the foot you ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... of pain on his instep. Rynch cried out, stamped hard. One of the clawed scavengers was crushed. The man leaped back in time to avoid another step into a swarming mass of them at work on some unidentifiable carrion. Staring down ...
— Star Hunter • Andre Alice Norton
... out into the middle of the floor, cocked my gun, set the muzzle against my left instep, and pulled the trigger. The shot passed through the middle of the foot and pierced the floor. Asop gave a ...
— Pan • Knut Hamsun
... braided locks falling a little, for want of the lost hairpin, perhaps, and looking like a wreathing coil of—Shame on such fancies!—to wrong that supreme crowning gift of abounding Nature, a rush of shining black hair, which, shaken loose, would cloud her all round, like Godiva, from brow to instep! He was sure he had sat down before the fissure or cave. He was sure that he was led softly away from the place, and that it was Elsie who had led him. There was the hair-pin to show that so far it was not a dream. But between these recollections came a strange confusion; and the more ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... Fisher was rapidly untying the unlucky stocking; and, whipping off the boot, he soon made sure that no ligaments were broken. Then he put on the boot and the woollen sock, being careful to tie it in front over the instep, and whipping out his big handkerchief he proceeded to bandage the ankle in a truly scientific way. "Now, then, Mrs. Henderson, you are all right to take the walk ...
— Five Little Peppers Abroad • Margaret Sidney
... Rovigo had stood another half-league away. I shall not readily forget the noble charity of one of those boys, who, seeing the inflammation set up by the thorn in my foot, ripped off the sleeve of his shirt and bound it round the instep—my first experience of the magnanimity of the poor, but by ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... only a part of the broken lever or pole hit him. Thrown with such force, the weight of the ram driving it, the fragment of the pole grazed his leg, and either broke one of the small bones that form the arch of the instep, or so bruised it that it was worse than broken. All the bone-setters and surgeons had gone to the camp, and he was left without attendance other than the women, who fomented the foot daily, but he had ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies
... charming, but they walked close together, Carol stepping gingerly on one foot and Lark stooping low, carrying a needle with great solicitude,—the thread reaching from the needle to a small hole on Carol's instep. ...
— Prudence Says So • Ethel Hueston
... cape, made of fine tappa cloth, and round his wrists and ankles were circlets of pearl shell, enclosed in a netting of black coir cinnet. On each leg there was tattooed, in bright blue, a coco-nut tree, its roots spreading out at the heel and running in wavy lines along the instep to the toes, its elastic stalk shooting upwards till its waving plumes spread gracefully out on the broad, ...
— Ridan The Devil And Other Stories - 1899 • Louis Becke
... his wife; when lying thus, he would wake in the night and see her dress on the wall and feel her head on his bosom; when her little shoes might stand on his open Bible, if they chose, and the satin instep of her bare foot be folded in the hard hollow ...
— The Choir Invisible • James Lane Allen
... the parting of her jet-black hair to the high instep of her slender foot; a glancing, brilliant, brunette beauty, with the piquant charm of perpetual spirits, and the equipoise of a perfectly healthy nature. She was altogether graceful, yet she had not the fresh, free grace of her cousin Hope, who was lithe and strong as a hawthorne ...
— Malbone - An Oldport Romance • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... combustible as tinder, and there were flames shooting out among the stones. Sceptics had affirmed that the skin of a Fijian's foot being a quarter of an inch thick, he would not feel a burn. Whether this be true or not of the ball and heel, the instep is covered with skin no thicker than our own, and we saw the men plant their insteps ...
— Modern Mythology • Andrew Lang
... behind their green went out like the light of a lighthouse shut off twenty miles across the sea; till the eyes dropped, and the big head with them—dropped lower and lower, and the red rasp of a tongue grated on Mowgli's instep. ...
— The Second Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling
... seriously consider the deceit they were practising, and adopted the same plan. One of the number, not trusting to his memory, hit upon the singular expedient of writing the whole of his piece and the next on a piece of paper, and wafering it to the instep of his shoe when he went up to his class. Unhappily for his scheme, he was so placed that he dared not expose his foot so as to allow him to avail himself of this delectable assistance, and consequently, after much looking on the ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May
... an equally great variety as of clothing, {11} but the majority of men, women, and children (in muddy weather at least) have compromised on the "getas," a sort of wooden sole strapped on the foot, with wooden pieces put fore and aft the instep, these pieces throwing the foot and sole about three inches above ground. It looks almost as difficult to walk in them as to walk on stilts, but away the people go, young and old, and the muddy places marked by the strange footwear look as if ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe
... is father of the man. Our prince signalized his entrance into the world by a feat worthy of his future life. He invented a new shoebuckle. It was an inch long and five inches broad. "It covered almost the whole instep, reaching down to the ground on either side of the foot." A sweet invention! lovely and useful as the prince on whose foot it sparkled. At his first appearance at a Court ball, we read that "his coat was pink silk, with white cuffs; his waistcoat white silk, embroidered with various-coloured ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... with his body, was the ultimate beauty, to know which was almost death in itself, and yet for the knowledge of which he would have undergone endless torture. He would have forfeited anything, anything, rather than forego his right even to the instep of her foot, and the place from which the toes radiated out, the little, miraculous white plain from which ran the little hillocks of the toes, and the folded, dimpling hollows between the toes. He felt he would have died ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... paw; hoof; base, bottom, extremity. Associated Words: chiropody, chiropodist, pedicure, orthopedy, orthopedic, orthopedist, pedal, plantigrade, bastinado, taligrade, palmigrade, cloven, ball, instep, phalanges. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... One of the tracks betrayed a small, coquettish, slender foot, clad in an elegant high-heeled boot with a narrow sole and an arched instep. The other denoted a broad, short foot growing wider toward the end. It had evidently been incased in a strong, ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... the bosom of his white, puffed shirt an enormous diamond, held in place by side gold chains, flashed forth; while glittering on his fingers was another stone almost as large. Below his trousers could plainly be seen the highly-polished boots; the heels and instep being higher than those generally in use. In a word, it was impossible not to get the impression that he was scrupulously immaculate and careful about his attire. And his voice—the voice that tells character as nothing else does—was ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco
... the foot is dorsiflexed so that the tip of the heel comes in contact with the ground; this deformity may be combined with eversion of the foot, pes calcaneo-valgus, or with inversion, pes calcaneo-varus. When the instep is unduly arched, the terms pes cavus, pes arcuatus or hollow claw-foot are employed; while loss of the arch constitutes flat-foot, and eversion of the sole, ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles
... my instep, my toes, the sole of my foot, the ball, the hollow, the heel, my toe joints, and my toe nails, which ...
— Object Lessons on the Human Body - A Transcript of Lessons Given in the Primary Department of School No. 49, New York City • Sarah F. Buckelew and Margaret W. Lewis
... been worn in Spain by many a beauty of the house of Moraga, and spiked the knot with two long pins globed at the end with gold, while the maid fastened her slippers and smoothed the pink silk stockings over the thin instep above; "what is a lover like? Is it like meeting one of ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton
... His spotless linen, his neat sack-coat and trousers of gray seemed part of him—like a loose outer skin. There was in his ensemble nothing to disturb the negative harmony, save perhaps an abnormal flatness of the instep and hands. ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... a fragment of the narrowest red ribbon, which she took downstairs and tied round the neck of the image. Then fetching ink and a quill from the rickety bureau by the window, she blackened the feet of the image to the extent presumably covered by shoes; and on the instep of each foot marked cross-lines in the shape taken by the sandal-strings of those days. Finally she tied a bit of black thread round the upper part of the head, in faint resemblance to a snood worn for ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... Support is, they are made to fit and conform perfectly with ankle, giving free instep movement ...
— The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing - A Manual of Ready Reference • Joseph Triemens
... it?" he asked, staring. "Nothing that I can see." He seized it, heel in one hand, instep in the other, and gyrated it. Scaramouche screamed in agony, until Climene caught Binet's arm and ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... in the Warden's drawing-room had just struck eight, and already the ducal feet were beautiful on the white bearskin hearthrug. So slim and long were they, of instep so nobly arched, that only with a pair of glazed ox-tongues on a breakfast-table were they comparable. Incomparable quite, the figure and face and vesture of ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... that formed two curves of remarkable beauty. She showed her teeth in a smile; they were small and white and even, so perfect that they passed for false with strangers. She explained that she had an abnormally high instep, and could only be fitted by one brand of shoe. She showed her foot, cased in a black stocking, and the sight of it carried Jonah back to Cardigan Street and the push, for the high instep was a distinguished mark of beauty ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... city of Kamchau there is an idol temple five hundred cubits square. In the middle is an idol lying at length, which measures fifty paces. The sole of the foot is nine paces long, and the instep is twenty-one cubits in girth. Behind this image and overhead are other idols of a cubit (?) in height, besides figures of Bakshis as large as life. The action of all is hit off so admirably that you would think they were alive. Against the wall also are other ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... rope to the stirrup and both animals stood as if they were nailed to the spot while he ran after the work-horses, who had wandered in another direction. His boots, he noted, were not adapted to walking as they pinched in the toes and instep. He could not stop for such a small matter at this critical moment, however, so he continued to run until he overtook the horses ...
— The Dude Wrangler • Caroline Lockhart
... every feature, in the passionate eagerness of her body; yet the line from the forehead to the chin, and the firm shapeliness of the chin itself, gave promise of great strength of will. From the glory of the crown of hair to the curve of the high instep of a slim foot it was altogether a personality which hinted at history—at ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... won't. I'll take care of that,' he said coolly, and took from his pocket two strong black bootlaces which he proceeded to criss-cross over the instep and round the ankles. She sat quite still watching him, her eyes very bright, her hands twisted together on her lap. When he had finished she put out her feet and stared at them—they did look boats!—then she looked down at him. He was still kneeling, and there was not a sound to be heard ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
... with her partner in the shoe bargain, a curly-headed young Hebrew, who flattered her familiarly and talked as if he had known her from a child, but always with an eye to business. She stood, holding back her skirts and rocking her instep from right to left, while she considered the effect of the new style; patent-leather foxings and tan-cloth tops, and heels that came under the middle of her foot, and narrow toes with tips of stamped leather;—but what a price! More than a third of her chicken-money ...
— In Exile and Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... good-nature and full of fun, 'chaffing' the girls as we pass the villages, and always smiling. The steersman is of lighter complexion, also very cheery, but decidedly pious. He prays five times a day and utters ejaculations to the apostle Rusool continually. He hurt his ankle on one leg and his instep on the other with a rusty nail, and they festered. I dressed them with poultices, and then with lint and strapping, with perfect success, to the great admiration of all hands, and he announced how much better he felt, 'Alhamdulillah, kieth-el-hairack khateer ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... dress of this man was in unison with his aspect. He wore a greasy velveteen jacket, loose trousers of the same stuff, and his feet were shod with abarcas—a kind of sandal in common use in some parts of Navarre and Biscay, composed of a flat piece of tanned pig's hide, secured across the instep by thongs. A leathern wallet lay upon the ground beside him, and near it were scattered sundry pairs of shears and scissors, used to clip mules and other animals. The esquilador, or shearer—for such was the profession of the individual just described—had found a ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... piece of raw cowskin, with the hair outside, laced over the toe and round the heel with two ends of fishing-line that work round and are tied above the instep. ...
— The Aran Islands • John M. Synge
... Distance GB equals length of foot plus one inch; distance AC equals width across instep plus one-half inch; cut DF halfway between B and G; cut EG halfway between A and C. Cut piece reverse of this for other moccasin. Place B of Fig. 2 to B of Fig. 1, and sew overhand with wax cord the edges from B to A and B to C, bringing ...
— Camping For Boys • H.W. Gibson
... half-way to a man's waist. And you may set it down to M. Radisson's credit that he went with his wiry hair flying wild as a lion's mane. Nothing I could say would make him exchange his Indian moccasins for the high-heeled pumps with a buckle at the instep. ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... grown, if growth it can be called; the great toe alone remained in its natural state. The fore part of the foot had been so swathed and compressed by tight bandages, that, instead of expanding in length and breadth, it had shot upwards, so as to form a large lump at the instep, where it became, so to speak, a portion of the leg; the lower part of the foot was scarcely five inches long, and an inch and a half broad. The feet are always encased in white linen or silk, with silk bandages over all, and are then ...
— The Story of Ida Pfeiffer - and Her Travels in Many Lands • Anonymous
... surgical treatments include care of dislocated shoulders; wounds in various parts of the body; sores of the feet and legs; cancerous ulcers in the instep; ulcers of the throat, and dueling wounds. One of the most unusual surgical measures of the period was the application of weapon salve for battle wounds; the salve was applied ...
— Medicine in Virginia, 1607-1699 • Thomas P. Hughes
... To do this properly, grasp it at the handle with your right hand, the upper horn upward and the back toward you. Place the lower horn at the instep of your right foot, and the base of your left palm against the back of the bow, near the top below the loop of the string. Holding your left arm stiff and toward your left side, your right elbow fixed on your hip, pull up on the handle by twisting your body so that the bow is sprung away ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... fragments and flung them into the fire, in the midst of which they writhed still more horribly. Then seizing a good, stout, brightly- glowing brand from the fire, he coolly sat down and applied the almost white-hot end to the wound, which was in his left instep. I do not think I ever saw anything more heroic than this act of the savage, for though the flesh hissed and smoked and gave forth a most horrible odour of burnt flesh, the man never winced, but calmly and deliberately cauterised the bite with as much care and thoroughness as though ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... His legs and feet were bare, and had a ponderous look about them, since he suffered from that strange curse of Zanzibar—elephantiasis. His feet were slipped into a pair of watta (Arabic for slippers), with thick soles and a strong leathern band over the instep. His light complexion and his correct features, which are intelligent and regular, bespeak the Arab patrician. They indicate, however, nothing except his high descent and blood; no traits of character are visible unless there is just a trace of amiability, ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... Mr. Archer Wavy hair dancing wave ... Morris dance Mr. Morrison Black eyes white ... snow ... pure as snow Mr. Virtue Retreating chin retiring ... home-bird Mr. Holmes High instep high boots ... mud ... peat Mr. Peat Crooked legs broken legs ... crushed Mr. Crushton Apprehension suspension ... gallows Mr. Galloway Sombre sad ... mourning ... hat-band Mr. Hatton Music stave ... bar Mr. Barcroft Violinist violin ... high note ... ...
— Assimilative Memory - or, How to Attend and Never Forget • Marcus Dwight Larrowe (AKA Prof. A. Loisette)
... been brooding upon the floor, raised his eyes and then switched one leg over the other. He was a typical cowman, was Lester, from his crimson handkerchief knotted around his throat to his shop-made boots which fitted slenderly about his instep with the care of ...
— Gunman's Reckoning • Max Brand
... Sam and Willis Murch had been splitting four-foot logs, when Sam's axe, glancing from a log, had buried the blade in his instep; the very bones were cut. There were four of us boys at work together. We ran to him, tied a handkerchief round his ankle, and twisted it tight with a stick; but blood flowed profusely. We did not know how to apply ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... good yew bow in his hand, and placing the tip at his instep, he strung it right deftly; then he nocked a broad clothyard arrow and, raising the bow, drew the gray goose feather to his ear; the next moment the bowstring rang and the arrow sped down the glade as a ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... usual young lady who had bought, or was trying on, a large hat, and whose top-story above, in profile, had got so far ahead of her other stories below. There were the consignments of locust-flights of boots, for this young lady's friends, with heels in the instep. And all the advertisements that some one must believe, or they would not pay for insertion; but that we ignore, incredulous. Fenwick tried hard, for his own sake, to make the whole thing mean something, but his dazed brain and feverish eyes refused ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... it from its place. And then she began to cry. And as he held her, struggling no longer, with one foot dangling disconsolately below his arm, he saw the turn of shapely ankle all sleek in its sheathing of white silk, the high arch with the delicate dip to the instep, and below it the gleam of two pink toes boldly peeping ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... one of her little white-stockinged feet over the other. She had on the neatest of sandals, with black ribbons, which crossed over the instep. It was one of Zachariah's weak points, she considered, that he did not seem to care sufficiently for cleanliness, and when he came in he would sometimes put his black hand, before he had washed, on the white tea-cloth, or on the back of ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford
... leather, although black calfskin are at present the fashion, either with or without spats. If with spats, be sure that they fit close; nothing is worse than a wrinkled spat or one that sticks out over the instep like the opened ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... man applied leeches to the instep for inflammation occasioned by a bruise. Several very irritable sores were produced with some swelling. I applied the lunar ...
— An Essay on the Application of the Lunar Caustic in the Cure of Certain Wounds and Ulcers • John Higginbottom
... lilies. And the throne is richly adorned with gold and precious stones, and with ebony and ivory. And there are imitations of animals painted on it, and models worked on it. There are four Victories like dancers, one at each foot of the throne, and two also at the instep of each foot; and at each of the front feet are Theban boys carried off by Sphinxes, and below the Sphinxes, Apollo and Artemis shooting down the children of Niobe. And between the feet of the throne are four divisions formed by straight lines drawn from each of ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Vol VIII - Italy and Greece, Part Two • Various
... thoroughfare, and stared down with upwrinkled forehead at the sole of the kicked-off slipper, indulging the while in a mental calculation of how many days it would take for the hole near the toe to work down to the hole under the instep, and thus render problematical the possibility of keeping the shoe on at all. It might take three weeks, or, say at the utmost, a month; one month from the present time. It was at the present time about the 15th of June, the 14th or the 15th, say the 15th! Well, then, ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... fellow-lodger upon the night of the thunderstorm were resolved the next morning. Strolling along down the path which led to the fell, I saw in one spot where the ground was soft the impressions of a foot—the small, dainty foot of a well-booted woman. That tiny heel and high instep could have belonged to none other than my companion of Kirkby-Malhouse. I followed her trail for some distance, till it still pointed, as far as I could discern it, to the lonely and ill-omened cottage. What power could there be to draw this ...
— Danger! and Other Stories • Arthur Conan Doyle
... he remarked, chuckling at my surprise,—"so absurdly simple that an explanation is superfluous; and yet it may serve to define the limits of observation and of deduction. Observation tells me that you have a little reddish mould adhering to your instep. Just opposite the Seymour Street Office they have taken up the pavement and thrown up some earth which lies in such a way that it is difficult to avoid treading in it in entering. The earth is of ...
— The Sign of the Four • Arthur Conan Doyle
... 'bout ter gin up de sarch, w'en I happen' fer ter run 'cross a foot-track w'at look' lack Dave's. I had wukked 'long wid Dave so much dat I knowed his tracks: he had a monst'us long foot, wid a holler instep, w'ich wuz sump'n skase 'mongs' black folks. So I follered dat track 'cross de fiel' fum de quarters 'tel I got ter de smoke-'ouse. De fus' thing I notice' wuz smoke comin' out'n de cracks: it wuz cu'ous, caze dey hadn' ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... had almost stumbled upon the truth merely through the magic of one upward glance of the eye of the wearied slave; why, then, might she not have unconsciously revealed herself to him by even a wave of the hand or a turn of the instep, or by some other apparently trivial and unimportant motion? And if so, at what instant might he not forget his fallen condition, and disregard not only his safety but her reputation, by pressing into the palace ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... at the door with orders to keep it open. He was a wild man, and thought I was, and every time I moved his automatic moved with me. It was as though he were following me with a spotlight. My foot was badly cut across the instep and I was altogether forlorn and disreputable. So, in order to look less like a tramp when I met the general, I bound up the foot, and, always with one eye on the sentry, and moving very slowly, shaved and put on dry things. From the interest the sentry showed it seemed evident ...
— With the Allies • Richard Harding Davis
... (Allĕktēēgă) with the hair inside and reaching to the knee, where they tie. Over these come a pair of shoes of the same material; next a pair of dressed seal-skin boots perfectly water-tight; and over all a corresponding pair of shoes, tying round the instep. These last are made just like the moccasin of a North American Indian, being neatly crimped at the toes, and having several serpentine pieces of hide sewn across the sole to prevent wearing. The water-tight boots and shoes are made of the skin of the small seal (neitiek), except the soles, which ...
— Journal of the Third Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage • William Edward Parry
... golden, embellished brooches over their breasts; [12]and they had curved shields with sharp, chiselled edges around them and spears as long as the pillars of a king's house in the hand of each man.[12] Fine, long, silken tunics [13]with hoods[13] they wore to the very instep. Together they raised their feet, and together they set them down again. "Is that Cormac, yonder?" asked all. "Aye, it is he, ...
— The Ancient Irish Epic Tale Tain Bo Cualnge • Unknown
... steamer to New Zealand. Here at Apia my ankles were badly bitten by mosquitoes, and I confess to having scratched the bites—as I had a thousand times before. By the time I reached the island of Savaii, a small sore had developed on the hollow of my instep. I thought it was due to chafe and to acid fumes from the hot lava over which I tramped. An application of salve would cure it—so I thought. The salve did heal it over, whereupon an astonishing inflammation set in, the new skin came off, and a larger sore was exposed. This was ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London
... old friends, before leaving you to the tender mercies of a scribbler, is not to answer all the questions he thinks proper to put. Please don't tell him what you heard or saw after leaving the football field clinging to my sole and instep, of my love intrigues, my stolen interviews with blue-eyed Annie, and when she jilted me and got married to Charlie Quilter, who played "left wing" in the Flying Blues. Charlie must have regretted what he ...
— Scottish Football Reminiscences and Sketches • David Drummond Bone
... seams with a blue and white cross striped braid. The moccasins, also, are made of buckskin, of either a yellow or dark red color. They are made to lace high about the lower part of the leg, the lacing running from below the instep upward. As showing what changes are going on among the Seminole, I may mention that a few of them possess shoes, and one is even the owner of a pair of frontier store boots. The blanket is not often worn by the Florida Indians. ...
— The Seminole Indians of Florida • Clay MacCauley
... height," was mamma's reply, "but her figure was slender, with small and well-shaped hands and feet. It was her pride that water could flow under the arch of her instep; and her fingers, notwithstanding the hard toil of daily life, remained so flexible, that, when fifty years old, she could still bend them backwards to ...
— The Story of a Summer - Or, Journal Leaves from Chappaqua • Cecilia Cleveland
... graceful gait, is the shape and vigor of the feet. Each foot consists of two springy, living arches of bone and sinew, which are also used as levers, one running lengthwise from the heel to the ball of the toes, and the other crosswise at the instep. These arches are built largely of bones, but are given that springy, elastic curve on which their health and comfort depend, and are kept in proper shape and position, solely by the action of muscles—those of the lower part ...
— A Handbook of Health • Woods Hutchinson
... get the better of his prudence. Under the impulse of his anger he acted. It was a whimsical thing that he did, and though he suffered for it he could never afterwards bring himself to regret it. He deliberately knelt down and kissed the instep of the foot which protruded from the curtain. He felt the muscles of the foot tighten, but the foot was not withdrawn. The curtain shivered and shook, but no cry came from behind it, and again the curtain ...
— Clementina • A.E.W. Mason
... Close to it, as though following after, was another that at first I thought must also have been made by a woman, it was so narrow. But presently I saw that this could scarcely be, because of its length, and moreover, that the boot which left it was like none that I knew, being cut very high at the instep and very pointed at the toe. Then, of a sudden, it came upon me that the Spanish stranger wore such boots, for I had noted them while I talked with him, and that his feet were following those of my mother, ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... out her right foot with its neatly-laced yellow slipper. Then Martin knelt down, and instead of lacing the left shoe unlaced the right one, and inside the yellow slipper found the sixth key just under the instep. "Is that the right ending?" said Joscelyn. And Martin held the little foot in his hands rubbing it gently, and said compassionately, "It must ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon
... suspended under a big green leaf, wrapped in his black and buff-coloured wings as in a mantle, I forgot my disappointment, forgot the serpent, and was so entirely taken up with the bat that I paid no attention to a sensation like a pressure or a dull pain on the instep of my right foot. Then the feeling of pressure increased and was very curious and was as if I had a heavy object like a crowbar lying across my foot, and at length I looked down at my feet, and to my amazement and horror spied the great ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson
... interosseous ligament; its tendon passes beneath the annular ligament in front of the ankle joint, and after traversing the inner part of the dorsum of the foot, becomes inserted into the three phalanges of the great toe. Beneath the tendons of the extensor communis on the instep, will be seen the extensor digitorum brevis, K K, lying in an oblique direction, between the upper and outer part of the os calcis, from which it arises, and the four inner toes, into each of which it is inserted by a small flat tendon, which ...
— Surgical Anatomy • Joseph Maclise
... the gallant Captain seemed to experience as much distress of mind, as if some stain had lain on his own most unblemished of reputations. He went up and down upon the points of his toes, rising up on his instep with a jerk which at once expressed vexation and defiance—He carried his nose turned up in the air, like that of a pig when he snuffs the approaching storm—He spoke in monosyllables when he spoke at all; and—what perhaps illustrated ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... her. Yet Daisy was not faultless. She had a wild little will of her own—none the worse for that, however. She could put her foot down—and a sweet little foot it was!—a temptation of a foot, cased in a tight boot—high in the instep, and arched like the proud neck of an Arabian mare, or the eye-brows of a Georgian girl. And then the heel of said boot!—But I daren't trust ...
— Daisy's Necklace - And What Came of It • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... my winters in Italy, but on the principle that you never forget anything that you know well, I thought I would try, and will say that the first half-hour was absolute suffering. It was in the old days when one still wore a strap over the instep, which naturally was drawn very tight. My feet were like lumps of ice, as heavy as lead, and I didn't seem able to lift them from the ground. I went back to the dressing-room to take my skates off for a few minutes, and when the blood began to circulate again, I could have cried with ...
— My First Years As A Frenchwoman, 1876-1879 • Mary King Waddington
... transparent fichu, allowed the graceful outlines of the bosom to be seen with charming roguishness. A gown of white muslin, strewn with blue flowers, made with very large sleeves, a pointed body and no belt, shoes with strings crossed on the instep over Scotch thread stockings, showed a charming knowledge of the art of dress. Ear-rings of silver filagree, miracles of Genoese jewelry, destined no doubt to become the fashion, were in perfect harmony with the delightful flow of the ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... was alone left in its normal state. The fore-part of the foot had been so compressed with strong broad bandages, that instead of expanding in length and breadth, it had shot upwards and formed a large lump at the instep, where it made part and parcel of the leg; the lower portion of the foot was scarcely four inches long, and an inch and a half broad. The feet are always swathed in white linen or silk, bound ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... gold bodkin—fell the heavy folds of a black lace mantilla, the lower end fastened sash fashion around her lithe waist. She stepped, too, like a queen on a pair of slim, long, delicate feet, with arched ball and instep, as if she were in command of ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... a little girl who was very pretty and delicate, but in the summer she was obliged to run about with bare feet, she was so poor, and in the winter to wear large wooden shoes, which made her little instep quite red, and that ...
— The Pearl Story Book - A Collection of Tales, Original and Selected • Mrs. Colman
... sort of heirloom among the children of the family, and were regarded with reverence and pride. They were of a peculiar shade of pink silk, with clockwork up the sides and sprays of white flowers embroidered over the instep. A long time ago they had belonged to Cousin Mary, who was quite a big girl now, and she had sent them to Uncle Robert's boy up in Ohio. He learned to waltz in them, and in time sent them to little Agnes in Virginia, who wore them for a year on state occasions, then ...
— Southern Stories - Retold from St. Nicholas • Various
... and the candle, stood this interesting receptacle of the little unknown's foot; and a very pretty boot it was. A character, in fact—the flexible bend at the instep, the rounded localities of the small nestling toes, scratches from careless scampers now forgotten—all, as repeated in the tell-tale leather, evidencing a nature and a bias. Dick surveyed it with a delicate feeling ...
— Under the Greenwood Tree • Thomas Hardy
... travel, I think you can find nothing better than brogans reaching above the ankles, and fastening by laces or buttons as you prefer, but not so tight as to bind the cords of the foot. See that they bind nowhere except upon the instep. The soles should be wide, and the heels wide and low (about two and three-quarter inches wide by one inch high); have soles and heels well filled with iron nails. Be particular not to have steel nails, which slip ...
— How to Camp Out • John M. Gould
... that Foot hid in those shoos, (Proportion'd to my height) Short Heele, thin Instep, euen Toes, A Sole so wondrous straight, The Forresters and Nimphes at this Amazed all should stand, And kneeling downe, should meekely kisse The Print left ...
— Minor Poems of Michael Drayton • Michael Drayton
... of his advantages in the noble science of leaping; the other half was afterwards pointed out to me by an accurate critic in these matters as lying in the particular conformation of his foot, the instep of which is arched, and the back of the heel strengthened in so remarkable a way that it would be worth paying a penny or so for a sight of them. It is really laughable to think of the coxcombry which eminent men of letters ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... with white. The lower limbs were encased in trousers of a crimson hue. On his feet the the king wore shoes like those of the Medes, long and taper at the toe buttoned in front, and reaching very high up the instep: their color was deep yellow ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson
... water. When examining the body I had noticed that she was wearing Louis XV. shoes, and also that there was still mud upon the heels. She had always been rather proud of her feet, and surely there is nothing which sets off the shape of a woman's foot better than the neat little shoe, with its high instep and heel. ...
— The Seven Secrets • William Le Queux
... long life from the pebbly bottom. Oh, the joy in the spring day, when, after long teasing of mother to let you take off your shoes, you dash out on the cool grass barefoot, or down the road, the dust curling about the instep in warm enjoyment, and, henceforth, for months, there shall be no ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... each time until there are only seven left. This has to be done on both sides of the leg, so as to form the foot. Break off the wool, fasten it on at the top of the leg, then crochet down as far as the instep, and back again, doing one less each time till there are only two stitches left. Then down as far as the instep do an edging of treble crochet, then work another edging (button-hole stitch) all round the edging of flourishing thread. Then join ...
— Little Folks - A Magazine for the Young (Date of issue unknown) • Various
... she saw that the back of his neck was suddenly red. But the discovery awakened nothing of the coquette in her. Quite the contrary, there was something grateful, even gravely maternal, in the smile hovering on her lips for the rough trooper who took fright like a girl over a revealed instep. Still, the interest was not altogether maternal as she watched him doing the same service for Berthe. Perhaps he was too far away, or perhaps practice brought indifference, but at any rate, his neck was no longer tinged ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... smooth-shaven and powdered, wearing blue and yellow, and their long boots; soldiers with black queues in eelskin, tiny mustaches turned up at the waxed ends, and long black, buttoned spatter-dashes strapped at instep ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... was not in the least afraid of Eliza. She kissed that ferocious head in spite of the glare of that steady yellow eye; and yet all with an air of trusting to Anthony's protection. She tore her silk stocking across the instep in a bramble and scratched her foot, without even drawing attention to it, as she followed him along one of his short cuts through the copse; and it was only by chance that he saw it. And then this gallant girl, so simple and ignorant as she seemed out of doors, was like ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson |
