"Maidenly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... which the tongue played a prominent part. Tall and fully developed, but no looks. Clever, masculine brain, and strong physically. Skillfully concealed her passionate nature, which, however, was long in developing and was long kept in check by maidenly modesty. ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... from Miss Stead, who blushed and cast down her eyes as if conscious of having said too much for maidenly propriety, but the smile of acknowledgment on Colonel Washington's face gave way to a look of grave anxiety as he replied, "No lady of Carolina shall ever need a defender while a man of my command is left to draw a sword; but we have news of movements on the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... chose, and could, therefore, be a delightful companion. Her color came and went under words and compliments that at times were rather ardent and pronounced. He soon observed, however, that she led the way promptly from delicate ground. This might result from maidenly reserve or from the fact that she was not quite ready for decisive words. He still believed that he had all needed encouragement—that the expression of her eyes often answered his, and he knew well what his meant. When, in response to his ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... 3. Portia. The maidenly passion now becoming great, and chiefly divine in its humility, is still held absolutely subordinate to duty; no thought of disobedience to her dead father's intention is entertained for an instant, though the temptation is marked as ...
— Proserpina, Volume 2 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin
... the household, and before some of the townspeople, in a way that she could not stand; and that you yourself by your manner to her last night showed how she had lost your respect. She added, with her face of pure maidenly truth, that he had come into such close contact with her only the instant before your sister ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell
... proves that it is too true," continued Kilcullen. "He has forgotten you, and you cannot blame him that he should do so, now that you have rejected him; but he neglected you even before you did so. Is it wise, is it decorous, is it maidenly in you, to indulge any longer in so vain a passion? Think of this, Fanny. As to myself, Heaven knows with what perfect truth, with what true love, I offered you, this morning, all that a man can offer: how ardently I hoped for an ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... and faculty-guarded, of course, attended a series of matinees. At these matinees Jane first saw her hero, brave in doublet and hose, and braver still in melody and romance. She and her mates looked and listened and worshiped from afar, as is the habit of maidenly youth under such circumstances. There is no particular danger in such worship provided the worshiper remains always at a safely remote distance from the idol. But in Jane's case this safety-bar was removed by Fate. The wife of a friend of ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... qualities, the nobler potentialities; you have shown me to myself. Melinda! Do not think that I do not appreciate the difficulties of this hour for you. I know how your heart is shrinking, how your delicate maidenly modesty is up in arms. But Melinda, you know! ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... you no feeling of self-respect and maidenly reserve? or is your letter a feeble attempt at a dull joke? The first question you ask is very silly indeed. What makes anyone's hair curl? Either nature in flattened formation of each tube, or the use of curling-paper or ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII. No. 358, November 6, 1886. • Various
... worship of Vesta and to keep the interior of the temple and the shrines pure and clean, and the sacred vessels and utensils arranged, as in a well-ordered household. In a word, they were to be, in purity, in industry, in neatness, in order, and in patience and vigilance, the perfect impersonation of maidenly virtue as exhibited in its own proper field of duty ...
— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... guess, I saw nothing of the strange lady. And on the morrow until dinner-time I had but a glimpse of her. This was in the forenoon. She stood, with her hound beside her, in an embrasure of the wall, looking over the sea: to the eye a figure so maidenly and innocent and (in a sense) forlorn that I recalled Gil Perez' tale as the merest frenzy, and wondered how I had come to listen to it with any belief. Her seaward gaze would be passing over the very spot where we had laid him: only ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... and virtues lost nothing, fell into the hands of Madame d'Hymbercourt, and thus came under the eyes of Princess Mary. That fair little lady also built in her heart an altar to an unknown god, if hints in Hymbercourt's letters were to be trusted. Her maidenly emotions were probably far more passive than Max's, though I have been told that a woman's heart will go to great lengths for the sake of an ideal. Many a man, doubtless, would fall short in the estimation of his lady-love were ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... So they continue at home until the house is broken up; and then they retire in a galaxy to some provincial Belle Vue-terrace or Prospect-place; where they endeavour to forestall the bachelors with promiscuous orange-blossoms and maidenly susceptibilities. We have characterised these heart-burning efforts after "station," as originating with, and maintained by, the female branches of the family; and they are so—but, nevertheless, their influence on the young men is no less destructive than certain. It is a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... of being made love to. I'm going," she said, "to fling off all maidenly reserve and make love ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... gaze tried to read her every feature—her pale cheeks—her lips proud, nay, almost sullen—her eyes, from which the softness so lately visible had changed into inquietude and trouble. There was in her all maidenly innocence—no one could doubt that; but nothing could be more unlike the shy tenderness of a bride, loving, and married ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... the picture means nothing, yet everything—'Les Curieux,' is it not?" "Yes, you know it well enough by this time. What M. Patel could see in it I can't say." As she sat down to the table—not at the head: that was significantly empty—he admired her figure, maidenly still despite her majestic bearing; admired the terse contour of her head and noticed, not without a sigh, her small selfish ear. Madame Patel was nearing forty and her November hair had begun to whiten, but in her long gray ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... hoped he had not perceived. Of course she could answer, and answer the right thing; and it was poor and despicable of her to shrink from hearing any speech, as if she had not power to put an end to it with her high maidenly dignity. ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... Catharine, whose senses were beginning to be more collected, heard the old man give orders that she was to be fed and cared for. Gladly did she escape from the presence of those pitiless men, from whose gaze she shrunk with maidenly modesty. And now when alone with the women she hesitated not to make use of that natural language which requires not the aid of speech to make itself understood. Clasping her hands imploringly, she knelt at the feet of the Indian woman, her conductress, ...
— Lost in the Backwoods • Catharine Parr Traill
... blood was beating. Nevertheless, the feeling existed that she wished one of the others had stayed instead of him. It was born, no doubt, partly of the wave of shyness running through her, but partly too of instinctive maidenly resistance to something in his look, in the assurance of his manner, that seemed to claim too much. Last night he had taken her by storm and at advantage. Something of shame stirred in her that he had found her so easy a conquest, something too of a new vague ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... your pardon, dear Madam, and your patience with me on such an occasion as this. If I did not speak with earnestness upon it, I should be supposed to have only maidenly objections against a man ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... woman he adores: for he adores her because he believes and has proved her to be above all doubt. We may fairly conjecture that Othello's passion for the simple Venetian damsel was love at first sight. He loved Desdemona because she was pretty, and looked at him with sweet maidenly glances of pity when he told those prosy stories of his—with full traveller's ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... a wonderfully lovely maidenly face, with rich curls falling around it, and in the costume of the last ten years of the preceding century, was now unveiled. A good breakfast, like that of yesterday, stood on the table. With a moistened eye, and turning to the portrait, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 443 - Volume 17, New Series, June 26, 1852 • Various
... no escape for Hypatia; pride forbade her to follow her own maidenly instinct, and to recoil among the crowd behind her; and in another moment the Amal had lifted Pelagia from her mule, and the rival beauties of Alexandria stood, for the first time in ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... extended. She was not looking toward him; but she saw him and turned to face him. Hers was the advantage; for she had known, for some hours, of his presence in Vincennes, and had prepared herself to meet him courageously and with maidenly reserve. ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... passengers, who, to escape for a time the boredom of a long, dull voyage, were eager to make a pet of the interesting and mysterious hero; but Jim's moroseness deepened under the attacks, and at length he escaped with only a glance of almost maidenly coyness whenever circumstances threw him ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... self-contamination for me, I thought. But soon after these events another friend prevailed upon me to sample with him a most excellent brand of champagne. The blood mounts to my cheeks in "maidenly" shame as I now chronicle the occurrence. This friend said: "You don't know what a feeling of exhilaration and well-being a little good champagne will give you. Try it once; don't associate it with common alcoholic ...
— Confessions of a Neurasthenic • William Taylor Marrs
... in her best silk dress, with her mother's cameo brooch at her throat, and with the full, maidenly ripeness of twenty-nine years upon her brow, with her hair demurely parted on said brow, where there was the faintest hint of a wrinkle coming—which Miss Morton attributed to a person she called "the dratted Calvin kid,"—the ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... prosperity which would be unexampled in the annals of the country. Among other powers, he quoted the father of Honora's schoolmate, Mr. James Wing, as authority for this prophecy. He sat next to Susan, who maintained her usual maidenly silence, but Honora, from time to time, and as though by accident, caught his eye. Even Mr. Holt, when not munching his dried bread, was tempted to make some ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... looking over his men's shoulder, checking on every detail of what they are doing, and calling them to account at every furlong post. This maidenly attitude corrodes confidence ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... Such a pretty little story it was, interspersed with sly looks, knowing nods, and rippling bursts of laughter. Listened to with, first, disdainful silence; then, growing interest; last, spasmodic giggles, apropos ejaculations, and much blushing and maidenly confusion. ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... She sat very quiet as he gathered up the reins, and it was not until they were well on their way along the Trumansburg road that the boy turned to her. How beautiful she looked, her shoulders completely covered with dusky-dark curls and her head bowed in maidenly shyness! All his doubts as to the expediency of his act were set at rest. She was deeply essential to his happiness, to his progress. To know she was his wife, married to him, so that none could separate them, would make his absences from Tessibel ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... like it, Berna, I don't like it at all. I hate you to know the like of such people, such things. I just want you to be again the dear, sweet little girl I first knew, all maidenly modesty and ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... journeymen, Reinhold and Frederick, were permitted to accompany them; Rose was walking between them. Frederick, radiant with delight at the masters' praise, and intoxicated with happiness, ventured to breathe many a daring word in Rose's ear which she, however, casting down her eyes in maidenly coyness, pretended not to hear. Rather she turned to Reinhold, who, according to his wont, was running on with all sorts of merry nonsense; nor did he hesitate to place his arm in Rose's. Whilst even at a considerable distance from the Allerwiese they could ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... under the Sacred Roof. But he was an understanding man and thought nothing of it; and as to Battle, he had meant to come up that very afternoon, along with his betrothed wife, to see us. And it had been Mary's maidenly idea to let us hear tell about it in church first—to break the news and spare ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts
... standing on the piano in the drawing- room, straightening a picture. I never can bear a picture crooked, and I had Jane tip it a little this morning, just to vex me. Fred Rangely will come in unannounced. Of course I shall be dreadfully confused, and have to get down. In my maidenly confusion I am almost sure I can't help showing my slippers, and just a trifle—a very discreet trifle, of course,—of these beautiful, beautiful stockings. Nothing vulgar, you ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... occupied her thoughts for years, and now all at once she knew he was a man, and a great and noble one. She was thoroughly perplexed and half angry. She questioned herself sharply, as if running thorns into her flesh, to inquire whether she had failed in the least point of maidenly modesty and reserve in thinking so much of him; and the more she questioned herself, the more agitated she grew under her self-accusation: her temples throbbed violently; she hardly dared lift her eyes from the ground lest some one, even ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... had been. And the handkerchief with the flowers was gone. She made a few rapid dives in search of it. Had she, or had she not, seen him putting something in his pocket? And why had she behaved so unlike herself? In a few miles Miss Wood entertained sentiments of maidenly resentment toward her rescuer, and of maidenly hope to see ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... o' the Yarrow, And fair are the maids on the banks of the Ayr; But by the sweet side o' the Nith's winding river, Are lovers as faithful, and maidens as fair: To equal young Jessie seek Scotland all over; To equal young Jessie you seek it in vain, Grace, beauty, and elegance, fetter her lover, And maidenly modesty fixes ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... equalled to the Princess Elizabeth, and yet nothing could be more dissimilar or incomparable than these two beauties. Elizabeth's was wholly earthly, voluptuous, glowing with youth and love, but Eleonore's was chaste and sublime, pure and maidenly. Elizabeth allured to love, Eleonore ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... discovers to him the secret of his birth during the exile of his parents. Gaveston approaches the spectre and tears off her veil, revealing Anna, his ward. Moved by the zeal and fidelity of his father's protegee, George offers her his hand, which, after some maidenly scruples, she accepts. ...
— The Standard Operas (12th edition) • George P. Upton
... modestly and gracefully, and made a low obeisance to the aged Croesus. His eyes rested long on the maidenly and lovely countenance, and the longer he gazed the kindlier became his gaze. For a moment he seemed to grow young again in the visions conjured up by memory, and involuntarily he went up to the young girl, kissed her affectionately on the forehead, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... up a crumpet, and blinked at Lady Enid, who was airily sipping her tea with a slightly detached air of calm and maidenly dignity. ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens
... comrade of her since she saw him last—how they had handled her fingers and looked into her eyes; how her every thought and fancy had grown common and unclean through much usage; how she had dragged out whatever maidenly feeling she had in the old times, and made capital of it to bring these companions to her who were neither lovers ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... even before the strings of the breastplate were uncut by his sword. And then she sat up and hailed the sun, and Georgie felt for a moment that he had quite taken the wrong turn in life, when he settled to spend his years in this boyish, maidenly manner with his embroidery and his china-dusting at Riseholme. He ought to have been Siegfried.... He had brought a photograph of her in her cuirass and helmet, and often looked at it when he was not too busy with something else. He had even championed ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... of timid, maidenly objections. 'Was it right?' she asked, 'was it not a thwarting of the will of the gods? If the great Osiris had wished that our years should be so long, would he not himself ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Nothing could be simpler or brighter. The brick walls were hung with ivy greener than emeralds, and enamelled with white bell-flowers; on the ground floor was a fairly spacious apartment, in which the men slept and the family took their meals; on the floor above was Nisida's little maidenly room, full of coolness, shadows, and mystery, and lighted by a single casement that looked over the gulf; above this room was a terrace of the Italian kind, the four pillars of which were wreathed ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... I simply cannot bear to see any creature whatsoever suffer, not even the meanest. (Looking at her critically, but with dignity.) And for you, my child, I am sincerely sorry; I may say that much, after you have so far fought down your maidenly pride as to wait for me here. But please, Miss Coeurne, do take into account the life I have to lead. Just think of the mere question of time! At least two hundred, may be as many as three hundred ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... would not come to her, caught up her gown and leaped lightly down, landing softly like a cat. She put into her eyes what she pleased, a confusion of messages, a swooning passion, a maidenly tenderness, a joy that seemed to peep forth shyly. On tiptoes, as though she would not break the hush of the room, she went to the hall door, smiling a little in her backward look. A moment she whispered to the serving man at the door; then she was gone and they heard only ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory
... bacon in her frying-pan, but accomplished her work with the promptness of one who knew that no excuses would be taken from either master or mistress; Miss Lou dusted the parlor, and listened stolidly to the gallantries of her cousin. He was vastly amused by her reserve, believing it to be only maidenly coyness. ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... I had been standing, for from a maidenly shyness (rather new in her, and which I liked) she would not ask me to sit beside her, and there was no other seat. Now ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... of his own fortune. This is most true when after introversion the power of self determining one's own destiny is directed toward the most intensive living. The formation and cultivation of the new earth is a beginning that is rich with significant consequences. The alchemists speak of a maidenly earth or a flaky white earth (i.e., crystalline) as a certain stage in the work. This is probably the stage that we are examining now, the stage of the new, still undeveloped earth that is now to be organized (according to the conceived ideal). The soil is crystalline because ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer
... more cheerful, more lovable, more worthy of long life—nay, of immortality. She had not yet completed her fourteenth year, and she had already the prudence of an old woman, the gravity of a matron, and still, with all maidenly modesty, the sweetness of a girl. How she would cling to her father's neck! how affectionately and discreetly she would greet us, her father's friends! how she loved her nurses, her attendants, her teachers,—everyone according to his service. How earnestly, how intelligently, ...
— A Handbook for Latin Clubs • Various
... between your lines that your scheme of life had not been precisely that of an anchorite. Pray understand that I have never supposed it was so, and that I rather honour your attempt to indicate the fact to me without outraging my maidenly—old maidish, ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... My dear, my dearest Froeken,—I fear you do not understand me! Yet it is natural that you should not; you were not prepared for the offer of my—my affections,"—and he beamed all over with benevolence,—"and I can appreciate a maidenly and becoming coyness, even though it assume the form of a repellant and unreasonable anger. But take courage, my—my dear girl!—our Lord forbid that I should wantonly play with the delicate emotions of your heart! Poor little heart! does it flutter?" and Mr. Dyceworthy leered sweetly. "I will ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... see the Sabrina, and one day she was sure that a form whose familiar outlines made her pulses leap was Andrew himself giving orders on the deck there; and after that she tortured herself with conjectures till her brain was wild—chained hand and foot, unable to write him or to seek him in any maidenly modesty, heart and soul in a ferment. Still she waited in that shuddering suspense, with every nerve so tightly strung, that voice or footfall vibrated on them into pain. If Andrew, in the midst of the gayeties ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... a low, lounging chair with a big ostrich feather fan in her hand, and she looked up expectantly into her lover's face. There was nothing else for it, and he took the plunge valiantly—and with precisely the correct amount of maidenly hesitancy, Lady Ethel named a day for their marriage. And then—somehow there seemed nothing more to be said; each ...
— If Only etc. • Francis Clement Philips and Augustus Harris
... had not told her that he loved her, and she was strangely anxious for news to that effect. Indeed, she sought confirmation of her hopes as often as maidenly modesty permitted, which was pretty frequent, for maidenly modesty has its diplomacy also; besides, has not a reigning beauty liberty to pay court?—there are plenty of other queens who have ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... but the color deepened in her cheeks as she answered with a pretty mixture of maidenly ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... spoiled as to her figure, whoever else may be that way. And when the coffee is ready and her guests are drinking, she sews a little to begin with on a white cloth, and then does a little crochet-work with a collar of some sort, and so with all manner of maidenly tasks. Barbro is not put out by their visit, and all the better; they can talk naturally, and Eleseus can be all on the surface again, young and witty as ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun
... brought her up in the fear of God, in place of encouraging her in revenge, pride, and haughtiness, Sidonia might have been a good and honoured wife for her life long. But the libertine example of her father so destroyed all natural instincts of modesty and maidenly reserve within her, that she fell an easy ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... of her Christian Year (similar in plan to Keble's cycle), but also for her nature-lyrics and songs of common life, which are marked by minute realistic detail and refreshing originality of observation and sentiment. This pious gentlewoman, usually so maidenly in her reserve, nevertheless expressed something of the spirit of emancipation in her quiet protest against the narrow conventional limits of the feminine life. But she would have recoiled with horror from the reckless propaganda for sex-freedom that was ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... magnetizi. Magnetism magnetismo. Magnificent belega. Magnify pligrandigi. Magnitude grandeco. Magpie pigo. Mahogany mahagono. Mahomet Mahometo. Mahometan Mahometano. Maid frauxlino. Maiden virgulino. Maidenly virga. Maid-servant servistino. Mail posxto. Mail (armour) masxo. Maim vundegi. Mainly cxefe. Maintain subteni. Maintain (assert) pretendi. Maintenance subtenado. Maize maizo. Majestic ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... water the princess was very like other people. And besides this, she was not so forward in her questions or pert in her replies at sea as on shore. Neither did she laugh so much; and when she did laugh, it was more gently. She seemed altogether more modest and maidenly in the water than out of it. But when the prince, who had really fallen in love when he fell in the lake, began to talk to her about love, she always turned her head towards him and laughed. After a while she began to look puzzled, as if ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... possessed an imaginative temperament, and one of her favorite and most satisfying habits was to evoke from the realm of the future a proper hero, shining with zeal and virtue like Sir Galahad, in whose arms she would picture herself living happily ever after a sweet courtship, punctuated by due maidenly hesitation. This fondness for letting her fancy run riot and evolve visions splendid with happenings for her own advancement and gladness was not confined to matrimonial day-dreams. On the morning when she entered the school-house ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... had happened. Not that there was any foolishness in her thoughts. There was too much dignity and simplicity about the girl, young as she was, to allow her to deal even with her own thoughts in any but a maidenly way, and it was not in the ordinary way of a maid with a man that she thought of this young soldier. He was so far removed from her life in every way, and all the well-drilled formalities, that it never occurred to her to think ...
— The Search • Grace Livingston Hill
... don't know," he rejoined, admiration unbounded in his eyes for the picture she was of maidenly charm and womanly beauty, "I should say that goodness was a more wonderful thing. But power is the most common ambition, and only a handful of the hundreds of millions get it in any large way. I used to feel it tremendously when I first heard the stamps pounding the quartz ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... came floating after him along the stairs. It was very sweet. But what were sweet songlets to him now? It being a mild autumn day, Phil sat at the open window, from which he had many a time seen the old Doctor jogging past in his chaise, and sometimes the tall Almira picking her maidenly way along the walk with her green parasol daintily held aloft with thumb and two fingers, while from the lesser fingers dangled a little embroidered bag which was the wonder of all the school-girls. Other times, too, from this eyrie of his, he had seen Adele tripping past, with Reuben beside ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... of the real reason of Sophy Viner's departure, had thought it "extremely suitable" of the young girl to withdraw to the shelter of her old friends' roof in the hour of bridal preparation. This maidenly retreat had in fact impressed Madame de Chantelle so favourably that she was disposed for the first time to talk over Owen's projects; and as every human event translated itself for her into terms of social and domestic detail, Anna had perforce to travel the ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... nature. Her face did not express any active or malignant principle of evil; but a close observer, like Van Berg, in whom the man was in the ascendant over the animal, could detect the absence of the serene, maidenly purity of expression, characteristic of those girls who have obtained their ideas of life from good mothers, rather than from French novels, French plays, and a phase of society that borrows its inspiration ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... absolutely wooing conduct of Miss Euphemia which, notwithstanding her beauty and the softness that was its vehicle, filled him with the deepest disgust. He could not trace real affection in her words or manner; and that any woman, instigated by a mere whim, should lay aside the maidenly reserves of her sex, and actually court his regard, surprised whilst it impelled him ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... their hurt, but it was the joy of conflict that made the pursuit worth while to him; and this young woman, who could so delightfully bubble with little laughs ready to spill over and was yet possessed of a spirit so finely superior to the tenderness of her soft, round, maidenly curves, allured ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine
... walked home with her. But if Anne was right in her maidenly suspicions of Lloyd's intentions, then it must have been Peter who surprised little Cherry with a sudden embrace. Lloyd had been hurrying for a train, too; the ...
— Sisters • Kathleen Norris
... will you not answer me?" pleaded Gustave, in nowise alarmed by Diana's silence, which seemed to him only the natural expression of a maidenly emotion. "Tell me that you will give me measure for measure; that you will love me as my mother loved my father—with a love that trouble and poverty could never lessen; with a love that was strongest when fate was darkest—a star which the dreary night of ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... succeeding winter the same symphony was performed in Leipzig. "There is a resistless and audacious energy in the thoughts, a stormy bold progression, and yet withal a maidenly artlessness in the expression of the main motives that lead me to hope for much from the composer;" so wrote Laube, with whom Wagner had shortly before become acquainted. Here again we recognize the stormy, restless activity of ...
— Life of Wagner - Biographies of Musicians • Louis Nohl
... piteous as he could wish. It fell again for shame at her self-betrayal, for sheer helplessness and dismay, for the sudden realization of what the long days now would be without him, for what life might be if he never came back. With all her pride and strength and maidenly reserve she was struggling hard to fight back the sob that was rising to her throat, the tears that came welling to her eyes, but he would have the tribute of ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... together with mamma Leland, and nursed the invalid in couples. And it came to pass that the indiscreet little Thecla won everybody's heart about the place, and that everybody came to be assured that no lack of maidenly honour had made her indiscreet, but only a very natural, unsuspecting, childlike confidence. It came to pass also that when Leland Junior began to get better he saw good and sufficient reasons for setting a term to his ...
— An Old Meerschaum - From Coals Of Fire And Other Stories, Volume II. (of III.) • David Christie Murray
... of Hilland's impetuous wooing was, as we have seen, to destroy her sense of maidenly security, and to bring her face to face with her destiny. Then his openly avowed siege speedily compelled her to withdraw her thoughts from man in the abstract to himself. She could not brush him aside by a quiet negative, as she had already done ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... hesitated and displayed a maidenly coyness far in excess of the needs of the situation. Then she stepped across, and five seconds later the two matrons, with consternation writ large upon their faces, appeared at their doors again and, exchanging glances across the alley, met ...
— At Sunwich Port, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... let us go with you," said Marie, forgetting in her excitement her usual maidenly reserve, and laying her little hand as she spoke upon her lover's arm; then blushing, she withdrew it, and ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... put herself in his power, was impossible for one like her. It was not, however, from any thing like moral cowardice that she held aloof from making an interview with him; nor was it from any thing like conscientious scruples; nor yet from maidenly modesty. It arose, most of all, from pride, and also from a profound perception of the advantages enjoyed by one who fulfilled all that might be demanded by the proprieties of life. Her aim was to see Gualtier under circumstances that were unimpeachable—in the room where he had a right to come. ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... had vanished. She looked so sweetly grave, and withal so maidenly, sitting there slightly smoothing the lengths of her pink fingers, that ...
— The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... private claims to modest respect were so great as hers are known to be," said the same critic, "with such self-denial fling off their protection in her resolution to lay hold of the public at all risks. Her performances at times approached offense against maidenly reticence and delicacy. When she played Zerlina, in 'Don Giovanni,' such virtue as there was between the two seemed absolutely on the side of the libertine hero—so much invitation was thrown into the peasant girl's rusticity." ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... painfully with the hopelessness of further argument. He bowed silently, but as he passed through the little gate the sound of the hastily closed door followed him up the hill to Hatton Hall. Lugur went into the parlor to look for his daughter; she had gone to her room. Some feeling of maidenly reserve had led her to take this step. She never asked herself why or wherefore; she only felt that it would be good for her to be alone, and the need had been so urgent that she forgot her father's usual good-night kiss and blessing. Lugur did not call her, but he felt the omission keenly. ...
— The Measure of a Man • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... again. Then, perceiving a triangular fragment of looking-glass nailed against the wall, she settled the strings of her bonnet by the aid of its reflection, patted the fringe of brown hair on her forehead with her separated five fingers as if playing an imaginary tune on her brow, and came back with maidenly abstraction ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte
... impassioned intellect apparently burned within her, which—being alternately pushed forward into a conspicuous expression by the irresistible instincts of her temperament, and then immediately checked in obedience to the decorum of her sex and age and her maidenly condition—gave to her whole demeanour, and to her conversation, an air of embarrassment, and even of self-conflict, that was almost distressing to witness. Even her very utterance and enunciation often suffered in point of clearness and steadiness, from the ...
— Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland A.D. 1803 • Dorothy Wordsworth
... Her maidenly modesty seemed first to tell her to banish his image from her heart, and his name from her lips. To accomplish this she threw herself with renewed diligence into the duties incident to her simple yet laborious life, and by her very activities endeavoured to bring herself back to ...
— Oowikapun - How the Gospel Reached the Nelson River Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young
... Sir Cuthbert," the girl said frankly, "better than any one else next to my father, and gladly submit myself to his will. My own inclinations indeed, so far as is maidenly, go with his. These are troubled times," she said anxiously, "and our holy mother tells me that you fear some danger is ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty
... that of maidenly reserve, and a ladylike dignity, a quiet serenity, approaching—at periods, when any remark calculated to infringe in the slightest degree upon those precincts with which feminine delicacy and form have guarded its possessor—a stern severity ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... began to take a melancholy pleasure in contemplating the sacrifice of herself to the man whom a maidenly sense of propriety compelled her to regard as her only possible husband. She would meet him, and do all that lay in her power to marry him. To guard against a relapse, a note was at once despatched to his father's cottage for Stephen on his arrival, ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... present smiling unconcern was nothing more than the dull hopelessness of a worn-out heart. She did not see that Hortense smiled now only in order that Duroc should not observe that she suffered. Her love for him was dead, but her maidenly pride had survived, and it dried her tears, and conjured up a smile to her struggling lips; it, too, enabled her to declare that she was ready to accept the husband whom her ...
— Queen Hortense - A Life Picture of the Napoleonic Era • L. Muhlbach
... beauty; and he before whose power the whole world was kneeling, prostrated himself before a pretty woman. The following is the account of her first introduction to Caesar, as given by the historian. It shows that she had no maidenly scruples as to the mode of attaining ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous
... never saw I mien or face, In which more plainly I could trace Benignity and home-bred sense Ripening in perfect innocence. Here scattered, like a random seed, Remote from men, thou dost not need The embarrassed look of shy distress, And maidenly shamefacedness: Thou wear'st upon thy forehead clear The freedom of a mountaineer: A face with gladness overspread! Soft smiles, by human kindness bred! And seemliness complete, that sways Thy courtesies, about thee plays; With ...
— Memories • Max Muller
... interest in the safety of her person, which is in constant jeopardy from the jealousy of her half-sister, Elizabeth wins upon the reader by her modest, maidenly bearing, her frankness of manner, and by a playfulness of disposition which readily adapts itself to the restraints which the Queen is ever placing upon her person, and which endears her to the people, who, could the hated Mary be ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... perhaps it was well he had given her maidenly modesty no chance of confession. Marriage had never loomed as a possibility for him—the life of the thinker must needs shrink from the complications and prejudices engendered by domestic happiness: the intellectual love of God more ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... made me involuntarily bow my head in a reverential salutation as she passed? I know not. It was not beauty—for though the child was lovely I had seen lovelier; it was something inexplicable and rare—something of a maidenly composure and sweet dignity that I had never beheld on any woman's face before. Her cheeks flushed softly as she modestly returned my salute, and when she was once outside the church door she paused, her small white fingers ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... in all this we have an unconscious disclosure of the source of the evangelist's information. At all events, he speaks as if from Joseph's point of view. Luke, on the other hand, has most to say about Mary's maidenly wonder and meek submission, her swift hurrying to find help from a woman's sympathy, as soon as the Angel of the Annunciation had spoken, and the hymn of exultation which Elisabeth's salutation heartened her to pour forth. ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... more properly speaking sightless, if he aims at a heart, be it ever so small, hits it and pierces it through and through with his arrows. I have heard it said too that the arrows of Love are blunted and robbed of their points by maidenly modesty and reserve; but with this Altisidora it seems they are ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... when the Rev. Mr. Denham Halloway was called to the vacant parish of St. Joseph's and fell down in its maidenly midst like a meteor from an unexplored heaven,—a young, handsome divine, in every way marriageable, though still unmarried, and in every way attractive, though still to the best of hope and belief unattracted,—this was why ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield
... refuse him!—was it possible to make a more unlimited declaration of predilection? The language of affection has not, within the limits of maidenly delicacy, a stronger expression. She is lost to me wholly, and for ever; and nothing remains for me now, but vengeance for my own wrongs, and for those which are hourly ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... that is just what I thought you would do. And what I would have you do, if you go at all. It is not unmaidenly. Simple honest frankness, is the most maidenly thing in the world, when it is a woman's time to speak. The fact that your speaking must be action does not alter the matter. When it takes two years for people to hear from each other, life would very soon be spent in the asking of a few questions ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner
... was far too clear-sighted not to have seen that Bee had fixed her pure maidenly affections upon him, and to see also that Bee's choice was well approved by her parents, who had long loved him as a son. While Ishmael's hands had been busy with the book- packing his thoughts had been busy with Bee and with the problem that her love presented him. He had loved Claudia with an all- ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... resources, and a joy-compelling temperament that could find virtue in white-fish if it couldn't get trout. He began to talk to Tommy, not without an amused consciousness of Tommy's silent partner on the bank above, nor without an occasional glance up at the maidenly head serenely exalted in the sunlight. Nor did Ruth Mary fail to respond, with her down-bent looks, as simply and unawares as the clouds turning their bright side ...
— In Exile and Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... the shy star goes forth in heaven All maidenly, disconsolate, Hear you amid the drowsy even One who is singing by your gate. His song is softer than the dew And he is ...
— Chamber Music • James Joyce
... Princess Etheldrida would be there also, for beside the king was Ecgfrith the atheling; but she was not. They say that she had some maidenly fear of meeting this husband of hers, who was to be, in ...
— A King's Comrade - A Story of Old Hereford • Charles Whistler
... poetic capacities. The overmastering passion of love was evidently as present to the Indian mind as to that of the mediaeval Italian. In New as well as in Old Spain it could break the barriers of rank and overcome the hesitations of maidenly modesty. Love clouding the soul, as night obscures the day, is a figure of speech, used, I remember, by the most pathetic ...
— American Hero-Myths - A Study in the Native Religions of the Western Continent • Daniel G. Brinton
... Singer-Lady, recovering from the daze these words had placed upon her, "I did not pass. Oh, I should have fallen at his feet—lost to all maidenly reserve—there before the people. It must have been my sister, who had but lately come from Boston and so would not know him," and she broke into ...
— Down the Mother Lode • Vivia Hemphill
... will take pity on me, Though late I come, long after lily-time, With burden of waste days and drifted rhyme: Her kind, calm eyes, down drooping maidenly, Shall change, grow soft: there yet is time, meseems, I said, for solace; though I know these things are dreams ...
— The Poems And Prose Of Ernest Dowson • Ernest Dowson et al
... creditors were legion,—and he was sincerely sorry to see that even gentle and pretty Susie Prescott had taken to a new mode of doing her hair, which, though elaborate, did not suit her at all, and gave an almost bold look to an otherwise sweet and maidenly countenance. ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... to say nothing of the remorseful yearnings of the millions who had used her ill, could have prevailed with that departed year to return one step. But she, in the company of Time and all her kindred, must hereafter hold a reckoning with mankind. So shall it be, likewise, with the maidenly New Year, who, as the clock ceased to strike, arose from the steps of the city-hall and set out rather timorously on her ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... would leave her to herself. This lasted as long as I stayed to watch. Still I had little doubt she fully intended to accept one of them, and had even made up her mind already which it should be. She knew enough, I felt sure, to calculate the value of a proper maidenly reluctance. How could her mate be expected to rate her at her worth, if she allowed herself to be won too easily? Besides, she could afford not to be in haste, seeing she had ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey
... now and then to chat with her old friend and playfellow, Kit Smallbones. Her childish freedom of manner had given way to grave discretion, not to say primness, in her behaviour to her father's guests, and even the apprentices. It was, of course, the unconscious reaction of the maidenly spirit, aware that she had nothing but her own modesty to protect her. She was on a small scale, with no pretensions to beauty, but with a fresh, honest, sensible young face, a clear skin, and dark eyes that could be very merry when she would let them, and her ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... out of the wagon backwards, making a maidenly effort to keep the connection between the hem of her black silk skirt and the top of her calf-skin shoes inviolate, and brushing the dust of the wagon wheel from her dress carefully after her safe arrival in the dog-fennel. Marg'et Ann ignored the chair which had been placed beside the wagon ...
— The Wizard's Daughter and Other Stories • Margaret Collier Graham
... plainly, she sat down, expecting her little mistress to return directly. No thought of anxiety crossed her mind: how should one, in broad sunlight, on a mountain-side, in the first of summer, and with the long day before them? So, there sitting in peace, Nicie fell into a maidenly reverie, and so there Nicie sat for a long time, half dreaming in the great light, without once really thinking about anything. All at once she came to herself: some latent fear had exploded in her heart: yes! what could have become of her little mistress? She jumped to her feet, ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... ambitions would not suffice forever, any more than a mother's vigilance, maidenly timidity, convent walls or yashmaks will infallibly prevail. But they managed to kill a good deal of ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... many conquests won in field, After so many monsters quelled by force, Yielded his valiant heart to Omphale, A fearful woman void of manly strength. She took the club, and wear the lion's skin; He took the wheel, and maidenly gan spin. So martial Locrine, cheered with victory, Falleth in love with Humber's concubine, And so forgetteth peerless Gwendoline. His uncle Corineius storms at this, And forceth Locrine for his grace to sue. Lo here the sum, the ...
— 2. Mucedorus • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... them and endeavor to say on paper what makes each species so peculiar. The form, color, and expression of the boles are to be noted. A reader may smile at the phrase "expression," but look at a tattered old birch, or a silvery young beech-hole, "modest and maidenly, clean of limb," or a lightning-scarred pine. Tree-study has advantages because it is always within reach. The axe has been so ruthlessly wielded that you must go far into the woods to get the best specimens of the pine, and the forests about our Maine lakes and in the Adirondacks ...
— Doctor and Patient • S. Weir Mitchell
... Lyddiard, his attentions were intolerable. The open encouragement he now received from the father, however, emboldened him to persevere, and he professed to look upon her marked disapproval as nothing but maidenly diffidence, and proceeded to address her as though a ...
— Tales for Young and Old • Various
... serene, gray eyes. She was dressed very simply in white, with a blue band across her hair, and a blue scarf and sash around throat and waist. Her face, though showing signs of quiet strength, and of a self-confidence which was the flower of maidenly modesty and innocence, was not beautiful according to any recognized standard. Bressant, from his intuitive perception of form and proportion, was aware of this. The forehead was too high, the nose irregular, the mouth lacked the perfect ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... when I return the book without it, that I have feloniously detained this airy gewgaw as a souvenir, as, so to speak, a gage d'amour. And, in that event, she ought to be very much pleased and a bit embarrassed; and she will preserve upon the topic of handkerchiefs a maidenly silence. Do you know, Robert Etheridge Townsend, there is about you the making of a very ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... not interrupt me. I shall not reproach you. You are the master of your own actions. You have one daughter who is twelve years old; in a short time she will be a marriageable girl. I have not come to this house to make a scene, nor do I wish to preach about morality, or religion, or God, or maidenly innocence, subjects which great men and grand gentlemen simply sneer at as the stock-in-trade of hypocrites. I will therefore tell you in a couple of words why I have come. All I ask is that you deliver over to me your youngest daughter. I will engage ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... anywhere but by her side, of his having any interest apart from hers, the universe is, in a moment, shrouded in gloom. Her heart is sick, and there is no rest for it, for her self-respect is gone. She has been reared in a maidenly pride, and an innocent confidence: her confidence is wholly broken-down; her pride is wounded and the agony of the wound is intolerable. We are wont to say, Margaret, that everything is endurable but a sense of guilt. If there be an exception, this is it. ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... did right to let him persuade me thus; and yet I could not say him nay, and I longed to hear the words spoken that should bind us to each other. But I dare not tell my father! I trow both he and my mother would chide full sternly. In truth, I fear me it were scarce a maidenly act. But, O Cuthbert, love is so strong—so hard a task master. Where he drives, it seems that one needs must go;" and she looked up at him with such arch appeal that he felt those glances would go far to soften the ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... rancher and artist, to wit, Charlie Bryant. And how do you take it? You—a man-hunter? Why, you run like a rabbit from Fyles. Courage? Oh, dear. The mention of his name is enough to send you into convulsions of trepidation and maidenly confusion. And all the time you secretly admire him. As for the other, you have turned yourself into a sort of hospital nurse and temperance reformer. You've taken him up as a sort of hobby, until, in his lucid intervals, he takes advantage of ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... Alas, sir, no; you are the most maidenly blushing creature upon the earth. [Aside Tuc. Dost thou hear, my little six and fifty, or thereabouts? thou art not to learn the humours and tricks of that old bald cheater, Time; thou hast not this chain for nothing. Men of worth ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson
... this, as you may have divined, Was because in her maidenly heart was enshrined The image of one who was just to her mind: Who was loving and kind, To whose faults she was blind,— The lord of her heart, and the love of her life, To whom she had promised to be a fond wife. Her Highness ...
— The Jingle Book • Carolyn Wells
... my fond heart is gushing With thoughts that no language can ever reveal; With the sweetest affection this warm cheek is blushing, And hopes to my maidenly bosom will steal, Of a time when our souls, with united expression, Shall mingle with harmony more than divine; And the priest—be he Greek, or of any profession— Shall bless this poor hand as it ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... earn her own bitter bread alone,—at that moment she knew that she had been true to the memory of the man. What had occurred since, to alter her purpose so violently? Was it the presence of the man she did love, and the maidenly instincts which forbade her to declare her passion in his presence? Or was it simply the conviction that her promise to Mr Whittlestaff had been twice repeated, and could not now admit of being withdrawn? But in spite of her asseverations, there must have been present ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope
... all very unmaidenly, of course; but maidenly is a word love and life and desire may crowd from ...
— Lifted Masks - Stories • Susan Glaspell
... fourteen, to whom I called the attention of the painters, and they went into ecstasies over her. The type was the same as that which Raphael has reproduced in his Sistine Madonna. Her clear, dark blue eyes had a look of maidenly shyness, and of the most exquisite bashfulness, and yet a look of pride. She wore a string of glass beads round her lovely neck. We ordered two bottles of wine to drink her health, and, while we were drinking it, the rotunda was lighted up from a dozen directions with changing ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... appreciating notice of the vase of flowers, the scent of which he inhaled with a zest almost peculiar to a physical organization so refined that spiritual ingredients are moulded in with it. It was betrayed in the unconscious smile with which he regarded Phoebe, whose fresh and maidenly figure was both sunshine and flowers,—their essence, in a prettier and more agreeable mode of manifestation. Not less evident was this love and necessity for the Beautiful, in the instinctive caution with which, even so soon, his eyes turned away from his hostess, and ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... not forget— An orator, the latest of the session, Who had delivered well a very set Smooth speech, his first and maidenly transgression Upon debate: the papers echoed yet With his debut, which made a strong impression, And ranked with what is every day displayed— "The best first speech that ever yet ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... his entreaties she seemed deaf, positively refusing to consent to escape with him; but whether from fear of being overtaken, or from maidenly timidity, it would be, perhaps, difficult to decide. At last, Morton, who was nearly beside himself with disappointment and vexation, relapsed into a ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... school-day friendship? How often, Hermia, have we two, sitting on one cushion, both singing one song, with our needles working the same flower, both on the same sampler wrought; growing up together in fashion of a double cherry, scarcely seeming parted! Hermia, it is not friendly in you, it is not maidenly to join with men in scorning your ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... should not sit together in the same room, nor keep their wearing apparel in the same place, nor even cleanse them in the same utensils. They should not look upon each other, or hand a thing directly from man to woman hand. I was taught that it was seemly and showed a maidenly reserve to observe a certain distance in my relations even with my husband or my brothers, but I have found that the influence of reason upon love is like that of a raindrop upon the ocean, "one little mark upon the water's ...
— My Lady of the Chinese Courtyard • Elizabeth Cooper
... Berrington, who had a house in Portman Street. Lady Davenant lived at Queen's Gate and also was usually at home of a Sunday afternoon: her visitors were not all men, like Selina Berrington's, and Laura's maidenly bonnet was not a false note in her drawing-room. Selina liked her sister, naturally enough, to make herself useful, but of late, somehow, they had grown rarer, the occasions that depended in any degree upon her aid, and she had never been much appealed ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James
... man," said Miss Howard, repulsing his familiar attempt to take her arm; and then advancing, with a maidenly dignity, nigher to her guardian, she continued, "I cannot know what stipulations have been agreed to by my cousin Plowden, in the secret treaty she has made this night with Mr. Barnstable: this for myself, Colonel Howard, ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... instinctively she knew whose hand had written it. It was the first letter she had received from him; what would it say to her? No doubt it was to tell her why he had not been able to meet her that morning, to ask her to meet him later in the day. With a blush of maidenly shame she lifted the envelope to her lips ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... her cheek but now so pale; shame came back to her with hope; she blushed at the strange action to which love had driven her; she hesitated to pass the threshold which she had crossed so often in her dreams. Her maidenly scruples, stifled for a time by passion, resumed their power in the ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... feel it to be condescension now," replied Laura, with almost the frank simplicity of a child. "I cannot help feeling sympathy for you, even though you are too proud to receive it." Then she added, with a trace of dignity and maidenly pride, "Perhaps when you have realized your hopes, and have become rich or famous, I may not choose to speak to you. But it is not my nature to turn from any one in misfortune, much less any one ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... with herself would endow her with wealth sufficient to make that rank splendid as well as illustrious? But if it were not so, what had the girl meant by saying that it was impossible? That the word should have been used once or twice in maidenly scruple, the Countess could understand; but it had been repeated with a vehemence beyond that which such natural timidity might have produced. And now the girl professed herself to be ill in bed, and when the subject was broached would ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope
... the march, and was well aware that an enemy might, if he chose, deliver battle, his habit was to lead his troops in compact battle order ready to confront emergencies, with soft, slow step, advancing, as it were, with maidenly demureness, (8) for in such procedure, as he believed, lay the secret of true calm, engendering a dauntless self-assurance, imperturbable, unerring, impervious to treacherous assault. Therefore by such behaviour he was a terror ...
— Agesilaus • Xenophon
... the house said to the Easterling, "In an evil hour hath my daughter Gudruna humbled herself, and broken the point of her maidenly pride, and lain by thy side as thy wife, when thou wilt not dare to follow thy father-in-law, and thou must be ...
— Njal's Saga • Unknown Icelanders
... her was all very pleasant. It gave an instant rose colour to her life. She had achieved such a character down at Exeter for maidenly reserve, and had lived so sternly, that it was hardly in her memory that a man had squeezed her hand before. She did remember one young clergyman who had sinned in this direction, twelve years since, but he was now a Bishop. When she heard the other day that he had been made a Bishop some ...
— Kept in the Dark • Anthony Trollope
... keen and friendly eye the narrowest of clergymen was not wholly uninteresting, the most inferior of schoolgirls not without some claim to our consideration; even the coarseness of the male sex was far from vexing her maidenly serenity, probably because she was unacquainted with the Rochester type. Mr. Elton is certainly narrow, Mary Bennet extremely inferior; but their authoress only laughs at them softly, with a quiet tolerance ...
— Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor • Thomas L. Masson (Editor)
... down; Oh, never to mortal was given So rare and bejewelled a crown! I'll wear it as saints wear the glory That radiantly clasps them above— Oh, dower most fair! Oh, diadem rare! Bright crown of her maidenly love. ...
— Hesperus - and Other Poems and Lyrics • Charles Sangster
... moment when he almost regretted that he had a clever friend. Ansell remained absolutely motionless, moving neither hand nor head. Such behaviour is so unknown that Miss Pembroke did not realize what had happened, and kept her own hand stretched out longer than is maidenly. ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster |
