"Stair" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... have rested. Blessed Paul began making a duck- house; she let him be; the duck-house fell down, and she had to set her hand to it. He was then to make a drinking-place for the pigs; she let him be again - he made a stair by which the pigs will probably escape this evening, and she was near weeping. Impossible to blame the indefatigable fellow; energy is too rare and goodwill too noble a thing to discourage; but it's trying when she wants a rest. ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... said, "This is no time to trouble her. She is ill." "Let her decide," he answered, with a sneer. Before I found another word to say The maid tripped down again. I scarce believed My senses, when she beckoned him up the stair. Shaking from head to foot, I blocked the way. "Property!" Could the crux of mine and thine Bring widow and murderer into one small room? "Sir Lewis," I said, "she is ill. It is not right! She never would consent." He sneered again, "You are her doctor? Out of the ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... empty passageway, and down the basement-stair. The thick cobwebs swept my face. I noted them with joy, for I thought they proved that the house had been deserted for some time, and so perhaps it might ...
— The Valley of Vision • Henry Van Dyke
... could give the alarm, a terrible catastrophe would occur. He realized this, and made the supreme effort of his life to avert it. But fate was against him. In his mad haste to leap down the stair-way to give warning, his foot slipped, and he fell headlong to the floor of the lower deck, his temple, coming in contact with the railing, rendering him unconscious. Heaven was merciful to him that he did not realize what took place ...
— Kidnapped at the Altar - or, The Romance of that Saucy Jessie Bain • Laura Jean Libbey
... of the engagement, and to invite him to Priesthope.' Really, Aunt Mary sticks at nothing. I warn you solemnly, father, this is only the thin end of the wedge. Unless you stand firm now, she'll want to choose our new stair carpet for us next. Really, I think at her age she might take a little holiday, and leave the Almighty ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley
... he put his foot on the lowest stair he raised his hands to cover his face as though to shut out the visions ...
— The Bittermeads Mystery • E. R. Punshon
... in the sheepskin that lay at the foot of his bed, and of being carried in Diccon Bowman's arms down the silent darkness of the winding stair-way, with the great black giant shadows swaying and flickering upon the stone wall as the dull flame of the lamp swayed and flickered in the cold ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle
... killed when he minded what the guide told him? What guys camp in the Indian gardens? How much does it cost? Did any one ever climb up the side of the Canyon, say like one yonder where it looked like different colored stair steps going up? Did any one ever find gold in the canyon? How did they know it when they found it? Did Frank ever do any mining? What was placer mining?" And on and on, only the intermittently returning fear ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow
... waiting my hand I went from my breakfast to my study. My forenoons thereafter were spent at my desk, but with the understanding that if she got lonesome, mother was privileged to interrupt, and it often happened that along about eleven I would hear a softly-opened stair-door and then a call,—a timid call as if she feared to disturb me—"Haven't you done enough? Can't you come now?" There was no resisting this appeal. Dropping my pen, I went below and gave the rest of my day ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... Bright! Miss Lilywhite, I see you hiding in the croft! By yon steep stair of ruddy light The sun is climbing fast aloft; What makes the stealthy, creeping chill That hangs about the morning still?" Tinkle, tinkle in the pail: "Some one saunters up the vale, Pauses at the brook awhile, Dawdles at the meadow stile— Well! if ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... and hundreds of houses, once human habitations, now smashed down to their very foundations, or mangled so as to have lost all meaning, ruins containing nothing but broken stones and ashes and at the best here and there a stair banister, suspended in midair. And all destruction had not been wrought as a result of a long siege and its continuous assaults of gunfire and shells. In one night, at the command of the Russian authorities, ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... always marks the infrequent traveler, and poor Alfaretta caught the same fever of haste. Without a word of real farewell, now that she had come thus far at so much risk to speak it, she dashed ahead, slipped on the brass-tipped stair and plunged headlong into the ...
— Dorothy's Travels • Evelyn Raymond
... used for the cresting of some large piece of furniture, or may be adapted to fill screens or partitions, stair newels, and balusters, or it may be used as a cornice decoration in the manner suggested by No. 26, where the pierced work can be backed by a hollow cornice ...
— Wood-Carving - Design and Workmanship • George Jack
... long, low room and climbed the stair to a sort of half-room—unfinished, the roof sloping to the eaves. Westbury called it the kitchen-chamber, and it led to bedrooms—a large one and three small ones. Also, to a tiny one which in our dream we promptly converted into a bath-room. ...
— Dwellers in Arcady - The Story of an Abandoned Farm • Albert Bigelow Paine
... and glided to the door through which her brother had gone. There she was startled by the sight of him speeding cautiously down the stair. ...
— Bylow Hill • George Washington Cable
... in some houses when a young man is expected every evening. Iris blushed, and said that perhaps he was not coming. But he was, and his step was on the stair as she spoke. ...
— In Luck at Last • Walter Besant
... down." It was my own fault, I admit. We had talked this thing over before going to bed, and I myself had impressed upon Veronica the need for caution. The architect of the country cottage does not waste space. He dispenses with landings; the bedroom door opens on to the top stair. It does not do to walk out of your bedroom, for the reason there is nothing outside to walk on. I had said to Veronica, pointing out ...
— They and I • Jerome K. Jerome
... by Ralph Urphistone's little child. When the great man first felt the touch of those baby fingers upon his, he shuddered and half recoiled, but as the little one pulled him gently but persistently towards the stair, he gradually yielded to her persuasion, and followed till he had descended to the ground-floor and left the fatal house. I do not think any other power could have induced him to pass that blood-stained threshold. For he seems thoroughly broken down, and ...
— The Old Stone House and Other Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... weakness of a then present minister, and complained that he was dull and tardy, and knew little of affairs: "You may as well complain, sir," says Johnson, "that the accounts of time are kept by the clock; for he certainly does stand still upon the stair-head—and we all know that he is no great chronologer." In the year 1777, or thereabouts, when all the talk was of an invasion, he said most pathetically one afternoon, "Alas! alas! how this unmeaning stuff spoils all my comfort in my friends' conversation! Will ...
— Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. - during the last twenty years of his life • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... would not doubt that it was stern self-command which gave him that threatening glare, to seem terrible, in spite of his anguish, to those whose obedience he required. He had really needed his companion's support as they descended the stair, that she could plainly see; and she had observed, too, how carefully his guide had striven to conceal the fact that he was upholding him; but the courtier was too tall to achieve the task he had ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... was ready, each of us bought a taper, and the procession set out through the iron grating, down a narrow, winding stair, from which low, dark passages opened out at various angles. On each side of these narrow passages, along which we were led, reposed the "incorruptible" bodies of St. Antony and his comrades, in open coffins lacquered or covered with ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... when Mr. Linden was out of school could rarely be study times, except of study with him; and to be prepared for him Faith was eager. She took times that were hers all alone. Nobody heard her noiseless footfall in the early morning down the stair. Long before it was light,—hours before the sun thought of shewing his face to the white Mong and the snowy houseroofs of Pattaquasset, Faith lighted her fire in the sitting-room, and her lamp on the table; and after what in the first place was often a good while with her Bible, she bent herself ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... published in A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land, by W. R. Hughes, for the background of his drawing of "Durdles Cautioning Sapsea". There are, however, two other gatehouses, the "Prior's", a tower over an archway, containing a single room approached by a "postern stair", and "Deanery Gate", a quaint old house adjoining the Cathedral which has ten rooms, some of them beautifully panelled. Its drawing-room on the upper floor bears a strong resemblance to the room—as ...
— Dickens-Land • J. A. Nicklin
... it, there was a noise as of a rapid cavalcade traversing the Place Vendome, and stopping at the Marquis's door. A crowd appeared to mount the stair; the great doors of the reception-room were flung open, and two pages announced their Majesties the Emperor and the Empress. So engaged were Lanty and Blanche, that they never heard the tumult occasioned by the ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... think, when late at even I climb the stair reluctantly, Some shape that should be well in heaven, Or ill elsewhere, ...
— Poems • (AKA Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte) Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell
... to the butler, "was gone to bed—I'm sure of it—Nay, don't you recollect my taking this JAPANNED CANDLESTICK out of your hand, and making you to go up to bed with the brass one, and I bolted the door at the stair-head after you?" ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... said, 'I will have a purer gift; There is smoke in the flame; New flowerets bring, new prayers uplift, And love without a name. Fond children, ye desire To please each other well; Another round, a higher, Ye shall climb on the heavenly stair, And selfish preference forbear; And in right deserving, And without a swerving Each from your proper state, Weave ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... part of the hotel for which he was willing to pay rent. In fact he failed to thus impress them; failed in dark wrath, but, nevertheless, failed. At last he was simply forced to concede the travel of files of men up the broad, redcarpeted stair-case, each man being loaded with Coleman's luggage. The men in the hotel-bureau were then able to comprehend that the foreign gentleman might have something else on his mind. They raised their eye-brows languidly when he spoke ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... dwelling-house, without the written permission of the proprietor; and no tenant shall be entitled to remove from out the dwelling-house or offices possessed by him at the expiry of his lease, any roof, window, door, loft, stair, or other plenishing of a like fixed nature, even though furnished and put in by himself, unless his tack specially confers upon him such power; but the incoming tenant shall be bound to pay the outgoing tenant the ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... music, with the intention of seeing how long my lady would linger outside alone. Gentlemen, it was two hours before I saw her face again. How she got back into the house I do not know. It was not by the garden door, for my eye seldom left it; yet at or near half-past one I heard her voice on the stair above me and saw her descend and melt into the crowd as if she had not been absent from it for more than five minutes. A half-hour later I saw her with Frederick again. They were dancing, but not ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green
... so far broken or changed, that he was able to rise and follow him: even in his dreams he was a boy of courage, and feared nothing so much as yielding to fear. The figure went on, nor ever turned its head, up the stair to the room over that they had left—the best bedroom, the guest-chamber of the house—not often visited, and there it entered. Still following, Cosmo entered also. The figure walked across the room, as if making for the bed, but in the middle of the floor suddenly turned, ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... Jimmy, that I will," cried the little girl; "here, let us sit on this lowest stair; I don't think many people will be passing up now, and then I shall see mother when she ...
— Little Pollie - A Bunch of Violets • Gertrude P. Dyer
... other heraldic devices, a form of decoration which was also continued over the ceiling. The back part of the house was evidently the older; the same beautiful plaster-work was to be seen, both in the bedrooms and kitchen, together with fine black oak beams. There was a winding stair to the upper story, with narrow windows that suggested a castle, and that dull, dim, soft yellow-brown light about everything which only seems reflected from ancient walls. The front portion consisted of two great sitting-rooms, one of which was empty, while the other had been arranged ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... door for a senile lunatic, and herself for a poltroon. She became defiant of peril, until the sound of a step on the stair beyond the door threw her back into alarm. But when the figure of Miss Ingate appeared in the doorway she was definitely reassured, to the point of disdain. All her facial expression ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... his footsteps on the stair the playing of the piano ceased. He was surprised at what greeted him above. In startling contrast to the loathsome environment below he entered a luxuriously appointed room, heavily hung with oriental ...
— The Danger Trail • James Oliver Curwood
... at Jack, and smiled at herself in the Psyche, without at that time asking heaven why she was so unhappy. Then Constant threw over her shoulders a warm cloak, and accompanied her to the carriage, while Jack, leaning over the railing, watched from stair to stair, moving almost as if she were dancing the little pink slippers embroidered with silver, that bore his mother to balls where children could not go. As the last sound of the silver bells died away, he turned towards the salon, disturbed and anxious for the first time ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... they were ready. They ran down the stairway, Nora following with the suit cases, and laughing because they hopped on every other stair. ...
— Princess Polly's Playmates • Amy Brooks
... reached Jules even after he had mounted the stairs and closed the door. The child crept close to the cheerful fire, and, crouching down on the rug, waited in a shiver of nervousness for his uncle's step on the stair. ...
— The Gate of the Giant Scissors • Annie Fellows Johnston
... projecting steps of a staircase. Three steps were of necessity to project into the boudoir: they are therefore made triangular steps; and instead of being rested on the floor, as usual, they are made fast at their broad end to the stair door, swinging out and in, with that. When it shuts, it runs them under the other steps; when open it brings them out to their proper place. In the kitchen garden, are three pumps, worked by one horse. ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... from alley and square, To the wonderful palace the rats repair; And one old forager, grizzled and spare,— The wisest to plan and the boldest to dare, To smell out a prize or to find out a snare,— In some dark corner, beneath some stair (I never learned how, and I never knew where), Has gnawed his way into the grand affair; First one rat, and then a pair, And now a dozen or more are there. They caper and scamper, and blink and ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... her to climb the first three flights of stairs, Una realized how hot she was, how the clammy coolness of the hall was penetrated by stabs of street heat which entered through the sun-haloed windows at the stair landings. ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... the palace, the massive doors were thrown open, and the court passed in. The nurses bore the Princess Rosetta's basket up the grand marble stair, and carried ...
— The Pot of Gold - And Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins
... foot of her uncle Jonathan was heard upon the stair, and as he entered the room she bent the closer to her work. He glanced at the green fagots with a sneer, and looked askance at the bed and the white sheets, at the strip of carpet laid, like an island, on the great expanse of the stone floor, and at the ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... approached the iron gate of the churchyard. I saw the church door open; the sexton was replacing his pick, shovel, and spade, with which he had just been digging a grave in the churchyard, in their little repository under the stone stair of the tower. He was a polite, shrewd little hunchback, who was very happy to show me over the church. Among the monuments was one that interested me; it was erected to commemorate the very Squire Bowes from whom my two old maids had inherited the house and estate of Barwyke. ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... foot of the stair, under a feeble gas-jet, Christina opened her hand, disclosing an old-fashioned ring set ...
— Wee Macgreegor Enlists • J. J. Bell
... order. Horses and weemen noo. It's not a bad thing—a while wi' a lass after the horses are bedded and foddered, but horses first; and as for Joseph"—his smile broadened until I could see his teeth—"if it had been Dauvit the leddy had met on the stair, the meenisters wid never hiv heard a cheep about it. . ...
— The McBrides - A Romance of Arran • John Sillars
... terrify me much, and threatened to punish me if I discovered his wiles. It being my duty, as servitor, in my turn to knock at the gentlemen's rooms by ten at night, to see who were in their rooms, I thought the devil would appear to me every stair I went up.' ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... sitting up with him at night until he got the change and it was for the better. It might be a week after, I went to meet her on her way home from the place where she had been at work, and saw how slow she walked and the trouble she had in getting up the stair to our room. She gave me my supper and lay down on the bed to rest, for she said she was tired. Next morning she complained of headache and did not rise. Neighbors came in to see her now and then. I stayed by her, she had never been thus before. When it became dark she seemed ...
— The Narrative of Gordon Sellar Who Emigrated to Canada in 1825 • Gordon Sellar
... Thursday after breakfast his aunt produced a white waistcoat from the wardrobe, and Jean, dressed in his Sunday best, climbed on an omnibus which took him to the Rue de Rivoli. He mounted four flights of a staircase, the carpet and polished brass stair-rods of which filled ...
— The Aspirations of Jean Servien • Anatole France
... spellbound. Each advance marked a victory worthy of a battlefield. But at each step he was forced to pause and rally all his forces before he went on to the next. First he would twine his long fingers about the rail reaching up as far as he was able; then he would lift one limp leg and swing it to the stair above; he would then heave himself forward almost upon his face and drag the other leg to a level with the first, rouse himself as from a tendency to faint, and stand there blinking at the next stair with an agonized plea as for mercy written in the deep furrows of his face. The drunken candle ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... random, scarcely hearing her chatter, and listening, listening each instant for his step or voice on the stair. ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan
... story above the ground-floor, with four windows from which the panes shine cheerfully in the first rays of the sun, and upon the red-tiled roof two attics with pointed gable. The door, which one reaches by a broad stone stair, is framed by two vines, their vigorous branches stretching up to the side of the windows, yielding to the hand, when September is come, their velvety, ruby bunches. Behind the house, a little garden surrounded by a hedge of green, at once an ...
— The Grip of Desire • Hector France
... benevolence, according to circumstances, was sure to be the result. As he was one day poking through the passages, he suddenly encountered an enormously big, fat servant-woman, engaged in cleaning a stair. She was steaming with perspiration. Eyeing her curiously for a moment, "Ho, ho!" he cried (his usual introductory exclamation), "do you bake the bread?" The woman, staring in astonishment, and, fortunately for her own self-complacency, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... was hideously wrong. And to whom might she go for help or for advice? As though to answer her question came a foot-step on the stair. It was a slow, not very heavy step. It came to her door and there followed a sharp ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt
... away from the stair door and explained the situation to Mrs. Brown, who was very sober. But when Henry said that Dr. Hardy had asked the boys to come and that he would himself be with them in New York, the serious look vanished from Mrs. Brown's face. "That's all right, ...
— The Secret Wireless - or, The Spy Hunt of the Camp Brady Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss
... so ridiculous that the mother attempted to rush down stairs three at a time, to have her husband come up to the prayer meeting, when she stubbed herself on a stair rod, and—well, she got the black eye on the journey down stairs, though what hit her she will probably never know. But she said when she began to roll down stairs she felt in her innermost soul as though she had broke up that prayer ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck
... the steel landing stair snaked out, and the hefty Plekhanov stepped down, closely followed by Chessman. The others brought up the rear, Watson, Roberts, Stevens, Hawkins and Cogswell. They had hardly formed a compact group at the foot of ...
— Adaptation • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... down with him and filled the workshop with her chatter. At about eight, when it began to grow light, he heard her staggering step on the stair, and she remained with him until Ellen took her up in the evening by main force to put her to bed. She dragged all the tools together and piled them up in front of Pelle on the bench so that he could hardly move, and called it helping. Then ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... a portrait of him in Lord Suffolk's collection at Charlton.] who, because some of the noblemen there would go up-stairs to the Emperor before him, he would not go up till the Emperor had ordered those two men to be dragged down-stairs, with their heads knocking upon every stair till they were killed. And when he was come up, they demanded his sword of him before he entered the room. He told them, if they would have his sword, they should have his boots too. And so caused his boots to be pulled off, and his night- gown ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... crowded roadway, he passed through the narrow door and up the steep stair that ends so abruptly into the long, low supper-room ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... once rode Past guarded gates to trumpet sound, Along the devious ways that wound O'er drawbridges, through moats, and showed The vast St. Lawrence flowing, belt The Orleans Isle, and sea-ward melt; Then by old walls with cannon crowned, Down stair-like streets, to where we felt The salt winds blown o'er ...
— Memories of Canada and Scotland - Speeches and Verses • John Douglas Sutherland Campbell
... too," he answered. "I'd like to see your ghosts again." Then I heard Mr. Jermyn loitering at the stair-head while the Duke left the council-room. My hair was rising on my scalp; there was cold sweat on my forehead; it was as much as I could do to keep my teeth from chattering. I heard the Duke's feet upon the ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield
... kind of chamber which was about four feet wide and eight feet long. At the end of this was a stone stair-way which went down. Harry looked around, and took all this in at a glance. His first thought was ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille
... looking towards the stair-head. The passage was empty and ended in utter darkness. I glanced the other way, and thought I saw—though not distinctly—in the distance a white figure, not gliding in the conventional way, but limping off, with a sort of jerky motion, and, in ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... sing in the eaves and rose All in a strange delight while others slept, And down the creaking stair, alone, ...
— Spirits in Bondage • (AKA Clive Hamilton) C. S. Lewis
... the bed, and Sam didn't know whether Bill was dying or whether 'e 'ad got delirium trimmings. All 'e did know was that 'e wasn't going to sleep in that room. He shut the door gently and went downstairs agin, feeling in 'is pocket for a match, and, not finding one, 'e picked out the softest stair 'e could find and, leaning his 'ead agin the banisters, went ...
— Odd Craft, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... building shook, and Lady Mar, almost insensible with terror, received the exhausted body of her husband into her arms; he fainted from the transport his weakened frame was unable to hear. Soon after this the stair-door was forced, and the panic-struck women ran shrieking into the room ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... infirmity. There was an old iron shop, that stood flush with the sidewalk, flanking the stableyard. A lantern and a mammoth key were suspended above the door and hanging upon the side of the shop was a wooden stair ascending to the chalet The latter had a sheathing of weather-worn clapboards. It stood on the rear end of the brick building, communicating with the front rooms above the shop. A little stair of five steps ascended from the landing to its red door that overlooked an ample ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... puff my cigar. Regarding the transfer of the trunks, my eye was suddenly attracted to some lettering that appeared upon one of the packages—a leathern portmanteau. I sprang from my seat, and as the article was carried up the gangway stair I met it halfway. I glanced my eye over ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... to talk and the evening advanced in an unaccountable manner toward bedtime, so delightful were the hours of getting acquainted. When she felt they must break up, Aunt Janice led the way up the winding stair. ...
— The Quest of Happy Hearts • Kathleen Hay
... figure, that wrings its hands; folk may tell of the apparition of an ancient dame, whose corpse-like features yet show traces of passions unspent; of solemn, hooded monk, with face concealed by his cowl, who passes down the castle's winding stair, telling his beads; they whisper, it may be, of a lady in white raiment, whose silken gown rustles as she walks. Or the tale, perhaps, is one of pitiful moans that on the still night air echo through some ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... and Jo shut the door, feeling that food was an uncongenial topic just then. She stood a minute looking at the party vanishing above, and as Demi's short plaid legs toiled up the last stair, a sudden sense of loneliness came over her so strongly that she looked about her with dim eyes, as if to find something to lean upon, for even Teddy had deserted her. If she had known what birthday gift was coming every minute nearer and nearer, she would not have ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... keenly, and hesitatingly passed down the dusky stairway. Then I turned and tried to crawl on, eager to gain my room without revealing my condition; but when I reached the topmost stair it seemed that I could not go any further if my life depended on it. With an irritable imprecation on my weakness, I sank down on the ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... the stair and rushed into her aunt's presence, sobbing out in agony of grief,—"She has gone! Madeleine has gone! I know she has gone, and she will never, never return to us! Her dresses are there; everything you have given her is there; she has only ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... traces of Richard the Second's badge, the White Hart, can be seen from below on sunny mornings. We have already noticed the doorway of St. Faith's Chapel at the extreme south end, and there also are the ruins of a little stone stair, which used to lead below the triforium level above the chapel into the monks' dormitory beyond. The large rose window, the tracery of which has been remodelled more than once since the thirteenth century, was refilled with painted glass two years ago in memory of the late ...
— Westminster Abbey • Mrs. A. Murray Smith
... husband had lost, running to the head of the stairs and talking to the cook, the day passed away pretty well till four o'clock; when, as before, Mrs Handycock screamed, the cook screamed, the parrot screamed, and Mr Handycock rapped at the door, and was let in—but not by me. He ascended the stair swith [sic] three bounds, and coming into the parlour, cried, "Well, Nancy, my love, how are you?" Then stooping over her, "Give me a kiss, old girl. I'm as hungry as a hunter. Mr Simple, how do you do? I hope you have passed the morning agreeably. I must wash my hands ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... another wife bade me a last good-bye, or one of my instruments of music, which I did not grieve to see the last of, or some article of my strange attire, was taken from me. At length after an hour's march, for our progress was slow, we reached the flat top of the pyramid that is approached by a great stair, a space larger than the area of the churchyard here at Ditchingham, and unfenced at its lofty edge. Here on this dizzy place stood the temples of Huitzel and of Tezcat, soaring structures of stone and wood, within which were placed ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... no need to describe it. It is very like ten thousand other houses in our dark City of London. There was a dirty passage and a dirty stair, and from the passage two dirty doors let into two filthy rooms, which had strong bars at the windows, and yet withal an air of horrible finery that makes me uncomfortable to think of even yet. On the walls hung all sorts of trumpery pictures in tawdry frames (how different from ...
— The History of Samuel Titmarsh - and the Great Hoggarty Diamond • William Makepeace Thackeray
... wife. Velasquez stands on the left of the picture, behind the Infanta, painting, with his canvas turned back toward us as we look into the room. The black figure of an attendant has passed out of the apartment and is going up a stair against a clear white wall. The skilful way in which you are led into the picture is astonishing, and the whole thing is quite by itself as a piece of painting. There is no attempt at anything subtile or even delicate in the treatment, speaking from the point of view of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... nothing to you," says he, "'tis my standard," says he" and by G—d I'll have it," says he. "D—nation seize me," says I, "if you shall," says I, "till I have first delivered it to the general," says I; and accordingly I went to the headquarters after the battle, and delivered it to my Lord Stair, who promised to do for me. But I am no more than a poor lieutenant still, ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... it is just the day to enjoy it and I was longing for something nice to read," said Rose as Jamie sat down upon the lower stair for a protracted struggle with ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... at the Gates of the Palace; for the Coach being drawn by Six Ostriches, we were but a little Time upon the Way; and mounting the great Stair-case, without being any way molested by the People's Curiosity (for the Moment my Lord appear'd every Fowl of what Quality soever, clapp'd his Beak to the Ground, and did not alter that Posture till he was past) he ...
— A Voyage to Cacklogallinia - With a Description of the Religion, Policy, Customs and Manners of That Country • Captain Samuel Brunt
... you like to have a dreadful pain under your apron, and have everybody call you "a little cross thing," when you couldn't speak to tell what was the matter with you? How should you like to crawl to the top stair, (just to look about a little,) and pitch heels over head from ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... stair, a century at a step, and presently walked and talked, we seven Americans, in that elder Rome that most people know so much better than the one with St. Peter's and the Corso, because of the clinging nature of those early impressions which we construe for ourselves ...
— A Voyage of Consolation - (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An - American girl in London') • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... its way to the foot of the steeper slopes, above the tree line, hesitated, eyed me, then started up a narrow little passage that led up between two cliffs. A rock-slide cluttered this granite stair. Stable footholds were impossible for the loose rocks slipped and slid, rolled from beneath the sheep's feet and bounded ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills
... existing in their audience. Even in order to be appreciated, they must have at least partially educated audiences. Give either of them Whitefield's auditory, and these effects become impossible. Here we come upon the inert masses, which cannot by any possibility be induced to ascend one single stair in any upward movement, but must be swayed this way or that way upon a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... into my parlour is up a winding stair, And many are the curious things I'll show you when you're there. Will you, will ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott
... mistress more real, more inaccessible and more mysterious than anything that he knew. Whereas upon that pestilential, enviable staircase to the old dressmaker's, since there was no other, no service stair in the building, one saw in the evening outside every door an empty, unwashed milk-can set out, in readiness for the morning round, upon the door-mat; on the despicable, enormous staircase which Swann was at that moment climbing, on either side of him, at different levels, before each ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... remarked, "to show off the talents of your dressmaker, eh, Quimby? Can't you just see the stunning gowns coming down that stair in state, and the young men below ...
— Seven Keys to Baldpate • Earl Derr Biggers
... up-stairs, and found Ellen, as usual, at her needle, and Paul in the arm-chair close by Alfred, both busied in choosing and cutting out pictures from Matilda's 'Illustrated News,' with which Harold ornamented the wall of the stair-case and landing. Mr. Cope sat down, and made them laugh with something droll about the figures that were lying ...
— Friarswood Post-Office • Charlotte M. Yonge
... heart, sae smooth his speech. His breath like caller air; His very foot has music in't As he comes up the stair— And will I see his face again? And will I hear him speak? I'm downright dizzy wi' the thought, In troth ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... to-morrow, just as we have learned to pronounce their names; and the sound of the scrubbing-brush is heard in the land. In corners where all was clean and spotless before, Mrs. M'Collop is digging with the broom, and the maiden Boots is following her with a damp cloth. The stair carpets are hanging on lines in the back garden, and Susanna, with her cap rakishly on one side, is always to be seen polishing the stair rods. Whenever we traverse the halls we are obliged to leap over pails of suds, and Miss Diggity-Dalgety has given us two dinners which bore a curious ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... giants, as no children had leisure for ash-carrying after the age of seven. A still greater honour accorded to Darius was permission to sit, during lessons, on the topmost visible step of the winding stair. The widow Susan, having taught Darius to read brilliantly, taught him to knit, and he would knit stockings for ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... voice And still she cried, and still the world pursues, "Jug Jug" to dirty ears. And other withered stumps of time Were told upon the walls; staring forms Leaned out, leaning, hushing the room enclosed. Footsteps shuffled on the stair. Under the firelight, under the brush, her hair Spread out in fiery points Glowed into words, then would be savagely ...
— The Waste Land • T. S. Eliot
... pointed out to the Corporal certain modes and methods by which he fancies this island could be held, in case the French should discover its position; but the excellent Sergeant, though your father, and as good a man in his duties as ever wielded a spontoon, is not the great Lord Stair, or even the Duke of Marlborough. I'll not deny the Sergeant's merits in his particular sphere; though I cannot exaggerate qualities, however excellent, into those of men who may be in some trifling degree his superiors. Sergeant Dunham has taken counsel of his heart, instead ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... sweetness, joined to such thoughtfulness and meditative wisdom, that in my heart (which is very open to affection for his gentle kind) there sprung up in a moment a real love for him. Suddenly he lowered his head, and turned eagerly his regard towards the corner of the court-yard where descended the stair-way from the gallery on which I stood; and from this quarter came towards him a smiling, pleasant-faced Indian lad of eighteen or twenty years old, whose dress was a cotton shirt and cotton trousers, whose feet were bare, and on whose head was a battered hat of ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... a scurvy disease had lain hold of my carcase, And death to my chamber was mounting the stair-case. I call'd to remembrance the sins I'd committed, Repented, and thought I'd for Heaven been fitted; But alas! there is still an old proverb to cross us, I found there no room for the sons of Parnassus; And therefore contented like others ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber
... to what was most to be desired in life were simply the result of the atmosphere in which she had lived; and she confessed to him that the most beautiful thing she had ever seen was the arrivals at a Mansion House ball—the coloured stair-cloth, the beautiful ladies, the brilliant uniforms. Her knowledge of politics was entirely derived from the cartoons of the comic journals in the shop windows; and she had any quantity of vague and vulgar prejudices about Catholics, Radicals, and Jews. But ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black
... me as ladies not loosed from a dance, but who stop silent, listening till they have caught the new notes. And within one I heard begin, "Since the ray of grace, whereby true love is kindled, and which thereafter grows multiplied in loving, so shines on thee that it conducts thee upward by that stair upon which, without reascending, no one descends, he who should deny to thee the wine of his flask for thy thirst, would not be more at liberty than water which descends not to the sea.[1] Thou wishest to know with what plants this garland is enflowered, which, round about her, gazes with delight ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 3, Paradise [Paradiso] • Dante Alighieri
... and it was late in the evening, when she sat down, tired and faint, with a great bundle of girls' themes or compositions to read over before she could rest her weary head on the pillow of her narrow trundle-bed, and forget for a while the treadmill stair of labor ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... draught through the house, and drew down the blinds at the back and shut the kitchen door to conceal his arrangements from casual observation. At the end he would open the door on the yard and so make a clean clear draught right through the house. He hacked at, and wedged off, the tread of a stair. He cleared out the coals from under the staircase, and built a neat fire of firewood and paper there, he splashed about paraffine and arranged the lamps and can even as he had designed, and made a fine inflammable pile of things in the little parlour behind ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... took my arm and led me through the gallery, I had an odd presentiment of going towards a doom. While I followed her up a winding stair, the misgiving increased. Did venerable lemurs inhabit the Basque mountains? Could so magnificent; an old age be of this earth? An ancestral shudder from the Steppes came over me. It was her ruddy train rustling round the turns ahead that aroused ...
— The Collectors • Frank Jewett Mather
... I am. And I come to fetch a letter from Marse Jacky Lytton to Miss Lorrer. And I seen a sperrit at the top o'them stair steps. And that's what's the matter of ...
— Victor's Triumph - Sequel to A Beautiful Fiend • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... the Donjon is a square. The towers at the four angles are divided into five floors, each having a separate stair-case, and each floor is vaulted, with an apartment in the centre, sustained by pillars, which are chimneys. At each of the four corners of the apartment in the centre is a cell thirteen feet square. The towers are encompassed on the third story by a large gallery on the outside, and on the top ...
— A Visit to the Monastery of La Trappe in 1817 • W.D. Fellowes
... ten apartments in the building, two on a floor. The living room formed an L. Kitty's buttressed Gregor's. The elevator shaft was inside, facing the court; and the stair head was on the Gregor side of the elevator. The two entrances faced each other across ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... to remain in absolute silence, motionless, tense, where he was on the stair, and to trust to the chance that the woman did not look up. But Miss Baylis neither looked up nor down: she reached a landing, turned along a corridor with decision, and marched forward. A moment later Spargo heard a sharp double ...
— The Middle Temple Murder • J.S. Fletcher
... strict orthodoxy have even suspected the builder to have been an atheist, for they have observed what double joints and steps and turnings confuse the passage to the devouter books—the Early Fathers in particular being up a winding stair where even the soberest reader might break his neck. Be these things as they may, leather bindings in sets of "grenadier uniformity" ornament the upper and lighter rooms. Biography straggles down a hallway, with a candle needed at the farther end. A room of dingy ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks
... which they passed was sufficiently dark to prevent the masculine eye of Ringfield noting that long and systematic neglect marked every inch of the wall, every foot of flooring, every window, door, stair, sill and sash. Nothing was clean, nothing was orderly, and as the books and papers contained in the invalid's room had overflowed into the halls, lying on the steps and propped up on chairs and in corners, the dirt and confusion was indescribable. ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... She and James and Rab and I retired. I noticed that he and she spoke little, but seemed to anticipate everything in each other. The following day, at noon, the students came in hurrying up the great stair. At the first landing-place, on a small well-known blackboard, was a bit of paper fastened by wafers, and many remains of old wafers beside it. On the paper were the ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... bellowing in me, as of might Unfleshed and visionless, mangling the air With horrible convulse, as if it bare The cruel weight of worlds, but could not fight With the thick-dropping clods, and could but bite A vapour-cloud! Oh, I will climb the stair Of the great universe, and lay me there Even at the threshold of his gate, despite The tempest, and the weakness, and the rush Of this quick crowding on me!—Oh, I dream! Now I am sailing swiftly, as we seem To do in sleep! and I can ...
— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... as she leaped down from the fourth stair, and landed in an ignominious pile on her knees; "we're going to ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray
... the rest of the roof fell in, hiding the tower in spouts and veils of flame. Here they might not stay if they would live. Lifting her mistress in her strong arms, as she was wont to do when she was little, Emlyn found the head of the stair, so that when the wind blew the smoke aside for an instant, those below saw that both had vanished, as they thought ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard
... dear old pious ingrate, on this Christmas morning, think what your mercies have been; and do not walk too far before your breakfast - as far as to the top of India Street, then to the top of Dundas Street, and then to your ain stair heid; and do not forget that even as LABORARE, so JOCULARI, EST ORARE; and to be happy the first ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the corridor, opposite the kitchen window, there was a flight of stairs. On the third stair from the bottom stood (teetering a little slowly back and forth, his lean hands joined behind him and twitching regularly, a kepi tilted forward on his cadaverous head so that its visor almost hid the weak eyes sunkenly ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... dust! dust! Carpet, curtain, window, floor; Right, left, thrust, thrust— Clouds are rising more and more! Sweep, sweep, sweep, sweep— Kitchen, parlour, passage, stair; Sweep, sweep, sweep, sweep— That's what I'm obliged to bear! Dust, dust, dust, dust, In the lofty attic found; Dust, dust, dust, dust, In the ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... she heard a manly step on the stair, she started and turned pale, expecting nothing short of an armed messenger of the law. She never was in this danger for a single minute, but conscience made ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... heart would burst. No bold, imperious, master spirit was this, demanding her love and life as if they were his by natural right. It was as though she had been newly roused by a faint knock at the door; and now, before her foot was set upon the stair that led down to the entering guest, ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam
... hold of his legs in the dark. They went on and on, and round and round the little corkscrew staircase—then through the bell-ringers' loft, where the bell-ropes hung with soft furry ends like giant caterpillars—then up another stair into the belfry, where the big quiet bells are—and then on up a ladder with broad steps—and then up a little stone stair. And at the top of that there was a little door. And the door was bolted on the ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... thatch. There is no one to answer if we knock, so we push our fingers through the door and lift the wooden latch. My father, who goes with us almost every Sunday, has to stoop his head in climbing the narrow stair, and of course the little lad of six and his sisters stoop their heads too; there are four of the girls and one of me. Rosie welcomes us with her beaming smile. She is sitting up in bed, as she has done for eleven long years. She is a hundred ...
— White Slaves • Louis A Banks
... philosophy affordeth no solution. Now, if you demand my opinion and metaphysics of their natures, I confess them very shallow, most of them in a negative way, like that of God; or in a comparative, between ourselves and fellow-creatures; for there is in this universe a stair, or manifest scale of creatures, rising not disorderly or in confusion, but with a comely method and proportion. Between creatures of mere existence and things of life, there is a large disproportion of nature; between plants and ...
— Sir Thomas Browne and his 'Religio Medici' - an Appreciation • Alexander Whyte
... ring of its owner. Don't move, I beg you, Watson. He is a professional brother of yours, and your presence may be of assistance to me. Now is the dramatic moment of fate, Watson, when you hear a step upon the stair which is walking into your life, and you know not whether for good or ill. What does Dr. James Mortimer, the man of science, ask of Sherlock Holmes, the specialist in crime? ...
— Hound of the Baskervilles • Authur Conan Doyle
... hastily up a kind of stair in the rock-wall, until they reached a cranny, whence through a hole in the cliff, they could see all over the haven. And lo! as they looked, in the very gate and entry of it came a great ship heaving up her ...
— The Story of the Glittering Plain - or the Land of Living Men • William Morris
... on a chair, held his breath, listened, went on, found the hall, found the stairs, started up; the seventh stair creaked at his step, the ninth, the fourteenth. He was counting them automatically. At the third creak he paused again for over a minute—and in that minute he felt more alone than he had ever felt before. ...
— Flappers and Philosophers • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... herself in holy prayer To worship ever the All Fair; She coins her heart in largess golden, And beggars self on her altar-stair. ...
— Song-waves • Theodore H. Rand
... transference of coal and cargo which went on without cessation, day and night, our ship was gradually being stripped. Bunks and cabin fittings, heating apparatus, pianos, bookcases, brass and rubber stair-treads, bed and table linen, ceiling and table electric fans, clocks, and all movable fittings were transferred to the Wolf, and our ship presented a scene of greater destruction every day. The Germans were excellent shipbreakers. Much of the cargo could ...
— Five Months on a German Raider - Being the Adventures of an Englishman Captured by the 'Wolf' • Frederic George Trayes
... attempts at improvement cannot be traced farther back than 1723, when a number of landholders formed themselves into a society, under the title of the Society of Improvers in the Knowledge of Agriculture in Scotland. John, 2nd earl of Stair, one of their most active members, is said to have been the first who cultivated turnips in that country. The Select Transactions of this society were collected and published in 1743 by Robert Maxwell, who took a large part ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... did this fear become that at length I arose, lit a candle and dressed myself. As it happened I knew where Miss Holmes slept. Her room, which I had seen her enter, was on the same corridor as mine though at the other end of it near the head of a stair that ran I knew not whither. In my portmanteau that had been sent over from Miss Manners's house, amongst other things was a small double-barrelled pistol which from long habit I always carried with me loaded, except for the caps that were in a little leather case with ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard
... — N. method, way, manner, wise, gait, form, mode, fashion, tone, guise; , modus operandi, MO; procedure &c. (line of conduct) 692. path, road, route, course; line of way, line of road; trajectory, orbit, track, beat, tack. steps; stair, staircase; flight of stairs, ladder, stile; perron[obs3]. bridge, footbridge, viaduct, pontoon, steppingstone, plank, gangway; drawbridge; pass, ford, ferry, tunnel; pipe &c. 260. door; gateway &c. (opening) 260; channel, passage, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... the ground floor with an orange press, various agricultural implements, and numberless baskets for gathering fruit; there was a bare kitchen with a wood fire and a table spread with cups and dishes; then up a winding stair was a bedroom with walls colored sky blue, and a veranda that looked down over a glorious ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... have happened while we were on the river, so we could know nothing about it. Somebody must have stolen up the turret stair and got on to the roof. That's the only possible way it could be done. The senior Forms are in a rare ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting
... d. The bas-reliefs on this low screen are groups of peacocks and lions, two face to face on each panel, rich and fantastic beyond description, though not expressive of very accurate knowledge either of leonine or pavonine forms. And it is not until we pass to the back of the stair of the pulpit, which is connected with the northern extremity of this screen, that we find evidence of the haste with which the ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3) • John Ruskin
... passed through my mind when the man whom we were watching caught sight of the number on our door, and ran rapidly across the roadway. We heard a loud knock, a deep voice below, and heavy steps ascending the stair. ...
— A Study In Scarlet • Arthur Conan Doyle
... had pushed past him to the top stair, and was already shoving his hardest against the stone above. Of course, it did not ...
— The Phoenix and the Carpet • E. Nesbit
... his sister as she sat, rosy cheeked and laughing, on the lowest stair, and stood before her. "That wasn't so bad," he said, approvingly. "You and Jarve had better get out a copyright on that—you worked in some pretty fancy steps. Got your skates on to-night, ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond
... without on the stair; the old man gave a relieved sigh, but when the door opened it was only ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner
... she started back with a scream which at once brought Jupp upstairs. Joe the gardener still stopped, however, on the mat below in the passage, as nothing short of a peremptory command from the vicar would have constrained him to put his heavy clod-hopping boots on the soft stair-carpet. Indeed, it had needed all Mary's persuasion to make him come into the hall, which he did as gingerly as a cat treading on ...
— Teddy - The Story of a Little Pickle • J. C. Hutcheson
... left the door ajar so that he might hear, if he presently returned, his eldest pupil. But he heard only James go clattering down the passage and the stair. Strickland, blowing out his candles, left his room to the prolonged June ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston
... scaffolding, and has a dim, blurred outline from a distance, as though it were being rapidly shaken to and fro. I found a friendly and communicable man who offered to take me over it; we climbed a dizzy little winding stair, with bright glimpses at intervals, through loop-holes, of sunlight and wheeling birds; then we crept along the top of a vaulted space with great pockets of darkness to right and left. Soon we were in the ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson
... conflict raged. The boys had both received several blows, for the weight of the heavy weapons sometimes beat down their guard; but they still fought on, retiring a step or two up the stair when hardly pressed, and occasionally making dashes down upon their assailants, slaying the foremost, and hurling the others backwards. Presently the girl ran ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... of slight delicate mould, with refined, transparent-looking features, and with hair and budding moustache too fair for his large dark eyes, came bounding up the broad stair, to the embrace of the aunt who stood at the top, a little lame lady supported by an ivory-headed staff. Her deep blue eyes, dark eyebrows, and sweet though piquant face were framed by the straight crape line of widowhood, whence a soft white veil ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... men and maidens, old men and widows, meet each other on the path of the green lane, like angels on the steps of Jacob's Ladder in a Flemish picture that I have, where the ladder is represented by a broad stone stair-case; except that blessings are here all brought up instead of down, for a brace of Shad is in the hand of every family-man returning ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... his Heaven and all's right with the world, sings at her work; she shows extraordinary activity when going about her duties. She does unusual things like remembering to polish the brasses every week—indeed, you have only to step in the hall and glance at the stair rods to discover the exact stage of her latest 'affair.' I remember once when one ardent swain (who she declared was 'in the flying corpse') got to the length of offering her marriage before he flew away, she cleaned the entire house down in her enthusiasm—and had actually got to the ...
— Our Elizabeth - A Humour Novel • Florence A. Kilpatrick
... noted as I paused irresolutely on the lower stair, wondering if I could safely walk directly out of that front door, ignoring the sentries by right of the uniform I wore, and thus attain the open air. The constant haunting fear of the early return of Sheridan and his aides, or a possible encounter with some former acquaintance in that ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... the underground of his subconsciousness, refusing realisation, yet all the time only too well divining. Some careless word, some unmuted compassion in voice, the stealthy wrapping of a pair of boots, the unaccustomed shutting of a door that ought to be open, the removal from a down-stair room of an object always there—one tiny thing, and he knows for certain that he is not going too. He fights against the knowledge just as we do against what we cannot bear; he gives up hope, but not effort, protesting ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... her in his arms and carry her up the stairway—it seemed the thing most worth doing in all the world—but he could only lean against the desk and see them go slowly stair by stair out ...
— The Spirit of Sweetwater • Hamlin Garland
... imputed her success to necromancy. According to the popular belief, this Dame Margaret purchased the temporal prosperity of her family from the Master whom she served under a singular condition, which is thus narrated by the historian of her grandson, the great Earl of Stair: "She lived to a great age, and at her death desired that she might not be put under ground, but that her coffin should stand upright on one end of it, promising that while she remained in that situation the Dalrymples should continue to flourish. What was the ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... room; has slung his chevroned coat under the bed; has slipped beneath the sheet and coverlet, and now, breathlessly, he listens. He hears the inspector moving from room to room on the ground floor; hears him spring up the iron stair; hears him enter his own,—the tower room at the north end of the hall,—and there he stops, surprised, evidently, to find Cadet Captain Stanley absent from his quarters. Then his steps are heard again. He enters the opposite room at the ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... to begin with. I want that white, and I've ordered a dark red stair-carpet to put down. Then there'll be doors and windows. But I want all this done as soon as possible really; it's been left too long as ...
— Wanderers • Knut Hamsun
... narrow, spiral stair to the lighthouse tower, and there, apparently lifted into the cloud-navigated sky, I awakened to the real wonder of coral reefs. Ridges of white and brown showed their teeth against the crawling, ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey
... the stair, was so affected at his appearance, that she screamed aloud, and betook herself to flight; while he, cursing her with greet bitterness, rushed into the apartment to the doctor, who, instead of receiving him with cordial embraces, and congratulating him upon his deliverance, gave evident ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... dealing with inanimate things and leave the school work to those who can. I certainly can help young folks to shift from the emotion of subjection to the emotion of elation. I had a puppy that we called Nick and thought I'd like to teach him to go up-stairs. When he came to the first stair he cried and cowered and said, in his language, that it was too high, and that he could never do it. So, in a soothing way, I quoted Virgil at him and placed his front paws upon the step. Then he laughed a bit ...
— Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson
... is she who peeps From the gallery stair, Smiles palely, redly weeps, With feverish furtive air As though not ...
— Time's Laughingstocks and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy
... follow and led the way silently past the others toward the stair shaft. Climbing to the top level was a heart-pounding task, but Mason almost ran up those steps. At the surface he leaned against a pillar, his lips ...
— The Long Voyage • Carl Richard Jacobi
... a cellar-stair lighted by a small lamp with a sputtering wick darkening the chimney with smoke; having safely reached the bottom, he turned to the left in the darkness; here and there, at an angle, a floating wick threw a ruddy light on the circuit ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... not let her fall, but took advantage of the support of the handrail to imprint a kiss upon her lips—lips in the day-time scorned. Then he clasped her with a renewed firmness of hold, and descended the staircase. The creak of the loose stair did not awaken him, and they reached the ground-floor safely. Freeing one of his hands from his grasp of her for a moment, he slid back the door-bar and passed out, slightly striking his stockinged toe against the edge of the door. But this he seemed not to mind, ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... interested in any other piece of property in this vicinity—" were the last words she heard floating down the stair well as she passed ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... stair-way separates the front and rear halls, and disconnects the kitchen apartments from the rest of the house. All the doors opening into the rear hall should be hung with the new spiral spring butt, the best door spring that has come under ...
— Woodward's Country Homes • George E. Woodward
... Lateran is the holy stair-case, transported, it is said, from Jerusalem to Rome. It may only be ascended kneeling. Caesar himself, and Claudius also, mounted on their knees the stair-case which conducted to the Temple of the Capitoline Jove. On one side of St John Lateran is the font where it is ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael
... when the servants were going to bed, it became known that she had left the house, that she had taken the six o'clock to Brighton. Esther turned from the foot of the stair with a wild ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore
... eyes the passageway was a place of utter darkness, but the red ones, their great owl eyes opened wide, hurried him on. His stumbling feet encountered a flight of steps. With the red guard he climbed a winding stair where the ...
— Two Thousand Miles Below • Charles Willard Diffin
... three hours late—it was afternoon when we arrived in Portland. Following the directions of my colored friend, I went up an extremely dirty stair into a very dirty office, found an innocent young man smoking a cigar. He did not know anything, you know, so sat grimly down to wait for the arrival of some one who did. Such a one soon appeared and took ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall
... upon his outstretched arm. As for me, I stood a minute with set lips and clenched hands, and then I turned and went out of the room and down the stair and out into the street. In the dust beneath the window lay my dagger. I picked it up, sheathed it, ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... Chatterton, The angel-trodden stair thy soul could trace Up Redcliffe's spire; and in the world's armed space Thy gallant sword-play:—these to many an one Are sweet for ever; as thy grave unknown, And ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine |
