"Chatter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... hinted at what it called her "mesalliance," and drew a lurid picture of her domestic unhappiness, "so bravely borne." All the gossip of the Convention was in it intensified and exaggerated—conjectures set down as known truths—the idle chatter of idle ...
— The Black Creek Stopping-House • Nellie McClung
... the way hats were lifted, and glances were turn'd, That this unknown acquaintance, now bound for the hall, Was a person of rank or of fashion; for all Whom he bow'd to in passing, or stopped with and chatter'd, Walk'd on with a look which ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith
... wealthy Marquis de Arco-Hermaso. His palace in Seville became a social centre, for his young wife, beautiful, witty, and accomplished, was a born leader of society. She now had to the full the opportunity of studying those types of Spanish ladies and gentlemen whose gay, inconsequent chatter she has so brilliantly reproduced in her novels dealing with high life. The Marquis died in 1835, and after two years she again married, this time the lawyer De Arrom. Losing his own money and hers, ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... member of this AEsculapian line, Lived at Newcastle upon Tyne: No man could better gild a pill: Or make a bill; Or mix a draught, or bleed, or blister; Or draw a tooth out of your head; Or chatter scandal by your bed; ...
— Broad Grins • George Colman, the Younger
... to the indiscretion of his behaviour. And if you have many companions you will fall deeper into the same trouble. If you should say: "I will go my own way and withdraw apart, the better to study the forms of natural objects", I tell you, you will not be able to help often listening to their chatter. And so, since one cannot serve two masters, you will badly fill the part of a companion, and carry out your studies of art even worse. And if you say: "I will withdraw so far that their words cannot reach me ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... assumed that Halet was simply going out of her way to be irritating, as usual. Looking back on the incident, however, it occurred to her that the chatter between her aunt and the newscast woman had sounded oddly stilted—almost like something ...
— Novice • James H. Schmitz
... direct from Africa. Hideously tattooed, and their heads shaved in regular ridges of black wool, with narrow patches of black scalp between, they are here in a small tradesman's shop in bowery England buying shirts. They know not a word of English, but chatter among themselves the most horrible lingo known to the Hamitic group of tongues. They grimace in a frightful manner, and skip and dance, and writhe their half-naked bodies into the most exaggerated contortions known to the language of signs. The dignified ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various
... abandoned hope disconsolately and returned to the hut, his teeth inclined to chatter and his stomach assailed by qualms—premonitions of exhaustion in a ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... Cuno, and bore the lady scant goodwill, and in a little set his brain to some device by which he might vent his malice on both. This was no difficult task, for the Count was as prone to jealousy as he was quick to wrath, and with crafty hint and wily jest and seemingly aimless chatter the Italian sowed the seeds of suspicion and watchfulness in ...
— A Child's Book of Saints • William Canton
... price for his conversion. To be made high constable of France, it was said would melt the resolve of the stiff Huguenot. To any other inducement or blandishment he was adamant. Whatever truth may have been in such chatter, it is certain that the duke never gratified his ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... eternal chatter. And encouraging those ugly girls—inviting one to meet such monsters. How that fat Deronda can bear looking ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... her with the newspaper in her hand. If you had not been deaf and blind to her defects, you would have noticed that she couldn't fix her attention on it. She was always ready to join in the chatter of the ladies about her. When even their stores of gossip were exhausted, she let the newspaper drop on her lap, and sat in ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... know not." "Who is thy father?" "That I may not tell thee." "What is it that thou art always muttering between thy teeth?" "Ah," replied the youth, "I do so wish I could shudder, but no one can teach me how to do it." "Give up thy foolish chatter," said the wagoner. "Come go with me, I will see about a place for thee." The youth went with the wagoner, and in the evening they arrived at an inn where they wished to pass the night. Then at the entrance of the room ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... and placed the muzzle of the pistol against her head. She shivered at the contact, and her teeth began to chatter. ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... care about my plays, and always said, 'Don't chatter, child; run away and take care of yourself.' So I did; but it was pretty dull, with only Tabby to tell secrets to and Bella to kiss. Mr. Thomas said people over here didn't like children very well, and I found they didn't. HE does, dearly, so I went to him; but I like you now, you are so soft ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott
... was the reply. "To hear the thrum of the pigeon, the whistle of the hawk, the chatter of the black squirrel, and the long cry of the eagle, is not lonely. Then, there is the river and the pines—all music; and for what the eye sees, God has been good; and to kill pumas is my joy. . . . So, I cannot go. These hills are mine. Few strangers ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... geese, the languishing cooing of doves, the braying of donkeys, the chatter of irresponsible sparrows—these were in my mind's ear as I read. "Suffering Sappho!" I exclaimed to myself. "Is this the divine fire that is supposed to ignite genius and make it practical ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... grew feeble, weakened, declined, his health deserted him. A free-thinker—he took to going to church, and to ordering services of prayer; a European—he began to steam himself at the bath, to dine at two o'clock, to go to bed at nine, to fall asleep to the chatter of the aged butler; a statesman—he burned all his plans, all his correspondence, trembled before the governor, and fidgeted in the presence of the rural chief of police; a man with a will of iron—he whimpered ...
— A Nobleman's Nest • Ivan Turgenieff
... the reader to a greater command of the vernacular. "Here is for him occasion both to whet his wit and also to file his tongue. For although an Englishman hath his mother tongue and can talk apace as he learned of his dame, yet is it one thing to tittle tattle, I wot not how, or to chatter like a jay, and another to bestow his words wisely, orderly, pleasantly, and pithily." The writer knows men who could speak Latin "readily and well-favoredly, who to have done as much in our language and to have handled the same matter, ...
— Early Theories of Translation • Flora Ross Amos
... had not to warn the giant not to chatter about meeting the stranger on the road to Waterfield. If that person with dried red mud on his boots was the spy who had followed Mr. Richard Bartholomew East and was engaged by Montagne Lewis to interfere with any attempt the president of the H. & P. A. might make to pull ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Locomotive - or, Two Miles a Minute on the Rails • Victor Appleton
... about to take hold of me by the nose. If you do it, I'll run you through. I thought you'd like to be warned, that's all. Go on with your chatter." ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... tightened the lines, made an unique sound in his throat, and the horses pressed their shoulders into the collars. Linder glanced back to see each wagon or implement take up the slack with a jerk like the cars of a freight train; the cushioned rumble of wagon wheels on the soft earth, and the noisy chatter of the steel teeth of the hay-rakes came up from the rear. Transley's "outfit" was ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead
... pointer," by the judges' stand, and how the short shadow cast by the staff told of the end of the morning. The last wagers were recorded on the tablets by nervous styluses. The readiest tongues ceased to chatter. Thousands of wistful eyes turned from the elegant form of the Athenian to the burly form of the Spartan. Every outward chance, so many an anxious heart told itself, favoured the oft-victorious giant; but then,—and here came reason ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... that Alister had heard Dennis chatter to the squaw, through all our ups and downs, at sea and ashore, he had never flagged in his persistent profiting by Dennis's offer to teach him to speak French. It was not, perhaps, a very scholarly method which they pursued, ...
— We and the World, Part II. (of II.) - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... have tried to come in. Do you remember that morning? You were the first ring-tail monkey that I had seen since I left the Zoo, and you looked so much like my twin brother, who used to swing with me in the tangled vines of my native forests, and pelt me with cocoanut-shells, and chatter to me all day long under those hot, bright skies, that I wanted to put my arms around you and hug you; but the looking-glass was between us. Some day I shall break that glass, and crawl ...
— The Story of Dago • Annie Fellows-Johnston
... mansion easily enough; for, in spite of all her chatter, she had no depth of mind. The tallest gum-tree was on Barlow's farm which adjoined the forty-acre on the east. Barlow had been a stockman for several years on Calvert's run, and had saved money. He invested his money in the Bank of Love, and ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... whom followed us into the poky little room which appeared to serve as a living-room for the whole family. Although past ten o'clock, the remains of breakfast were still on the table, and were not appetizing to look at. We sat down on chairs placed in a circle, the whole party commencing to chatter volubly, and scarcely a word being intelligible to me. Presently the vrow brought me a cup of coffee in a cracked cup and saucer. Not wishing to give offence, I tried to swallow it; the coffee was not bad, if one could only have dissociated it from that dreadful ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... this remote little Chur. What need have the inhabitants for walls and ramparts, except to build summer-houses, to trail vines, and hang clothes to dry on them? No enemies approach the great mouldering gates: only at morn and even the cows come lowing past them, the village maidens chatter merrily round the fountains, and babble like the ever-voluble stream that flows under the old walls. The schoolboys, with book and satchel, in smart uniforms, march up to the gymnasium, and return thence at their stated time. There is one coffee-house in the town, ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... and flat; sandhills matted with bent-grass and starred with red thyme and tiny pansies, yellow and purple and blue. Low tide carries the sea almost to the horizon, across a vast wilderness of dripping sand where the gulls chatter as they wade among the pools. Where the shore rises again towards the Carlingford Mountains, another cromlech stands under the shadow of ...
— Ireland, Historic and Picturesque • Charles Johnston
... the library for coffee," said Indiman, a little abruptly, and I could see that Ellison's chatter was beginning to get on his nerves; my own were vibrating like harp-strings. I walked over to one of the library windows and looked out, just in time to catch sight of a man backing quickly into the shadow of the ...
— The Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen
... the stranger you met once. Ah, Yet a goodlier scene than that succeeds; People on a lawn—quite a crowd of them. Yes, And they chatter and ramble as fancy leads; And they say, "Hurrah!" To a blithe speech made; save one, mirthless, Who ought not ...
— Moments of Vision • Thomas Hardy
... ink one small detail of Sada's story. When I was fastening her simple white gown for the dance her chatter was like that of a sunny-hearted child. Indeed, she liked to dance. Susan did not think it harmful. She said if your heart was right your feet would follow. When Miss West could spare her she always went to parties with Billy, and oh, how he could ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... about in his room, but, owing to the girl's chatter, she could not tell whether he went out again or not. And then, very much later, because she thought that if he were drinking again something must be done to stop it, she opened for the first time, and very softly, the never-opened door between their rooms. She wanted to see if he had ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford
... not have told her how much he liked it, but as he listened to her chatter he wondered how on earth Kate was going to make the tenants of the Washington think the child ...
— Mary Rose of Mifflin • Frances R. Sterrett
... and striking. In most cases, the two animals have an equally pleasing exterior. They both have the ability to climb giddy heights, inaccessible to any other wingless biped. Their language is not dissimilar, the same unintelligible chatter being characteristic of both. As the argument proceeds, it will be seen that distinctive traits belonging to lower classes of the animal kingdom are totally extinct in the Gorilla, while they are emphatically ...
— Punchinello, Vol.1, No. 4, April 23, 1870 • Various
... some reverend, all but sacred, personage before whom our tongue ceases to be loud and our step to be elastic? But were we once to see him stretch himself beneath the bed-clothes, yawn widely, and bury his face upon his pillow, we could chatter before him as glibly as before a doctor or a lawyer. From some such cause, doubtless, it arose that our archdeacon listened to the counsels of his wife, though he considered himself entitled to give counsel to every other ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... had sought and sought and all his seeking had been vain, and here, by a mere chance, at an unlooked-for moment, the knowledge he had so ardently sought was his. He could afford to wait now; he leaned back comfortably and listened with an air of most eager interest to his cousin's chatter. ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... nor his soul Within his heart its even balance keeps But changing still, from foot to foot he shifts, And in his bosom loudly beats his heart Expecting death; and chatter all his teeth. The brave man's color changes not with fear, He knows ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... the swallows and the orioles are the most conspicuous. The bright plumage of the latter seems really like an arrival from the tropics. I see them dash through the blossoming trees, and all the forenoon hear their incessant warbling and wooing. The swallows dive and chatter about the barn, or squeak and build beneath the eaves; the partridge drums in the fresh sprouting woods; the long, tender note of the meadowlark comes up from the meadow; and at sunset, from every marsh and pond come the ten thousand voices of the hylas. May is the transition month, ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... Shelley, who understood the humour of the piece, as well as the poetry, but not the particular humours of it. Nothing can be more expressive of a conceited, narrow-minded reviewer. 'Oh he!—he is absolutely everywhere,—What others dance, he must decide upon. If he can't chatter about every step, 'tis as good as not made at all. Nothing provokes him so much as when we go forward. If you'd turn round and round in a circle, as he does in his old mill, he'd approve of that perhaps; especially if you'd consult him ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... Then there were numerous ships passing along the southern shores of Australia or in the vicinity of New Zealand whose "calls" were audible on "good nights." The warships were at times particularly distinct, and occasionally the "chatter in the ether" was so confusing that Sawyer, at Macquarie Island, would signal ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... guide her through life, and she indulged them at her pleasure. She had taken a fancy to Dinah from the first moment. She knew all about the family of her young companion, from having listened to Dorcas's chatter when in the mood. Keenly interested in the spread of the plague, which had driven away all her fashionable friends, she was eager for news about it, and the more ghastly the tales that were told, the more did she seem to revel in them. To have news first hand from those who actually tended the sick ...
— The Sign Of The Red Cross • Evelyn Everett-Green
... pirate, the ominous black flag still hoisted, although, as the breeze had dropped, it hung down limp from the mast; and they could hear the chatter of voices on board her quite distinctly. Nearer and nearer she came—until the lieutenant could count every man that stood grouped on her ...
— The Penang Pirate - and, The Lost Pinnace • John Conroy Hutcheson
... horrible strain she continued chattering to herself and menacing Bijou, until suddenly she stopped short and bent over in a listening attitude. A sound had caught her ear. Something had broken the frightful silence besides her rambling maniacal chatter. Some other animate thing was within her hearing. She was breathless for many moments as she glared, eyes and mouth open, in the direction from which the sound had proceeded. She listened devouringly and ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... that lack real vision. In the story of "What the Birds Said," for instance, the stolid jailer flatly denies that the feathered creatures have any message of import to convey; it is the poor captive who by sympathy and insight divines the meaning of their chatter and thus saves the city and his ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... then a shrill jay swept down, a flash of blue flame, and stopped on a twig almost within the boy's reach, cocked his head to one side and eyed the strangers with a consuming curiosity; a gray squirrel and a big fellow of the "fox" kind came skurrying along, sitting up at intervals to inspect and chatter at the boys, for the wild things had probably never seen a human being before and scarcely knew whether to be afraid or not. All Nature was wide awake and stirring, now; long lances of sunlight pierced down through the dense foliage far and near, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... believe, whose manners I have studied more than that of the caplimulgus (the goat-sucker), as it is a wonderful and curious creature: but I have always found that though sometimes it may chatter as it flies, as I know it does, yet in general it utters its jarring note sitting on a bough; and I have for many an half hour watched it as it sat with its under mandible quivering, and particularly this summer. It perches usually on a bare twig, with its head lower than its tail, in an ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... by this time become so pale that it could not become paler, so it turned somewhat green instead. His teeth, too, had a tendency to chatter when he spoke, but by a strong mental effort he prevented this, and said in a subdued voice that he was willing to do whatever ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... along the shore that one could almost have stepped from one to another. Into every nook and corner between the steamers were crowded small odd looking boats loaded with native produce over which the owners kept up an incessant chatter. ...
— An Epoch in History • P. H. Eley
... hands uplifted, could only chatter incoherently. It needed this to complete the resemblance to the deceased ...
— Tam O' The Scoots • Edgar Wallace
... hour had gone when something happened. A horse stamped, a cock set up a sudden chatter, the cat leaped to a manger, and a cow scrambled to her feet. The darkness was full of movement,—wings fluttered, timbers shook under kicking hoofs and rubbing hides, tossed heads jarred the rings that held them fast. Then from the corner in which stood the splendid ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... of hum, a falsetto, feminine cooing, greeted the tiny sally; and Otto expanded like a peacock. This warm atmosphere of women and flattery and idle chatter pleased ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... The chatter ran on for a while in a similar strain. Frederick, without betraying it, was on the alert for every word she uttered, noted every play of feature, watched for her glances, for the rise and fall of her lashes. He jealously studied the others, too, and caught ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... chatter to his visitors, and the visitors would admire his dashing rapidity, and utter exclamations of wonder when they heard how quickly he worked; and then they would whisper to each other—"This is genius—real genius! How well he ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... Cap'n Sproul, buzzing with his emotions, caught only a few words, nor grasped any part of the meaning. But the sonorous "United States of America" chilled his blood, and the word "guilty" made his teeth chatter. ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... with you, Polly; I never liked Trix, and I hope it 's only a boy-and-girl fancy, that will soon die a natural death," said Mr. Shaw, who seemed to find it difficult to help falling into a brown study, in spite of the lively chatter going on ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... the last minute of suspense was on, she was depressed. The exhilaration of preparation had gone from her, and the words of the captious man on her left, "that little runt," hung with persistent heaviness on her soul. All the vast theater of the stand was a buzz of eager chatter. Verily it was a race; it was the Brooklyn Handicap. Lips that smiled gave a mocking lie to drawn, strained faces, and nervous, shifting eyes, that told of the acceptance of too deep a hazard. The weeks and months of mental speculation embodied in heavy bets would have ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... one harsh or suspicious or unkind word was uttered by Luther. He only wished to answer the Zurichers briefly and to the point, for he had written, he said, quite enough on the subject against Zwingli and Oecolampadius, and did not want to spoil the last years of his life with arrogant and idle chatter. He only inserted afterwards in a series of theses, with which he replied in the late summer of that year to a fresh condemnation pronounced against him by the theologians of Louvain, an article against the Zwinglians, declaring that they and all those who disgraced the Sacrament by denying ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... burst of excited chatter from the women as they passed beyond the door into the back of the Castle. All their tongues seemed to be loosed at once. Mr. Manley went out of the Castle door, crossed the drive, and walked up and down ...
— The Loudwater Mystery • Edgar Jepson
... together, very fast, all but the tall one, who, though she talked also, did not chatter as the others did, but spoke slowly, in a low tone which must be listened to, or it could not be heard. The four laughed a good deal, and when the tall woman smiled she lost something of her fascination, ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... have all together in the country! Christine had not been up all summer, had she? Here Moya came to her husband's relief, through a wife's dual consciousness in company, and covered his want of spirits with a flood of foolish chatter. ...
— The Desert and The Sown • Mary Hallock Foote
... his task—there will be no truthfulness, no eloquence, no concentrated thought and permanent achievement. With, you, dear Margaret, such has already been the effect. You shrink from the ordinary enjoyments of society. Their bald chat distresses you, as the chatter of so many jays. You prefer the solitude which feeds the serious mood which you love, and enables your imagination, unrepressed by the presence of shallow witlings, to evoke its agents from storm and shadow—from deep forest and lonesome lake—to minister ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... a smiling acknowledgment to the vigorous clapping of hands and the hearty "Welcome, Miss Minturn, to Hilton." Then Miss Reynolds led her away, and the interrupted chatter of the magpies was resumed with redoubled animation, but now the new junior absorbed the ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... garden walks where all the flowers are blowing, Out about the golden fields where tall the wheat is growing, Through the barn and up the road they cackle and they chatter: Cry the children, "Hear the hens! Why, ...
— Pinafore Palace • Various
... shiver,' said Mr. Dick, counterfeiting that affection and making his teeth chatter. 'Held by the palings. Cried. But, Trotwood, come here,' getting me close to him, that he might whisper very softly; 'why did she give him money, ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... they stood, a study in light bronze against the dappled green foliage. The shrill chatter of the other girls approaching startled Bakuma into action. ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... in familiarly among the rest, so did one or two eldest sons; shy, mute young men tricked out in gorgeous jewelry, and highly honored by an invitation to this literary solemnity, the boldest men among them so far shook off the weight of awe as to chatter a good deal with Mlle. de la Haye. The women solemnly arranged themselves in a circle, and the men stood behind them. It was a quaint assemblage of wrinkled countenances and heterogeneous costumes, but none the less it seemed very ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... expect they're afraid of being guyed." So, just to show how sociable and friendly I could be, I tries buttin' in on these lonely teeter-tates. First I'd hunt up one couple and submit some samples of my best chatter—gettin' about as much reply as if I was ringin' Central with the wire down. Then I locates the other pair, drags a rocker over near 'em, and tries to make the dialogue three handed. They stands it for a minute or so before decidin' ...
— Odd Numbers - Being Further Chronicles of Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... herself to speak—to chatter to a now complacent group of women who gathered round her. Those emeralds, and the way the diamonds were set round them, proved too strong an attraction for even Lady Harrowfield ...
— Beyond The Rocks - A Love Story • Elinor Glyn
... costs. He wished his friend to know how grandly their affair turned out. She had put him in the way of something absolutely special—an old house untouched, untouchable, indescribable, an old corner such as one didn't believe existed, and the holy calm of which made the chatter of studios, the smell of paint, the slang of critics, the whole sense and sound of Paris, come back as so many signs of a huge monkey-cage. He moved about, restless, while he wrote; he lighted cigarettes and, nervous and suddenly scrupulous, put them out again; the night was mild and one ...
— Some Short Stories • Henry James
... obsessed with the notion that the familiar rant of Herod was peculiarly suited to his subject. In such a notion there lay, of course, the half-truth that lofty thoughts and impassioned speech are more befitting the sombre muse than the foolish chatter of clowns. But, except where his own deliberately introduced mirth-makers are speaking, he will have nothing but pompous rhetoric from the lips of his characters. His prologue begins his speech with the ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... chatter, chatter as I flow To join the brimming river, For men may come and men may go, But I ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... off on their errand very gayly in the big car, although Polly and Janet, in the back seat together, were a little shy and silent at the very first. At the end of a mile, however, they were beginning to warm toward each other and had set up a brisk chatter ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs
... take long to help Russ up on to the log again. The water just poured off him; but it was not very cold and his teeth didn't chatter—much. Mammy June ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Mammy June's • Laura Lee Hope
... flame of the open grate, All that is good in the past I see: Red-lipped youth on the swinging gate, Bright-eyed youth with its minstrelsy; Girls and boys that I used to know, Back in the days of Long Ago, Troop before in the smoke and flame, Chatter and sing, as the wild birds do. Everyone I can call by name, For the fire builds all of ...
— Just Folks • Edgar A. Guest
... "O my lord, I have drunk, and now I would have thee give me to eat of whatever is in the house, though it be but a bit of bread or a biscuit with an onion." Replied Ali Shar, "Begone, without more chaffer and chatter; there is nothing in the house." He persisted, "O my lord, if there be nothing in the house, take these hundred dinars and bring us something from the market, if but a single scone, that bread and salt may pass between us."[FN286] With this, quoth Ali Shar to himself, "This Christian is surely mad; ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... night of the debut arrived, as doomsday will come at last; and after having been elaborately arrayed for her part by a gossiping tire-woman, who would chatter incessantly, relating, for the encouragement of the debutante, tale after tale of stage-fright, swoons, and failure,—after having been plumed, powdered, and most reluctantly rouged, the rose of nineteen summers having suddenly paled on her cheek, Zelma was silently conducted from her ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... engaged fifteen or twenty minutes, drilling and carrying out chips, it ascends to an upper limb, utters a loud call or two, when its mate soon appears, and, alighting near it on the branch, the pair chatter and caress a moment, then the fresh one enters the cavity ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... to have father and mother tell me to hurry up and finish my chatter, for I kept all that happened to myself. I had a new "intimate friend," and did not so much as mention her. I wrote a poem and showed it to my teacher, but not to my uninterested parents. And when I climbed the stairs at night to my room, I swelled with loneliness and anguish ...
— Painted Windows • Elia W. Peattie
... it is for a scaddle pawn to cross a Bishop in his own walk. Such diedappers must be taken up, else they'll not stick to check the king. Rip up my life, discipher my name, fill thy answer as full of lies as of lines, swell like a toad, hiss like an adder, bite like a dog, and chatter like a monkey, my pen is prepared and my mind; and if ye chance to find any worse words than you brought, let them be put in your dad's dictionary. And so farewell, and be hanged, and I pray God ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... Bits of the chatter around him came vaguely to Shotwell—the birth-control lady's placid inclination toward obstetrics; Wardner on concentration, with Palla listening, bending forward, brown eyes wide and curious and snowy hands framing her face; Ilse partly turned ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... tape machine, and as Thresk descended he heard the clicking of the instrument and saw the usual small group of visitors about it. They were mostly Americans, and they were reading out to one another the latest prices of the stock-markets. Some of the chatter reached to Thresk's inattentive ears, and when he was only two steps from the floor one carelessly-spoken phrase interjected between the values of two securities brought him to a stop. The speaker was a young man with a squarish face and thick hair ...
— Witness For The Defense • A.E.W. Mason
... want the Messengers'? We'll teach the Public sense, Which consists in looking pleasant while we pocket all their pence. Though the papers rave, we care not for their chatter and their fuss. They must keep at home their messages, or send them all through Us. And we'll crush these boy-intruders as a mongoose crushes snakes. They have sown, but we shall reap it—'tis the will of ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, March 28, 1891 • Various
... meal, with much expectant chatter about the long summer so soon to begin at the farm up in the mountains. George, whose hair was down over his eyes, rumpled it back absorbedly as he told of a letter he had received from his friend Dave Royce, Roger's farmer, with whom ...
— His Family • Ernest Poole
... upstairs, and Meryl stood awhile at the wide window, looking over the lovely garden; and though she still answered kindly to her aunt's flow of chatter, the good lady having followed them to their room, her heart was far away among distant kopjes, where mysterious grey walls basked in the sunlight with the silence and the patience of ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... from me: "You saw the matter, How I was guiltless proved in fire divine; Will you desert me for mere idle chatter? Are such things ...
— Translations of Shakuntala and Other Works • Kaalidaasa
... time, long, long ago, And long before the great oak at our door Was yet an acorn, on a mountain's side Lived, with his wife, a cottager. They dwelt Beside a glen and near a dashing brook, A pleasant spot in spring, where first the wren Was heard to chatter, and, among the grass, Flowers opened earliest; but, when winter came, That little brook was fringed with other flowers,— White flowers, with crystal leaf and stem, that grew In clear November nights. And, later still, ...
— The Little People of the Snow • William Cullen Bryant
... thou breathe us No thrilling harmony, no charming pathos, No cheerful song of love without its bathos? The Furies take thee,— Blast thy obstreperous mirth, thy foolish chatter,— Gag thee, exhaust thy breath, and stop thy clatter, And change thee to a beast, thou senseless prater!— ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... "Stop this chatter!" cried Jim, flying at him and seizing him by the collar. "Tell me how you know this, and how ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick
... in a whirlwind of conversation to keep the attention of the soldiers in their own direction. So absorbed were Otto and Fritz in listening to the chatter that they failed to hear the faint whistle of a rope through the air, and it was not until the noose of Dave's lasso settled about their shoulders and they were jerked incontinently backward ...
— Boy Scouts Mysterious Signal - or Perils of the Black Bear Patrol • G. Harvey Ralphson
... so miserable as he listened to Sally's ceaseless chatter that he felt that if he had a revolver, he would shoot himself then and there, ...
— Jolly Sally Pendleton - The Wife Who Was Not a Wife • Laura Jean Libbey
... shudder. But when we have once screwed our courage to the sticking place, and with a single jerk of the clothes, and a brisk jump from the bed, have commenced the operations of the toilet, the battle is nearly over. The teeth chatter for a while, and the limbs shiver, and we do not feel particularly comfortable while breaking the ice in our jugs, and performing our cold ablutions amidst the sharp, glass-like fragments, and wiping our faces with a frozen towel. But these petty evils are quickly vanquished, ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson
... shoot. Look out! That gun might go off," they pleaded; we could hear their teeth chatter. "If you won't point it at us ...
— Pluck on the Long Trail - Boy Scouts in the Rockies • Edwin L. Sabin
... we all know. But—in short—here in Ravenna—it would not be—desirable,—your Excellency understands and appreciates what I would say a thousand times better than I can say it. It would be in every point of view better, as your Excellency sees, that no idle chatter of this kind should be set about here. It would be inexpedient for more ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... the dining-room and dinner proceeded in its usual leisurely fashion, although the gay chatter that generally accompanied it was absent. Everyone seemed ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... squirrel nature and took the case in hand when the proper time came. She hid the children and lay down flat in the middle of the open glade. The saucy low-minded squirrel came and scolded as usual. But she moved no hair. He came nearer and at last right overhead to chatter: ...
— Lobo, Rag and Vixen - Being The Personal Histories Of Lobo, Redruff, Raggylug & Vixen • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... me as I was coming down the steps of the Hotel Dieu, linked his arm in mine, drew me into a shady angle under the lee of Notre Dame, and, without leaving me time to reply, went on pouring out his light, eager chatter as readily as a mountain-spring bubbles ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... no name in the regions which I inhabit," replied the voice, mournfully; "I was mortal, but am fiend. I was merciless, but am pitiful. Thou dost feel that I shudder.—My teeth chatter as I speak, yet it is not with the chilliness of the night—of the night without end. But this hideousness is insufferable. How canst thou tranquilly sleep? I cannot rest for the cry of these great agonies. ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... been turned inward and her ears had not been tuned only to catch her own natural complaints, this chatter of young things would have called her out to laugh and tingle and dance in the haunted wood and cry out little incoherent welcomes to the children of the earth. Something of the joy and emotion of that mother-month must have stirred her imagination and set her blood racing through ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... seemed plunged into an ecstasy of ferocious joy. His nostrils dilated, the veins of his neck and temples were swollen, and the same savage laugh, which had curled his lips at the aspect of the sleeping Djalma, again displayed his pointed black teeth, which a nervous trembling of the jaws made to chatter. But soon he crossed his arms upon his heaving breast, bowed his forehead, and murmured some mysterious words, which sounded like an invocation or a prayer. Immediately after, he returned to the contemplation of the dead body. The hyena and the tiger-cat, who, before ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... thick and fast, as great praters usually do, to chatter like a magpye; also to speak a foreign language. He jabbered to rne in his damned outlandish parlez vous, but I could not understand him; he chattered to me in French, or some other foreign language, but I could not ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... drew apart in an expression of ape-like ferocity, and he began to chatter threats of vengeance, to which Kirk paid little heed. A few moments later they went out quietly, and together took the rock road down toward the city, the one silent and desperate, the other whining like a ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... (lucre), and from these to the representative Sumner girls (cultivated poverty). There were also intellectual, scientific, and Art circles to deal with; music, pleasant to hear, albeit condemned by Mr. Pericles; agreeable chatter, courtly flirtation and homage, and no dread of the defection of the letter ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... passed the remainder of the day at Marya's house, assisting her in her work, and listening to her chatter. Late in the evening she returned home and found it bare, chilly and disagreeable. She moved about from corner to corner, unable to find a resting place, and not knowing what to do with herself. Night was fast approaching, and she grew worried, ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... married Patricia Vartrey, for all the chatter and whispering, and carried her away from Lichfield, as yet a little dubious as to what recognition, if any, should be accorded the existence of the Stapyltons. And afterward (from a notoriously untruthful North, indeed) came rumors that he ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... might be put in jail if he found out that she had been with me, and had on her brother's clothes. As a well-tutored child in a Presbyterian family, I knew what becomes of liars when they leave off living and lying together. My teeth ceased to chatter and met with a snap. The loyal heart rallied to the help of the guilty tongue. I raised my ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... Cynthia. There followed a time of very close companionship with her. She sought me out, she began to confide in me, chattering about her happiness and her delight in her surroundings, as a child might chatter, and half chiding me, in a tender and pretty way, for not being more at ease in the place. "You always seem to me," she said, "as if you were only staying here, while I feel as if I could live here for ever. Of course you are very kind and patient about it all, but you are not at home—and ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson
... family, and songs were sung that took them back to farms and clearings and villages, far away in the Eastern States, where sweethearts, mothers, wives, and sisters ofttimes waited and waited for news of a wanderer, lured far away by the glint of silver and gold. The notes of birds, the chatter of brooks, the tinkle of cow-bells came again, with the ...
— Bruvver Jim's Baby • Philip Verrill Mighels
... prolonged picnic, in which business and pleasure are equally combined. They are essentially gregarious, and this industry brings many together during the long bright days. The light work leaves their tongues free, and families and neighbors pick together with a ceaseless chatter, a running fire of rude, broad pleasantry, intermingled occasionally with a windy war of words in a jargon that becomes all the more uncouth from anger, but which rarely ...
— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe
... porteresses, each a fascinating study of pose and drapery, and from a third class carriage just pulled up, out gushes a whole family, the kids naked from the waist up, and the men almost the same from the waist down. The women are in waspish yellow and deep reds, and they group and chatter in the sun, then heave their baggage, great soft baskets, on their heads—the women do this, the men have turbans, so they can't, and away they all go smiling. But better still, in the shade, there's a group of men and women seated, ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... pair of shoes![81]—what then? not much, if they Are such as fit with ladies' feet, but these (No one can tell how much I grieve to say) Were masculine; to see them, and to seize, Was but a moment's act.—Ah! well-a-day! My teeth begin to chatter, my veins freeze! Alfonso first examined well their fashion, And then ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... engagement together, and when my opponent had a particularly difficult shot to play, two ladies came up quite close to him and persisted in talking in a loud tone of voice. Taylor waited for a little while in the hope that their chatter would cease, but it did not. Then, in a feeling of desperation, he attempted to address his ball; but the task was hopeless. The conversation went on more loudly than ever, and he was doomed to certain failure if he attempted his stroke in these circumstances. ...
— The Complete Golfer [1905] • Harry Vardon
... by Natalie's incoherent, excited chatter and Lalia's stubborn silence, Mrs. Leighton waited in suspense. Leighton entered with his burden and laid it down. Then he turned. She ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain
... two women came in again, having, as I supposed, conferred with the Indian our conductor; and, appearing to be in great good humour, began to chatter and laugh immoderately. Perceiving the wet and cold condition I was in, they seemed to have compassion on me, and the old woman went out and brought some wood, with which she made a good fire; but my hunger being impatient, I could not forbear expressing ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... of constraint. She therefore rebelled against the idea of another master. She was very gentle but determined, and this determination of hers ended sometimes in the most violent anger. She used then to turn very pale, and violet rings would come round her eyes, her lips would tremble, her teeth chatter, her beautiful eyes take a fixed gaze, the words would come at intervals from her throat, all chopped up—hissing and hoarse. After this she would faint; and the veins of her throat would swell, and her hands and feet turned icy cold. ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... took no account of the working-model of the whole Rock and Castle of Edinburgh, which I dragged about by an ankle chain. Anon I was pelting with Rowley in a claret-coloured chaise through a cloud of robin-redbreasts; and with that I awoke to the veritable chatter of birds and the white light of dawn ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... seek speech without delay with our sublime fellow-Shade—with him who, in his transient existence as a poet, commented upon the smell of the rose. He will comfort you. You came to me stripped of all prestige by men's queer smiles and the disrespectful chatter of every vagrant trader in the Islands. Your name was the common property of the winds; it, as it were, floated naked over the waters about the equator. I wrapped round its unhonoured form the royal mantle of the tropics, and have essayed to put into the hollow sound the ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... always carried with him. In a short time it began to operate, so as to bereave him of the little sense he possessed, and his head was filled with ridiculous reveries. While he was musing, a magpie beginning to chatter from her nest in the tree, he fancied it was a human voice, and that some woman had asked to purchase his cow: upon which he said, "Reverend mother of Solomon, dost thou wish to buy my cow?" The bird ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.
... arm, while Bertie who had hesitated an instant, gave his to Cecil. The momentary reluctance was not lost upon her, she become rather silent, ditto Captain Du Meresq; but their opposite neighbours were in a full flow of chatter. ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... are speaking, the woman approaches the little shrine, opens it, arranges the objects in it, lights the tiny lamp, and with joined hands and bowed head begins to pray. Totally unembarrassed by our presence and our chatter she seems, as one accustomed to do what is right and beautiful heedless of human opinion; praying with that brave, true frankness which belongs to the poor only of this world—those simple souls who never have any secret to hide, either from each other or from ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... look at you with bright eyes. In the evening the squirrels come out in countless numbers, and their crashing leaps may be heard in all directions; bright cardinal-birds, Florida jays and gay nonpareils enliven the gloom; the jays chatter in the branches and mocking-birds carol from the topmost limbs. It is one of the joys of earth to walk through the Grand ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... next saw. Scarcely had Lucifer uttered judgment upon these people, and sent them, for the cool impertinence of their reasons, to the vast sheet, in the country of the eternal ice, the teeth of the wretches beginning to chatter before they saw their prison, when Hell began once more, to resound awfully with terrible blows, harsh blustering thunders, and every sound of war. I could see Lucifer turn black, and become like a statue; at this moment, in rushed a little crooked, horned devil, ...
— The Sleeping Bard - or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell • Ellis Wynne
... April morning. In the churchyard they formed into a procession of happy be-ribboned and nosegayed men and women—the young preceding, the old following, the bridal couple. Two by two they came, and the air rang with their laughter and joyous chatter. Then another sound arose, and if the secretary and the pedagogue could have guessed of what that beating of hoofs was to be the prelude, they had scarce smiled so easily as ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... the devotions of his family. Nothing is so likely to save our children from infidelity as their knowing that we receive when we ask, and that our knock brings an open door. If only the family altar were the meeting place between God and man, Atheists might sneer and chatter, but they would never be able to cause our children to listen, for would not they say, "I know my father is a man of God, and the word of the Lord in his mouth ...
— Broken Bread - from an Evangelist's Wallet • Thomas Champness
... the garden neighborhood, feed at eventide in flocks upon the bloody berries of the sumac; and the soft-eyed pigeons dispute possession of the feast. The squirrels chatter at sunrise, and gnaw off the full-grown burrs of the chestnuts. The lazy blackbirds skip after the loitering cow, watchful of the crickets that her slow steps start to danger. The crows in companies caw aloft, and hang high ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... little, uneasily. She hated silence—that terrible, empty space waiting to be filled up with your thoughts—why, the idlest chatter spared you that. She hated the terrace, too—she closed her eyes to shut out the ugly darkness that was pressing against her; behind the shelter of her lids it was cooler and stiller, but open-eyed or closed, she could ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... fell. Somerset, through being much occupied in the drawing-office, was seldom present during the consultations and rehearsals: until one day, tea being served in the drawing-room at the usual hour, he dropped in with the rest to receive a cup from Paula's table. The chatter was tremendous, and Somerset was at once consulted about some necessary carpentry which was to be specially made at Markton. After that he was looked on as one of the band, which resulted in a large addition to the number ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... red in contrast to the milder colorings. Blackbirds and bluebirds chatter and chipmunks chirp. The gold so hard to find in the mines glares from the skies. The hills cuddle in banks of snowy clouds, and above all a pure clear blue sky sweeps. The lakes and streams abound with rainbow trout, ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science April 1930 • Various
... met them at the depot. He was full of friendly chatter, seemed to be chuckling over some secret surprise he had in store for them, and rushed them towards the headquarters ...
— Dave Dashaway and his Hydroplane • Roy Rockwood
... did certainly seem very dreary to Clarissa, in spite of Miss Fermor's dashing music and animated chatter. She missed that other talk, half playful, half earnest, with which George Fairfax had been wont to beguile some part of every evening; finding her out, as if by a subtle instinct, in whatever corner of the room ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... garden! and you, my lime-trees! When the summer comes, do not forget to be clothed with flowers from head to foot ... and may it be sweet for people to lie in your fragrant shade, on the fresh grass, among the whispering chatter of your leaves, lightly stirred by the wind. Farewell, farewell! ...
— The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... of every day riding over the prairies. The blue skies and the bright sunshine were tonics to the heart as well as to the body. Sometimes his route lay for miles through the woods, where perfect solitude reigned but for the chatter of birds that circled about him. In these long rides his heart went back over the past, reviving the memory of those first precious days with Vida. They seemed far away, and their recollection, like the perfume of wilted flowers plucked from the grave of a ...
— Divers Women • Pansy and Mrs. C.M. Livingston
... that, on the southern bank, a white building, high placed, had come into view. The excursionists crowded to look, expressing their admiration for the natural scene and their sense of its patriotic meaning in a frank, enthusiastic chatter, which presently enveloped the General, standing in a silent endurance like a rock ...
— Marriage a la mode • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the birds upon the wing Between the zunny show'rs o' spring,— Vor all the lark, a-swingen high, Mid zing below a cloudless sky. An' sparrows, clust'ren roun' the bough, Mid chatter to the men at plough,— The blackbird, whisslen in among The boughs, ...
— Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes
... It was the one in which her grandfather had lived before he had built the beautiful chateau. How many hours her father, when a boy, had spent in that wash-house on washing days, listening to the washerwomen's chatter and to the stories they told, quaint old legends. He had remembered them all those years, and later on had told them to his little daughter. There was the "Fairy of the Cascade", "The Whirling Dwarf", and lots of others. She remembered them all, and her dead father ...
— Nobody's Girl - (En Famille) • Hector Malot
... fair, which was unusual for a Frenchwoman. She wore a striped frock and a little black apron, and her yellow hair was waved with art. Audrey offered her the key of the studio with a smile, and, as Audrey expected, the concierge's wife began to chatter. The concierge's wife loved to chatter with Anglo-Saxon tenants, and she specially enjoyed chattering with Audrey, because of the superior quality of Audrey's French and of her tips. Audrey listened, proud because she could understand so well ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... "I meant to ask what's new, but you chatter on so that I have no chance for a word edgeways. Now, what the devil is new ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... fright as they opened the door, for it creaked and they feared the monkey would begin to chatter, but Carina was tired, too, and slept as soundly as the rest. In a moment they had quietly closed it behind them, and were feeling their way in the dark, down the stairs and through the passage at the bottom to the canal ...
— The Italian Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... your idiotic chatter, Mr. Ferrers, and listen to me with whatever little power of concentration you may possess. Your conduct, sir, has been wholly unfitting an officer and a gentleman. If I did my full duty I'd order you in arrest at once, and have you brought ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... of the house so that even times of hair-brushing may not be entirely lost, and the young woman who attends to such matters has been taught to fulfil her duties about a mistress recumbent in an easychair before an open window, and not to profane with chatter that sweet and solemn time. This girl is grieved at my habit of living almost in the garden, and all her ideas as to the sort of life a respectable German lady should lead have got into a sad muddle since she came to me. The people round about are persuaded that I am, to put it ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp
... as I spoke, he began to chatter in return, and springing out of his cover, he ran and jumped towards me. He was a little dark fellow, without a tail, just like Ungka. I could scarcely believe that I was awake, when the monkey, springing forward, jumped up into my arms, ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... one head pokes; Twenty others do the same:— Chatter, clatter!—creaks and croaks All the year the same old game!— 'See my spinning!' cries one dame, 'Five long ells of cloth, I trow!' Cries another, 'Mine must go, Drat it, to the ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... fully than he had done to the Bhaers. Then he displayed his "plunder," and described each article so well, that Mrs. Jo, who had retired to the next room to leave them free, was surprised and interested, as well as amused, at their boyish chatter. ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... pastoral, full of the genuine breath of the fields, the song of birds, and the pleasant chatter of ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... So, as the weighing proceeds, the general air of smiling satisfaction rises among the groups of women. Some of them, their ordeal over, go out through the hall doorway by twos and threes with suppressed laughter and chatter. As they pass behind Eileen they glance at her with pitying curiosity. Doctor Stanton's voice is heard at regular intervals calling the names in alphabetical order: Mrs. Elbing, Miss Finch, Miss Grimes, Miss Haines, Miss Hayes, Miss Jutner, Miss Linowski, Mrs. Marini, Mrs. McCoy, ...
— The Straw • Eugene O'Neill
... ball went a hundred feet or so into the air and descended in his opponent's court. The other man would stand watching it, a little speck in the Heavens, growing gradually bigger and bigger as it neared the earth. Newcomers would chatter to him, thinking he had detected a balloon or an eagle. He would wave them aside, explain to them that he would talk to them later, after the arrival of the ball. It would fall with a thud at his feet, rise another twenty yards or so and again descend. When it was at the proper height ...
— Idle Ideas in 1905 • Jerome K. Jerome
... the housework, that Selina would not, and that she could not: ergo, they must keep a servant. Better, perhaps, a small servant, over whom they could have the same influence as over a child, than one older and more independent, who would irritate her mistresses at home, and chatter of them abroad. Besides, they had promised Mrs. Hand to give her daughter a fair trial. For a month, then, Elizabeth was bound to stay; afterward, time would show. It was best not to meet ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... regular hours, and capricious appetites should freely be humoured among suitable foods, served in appetizing form to tempt the palate. Let them chatter, but see they do not get the time to ...
— Epilepsy, Hysteria, and Neurasthenia • Isaac G. Briggs
... over the platform of the monorail station at Space Academy and suddenly the lively chatter and laughter of more than a hundred boys was stilled. Tumbling out of the gleaming monorail cars, they froze to quick attention, their eyes turned to the main ...
— Stand by for Mars! • Carey Rockwell
... two from neighbours near Whose company was jovial as could be; So their Mamma first started the idea That they should ask three gentlemen to tea Out in the hayfield, where they would be free, To help in tossing o'er the scented hay; Then all assemble underneath the tree, And chatter anything they'd like to say, While Julia handed round ...
— The Minstrel - A Collection of Poems • Lennox Amott
... Thornton's end of the village. There was merely twitter of birds in the silver poplar that shaded his seat, busy chatter of swallows, who were plastering up their mud nests under the eaves of the old blockhouse across the road from him. It was so quiet that he could hear a tumult at the other end of the village; it was a tumult for calm Fort Canibas. A raucous voice bellowed oratory ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... usual, with much chatter among the children. Some time later—in the midst of a long story from Lawrence, Mrs. Marshall herself brought up the subject again. Buddy was beginning to struggle with the narrative form of self-expression, and to trip his tongue desperately ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... fashion. To be sure, there was a stranger come, but they had a chance to see that stranger yesterday, and took it quiet enough. What ailed them now? I leaned my arms on the rail and stared back. Devil a wink they had in them! Now and then I could see the children chatter, but they spoke so low not even the hum of their speaking came my length. The rest were like graven images: they stared at me, dumb and sorrowful, with their bright eyes; and it came upon me things would look not much different if I were ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... were wheeling about in the still air, uttering sharp clear cries, as though calling one another to rest below, women stood at their house-doors gossiping with their neighbours; peals of laughter and the incessant chatter of feminine voices mingled with the din of horses' hoofs on the hard road and with the never-ending jingle of the harness-bells. Gazing lazily down into the street, my attention was suddenly arrested by the singular ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford |
