"Demure" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... unknown, and known too late." It was the exquisite felicity of Adelaide Neilson's acting of Juliet that she glided into harmony with that tragical undertone, and, with seemingly a perfect unconsciousness of it—whether prattling to the old nurse, or moving, sweetly grave and softly demure, through the stately figures of the minuet—was already marked off from among the living, already overshadowed by a terrible fate, already alone in the bleak loneliness of the broken heart. Striking the keynote thus, the rest followed in easy sequence. The ecstasy of the wooing scene, the ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... in front of our window; they would be just starting for their ride as we went for walk or drive, and would salute us with doffed hat and low bow; they would waylay us on our way downstairs with demure "Good morning"; they would go to church and post themselves so that they could survey our pew, and Lord Charles—who possessed the power of moving at will the whole skin of the scalp—would wriggle his hair up and down till we were choking with laughter, to our own ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant
... a serious expression of countenance. That of Alexis bespoke sincerity; while Ivan stole forward with the air of one who had been recently engaged in some sly mischief, and who was assuming a demure deportment with the design of ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid
... trailing back into the wings, and the shrieking and thumping and whistling out in front just went on—and on—and on—and on. Um! I just listened and loved it—every thump of it. And I stood there like a demure little kitten; or more like Mag Monahan after she'd had a good licking, and was good and quiet. And I never so much as budged till ...
— In the Bishop's Carriage • Miriam Michelson
... shakes his head indulgently. 'I don't know how we are to make a demure young lady ...
— Echoes of the War • J. M. Barrie
... certain white-robed figure crowned by the demurest of little hats, I caught a glimpse of his face as he leaned on one of the tombstones near Patience Goodyear's grave, and I saw that he was waiting also for the same white figure and the same demure hat. This gave me a shock; for though I had never really dared to hope he would remain unmoved by a loveliness so rare in our village, and indeed, as I take it, in any village, I did not think he would show so much ...
— The Old Stone House and Other Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... sister were ministered to, her hand resting on each little head, as their lisping voices followed hers in the evening prayer. Willie and Emma arose, their demure faces lifted to receive the good-night kiss. But Rosie, the two-and-a-half-year baby, the dying mother's sacred charge, wound her tiny arms about the elder sister, and with baby-like ...
— Edna's Sacrifice and Other Stories - Edna's Sacrifice; Who Was the Thief?; The Ghost; The Two Brothers; and What He Left • Frances Henshaw Baden
... the appointed hour Mrs. Trent entered, unannounced. She was a woman of about twenty-eight. She had a white, demure, saintlike face, smooth black hair, and lips so crimson and full that they seemed to be bursting with blood. Her tall, graceful body was most expensively attired. Kisses were exchanged between her and Mrs. ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... garland, but a string of large grey pearls, from which hung a chaplet of sapphires and opals, lying on her forehead. A veil fell over the back of her head and she sat gazing into her lap as if she were absorbed in prayer; her hands were folded and held a cross. This placid and demure attitude she deemed becoming to a Christian matron and widow. Everyone might see that she had not come for worldly pleasure, but merely to be present at a triumph of her fellow-Christians—and especially her son—over the idolaters. Everything about her bore witness to ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... dry way: "You will be so good in future as to remember—" "I shall be obliged if you will," and so on; Betty's round face pouting at being brought in with all the others; Markey's soft, inscrutable; Mrs. Markey's demure and goggling; the maids' rabbit-faces; old Pettance's carved grin the film lifting from his little burning eyes: "Ha! Mr. Bryn Summer'ay; he bought her orse, and so she's gone to ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... this is a friendly band that has come with the fleet rivalry of their pinions to this rock, after prevailing with difficulty on the mind of our father. And the swiftly-wafting breezes escorted me; for the echo of the clang of steel pierced to the recess of our grots, and banished my demure-looking reserve; and I sped without my sandals in ...
— Prometheus Bound and Seven Against Thebes • Aeschylus
... Next morning, as demure as a little nun, in her traveling suit of gray, Miss Cricket took her seat beside her new-made guardian, and was whirled away ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... top of the companion—ladder Melissa stood waiting for us, demure, but subdued, with a still timider look than ever upon that sweet, shrinking, small face of hers. Her heart beat hard, I could see by the movement of her bodice, and her breath came and went; but she stood there like a dove, ...
— Stories by English Authors: The Sea • Various
... to Henry the Eighth by another wife named Jane Seymour; and this boy, who was christened Edward, succeeded his father on the throne of England. Elizabeth, who was noted for her demure bearing, was then thirteen years old and became a great favorite with her brother, the boy king, who called her "sweet sister Temperance," and gave many signs of his regard for her. But Edward the Sixth did not live very long. He had a serious disease ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards
... going to Deadman's Gulch, knew nothing of it, and had a faint suspicion that Jim was equally ignorant, yet as one or two of the passengers glanced anxiously at the demure, gray-eyed boy who seemed booked for such a baleful destination, he really felt the half-delighted, half-frightened consciousness that he was starting in life under fascinating immoral pretenses. But the forward spring of the ...
— A Waif of the Plains • Bret Harte
... silent. She was very demure, and her manner was somewhat stiff; therefore, seeing that his experiences had exhilarated him, Jack said, "I've had a great day. Two of the prettiest girls I ever saw almost ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... Effi? Were you satisfied with the whole affair? She was so peculiar, half naive, and then again very self-conscious and by no means as demure as she ought to be toward such a husband. That surely must be due solely to the fact that she does not yet fully know what she has in him. Or is it simply that she does not love him very much? That would be bad. For with all his virtues he ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... which, if really made, never fails.' Clara said nothing more, and her aunt also remained silent. Soon afterwards, the four-wheeled carriage, with the demure stable-boy, came to the door, and Clara was driven up and down through the streets of Perivale in a manner which was an injury to her. She knew that she was suffering an injustice, but it was one of which she could not make complaint. ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope
... environment meant. I asked Colonel MacLeod once, dad, and he said it was out of the new book on tactics, and he was thankful he had retired. Now Mr. Carmichael will make it plain," and Kate was very demure. ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... had come round the end of the hedge and my eyes lit upon Mrs. Douglas and the man Barker before they were aware of my presence. Her appearance gave me a shock. In the dining-room she had been demure and discreet. Now all pretense of grief had passed away from her. Her eyes shone with the joy of living, and her face still quivered with amusement at some remark of her companion. He sat forward, his hands clasped and his forearms on his knees, with an answering smile upon his ...
— The Valley of Fear • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... the stable-yard, thoughtful and intensely suspicious of the rendezvous under the keeper's tree in the out-lying coverts. He would have been more so had he guessed that Ben Davis' red beard and demure attire, with other as efficient disguises, had prevented even his own keen eyes from penetrating the identity of Willon's "Cousin" with the welsher he had seen thrust off the course the ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... over its long and lighted streets, powders its crying thoroughfares with gaily dressed creatures who are hidden, like bats, during the hours of day, opens a thousand defiant yellow eyes that have been sealed in sleep, throws off its wrapper and shows its elaborate toilet. The country grows demure and brown, most modest in the shadows. Labourers go home along the damp and silent lanes with heavy weariness. The parish clergyman flits like a blackbird through the twinkling village. Dogs bark from ...
— Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens
... prove that the Midland twelve-and-sixpenny overcoats were impermeable by rain. Overcoats flapped in the two doorways. These devices woke and drew the town, and the town found itself received by bustling male assistants very energetic and rapid, instead of by demure anaemic virgins. At moments towards evening the shop was populous with custom; the number of overcoats sold was prodigious. On another day the Midland sold trousers in a like manner, but without the phonographs. Unmistakably the Midland had ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... women, and produces her "effects" for men. She wears scarlet on a cold or raw day, and the eyes of the men light up when they see her. It makes her look cheerful and bright and warm. She wears gray when she wants to look demure. Let a man beware of a woman in silvery gray. She looks so quiet and dove-like and gentle that she has disarmed him before she has spoken one word, and he will snuggle down beside her and let her turn his mind and his pocket-book wrong side out. A woman could ...
— From a Girl's Point of View • Lilian Bell
... the specified time, and they whirled off in the big motor car, which seated them all comfortably without crowding anybody. Very demure they were, passing along the city streets, but in the open country their delight found vent in shouts and squeals and jubilant laughter. Dr. Dudley chose a route apart from the traveled highways, leading through woods and ...
— Polly of the Hospital Staff • Emma C. Dowd
... my friend and I were walking up the famous yew avenue of Holdernesse Hall. We were ushered through the magnificent Elizabethan doorway and into his Grace's study. There we found Mr. James Wilder, demure and courtly, but with some trace of that wild terror of the night before still lurking in his furtive eyes and ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... buoyant heart I left the proud and warlike looking privateer, Paul Jones, and proceeded to the slip where the schooner Mary lay. For this vessel, looking so demure and Quaker-like, I very ungratefully began to entertain feelings akin to contempt. She was now taking in cargo and was expected to sail in a few days on her return to Newbern. When Captain Thompson came on board, I told him I had engaged to join the ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... a couple of them woulda knocked you dead, take it from me. But the Vere de Vere stuff is bla now. Too phony. There's no class to that kind of a monicker any more. And, believe me, you can't afford to overlook any bets, nowadays; you got to have class in everything. Something simple—something demure, that's what they want. You ...
— Winner Take All • Larry Evans
... village had been new christened, just as there reeled out of it a young gentleman whom every one had deemed a most hopeful pious youth, Mr. Truelocke in particular having a great opinion of him, though I never liked his demure looks for my part, nor his stiff way of dressing himself. He was called Ralph Lacy, and was son and heir to old Mr. Lacy of Lacy Manor, a worthy old gentleman, though somewhat austere, who was lately dead; which I suppose ...
— Andrew Golding - A Tale of the Great Plague • Anne E. Keeling
... the little girls had their dolls with them; all, in fact, excepting Beth and the "Cherub." The latter sat apart from the other children. She looked so very demure that Beth thought her bashful, and took pity on her. Seating ...
— A Little Florida Lady • Dorothy C. Paine
... surrounded by their demure gardens, gave no indication that he was being watched from behind many a window-blind. Neither was there any stir to give hint that from the upstairs window of the village shop at the end of the street a telescope was pointing at him, while Granny Long informed the breathless circle about her ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... the only dwelling was a tavern, a large house built of stone. On entering it, the party was shown into a spacious apartment, crowded with boatmen and other persons, who had just arrived from St. John's in Canada. The man of the house was a judge; a sullen, demure old gentleman, who sate by the fire, with tattered clothes and dishevelled locks, reading a book, and was totally regardless of ...
— Travels in North America, From Modern Writers • William Bingley
... smelt of cookery, perhaps of washing, although doors and windows were open. But little Robin Drummond cared for that. Beyond the demure child who had admitted him he caught sight of Mary sitting on the shabby little grass-plot, in a wicker-chair, with a Japanese umbrella over her head. And roses could not have ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan
... Commanding Officer's wife to ride a kicking horse. But Mrs. Fortescue had a sneaking affection for Birdseye and much preferred her to Pretty Maid, the brown mare Anita rode, and who was considered as demure as Anita, and Anita was very demure, and very, very pretty. At least, so thought Lieutenant Victor Broussard, watching her out of the tail of his eye, as he passed some distance away. It was not so far away, however, that Anita ...
— Betty at Fort Blizzard • Molly Elliot Seawell
... a little Italian town, as we have said, is no very grand thing, and as a mere question of fun it is no doubt amusing only to people who are ready to be amused. And yet there is a quaint fascination in it as a whole, in the rows of old women with demure little children in their laps ranged on the stone seats along the bridge, the girls on the pavement, the grotesque figures dancing along the road, the harlequins, the mimic Capuchins, the dominoes with big noses, ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... well-made peruque of light auburn, with tight pantaloons, which contained a pair of very respectable calves; and his white neckcloth and his large gill were washed and got up with especial care. Next to Monsieur Goupille sat a very demure and very spare young lady of about two-and-thirty, who was said to have saved a fortune—Heaven knows how— in the family of a rich English milord, where she had officiated as governess; she called herself Mademoiselle Adele de Courval, and was very particular about the de, and very melancholy ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 3 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... opened his mouth to accept this demure invitation when Excalibur, rising from the hearthrug, stretched himself luxuriously and wagged his tail, thereby removing three pipes, an inkstand, a tobacco jar, and a half-completed sermon from the ...
— Scally - The Story of a Perfect Gentleman • Ian Hay
... Mariette and Tullia, is thinking steadily about your affair, and so is Florine,—who has finally given up Lousteau and taken Nathan. That shrewd pair have found you a most delicious little creature,—only seventeen, beautiful as an English woman, demure as a "lady," up to all mischief, sly as Desroches, faithful as Godeschal. Mariette is forming her, so as to give you a fair chance. No woman could hold her own against this little angel, who is a devil under her skin; she can play any part you please; get complete possession of your ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... volume mildly with a demure introduction, we suddenly are over head and ears in "dialectic regeneration," which seems like theology, only that it introduces us to a mild baby-talk in that wonderful language, the Annamitic, where the sentence "ba ba ba ba" means, "Three ladies gave a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... "Shaganappi ponies," as they are called, like mounted guards protecting the men, women and children of the Colony who trudged wearily on foot. The Indians were kind to their charge, but the Redman loves a joke, and often indulges in "horse-play." The demure Highlander looked unmoved upon the Indian pranks. The Indians also hold everything they possess on a loose tenure. The Highlander who was forced to surrender the gun, which his father had carried at the battle ...
— The Romantic Settlement of Lord Selkirk's Colonists - The Pioneers of Manitoba • George Bryce
... quite demure in a simple frock of brown, without the prevailing bustle and paniers, was directing the contortionist in his efforts to construct a table out of three "blue seats" and a couple of property trunks, or "keesters," as they ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... still enfolding him, his eyes were still intent upon the fire, when Blake entered, triumphant, carrying a coffee-pot, and followed by a demure girl with blonde hair ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... not the most polished. In the society of the fair sex I was exceedingly shy, and my feelings were sometimes painful when I had to run the gauntlet through rows of well-dressed women, some looking as demure as a noddy at the masthead. I was now in my twenty-third year, and an agreeable—nay, an old lady, whose word was considered sacred—declared I was a charming young man. My life passed as monotonously as that of a clock in an old ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... not demure at all when two months afterwards she sat on the little bridge in the sunset, watching the very same ducks dibble with their yellow bills in the brook that trickled so musically over the stones, while Michael stood beside her, lazily throwing ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... minutes Herr Mueller's step outside caused all the girls to scramble to their seats, so that when he entered they sat as quiet and demure as though they had not stirred during his absence. He took his seat, and opened his book again at the lesson, when the girls saw him suddenly flush up to the roots of his hair, and run his fingers nervously through ...
— Harper's Young People, August 10, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... that demure look, expand your right-hand fingers across the region where the courtesy of anatomy awards to politicians a heart, and talk about truth as a certain old lady with a paper lanthorn before her door may talk of chastity—you may do all this on the hustings; but this is not Tamworth: ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari. Vol. 1, July 31, 1841 • Various
... monkey, in the most sagacious way, would skip about till he had ascertained whether the weapon was there or not. If it was there, as soon as he caught sight of it, he would spring up into the rigging and sit on a ratline, as quiet and demure as a judge, without ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... unbelief, disbelief, misbelief; discredit, miscreance[obs3]; infidelity &c. (irreligion) 989[obs3]; dissent &c. 489; change of opinion &c. 484; retraction &c. 607. doubt &c. (uncertainty) 475; skepticism, scepticism, misgiving, demure; distrust, mistrust, cynicism; misdoubt[obs3], suspicion, jealousy, scruple, qualm; onus probandi[Lat]. incredibility, incredibleness; incredulity. [person who doubts] doubter, skeptic, cynic.; unbeliever &c. 487. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... preternaturally—I had almost said diabolically—wicked, or irresistibly bewitching—often both. Her voice was gentle and childish, her tread light and soft as that of a cat:—but her manners more frequently resembled those of a pretty playful kitten, that is now pert and roguish, now timid and demure, according to ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... those who laboured under the disease of celibacy, from the pert miss of fifteen, who, with a fluttering heart, tosses her head, bridles up, and giggles involuntarily at sight of a handsome young man, to the staid maid of twenty-eight, who, with a demure aspect, moralizes on the vanity of beauty, the folly of youth, and simplicity of woman, and expatiates on friendship, benevolence, and good sense, in the style of ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... bright sunlight, its throngs of townspeople streaming into the country—happy and merry without vulgar rowdyism; the smugly dressed apprentice and the servant-girl in her Sonntagsputz; the pert student and the demure Buergermaedchen with her new Easter hat and her voluminous-waisted Frau Mama; the sedate school-master or shopkeeper, leading his toddling child; sour-faced officials; grey-locked and spectacled professors and 'town-fathers' discussing ...
— The Faust-Legend and Goethe's 'Faust' • H. B. Cotterill
... deserted and the windows thrown open to the sun and the garden. He was selecting a table, when a step on the verandah made him look up. Standing in the window, framed, as it were, by sunshine and trees, was Marguerite Wade, in a white dress, with demure lips, and the complexion of a wild rose. She was the incarnation of youth—of that spring-time of life of which the sight tugs at the strings of older hearts; for surely that is the only part of life which is really and ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman
... draughtsman of that day, every muscle becomes coarser, fuller, more fleshy, although the draughtsman undoubtedly believed he had reproduced it with mathematical exactitude. The Grecian goddess no longer looks so demure. She has grown to be a coquette; the Virgin has become a wife, because the age lacked the virgin eye, because Rubens' full-bosomed women's figures and Buonarotti's swelling play of the muscles obtruded ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... of yore To solitary Saturn bore; His daughter she; in Saturn's reign Such mixture was not held a stain. Oft in glimmering bowers and glades He met her, and in secret shades Of woody Ida's inmost grove, While yet there was no fear of Jove. Come, pensive Nun, devout and pure, Sober, steadfast, and demure, All in a robe of darkest grain, Flowing with majestic train, And sable stole of Cyprus lawn Over thy decent shoulders drawn. Come, but keep thy wonted state, With even step, and musing gait, And looks commercing with the skies, Thy rapt soul ...
— The Hundred Best English Poems • Various
... both come and take up their residence with my mother, and in due time they arrived. Milly, as my aunt was called, was three years younger than my mother, very pretty and as smart as her sister, perhaps a little more demure in her look, but with more mischief in her disposition. My grandmother was a cross, spiteful old woman; she was very large in her person, but very respectable in her appearance. I need not say that Miss Amelia did not lessen the attraction ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... little mouth, and looked very demure, but she twinkled her bright eyes, and said, "My heart will not break, sir; I am in ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... cups and saucers in the warm water. After a while, as she worked, her eyes grew dreamy: she was making little gay-coloured pictures of herself, unfounded prophecies of how she would look and what would happen to her that evening. She saw herself, charming and demure, wearing a fluffy idealization of the dress her mother now determinedly struggled with upstairs; she saw herself framed in a garlanded archway, the entrance to a ballroom, and saw the people on the shining floor turning dramatically to look at her; then from all points a rush ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington
... door, and smiled pleasantly at Margaret standing on the threshold with an expression of demure defiance in her face. Did Mr. Shackford want anything more in the way of pans and pails for his plaster? No, Mr. Shackford had everything he required of the kind. But would not Miss Margaret walk in? Yes, she would step ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... old Isaac deals not onlie in old Books, but old Silver Spoons. Howbeit, I took the Volume to his Shop, and as I went in, Betty came out! What had been her Businesse, I know not; but she lookt at me and my Book as though she should like to know mine; but, with her usual demure Curtsey, made Way for me, and walked off. I got the Money with much Waiting, but not much other Dimcultie, and took it to Father, who sent twenty Shillings to Ellwood, and gave me five for ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning
... wonted English model. The second Richard, the second and fourth Edwards, and the eighth Harry, were men profuse, gay, boisterous; lovers of women and of wine, of no outward sanctity or gravity. Charles was a ruler after the Italian fashion; grave, demure, of a solemn carriage, and a sober diet; as constant at prayers as a priest, as heedless of oaths ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Robert; "though faith she has been so demure, that I never supposed she did any thing but read sermons. However, I find there's no going upon trust with women, any more ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... had hardly closed behind him when the two demure young ladies darted out of their corner, and fluttered with joy in front ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... branch to branch! Hardly less ridiculous—to our eyes—is the elaborate performance of our most common woodpecker, the flicker, or high-hole. Two or three male birds scrape and bow and pose and chatter about the demure female, outrageously undignified as compared with their usual behaviour. They do everything save ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... there, and he did not have a long search. A street boy, sharp, quick-witted, nimble, cunning—hat was what he wanted, and that was what he found, after regarding many different specimens of that tribe and rejecting them. The boy whom he selected was somewhat less ragged than his companions, with a demure face, which, however, to his scrutinizing eyes, did not conceal the precocious maturity of mind and fertility of resource which lay beneath. A few words sufficed to explain his wish, and the boy eagerly accepted the ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... as if she had never been. In her place he discovered a girl all grace and loveliness, her slender figure ripening into gracious womanhood; a girl of mind and heart and understanding, all fire and tenderness; demure, intelligent, with a pretty pose of independence and sureness of herself moderated by modesty and reserve. Her travelling dress of sober colouring and severe lines became her bewitchingly. Beneath the brim of her dainty hat, with veil ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... maiden, with dimpled cheek and chin, Before an ancient mirror stood, and viewed her form within; She wore a gown of sober grey, a cape demure and prim, With only simple fold and hem, yet dainty, neat, and trim. Her bonnet, too, was grey and stiff; its only line of grace Was in the lace, so soft and white, shirred round her ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... They crowd to the shallows, lie hid among the weeds, and dare not say the river is their own. I relieve them of their apprehensions, and thus become popular with the small shoals. When we see a fish quivering upon dry land, he looks so helpless without arms or legs, and so demure in expression, adding hypocrisy to his other sins, that we naturally pity him; then kill and eat him, with Harvey sauce, perhaps. Our pity is misplaced,—the fish is not. There is an immense trout in Loch Awe in Scotland, which is so voracious, and swallows his own species with ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... me. I saw only a surface of stained canvas, tucked in carefully around the edges. This I tore off and flung aside—eclipsing poor Benjy, who was a most interested spectator of my strange proceedings. Still no gleam of gold, merely demure rows of plump brown bags. With both hands I reached for them. Oh, to grasp them all! I had to be content with two, because they were so ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... though the years had touched her; a little more matronly—much more homely. Or was it only that he was much less homely now—a man of the world—the sense of homeliness being relative? Her face had grown to be pre-eminently of the sort that would be called interesting. Her habiliments were of a demure and sober cast, though she was one who had used to dress so airily and so gaily. Years had laid on a few shadows ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... the musical tendency, and aspires to its expression, with the rest. Perched upon the topmost branch beside his mate or mates,—for he is quite a polygamist, and usually has two or three demure little ladies in faded black beside him,—generally in the early part of the day, he seems literally to vomit up his notes. Apparently with much labor and effort, they gurgle and blubber up out of ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... they said. One of us was called into a more sober chamber to drink ceremonious toasts in champagne with their officers. In the street another of us—I would not give even his initial—selecting the leading representative of young, demure, and ornamental maidenhood, embraced her in the middle of the most admiring crowd I have ever seen, while the rest of us explained to a half-angry mother that her daughter should be proud and happy—as indeed she was—to represent the respectable and historic ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson
... fellow's eye brightened, and going up to Mrs. Little, he pouted out his cherry lips, and, as she kissed him, he said, with a suddenly-assumed demure, penitent look—"I torry." ...
— Home Scenes, and Home Influence - A Series of Tales and Sketches • T. S. Arthur
... of Boston is a demure gaiety. An air of quiet festivity encompasses the streets. The houses are elegant, but sternly ordered. If they belong to the colonial style, they are exquisitely symmetrical. There is no pilaster without its fellow; ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley
... the lady opposite, while she in her turn never wavered in her gaze upon him. But whereas there was something bold in his homage there was a half-shy way with her. He was facing her squarely, but she looked at him a little sideways, and a little curiously, in demure dubiousness. One could see that she was enormously intrigued, but her interest was not expressed by any movement. In fact neither moved; they remained some twenty yards apart all the time I observed them: each, I suppose, leaving it to the other—the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, March 14, 1917 • Various
... decided hostility or openly-avowed contempt; and, in the more rude regions, the refusal to partake in the very social employments of wrestling or whiskey-drinking, has brought the scrupulous personage to the more questionable enjoyments of a regular gouging match and fight. A demure habit is the most unpopular among all classes. Freedom of manner, on the other hand, obtains confidence readily, and the heart is won, at once, by an off-handed familiarity of demeanor, which fails to recognise any inequalities ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... persevere, Chios, and she may come to thee sooner than expected. Then we will take the laughing side, and thou must bear with all our points of wit. We will deal leniently; will not let an arrow fly when thy counterpart is near. No, we will be demure, as if we never spoke to thee of such a childish thing as love. Let us change the subject, Chios. Thou hast heard my dearest has left his home once more to visit ...
— Saronia - A Romance of Ancient Ephesus • Richard Short
... I, indeed? Who is this demure young black-eyed witch that has come between us, this friend ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... How demure, how innocent she looked, plying her knitting-needles, and stopping to take up a stitch! How little at that moment she knew of Ducklow's trouble, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... women shivering in the cold, and bright-eyed young damsels with their warm cloaks drawn closely round them; old men with long beard, wallet, and pilgrim's staff; and mischievous urchins with faces for the moment preternaturally demure. Each right hand, of old and young alike, held a lighted taper, and these myriads of flickering little flames produced a curious illumination, giving to the surrounding buildings a weird picturesqueness which they do not possess in ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... astonished to learn, secrets which Miss Flora has at her pretty finger-ends. She has acquired her knowledge innocently, and she will use it judiciously. Nothing escapes her quick eyes and keen ears, and under that demure forehead is a faculty which enables her to 'put this and that together,' and arrive at conclusions which would amaze her less acute foreign sisters. You may not envy her this faculty, but do not accuse her of employing it improperly. She will never disgrace herself nor ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... was, so to speak, an outsize in Good Sports. She loomed up behind the small and demure Miss Leonard like a liner towed by a tug. She was big, blonde, skittish, and exuberant; she wore a dress like the sunset of a fine summer evening, and she effervesced with spacious good will to all men. She was one of those girls ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse
... then in his eighteenth year. Naturally of a light-hearted and funny disposition, and possessing a jocose turn for mimickry, he was a great favourite among his companions, and getting in with the players, it seems drew up with that little-worth, demure daffodel, Miss Scarborough, through the instrumentality of whose condisciples and the randy Mrs Beaufort, that riot at Widow Fenton's began, which ended in expurgating the town of the whole gang, bag and baggage. Some there were, I shall ...
— The Provost • John Galt
... scene; I have made a sketch of it, to illustrate this for you. There was this demure sinner, standing bolt upright in front of the door, his hat hanging on the handle, which had arrested it in its fall, and his long black hair, as if partaking of his consternation, flowing wildly over his cheeks; while Peter, ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... was keen for it. She had been impervious to their flustered anxiety, also to the tributes to her importance betrayed therein. In vain they argued no fewer than two emperors to dissuade her. She meant to have a walk on the shore and—a demure Parisian ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... however, kept up my scrutiny of the attic window—observed closely every female foot that glanced about the neighboring courts, and remitted sadly my attention to the Grammaire des Grammaires, in the quiet room of my demure friend ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... the bells rang a merry peal from the old gray tower of Willesden church. All the village was assembled in the churchyard. Young and old were dressed in their gayest apparel; and it was evident from the smiles that lighted up every countenance, from the roguish looks of the younger swains, and the demure expression of several pretty rustic maidens, that a ceremony, which never fails to interest all classes,—a wedding,—was ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... way for stately '76, Who comes with mincing, minuet pace, Well-powdered hair and patch-deckt face— An antiquated kerchief on: White-capped, like Martha Washington; Clock-hosed and high-heeled slipper-shod, To give no Nineteenth Century nod; Nay, but a courtesy profound, Whose look demure consults the ground. O rare-seen bloom! No flower ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... now and then, the outer door facing them would open on some newcomer, and John had hastily to release her soft magnetic fingers and sit demure, and jealously overhear her effusive welcome to those innocent intruders, nor did his brow clear till she had shepherded them within the inner fold. Fortunately, the refreshments were in this section, so that once therein, ...
— Victorian Short Stories • Various
... Pauline enthralled Baskinelli. He had never before seen a woman like her—innocent but astute, daring but demure, brilliant but opalescent. When at last they strolled away together into the conservatory his drawing room obeisances became direct ...
— The Perils of Pauline • Charles Goddard
... Bagla, or Bagula, a sort of small heron (Ardea torra), which frequents the banks of ponds and catches little fish and frogs. In folk-lore, from its quaint appearance, it is the type of demure cunning, and a sanctimonious rogue ascetic is often ...
— The Talking Thrush - and Other Tales from India • William Crooke
... individuals dressed in a strange combination of uniform checked aprons and patent leather boots worn out and discarded by the babies of the fortunate. The small feet they encase are crossed, and the freshly washed faces are demure, as the matron with the wig frowns down into a newspaper from which she now and then hisses a command to order. Three miniature members are rocking violently ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst
... some light luncheon in the remote little inn, and Mrs. Rosewarne was pleased to see her ordinarily demure and preoccupied daughter in such high and careless spirits. It was not a splendid banquet. The chamber was not a gorgeous one, for the absence of ornament and the enormous thickness of the walls told of the house being shut up in the winter months and abandoned to the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... himself rather more easily than the girls to this order of things, and he sat quietly in his chair, speaking only when he was spoken to; and though Marjorie knew he was fairly aching to shout and race around, yet he looked so demure that ...
— Marjorie's Maytime • Carolyn Wells
... the Marquise set her new amusement on foot by bidding adieu to a demure, dark eyed, handsome girl, who was garbed most sedately, and whose letters of introduction pronounced her—oh, sentiment or irony of women—Madame Louise Trouvelot, an attache of the Caron establishment, commissioned by the Marquise to inspect the dwellings on the Caron estate in New Orleans, ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan
... of his sister-in-law's house Groby Lington fidgeted away the passing minutes with the demure restlessness of advanced middle age. About a quarter of an hour would have to elapse before it would be time to say his good-byes and make his way across the village green to the station, with a selected escort of nephews and nieces. He was a good-natured, ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... echoes of the avarice and inhumanity sitting in the pews; and when, in the rough old figure, it is a dumb dog that will not bark at the robber or warn us of danger, the real mutes, whom its silence but copies, are those demure men below who seem to listen to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... looked as demure when they came in to tea as they had done at dinner, and a stranger would have thought them as well-behaved children as Master and Miss Cartwright; but children who behave well in the sight of their parents, or in company, and rudely ...
— The Fairchild Family • Mary Martha Sherwood
... too," said Ruth, with a demure look; "it curiously enough happened that I was following you at the time. You afterwards passed the same boy with a refusal, ...
— The Young Trawler • R.M. Ballantyne
... listen I am alert and still, for the primitive passions of the universe are shyly exercised. To be sensitive to them all the faculties must be acutely strained. With this lisping, coaxing, companionable sea the serene and sparkling sky, the glow beyond the worlds, the listening isles—demure and dim—the air moist, pacific and fragrant—what concern of mine if the smoky messenger from the stuffy town never comes? This is the quintessence of life. I am alive at last. Such keen tingling, thrilling perceptions were never mine before. Now do I realise the magnificent, ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... sonorous voice with which he had accosted Sinfi conveyed an impression of size and weight such as even big men do not often produce. This deep voice, coupled with that gaunt kind of cheek which we associate with the most demure people, produced an effect of sedateness such as I should have expected to find (and did not find) in the other man—the man of the shaven cheek and Quaker costume; but, in the one glance I had got from those watchful, sagacious, twinkling eyes, there was an expression quite peculiar ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... in the laugh until his wife plucked his sleeve, and whispered something in his ear. In an instant his face became at once mysterious and demure. "I owe you an apology," he said, turning to Rand, but in a voice ostentatiously pitched high enough for Miss Euphemia to overhear: "I see I have made a mistake. A resemblance—only a mere resemblance, as I look at you now—led me astray. Of ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... no truth in it," Mrs. Portman said. "I always said so, my dear: and now it comes out that my demure gentleman has been engaged to a young lady—Miss Thompson, of Clapham Common, ever so long: and I am delighted for my part, and on Myra's account, too, for an unmarried curate is always objectionable about one's house: and of course it is strictly private, ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the which we have nourished, and we pray you to make him a knight; for of a more worthier man's hand may he not receive the order of knighthood. Sir Launcelot beheld that young squire, and saw him seemly and demure as a dove, with all manner of good features, that he wend of his age never to have seen so fair a man of form. Then said Sir Launcelot, Cometh this desire of himself? He and all they said, Yea. Then shall he, said Sir Launcelot, receive the high order of knighthood as tomorrow ...
— Song and Legend From the Middle Ages • William D. McClintock and Porter Lander McClintock
... needs to be quiet," was the demure reply. "Come, Tom. We'll run the levels over to the foot ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet
... view of the case, Billy. Cicely is a nice, demure little name; but I suspect that the young woman doesn't quite live up to it. Still, I believe I would rather have an independent damsel than a shrinking one. She will be more ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray
... symbol of the Order. At his feet was placed a table, occupied by two scribes, chaplains of the Order, whose duty it was to reduce to formal record the proceedings of the day. The black dresses, bare scalps, and demure looks of these church-men, formed a strong contrast to the warlike appearance of the knights who attended, either as residing in the Preceptory, or as come thither to attend upon their Grand Master. The Preceptors, of whom ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... Quaker gray silk, a soft white mull kerchief folded across her breast, and a white muslin cap, transformed Ruth into a demure little Puritan maid. ...
— Patty Fairfield • Carolyn Wells
... with a demure smile; "thank you for remembering my church so kindly; but what did my ward ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... day was chiefly consumed; and I was not suffered long to remain alone. I had scarcely dined before a coach stopped at the door, and Charlotte came in with demure significance in her face. 'There is a young lady, sir,' said she, 'which says her name is Wilmot, which wants to ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... colored silks, chenille, etc., she imitated each flower and its leaf very adroitly without a pattern. This was clever, and, indeed, rather a rare talent; but she lowered her head over this work with a demure, beaming complacency embroidery alone never yet excited without external assistance. Accordingly, on a large stool, or little ottoman, at her feet, but at a respectful distance, sat a young man, almost her match in beauty, though in quite another style. In height about five feet ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... be more cordial, nothing more winning, than the reception of Lothair by Lady St. Jerome. She did not conceal her joy at their being again together. Even Miss Arundel, though still calm, even a little demure, seemed glad to see him: her eyes looked kind and pleased, and she gave him her hand with graceful heartiness. It was the sacred hour of two when Lothair arrived, and they were summoned to luncheon almost immediately. ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli
... a certain thin man, dressed in mourning, in whose house, in Shrewsbury, the Judge's lodgings used to be, until a scandal of ill-treating his wife came suddenly to light? A grocer with a demure look, a soft step, and a lean face as dark as mahogany, with a nose sharp and long, standing ever so little awry, and a pair of dark steady brown eyes under thinly-traced black brows—a man whose thin lips wore always a ...
— Green Tea; Mr. Justice Harbottle • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu |
