"Curtsy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... half a crown to her. She regarded it, clasped it in the hand which was against her bosom, and at length dropped a curtsy, ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... away the more gratified that I had a chance of lifting my cap to a matron, dark-haired and comely, (who, I was sure, at a glance, had once been the maiden of Benjie Westham's "troth-plight,") and receiving a handsome curtsy in return. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... whitch were ketching small and innosent fish with sharp hooks. father whispered to me that is a hell of a reeson for keeping a man starving to deth and i laffed but nobody paid attension to me. well they all shook hands with the minister and Cele made a curtsy and sed tea is ready and we all marched out into the dining room mother and the minister first, then father and Aunt Sarah and then Keene and Cele and then the little ones and Georgie and i come last as i always do when there ...
— Brite and Fair • Henry A. Shute
... dropped a stately curtsy, and, taking her candle, went away through the tapestry door, which led to her apartments. Esmond stood by the fireplace, blankly staring after her. Indeed, he scarce seemed to see until she was gone, ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... in a sweeping impetuosity, drew up her slender height, and made him a curtsy, a flower bending buoyantly to the breeze, and springing ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... made her a curtsy, and walked out of the room. I found the dressing-room where I had left my cloak, fully determined to go home at once, if I could only get the carriage. I had to wait some time, however, and whilst I sat alone ...
— The Late Miss Hollingford • Rosa Mulholland
... her a curtsy. "Now that is a compliment most flatteringly paid. Really, Nellie, I don't see how you can expect me to be properly humble-minded if you say things of that sort, for you are such a dear, sincere little person that every word you speak carries conviction with it. But ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... so peculiar. She never comes down into the courtyard now to dance with us. She used to. Then I used to watch out of the window, and run down. It was so jolly, playing with her. We used to go round and round her and sing! 'We all bow to Hanne, we curtsy all to Hanne, we all turn round before her!' And then we bowed and curtsied and suddenly we all turned round. I tell you, it was jolly! You ought to ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... cried a silver-toned voice from a passage outside the drawing-room in which I had just seated myself. The next instant a lovely face appeared at the door, its owner tripped into the room, made a comical curtsy, and ran up ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... Town, says she, is too full: At the same time, Whether she knew enough of Breeding, as that if a Squire or a Gentleman, or one that was her Betters, should give her a civil Salute, she should curtsy and be humble, nevertheless. Her innocent forsooths, yess, and't please yous, and she would do her Endeavour, moved the good old Lady to take her out of the Hands of a Country Bumpkin her Brother, and hire her for her own Maid. I staid till I saw them all marched out to take Coach; the brother ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... mean to flatter you; and it is to this end I say, you are Italians without the subtlety of the Italian, and Greeks without their genius.—You need not curtsy so profoundly.—I could say worse than this, Kate, if I were minded to ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... hear his words. Rosalind tripped past her three fellow-students with an airy little nod and the faint beginning of a mocking curtsy. ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... Orderly to Garth himself—brings out her ain bottle from the spence—a hollow square, and green as emerald. Bless the gurgle of its honest mouth! With prim lips mine hostess kisses the glass, previously letting fall a not inelegant curtsy—for she had, we now learned, been a lady's maid in her youth to one who is indeed a lady, all the time her lover was abroad in the army, in Egypt, Ireland, and the West Indies, and Malta, and Guernsey, Sicily, Portugal, Holland, and, we think she said, Corfu. ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... formality, but bowed to me in silence, very much as a monk bows, from the waist. If he had only crossed his hands flat on his chest it would have been perfect. Then, I don't know why, something moved me to make him a deep curtsy as he backed out of the room, leaving me suddenly impressed, not only with him but with myself too. I had my door closed to everybody else that afternoon and the Prince came with a very proper sorrowful face, but five minutes after he got into the room he was laughing as usual, made the whole little ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... rap at the minister's door first, of course; and when Mrs. Fairbanks opens the door I shall make my best curtsy, like this:" and Faith took a bit of her skirt in each hand, and bent in a very pretty curtsy indeed; "and I shall say: 'Good-morning, Mrs. Fairbanks. My Aunt Prissy will be very happy if you and the minister will come to her quilting bee to-morrow afternoon and ...
— A Little Maid of Ticonderoga • Alice Turner Curtis
... know how to greet a Duke, for such I hear you are become," said Desire with a profound curtsy and a bewitching ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... member of the very church in which John Howe, the chaplain of Oliver Cromwell, preached, and exercised the pastorate. I was ordained, too, by English Independents. Moreover, I am a Doctor too. Agnes and Janet, get up this moment and curtsy to his Reverence! John and Charles, remember the dream of the sheaves! I descended from kilts and Donald Dhus? Na, na, I won't ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... gate towards herself and, crushed behind it, curtsied to Thomas Batchgrew. This curtsy, the most servile of all Western salutations, and now nearly unknown in Five Towns, consisted in a momentary shortening of the stature by six inches, and in nothing else. Mrs. Tams had acquired it in her native village of Sneyd, where an earl held fast to that which was good, and ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... the two of us was the more dumbfounded; but this I do know; that I was still speechless and fair witless when she swept me a low-dipped curtsy and ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... down across the sea-meadows, the sun broke out and we met little groups of schoolchildren making their way down to the beach to see what was doing with the wreck. They stood aside to let us go by, the boys pulling their caps and the girls dropping a curtsy, when they knew that it was a poor drowned body passing; and as I saw the children I thought I saw myself among them, and I was no more a man, but just come out from Mr. Glennie's teaching in the ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner
... quarter to four Olga Loschek was announced. She made the curtsy inside the door that Palace ceremonial demanded and inquired for the governess. Prince Ferdinand William Otto, who had risen at her entrance, offered to see ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... round to Rodney's chair to offer him her hand and drop her curtsy; took a carnation from a bowl on the table and tucked it into his button-hole, slid her arm around his neck and kissed ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... she met a poor old woman walking along the road, who made a curtsy and was going on, when the queen had her stopped, and cried: 'You are a very impertinent person; don't you know that I am the queen? And how dare you not ...
— The Grey Fairy Book • Various
... aspect, which, indeed, threw a cheerfulness about the parlor, like the circle of reflected brilliancy around the glass vase of flowers that was standing in the sunshine. He made a salutation, or, to speak nearer the truth, an ill-defined, abortive attempt at curtsy. Imperfect as it was, however, it conveyed an idea, or, at least, gave a hint, of indescribable grace, such as no practised art of external manners could have attained. It was too slight to seize upon at the instant; yet, as recollected afterwards, seemed ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... comes home. But what talk I of this? Call forth Nathaniel, Joseph, Nicholas, Philip, Walter, Sugarsop, and the rest; let their heads be sleekly combed, their blue coats brush'd and their garters of an indifferent knit; let them curtsy with their left legs, and not presume to touch a hair of my master's horse-tail till they kiss their ...
— The Taming of the Shrew • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... yourself the trouble, my lord," she retorted, sweeping him a curtsy. "I can guess what it is, without your aid. ...
— The Lieutenant-Governor • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... then quoth I, and "aha!" murmured she, With as pretty a curtsy as ever you 'd see; "Won't you pause?" I inquired; "I don't mind," said her mien, So we looked, side by side, ...
— Sprays of Shamrock • Clinton Scollard
... the honour of my becoming his wife. How I laughed behind their backs! It would have been time enough to turn rebellious when the offer came—which I was quite sure never would come—to make them and him a low curtsy, and say, 'You are very kind, but I must decline the honour.' Did you get any teasings on your side, Lionel?" ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... looked straight into his eyes, coldly, and then bent her knee in formal curtsy. The king was about to speak again when his eyes wandered to the face of the American. Instantly his own went white and then scarlet. The eyes of Peter of Blentz followed those of the king, widening in astonishment as they rested upon ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... drank the stuff in the pot, which was quite cool by this time, and she went out under the fringe of snakes, and they all behaved like good Sunday-school children. Some of them even tried to drop a curtsy to her as she went by, though that is not easy when you are hanging wrong way up by your tail. But the snakes knew the Queen was friends with their mistress; so, of course, they had to do ...
— The Book of Dragons • Edith Nesbit
... of the saint to whom she may have devoted it—the house of St. Stephen, the house of St. Donatus, the English or Angel Convent, and so on. Old ladies in black are pacing in the quiet alleys here and there, and drop the stranger a curtsy as he passes them and takes off his hat. Never were such patterns of neatness seen as these old ladies and their houses. I peeped into one or two of the chambers, of which the windows were open to the pleasant ...
— Little Travels and Roadside Sketches • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Betty alighted at last, entered the wicket-gate, and approached the small, weather-stained, brick house. She made her curtsy to madam, asked the Vicar's blessing—though he was not twenty-five years her senior and scarcely so wise—hugged the little girls, particularly sick Fiddy, and showered upon them pretty tasteful town treasures, which little country girls, sick or well, dearly love. Fiddy's ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... cried Ricky. "Where are your manners?" As she sank forward in a deep and graceful curtsy she added, "Can't you see that Rupert has brought ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton
... is my cousin's duty to make a curtsy, and say, "Father, as it please you;" but for all that, cousin, let him be a handsome fellow, or else make another curtsy, and say, "Father, as it pleases me." SHAKESPEARE, Much Ado ...
— Tales • George Crabbe
... and de hoss come a-bringing Marse Tom down de road. Mammy drap everything in the dust and grab her apron to drap a curtsy. She 'low—'Git dat hat off dat head and bow your head fo' he ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... the evident content, and helpfulness, and industry of these little creatures, was delightful to look at and to think of. In conversation they were at once very civil and respectful (Bessy dropping her little curtsy, and Harry putting his hand to the lock of hair where the hat should have been, at every sentence they uttered) and perfectly frank and unfearing. In answer to our questions, they told us that "Father was a broom-maker, from the low country; that he had come to these parts and married ...
— The Ground-Ash • Mary Russell Mitford
... fields for bread than served your King. Here he is. Good-bye, Monsieur d'Argenton, may you find all well at Valmy; good night, Monsieur La Mothe, we shall meet again in the morning, or is it already the new day?" and with a smiling curtsy to each she was gone. To Stephen La Mothe it seemed a cold good night after all that had come and gone between them that day, the misunderstood question in her work-room, the shadow of death in the ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... do you Of course I shall be pleased and" (making him a little curtsy) "honored, as one ought to say in ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... more subdued than usual. But when Maurice had gone, and she had dropped the scattered sprays of lilac out of the window on his head, she clasped her hands at the back of her neck, and dropped a curtsy to ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... of the empress excelling in that inclination of the body which the Russian ladies substitute for the curtsy, and which he justly regards as very becoming, the empress adding dignity and grace. He describes Orloff as an herculean figure, finely proportioned, with a cheerful eye, and, for a Russian, a good complexion: ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... yards hoisted, the jib run up and the spanker set; when, as our anchor cleared the ground, soon peeping over our bows and being catted and fished in the old fashion, the Silver Queen's canvas filled and she bade adieu to China with a graceful curtsy, making her way down the Yang-tse-kiang at a rate that showed she was as glad as those on board her to lose sight of ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... Miss Deborah, who had dropped her nephew's arm, so that she might be more cautious about the mud, and who lifted her skirt on each side, as though she was about to make a curtsy,—"he's right: a woman ought to think just as her husband does; it is quite wrong in dear Helen not to, and it will bring unhappiness. Indeed, it is a lesson to all ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... "You've only got to curtsy, whisper, hold your chin up, laugh and lisp, And then you're sure to take: I've known the day when brats, not quite Thirteen, got fifty pounds a night; Then why ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... more gratified than Aunt Rachel, who had hitherto looked rather askance upon the presumptuous damsel (as much so, peradventure, as her nature would permit), but who, on the first appearance of the new-married pair at church, honoured the bride with a smile and a profound curtsy, in presence of the rector, the curate, the clerk, and the whole congregation of the united parishes of ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... hear how my friend Samuel WOULD speak, what he called French, to a lady who could not understand one syllable of his jargon—the mutual hackney-coaches drew up; Madame la Baronne waved to the Captain a graceful French curtsy. "Adyou!" said Samuel, and ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Nurse came running up in an instant and opened the doors. "What are your graces' orders?" she asked, dropping a curtsy and scraping the ground ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... by the little by-play of the speakers, they gave rise to a considerable amount of ferment in the fashionable world. Lady Lufton, as she retreated back on to Dr. Easyman, curtsied low; she curtsied low and slowly, and with a haughty arrangement of her drapery that was all her own; but the curtsy, though it was eloquent, did not say half so much,—did not reprobate the habitual iniquities of the duke with a voice nearly as potent as that which was expressed in the gradual fall of her eye and the gradual ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... must have a well dressed head. It was rare, too, to see a gentleman without his peruke. William must have had a very large business. One likes to think that Major Washington dealt with Sewell, and it is not difficult to imagine on ball evenings Mrs. Carlyle's maid rushing in, making a hasty curtsy and breathlessly demanding Madam's wig; or perhaps Mrs. Fairfax's maid presents Mrs. Fairfax's compliments and "Please, will Mr. Sewell come at two o'clock to dress Mistress Fairfax's hair?" Nor, is it difficult to picture William, when the shop day is over, with his apprentices ...
— Seaport in Virginia - George Washington's Alexandria • Gay Montague Moore
... as the child took hold of her arm in fear of losing her balance. "That was a 'thank-ye-ma'am,'" she said, as the wagon suddenly bounded over a little hillock. "Didn't you see what a pretty curtsy ...
— Jewel's Story Book • Clara Louise Burnham
... said Nell, laughing softly. "But one can't curtsy on a horse, alas! Please let me off with a bow," and she bent low in the saddle, with all a girl's pretty irony. "But don't be sparing of those same hints, please. I really want to learn, and I will be very humble ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... strange-looking, the kneeling to a royal lady, but to see a stately mother or some soft maiden rendering such an act of homage to a chit of a boy or a gross young gentleman impresses one unpleasantly. The curtsy of a lady to a prince or princess is something between kneeling and that queer genuflection one meets in the English agricultural districts: the props of the boys and girls seem momentarily to be ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... father will dig the pit that is to hold them, beneath the nearest tree; he will himself deposit them within it, and the wind that whispers through the boughs will be their only requiem. But then they pay neither taxes nor tythes, are never expected to pull off a hat or to make a curtsy, and will live and die without hearing or uttering the dreadful ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... the pan of potatoes she was peeling, a pleasant-looking stout woman rose to her feet with a curtsy. ...
— The Spanish Chest • Edna A. Brown
... lodged, when his mistress, perceiving, by the countenance of her comrade, that she was on the point of desiring him to walk in, checked her intention with a frown; then, turning to Mr. Pickle, dropped him a very formal curtsy, seized the other young lady by the arm, and saying, "Come, cousin Sophy," vanished ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... star-shaped beauty spots, on their faces; square cut bodices, lace stomachers, paniers over brocaded skirts with lace panels; feet encased in high heel satin slippers with jewelled buckles; and gracefully managing their ostrich feather fans as they curtsy to their partners; the latter wearing wigs also powdered white, long coats of brocade, elaborately embroidered waistcoats with lace jabots, satin knee breeches, silk stockings and a garter with jewelled buckle on the right leg, and ...
— The Pianolist - A Guide for Pianola Players • Gustav Kobb
... Smithfield Market. They then went very lovingly together to an inn upon the paven stones, where Moll asked very readily at the bar if Mr. Tompkins (which was the name of her uncle) was there. The woman of the house made her a low curtsy and said he was only stepped over the way to be shaved, and she would call him. She went accordingly and brought the grave old man, who as soon as he came into the room said, Well, Mary, is this thy husband? Yes, sir, answered ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... lies beached in the harbour, a mere hulk of utilities that are taken away by dirty men in dirty carts, will in a day or two lift itself from the mud on a full tide and float away like a spirit into the sunset or curtsy to the image of the North Star. Mystery lies over the sea. Every ship is bound for Thule. That, perhaps, is why men are content day after day to stand on the pier-head and to gaze at the water and the ships and sailors running up and down the decks and pulling ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd
... the grimness faded from the wrinkled old face, and the housekeeper, for this her appearance proclaimed her to be, bowed in a queer Victorian fashion which suggested that a curtsy might follow. One did not follow, however. "I am sure I apologize, sir," she said. "Benson did not tell ...
— Fire-Tongue • Sax Rohmer
... woollen stockings immediately. This is the very last play that I shall produce in this theatre. Where is the colonel of the 10th cohort? So it's you? Well then, my friend, your soldiers march past like so many pigs. Madame Marie-Claire, come forward a little, so that I may teach you how to curtsy." ...
— A Mummer's Tale • Anatole France
... moment came when, Lady Baird having preceded me, I handed my bit of pasteboard to the usher; and hearing 'Miss Hamilton' called in stentorian accents, I went forward in my turn, and executed a graceful and elegant, but not too profound curtsy, carefully arranged to suit the semi-royal, semi-ecclesiastical occasion. I had not divulged that fact even to Salemina, but I had worn Mrs. M'Collop's carpet quite threadbare in front of the long mirror, and had curtsied to myself so many times in its crystal surface ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... flanks;—but it is hardly worth my while With such small gear to give myself concern: Indeed I 've not the necessary bile; My natural temper 's really aught but stern, And even my Muse's worst reproof 's a smile; And then she drops a brief and modern curtsy, And glides away, assured she never ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... that have been spent in service, and now so very few of the employers are to be seen; and when they are with us we feel that we are still respected by them, for there is the usual welcome—for they would look back the same as we do on days that are gone by. In our young days the curtsy was fashionable; you would see every man's daughter bobbing whenever they met the lady or gentlemen or when they met their teacher. The custom is gone now, and we wonder why; but the days are changed, and some ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... station to the village, and gave a grateful shade. The gardens of the cottages were bright with June flowers, and the broad village street, lined with low, irregular buildings, picturesque, but not at all from neglected age, seemed to be dozing in the still, hot air. A curtsy at the lodge gates, a turn of the Squire's wrist, and they were bowling along the well kept ...
— The Squire's Daughter - Being the First Book in the Chronicles of the Clintons • Archibald Marshall
... worthy to be his partner in every sense of the term. If that's not high praise, tell me higher and I'll use it.... And when Mr. Fezziwig and Mrs. Fezziwig had gone all through the dance—advance and retire, both hands to your partner, bow and curtsy, thread the needle, and back to your place—Fezziwig "cut" so deftly that he appeared to wink with his legs, and came upon his feet ...
— Eighth Reader • James Baldwin
... additional quantity of rouge. She was evidently a little surprised and shocked, therefore, at finding the lithe, dashing ensign transformed into a corpulent old general, with a double chin; though it was a perfect picture to witness their salutations; the graciousness of her profound curtsy, and the air of the old school with which the general took off his hat, swayed it gently in his hand, and bowed his ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... Mrs. Mayoress comes up to me. 'Well, miss,' says she, 'and what are you at work upon?' The word miss was a language that had hardly been heard of in our school, and I wondered what sad name it was she called me. However, I stood up, made a curtsy, and she took my work out of my hand, looked on it, and said it was very well; then she took up one of the hands. 'Nay,' says she, 'the child may come to be a gentlewoman for aught anybody knows; she has ...
— The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders &c. • Daniel Defoe
... Henrietta's tone conveyed restraint, even comparative reverence—who never for an instant forgot she once had reigned over some microscopic court out in the far Colonial wilderness, nor allowed you to forget it either. Her glance half demanded your curtsy. Still she was the "real thing" and, in that, eminently satisfactory—genuine grande dame by right both of birth and ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... a half-curtsy, pale and tongue-tied. He turned to deliver hat and whip and gloves to Walters, who had followed him, then closed the door and ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... and Jan found herself silently whispering, "Curtsy while you're thinking—it saves time," but she preserved ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker
... passed before Mazarin expressed a wish to see his ugly niece again; and it was indeed a very different Marie who now made her curtsy to him. Gone were the angular figure, the awkward movements, the sallow face, the slow wits. Time and the healthy life of the cloisters had done their work well. What the Cardinal now saw was a girl ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... ditch, and on the moss and the ivy in the hedgerow bank. The larks soared once more into the sky; a robin sang wistfully in the ash; a brown wren, with many a flick of her tiny wings and many a merry curtsy, hopped in and out among the trees, trilling loudly a gleeful carol. The tits flew hither and thither, twittering to each other as they flew. The hedge-sparrows' metallic notes sounded clear amid all the varied music, as the birds, moving among the hazels and gently flirting their wings, ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... Mr Gresham, I am under more than ordinary obligations to you; I am indeed," and Miss Oriel stood still in the path, and made a very graceful curtsy. "Dear me! only think, Lady Margaretta, that I should be honoured with an offer from the heir the very moment he is ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... her shoulder) And where's your curtsy? We shall bring these Irish knees into training ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... opened and I saw a tall, thin girl of nineteen, in a long muslin dress with a gilt belt from which, I remember, hung a mother-of-pearl fan. She came in, dropped a curtsy, and flushed crimson. Her long nose, which was slightly pitted with smallpox, turned red first, and then the flush passed up to ...
— The Darling and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... stood before their father. They put their feet together. Kit made a bow, and Kat bobbed a curtsy. ...
— The Dutch Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... shown into Flora's little parlour, she stood staring at her with her arms stuck in her sides, and her wide mouth distended from ear to ear, with a grin so truly uncouth and comic, that Mrs. Lyndsay could scarcely restrain her laughter; with a downward jerk of her broad shapeless person, meant for a curtsy, she burst out in a ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... for the hostess was no sooner asked the question than she readily agreed; and, with a curtsy and smile, wished them a good journey. However, lest Fanny's skill in physiognomy should be called in question, we will venture to assign one reason which might probably incline her to this confidence and good-humour. When Adams said he ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding
... in merry glee, sprang up, and with a triumphant curtsy and a "No, you don't, sir—not this time," joined her sister, followed ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... we be! How much dey do make ob us up to de house! De leopard hab change him spots, an' we hab change our skin! W'at 's de use o' bein' free, w'en we's w'ite folks a'ready? Tell me dat!" said Aunt Zoe, turning on her witheringly, rising from a deep curtsy and smoothing down her apron. "Tell ye w'at, ye Debil's spinster!" added she, with a sudden change of tone, as Flor began to mimic one of Miss Agatha's opera-tunes and with her hands on her hips slowly balance up and down the room, and came at last, bending far on one side, to leer up in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... and the somewhat awesome Maria—to whom Grandpa and Grandma Burton never could learn not to curtsy—arrived; and almost at once Grandma Burton discovered that not only "farm things," but such precious treasures as the hair wreath and the parlor—set were auctionable. In fact, everything the house contained, except their clothing and a few ...
— Across the Years • Eleanor H. Porter
... behind us? I do not think so, for the rosy lips which had smiled upon us with so airy a welcome soon showed a discontented curve not to be belied by the merry words that issued from them, and when we would have escorted her across the fields to her father's house, she made a mocking curtsy, and wandered away with the ugliest old crone who mouths and mumbles in the meeting-house. Did she do this to mock us or him? If to mock him he had best take care, for beauty scorned is apt to grow dangerous. But perhaps it was to mock us? Well, well, there would be nothing new in that; she ...
— The Old Stone House and Other Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... said, too, of the curtsy, or courtesy, as it is otherwise written. Its derivation from courtoisie, courteousness, that is, behaviour like that at court, at once shows that it was primarily the reverence paid to a monarch. And if we call to mind that falling upon the knees, or upon ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... returned Patty, dropping a pretty curtsy. Then they all went to the drawing-room, where Patty was praised and applauded till she blushed ...
— Patty's Suitors • Carolyn Wells
... maintain a dignity befitting His Majesty's chosen representative. How did the seigneurs rank among themselves and with the leading English-speaking people? Who were to dance in the state minuet? Should dancing cease when the bishops came in, and for how long? Was that curtsy dropped quite low enough to her viceregal self, and did that debutante offer her blushing cheek in quite the proper way to Carleton when he graciously gave her the presentation kiss? How immeasurably far ...
— The Father of British Canada: A Chronicle of Carleton • William Wood
... an august curtsy. I can't tell how it is, or what it is, in that lady; but she says, "How do you do?" as nobody else knows how to say it. In all her actions, motions, thoughts, I would wager there is the same calm grace and harmony. She is not very handsome, being very thin, and rather sad-looking. ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... you furtive curtsies in your neighborhood; demure little Jacks, who start up from behind boxes in the pantry. Those outsiders wear Thomas's crest and livery, and call him "Sir;" those silent women address the female servants as "Mum," and curtsy before them, squaring their arms over their wretched lean aprons. Then, again, those servi servorum have dependants in the vast, silent, poverty-stricken world outside your comfortable kitchen fire, in the world of darkness, and hunger, and ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... women are cruel, Mr. Locksley, it is without knowing it. We are not wilfully so. When we learn that we have been unkind, we very humbly ask pardon, without even knowing what our crime has been." And she made me a very low curtsy. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... great assumption of courtesy, made your great-great-grandmother welcome to remain in his house. After the suit had been settled, Williams had occasion to come again to the house, feeling, no doubt, rather crestfallen. Mrs. Devereux met him at the door and, making him a sweeping curtsy, quoted his exact words, making him welcome ...
— Plantation Sketches • Margaret Devereux
... silent, his memory dwelling in scenes of the dimming past, while Donald's thoughts were busy with the story which he had just heard. The inherent difference between her personality and that of the average mountain girl was explained. The curtsy which she—a three-year-old baby—had made Big Jerry, seemed to indicate that she had been a flower of city hothouse culture before being transplanted to the wilds, and there growing up, in outward semblance at least, in conformity with her ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... flying pigtails swayed and swung, and the pink legs darted in and out. Backward, forward, right glide, left glide, two skips sidewise. Her breath was almost gone, but she rallied her forces for a grand finale. With a curtsy to the bedpost and hands all around, she dashed into the rollicking ...
— Southern Stories - Retold from St. Nicholas • Various
... curtsy, whisp- er, hold your chin up, laugh and lisp, And then you're sure to take: I've known the day when brats, not quite Thirteen, got fifty pounds a night; Then ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... Laura, with a curtsy, not quite so large as those that grow in dancing schools, but, nevertheless, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... ridiculous titles which you young people call dancing nowadays. Fox-trot, indeed! And bunny-hug. And rag-time. I never heard such names in my life! We danced the Highland schottische, and the quadrille, and Sir Roger de Coverley. And do you remember your famous curtsy, Esther? And how Madame made you show off ...
— The Happy Adventurers • Lydia Miller Middleton
... bit of curtsy and offered him her slender fingers; which, as well as the rest of her hand, he took and held. Its shapeliness together with her beauty of face and figure were instantly swept up by ...
— The Cab of the Sleeping Horse • John Reed Scott
... she said, and laying a gold coin on the table, drew back with a slight curtsy. "But I think you gave me this by mistake; and now is my only chance to give it back. I am going home in ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... of whispering, if it is any where allowable, may perhaps be indulged the fair sex at church, where the conversation can only be carried on by the secret symbols of a curtsy, an ogle, or a nod. A whisper in this place is very often of great use, as it serves to convey the most secret intelligence, which a lady would be ready to burst with, if she could not find vent for it by this kind of auricular ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... persons, declaring that they have been wrongfully condemned." My own experience in the law courts leads me to accept these statements without reserve, and I regard as one of the gravest scandals of our present penal system the ease with which a girl who makes a pretty curtsy to the court, and who appears to be shamefaced when giving her evidence, is believed by the judge or magistrate. The dangers involved in this are obvious to many, especially to those who have much to do with children. An actor personally known to me, constantly received advances both ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll
... Depression. — N. lowering &c. v.; depression; dip &c. (concavity) 252; abasement; detrusion[obs3]; reduction. overthrow, overset[obs3], overturn; upset; prostration, subversion, precipitation. bow; courtesy, curtsy; genuflexion[obs3], genuflection, kowtow, obeisance, salaam. V. depress, lower, let down, take down, let down a peg, take down a peg; cast; let drop, let fall; sink, debase, bring low, abase, reduce, detrude[obs3], pitch, precipitate. overthrow, overturn, overset[obs3]; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... of school at eleven o'clock, she trotted along in the opposite way to home, along the wide high road leading to the woods, with the twisted apple-trees on either side. She made a little bobbing curtsy, and said "good day" to everyone she met who noticed her at all; for she had been taught to ...
— Fairy Tales from the German Forests • Margaret Arndt
... many other people, sometimes noticing, and sometimes pretending not to know her, according to the company she happened to be with. One day they met in some fine company—Lady Langdale looked as if she was afraid of committing herself by a curtsy. Miss Nugent waited for a good opportunity; and, when all the world was silent, leant forward, and called to Lady Langdale, as if she had something to communicate of the greatest consequence, skreening her whisper with her hand, as ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth
... streets of London. Early this year I met one of my old Gipsy women friends in Garrett Lane, Wandsworth, with evidently more than she could carry, and a weakness was observable in her knees; and when she saw me she was not so far gone as not to know who I was. She tried to make a curtsy, and in doing so very nearly lost her balance, and it took her some ten yards to recover her perpendicular. With a little struggling, stuttering, and stumbling, she got right, and pursued her way ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... No, I can't say I'm shedding tears myself unless they're crocodile ones. Please to recollect in future, my dears, when you speak to me, that you're addressing a member of the Upper School! You're only little Junior girls! Ta-ta!" and with a mock curtsy, in process of which she nearly dropped her pile of books, Gwen retired laughing from the Fourth Form to take her place and try her luck among ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil
... with a smile of welcome upon his rugged features and a handshake and a pleasant word for everyone. His daughter Susan greeted the men with a little curtsy and kissed the girls upon the cheek. Susan was not pretty, though she was strong and healthy; her laughing blue eyes assured a sunny disposition, and she numbered her suitors by ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... Malvina regarded the Professor as a person of importance. Evidently her intention was to curtsy, an operation that, hampered by those trailing yards of clinging khaki, might prove—so it flashed upon the ...
— Malvina of Brittany • Jerome K. Jerome
... eye-glasses and folding them in a red case, and leaning back in his arm-chair, turning the case about in his two hands, he gave my godmother a nod. Upon that, my godmother said, "You may go upstairs, Esther!" And I made him my curtsy ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... very much obliged to you, miss," said the old dame with a curtsy. "'Tis kind of you to say that can stand over till Maggie's better. She just dropped off for a bit of sleep, and thought as how she would be safe like, seein' that we don't get no mor'n four or five of them things in ...
— East of the Shadows • Mrs. Hubert Barclay
... threw a nod and a "How do you do?" in the nick of time. In spite of her shabby bonnet and very old Indian shawl, it was plain that the lodge-keeper regarded her as an important personage, from the low curtsy which was dropped on the entrance ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... up of modern French songs which Kitty sang enchantingly, and at last her frigid public was thoroughly aroused. While she was coming back again and again to smile and curtsy, McKann whispered to his wife that if there were to be encores he had better make a ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... premium"——So saying, he entered the parlour and made his bow to Mrs. Dods, who, seeing what she called a decent, purpose-like body, and aware that his pocket was replenished with English and Scottish paper currency, returned the compliment with her best curtsy. ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... sank into an exaggerated curtsy, thus adroitly avoiding the Duke's outstretched hand and ready lips. His feeble legs failed, he stumbled forward and pitched into the arms of Elmur, who set him upright with a gentle skilfulness that almost cheated the eyes of ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... For if you have, I'm sure you've never forgotten the droll way that Mademoiselle Folly stepped out upon a stage in her quaint green frock and made her frightened curtsy. Can you recall her low contralto drawl ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke
... and bade her come to him; but she only laughed the more. He called her in tones of command, entreaty, expostulation, and impatience. At last he shouted to her menacingly. She placed her thumbnail against the tip of her nose; spread her fingers; and made him a curtsy. He uttered an imprecation, and returned angrily to the house, ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... shouted out to her to stop till he came up. She beckoned acquiescence, and slackened her pace into a slow movement. The Laird turned the corner quickly, but when he had rounded it the maiden was still there, though on the summit of the brow. She turned round, and, with an ineffable smile and curtsy, saluted him, and again moved slowly on. She vanished gradually beyond the summit, and while the green feathers were still nodding in view, and so nigh that the Laird could have touched them with a fishing-rod, he reached the top of ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... I have explained everything to madame—and she expects you!" She flitted past him to the door, threw it open and dropped him a pretty, impertinent curtsy. ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... nice, patronizing, rich lady, with her handkerchief to her nose and her lorgnette to her eyes—see, like this. I knew just what graft would work her. I knew what she wanted there. I'd learned. So I'd make her a curtsy like this, and in the ...
— In the Bishop's Carriage • Miriam Michelson
... whole party remained in conversation about a quarter of an hour, when the King retired to his closet, upon which all repaired to their separate apartments. Whenever the King came in or went out of the room, Madame d'Angouleme made him a low curtsy, which he returned by bowing and kissing his hand. This little ceremony never failed to take place. After the party had separated we were taken to the Duc de Grammont's apartments, where we drank ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... silver petticoat between thumb and forefinger of each hand and slowly sank, making the lowest, stateliest curtsy that I ever bowed beside; and I heard a low, running murmur sweep the bright, jeweled ranks around us as we recovered and passed on, ceding our ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... itself, an elderly woman, rolling pastry, paused to curtsy to them, with stolid curiosity in her heavy-featured face. In her character as "single-handed" cook, Mrs. Noakes had sent up uninviting meals to Lady Anstruthers for several years, but she had not seen her ladyship ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... regarded Madame Cheron, while she spoke, would have touched almost any other heart; she made no other reply, but introduced Valancourt, who could scarcely stifle the resentment he felt, and whose bow Madame Cheron returned with a slight curtsy, and a look of supercilious examination. After a few moments he took leave of Emily, in a manner, that hastily expressed his pain both at his own departure, and at leaving her to the ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... boy!" said she, with her forefinger up; and then when I tried to lay hands on her again, she gave a little dainty curtsy, and ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... a vain one. The man smiled quizzically at Nora, who acknowledged the salutation by a curtsy which would have frightened away the banshees of her childhood. Nora hated scenes, and Courtlandt had the advantage of her in his knowledge of this. Celeste remained at the piano, but Nora turned as ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... her embarrassment in her pleasure, and made him an elaborate curtsy, saying, with a half-merry, half-reproachful glance, "Mr. Talbot is welcome in whatever guise ...
— The Mysterious Key And What It Opened • Louisa May Alcott
... and, turning a corner suddenly, he came upon a little person in a large white cap, with a large white apron on, in which she was gathering sweet pot-herbs, thyme, and basil, and mint, and savory, and sage, and marjoram. She stood up and dropped a curtsy. ...
— Oswald Bastable and Others • Edith Nesbit |
