"Unlatched" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the dining-room. Mrs. Thorne knocked, in a whisper as it were. There was no answer. She softly unlatched the door, and a draft of air crept through, widening it with a prolonged and wistful creak. The sleeper did not stir. She had changed her pillows to the foot of the bed, and was lying in the full light, with her window-curtains ...
— A Touch Of Sun And Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... Ojo unlatched the door and entered. It was very dark inside and he could see nothing at all. But the cat exclaimed: ...
— The Patchwork Girl of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... was. Looking around, he perceived at length a thread of light, of daylight undoubtedly, which must come from the window. He got out of bed, cautiously crossed the floor, found the window, and the means of opening it, then unlatched the shutters which had kept the room in darkness. At once a flood of sunshine poured in. Looking forth, he saw a quiet little street of houses and gardens, and beyond, some miles away, a mountain peak rising ...
— Will Warburton • George Gissing
... while she stood above him, while the rose had faded. On the step the fish lay, no longer brightly colored, in a dull, stiff heap. The house was still; through the open door the sun fell on a strip of rag rug. He turned and hurried down the steps, unlatched the gate, and almost ran across the fields to the cover of a wood, fleeing from an ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... instruments. One of them was a rubber suction-cup, which he fastened to the windowpane. Then with a very fine diamond-cutter he proceeded to cut out a large section. It soon fell and was prevented from smashing on the floor by the string and the suction-cup. Kennedy put his hand in and unlatched the window, and ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve
... the board, and the voices were loudest and gladdest, and the Christ-child brought choicest gifts to Alois, Patrasche, watching always an occasion, glided out when the door was unlatched by a careless new-comer, and, as swiftly as his weak and tired limbs would bear him sped over the snow in the bitter, black night. He had only one thought—to follow Nello. A human friend might have ...
— Stories By English Authors: Germany • Various
... down the winding stairs in utter silence, and came out into the sunlight by the smithy. Wilfred Bohun carefully unlatched the wooden gate of the yard, and going up to the inspector, said: "I wish to give myself up; I have ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... did some rapid thinking. He crossed to the nearest of the windows, noiselessly opened the shutters and pushed them back to the position in which they stood when not in use. Then he unlatched the window and left it, hoping that it would not blow open and betray him. This done, he again pulled the heavy curtains across and returned to his place of concealment. That was to be the way out for him if the necessity for a ...
— Jack O' Judgment • Edgar Wallace
... was before him, unlatched. He pushed it softly with his left hand, and Margaret and ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... their preparations and renew the fires. When Catharine softly unlatched the front door, everything was ready—warm blankets, hot milk, hot water bottles. But now they hardly dared speak to each other; dread kept them dumb. Nearer and nearer came the sound of feet and lowered voices. Soon they could hear the swing of the gate leading into the garden. Four ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... to a short spell off guard. Had the door not been ostensibly latched he would have made his way out by it, being thoroughly used to opening doors and such tricks—a capacity which in fact proved fatal to him. That it was unlatched I saw in a few moments, for the dog on his return forced it open with a push and trotted up in a disturbed manner to my bedside. I noticed a tiny spot of blood on the black side of his nose, and naturally supposed he had scratched himself ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... falling into step beside her. One arm slipped around her waist as they entered the hallway. They walked slowly to the door. He unlatched it, hesitated; she moved one foot forward, and he took a step at the same time which brought her across his path so closely that contact was unavoidable. ...
— Between Friends • Robert W. Chambers
... Bertrand's room was unlatched, and he pushed it open without ceremony. Blank darkness met him on the threshold, but a sound within told him the room was tenanted. He switched on the light without delay, ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... return that day or the next; and Peace had concluded that they were angry with her; but the third morning bright and early they appeared at the gate, unlatched it, and marched in solemn file up the path to the house. Mrs. Wood herself, with Peace close behind, answered their timid knock, and Ophelia, clad in a clean, neatly patched gingham dress, with her hair hanging in two smooth plaits down her back, faltered, "Ma ...
— Heart of Gold • Ruth Alberta Brown
... say nothing of the picturesque, sometimes you get sight of comfort, sometimes of opulence, through the unlatched wicket in some porte-cochere—red-painted brick pavement, foliage of dark palm or pale banana, marble or granite masonry and blooming parterres; or through a chink between some pair of heavy batten window-shutters, opened with an almost reptile wariness, your eye gets a glimpse ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable
... When I arrived at the appointed time I found the door of the house closed. I was obliged to ring several times before an old servant opened the door. She seemed surprised that it had been locked. She said that the door was always unlatched, and that Mr. Siders himself must have closed it, contrary to all custom, for she had not done it, and there was no one else in the house but the two of them. Siders was waiting for me at the top of the stairs, calling ...
— The Case of the Registered Letter • Augusta Groner
... I unlatched a moss-covered gate with one hinge lost in the weeds—a little woebegone gate for intimate friends, that croaked like a night-bird when it opened, and closed with a whine. Beyond it lay a narrow path through a rose-garden ...
— A Village of Vagabonds • F. Berkeley Smith
... was a heavy sleeper, and I knew where her keys hung, on a nail just within the door of her cell. I stole thither, unlatched the door, seized the keys and crept barefoot down the corridor. The bolts of the cloister-door were stiff and heavy, and I dragged at them till the veins in my wrists were bursting. Then I turned the key and it cried out in the ward. I stood still, my whole ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... of delight, went downstairs on tiptoe, found a basket and a knife, tied on her bonnet, and unlatched the door; but there she stopped short, checked on the threshold by a sight so surprising that for a moment she could not move. For at her feet, on the doorstep, lying there purely white as though it had fallen from the clouds, was a great mass of white lilac. There ...
— White Lilac; or the Queen of the May • Amy Walton
... with the key; it was hard to turn in the rusty lock, and she had to close her umbrella and stand it against the wall so as to have both hands free. The gate swung open slowly, creaking on its warped hinges. Jean noticed that she left it unlatched and that she looked back over her shoulder twice as she came down the path, as though she thought someone ...
— Olive in Italy • Moray Dalton
... the gate. It was the place where Nan and her mother had once lodged; and, though all the lights were extinguished, and the people had retired to bed, she felt a comfortable sense of safety as she unlatched the little gate. Not even Mr. Drummond would discover ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... one of his cutthroats fired for him; I know not, probably the latter, but the shot was for me and well aimed, so well that I guess the bullet went where I was when it started. Thus it was: Kaiser was ahead, and reared up and threw himself at the store door, which, being unlatched, flew open; it stopped him a little, and I, being close behind, went down over him and into the store head first, as if I had been fired out of a cannon; and at that instant the bullet I spoke of struck the open door halfway up. I ...
— Track's End • Hayden Carruth
... preservation, albeit somewhat defiled by the dust in which they lay. Mr. Brewer was equally astonished, but Mr. King's emotion is not of record. With a new and lively interest in his own actions the sheriff now unlatched and pushed open a door on the right, and the three entered. The room was apparently vacant—no; as their eyes became accustomed to the dimmer light something was visible in the farthest angle of the wall. It was a human figure—that of a man crouching close in the ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... through the lower crevice of the heavy wooden shutters. With frantic haste my hands slid over them. I found an iron bar, and, this unlatched, I threw them back, and let in ...
— Hushed Up - A Mystery of London • William Le Queux
... to the door of the study, which great age had distorted and bereft of sense, and, in fact, almost unhinged. It unlatched itself, paused, and then calmly but firmly swung wide open. When it could swing no farther ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... again through the door to where Mr. Huddleston was waiting for me, I heard the doors at the further end of the chamber unlatched and the footsteps of the folks—physicians, courtiers, Bishops and the rest—that poured in to see ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... those vivid lightning flashes, they might have seen a woman stealthily approaching the agent's office across the street. Taking advantage of the deeper shadows and of the darkness between lightning flashes, she stole to the rear of the building, where she found an unlatched window, through which she scrambled with the ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony
... her steps, except that a vertigo fuddled her progress and twice she swayed. When she climbed the staircase to her apartment she was obliged to rest midway, sitting huddled against the banister, her soaked scarf fallen backward across her shoulders. She unlatched her door carefully, to save the squeak and to avoid the small maid who sang over and above the clatter of her dishes. The yellow lamp diffused its quiet light the length of the hallway, and she tottered down and into the bedroom at ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst
... neither master nor pupil had observed that during the course of the song the door had been softly unlatched from outside and held ajar, and now, just as Diana was somewhat blushingly extricating herself from Baroni's fervent clasp, it was thrown open and the unseen listener came ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler |
