"Twinkling" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to all she had ever heard of his Indian-like stealth, had left her side unabashed and unafraid—living, laughing, paying bold court to her even when she stubbornly refused to be courted—and had made himself in the twinkling of an eye a part of the silence beyond—the silence of the night, the wind, the stars, the waste of sand, and of all the mystery that brooded upon it. She would have welcomed, in her keen suspense, a sound of some kind, some reminder that he yet lived and ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... said Smith, releasing the driver. But the man's terror was too much for him. Throwing the reins on the horse's back, he sprang from his seat and fled, a vision of bare brown legs twinkling ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... weary, whereas the said messenger had gotten him from a forester some six miles away in the wood that morning, so the nag answered to her call for speed, and she went a great gallop into the wood, and was hidden in a twinkling from any eyes that might be ...
— Child Christopher • William Morris
... or more, And she had heard gay comets talk in just this way before. And by and by there came an end to this gay comet's fun - She went a tiny bit too far—and vanished in the Sun! No more she swings her shining trail before the whole world's sight, But quiet stars she laughed to scorn are twinkling every night. ...
— Poems of Optimism • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... brunettes in the twinkling of an eye?" laughed Leila, her blue eyes resting very kindly ...
— Marjorie Dean, College Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... endureth but the twinkling of an eye, and in his pleasure is life; heaviness may endure for a night, but ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... you remember seeing it sometimes at night from Saint Win's? Yes; and those lights twinkling far-off are Saint Win's. Those must be the school lights; and those long windows you can just see are the chapel windows. They are in chapel now, or the lights wouldn't be there. Perhaps some of our friends—Power, perhaps, and Eden—are praying for us; ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... in her chair, and sat nursing her knees, regarding Darsie with a twinkling eye. "Big eyes, long neck, neat little feet—you'd make an adorable Alice in Wonderland, with ankle- strap slippers, and a comb, and a dear little pinny over a blue frock! And your friend can be the Mad Hatter. Look well, wouldn't she, with a hat ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... "whenever I look back into the past, every thing seems to me covered with a gray mist, through which only two stars and two lights are twinkling. The stars are your eyes, and the lights are the two days I alluded to before—the day on which I saw you for the first time, and the day on which you arrived in Berlin. Oh, Louisa, never shall I forget that first day! I call it the first day, because it was the first day of my real life. ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... and extra ringing, shouting, commanding, rushing up the gangway and rushing down the gangway. The clerks, sitting behind tables on the first deck, were plied, in the twinkling of an eye, with estimates, receipts, charges, countercharges, claims, reclaims, demands, questions, accusations, threats, all at topmost voices. None but steamboat clerks could have stood it. And there were throngs ...
— Balcony Stories • Grace E. King
... gave a roar like that of a baby bull when he saw Prince Melga standing before him, and in a twinkling he had caught up a big club that stood near and began whirling it over his head. But before it could descend, the prince ran at him and stuck his sword as far as it would go into the corrugated body of the giant. Again the monster roared and tried to fight; but the sword ...
— Twinkle and Chubbins - Their Astonishing Adventures in Nature-Fairyland • L. Frank (Lyman Frank) Baum
... living thing! then life's ugly, slimy beginnings; then the conscious soul's fitful dream stretching forth to endless time and space; then the final sleep in abysmal night with its one star of hope twinkling before the all-hidden throne of God, in the shadow of whose too great ...
— Education and the Higher Life • J. L. Spalding
... is. Just as if your hens couldn't hatch ducks' eggs. Now you just wait till one of your hens wants to sit, and you put ducks' eggs under her, and you'll have a family of ducks in a twinkling. You can buy ducks' eggs a plenty of old Sam under the hill. He always has ...
— Queer Little Folks • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... you won't have 'em," replied Life. Reaching up his long right arm, and grasping the man by the throat, he dragged him from the animal in the twinkling of an eye, pitching him on the ground as though he had been a piece of carrion; and he lay there looking at the stalwart form of the Kentuckian, not much inclined to ...
— A Lieutenant at Eighteen • Oliver Optic
... find in the Upper House, he was assailed with as much fury of vituperation as if he had betrayed the State. A country that was preparing to rejoice at his return to power lashed itself into a fury of indignation at his exaltation to the peerage. In the twinkling of an eye men who had been devoted yesterday to Pitt were prepared to believe every evil of Chatham. His rule began in storm and gloom, and gloomy and stormy it remained. The first act of his Administration roused the fiercest controversy. A bad harvest had raised the price of food almost ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... and twinkling reflections flashed from the water; the boat rocked to and fro, and the cold was horrible. This feeling of bitter cold or else the stupefied sensation brought on by exhaustion seemed to keep me from thinking, and it ...
— Devon Boys - A Tale of the North Shore • George Manville Fenn
... treasure; so, when he heard the genie's speech to his mother, he hastened to take the lamp from her hand and said to him, "O slave of the lamp, I am hungry; my will is that thou bring me somewhat I may eat, and be it somewhat good past conceit." [286] The genie was absent the twinkling of an eye and [returning,] brought him a great costly tray of sheer silver, whereon were twelve platters of various kinds and colours [287] of rich meats and two silver cups and two flagons [288] of clarified old wine and bread whiter than snow; all which he set before him and ...
— Alaeddin and the Enchanted Lamp • John Payne
... the Indians flayed fibre to make snares for small game, but what use the beetles put it to except for a displaying ground for their gay coats, I could never discover. The white butterfly crop comes on with the bigelovia bloom, and on warm mornings makes an airy twinkling all across the field. In September young linnets grow out of the rabbit-brush in the night. All the nests discoverable in the neighboring orchards will not account for the numbers of them. Somewhere, ...
— The Land Of Little Rain • Mary Hunter Austin
... But no matter! Then I'll run straight back here and a quarter of an hour later, on my word of honour, I'll bring you news how he is, whether he is asleep, and all that. Then, listen! Then I'll run home in a twinkling—I've a lot of friends there, all drunk—I'll fetch Zossimov—that's the doctor who is looking after him, he is there, too, but he is not drunk; he is not drunk, he is never drunk! I'll drag him to Rodya, and then to you, so ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... serpent was entering port. She butted her way into the standing harbour ice as far as she could get, and promptly began discharging cargo. Teams of dogs sprang up seemingly out of the snow-covered earth, and in a mere twinkling our frozen and silent harbour was an arena of activity. The freight is dumped on the ice over the ship's side with the big winch, and each man must hunt for his own as it descends. Some of the goods ...
— Le Petit Nord - or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour • Anne Elizabeth Caldwell (MacClanahan) Grenfell and Katie Spalding
... towards the lands of the Shawanos. One was just as high as the other, and they were both as high as the goat-sucker flies before a thunderstorm. At first they were close together, but as they came nearer they grew wider apart. Soon our people saw, by their twinkling, that they were two eyes, and in a little while the body of a great man, whose head nearly reached the sky(9), came after them. Brothers, the eyes of the Great Spirit always go before him, and hence nothing is hid from his sight. Brothers, I cannot ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... active and at times violent courtship about my grounds. I could not quite understand the meaning of all the fuss and flutter. Both birds of each pair were very demonstrative, but the female in each case the more so. She followed the male everywhere, lifting and twinkling her wings, and apparently seeking to win him by both word and gesture. If she was not telling him by that cheery, animated, confiding, softly endearing speech of hers, which she poured out incessantly, how much she loved him, ...
— Bird Stories from Burroughs - Sketches of Bird Life Taken from the Works of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... Cournet, "I have placed scouts in the blind alley who will fall back and warn us if the regiment penetrates thither. The door is narrow and will be barricaded in the twinkling of an eye. We are here, with you, fifty armed and resolute men, and at the first shot we shall be two hundred. We are provided with ammunition. You ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... grinned; one of them filled up the tea-pot, and then Strachan said "Go!" and all three lower boys vanished in a twinkling to ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... perhaps the poorest of all extant men. 'Hissed at by the people of Versailles,' he drives forth to Jardi; southward to Brienne,—for recovery of health. Then to Nice, to Italy; but shall return; shall glide to and fro, tremulous, faint-twinkling, fallen on awful times: till the Guillotine—snuff out his weak existence? Alas, worse: for it is blown out, or choked out, foully, pitiably, on the way to the Guillotine! In his Palace of Sens, rude Jacobin Bailiffs made him drink with them from his own wine-cellars, feast with them from ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... all appeals to the "critical faculties," advance "lightly equipped as Priestley himself," making my appeal to the "spiritual faculty." I cannot say that the result was at all what "spiritualism" promises. On the contrary, Harrington parried all such appeals in a twinkling. He said he did not admit that he had any "spiritual faculty" which acted in isolation from the intellect; that religious faith must be founded on religious truth, and even quasi-religious faith on quasi-religious truth. That the intellect and the moral and spiritual ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... What's this?" Bruce stood up in the car when the little group on the steps caught his eye. In a twinkling he was out of the automobile and bending over the groaning boy, while Bob and George and Betty told ...
— Sure Pop and the Safety Scouts • Roy Rutherford Bailey
... the mountain tops were enveloped in bright and transparent clouds, from which gushed limpid streams, which, wandering down the steep hill-sides with pleasant harp-like murmur emptied themselves into the twinkling blue bays. The valleys were open and free to the ocean; trees loaded with leaves, which scarcely waved to the light breeze, were scattered on the green declivities and rising ground; all was calm and bright; the pure ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... moonlight, and it went out as he stepped from the door into the middle of the room, his finger tips brushing the ceiling above him. And Andrew, peering through that shadow, saw two little, bright eyes, like the eyes of a beast, twinkling out at him ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... the strangers with a nod, and the old man sitting down beside them, and looking at the figures with extreme delight, began to talk. While they chatted, Mr. Short, a little merry, red-faced man with twinkling eyes, turning over the figures in the box, drew one forth, saying ruefully to his companion, Codlin by name: "Look here, here's all this Judy's clothes falling to pieces again. You haven't got needle and thread, ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... infinitely more attractive. She was small, but beautiful in form; and she sprang from her horse with the grace of a kitten. Her face was not so white as her companion's, but its color was entrancing. Her expression was animated, and her great brown eyes danced like twinkling stars on a ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... he'll attack here too. The only reason why he has not switched on our anaesthetic is that the wind isn't quite right for this bit of the line. I think it is going to be a general push. Bobby, have a look through this sniper's loophole. Can you see any bayonets twinkling in ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... one who had not tasted food for twenty-four hours. Captain Cumberland smiled, but with becoming dignity, at the greediness of the guest, before whom the whole slice of ham and half a brick loaf disappeared almost in a twinkling. The steward appeared with a pot of coffee, in time to cut off another slice of ham, which the waif attacked with the same voracity as before. When it was consumed, and the young Norwegian glanced wistfully at the leg before him, as though his capacity ...
— Up The Baltic - Young America in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark • Oliver Optic
... home was lovelier far Than all the stranger homes where I have been; It seem'd as if each pale and twinkling star Loved to shine out upon so fair a scene; Never were flowers so sweet, or fields so green, As those that wont that lonely cot to grace If, as tradition tells, this earth has seen Creatures of heavenly form and angel race. They might ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13 Issue 364 - 4 Apr 1829 • Various
... heads throughout the day; and silently he dipped behind the western desert in a glory of crimson and orange, green and purple; and without an interval of twilight, in a moment, all the land was dark, and the stars leapt out, not twinkling as in our damper climate here, but hanging like balls of white fire in that purple southern night, through which one seems to look beyond the stars into the infinite abyss, and towards the throne of God himself. ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley
... guiding and controlling the ordinary forces of nature, how impotent and insignificant it appears in the presence of such a transcendent disaster! It is well nigh inconceivable that a great section throbbing with populous towns, and resonant with the hum of industry, should be wiped out in the twinkling of an eye by a mighty, raging torrent, more consuming than fire and more violent than the earthquake. The suddenness of the blow and the impossibility of communicating with the scene add to the terror of the event. The sickening spectacle of ruin and ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... heart beat audibly, but he did not lower his eyes, and for not doing so, seemed to himself infinitely bold. A host of confused feelings bore down upon him, well-nigh blotting out the light; but, in a twinkling, all were swallowed up in an overpowering sense of gratitude, in a large, vague, happy thankfulness, which touched him almost to the point of tears. As it swelled through him and possessed him, he yearned to pour it forth, to make an offering of this gratefulness—fine ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... the sunshine, Fairer still the moonlight, And all the twinkling starry host; Jesus shines brighter, Jesus shines purer Than all the ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... done in the twinkling of an eye', said the Smith, 'for I have just learnt a new way to shoe; and a very good way it is when ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent
... thought; but the Wind turned quite round, and left them on the strand, and just where they were, except in opposition which is declared to be at an end. Enigma as all this may sound, the key would open it all to you in the twinkling of an administration. In the mean time we have family reconciliations without end. The King and the Duke of Cumberland have been shut up together day and night; Lord Temple and George Grenville are sworn brothers; ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... went up, and I followed, till we came at a golden gate. Then he knocked; and when they within had opened, the man went in, and I followed him up to a throne, upon which one sat, and He said to me, Welcome, daughter. The place looked bright and twinkling, like the stars, or rather like the sun; and I thought that I saw your husband there. So I awoke from my dream.[134] But did ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... many spectres, or that, in the more exposed glares and openings of the wood, stretched their long naked arms to the sky. A light breeze went rustling through the withered grass; and I could see the faint twinkling of the falling leaves, as they came showering down on every side ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... that period terribly infested with brigands. Garcia was not lucky enough to escape these outlaws. They pounced on the little cavalcade, and the hard-earned wealth of the singer, amounting to nearly a hundred thousand dollars, passed out of his possession in a twinkling. The cruel humor of the chief of the banditti bound Garcia to a tree, after he had been stripped naked, and as it was known that he was a singer he was commanded to display his art for the pleasure of these strange auditors. For a while the despoiled man sternly refused, though threatened with immediate ...
— Great Singers, Second Series - Malibran To Titiens • George T. Ferris
... Sarrazin smartly replied. "I romp with my own children—why not with Kitty? Can I do anything for you in London?" he went on, getting a little nearer to the door; "I leave Edinburgh by the next train. And I promise you," he added, with the spirit of mischief twinkling in his eyes, "this shall be my last confidential interview with your grandchild. When she wants to ask any more questions, I transfer her ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins
... spoke uncomfortably. She was aware that his twinkling eyes were on her throat. His look made her feel unclean. She tried to think of some question which would lead the conversation to the less exclamatory subject of crops. They were on a curving shelf road beside a shallow valley. ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... twinkling lights of the newspaper buildings and those of the City Hall Park northward along Chatham Street I bend my loitering steps. Israel predominates here,—Israel, with its traditional stock in trade of cheap clothing, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... could be better or kinder than mine," said Lulu, twinkling away a tear; "and yet I have been so passionate and disobedient that he has told me that ...
— The Two Elsies - A Sequel to Elsie at Nantucket, Book 10 • Martha Finley
... always a great comfort to me. Above the gun-flashes or the bursting of shells and shrapnel, they would stand out calm and clear, twinkling just as merrily as I have seen them do on many a pleasant sleigh-drive in Canada. I had seen Orion for the first time that year, rising over the broken Cathedral at Albert. I always (p. 144) felt when he arrived for his winter visit ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... queer old buffer, the boss, isn't he?' asked Walter, his eye twinkling again as he jerked his thumb towards the door. 'They say he's awful rich, but he's a miserable old wretch. I'd rather be myself ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... together with the softer virtues, the purity and talents of the Indians? Are they of the Tartar race? Their complexion, "the shadowed livery of the burning sun," might be offered in evidence; they have not the flat head, the angular and twinkling eye, nor the diminutive figure of ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... them; that a viper fears to gaze upon a naked man; that the nature of the wolf is such that if the man sees him first, the wolf is deprived of force and vigor, but if the wolf first sees the man, his power of speech will vanish in the twinkling of an eye. Furthermore, there were curious ideas current concerning the mystic power of precious stones, and many were the lapidaries which were written for the edification of the credulous world. The diamond was held in somewhat doubtful esteem, inasmuch ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... comfort streaming into a ray of the candle that shone out through the window, and a long way down the lane. And this light, bursting on a certain person, who, on the instant, approached towards it through the gloom, expressed the whole thing to him literally in a twinkling, and cried, "Welcome home, old fellow! welcome ...
— The Evolution of Expression Vol. I • Charles Wesley Emerson
... smiled. He brushed back his hair with a characteristic gesture, and his twinkling blue eyes bored into those of the I. F. P. special officer. The colonel wore the regular uniform of the service; his little skullcap, with the conventionalized sun symbol denoting his rank, was on the table before him. He put out ...
— The Martian Cabal • Roman Frederick Starzl
... remained noteless, and finally, at some odd evasion of his, accomplished by a monosyllable, I laughed outright—and he did, too! He joined cachinnations with me heartily, and with a twinkling quizzicalness that somehow gave me the idea that he might be thinking (rather apologetically) to himself: "Yes, sir, that old Beasley man is ...
— Beasley's Christmas Party • Booth Tarkington
... party," returned the young man, "will catch the next trolley for New York. Oh! Here labors the trusty henchman across the green. Right you are, Jim! No, the lady is not to come down. I'm to go up." And go up he did, in the twinkling of an eye, and in less than another the rose-wreathed hat and the young man's gray cap had disappeared from ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... go, she looked really pretty. Her long lashes were wet with a twinkling moisture, like meadow-grass after a shower; and there was a softened, childlike expression stealing over the careless ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... level with the window-sill was a niche in the masonry, perhaps three feet square, and looking to be the depth of the wall itself. The back of it seemed to be made of a dark substance—darker than the bricks—through which shone twinkling glimpses of daylight. ...
— The Other Side of the Door • Lucia Chamberlain
... He vouchsafed no word of reply, but went into the room where he had slept to get some article he had left. A sudden thought struck Mr. Sandford. He followed Charles into the room, and in a moment after returned,—but so changed! Imagine Captain Absolute at the duelling-ground turned in a twinkling into Bob Acres, Lucy Bertram putting on the frenzied look of Meg Merrilies, or the even-tempered Gratiano metamorphosed into the horror-stricken, despairing Shylock at the moment he hears his sentence, and you have some notion ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... kind, something which would give Miss Rutherford the impression that he had kindly undertaken the care of Priscilla during the day in order to oblige those ordinarily responsible for her. A curious smile, which began to form at the corners of Miss Rutherford's lips and a sudden twinkling of her eyes, ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham
... the air in a twinkling. As they went up, Ted brought down his quirt with all his strength. It was time the ugly animal was taught that its enemy could strike a blow ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Texas - Or, The Veiled Riddle of the Plains • Frank Gee Patchin
... had come to Grande Pointe. From such a day Sidonie could not be spared. She was to say a piece, a poem, an apostrophe to a star. A child, beholding the little star in the heavens, and wondering what it can be, sparkling diamond-like so high up above the world, exhorts it not to stop twinkling on his account. But to its tender regret the school knew that no more thereafter was Sidonie to twinkle in ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... a level with one of the windows, which happened, very conveniently, to have been left wide open: so in flew the pheasants, car and all, and alighted on the hearth-rug. 'Jump out—be quick!' cried the Fairy. The cat did not wait to be told twice—she was out in a twinkling; but before she could turn her head round, car, Fairy, and pheasants had vanished, and she was left alone in the strange room. 'To be sure,' she exclaimed to herself, 'was there ever anything so extraordinary?' What an adventure! And what a room it was! It was so large, that ...
— Tales From Catland, for Little Kittens • Tabitha Grimalkin
... possession had still preserved my attachment to her unabated. Emily I had heard of, and still loved with a purer flame. She was my sun; Eugenia my moon; and the fair favourites of the western hemisphere, so many twinkling stars of the first, second, and third magnitude. I loved them all more or less; but all their charms vanished, when the beauteous Emily shone in ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... Opera by Mrs Skewton, he said he very seldom went there, for he couldn't afford it. It seemed greatly to delight and exhilarate him to say so: and he beamed on his audience afterwards, with his hands in his pockets, and excessive satisfaction twinkling in ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... time the sun shone out from behind the gray cloud. In the twinkling of an eye all the snowflakes were gone. 'Strange, strange!' thought the people of the Summer Land. 'What has become ...
— The Magic Speech Flower - or Little Luke and His Animal Friends • Melvin Hix
... began slowly, and with a look of unusual merriment twinkling in his eyes, "It has taken a long time you see for this surprise to come, but it was worth the trouble of waiting. May be you think that at fifty years all the romance has died out of a man's life, but I am going to show you that such is not the ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... the papers in his pocket and looked with comic gravity at her, as if to judge the effect she would be likely to have on his friend. Then, his eyes twinkling with ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 6, June, 1891 • Various
... myself now, seated in the omnibus and trundling over the plain to the cadets' dancing-rooms. The very hot, still July night seems round me again. Lights were twinkling in the camp, and across the plain in the houses of the professors and officers; lights above in the sky too, myriads of them, mocking the tapers that go out so soon. I was happy with a little flutter of expectation; quietly enjoying meanwhile the novel loveliness of all about me, along with ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... was livid with rage, and his countenance expressed the fell intention of his heart. But Arrowhead was too quick for him; with a wild glance of the eye the Tuscarora looked about him; then thrust a hand beneath his own girdle, drew forth a concealed knife, and, in the twinkling of an eye, buried it in the body of the Quartermaster to the handle. As the latter fell at his feet, gazing into his face with the vacant stare of one surprised by death, Sanglier took a pinch of snuff, and said in ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... the lights and sat out on the little balcony. The moonshine was glorious. So dense was the earth-blackness that the few lights twinkling here and there were more like fallen stars. Presently she heard a sound. It was her father, returning as silently as he could. She heard him fumble among the knickknacks on the mantel, and then go away again. By and by she saw a spot of white light move hither and thither among the grape arbors. ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... will lay on the floor, the general's wife kneeling on it, as on a prayer carpet, in an attitude of prayer, her clasped hands on the window sill, her wet eyes fixed on a faintly twinkling star, as though calling heaven to witness her inconsolable grief ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... though I've twenty years to go, I see myself quite plain, A wrinkling, twinkling, rosy-cheeked, benevolent old chap; I think I'll wear a tartan shawl and lean upon a cane. I hope that I'll have silver hair beneath a velvet cap. I see my little grandchildren a-romping round my knee; So gay the scene, I almost wish 'twould hasten to arrive. Let others ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service
... proceeded to arrange their camp for the night. They first laid out the protection- wires, setting them while the sun still shone. Next they built a fire and prepared their evening meal. While they ate it, twilight became night, and the fire-flies, twinkling in legions in the neighbouring valley, seemed like the lamps of a great city. "Their lights," said Bearwarden, pointing to them, "are not as fine as the jelly-fish Will-o'-the wisps were last night, but they are not so dangerous. ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor
... already? What is to become of class distinctions if you are just going to hobnob with anyone who may happen along?" he asked, his eyes twinkling with fun, for he was quoting from her ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... against a background composed of a gambling chorus and the wild whirl of the furlano, which ends abruptly with organ peals and a pious canticle—an effect repeated since in "Cavalleria Rusticana" and "Tosca." In the second act in the twinkling of an eye, Gioconda is transformed from a murderous devil into a protecting saint; in the third Laura's accents of mortal woe commingle with the sounds of a serenade in the distance, and the disclosure of a supposed murder ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... In a twinkling the entire family was settled in the city, "just as though we'd never been away," Peggy declared. Then two days later Barbara ...
— Keineth • Jane D. Abbott
... do all the fussy things in travelling—taking the tickets, and counting the luggage, and all that—they're such big men, aren't they?" said Denny, with mischief in her twinkling green eyes. ...
— The Adventures of Herr Baby • Mrs. Molesworth
... amid much laughter that the carriage moved on again. Down the long avenue they went, under that glowing arch, spangled as if with stars, and every friendly old locust held up all its twinkling lanterns to light them on their way. Half-way down the path the band began to play "My Old Kentucky Home," and, leaning far out of the carriage, Eugenia and Joyce looked back once more to wave a loving good-bye to ...
— The Little Colonel's House Party • Annie Fellows Johnston
... crowded, and how brilliant! You see, for instance, an immense array of jewelry, and pause to have a look. You begin at the end nearest you, and, after gazing a moment, take a step to run your eye along the dazzling display, when, presto! the trays of watches and diamonds vanish in a twinkling, and you find yourself looking into the door, or your delighted eyes suddenly bring up against a brick wall, disenchanted so quickly ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... so fast? And how black and cold the river looked! She never remembered to have seen it quite so cheerless and gloomy before. A thick white fog was rising from the marshy lands, and she could not see the friendly twinkling lights upon the bridge. Despite her exertions, which were great, she felt chill and shivery; and when at last she heard the sound of a lusty shout behind her, her heart seemed to stand still with ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... unobserved, added torches to the fire; the wind ceased to sound in the pines; the flame rose evenly, with a slender point toward the stars, which were twinkling in a clear sky. Having mentioned the death of Christ, the old man talked now of Him only. All held the breath in their breasts, and a silence set in which was deeper than the preceding one, so that it was possible almost to hear the beating of ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... victory triumphing? Where is now Dives, in dishes so dainty? Where is now Tully, in eloquence exceeding? Where is now Aristotle, learned so deeply? What emperors, kings, and dukes in times past, What earls and lords, and captains of war, What popes and bishops, all at the last In the twinkling of an eye are fled so far? How short a feast is this worldly joying? Even as a shadow it passeth away, Depriving a man of gifts everlasting, Leading to darkness and not to day! O meat of worms, O heap of dust, O like to dew, climb not too high! To live to-morrow thou canst not trust, Therefore ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Robert Dodsley
... vapors, as thin as moonlight, fleeted rapidly across the stars. It was bitter cold; and by a common optical effect, things seemed almost more definite than in the broadest daylight. The sleeping city was absolutely still; a company of white hoods, a field full of little Alps, below the twinkling stars. Villon cursed his fortune. Would it were still snowing! Now, wherever he went, he left an indelible trail behind him on the glittering streets; wherever he went he was still tethered to the house by the cemetery of St. John; wherever he went he must weave, with his own plodding feet, the rope ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various
... ever in front of them. Huge clouds of smoke veiled the northern sky, for the Boers had set fire to the dry grass, partly to cover their own retreat, and partly to show up our khaki upon the blackened surface. Far on the flanks the twinkling heliographs revealed the position of ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the Channel with the wind North-east, Our ship she sails nine knots at least; Our thundering guns we will let fly, We will let fly over the twinkling sky— Huzza! we are homeward bound, ...
— Two Suffolk Friends • Francis Hindes Groome
... we sat in the verandah looking still over the blackened unlovely prospect, but now cheerfully and with hope; for the eastern sky was piled up range beyond range with the scarlet and purple splendour of cloud-land, and, as darkness gathered, we saw the lightning, not twinkling and glimmering harmlessly about the horizon, as it had been all the summer, but falling sheer in violet-coloured rivers behind the dark curtain of rain that hung from the black edge ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... flee in every direction; the strong, the youthful, those who care only for their lives, escape. The amphitheatre is emptied in the twinkling of an eye and none remain in it but the dead gladiators. But woe to those who have sought shelter in the shops, under the arcades of the theatre, or in underground retreats. The ashes surround and stifle them! Woe, ...
— The Wonders of Pompeii • Marc Monnier
... was quite sick with delight! stirred beyond bearing with its furious agitations within me, and gorged and crammed, even to a surfeit. Thus I lay gasping, panting under him, till his broken breathings, faultering accents, eyes twinkling with humid fires, lunges more furious, and an increased stiffness, gave me to hail the approaches of the second period: it came... and the sweet youth, overpowered with the ecstasy, died away in my arms, melting a flood that shot in genial warmth into the innermost recesses ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... concussions. Thus the afternoon passed. Sunset approached, yet the fight raged. Slowly the great luminary of day sank in the west, and twilight, cold and calm, threw its shadows across the waters; yet still the fight raged. The stars came out, twinkling sharp and clear, in that half tropical sky: yet still the fight raged. The hum of the day had now subsided, and the cicada was heard trilling its note on the night-air: all was quiet and serene in the city: yet still the fight ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... cause for dread. Should the swarm come on, and settle upon his fields, farewell to his prospects of a harvest. They would strip the verdure from his whole farm in a twinkling. They would leave neither seed, nor leaf, nor ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... spiked, Lanyard began to breathe more freely. "It is not too late to make up that loss, monsieur." Liane Delorme was actually chuckling in appreciation of his readiness, pleased with him even in the moment of her own discomfiture; her eyes twinkling merrily at him above the fan with which she hid a convulsed countenance. "Surely two people so possessed with regret at never having known each other should lose no time improving their acquaintance! Dear Athenais: do ask us to sit ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... own room, slipped on some clothes, and went to the door. Far up on the hillside a lantern was twinkling ...
— The Ocean Wireless Boys And The Naval Code • John Henry Goldfrap, AKA Captain Wilbur Lawton
... fancy how surprised I was. I looked round, and there was that Lembke woman at her tricks, and that cousin of hers—old Drozdov's nephew—it was all clear. You may be sure I changed all that in a twinkling, and Praskovya is on my side again, but what ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... is the evening air, and loth to lose Day's grateful warmth, though moist with falling dews Look for the stars, you'll say that there are none; Look up a second time, and, one by one, You mark them twinkling out with silvery light, And wonder how ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur
... up from puppyhood to doghood with these children without knowing what tracks led to school and home, and what to the wonderful realm of play and fancy. Moreover, his anticipations were always aroused when Elizabeth changed her habit, and he had seen in the twinkling of his eye that she was bare-legged and bare-headed and provided with a pole. So he barked joyously and scampered away upon that ...
— An Australian Lassie • Lilian Turner
... twilight was falling, rain and wind rising and falling with it, the street lamps twinkling ghostily through the murky gloaming, the pavement black and shining. Belated pedestrians hurried along with bowed heads and uplifted umbrellas, the stages rattled past in a ceaseless stream, full to overflowing. The rainy night was ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... a public house. Soon after breakfast, or even before, the tradesmen sneak round for their pick-me-ups. Then the housewives go for their jugs of ale and stout. Some people never enter the Alexandra except by the back way. They march down the Gut as if on important business; then, in the twinkling of an eye, they are gone within. One worn little woman, who wears a loose cape and a squalid sailor hat, walks up and down the Gut till it is completely clear, then jumps into the door, and closes it very quietly. When she comes out again it is as a rabbit comes from a bolt-hole when a ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... not. They would rather go to her without an intermediary, and take a scantier measure of food from her hand, but flavoured as she only can flavour it. Widen your cage, naturalist; replace the little twinkling lustres with sun and moon and milky way; plant forests on the floor, and let there be hills and valleys, rivers and wide spaces; and let the blue pillars of heaven be the wires of your cage, with free entrance to wind and rain; then your little captives will be happy, even ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... September mornings, and I hurried away, thinking the cloudless blue arch, the twinkling sea, and the crisp air might serve to soften my aunt's displeasure at her hostile reception. From the conservatories I caught a glimpse of a woman on the beach—a slender, agile woman throwing a ball for the amusement of a fox-terrier. She threw ...
— Lady Larkspur • Meredith Nicholson
... With my companions I gazed on the scene from the entresol of the Cafe Mazarin. It was the first affair of the kind I had ever witnessed, and for that reason impressed itself more vividly on my mind than several subsequent and more serious ones. In the twinkling of an eye all the little tables set out in front of the cafes were deserted, and tragi-comical was the sight of the many women with golden chignons scurrying away with their alarmed companions, and tripping now and again over some fallen chair whilst the pursuing cavalry clattered noisily along the ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... they just fit. They slip down in the tube, and as the lowest planchet slides from under the tube, two small steel arms spring out and grasp it and lay it on the die. At the same instant, the upper die descends with a quick thump, and the silver counter, stamped in a twinkling on both sides, falls into a box below. In an instant, another takes its place, and thus they go on dropping under the swiftly moving rod, and turning into coins in ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, May, 1878, No. 7. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... the dawn-light revealed a black spot on the low horizon. A speck that grew larger, with twinkling, fin-like flashes along each side, and in due time it proved to be a galley like their own bearing down straight for them. Nobody stopped to ask any questions. That was not sea-style then. But just as naturally as two men now in a lonely journey would shake hands on meeting, ...
— The Iron Star - And what It saw on Its Journey through the Ages • John Preston True
... night had fallen and was thick with stars, and the festal lights were twinkling like other stars among the trees of the park, and from the happy crowds at play there floated the sounds of laughter and joyful voices, their Graces and their guests sate or walked upon the terrace amid the night-scents ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... rooms, haunted with memories of the splendid "anonyma" whose reign is yet visible, he dreams of his wasted past, his lonely future. Can he repair it? Enveloped in smoke wreaths, from his portico he surveys the thousand twinkling city lights below. He is careless of the future movements ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... continually louder and louder the pattering of geta over the bridge. It is a sound never to be forgotten, this pattering of geta over the Ohashi -rapid, merry, musical, like the sound of an enormous dance; and a dance it veritably is. The whole population is moving on tiptoe, and the multitudinous twinkling of feet over the verge of the sunlit roadway is an astonishment. All those feet are small, symmetrical—light as the feet of figures painted on Greek vases—and the step is always taken toes first; indeed, with geta ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... dusk when I reached the foothills of the Swaziland mountains. Far off, as I approached, I could see the twinkling lights at the kraals on the high ledges. I camped at the foot of a very high, naked peak of granite, which was almost sheer on the side facing me. This peak turned out to be densely populated by, baboons. At intervals, all night long, pandemonium ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully
... I wasn't listening—forgive me!" he said one day, when, with a spark of real anger, Julia had begged him to make his calls at the settlement house a little less frequent and less conspicuous. "What was it?" And with twinkling eyes he caught up the hand that lay near him on the table and ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... in his gigantic hands, seized the old Judge's other leg, and pressed his foot immovably to the stone floor; while his senior, in a twinkling, with a masterly application of pincers and hammer, sped the glowing bar around his ankle so tight that the skin and sinews smoked and bubbled again, and old Judge Harbottle uttered a yell that seemed to chill the very stones, and make the iron ...
— Green Tea; Mr. Justice Harbottle • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... me, somehow. The creek was beginning to pinch out, this high up the gulch, and a fire would jump it in a twinkling. And if anything should happen to us, down there,—one of us hurt himself, you know, in hurrying,—we should be in a trap as the fire swept across. Out of the timber was ...
— Pluck on the Long Trail - Boy Scouts in the Rockies • Edwin L. Sabin
... are, your eminence; famous beauties of pure Circassian descent; each originally cost five thousand piastres, and they surpass the remainder even as the mighty sun doth the twinkling stars." ...
— Jack Harkaway's Boy Tinker Among The Turks - Book Number Fifteen in the Jack Harkaway Series • Bracebridge Hemyng
... Cottrell, his eyes twinkling with the fun of the situation. "This is all very well for you country people, Miss Sylla; but we poor Londoners have come down for rest after a spell of hot rooms and late hours, preparatory to encountering fresh dissipations. Is it not so, Lady Mary? Did you not promise ...
— Belles and Ringers • Hawley Smart
... responded Maskull with twinkling eyes. "But first of all, to dine. I can't remember having eaten all day. You seem to have been hunting to some purpose, so we won't ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... word!" objected Captain Bonnet, his accents severe but the bold eyes twinkling. "We are loyal servants of the King, sworn to do mischief to his lawful enemies,—to wit, all ships and sailors of Spain. For such a young gentleman adventurer as you, Master Cockrell, there is a berth in the Royal James. Will ye rendezvous at ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... face and caught his lungs. Beyond the fence-rail protection to the side of the platform he thought he saw the suggestion of a broad reach of snow, a distant lurking forest, a few shadowy buildings looming mysterious in the night. The air was twinkling with frost and the brilliant stars ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... might go and see them all! I could tell in a twinkling the real state of things." She spoke with a ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... neck, and greenish hat coming into sight at intervals. For a moment he paused to glance into the show window of a tobacconist and pipe-seller's store. A Chinese woman passed him, pattering along lamely, her green jade ear-rings twinkling in the light of a street lamp, newly lighted. Vandover looked after her a moment, gazing stupidly, then suddenly took up his walk again, zigzagging amid the groups on the asphalt, striding along at a great pace, his head low and swinging ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... hands with swift cordiality, followed in succession by Jack and Miles, and the three big brothers stood beside the sofa, looking down on their guest with kindly scrutiny. Pat's twinkling smile was an augury for future friendship; Miles's air of angelic sympathy was as good as a tonic; while the rapt gaze of Jack's fine eyes seemed to imply that never, no never, had he beheld a girl who so absolutely fulfilled his ideal of womanhood! ...
— More about Pixie • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... twinkling candles bright and gay, For me, the purple shadows and the grey, When Christmas comes. For thee, the friends that greet thee at the door, For me, the faces I shall see ...
— The Miracle and Other Poems • Virna Sheard
... Manhattan's spires Glint back the sunset's latest beam; The bay is flecked with twinkling fires; Or is it ...
— The Hudson - Three Centuries of History, Romance and Invention • Wallace Bruce
... up Castle Richmond. But, nevertheless, without a hope, and in obedience solely to what he felt that prudence demanded in so momentous a matter, he did prosecute all manner of inquiries;—but prosecuted them altogether in vain. And now, O thou most acute of lawyers, this new twinkling spark of hope has come to thee from a source whence ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... his merry eyes twinkling against his deep space tan. "It's mighty good to see you boys. Come on in the house. I got a mess of fatfish just pulled out of the stream and some of the most delicious biscuits you ever ...
— On the Trail of the Space Pirates • Carey Rockwell
... off my coat, was in a chair in a twinkling, and he was clipping softly at me as Doltaire's hand turned ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... bought a little pig with the money my daughter had paid her in the winter for spinning, and the poor woman kept it like a child, and let it run about her room. This little pig got the mischief, like all the rest, in the twinkling of an eye; and when my daughter was called it grew no better, but also died under her hands; whereupon the poor woman made a great outcry and tore her hair for grief, so that my child was moved to pity her, and promised her another pig next time my sow should litter. ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... flickering light of the campfire. The wild desert dogs, with their characteristic insolent curiosity, were baying men round a campfire. Gale proceeded slowly, halting every few steps, careful not to brush against the stiff greasewood. In the soft sand his steps made no sound. The twinkling light vanished occasionally, like a Jack-o'lantern, and when it did show it seemed still a long way off. Gale was not seeking trouble or inviting danger. Water was the thing that drove him. He must see who these campers were, and then decide how to ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey |
