"Airily" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... swarming as airily as butterflies in motley tints of palest rose to deepest carmine over the blue-green jungle of their stems; she sniffed the warm, moist, perfumed atmosphere; she followed Cynthia down the long perspective of bloom, then she said again that she wanted her mother; ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... the secret principle of his method?—if one can call that a "method" which is, in effect, nothing if not airily unmethodical, and that principle "secret" which is neither recondite nor perplexing. It is simply that Debussy, instead of depending upon the strictly limited major and minor modes of the modern scale system, employs ...
— Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande - A Guide to the Opera with Musical Examples from the Score • Lawrence Gilman
... the sides of the gorges, and, overborne by their great bunches of ripe fruit, falling across the trail and blocking the way. And over the forest surged a sea of green life, the climbers of a thousand varieties, some that floated airily, in lacelike filaments, from the tallest branches others that coiled and wound about the trees like huge serpents; and one, the ei-ei, that was for all the world like a climbing palm, swinging on a thick stem from branch to branch and tree to tree and throttling ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London
... airily; and, advancing into the room, he threw himself into a chair, tossing his ...
— Rupert of Hentzau - From The Memoirs of Fritz Von Tarlenheim: The Sequel to - The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... all right," said De Haan airily. "We will leave out one and people will think it is unimportant. We are bringing out a paper for our own ends, not to report the speeches ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... the walls Of the Titanic city: brazen gates, Towers, temples, palaces enormous piled; Imperial NINEVEH, the earthly queen! In all her golden pomp I see her now; Her swarming streets; her splendid festivals; Her sprightly damsels to the timbrel's sound Airily bounding, and their anklets' chime; Her lusty sons, like summer morning gay; Her warriors stern; her rich-robed rulers grave: I see her halls sunbright at midnight shine; I hear the music of her banquetings; I hear the laugh, the whisper, and the sigh. A sound of stately treading ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, August 1850 - of Literature, Science and Art. • Various
... He was full-fleshed and red of face, and the artistically cut garments striped in soft colors conveyed a suggestion of ease and leisure which seemed very much out of place on him. One could not imagine this man lounging on a sunlit beach, or discoursing airily ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... the Bellows, airily. "It isn't any trouble at all if you only know how, and in the end you have a much more useful book than if you made it a million words long. You can print the five words on the first page and leave the ...
— Andiron Tales • John Kendrick Bangs
... same day a bank swallow was feeding her little ones, a half dozen or so, which were ranged on a willow stem at the margin of the river. Every time she flew toward them they set up a vigorous calling to be fed. She procured her food by skimming airily over the river and catching the insects that rose from its surface. Having nabbed one, she would dart with it to her little family, and, without alighting, and scarcely pausing in her swift flight, would thrust it into the ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... think that Birralong had never been in want of any information on any subject after reference had been made to him. It was therefore bitter to hear his latest version of the last local problem airily dismissed as a ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... he answered airily. "I should see to that; and, besides, we should first travel, say ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... I, and awkwardly enough, "I am in no mood for your pleasantries. If therefore you have aught else to say of me, pray remove out o' my hearing." This protest Sir Rupert fanned airily ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... own great-coat (but did not light my own cigar, having had enough of that for one while) and walked with him as far as the open road: a dull road, then, at night. He was in great spirits all the way; and when we parted, and I looked after him going so gallantly and airily homeward, I thought of his saying, 'Ride on over all obstacles, and win the race!' and wished, for the first time, that he had some ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... airily; but the fort, though seemingly so near, is yet quite far away. How deceptive is water!" The boat sped on toward the fortress like ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott
... all, not at all" airily replied the teacher, and turning to his class, he exclaimed with a very superior smile: "Now, ladies and gentlemen, 'ere is a scientific gentleman who thinks it is 'arder to sing of 'igh mountings than it is to sing of ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... Maidstone on my bike," said the new Lamb airily, fingering the little black mustache. "I can lunch at The Crown—and perhaps I'll have a pull on the river; but I can't take you all on the machine—now, can I? Run along home, like ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... middle of dinner, just in fact as the saddle of mutton had been brought in by Smither, that Mrs. MacAnder, looking airily round, said: "Oh! and whom do you think I passed to-day in Richmond Park? You'll never guess—Mrs. Soames and—Mr. Bosinney. They must have been down to ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... his head airily. "Niente, niente!" he said in his best Italian. He did not understand what the inspector ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... position, the fountain and the water lilies before her, the center and climax of those stretches of white-and-gold blossoms. The sunshade rested lightly upon her shoulder, and its azure concave made a harmonious background for her small, graceful head with the airily plumed hat set so becomingly upon those waves of dead-gold hair. He waved to her; but she made no sign ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... Frederick arrived unexpectedly, and changing his travelling-dress hastened to the opera, no doubt to greet the two queens and his sisters. Barbarina was seized with indisposition at the moment of the king's entrance. She floated smilingly and airily over the stage; her small feet seemed borne by the Loves and Graces. Suddenly she faltered, the smile vanished from her lips, and the slight blush from her cheek, and with a cry of pain she ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... had the long journey,' she said airily, 'but you ought to have stopped for a day or two when you were there. Aberdeen is a delightful city.' She turned and ...
— Wee Macgreegor Enlists • J. J. Bell
... yesterday," airily. "Besides, I don't mind talking about you—it's thinking about us being ... you know ... that I ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... be in the matted corridor again and it was in silence that Rose led the way downstairs. Henrietta followed slowly, looking at the pictures of hounds in full cry, top-hatted ladies taking fences airily, red-coated gentlemen immersed in brooks, but at the turn of the stairs she stood stock-still. She had the physical sensation of her heart leaving its place and lodging in her throat. Her stranger was standing ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... bodies he polishes become to some extent his own workmanship, and he feels responsible for their symmetry or deformity. He experiences a degree of triumph in contemplating a beautiful form, which has grown more airily light and beautiful under his hands. He is a great connoisseur of bodies, and could pick you out the finest specimens with as ready an eye ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... Prussian Major of Artillery had come in from Amersfoort and surrendered, saying he had blown up seven Boer guns just previously by Botha's orders. This German Major, it seems, was a curious type of man; waving his hands airily he would say that foreigners were obliged to come and join the Boers so as to study the art of war which only the English got any chance of doing in their little campaigns; this being so, he said, "Ah, I shall go back to my native land, then six months ...
— With the Naval Brigade in Natal (1899-1900) - Journal of Active Service • Charles Richard Newdigate Burne
... call them winsome, if you please; and no one would wish those hairy little shanks away, with which one of the small Pans walks at her side, grasping her skirt stoutly; while the other, the sick or weary one, rides in the arms of Ceres herself, who in graceful Italian dress, and decked airily with fruit and corn, steps across a country of cut sheaves, pressing it closely to her, with a child's peevish trouble in its face, and its small goat-legs and tiny hoofs folded over together, precisely after the manner ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... smoking airily, almost casually. He was a born scoundrel. Intrigue was his game. This Syrian had Mammon all over his body and soul. Good gold ...
— The Kangaroo Marines • R. W. Campbell
... be there before you are," said the colonel airily, and stopped to replace the wild hyacinth in his coat by a prim little pink and white daisy. Then he lighted a fresh cigar and started on, but their voices were already growing faint in the distance. Observing this, he stopped and looked up ...
— In the Quarter • Robert W. Chambers
... by political refugees and revolutionists. The Socialists had many branches in America, and the deceased had, no doubt, infringed their unwritten laws, and been tracked down by them. After alluding airily to the Vehmgericht, aqua tofana, Carbonari, the Marchioness de Brinvilliers, the Darwinian theory, the principles of Malthus, and the Ratcliff Highway murders, the article concluded by admonishing the Government ...
— A Study In Scarlet • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the trio flew—Rose still ahead, the Doctor outstripping the Lieutenant. The chase was getting exciting. There was no chance of gaining on Rose by following her. Danton tried strategy. As she wheeled airily around, he abruptly turned, headed her off, and caught her with a rebound ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming
... turned, kissed her hand airily, and ran into the gloom of the forest. And as she went she laughed again harshly and muttered: "The great clod! His worship overtops his love. But I shall make love overtop worship yet, my giant! Such ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... as they did not ram to pieces,—thus a confidential adjutant, who seemed to think he had admitted me into the inner circle of knowledge tenanted only by himself and the G.S.O. people (I., II., and III., besides untabbed nondescripts). Veterans gave tips on war in the open country, or chatted airily about another tour of such places as Le Catelet, Le Cateau, Mons, the Maubeuge district, and Namur. The cautious listened in silence, and distilled only two facts from the dubious mixture of fancy. The first was that we were booked for a big ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott
... Madame airily denied any knowledge of it. She had only arrived in Paris with her husband from Rome a few days before, she declared. And surely enough the visas upon their passports showed that was so, even though I had ...
— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux
... parsons and the priests," said Larry, airily. "Oh you wait, Christian! You don't know! You've been stuck down here in a hole. If you met ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... airily. Then, with a forced vivacity: "Though it's nothing to Auto Show Week last year. I remember that week I hooked up until my fingers were stiff. You know the way the dresses fastened last winter. Some of 'em ought to have had a map to go by, they were that complicated. And ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... asked Fom, airily; and then, hurrying on, while she made Mrs. Clair bow low before the ready-made physician, "I am Mrs. Clair, doctor, the rich Mrs. Guy St. Gerald Clair who has all ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... a message to you fellows, and I've delivered it," cut in Fred airily, as he started to skate away. "That's all I've got to do in the matter. I don't care to stand here all day. Somebody that knew me might come along and catch ...
— The Grammar School Boys Snowbound - or, Dick & Co. at Winter Sports • H. Irving Hancock
... all," the little man responded airily. "There were probably only four cartridges in the gun in the first place. You're gettin' all excited over this thing. Of course, I don't blame you, Mr. Thompson, for tryin' to fight against facts, but it certainly ...
— 32 Caliber • Donald McGibeny
... at Widewood, swinging on the garden-gate and cackling airily to a parting visitor, slipped to the ground as Widewood's master suddenly appeared, although just then the first light-hearted smile of that day broke upon his face. It was the parting visitor, also mounted, whose presence pleased him in a degree so unexpected ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... if you like," said Citizen GRAHAM, airily, as if it were no hanging matter. Members angrily joined in cry of "Order! Order!" SPEAKER promptly "named" the Citizen—not with his full list of names, for ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, May 14, 1892 • Various
... find something else." He spoke airily, but the shadow which crossed his handsome face added plainly as words, "If ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... thanks," said Eugene, airily. "You are a wise young judge. She couldn't stay—in THAT state, could she? I sent her for ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... I had never heard her sing so sweetly before. It seemed indeed "Joy's ecstatic trial," so airily her fingers sparkled over the chords, so clearly and cheerily she warbled each ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... choice cigar. And all of these luxurious refreshments of the flesh—which set me to smiling a little as I thought of the contrast that they made to my surroundings—so comforted my spirit that my gloomy thoughts left me, and I began to plan airily how I would start off in a boat well loaded with provisions and somehow or another push my way through the weed. I even got along to details: deciding that it would be quite an easy matter to open a way through the tangle over the bows of my boat with an oar—or with an axe, if need be—and then ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier
... riding-coat,—his belongings were too perfect. She had really enjoyed his talk when they had met here and there abroad; but she was in no mood for him now; and she wondered what he had lost by the transfer to America. He ran on airily in French, speaking of the rush of great and small social affairs that marked the end ...
— The Port of Missing Men • Meredith Nicholson
... Indian uprising," said Willett airily. "Something I've heard every six weeks, I should say, since they ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... is true," said Mrs. Stanislaw, airily ignoring the rest of April's remark. "I had it from a lady who is travelling second-class because she has a bevy of children. She knows Mrs. Bellew quite well, and, curiously enough, is a friend ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... best checked suit, his hat tilted airily over one ear, he stepped briskly down the street. You wouldn't have known him, I am sure, with his walking-stick in one hand, his light spring overcoat over the other arm. A freshly cleaned pair of grey gloves, smelling of gasoline, covered his hands. On the lapel ...
— What's-His-Name • George Barr McCutcheon
... that is to say he had seen him once or twice—in the distance. But it would never do to admit as much to her, who now looked up at him with eyes of witchery as she waited for him to speak. Therefore Barnabas shook his head, and answered airily enough: ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... a purely business footing," he returned airily. "Don't you worry yourself. He isn't the sort of chap to take it to heart. You know that as well as I do. Perhaps it might be as well to wait till the end of the week and make sure of things, though, before I ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... his question with regard to the newborn infant of the airily irresponsible Feather was in entire harmony with his attitude towards the singular incident of Life as illustrated by the World, the Flesh and the Devil by none of which he was—as far as could be observed—either impressed, disturbed or prejudiced. His own experience ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... was only a woman lying there. But her silence and her stillness were eloquent of tragedy even to his monkey-intelligence. From a safe height he sat and reviled her till he was tired for having spoilt his sport. Finally, as she made no movement, he forgot his grievance, and tripped airily away in quest ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... under mats, tossed by the short sea of the lagoon, and enduring agonies of heat and tedium. This severity is now and then relaxed and the wives allowed on board. Three or four were thus favoured on the day of our arrival: substantial ladies airily attired in ridis. Each had a share of copra, her peculium, to dispose of for herself. The display in the trade-room—hats, ribbons, dresses, scents, tins of salmon—the pride of the eye and the lust of the flesh—tempted them ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... recitation, then," persisted Medora; "or tell us a story. Or make up"—here she indulged herself in an airily imperious flight—"a story of your own on ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... "Well," airily, "that eliminates you, of course. But let me warn you, Douglas, that if Inez Rodman really loved a man and wanted to marry him, he'd have about as much chance as a coyote used to have when Sister ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie
... then I beg your pardon," said Miss Jones, airily, with a sly little glance at her companion. "Little boys who play engaged deserve ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various
... said the stranger, airily. "Pardon such an unseasonable call, but I wish to see Mr. Lovering, who, ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour
... to augment his ill humour was, of course, a matter of simple mechanism for one who had not entirely forgotten his student days in the Quarter; and I delivered it airily, though I shivered inwardly that ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... your misfortune does not concern me," he continued, airily. "It is sufficient that we are of the same mind in our attitude towards the world—'to shake with Destiny ...
— The Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen
... never attempted it," I answered. "But as I can read easily the old printed Spanish, I suppose," I added, a little airily, "that I shall have no great difficulty in reading the ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... she remarked, airily. Rose's clear forehead clouded faintly, and Norma hastened to apologize. "Well, my dear, that's what she said," she remarked, laughingly, with quick ...
— The Beloved Woman • Kathleen Norris
... exclaimed airily, correcting her. "Well, to me it matters not a single jot. The world is always ill-disposed and ill-natured. A woman can surely have a male friend without being subject ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... explain the riddle for you," he said airily. "I lost my way the other evening coming home late. You see there had been some mistake and my car didn't come to the club for me. I started on foot, leaving word for it to overtake me—" He lied as he went along. He had had ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill
... said Dandy, airily. "The young ladies who drove with my master used to say that it was priggish and tiresome to be too good. To go on with my story: I stayed with Mrs. Judge Tibbett till I got sick of her fussy ways. She made a simpleton of herself over those poodles. ...
— Beautiful Joe - An Autobiography of a Dog • by Marshall Saunders
... indeed?" quoth Whistler, airily. "I fancied the contrary just now, when I heard you desire the waiter to bring you a pair ...
— Whistler Stories • Don C. Seitz
... hand airily. 'Far be it from me to enter into any defense of my father's son. But a hundred and fifty bottles are pretty good evidence. And speaking of witnesses, I have a hunch that the people of this county will fall pretty hard for ...
— Sunny Slopes • Ethel Hueston
... the finest remark I ever heard a guide make—until this same guide stepped in front of a portrait of Henry Clay, and, after a second's hesitation, threw off airily, patronizingly: ...
— Your United States - Impressions of a first visit • Arnold Bennett
... of Matthew Arnold it is possible to derive an art of life which carries us back to the beginnings of the world's history. He, the civilized Oxonian; he, domestic moralist; he, the airily playful scholar, has yet the power of giving that Epic solemnity to our sleep and our waking; to our "going forth to our work arid our labour until the evening"; to the passing of the seasons over us; ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys
... appears to me to be, to the fullest extent, a poet who airily torments my breast, irritates, soothes, ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Partridge, airily, "don't try tricks on us—I should fly away, and as for my friend, the Jackal, you couldn't hurt him. He is not such a fool as to take his life with him on these little excursions; he leaves it at home ...
— The Ontario Readers - Third Book • Ontario Ministry of Education
... moved by the palpable distress of the attractive suppliant, he turned his back ungraciously, thrust his hands viciously under his ample coat-tails, elevated his chin aggressively, and said airily, as he kept up a warlike tattoo on the carpet with one of his heels: "John Lawson, thou art reet; it's not the thow't o' thee going away that's causing her any trouble—thou canst go to the uttermost parts o' the earth for all she ...
— A Lover in Homespun - And Other Stories • F. Clifford Smith
... looked round, laid his hand on the child's head, hesitated an instant, and then kissed her brow. Little Pearl's unwonted mood of sentiment lasted no longer; she laughed, and went capering down the hall, so airily, that old Mr. Wilson raised a question whether even her ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... turned to greet him, but the few quick words they exchanged were of course unheard. Then I saw her turn toward the brunette on the other side; but that brisk little person had already drawn back, and now she said a word or two, nodded airily, ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch
... a rather airily-defiant Ingred who strolled into the cloak-room and put on her hat. Francie Hall, trying to thread her boot with a lace that had lost its tag, looked up, smiled, and made room for her ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... Truesdale airily waved the remaining coin from the plate to the waiter's pocket and rose to go. He never omitted the giving of a pour-boire; "it helps so much to increase the illusion," he said. The waiters, accordingly, bestowed an exaggerated attention upon his hat and coat, and had developed ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... dressed so gracefully and airily, was another cavalier who presented a great contrast to him. As the one seemed dressed for a summer day, so the other appeared prepared for the coldest weather; the one was ready for the ball-room, and ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... Miss Mason answered airily. "I'm going to like you; I knew I should somehow when I first heard your name. I believe in that sort of thing—I don't know if you do, but as soon as Lydia told me who it was that had taken this room I knew I should like you. I think your ...
— The Phantom Lover • Ruby M. Ayres
... found anything more airily, chastely dainty than the all-white bed with its plain or fringed Marseilles spread and its ruffled pillows. Though drapery has a picturesque effect, it interferes to a certain extent with the free circulation of air, and affords a lurking place for our insidious enemy—the ...
— The Complete Home • Various
... Froufrou, the one who had chosen the better part and had kept it by much self-sacrifice,—she is a true woman. Best, better even than Brigard, is Gilberte, nicknamed "Froufrou" from the rustling of her silks as she skips and scampers airily around. Froufrou, when all is said, is a real creation, a revelation of Parisian femininity, a living thing, breathing the breath of life and tripping along lightly on her own little feet. Marrying a reserved yet deeply-devoted husband because her sister bid her; taking into ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... to toe. She turned airily round that I might survey her on all sides. Conscious of her charms, she was in her best humour: her rather small blue eyes sparkled gleefully. She was going to bestow on me a kiss, in her school-girl fashion of showing her delights but I said, "Steady! Let us be Steady, and know what ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... books of Moses, without being bloody. What a dear, innocent old soul the Bishop is! How sincerely he believes he is reasoning when he is merely doing a roguish two-step down the grim corridor of the eternal verities—with a little jig here and there, and a pause to flirt his frock airily in the face of some graven image of Fact. Ah, he is so weirdly innocent. Even when his logical toes go blithely into the air, his dear old face is most resolutely solemn, and I believe he is never in the least aware of his frivolous caperings over the ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... This was chanted lightly, airily, with a sweetness almost absurd, coming as it did from so uncouth a musician. The last verses had a touch of pathos, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... railway man grinned. After an elaborate silence the wine merchant asked: " Know Miss Black long, Rufus?" Coleman looked scornfully at his friends. " What's wrong with you there, fellows, anyhow?" The Chicago man answered airily. ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... seen gray squirrels dragging ears of corn about as heavy as themselves out of our field through loose snow and up a tree, balancing them on limbs and eating in comfort with their dry, electric tails spread airily over their backs. Once I saw a fine hardy fellow go into a knot-hole. Thrusting in my hand I caught him and pulled him out. As soon as he guessed what I was up to, he took the end of my thumb in his mouth and sunk his teeth right through it, but I gripped him hard by the neck, ...
— The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir
... Carlotty "toed in," for that matter; but her face shone with delight; her eyes glistened, and so did her teeth; and when she waved her ebony hands and flitted among the children, she did it as airily as any real butterfly that ever danced over a ...
— The Story of Patsy • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... fascinating a fairy story book we have not lately set eyes upon. The stories are most airily conceived and most ...
— Sara Crewe - or, What Happened at Miss Minchin's • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... golden pin, and up sprang a tiny figure, all crimson and gold, with shining wings, and a garland on its dainty head. Softly played the hidden music, and airily danced the little sylph till the silvery chime died away; then, folding her delicate arms, she sank from sight, ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... gentlemen," said he airily, and he got no answer whatsoever. In front of him was the grey panel of dim twilight where the window stood. The rest was black night and an absolute silence. A map of the room was quite clear in his recollections. The three men were seated ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... tell you, Frederick," I began a little airily, "of the relations existing between Miss Kinglake and myself. So far it has been a profound secret"—I did not then know that the entire village was gossiping about it—"but I feel that I owe it to you, as ...
— The Romance of an Old Fool • Roswell Field
... scribbles down without even waiting to throw off her furs. Asking her how she goes to work about her plot, she answers with a reproachful little laugh—'That is unkind! You know I never have a plot really, not the bona fide plot one looks for in a novel. An idea comes to me, or I to it', she says, airily, 'a scene—a situation—a young man, a young woman, and on that mental hint I begin to build', but the question naturally arises, she must make a beginning? 'Indeed, no', she replies; 'it has frequently happened to me that I have written the last chapter first, ...
— Mrs. Hungerford - Notable Women Authors of the Day • Helen C. Black
... silk and wig, perched airily, on a table, became gloomily prophetic concerning the steady retirement of capital from philanthropic enterprises hatched in Wall Street; Peter Tappan saw in the endlessly sagging market dire disaster for the future digestions of wealthy owners of ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... the upper regions and he called down airily: "Doors open, ladies. World renowned aggregation of feminine wearing apparel, including one pair of the very latest hoops and the youngest thing ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... BELINDA sweetly smiles, And airily before you trips, You're captured by her artless wiles, And must admire her rosy lips. You know that she is very fair, You see that she has splendid eyes; But ah, rash lover, have a care, And find out ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, November 7, 1891 • Various
... a state of great mortification and uneasiness, when one of the little boys, running into the room as airily as little boys usually run who have an unlimited allowance of animal food in the holidays, and keep their hands constantly forced down to the bottoms of very deep trouser-pockets when they take exercise, joyfully announced that Mr. Balim was at that moment ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... a little as he took in the new and striking hunting apparel which Bluff Masters sported so airily; doubtless he immediately concluded that the whole party must be a set of greenhorns, incapable of knowing enough to come in out of the wet ...
— The Outdoor Chums - The First Tour of the Rod, Gun and Camera Club • Captain Quincy Allen
... succeeded in getting his subject in as stiff and uncomfortable position as possible, after cautioning him not to move, he disappeared into his ill-smelling cabinet to prepare the plate. When this was ready he stepped airily out to the camera and bade his victim "look pleasant." Failing to get the impossible response the artist bade his sitter to smile. Then the old farmer with a wrathful and torture-riven contortion of his mouth ejaculated, ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... were Pickford's carriers, and glancing at the way-bill, I saw that it was my clock that they had brought, and I said, airily, "Oh, yes, it's ...
— Clocks - From a volume entitled "Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow" • Jerome K. Jerome
... breathe at home. Not that, after all, we like the fine Italian spirit better than our own; popular rudeness is sometimes the symptom of rude moral health. But, where a Carnival is in question, it would probably pass off more decorously, as well as more airily and delightfully, in Rome, than in ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... what is called in France the Bec- d'Argent. I once had two of these pigmies in captivity; and in the quiet, hire house upon a silent street where I was then living, their song, which was not much louder than a bee's, but airily musical, kept me in a perpetual good humour. I put the cage upon my table when I worked, carried it with me when I went for meals, and kept it by my head at night: the first thing in the morning, these maestrini would ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... put up wherever you say," said Helen airily. "We know you are always a favorite wherever you go, and you must have loads of ...
— Ruth Fielding at the War Front - or, The Hunt for the Lost Soldier • Alice B. Emerson
... matter of plane," he said airily. "Viewed from my standpoint, they are sordid criminals—the sort of person that T. X. meets, I presume, in the course of his daily work. T. X.," he went on somewhat oracularly, "is a man for whom I have a great deal of respect. You will probably meet him ...
— The Clue of the Twisted Candle • Edgar Wallace
... the mules, he airily explained, had lost a shoe in the afternoon. He would get it ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... contrary," airily remarked the Woggle-Bug, who was walking alongside, "you should consider the accident most fortunate. For a horse is never of much use until ...
— The Marvelous Land of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... hoarding posters flaunt the charms of peak, and loch, and sea, To madden those unfortunates who have to stay in town—like me! Gone are the inconsiderate friends who tell one airily, "They're off!" And ask "what you propose to do—yacht, shoot, or fish, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, August 30, 1890. • Various
... spiral LARCH, all hung over its limber sprays, were you near enough to admire them, with cones of the Tyrian dye. That stem, white as silver, and smooth as silk, seen so straight in the green sylvan light, and there airily overarching the coppice with lambent tresses, such as fancy might picture for the mermaid's hair, pleasant as is her life on that Fortunate Isle, is yet said by us, who vainly attribute our own sadness to unsorrowing things—to belong to a Tree that weeps,—though a weight of joy it is, and of ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... right one," Mrs. Savine answered airily, and presently halted before a row of resplendently-gilded books adorning one portion of the vestibule. She thereupon explained for the benefit of all listeners that it was hard to see the necessity for so many railways in so small a country, ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... her moods may estimate how truthful and how sober she really is. She is honest in all her purposes, and though changeful and gay in apparel never cheap nor meretricious. A slim-shafted palm shooting through the leafy mantle, and swaying airily a profuse mass of fiery red seeds, distinctive in shape, may be the prototype of a flirt, but the flirtation which arrests attention and bewitches the beholder is also innoxious. There is nothing of the artificial about the display. ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... Ballatino, clothed in the costume of the Sunny South, where clothes are less essential than in these colder climes, skipped airily forward, and was most ungallantly greeted with a storm of groans and hisses. Her beloved instrument was unfeelingly alluded to as a pie-dish, and she was advised to take it back and get the penny on it. The chairman, addressed by his Christian name of "Jimmee," ...
— John Ingerfield and Other Stories • Jerome K. Jerome
... above such vulgar prejudices," said Mrs. Octagon, waving her hand airily, "and I am sure your profession is an arduous one. When Juliet told me that you were looking into this tragic death of my poor sister I was delighted. So consoling to have to do with a gentleman in an unpleasant matter like ...
— The Secret Passage • Fergus Hume
... miles away," repeated Tilly, airily. "Of course nobody'd mind a little thing like that, ...
— The Sunbridge Girls at Six Star Ranch • Eleanor H. (Eleanor Hodgman) Porter
... it an original pen-and-ink design after her own heart. A dudish cat—Miss Allen was fond of the No. 16 cat if she could be said to be fond of anything—was portrayed seated on a rocker arrayed in smoking jacket and cap with a cigar waved airily aloft in one paw while the other held out a placard bearing the legend "Merry Christmas." A second cat in full street costume bowed politely, hat in paw, and waved a banner inscribed with "Happy New Year," while faintly suggested kittens gambolled ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... even airily, through his pain and weakness. But, as before, his every faculty was on guard. A born and trained expert in reading human nature, he felt this giant somehow suspected him and was trying to trap him in an inaccuracy. Wherefore, he fenced, verbally, calmly ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... hear what Sylvia has to say," he said; then he added airily, "I suppose you would make over the greater part of your estate to her, in case of your death? And there are life assurances, of course? One never knows what may happen, you know. Pardon me for speaking thus frankly. As a father, ...
— Hushed Up - A Mystery of London • William Le Queux
... service, how airily the gowns blow out, as though nothing dense and corporeal were within. What sculptured faces, what certainty, authority controlled by piety, although great boots march under the gowns. In what orderly procession they advance. Thick wax candles stand upright; young men rise ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... won't make a mite o' difference to her," said the old man airily, and poor Sam felt in his despondent ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... the trash in a big box on a truck. When he had it full, he beckoned to a burly lad, shoving a truck across the room, and called in a clear, natural, friendly voice, "Hey, Nat, come on over." The big lad came, whistling, pushed the box off full, and brought it back empty, still whistling airily. ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... dark. But Rosie was not too reckless. There was a considerable amount of cunning in that small brain of hers, which prevented her from falling over the brink of the precipice on the perilous edge of which she danced like a playful kid so airily. It was very nice and not too naughty to be cuddled and kissed by a handsome gentleman, with a big moustache, fine eyes, and baritone voice! but she was not prepared to go further than that—just yet; only pretending that by-and-by—perhaps; firing his ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... seen. Every night, at the same hour, does Miss Twinkleton resume the topics of the previous night, comprehending the tenderer scandal of Cloisterham, of which she has no knowledge whatever by day, and references to a certain season at Tunbridge Wells (airily called by Miss Twinkleton in this state of her existence 'The Wells'), notably the season wherein a certain finished gentleman (compassionately called by Miss Twinkleton, in this stage of her existence, 'Foolish Mr. Porters') revealed a homage of the heart, ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... from those puzzling and repellent matters, ignorant of them, innocent of them? And Ethel, too! Twelve days of the office had culminated for Ethel in a slight illness, which Doctor Hawley described as lack of tone. Her father had said airily that she must resume her clerkship in due season, but the entire household well knew that she would not do so, and that the experiment was one of the failures which invariably followed John's interference ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... days Mr. Gladstone has touched the subject. With that well-known facility in believing anything he wishes to believe, which he once showed in connecting Neptune's trident with the doctrine of the Trinity, he floats airily over all the impossibilities of the original Babel legend and all the conquests of science, makes an assertion regarding the results of philology which no philologist of any standing would admit, and then escapes in a cloud of rhetoric after his ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... for all straight-going people, ma chere tante" cried Pembroke; "little Phemy was no contemptible assailant either way. Besides," added he, turning airily to his own gentle bride, "you, my young lady, may congratulate yourself on the same good hope. I hear that an old turf-comrade of mine is going to take her loving sister off my hands. Come, Lord Berrington, ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... were smutted with the grime from the peak, but his air was debonair. He answered Captain Swope airily. "Why—I come just now from your forepeak—a most unpleasant, filthy hole, Angus! And less recently, I come from my grave, from that shameful grave of stripes and bars to which your lying words sent me, Angus! I've come to pay you a ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... Aunt Julia. It will be hard, won't it?" she admitted. Then, with a quick change of manner, she observed airily: "As if anything could be nicer than learning to cook, and keeping my stockings mended! Why, Aunt Julia!" The next moment, with a ...
— The Sunbridge Girls at Six Star Ranch • Eleanor H. (Eleanor Hodgman) Porter
... blessings, grannie, love, although of the assets themselves"—she returned the bag to its sanctuary and smoothed the waist where the paper proceeds of the schoolmistress's gold still hid—"you shall never handle a dime." She sparkled airily. ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... eyes on one huge bud. He saw it swell, burst, spread out its passionate purple velvet, lift the broad flower face to the light for a joyous minute. A few seconds later a butterfly lighted airily to sample its nectar and to brush the pollen from its yellow dusted wings. Scarcely had the winged visitor flown away than the purple petals began to wither and fall away, leaving the seed pod on the stem. The visible change went on in this seed pod. It turned rapidly brown, dried out, ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various
... the evening service—it happened to be the day when there was one at the parish church—a piece of information only relevant in so far as it suggested that Mr. Ives could accept an invitation to dinner if one were proffered him. Dora, very weakly, rose to the bait. Jack Ives, airily remarking that there was no use in ceremony among friends, seized the place next to Trix at dinner (her mother was just opposite) and walked on the terrace after dinner with her in the moonlight. ...
— Frivolous Cupid • Anthony Hope
... inspiration, "Firby-Smith and I are just going to get some tea. I think you'd better nip up to the school. Probably Wain will want to see you, and tell you all about things, which is your dorm. and so on. See you later," he concluded airily. "Any one'll tell you the way to the school. Go straight on. They'll send your luggage on later. So long." And his sole prop in this world of strangers departed, leaving him to find ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... children, bear witness! Before this boy, there stretches out a Future, brighter than we ever looked on in our old romantic time, but bright with honour and with truth. Around this little head on which the sunny curls lie heaped, the graces sport, as prettily, as airily, as when there was no scythe within the reach of Time to shear away the curls of our first-love. Upon another girl's face near it—placider but smiling bright—a quiet and contented little face, we see Home ...
— Some Christmas Stories • Charles Dickens
... seemed to be the morning greeting to her busy day's work in the city. If no one was in sight, which was often the case at eight o'clock in the morning, the girl kissed the tips of her fingers, and tossed the salute airily up to the statue, and the woman of stone always smiled back at her the strange mystical smile which seemed to indicate that it knew much more of this world and its ways than did the little Parisienne who daily gazed up ...
— The Face And The Mask • Robert Barr
... bijou.' The Staffordshire-ware butter-dish with the cover on, got upon a little round occasional table in a window, with a worked top, and announced itself to the two chairs accidentally placed there, as an aid to polite conversation, a graceful trifle in china to be chatted over by callers, as they airily trifled away the visiting moments of a butterfly existence, in that rugged old village on the Cumberland Fells. The very footstool could not keep the floor, but got upon a sofa, and there-from proclaimed itself, in high relief of white ...
— The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices • Charles Dickens
... I'm going to do. My concerns are my own," returned Netta airily. "I'm an unlucky person, and I'm sure to get the worst piece if there is one. ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil
... was called, he rose airily. He not only wished to hide his hand, but to get even with Danvers for many an upright act unconsciously done while they two were troopers ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman
... airily, waving his hand at the world at large. "It's good for man to be alone, away from them ...
— Shadow Mountain • Dane Coolidge
... was very nice of them. I am preserving the clipping," he said, airily. "We can talk over this little difficulty with public opinion when we've had more time to think about it. You see, I've been here but ten hours, and I may be willing to leave tomorrow, that is, after ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon
... their fair tenants one after another: each came out gaily and airily, with dress that gleamed lustrous through the dusk. For a moment they stood grouped together at the other extremity of the gallery, conversing in a key of sweet subdued vivacity: they then descended the staircase almost as noiselessly as a bright mist rolls ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... Airily he broke the silence. "Are you going to take me straight into the temple of the sun? I thought I was out ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... the eyes of the rider were lifted to the casement window. Pen waved her hand airily toward him, the movement loosening the gayly striped blanket which fell from her shoulders. The Indian-brown of his face reddened darkly; a gleam came into his steel-gray eyes. He made a military motion toward his hat brim with his whip and then rode swiftly away, without the backward and upward ...
— Penny of Top Hill Trail • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... "Ho!" scoffed Jimmy, airily. "All that sounds very fine; but the real common-sense reason is because we don't have any Mrs. Tom and Dick and Harry sitting on their side porches and commenting on every time we stir, and wondering among themselves where we are going, why we are going there, ...
— Pollyanna Grows Up • Eleanor H. Porter
... the boy assured him airily. "I wouldn't put it beyond the power of that length of Damascus steel to make wells bubble. Oil-wells bubbling," Val continued from the point where the lawyer had interrupted him, "Rupert turning out ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton
... I, airily. "And don't tell her you want her to be better acquainted with your cousin and step-cousin. Just remark that it will be a jolly excursion, eh? And you might add that Brederode and I—particularly I—are awfully ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... time," answered Leslie, airily. "Now march, as I told you, and be quick about it, or I shall be compelled to freshen your way for you with another shot. I know all about you, my good man, and I am therefore not at all disposed to put up with any ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... blackbird or thrush, but I doubt it, because I know all their remarks, while his are new to me. If A.A.M. heard them he would probably tell me they were those of a "Blackman's Warbler," and I should have believed him—once. Hardly now, after he has so airily exposed his title as an authority; but even as it is I should not dream of questioning his statement that "the egg of course is rather more speckled," because I can well believe that the egg this bird—whatever he is—came from was ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 28, 1919. • Various |
