"Nervously" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... responded curtly. There was no trace of his usual urbanity and he chewed nervously upon the end of an ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... and there's nothing to argue about," Esther said stiffly. She had taken off her gloves and was flattening them out nervously. "You offered me your friendship, and now I decline it. I suppose I ...
— The Phantom Lover • Ruby M. Ayres
... to think, he took from the roll four fifty dollar notes, thrust one into the pocket of Paul's overcoat, which hung up in the office, drew off his right boot and slipped the other three into the bottom of it, and put it on again. He then nervously resumed his place at his desk. A moment afterwards, Paul, who had been to the post-office, entered with letters which he carried into the inner office and deposited on Mr. Danforth's desk. He observed the roll of bills, and thought his employer careless in leaving so much ...
— Paul Prescott's Charge • Horatio Alger
... name, and he awoke from his reverie with a chill and a shudder and a sense of indefinable dread creeping over him—a dread of what, he could not tell. A handful of chips blazed up brightly and lit up the cabin with their flickering light as he turned nervously toward the patient, quiet face behind him. The eyes, shaded by the long black eyelashes, were still on the fire, and while he was confident that he had not been called, he was dimly conscious of a great change that had taken place. As he still looked anxiously at the faded features, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... better go back," said Highboy nervously. "It's time I was asleep. Suppose we should be found ...
— The Cat in Grandfather's House • Carl Henry Grabo
... Lo Ong, poking his claw nervously down the column. "'Keep away. Keep away.' One—two ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... STRANGER (retreating nervously). No offence meant, mate. We're in the same boat—you and me; we don't want to get fighting. My quarrel isn't with you. You go and tell Sir John that there's a gentleman come to see him—wants a few minutes ...
— Second Plays • A. A. Milne
... a disappointment; her mind felt suddenly relieved from an unpleasant responsibility. She went to her husband, who was nervously playing at the piano, and kissed him, almost reverently. It had been a temptation from which he had saved her. They talked that evening a good deal, planning what they would do if they could get over to Europe for a year, calculating ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick
... want now?" he asked, his hands writhing nervously. "I sent him the last lot of dust with the last lot of trade. Didn't he ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... sleep on the place. The walls of the lodge were creaking, the glass crashing and breaking, the two women in the adjoining room crying out nervously. The noise of the German fire was beginning to mingle with that of other explosives close at hand. He surmised that this was the smashing of the French projectiles which were coming in search of the ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... you," she answered, nervously clasping and unclasping her hands; "but if you do not put it together without help, that means very great ill-luck for both you ...
— In a Steamer Chair And Other Stories • Robert Barr
... War of 1870 revived and intensified military rivalry and military preparations on the part of all the powers of Europe. A new scramble for colonies and possessions overseas began, with the late comers nervously eager to make up for time lost. In this reaction Britain shared. Protection raised its head again in England; only by tariffs and tariff bargaining, the Fair Traders insisted, could the country hold its own. Odds and ends of territory overseas were annexed and a new value was ...
— The Canadian Dominion - A Chronicle of our Northern Neighbor • Oscar D. Skelton
... still more tense as everybody leaned forward to hear the answer. Uncle Abinidab glanced at the sisters nervously, then cleared ...
— Continuous Vaudeville • Will M. Cressy
... risen nervously from his seat, and leaning one arm on the back of the chair, uttered the last words hastily, as if impelled thereto by a sudden overwhelming emotion. His eyes were fixed on the floor, only once in a while looking furtively up, as if to watch the effect ...
— Sister Carmen • M. Corvus
... have had a long day. How beautiful those flowers are! They scent the room already. English flowers are sweeter than our flowers used to be. But we had a lovely garden, hadn't we?" She was speaking very nervously, and she kissed Rhoda again as she took her hat and jacket from her. "I am so glad Miss Merivale ...
— Miss Merivale's Mistake • Mrs. Henry Clarke
... scarcely look at him. As the sonorous words fell on his ear, he was grasping nervously with shaking hands at the front of the dock. He appeared stunned, bewildered, as a man but half-awakened from a hideous dream might be supposed to look. He had comprehended, though he had scarcely heard, the verdict; for on ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... tightly. Her brother was searching the room with big, velvet black eyes. I studied the faces of the several visitors; and Smith was staring about him with the old alert look, and tugging nervously at the lobe of his ear. The name of the giant foe of the white race instantaneously had strung him up to a ...
— The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... on the mantel-piece, and nervously resealed the letter, which he then took to the box where the letters were usually left, not wishing anyone to know that Raoul's letter ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... tuning their violins. The chairs arrayed along the walls were thinly occupied, and as yet the social temperature scarce rose to thawing-point. In fact, the second-rate people had arrived, and from the far end of the room were nervously watching the door for notables. Consequently my entrance drew a disquieting fire of observation. The mirrors, reflectors, and girandoles had eyes for me; and as I advanced up the perspective of waxed floor, the very boards ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the Little Woman, she leaned back in her chair and began laughing hysterically. This was alarming. I knew it could not be her brother who had just sailed for Japan, and I glanced about nervously, having in mind a composite vision of my Aunt Jane, who had once invaded our home with disastrous results, and an old college chum, who only visited me when in ...
— The Van Dwellers - A Strenuous Quest for a Home • Albert Bigelow Paine
... Todd," answered the old man, pausing. "Ah, Mr. Harkless, I was looking for you." He had not seemed to be looking for anything beyond the boundaries of his own dreams, but he approached Harkless, tugging nervously at some papers in his pocket. "I have completed my notes for our Saturday edition. It was quite easy; there ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... he answered nervously; his face was pale, his shifty eyes avoided hers.' It is eleven o'clock, but I could not get the key before. Follow me closely and silently, child; and in a few minutes you ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... trembled in her sister's, which closed on it nervously. "I would marry him that very minute, of course. But such things ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... night I could see that Hubbard was worrying considerably. Nervously active by habit, he found delay doubly hard. The days we had spent on Lake Disappointment in a vain search for a river had been particularly trying on his nerves, and had left him a prey to many fears. The spectre of an early winter in this sub-Arctic land began to ...
— The Lure of the Labrador Wild • Dillon Wallace
... hundred yard mark, sitting position, and since I have watched a few rounds, I am able to tell you the way of it.—As the guns become silent with the disappearance of the targets the Lieutenant calls, "Next men up!" Those who have just shot rise and nervously stand aside, to watch the scoring of their ten shots. The new men, while loading and locking their pieces, also watch the record of their predecessors. Passing behind D Company a few minutes ago, I saw the flag cross one target six times. ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French
... to the right, seems to be in great agitation, controls himself nervously, steps upon the threshold at the right and addresses those about to enter). This way, if you please. (He steps aside for ANTOINETTE and LASKOWSKI, and makes a short bow). We are very ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... the hour has come for refreshments, Madam President!" she said urbanely, and the meeting was nervously adjourned. Under the animation thus induced an approximate equilibrium was restored. The ladies gulped down chicken salad, many of them using forks with black thread tied about them to show they were borrowed from Mrs. Eubanks. They drank ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... this," he cried, nervously. "Some disinterested person ought to witness this. Then 'twill hold in law. Where's that—that Howes girl? Oh, here you be! Here! you sign that as ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln
... win her—and before others could seriously approach her. He was already nervously jealous of Sorell—and contemptuously jealous of Radowitz. And if they could torment him so, what would it be when Constance passed into that larger world of society to which sooner or later she was bound? No, she was to be wooed and married ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... picture of him as he looked at thirty—a picture by no means pleasing. He looked conceited, and almost savagely proud of the isolation in which he lived. There was a touch of exaggeration in his appearance—a dash of Werther, with a few flourishes of Jingle! Nervously sensitive to ridicule, self-conscious, suffering deeply from his inability to express himself through his art, Henry Irving, in 1867, was a very different person from the Henry Irving who called on me at ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... into the parlour, walking round nervously while he waited. Half an hour went by. He watched the clock anxiously, than desperately. The minutes were slipping by so fast that he was afraid there would be no time for his turn before the bus started to the train. What if the other man ...
— Flip's "Islands of Providence" • Annie Fellows Johnston
... really going to be married to-morrow?" he exclaimed, his sallow face twitching nervously. "O God, it was another man that I dreamed to see standing by Marie's side. But he is not here; he has disgraced and deserted me. Well, I will come, if my gaolers will suffer it. Good-bye, you happy bridegroom ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard
... nervously, and at last propounded a great question: "Say, I wonder where they all are recruited? When you come to think that ...
— The Third Violet • Stephen Crane
... said Tom, answering the unspoken question. 'You will find it all here. Ethel, do I sleep here to-night? My old room?' As he spoke, he bent to light a spill at the fire, and then the two candles on the side-table; but his hand shook nervously, and though he turned away his face, his father and sister saw the paleness of his cheek, and knew that he must have received a great shock. Neither spoke, while he put one candle conveniently for his father, took up the other, and went away with it. With one inquisitive ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... first day Alfred, nervously awaiting his cue to enter the ring as a clown, cautiously peered through the red damask curtains at the dressing room entrance. A boy on a top seat nearby caught sight of the white-painted face. In an ecstacy of joy he clapped his hands, shouting: "Oh, there's the old clown, there's the old clown." ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... flared up, and the band emerged with thumping step and emphatic grunts to illustrate the ceremonious visit of strangers to a camp at which the nature of the reception was in doubt. One individual, in chalk for the most part, advanced, half nervously, half anxiously, to the musician, and modestly retired, and advanced again and retired, until reassured, and then the crowd came forward whirling and grunting, and, with high-waving arms in unison and swaying bodies, gave ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... on; with marchings and counter-marchings, and every word nervously italicised. In the end they dined precisely where there was room for them in that new world which ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... wheel, and he glared at his binnacle like a wild man. Now and then he gave a swift look around him, nervously, but the old man's assurance had some effect upon him. Yet once I heard ...
— Sweetapple Cove • George van Schaick
... other than a bewilderingly alluring fury. He could not hide his thoughts, and Dolores saw them betrayed on his face; Pascherette surprised the look on her mistress's lovely face that told her the imperious beauty possessed a heart of living flesh and blood. And Pascherette shuddered nervously at the fear of what must happen should ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... they, on the other hand, had lowered themselves to the mute, submissive regularity of the beast—went and came daily in the same occupations with the infallible accuracy of mechanism. But, as they said in their idiom, they had eaten their white bread first. Mademoiselle Cormon, like all persons nervously agitated by a fixed idea, became hard to please, and nagging, less by nature than from the need of employing her activity. Having no husband or children to occupy her, she fell back on petty details. She talked for hours about mere nothings, on a dozen napkins marked "Z," placed in ...
— An Old Maid • Honore de Balzac
... hurriedly down the path toward her car, leaving Conscience standing on the terrace, with her lips parted and her hands nervously clenched. ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... to stop, to throw ourselves upon the protection of our flag," and Mr. Howland laughed nervously. "But it was no use. I believe I reared a Frankenstein monster when I selected him as the man to land our guns. Frankly he as much as told me to mind my business. He's in a fighting mood now; his jaws are set like steel-traps—I ...
— Dan Merrithew • Lawrence Perry
... all it seems to me that your great trouble is not in yourselves but in social institutions. Which haven't yet fitted themselves to people like you two. It is the sense of uncertainty makes her, as you say, adhesive. Nervously so. If we were indeed living in a new age Instead of the moral ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells
... mysterious, and evidently inquisitive as to the state of my finances, exhibiting on his own part hasty glimpses of a brass medal wrapped up in fine wool, which he wished me to look upon as a double ducat. When we got to the inn-door, my friend made a hurried proposition very nervously, which made his purpose clear. There were sixty English miles of road between us and Berlin; he was knocked up, and a fast coach, or rumbling omnibus, accommodating six insides, would start for Berlin in the morning. He thought he could bargain with the coachman ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... She spoke to me shyly, as though aware of my hurried calculation, and conscious that in five years she ought not to have altered so much as to upset my notion of time. Then she seemed to set it down to her dress, for she nervously gathered her cloak over a gown that asked only to be concealed, and shrank into a seat behind the line of prehensile bipeds blocking ...
— The Greater Inclination • Edith Wharton
... while of this and that indifferent topic, but it was clear that they were both preoccupied and they soon fell silent. The Colonel indeed, was nervously sensible that fate was closing in about him, and that he might, at any moment, be betrayed into a false step. For, despite his practical, Yankee common-sense, the old soldier was something of a fatalist, and in ...
— A Venetian June • Anna Fuller
... morning of her return from Messina, she wore a blue serge yachting suit with a golf cloak hanging from her shoulders, and as she crossed the terrace she pulled nervously at her gloves and held out her hand covered with jewels to each of ...
— The King's Jackal • Richard Harding Davis
... light-brown fur rug round his knees. Before their astonishment permitted the remark that some one must have stopped at the wrong house, the door opened and the most demure parlour-maid in England stood nervously holding the handle. ...
— Enter Bridget • Thomas Cobb
... nervously, "I have something to say to you,—something I must say. Will you give me the privilege of a few ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... upon the bosom of her white dress, and they made her face look whiter and her eyes look larger as she nodded her head. There were spots of ink upon the hand with which she stood before him, nervously plaiting and folding her ...
— The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices • Charles Dickens
... these names estranged him to her again; she clung the closer to his arm, and caught her breath nervously as they turned in with the crowd that was climbing the stairs to the box-office of the theatre. Bartley left her a moment, while he pushed his way up to the little window and bought the tickets. "First-rate seats," he said, coming ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... hurriedly that her stick clicked like a girlish heel; but in the hall she paused, wondering nervously if Katy had put a match to the fire. The autumn air was cold and she had the reproachful vision of a visitor with elderly ailments shivering by her inhospitable hearth. She thought instinctively of the stranger as a survivor of the days when such a visit was ...
— Crucial Instances • Edith Wharton
... Mr. Rose's fingers worked nervously; "but I couldn't stay still, I'd go crazy. I think I'll push on and take ...
— Two Little Women • Carolyn Wells
... her nervously. "You seem to be getting round to the state of mind," said he, "where you'll be in danger of ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... She looked about nervously for something to clutch. There was a muslin kerchief lying on the table; she took it up and tore it into shreds as she walked up and down, and then pressed it into hard balls ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... to cling upon the darkness. The candle flared up for an instant, revealing black, mysterious aisles among the ponderous tree-trunks, then guttered down and almost went out, the darkness seeming to swoop in upon its defeat. The woman examined it, found that it was all but done, and glanced nervously over her shoulder. Then she made anxious haste to empty and replace the last of the birchen cups before she should be left in darkness to grope her way ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... near the waterfront. There were other buildings nearby, but they seemed smaller; the warehouse loomed over Malone and Boyd threateningly. They stood in a shadow-blacked alley just across the street, watching the big building nervously, studying it for ...
— The Impossibles • Gordon Randall Garrett
... the sentiment unconsciously expressed by the lady who was distributing tracts in the streets of London. She handed one to a cabman; he glanced at it, handed it back, touched his hat and politely said: "Thank you, lady, I am a married man." [Laughter.] She looked nervously at the title, which was, "Abide with me" [laughter], and hurriedly departed. Under this inspiration we agree with the proverb of the Eastern sage: "To be constant in love to one is good; to be constant to many is great." [Laughter.] But we must remember, while the critical eyes of our ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... with O'Riley?" said Fred, pointing to that eccentric individual, who was gazing intently at the bears, muttering between his teeth, and clinching his cudgel nervously. ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... the table, and sat on the rock hearth close to the fire, her withered lips shut tight about a lighted pipe, and her sunken eyes glowing like the coal of fire in its black bowl. Now and then she would stretch her knotted hands nervously into the flames, or knit them about her knees, looking closely at the heavy faces about her, which had lightened a little with expectancy. Rufe Stetson stood before the blaze, his hands clasped behind ...
— A Cumberland Vendetta • John Fox, Jr.
... have accompanied, nervously twitched up the collar of his cloak, and his compressed lips told that he felt the anguish of the ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... ladyship followed Lucia to her room. She stood before her, arranging the manacles on her wrists nervously. ...
— A Fair Barbarian • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... muttered Hazel. 'Maybe the black meet's set for to-night and she's scented the jeath pack.' She looked about nervously. 'I can see summat driving dark o'er the pastures yonder; ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb
... the "Plaisance." Just then two Turks came trotting by with a sedan chair in which was seated a nervous-looking woman who seemed anxious to reach the place from which the medley of noises seem to be issuing. She nervously grasped the sides of the chair and looked at the bent form of the toiling Ottoman in front. Over the bridge they went, the carriers executing a double shuffle diagonally down the steep descent. The passenger opened ...
— The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair - Their Observations and Triumphs • Charles McCellan Stevens (AKA 'Quondam')
... who, attempting to speak to Nelson in regard to the subject-matter of their previous dispute, was met by an insulting refusal to listen. It now appears that when Nelson made this offensive remark, Davis threw a small paper ball that he was nervously rolling between his fingers into Nelson's face, and that this insult was returned by Nelson slapping Davis (Killed by a Brother Soldier.—Gen. J. B. Fry.) in the face. But at the time, exactly what had taken place just before the shooting was shrouded ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... Where?" He starts nervously about, and confronts Mr. McIlheny bearing down upon him with a countenance of ...
— The Albany Depot - A Farce • W. D. Howells
... for their own dwelling. It is pleasant to know that this is not the case. The hermit-crab is in fact a sea-gentleman, who is so unfortunate as to be born naked, and quite unable to make his own clothes, and who goes nervously about the world, trying on other people's cast-off coats till he finds one ...
— Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... "Hush!" said his friend, nervously; "I think I hear voices. If we are overheard by any one, we may be betrayed and pounced upon at ...
— Looking Seaward Again • Walter Runciman
... up in the dark nervously. "And it might have been true. It was true. It has come. Here it is. This is the to-morrow we have ...
— To-morrow • Joseph Conrad
... of our companion-way with three cups of boiling cocoa in his hands, slips and thunders to the bottom. There is a chaotic mixture of scalded boy, broken cups, and steam on the floor, and we giggle nervously in ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... he nervously asked the car that was pushing him. "I feel my wheels going round and round underneath me and I can't stop them. Can't you just hear me creak? I'm afraid I ...
— Here and Now Story Book - Two- to seven-year-olds • Lucy Sprague Mitchell
... boats were accustomed to range far and wide, and often did not return to the schooner until long after dark. But for all that it was a perfect hunting day, Chris noted a growing anxiety on the part of the sailing-master. He paced the deck nervously, and was constantly sweeping the horizon with his marine glasses. Not a boat was in sight. As sunset arrived, he even sent Chris aloft to the mizzen-topmast-head, but with no better luck. The boats could not possibly be ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London
... Indeed, had I not committed some fatal mistake, and left that trusty servant behind, and had not some wizard of the night stepped into his place? A slight splashing in-shore broke the spell and caused me to turn nervously to the oarsman: "Musquash," said he, and kept ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... a locket, or a cross, or a miniature, perhaps, attached to it; but whatever the trinket was, she always kept it hidden under her dress. Once or twice, while she sat silently thinking, she removed one of her hands from before her face, and fidgeted nervously with the ribbon, clutching at it with a half-angry gesture, and twisting it backward and forward between ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... thereupon gingerly entered, on the tips of his toes, with his hands fumbling nervously about in the breast of his kaftan; for the poor fellow's hands were resinous to a degree. Wash and scrub them as he might, the resin would persist in cleaving to them. His awl, too, was still sticking in the folds of his turban—sticking forth aloft right gallantly like some heron's plume. ...
— Halil the Pedlar - A Tale of Old Stambul • Mr Jkai
... foolish, apologetic grin with which he always used to respond to these personalities, hanging his head to one side and opening and shutting his big hands nervously. ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... up nervously from her chair; she tried to speak lightly. "I am going to be no one's, Mr. Gibbon," she said. "As I walked along to-night I have been making up my mind what to do. I shall take a small house for us all, and try to keep a little school. You shall see how well I keep my pupils ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... Roy I would not tell," replied Helen, nervously. She averted her eyes from his searching gaze, intuitively ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... away, apparently prepared to obey his employer with all the energy he possessed. He went down the dimly-lighted stairs quickly, but he glanced nervously upwards, as if he fancied that Isidore Bamberger might have silently opened the door again to look over the banister and watch him from above. In the dark entry below he paused a moment, and took a satisfactory pull at a stout flask before ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford
... still," said the woman, still tumbling the contents of the cup-board about nervously. "I shall find something pretty for you presently; then you must sit down quietly and play with it, and not go outside, not one step, do you hear? Pshaw! there is nothing ...
— Veronica And Other Friends - Two Stories For Children • Johanna (Heusser) Spyri
... much as his prey; and in pursuing the fish, run through the poor Chamois with a lunge. A jacket, rolled up, was kept in readiness to be thrust into the first opening made; while as the thousand fins audibly patted against our slender planks, we felt nervously enough; as if treading upon thin, ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... later, Mrs. Thayne, still nervously sewing, heard Mr. Fisher run up the steps and Estelle hurry to the door. A few brief seconds sufficed to give the explanation ...
— The Spanish Chest • Edna A. Brown
... imagination: he remembered his last parting from his father and his wife; he remembered the days when he first loved her. He thought of her pregnancy and felt sorry for her and for himself, and in a nervously emotional and softened mood he went out of the hut in which he was billeted with Nesvitski and began to walk up and down ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... time he received a nervously anxious letter from his poor old aunt, on the subject which had previously distressed her—a fear that Jude would not be strong-minded enough to keep away from his cousin Sue Bridehead and her relations. Sue's father, his aunt believed, had gone back to London, but the girl ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... had forgotten that the fellow could not be expected to have any sense. When her people came at last, he had sprinkled her face, and she had unconsciously swallowed enough of the water to have some effect in reviving her. She began to open her eyes, and her fingers moved nervously. Nino found his hat, and, casting one glance around the room that had just witnessed such strange doings, passed through the door and went out. The baroness was left with her servants. Poor woman! She did very wrong, perhaps, but anybody would have loved her—except Nino. She ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... nephew. Joseph, however, did not speak. Instead, he turned to the wall at his side and pressed a bell. A moment later a maid-servant opened the private door which communicated with the house, and looked inquiringly and a little nervously inside. ...
— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher
... of inspection, some of the victims waddle, some hurry; some look up and down nervously, others glance over the shoulder as if dreading to be apprehended; some turn red, others pale, according to complexion and temperament; some swing their arms, others trip on their gowns; some twitch the buttons of a glove, or tweak a flower or a jewel. Francesca rose superior to all these ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... so glibly now. "However," said she, a little nervously, "there is one condition to it that will cost us both some pain. If you consent to accept these two estates from me, who don't value them one straw, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... what he called me," she said nervously, looking about the room as if she expected her sometime captor ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... was turned directly toward Tom. She reached forward for the poker and began nervously prodding the fire. Tom caught the hand that held the poker. Unclasping her limp fingers from about it, he set it impatiently in place. "Look at me, Grace, not at ...
— Grace Harlowe's Problem • Jessie Graham Flower
... hat from the tips of his fingers to a subordinate. He showed us a table quite silently, handed the menu over to a maitre d'hotel and promptly departed. Looking round a little nervously I could see him gazing at us from his sanctum over the top ...
— An Amiable Charlatan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... to the combination, he turned it slowly, by delicate degrees, waiting for the telltale click. They saw him set his teeth and grow eager as a hound on a scent of blood; they saw the fingers move rapidly and nervously, and then came a click which was audible through the entire room, and the door of the safe swung open. Still no one stirred, no one breathed. He took out a small canvas bag, he untied the top, he spilled the contents out, and then they saw ...
— Harrigan • Max Brand
... Colonel who had snatched up his cap when he heard Walters coming, grinned painfully, pulling his straggly red and white beard nervously. The strain was beginning to tell on his iron nerves. He removed the cap, and with a few muttered words went back to the game, but there was a dangerous gleam in his fishy blue eyes, and the grizzled tufts of red hair above his eyes lowered threateningly. A man ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 22, September, 1891 • Various
... with his back against a tree, watched the two generals as they talked long and earnestly. Now and then Stuart nervously switched the tops of his own high riding boots with the little whip that he carried, but the face of Lee, revealed clearly in the near twilight, remained ...
— The Shades of the Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... doctor, entering the hall. "What, Tom, my boy, what is it?" as he saw the poor child, white, cold, almost sick with apprehension, with every pulse throbbing, and looking positively ill. He took the chilly, damp hand, which shook nervously, and would ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... so good as to be sufficiently interested, I will tell you. It is because a temptation which hitherto I have been able to resist, has during the last thirty minutes become too strong for me. You know everything has its breaking strain." He puffed nervously at his cigar, threw it into the sea, paused, then went on: "Miss Clifford, I have dared to fall in love with you. No; hear me out. When I have done it will be quite time enough to give me the answer that I expect. Meanwhile, for the first time in my life, allow me the luxury of being in ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard
... story-teller," said our visitor, nervously clasping and unclasping his great, strong hands. "You'll just ask me anything that I don't make clear. I'll begin at the time of my marriage last year, but I want to say first of all that, though I'm not a rich man, my people ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... girl, and then, as Garman moved his horse toward her, she bowed her head and pulled her mount away from Garman's. "Very well, aunty," she said nervously, and there was relief in her bearing as ...
— The Plunderer • Henry Oyen
... haltingly spoken, and the speaker was evidently relieved when it was over. Yet there had been amazing truth in what he had said, and it came to the two visitors with the force of newness. As he mopped his perspiring brow with a large handkerchief and sat down, adjusting his collar and necktie nervously, they watched him, and marvelled again that he had been willing to be put in so trying a position. There had been a genuineness about him that brought conviction. This young man really believed in Christ and that He ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... The company began nervously to disperse. Some exhorted one another to observe some feature of the cromlechs which was only visible from some point of vantage on the side other to that on which we stood. Others agreed that they had no idea that it was so late, ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates
... which he wrote a few words with a pencil, and the individual departed. The information, whatever it may have been, had deeply affected the man to whom it had been brought. He did not stand still, as before, but walked nervously about, looked pale, care-worn, and miserably anxious. He referred to his book a dozen times—restored it frequently to his pocket, and had it out again immediately for surer satisfaction, or for further calculations. In about ten minutes, "the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... material of his coat. Of the others he commenced to make a close and minute investigation. It was a curious fact, however, that notwithstanding his recent searching examination, he looked once more nervously around the saloon before he settled down to his task. For some reason or other, there was not the slightest doubt that for the present, at any rate, Mr. Hamilton Fynes was exceedingly anxious to keep his own company. As ...
— The Illustrious Prince • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... slowly away, his face radiant with the exultation of the scene which has just passed. The movement shifts his field of vision, into the corner of which there now comes the tail of Louka's double apron. His eye gleams at once. He takes a stealthy look at her, and begins to twirl his moustache nervously, with his left hand akimbo on his hip. Finally, striking the ground with his heels in something of a cavalry swagger, he strolls over to the left of the table, opposite her, and says) Louka: do you know ...
— Arms and the Man • George Bernard Shaw
... well for the purposes of the hoaxers that Mr. Pucker's trepidation prevented him from making a calm perusal of the paper; he was nervously doing his best to turn the nonsensical English word by word into equally nonsensical Latin, when his limited powers of Latin writing were brought to a full stop by the untranslatable word "bosh." As he could ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... and went his way hurriedly, his pale lips working nervously with the excitement that filled him. The mountain of difficulty was there, implacably blocking the way. But beyond was the door of opportunity, and the door was ajar. There must, thought Peter, be some way to pass the mountain and ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... book I was so fond of, and worked over, and meant to finish before Father got home? Have you really burned it?" said Jo, turning very pale, while her eyes kindled and her hands clutched Amy nervously. ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... up at an electric clock with an oversized second hand. His fingers moved nervously on the switch, then threw it to cut contact. The dynamo keened its dying note. A silence so tense that it ...
— The Raid on the Termites • Paul Ernst
... turned very pale. He signed to the waiter for the bill, and when it was discharged, sat regarding his companion with round eyes, At last, clearing his throat, he said nervously: ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... his scent against the wind, and yet, if not, why had he halted so suddenly? And why did he stand there sniffing the air? The wolves settled upon their haunches with tongues a-loll and eyed their leader, or moved nervously back and forth in the background sniffing inquisitively. During this interval the boy took in every detail of the great brute he had set out to capture. More conspicuous even than his great size was the enormous ruff of long hair that covered ...
— Connie Morgan in the Fur Country • James B. Hendryx
... bright, Sybilla," said Doctor Lombard. His face had grown solemn, and his mouth twitched nervously as his daughter drew a linen drapery across the upper part of ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 1 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... difference when it goes, Mr. Conward. I'm not going on it." Her voice trembled nervously, but there was no ...
— The Cow Puncher • Robert J. C. Stead
... and forgive me if I appeared to battle about words, as certain scholars of the olden time were fain to do, for in truth it is rather about the hard duty before me than any imperfection in your teaching I would speak," and the Rabbi glanced nervously at ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... before my own typewriter at night, privileged to write one hundred thousand words if I choose. I can't get over the habit of crowding the story all into the first paragraph. Whenever I flower into a descriptive passage I glance nervously over my shoulder, expecting to find Norberg stationed behind me, scissors and blue pencil in hand. Consequently the book, thus far, sounds very much like a police reporter's story of a fire four minutes before the paper is due to ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... fertilizer,—and what he has not in stock he can give you an order for at the store across the way. Here, then, comes the tenant, Sam Scott, after he has contracted with some absent landlord's agent for hiring forty acres of land; he fingers his hat nervously until the merchant finishes his morning chat with Colonel Saunders, and calls out, "Well, Sam, what do you want?" Sam wants him to "furnish" him,—i.e., to advance him food and clothing for the year, and perhaps seed and tools, until ...
— The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois
... South. There is a loud rap: the hum of voices ceases. The individual who gives the signal stands at a small table at the end of the long narrow hall. One hand rests upon the table, with the other he nervously toys with a gavel. He is a tall, lean, lank, ungainly chap, whose cheek bones as prominent as an Indian's seem to be on the eve of pushing through his sallow skin. A pair of restless black eyes, set far apart, are apparently at times hidden by the scowls that occasionally ...
— Hanover; Or The Persecution of the Lowly - A Story of the Wilmington Massacre. • David Bryant Fulton
... the sheik, fingering his beard nervously. "You told me you were sent to me by a Spirit—I ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... courage, and eloquence. "Strike me, O my father!" His quick, clear sagacity measured instantly all the danger in that challenge; and though his voice was thick and agitated (for, monster as he was at that moment, he could not but shrink from striking at every mother's heart at his feet), he nervously gave the word to remove the child, and bind her. The united strength of several women was not more than enough to loose the clasp of those loving arms from the neck of an unworthy mother. The tender hands and feet were bound, and the tender heart was broken. ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... is writing a novel. Every time I go into the post-office I see scared-looking people getting their manuscripts weighed, and nervously looking round for fear of being caught. Nan says it's a kind of literary measles people have in Indiana. Aunt Josephine's cook writes poetry—burnt up a pan of biscuits the other day when she was trying to find a ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... hurry to move forward till the errand upon which he had announced he meant to send the Americans, had been accomplished. The morning was spent by the three lads in strolling about the camp, striving their utmost to appear at their ease, but starting nervously every time an out-rider came into camp. Every hoof-beat upon the road was eloquent with signification for them. Ramon could not be far off now. In this wearing manner passed the morning hours. For some time they had seen nothing of Bob Harding, when suddenly, loud voices, in which that ...
— The Border Boys Across the Frontier • Fremont B. Deering
... Egbert looked at her nervously through his glasses. To get the worst of an argument with her was no new experience. To get the worst of a monologue was a ...
— Reginald in Russia and Other Sketches • Saki (H.H. Munro)
... who held the privilege of being a member of Harlowe House in her hands overcame the quaint stranger with a sudden shyness. She shifted her weight uneasily from one foot to the other, twisted her thin, bony hands nervously, while her forehead was corrugated afresh with ...
— Grace Harlowe's Return to Overton Campus • Jessie Graham Flower
... conspirators, Rivers and Munro, earnestly engaged in discourse; to which, as it concerns materially our progress, we may well be permitted to lend our attention. They spoke on a variety of topics entirely foreign to the understanding of the half-affrighted and nervously-susceptible, but still resolute young girl who heard them; and nothing but her deep anxieties for one, whose own importance in her eyes at that moment she did not conjecture, could have sustained her while listening to a dialogue full of atrocious intention, and larded throughout ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... like," responded the minister, sitting erect and tapping the carpet nervously with his foot. "Only you must understand that I will take the whole matter to the Quarterly Conference in July. I already see a good many other interesting questions about the financial management of this church which might be ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... challenged by the Doctor to a game of shuffleboard. Da Souza remained in his chair, his eyes blinking as though with the sun, and his hands gripping nervously ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... swiftly about the room, taking in the familiar details. Nothing had been changed. She could see her father leaning against the desk, his great shoulders hunched forward, his big hands nervously toying with the glass paper-weight, his blue eyes fixed upon the silent figure in the swivel-chair. Again she could hear the ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... was indescribable. His visage was overspread with a yellow-greenish pallor, his lips were contracted nervously, and already opened for a word of anger. But he suppressed that word with an effort; for though not yet familiar with all the forms and usages of society, his fine tact and the instinct of what was becoming told him that when the conversation ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... mere diction was concerned, indeed, Mr. Fox did his best to avoid those faults which the habit of public speaking is likely to generate. He was so nervously apprehensive of sliding into some colloquial incorrectness, of debasing his style by a mixture of parliamentary slang, that he ran into the opposite error, and purified his vocabulary with a scrupulosity unknown to any purist. "Ciceronem Allobroga dixit." ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Sir Lucius approached them. Frank plucked nervously at his tie, unbuttoned and then re-buttoned his coat. He felt that he had been entirely blameless during the scrimmage on the gangway of the steamer, but Lord Torrington did not look like a man who would readily own himself to be in ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham
... their strength. He warned them that there would be a long strain upon them, and that any lack of common sense, as regards their own health, would certainly diminish the patient's chances of recovery. Nobody had his clearest judgment and his quickest observation at command, when nervously exhausted. Everything might depend on a moment's decision, a moment's swiftness of insight. The warning was not thrown away, but both sisters found ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... nervously over the music-strings—as the creative hand might do with a human heart of whose destiny there was a doubt. For an instant a pang of agony wreathed the young face to the depth of its expressions, but she resumed her sorrowful ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... a word to his slave, and in his anxiety he feels the perspiration breaking out all over him, while his Tormentor chatters on, as they skirt the splendid Julian Basilica, gleaming in the morning sun. Horace looks nervously and eagerly to right and left, hoping to catch sight of a friend and deliverer. Not a friendly face was in sight, and the Bore knew it, and was pitilessly frank. 'Oh, I know you would like to get away from ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... the hands of Mr. Cannon. The next book, a thin one, had toppled over sideways and was bridging the vacancy at an angle; several other similar thin books filled up the remainder of the shelf. She stared, with the factitious interest of one who is very nervously awaiting an encounter, at the titles, and presently deciphered the words, 'Victor Hugo,' on each of the thin volumes. Her interest instantly became real. Characteristically abrupt and unreflecting, she deposited her basket on the floor and, going to the bookcase, took out the slanting volume. ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett |
