"Absently" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Mr. Hammond more graciously than last night; but still with a carelessness which was not complimentary, looking at him absently, as if she hardly knew that he was there, and hugging ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... absently, frowning down on the other greyer face in the grey dust. Again his hand unsteadily groped over the still heart, and lay there ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... amongst the deserted shafts of Sapling Gully or along Quartz Ridge, and criticize old ground, and talk of past diggers' mistakes, and second bottoms, and feelers, and dips, and leads—also outcrops—and absently pick up pieces of quartz and slate, rub them on their sleeves, look at them in an abstracted manner, and drop them again; and they would talk of some old lead they had worked on: "Hogan's party was here on one side of us, Macintosh was here on the other, Mac was getting ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... leaned, gracefully attentive, on the back of the empty chair, absently swishing his little whisk broom. Before him was planted Potts, his left foot advanced, his head thrown back, reading to Harpin from a spread page of the Argus. I divined that he was reading Solon's comment upon ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... a beast," agreed Selina, absently. She had forgotten all about the pig-killing. Harold kicked away a freshly thrown-up mole-hill, and prodded down the hole with a stick. From the direction of Farmer Larkin's demesne came a long-drawn note of sorrow, a thin cry and appeal, telling that the stout soul of a black Berkshire ...
— Dream Days • Kenneth Grahame
... to me, when he was making up, he absently took a white lily out of a bowl on the table and began to stripe and dot the petals with the stick of grease-paint in his hand. He pulled off one or two of the petals, and held it ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... Nora (absently). Maybe. (HELMER takes a bunch of keys out of his pocket and goes into the hall.) Torvald! what are you ...
— A Doll's House • Henrik Ibsen
... little consideration. Later she went downstairs, cloaked warmly, for a walk to the post-office. Ed Higgins was still in the parlour talking to the family. He hastily put in his petition to accompany her, and it was granted absently. Then he surreptitiously and triumphantly glanced through the window, the scene outside pleasing him audibly. 'Rast was standing at the front gate talking to Anderson Crow. Miss Banks noticed as they passed the confused twain at the gate ...
— The Daughter of Anderson Crow • George Barr McCutcheon
... a table covered with flowers and ferns, staring absently at the floor, with an open letter on his knee. A shaggy collie dog, lying on a rug at his feet, raised its head and growled as Gemma knocked at the open door, and the Gadfly rose hastily and bowed in a stiff, ceremonious way. His face had ...
— The Gadfly • E. L. Voynich
... and the embroidered frill of her starched white petticoat just resting on her sturdy, well-shod feet. One plump hand, in its tight kid glove, toying with her posy of roses and "old man," the other absently tapping John's discarded foot-gear. Her eyes followed the movements of the lithe young form that wandered hither and thither on the sandy expanse below; her lips were parted in a smile of idle content. All at once a shadow fell across ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)
... takes off his boot and sock, empties half a pint of sand out of them, and pulls up his trouser-leg. His leg is sheathed to the knee in dust and sweat; he absently scrapes it with his knife, and presently he amuses himself by moistening a strip with his forefinger and shaving it, as if he were vaguely curious to see if he is ...
— Children of the Bush • Henry Lawson
... sighed Mrs. Dalziel absently. She was thinking of our sight-seeing expedition for which we were already late. Milly remarked that somebody was always throwing an ultimatum at somebody else's head, and asked for jam. Tony said intelligently that it was just what he had expected, after the murder of the archduke ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... serious trouble with that impetuosity of yours, Jacky," he said absently. "But there—I ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... absently at first, as if neither seeing nor hearing him. Then intelligence came into ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... then stopped. Come, Cousin," said the younger Stanton,—"come and view a purchase I have made." Stanton absently alighted, and followed him across a small paved court; the other person followed. "In troth, Cousin," said Stanton, "your choice appears not to have been discreetly made; your house has somewhat of a gloomy aspect."—"Hold ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... "President" in inconspicuous gilt lettering. Entering, with less assurance than if he had been the humblest of place-seekers out of a job, Ford was almost relieved to find only a closed desk, and a young man absently ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... back in her chair and for a space stared out at the peaceful countryside that rose and fell in gentle undulations which finally faded away into the blue distance. The forgiving Angora leaped to her lap and she caressed him absently, her mind centered upon her thoughts, which were not always as cheerful as ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... shadow of evening was creeping up apace over the sky and outer landscape—but something heavier than the mild obscurity of approaching night seemed weighing on the air around him, which oppressed his nerves and saddened his soul. He stood absently turning over the papers on his desk, in a frame of mind which left him uncertain how to employ himself,—whether to read,—to write,—to finish a sketch of the flowering reeds on the river which he had yesterday ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... and subdued. The April baby had an exhausted-looking Japanese doll with her, which she said she was taking to bed, not because she liked him, but because she was so sorry for him, he seemed so very tired. They kissed me absently, and went away, only the April baby glancing at the trees as she passed ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp
... later they were sitting quietly in Miss Minerva's room. She was reading "The Christian at Home," and he was absently looking at a ...
— Miss Minerva and William Green Hill • Frances Boyd Calhoun
... the sensitivity of that old audion tube, that's what it did," replied Bob, absently, his mind already busy with inventive thoughts. "I can't see yet just how it accomplished it, but the connection with the station was certainly clearer and more ...
— The Radio Boys Trailing a Voice - or, Solving a Wireless Mystery • Allen Chapman
... George became thoughtful, and absently put the note in a little rack over the mantelpiece. Then, recollecting that a prying servant or landlady might misinterpret it, he transferred it to his pocket. After breakfast, having satisfied himself before the mirror that his dress was faultless, ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... lady dressed in some black material was standing at one of these windows, her arms crossed behind her back, and absently gazing out of it. At the sound of the opening door she turned swiftly, her whole delicate and lovely face lighting up like a flower in a ray of sunshine, the lips slightly parted, and a deep and happy light shining in her violet eyes. Then, all in an instant, it was instructive to observe /how/ instantaneously, ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... gently opened the door and approached the table, stopping just outside the area of illumination shed by the shaded lamp. But since Victor continued to smoke absently, paying no attention, Nogam resigned himself to wait with entire patience: the perfect pattern of a servant tempered by long servitude to the erratic winds of employers' whims; efficient, assiduous, mute unless required to ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... up the cheque-book—and absently fingered the leaves—then my eye caught a counterfoil where I had chanced to open it. It was not in Miss Sharp's handwriting, although this was the house cheque-book which Burton usually keeps, but in my own and there was written, just casually as I scribble in my private ...
— Man and Maid • Elinor Glyn
... Hanks just looked absently at Rosy weeping in the hollow of her blue gingham arm, then went over to the blackboard and began writing, in fair, large characters, "A rolling stone gathers no moss," for the scholars to copy in their copy-books. ...
— Comfort Pease and her Gold Ring • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... said Nan absently, as her eyes wandered down the double line of shining rails to the spot where they disappeared in the distance. "I wonder if that mean old train is going to be ...
— Nan Sherwood at Palm Beach - Or Strange Adventures Among The Orange Groves • Annie Roe Carr
... at Serge asleep. She had never seen him so utterly prostrated in body as now, his hands lying open on the turf, his face deathly. So dead indeed he was to her that she thought she could kiss his face without his even feeling it. And sadly, absently, she busied her hands with shredding all the roses within her reach. Above her head drooped an enormous cluster which brushed against her hair, set roses on her twisted locks, her ears, her neck, and even threw a mantle of the fragrant flowers across her shoulders. Higher up, under her ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... Boy absently. And he tumbled back on the pillows, thinking about the seashore and the ocean which he had ...
— Sunny Boy in the Country • Ramy Allison White
... slowly and absently like a woman in a dream. When she came to the gap in the fence where the lane ran into the orchard she lifted her wan, drooping face and saw Eric, sitting in the shadow of the wood at the other side of the orchard with his bowed head ...
— Kilmeny of the Orchard • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... was on the train," he continued, "but I could not think where I had come from. There were vague recollections of a walk, then of a long drive in the dark. Now I was on the train, and yet I was somehow not there even now." I poured out more whiskey, but he pushed it aside absently. "I was not there, nor was I here; for when I moved, something seemed to be folded about me, like bedclothes. It was all a kind of duplication, and I could be on the train or in the other place at will. That is why it seemed confused and unreal. We were talking about some matter ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... though he remembered having seen several of them at lectures and things. Doyle made no move toward introducing his friends to Satherwaite, and, to relieve the momentary silence that followed, observed that he supposed it was getting colder. Satherwaite replied, absently, that he hadn't noticed, but that it was still snowing. The youth in the cricket-blazer fidgeted in his chair. Satherwaite ...
— The New Boy at Hilltop • Ralph Henry Barbour
... He said so absently, because he was noting the fact that her serious, earnest eyes were of the peculiar shade which, when seen in eyes, is called green. It was still absently that he added, "And you have to work ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... he repeated again, as though puzzled over the question, and, having finally swallowed the carrot, he gazed absently upwards. ...
— A Desperate Character and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... dusky little sitting-room, Robert Audley folded his arms, and sat absently staring at ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... muttered Lingard, who felt a chill down his back at the idea of his own vessel decaying slowly in some Dutch port. "He died—didn't he?" he asked, absently, while he wondered whether he would have the pluck to set fire to the brig—on ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... Bors brushed absently at his uniform as he walked the two hundred yards to the palace. He abstractedly acknowledged the sentries' salutes as he entered. Much of the palace guard had been sent away, and most of the palace's small staff would ...
— Talents, Incorporated • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... sitting alone, after my legal adviser had taken his leave, looking absently at the newly-engrossed will, when I heard a sharp knock at the house-door which I thought I recognized. In another minute Rothsay's bright face enlivened my dull room. He had returned ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... Lida smiled absently, and slowly re-arranged her hair. Sanine handed her the parasol and glove. To find the other glove was missing at first surprised her, but instantly recollecting the reason, she felt greatly amused at the absurd importance which she had ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... with the colored man in a crisp linen coat who presided over the refreshments, and he invariably gave her an extra spoonful of the marron paste she preferred. When at lunch, it might be, she cared for very little, her mother would complain absently: ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer
... toward the village, and make a mental note, almost absently, that people were getting to their feet now, some of them clinging together the way you and Martha were—and then back down into ...
— Eight Keys to Eden • Mark Irvin Clifton
... to be discussed with a woman, sir," said he absently. "There was a wife—somewhere there was a wife! This man came between us. I was not then what I am today—a shepherd on the hills.... But I must keep you here; you will betray me and warn him if I let you go!" he cried, rousing suddenly, ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... clearly understood, definitely promised arrangement. Monpavon was to call for him at the club. From time to time the good Jenkins glanced at his watch, while applauding absently the bouquet of brilliant notes which the Wauters was pouring forth from her fairy lips, a bouquet costing three thousand francs, useless, like the other expenses of the evening, if the duke did ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... absently. "One thing I would do if I had the power," he began again, "I would not take prisoners. Why take prisoners? It's chivalry! The French have destroyed my home and are on their way to destroy Moscow, they have outraged and are outraging me every moment. They are my enemies. In my opinion ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... trough of tobacco in his fingers and drew the tobacco sack shut with his teeth. His eyes were fixed reflectively upon the bed. He placed the sack absently in his pocket, still meditating ...
— Chip, of the Flying U • B. M. Bower
... head of the stairs and leaned wearily against the stone. His left arm was beginning to tingle with returning circulation now; he rubbed it absently with his good hand and wondered if they would try the sheer walls on the other side of the Temple. He had scaled one of these ancient walls, but would they try it? Certainly they stood little chance coming ...
— Warlord of Kor • Terry Gene Carr
... or less talk during the meal, but nothing of special moment. John sat back in his chair, absently twirling the stem of his glass between thumb and fingers. Presently he said, looking straight before him at the table: "I have been thinking a good deal of late—more than ever before, positively, in fact—that whatever my prospects may be," (he did not see the momentary contraction ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... but took the paper absently and thrust it into his coat pocket. It had fallen from Wambush's pocket. He was very white and leaned ...
— Westerfelt • Will N. Harben
... Cautley—" Perhaps it was just as well for Miss Quincey that the staff were too busy to attend to her. The most they noticed was that in the matter of obstruction Miss Quincey was not quite so precipitate as she had been. She offended less by violent contact and rebound than by drifting absently into the processions and getting ...
— Superseded • May Sinclair
... I'll send up some medicine. He'll like it." Mr Heve glanced absently at his watch. "I must ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... long and curiously at the marriage bed of red and white ashes on which lay, dull black, the barrel of the Ranger's gun. He drove his spurred heel absently into a half-charred log, and the chattering sparks flew upwards. 'Most extraordinary ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... agreed Lucy, absently. In her mind she was wondering how she could find the money for ...
— The Making of Mona • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... time neither Beverly nor her uncle had spoken. He was thinking intently of the confessions just made as he gazed at the darting flames and absently stroked the hand she had slipped into his, her other one gently patting his shoulder. Now and again she kissed the thick, silvery curls which crowned ...
— A Dixie School Girl • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... twisted in after she had gone to bed and taken out before she arose in the morning, lest her mother discover her frivolity and lecture her long,—and, worse still, make her wet a comb and take all of the curl out. A loose strand blew across her tanned cheek, so that she reached up absently and tucked it behind her ear, where it would not stay for longer ...
— Rim o' the World • B. M. Bower
... The Mackhai absently, as he took up his paper, and the breakfast went on to the end, but to Max it was anything but ...
— Three Boys - or the Chiefs of the Clan Mackhai • George Manville Fenn
... with him to the front door, and when he held out his hand she lifted hers absently. He was a quick-witted young man and he understood. He raised it lightly to his lips, then let himself out. As he was walking rapidly toward Park Avenue, wondering if he should tramp for hours—he had never felt less like sleeping—he ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... with me," he again urged. There was a moment's fateful silence, then, quite mechanically, I arose and prepared to accompany him. In the hall below I handed him his evening stick and gloves, which he absently took from me, and we presently traversed that street of houses much in the fashion of the Floud house and nearly all boasting some sculptured bit of wild life ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... Saaron. It was just here that Vashti had seated herself the first morning, and had asked him the fatal question, "For what, then, do they pay you?" He remembered the words, the inflection of scorn in her tone. Here at his feet on a cushion of wild thyme lay the stone she had prised out absently, while she spoke, with the point of her sunshade. Just here, too, she had taken leave of him on the night of her escapade, the night when (it was bliss to remember) she had recanted her scorn, had ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... very good," he replied. He took the cup and set it down absently. "Atley," he continued, speaking to the secretary, "you have not corrected the report of my speech at the Club, have you? No, I know you have had no time. Will you run your eye over it presently, and see if it is all right, and send it to the Times—I ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... thoughts new through his mind, James had been absently watching while the cook turned his treasures out upon his bunk, and pawed them over with trembling hands. There were innumerable little things, besides a stiff white shirt, a cheap shiny Bible, a stuffed parrot and several wads of clothes. And among the mess Jim caught ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... muttered the nephew. "No," said the doctor absently. "I wish to heaven everyone held his views. So long. I must be getting on." And ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... his eyes, and a dreamy look came into them as he let the heavy lids droop a little, and remained silent, apparently lost in thought. The women ceased sobbing, and watched his altered face, while Gianbattista sank down into a chair and absently fingered the pencil that ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... is familiar to him, and he is accustomed to night rides," she said, encouragingly. "Yes," absently. "But he will be very wet. ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... servants, and, in fact, with everyone, but never did she come upon a clue which promised to lead to a solution of the diamond difficulty. Once she penetrated into a turret room, and came unexpectedly upon the Prince, who was sitting on the window-ledge, looking absently out on the broad and smiling valley that lay for miles below the castle. He sprang to his feet and stared so fiercely at the intruder that the girl's heart failed her, and she had not even the presence of mind ...
— Jennie Baxter, Journalist • Robert Barr
... the hail to his bedroom, a retreat in which Queed had never set foot, and returned promptly carrying a dingy duodecimo in worn brown leather. As he entered the room, he absently raised the volume to his lips and blew ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... other absently; his eyes were roving over the room. "Wish I could take to one of these French girls...feel it a sort of duty to increase the rapport and all that...but although the married women and the other sort of girls are a long sight ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... bitterness of their tails," explained Schlorge absently, without looking up from ...
— The Garden of the Plynck • Karle Wilson Baker
... Florence replied absently. "F'r instance, Aunt Julia, I don't see what you want to go walking with Newland Sanders for, when you said yourself you wished he was dead, or somep'n, after there got to be so muck talk in the family and everywhere about his sayin' all that about the Bible when you hurt ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... expected to find it after so many years." "Oh," said the other, "there are twelve feet of masonry up there to protect the rock. I'm a native of the place, and know all about it." "I wish," said Mr. Severn, absently, as he went on drawing, "Mr. Ruskin knew that; he would be so interested." And the stranger ran off. When the sketcher came in to tea he felt there was something wrong. "You're in for it!" said his wife. "Let us look at his ...
— The Life of John Ruskin • W. G. Collingwood
... Percival listened absently to the talk and watched Miss Milbrey, now one of the group in the dining-room. Presently he saw her take a lighted candle from one of the laughing girls and go ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... front veranda as he quitted the house, and absently picked a few sprays of jessamine that grew upon a trellis near by. She inhaled the odor of the blossoms and thrust them into the bosom of her white morning gown. The boys were dragging along the banquette a small "express ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin
... within himself, but unable in a moment to resolve from which particular one to begin, he too absently looked at Tai-yue. Thus it was that the two cousins remained for a long time under the spell of a ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... this absently in a tone of perfunctory dryness. His throat was parched, his head seemed to waver. But he was beginning to comprehend that Long-Hair, for some inscrutable reason of his own, was desirous of making a friendship between ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... mistress with her stern dark mask and formidable eyebrows and air of superb disdain was as august as a goddess. Florrie, moving backwards, had now got nearly to the scullery door with her wringing and splashing and wiping; and she had dirtied even her face. As Hilda absently looked at her, she thought somehow of Mr. Cannon's white wristbands. She saw the washing and the ironing of those wristbands, and a slatternly woman or two sighing and grumbling amid wreaths of steam, and a background of cinders and suds and sloppiness.... All that, ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... a handful," said Ashe, rather absently. Then the memory of Kitty's entry recurred to them both, and ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... odds and ends," the wub said absently, staring around the room. "A nice apartment you have here, Captain. You keep it quite neat. I respect life-forms that are tidy. Some Martian birds are quite tidy. They throw things out of ...
— Beyond Lies the Wub • Philip Kindred Dick
... 'low God don't no ways keer to be remembered by sich as him. Leastways I wouldn't if I was God, you know. I wonder what becomes of folks when God forgets 'em?" And Shocky, seeing that the master had resumed his seat and was looking absently into the fire, moved slowly ...
— The Hoosier Schoolmaster - A Story of Backwoods Life in Indiana • Edward Eggleston
... my arm. The mare was famished and exhausted. The bells were almost silent, for the bullocks stood still in the agony of thirst. The weather was hot; and they had barely sipped the alkaline water at last camp. I was absently observing one white bullock close by, when, with a low bellow, he suddenly darted forward eight or ten yards, and began drinking at the gilgie. That bellow was answered from all sides; and in two minutes his nineteen mates were sharing the discovery. ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... sitting half way up the moor, an old cloak wrapped round her and its hood drawn over her head, for the wind was keen, blowing fresh from the bright blue bay, which stretched before her to the hazy horizon. Her eyes gazed absently over its azure surface, flecked with white, as though with scattered snowflakes, and dotted here and there with the grey sails of the boats which the herring fishery called out from their moorings under the cliffs. She sat at ...
— Garthowen - A Story of a Welsh Homestead • Allen Raine
... absently. Then he came to himself with a mocking laugh. "Well, perhaps he wasn't, ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... be there." Fairchild grasped the pudgy hand and left the office. For a moment afterward, old Henry Beamish stood thinking and looking out over the dingy roof adjacent. Then, somewhat absently, he pressed the ancient electric button for his more ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... older and uglier date, by which he stayed. It was framed by a border of the most brilliant flowers, and it would seem as if the Doctor must have been the gardener, for he picked off some dead ones, and put them absently in his pocket. Then he looked round as if to see that he was alone. Not a soul was to be seen, and the moonlight and shadow lay quietly side by side, as the dead do in their graves. The Doctor stooped down and ...
— The Brownies and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... one in the center scratched absently at its stomach with a furry paw and he lowered the bow, feeling a little foolish at having bothered to raise it against animals so ...
— Space Prison • Tom Godwin
... repeated, absently Then he felt her tremble. "How do you know he's going?" She turned upon her father, and fixed him sternly with ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... indeed?" he remarked absently. "It is a charming age. I wish I were able to see the world again through the eyes of six, going on seven. What a noble world it would seem, full of ...
— Autumn • Robert Nathan
... "Yeh," Ray said, absently. When he spoke like that Cora knew that the invisible rim was revolving in his mind. In another moment he would be off to the little cabinet in the bathroom where he kept his tools ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber
... Capper again. He seemed to take but casual note of the information. He was pulling absently at his pointed ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... she took from an inner compartment a box, then she had a long search for the key, and after it was found she sat with the box on her lap gazing absently before her. ...
— The Spectacle Man - A Story of the Missing Bridge • Mary F. Leonard
... looking down the garden path said, "He's coming;" and as Don Ippolito drew near, his face lighting up with a joyous and innocent smile, she continued absently, "he's got on new stockings, and a ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells
... possible," said Clemence to herself one day, as she took her hat and shawl, and put them on absently, "that I have been in Mrs. Vaughn's employment three months?" She looked at the crisp bank notes that lay in her hand, in payment of her first quarter's salary. "I consider myself a young lady of some importance, or, perhaps, I should say ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... he smiled back, but absently. He was wondering what Christina was doing and how she would take his letter in the morning. . . . He consulted his watch. A long, empty evening lay before him. How on earth was he to fill it? He wanted distraction, and already his companions' ...
— Wee Macgreegor Enlists • J. J. Bell
... a swallow, one among the last of the season, which had by chance found its way through an opening into the upper part of the tent, flew to and from quick curves above their heads, causing all eyes to follow it absently. In watching the bird till it made its escape the assembled company neglected to respond to the workman's ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... His companion was gazing absently at the door through which Gabriel had made his hurried departure. After gazing at it in silence for a moment, he rose from the chair, unfolding section by section like a pocket rule, and, crossing the ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... antiquities" to cultured travellers. I call it more congenial—but how it must have seared his soul! Fancy unveiling the sacred scars of Time to ladies who murmur: "Was this actually the spot—?" while they absently feel for their hatpins! He used to say that nothing kept him at it but the exquisite thought of accumulating the lire for his collection. For the Neave collection, my dear fellow, began early, began almost ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... absently, "right to keep silent." For here was Sylvia at his side and the dreaded peril unfulfilled. "Well, you returned to London?" he ...
— Running Water • A. E. W. Mason
... absently, her attention now engrossed by the excitement about her. Girls were hurrying to take their places before the long frames filled with reels, on which fine woollen threads were being wound by the revolutions of the machinery ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... into the front parlor, took from a damask sofa a rare shawl of white lace and, walking to a mirror, threw it over her head, absently noting the effect in profile. She lifted this off and, breaking the rose from part of its stem, pinned that on her breast. Then, stepping aside to one of the large lofty windows, she stood there under the droop of the ...
— The Mettle of the Pasture • James Lane Allen
... not appear to understand the scheme of the loan; but he takes the money, and is quite stunned by his good fortune. He thanks me absently, and goes and shows the piece to the guards, with a smile that illumines and transfigures his whole person. At Bologna, he has come to his senses; he loads me with blessings, he is ready to weep; he reverences me, he wishes me a good voyage, endless prosperity, and innumerable days; and ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... wish it, I read his correspondence, while he absently twirled the poker in his hands, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 17, 1892 • Various
... absently. He was gazing about the room. Then he walked to the library table, on which lay the revolver. He stooped over it and turned to ...
— Death Points a Finger • Will Levinrew
... Hotchkiss was listening absently: McKnight was whistling under his breath, staring down across the field to where a break in the woods showed a half dozen telegraph poles, the line ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... mostly circulars and "follow up" letters from various aviation schools. He looked up suspiciously at Tex, but Tex manifested none of the symptoms of sly "kidding." Tex was smoking meditatively and gazing absently at Johnny's suitcase. ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... Alan, absently. Presently he went on: "Don't imagine that I doubt anything you have said, Caw—except that the diamonds, whose value there must surely be some extraordinary mistake about, were ...
— Till the Clock Stops • John Joy Bell
... of persons turning to look, which had already begun to mark her entrance into a room, surrounded Rose as she walked up to Lady Charlotte. Mr. Flaxman, who had been standing absently silent, woke up directly she appeared, and went to greet ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... glanced absently at two or three, then turned to the fly leaf of the book, while Virgie's ...
— Virgie's Inheritance • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... dancing. I sat down; in a moment the lightness and jollity had stirred my blood. Hobart took a chair opposite. The place was full of beauty. In the back of my mind blurred the image of Rhamda. I had never seen him; but I had read the description. I wondered absently at ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... you like it," he answered, absently. "I see your uncle cannot find a four-wheeler. You must take my carriage. I am only ...
— A Prince of Sinners • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... absently. "I have just called on my way to school with a message from Miss Millar. She wants you all to come up and have Christmas dinner with ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... He looked absently at Carol. He was a medical machine now, not a domestic machine. "What is ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... his husky sermon. The scanty congregation, who had been sitting, stolidly immobile in their stiff, Sunday clothes, shuffled to their feet, and the pewful of school children, in clamorous chorus, intoned the final hymn. Anthony stood near the organ, absently contemplating, while the rude melody resounded through the church, Rosa's deft manipulation of the key-board. The rugged lines of his face were relaxed to a vacant, thoughtful limpness, that aged his expression not a little: now and then, as if for reference, he glanced questioningly ...
— Victorian Short Stories • Various
... disgust with that donkey he shifted angrily in his chair and his foot struck a bit of paper upon the floor. It rustled and the rustle attracted his attention. Absently he stepped and picked up the paper. It was the slip which had fallen from the Cabot, Bancroft and Cabot letter and was a check drawn to his order for fourteen thousand, three hundred and ten dollars and thirty-eight cents, his share ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... darkly in the sun and the shorter locks were blowing about her face in a downright tantalizing fashion; they made a man want to brush them back and kiss the spot they were caressing so wantonly. She was humming a tune softly to herself. Weary caught the words, sung absently, under ...
— The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories • B. M. Bower
... in the afternoon sunshine on the steps of his big colonial home looking absently out over the circular drive, and the quaint terraced garden, to the red-tiled roof of the garage beyond. But he was not thinking of the garage; he could not, in fact, even have told you the color of its vivid tiling. No! He had far more important things to think of than that—disquieting things ...
— The Story of Leather • Sara Ware Bassett
... why Mariuccia is a witch, and why my Nino, who never so much as looked at the beauties of the generone, as they came with their fathers and brothers and mothers to eat ice-cream in the Piazza Colonna, and listen to the music of a summer's evening,—Nino, who stared absently at the great ladies as they rolled over the Pincio, in their carriages, and was whistling airs to himself for practice when he strolled along the Corso, instead of looking out for pretty faces,—Nino, the cold in all things ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... telling Mr. Birch her opinion of certain Northern institutions she had lately observed, nodded absently. Doctor Churchill ascended the stairs, and Charlotte, slipping from the room, ran up ahead of him to ...
— The Second Violin • Grace S. Richmond
... customers had gone from the little Cafe du Bon Vieux Temps but a woman in a shabby opera-cloak—a woman with tragic eyes, and half a lung. She sat fingering her glass of beer absently, though the clock over the desk pointed to a quarter to midnight, and at midnight beer-drinkers are no longer desired in the Bon Vieux Temps. But she was a stranger; it was concluded ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... said absently. "Always doing that. Confusing them...." He dropped the tray where it belonged, shoved his hands into the chef's cleaning recess and waved them around, then came back, still looking absent-minded, and stopped before Trigger's chair. He studied her ...
— Legacy • James H Schmitz
... abode there, and proceeded to look round for some suitable occupation. When this momentous but invisible event accomplished itself, Sir Roderick was outwardly engaged in the innocent and aimless pursuit of knocking the billiard balls about and listening absently to a discourse from Morewood on the essential truths which he (Morewood) had grasped and presented alone of modern artists. The theme was not exhilarating, and Sir Roderick's tenant soon grew very tired of it; the presentment of truth, indeed, essential or otherwise, not being a matter that concerned ...
— Father Stafford • Anthony Hope
... the rubbers absently. They held fast; and his next impulse was entirely irresistible. He found a shapely stone, fitted it to the leather, and drew back the ancient catapult for a shot. A sparrow hopped upon a branch between him ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... he murmured, thumbing the air absently—"the little things are precious, but not as precious as absolutely nothing. For nothing is perfection. Thank you," he said sweetly to a petrified footman, "thank you for understanding. It is precious—very, very precious to know that ...
— Iole • Robert W. Chambers
... have talked after that, but she did not. When I spoke to her once or twice she answered absently; and presently she forgot me altogether, and began to sing ...
— Ideala • Sarah Grand
... absently. Then the full force of Miriam's words dawning on her she looked at her friend in a startled way. "I know who sent Ruth those presents. It was Elfreda herself. I'm sure of it. She knew Ruth to be too proud to accept clothes, so she sent them anonymously. Now ...
— Grace Harlowe's First Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower |
