"Stroking" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... even here in the city, his habit of fresh nankeen, his black leather belt, his large blue pantaloons and his boots glistening like ice, his country costume in his master's city home. Madame Matrena rose, after lightly stroking the hair of her step-daughter Natacha, whose eyes followed her to the door, indifferent apparently to the tender manifestations of her father's orderly, the soldier-poet, Boris Mourazoff, who had written beautiful verses on the death of the Moscow students, ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux
... said Mr. Ned Van Alstyne, stroking his moustache to hide the smile behind it. "Buy the dirty sheet? No, of course not; some fellow showed it to me—but I'd heard the stories before. When a girl's as good-looking as that she'd better marry; then no questions are asked. In our imperfectly ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... back into her chair. "Well-of-all-things!" The professor was stroking his daughter's hair and although for a time after Mrs. Wainwright's outbreak there was little said, the old man and the girl seemed in gentle communion, she making him feel her happiness, he making her feel his ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... my lamb; don't you cry when you bin so brave. Dars a nother picture of Mars George in yo' mar's room. (She draws Fair's head down upon her knee, stroking her hair). ...
— The Southern Cross - A Play in Four Acts • Foxhall Daingerfield, Jr.
... had fought his way through the crowd and reached the stage, he found her alone with her father in her room. Her head was resting on his breast and he was stroking the fair young forehead with tender caressing touch. His eyes were dim with tears and his voice could find ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon
... was fragrant with flowers, and had such a festive appearance, that Mr. Parlin kept exclaiming, "Ah, indeed!" and stroking his beard. Prudy said she always knew when papa was pleased, for then he ...
— Dotty Dimple At Home • Sophie May
... their turn crowded against him and laughed at the tops of their voices whenever he stooped to whisper certain details in their ears. Old Bosc had never budged an inch—he was totally indifferent. That sort of thing no longer interested him now. He was stroking a great tortoise-shell cat which was lying curled up on the bench. He did so quite beautifully and ended by taking her in his arms with the tender good nature becoming a worn-out monarch. The cat arched its back and then, after a prolonged sniff at the big white ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... me some cross answer I did strike her over her left eye such a blow as the poor wretch did cry out and was in great pain, but yet her spirit was such as to endeavour to bite and scratch me. But I coying—[stroking or caressing]—with her made her leave crying, and sent for butter and parsley, and friends presently one with another, and I up, vexed at my heart to think what I had done, for she was forced to lay a poultice ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... the food and of its odor. I have discovered no one whose prevailing imagery is for either taste or smell. With very many the image of touch is very vivid. They can imagine just how velvet feels, how a fly feels on one's nose, the discomfort of a tight shoe, and the pleasure of stroking a smooth ...
— Power of Mental Imagery • Warren Hilton
... Sanguine Scot said, and then went out and apologised to an old bay horse. "We had to settle her hash somehow, Roper, old chap," he said, stroking the beautiful neck, adding tenderly as the grand old head nosed into him: "You silly old fool! You'd carry her like a ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... Chadwick," he said, walking into the steward's office a day or two after the signing of the petition as commemorated in the last chapter: "anything from Cox and Cummins this morning?" Mr Chadwick handed him a letter; which he read, stroking the tight-gaitered calf of his right leg as he did so. Messrs Cox and Cummins merely said that they had as yet received no notice from their adversaries; that they could recommend no preliminary steps; but that should any proceeding really be taken by the bedesmen, it would be expedient ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... is no denying it," remarked the dresser, who was busily stroking out the roses which were to garland Saidie's dress. "It gives me a turn every time I see her ...
— If Only etc. • Francis Clement Philips and Augustus Harris
... least to understand what the said natives' minds are like, or how they work,—dropping at once upon their pet prejudices, mortally offending them as a preliminary step towards arguing with them; and in short, stroking the cat of society backwards in the most conscientious manner. By the time they have accomplished this satisfactory result, a man like our Cuban Padre, though he may have argued but little and preached even less, would have a hundred natives bound to him by ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor
... Caerlaverock was stroking his beard, his legs astraddle on the hearthrug, with something appallingly viceregal in his air, when Mr. and Mrs. Alexander Cargill were announced. The Home Secretary was a joy to behold. He had the face of an elderly and ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... reply, only went on stroking Hester's smooth brown hair, off which her cap had fallen. Sylvia was thinking how strange life was, and how love seemed to go all at cross purposes; and was losing herself in bewilderment at the mystery of the world; she was ...
— Sylvia's Lovers — Complete • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... finish a piece of work for which I had been rushed, and in looking absently in my garden, I suddenly saw the valet de chambre of a general, whose house is next to mine, climbing over the wall. My wife's maid, poking her head from the vestibule, was stroking my dog and covering the retreat of the gallant. I took my opera glass and examined the intruder—his hair was jet black!—Ah! never have I seen a Christian face that gave me more delight! And you may well believe ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... found all the children of the family got about my old friend, and my landlady herself, who is a notable prating gossip, engaged in a conference with him; being mightily pleased with his stroking her little boy upon the head, and bidding him be a good child, ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... is said that stroking with Her thin fingers, many a kid She had slaughtered, many a huge Ox ...
— Atta Troll • Heinrich Heine
... Everard, stroking the pony's neck, "I am glad that he has survived all these bustling days—Pixie must be above twenty ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... anything I had to pay more for," observed Miss Mattie, stroking her chin thoughtfully. "You ain't told me what ...
— Flower of the Dusk • Myrtle Reed
... Mrs. Moulton aside and briefly explained his great sorrow. With rich sympathy she stole into the cabin and began mothering him, patting his shoulders and stroking the long hair back from ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter
... of the inn hung ajar as we crossed the star-lit square; Byram entered and stood a moment in the doorway, stroking his chin. "Bong joor the company!" he ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... who was sitting by and sewing away busily, told him it was quite true. He was intensely happy all the rest of the day, often standing up, and almost straining his neck to get a satisfactory view of his own back, and stroking the nap of his blue trousers with a fondling touch. They would all see him in it; old Oliver, Dolly, and aunt Charlotte. There would be no question now as to his fitness for taking Dolly out for a walk; he would be dressed ...
— Alone In London • Hesba Stretton
... to all other horses in the world, because it had needed persuasion, much stroking of a black beard—to hide anxiety—and many a secret night-ride—to sweat the brute's savagery—before the colonel-sahib could be made to see his virtues as a charger and accept him into the regiment. Sikh-wise, he loved all things that expressed in any way his own unconquerable fire. Most of all, ...
— Winds of the World • Talbot Mundy
... the house very well," said the clergyman. "It's extraordinary how a house will take to some people and not to others. Now I can do anything I like with dogs, and you can do anything you like with houses. But it's no good patting or stroking a house. You've got to manage a house quite differently to that. You've got to keep a house's accounts. You haven't got to keep a ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... learn that you love Jesus, and are striving to do His will. I love Him too, and we will love one another; for you know He says, 'By this shall men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another,'" said Miss Allison, stroking the little girl's hair, and ...
— Elsie Dinsmore • Martha Finley
... precious burden he bore. From that time forward no one was permitted to ride him but the lady, who visited him every day in his stall, and always carried him a loaf of bread or a cup of sugar, and never mounted him without going to his front and holding a conversation with pretty Tom, stroking his head with her gentle hand, and giving him a lump of sugar or a biscuit. He was allowed the liberty of the yard, to graze on the young sweet grass of the front lawn, and luxuriate in the shade of the princely trees ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... that had been stroking her hair dropped suddenly, and she felt him draw away from her, with something almost like a groan, and put her arms around his neck, clinging to him ...
— The Old Gray Homestead • Frances Parkinson Keyes
... and then, Stroking his beard, he said again: "This brings back to my memory A story in the Talmud told, That book of gems, that book of gold, Of wonders many and manifold, A tale that often comes to me, And fills my heart, and haunts my brain, And ...
— Tales of a Wayside Inn • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... girl," answered the elder lady, stroking her hand. "Yes, run away and make music! When Philip and I have had enough scandal and frivolity, we will come and find you; and you shall play us a little of that strange person Wagner, who fascinates me, though ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... the work of that accursed Basso," said Hymbercourt, stroking his beard. "No villany is too black for him and his ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... on the tree-stump, endeavouring to comfort Ah-wow by stroking his pig-tail and howling occasionally in an undertone. It seemed indeed that the poor man's career was drawing to a close, for two men advanced, and, seizing his pinioned arms, led him under the fatal limb; but a short respite occurred in consequence of a commotion in the outskirts ...
— The Golden Dream - Adventures in the Far West • R.M. Ballantyne
... returned to her after reading them; these letters had brought her troubles to a climax. Seated on her sofa beside a square table covered with the remains of a dessert, the old lady was looking at the abbe, who sat on the other side of the table, doubled up in his armchair and stroking his chin with the gesture common to valets on the stage, mathematicians, and priests,—a sign of profound meditation on a problem that ...
— Ursula • Honore de Balzac
... thought the London girls would have little spirit left in them when confronted with so much elegance. Bridgie was wiping her eyes behind the urn, Esmeralda was pressing the mustard upon her, the Major was stroking his moustache and smiling ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... animals," remarks Louis Robinson (art. "Ticklishness," Dictionary of Psychological Medicine), "local titillation of the skin, though in parts remote from the reproductive organs, plainly acts indirectly upon them as a stimulus. Thus, Harvey records that, by stroking the back of a favorite parrot (which he had possessed for years and supposed to be a male), he not only gave the bird gratification,—which was the sole intention of the illustrious physiologist,—but also caused it to reveal its sex by ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... better, dear?" she said, softly stroking Lucile's dark hair back from her forehead with gentle fingers. "You went to sleep and I was so afraid of disturbing you that I ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... pitiful, and made her cry again by wanting to know whether she had gout like grandpapa or rheumatics like grandmamma, and then stroking her face, calling her his dear Nana, and telling her of the salad in his garden that his papa was to eat the very first day he ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Little Jim was stroking Mixy, and I had my hand and one foot on the ladder ready to start up, I heard Pop's voice calling from somewhere up in the haymow, and saying to us. "Bill! Are ...
— Shenanigans at Sugar Creek • Paul Hutchens
... over by drag or harrow, under the rolled earth now they lie, those mighty, those inert seeds. Down into the darkness about them the sun rays penetrate day by day, stroking them with the brushes of light, prodding them with spears of flame. Drops of nightly dews, drops from the coursing clouds, trickle down to them, moistening the dryness, closing up the little hollows of the ground, drawing the particles ...
— The Reign of Law - A Tale of the Kentucky Hemp Fields • James Lane Allen
... Gentilla thereupon stroking his face three times, "Be a spirit," said she; and then, embracing him, she gave him a little red cap with a plume of feathers. "When you put on this cap, you shall be invisible; but when you take it off, you shall again ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... their cheerful conversation, Martin laughing at nothing at all, and Maggie smiling, and Uncle Mathew stroking his mouth and sharpening his eyes and standing, in his uneasy fashion, first on one leg and then on the other. Maggie realised that her uncle was trying to be most especially pleasant to young Warlock. She wondered why; she also remembered what he had said to her about Martin's father ... ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... priests also effected cures by stroking with the hand, and this method was thought to be of special efficacy in rheumatic affections. They also employed other remedies which appealed to the imagination, such as various mesmeric charms ...
— Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery • Robert Means Lawrence
... be strong for him," Mr. Dale said gently, his wrinkled hand stroking her soft hair. "Be patient, because we have perhaps loved you too much to be just to him; yet your peace would teach us justice. Be happier, my dear, that we may understand him. ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... him in the matter of exchange, so he might gar him long for more gain. As they were thus, up came the other three sharpers and surrounded the donkey; and one of them said, "'Tis he," and another said, "Wait till I look at him." Then he took to considering the ass and stroking him from crest[FN475] to tail; whilst the third went up to him and handled him and felt him from head to rump, saying, "Yes, 'tis in him." Said another, "No, 'tis not in him;" and they left not ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... gently, stroking her hair with his hand, and gradually, as the minutes went by, the raging storm in his mind died down, and gave place to a wonderful peace. All that was best in his nature was called forth by the girl crying so gently in his ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
... poor Heloise!" repeated the lady, stroking their hair and kissing them both alternately; "be it as God wills. When it is dark every prospect lies hid in the darkness, but it is there all the same, though we see it not; but when the day returns everything is revealed. We see naught ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... of a deep scratch in one of Ragtime's knees and stood, back to the door, slowly stroking the soft black nose. Just as well as though it had been voiced he caught the unphrased inference in the plump one's query. After a time he shook his head, ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... while a thousand confused ideas ran through his mind. He stood with downcast eyes, his left hand carelessly stroking his chain and his right ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume I (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... was all over. Sir Philip's unwonted anger had proved too much for his strength, and, utterly exhausted, he now lay stretched upon his owner's lap as she still sat on the floor, stroking ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond
... wrapped about and drew Horace in closer, Skag laid his fingers on the great bronze trunk, gently but firmly stroking—the red eyes focused in his own. For seconds the man and the elephant looked into each other. Suddenly Nut Kut loosed Horace and laid hold ...
— Son of Power • Will Levington Comfort and Zamin Ki Dost
... was now apparent in Karen's tone. Silence fell between them for a moment, and then, stroking again the golden head, Madame von Marwitz continued, with great tenderness; "It is well. It is what I have prayed for—for my child. And let me not cast one shadow, even of memory, upon your happiness. Yet ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... kinds, invariably beginning with risk, attended with danger, and culminating in despair, you had better not engage in an intimate friendship with Miss Pauline Oliver, but fix your affections on the quiet, thoughtful, but not less lovable girl who sits by the bedside stroking Elsie Howard's thin white hand. Nevertheless, I am obliged to state that Margery Noble herself, earnest, demure, and given to reflection, was Polly's willing slave and victim. However, I've forgotten to tell you that Polly was as open and ...
— A Summer in a Canyon: A California Story • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... thing happened in my moonlit room. I was dead asleep when I felt a soft hand stroking my face, and then my hair, and I awoke to find the ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... countries where we have changed beasts into meat-producing engines deprived of individuality, still takes its course, as it has done from immemorial time. Children respect their parents, wives look at their husbands almost as gods, and at the tent door elders administer what they imagine justice, stroking their long white beards, and as impressed with their judicial functions as if their dirty turbans or ropes of camels' hair bound round their heads, were horse-hair wigs, and the torn mat on which they sit a woolsack or a judge's bench, with a carved wooden canopy above it, decked ...
— Bulgaria • Frank Fox
... a tale, you know," said Guel-Bejaze, stroking mockingly the chin of worthy Halil Patrona, and then she resumed her story. "The Sultan commanded that Irene should be expelled from the harem, for he had no desire to see this living corpse anywhere near him, and ...
— Halil the Pedlar - A Tale of Old Stambul • Mr Jkai
... up. "Good boy, Chance!" he said. The great, gaunt body of the dog raised itself on trembling legs, the pride of the conqueror lighting for a moment his dimming eyes. "It's me, Chance!" said Sundown, stroking the dog's head. Chance wagged his tail and reaching up his torn and bleeding muzzle licked Sundown's hand. Then slowly he sank to the ground, breathed heavily, and rolled to his side. Sundown knelt over him and unaccustomed tears ran down his lean cheeks and ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... stretched out his hand to lay hold on him; that he shrieked with fear; and that Jesus put out his hand and lifted him into the reading-desk, and hid him down below. And there Harry lay, feeling so safe, stroking and kissing the feet that had been weary and wounded for him, till, in the growing delight of the thought that he actually held those feet, he came awake and remembered it all. Truly it was a childish dream, but not ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... cocoanut cup of intoxicating kava, and surveyed the unwonted apparition on the reef long and carefully. "It is nothing," he said at last, in his most deliberate manner, stroking his cheeks and chin contentedly with that plump round hand of his. "It is only the victims; the new victims I promised you. Korong! Korong! They have come ashore with their light from my home in the sun. They have brought fire afresh—holy ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen
... not sound quite sincere; but the vicar was suave in manner, stroking his curate very kindly with soft velvet hand, only waiting for some slight movement before unsheathing the sharp hidden claws. One word of protest and of indignant remonstrance would have been enough; the reply was on his tongue, "Then, ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... durned crowd will git swallowed up in Davy Jones' Locker afore they git ashore, I dew!" said the American fervently, stroking his nose tenderly and speaking more nasally than ever through the injury the organ had received. "Of all the tarnation mean skunks I ever kim across from Maine to California, I guess they're 'bout the right down slick meanest—not nary a heathen Chinese would ha' done what they hev! I'd tar ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... comforter. Nellie, snatching her hands away, pressed them to her mouth to stifle the frantic sobs that began to shake her, long awful sobs that drew breath whistling through clenched fingers. And Ned, drawing her to him, laid her head on his shoulder, stroking her hair as a mother does, kissing her temple with loving, passionless kisses, striving to comfort her with tender brotherly words, to still her wild cries and frantic sobs in all unselfishness. There were none to see them in all this moonlit city. The wearied ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller
... fatalist, Unorna," observed her companion, still stroking and twisting his beard. "It is strange that we should differ upon so many fundamental questions, you and I, and yet be such ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... she was silently but dexterously putting to order the large upper room, which served Pere Francis Xavier as study and dormitory, she paused before his collection of agates and minerals, and stroking the stones, said in her soft French and Indian patois, "Pretty, pretty." Father Xavier was seated at the great open window, looking over the top of his book away across the breezy lake. He heard the words, and knew that she was looking at him from the corner of her eye, but his only reply was a ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... all surprised when Mr. O'Brien made that allusion as she was stroking the tortoise-shell cat in the sunshine. She could hear Mrs. Baxter laying the tea-things in the other parlour, where they generally sat, and the smell of the hot cakes and fragrant new bread reached them. The cuckoo's note ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... had dropped open from sheer amazement; suddenly it broadened into a grin. Here was Miss Gordon taking her "head" at once, without so much as one lesson. He glanced at Percival Tubbs but that good gentleman was stroking his ...
— Red-Robin • Jane Abbott
... and come often," he called after them in his megaphone voice, one hand stroking Bruce's beautiful head as the ...
— Billie Bradley on Lighthouse Island - The Mystery of the Wreck • Janet D. Wheeler
... chicken. In grassy yards you will see the rooster tied by one leg and turned out to exercise, as we would stake a cow to graze, while his owner watches and fondles him. I shall never forget a gray-headed, bright-eyed, barefooted old codger I saw near Tarlac stroking the feathers of his bird, while in his eyes was the pride as of a woman over {160} her first-born. A man often carries his gamecock with him as a negro would carry a dog, and he is as ready to back his judgment with his last centavo as was the owner of Mark Twain's "Jumping ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe
... out of quaint garden inlets. The verandahed balconies seemed to hang lower than ever, and they were all hung and burdened with flowers. And of all these eighteenth century houses, Evelyn's was the cosiest, and the elder of the two men, who, from the opposite pavement, stood watching the prima donna stroking the quivering nostrils of her almost thoroughbred chestnuts with her white-gloved hand, could easily imagine her in her pretty drawing-room standing beside a cabinet filled with Worcester and old Battersea china, for he knew Owen's taste and was ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... one moment, when Lord George was at the door communicating with the crowd, Sir Michael le Fleming came up to him {199} and tried to induce him to return to his seat. Lord George immediately began caressing Sir Michael le Fleming in a childish, almost in an imbecile way, patting and stroking him upon the shoulders, and expressing inarticulately a pitiful kind of joy. He introduced Sir Michael le Fleming to the mob as a man who had just been speaking for them. A little later Lord George again addressed the crowd, this time from the little ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... and, though still dreaming, I seize hold of it and press it to my lips. Every one else has gone to bed, and only one candle remains burning in the drawing-room. Mamma has said that she herself will wake me. She sits down on the arm of the chair in which I am asleep, with her soft hand stroking my hair, and I hear her beloved, well-known voice ...
— Childhood • Leo Tolstoy
... to watch the children out-of-doors. Fran came around from the back of the cottage. He carried something in his hands. It was a white rabbit. He'd brought it to show Mal and Hod. They put down the puppies and gazed at it in amazement, stroking its fur and ...
— Long Ago, Far Away • William Fitzgerald Jenkins AKA Murray Leinster
... that was the easiest way to keep the lock intact. Spencer, in his 'Evolution of Ceremonial Forms of Government,' relates some curious things growing out of this custom of taking tribute of hair. Thus, the habit of stroking the mustache, a custom prevalent among Spanish courtiers, arose from this habit. The stroking was done in the presence of ladies and superiors to indicate submission, or as an ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Tribesmen • Roger Finlay
... mother's, rustled down the stairs after them. Speech was brief and low-toned among the elders, as befitted the high moment. The twins were solemnly silent. Amid the funereal gloom, broken only by a hushed word or two from Winona or her mother, the judge completed his fond stroking of the luminous hat, raised it slowly, and with both hands adjusted it to his pale curls. Then he took up his gold-headed ebony cane and stepped from the dusk of the parlour into the light of day, walking ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... see if he was speaking to me, but he had let one of the cats run up to his shoulder, and he was stroking the soft lithe creature as it rubbed itself against ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn
... chair she dropped to her knees and putting her head in his lap, shook with sobs. Sam sat stroking her hair. Her agitation was so great that her muscular ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... successful book of poems in conjunction with her brother, which little book created much attention at the time. One day the Muse thus apostrophises Betsy: 'Shall we ever see her amongst us again?' says my sister (Mrs. Aikin). My brother (saucy fellow) says, 'I want to see this girl, I think (stroking his chin as he walks backwards and forwards in the room with great gravity). I think we ...
— A Book of Sibyls - Miss Barbauld, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs Opie, Miss Austen • Anne Thackeray (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie)
... was stroking a china ash-tray with her ungloved, inky fingers, muttered, with a smile, half pathetic, half cynical: "She doesn't like me! She knows I don't belong here. She hates ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... not buy that north eight acres, and don't intend to drain it," he commented, stroking sagely the sparse beginning of those slow professional whiskers. "It's your affair, of course, Mr. Burnit, but I am quite sure that spite work in engineering can ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester
... the child gently and stroking her tumbled hair. When he put her from him to see her face, Mickey was filled with envy because he had been forced to admit the gift was not from him. He shut his lips tight, but his face was grim as he studied Peaches' flushed cheeks and wet eyes, and noted the shaking eagerness for the doll she ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter
... trembled in his saddle, spurred his horse until it reared, and, losing all patience, exclaimed: "But, by Jove, Madame, that is impossible if we remain here." Then she spoke tenderly to him, laying her hand on his arm, or stroking his horse's mane, as if from abstraction, and said with a laugh: "But you must do it ... or else ... so much the ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... half-hour. Paul rose as though the sound had lifted him bodily from his seat. Elly did not hear, her eyes fixed dreamily on her kitten, stroking its rounded head, lost in the sensation of the softness ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... said Old Man Curry, stroking his beard. "About as dainty as one of them perpetual hay presses! That nigh foreleg of his has been stove up pretty bad too. How he runs on it at ...
— Old Man Curry - Race Track Stories • Charles E. (Charles Emmett) Van Loan
... darkened room away from noise, etc. If the head throbs and beats very hard, either a cold ice bag or hot applications often bring relief. A mustard plaster at the base of the brain with a hot foot-bath often helps. Some people by stroking the forehead and temples have the power to ease the pain, producing quiet and sleep. If the bowels are costive, salts should be taken to move them, or they can be moved by an enema, if salts are not at hand. If the stomach is full, or tastes ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... aback for an instant, but not seriously. He started, as might a man who, stroking a cat, receives a ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... bent over her, stroking her soft hair with my hand, I tried to conjure up the scene which had taken place in Sir Digby's room—the tragedy which had caused my friend to flee and hide himself. Surely, something of a very terrible nature ...
— The Sign of Silence • William Le Queux
... them dogs," exclaimed David Mizzle, stroking his chin as he surveyed the bone. "If I could only find out, now, which of ye it was, I'd have ye slaughtered right off, and cooked ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... my quiet and self-command. My governess stretched out her hand, drew me to her side and kissed me; then with the other hand went on to arrange the ruffle round my neck, stroking it and pulling it into order, and even taking out a little bit of a pin I wore, and putting it in again to suit herself. It annoyed me excessively. I knew all was right about my ruffle and pin; I never left them carelessly arranged; no fingers but mamma's had ever dared to meddle with them before. ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... up at me with a smile, but was silent, stroking his beard as was his way when thinking, looking past me out of the narrow window to the great Tor that towered beyond ...
— A Prince of Cornwall - A Story of Glastonbury and the West in the Days of Ina of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... said the child stopped pulling that cat's tail and went to stroking her just as soft and pitiful, and the cat put his back up and rubbed and purred as if he liked it. The cat never seemed a mite afraid, and that seemed queer, for I had always heard that animals ...
— The Wind in the Rose-bush and Other Stories of the Supernatural • Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman
... lying in the window till he had time to take them upstairs. We had all been so long threatened with being blown up by his experiments that we had grown callous and careless, and it served us right!" she added, stroking the child's face as it looked at her, earnest to glean fresh fragments of the terrible half-known tale of the past. "Yes, Rosie, when you go and keep house for papa on the top of the Oural Mountains, or wherever it may be, you are ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Lord Robert was stroking the hair of the eldest angel, who had not gone to bed. The loveliest thing she is, and so polite, and different to ...
— Red Hair • Elinor Glyn
... the music gallery. A shaft of light struck out her figure boldly. I walked round to the second door at the head of the stairs. Right away in the corner was Mademoiselle, and by her Sir John Barraclough lounged on the sofa, stroking his moustache uneasily. But my eyes lingered on the two not at all, for they were drawn forthwith to another sight which filled me with astonishment. The barriers had been removed from several of the windows, the windows themselves ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... and Perion looked seaward. The bishop was clothed, in his habitual fashion, as a cavalier, showing in nothing as a churchman. He sat a-horseback for a considerable while, looking down at them, smiling and stroking the pommel of his saddle with a gold-fringed glove. ...
— Domnei • James Branch Cabell et al
... sparkled. "A considerable sum," said he, stroking his mane. "I order two services of the same value. Do you hear? They must be ready on ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... right up to the white horse and stroked his shoulder. And at once he felt that he had been foolish to hold back. For of all the smooth, soft, silky coats he had ever stroked, that of the white horse was certainly the smoothest, and the softest, and the silkiest. He felt that he could go on stroking it for hours. ...
— A Book for Kids • C. J. (Clarence Michael James) Dennis
... my grandmother, and praised its beauty and its gentleness to her And all the time I felt its warm, furry body trembling with horror between my hands. This pleased me, and I pretended that I was never happy unless it was on my knees. I kept it there for hours, stroking it so tenderly, smoothing its thick white coat, which was always in the most perfect order, talking to it, ...
— The Return Of The Soul - 1896 • Robert S. Hichens
... than any one else was my father listening to me. He had a Holy Book open in front of him, as always. His broad forehead was wrinkled up, as always. He was looking at me from over his silver spectacles, and was stroking the silver strands of his silvery-white beard, as always. And I imagined that he was looking at me with other eyes than he used to look. No, it was not the same look as always. He was reproaching me. I felt that my father was offended with me. I ...
— Jewish Children • Sholem Naumovich Rabinovich
... thing, Murty—except that he's looking splendid," Norah said, stroking Shannon's nose, to which the horse responded by nuzzling round her pocket in search of an apple. "No, I can't give you one, old man—I wouldn't dare. But you shall have one after the race, whether you win ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... punishment. There was a subdued pathetic look of almost human remorse and woe in the eye of the brute, as he was led past the place where Geordie lay low among the heather. The hands that had so often fed him and made a clean soft bed for him at night, often stroking his great knotted neck, and never raised in unjust punishment, lying helpless and shattered now, and the fair locks hung across his face, all dabbled with blood. Elsie was now kneeling by his side, but he was quite unconscious of her presence, ...
— Geordie's Tryst - A Tale of Scottish Life • Mrs. Milne Rae
... not far off, now let her loose, and she no sooner espied Sertorius, but she came leaping with great joy to his feet, laid her head upon his knees, and licked his hands, as she formerly used to do. And Sertorius stroking her, and making much of her again, with that tenderness that the tears stood in his eyes, all that were present were immediately filled with wonder and astonishment, and accompanying him to his house with loud shouts for joy, looked ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... the same thing! Wonderful, isn't it, sir, that Science should discover that a black cat is some kind of kin to the aurora borealis? But George says that's what they said, for the aurora borealis is caused by the earth a-rolling around and rubbing the air just as the sparks is caused by stroking the ...
— Frictional Electricity - From "The Saturday Evening Post." • Max Adeler
... now," she said, gently stroking her daughter's hair. "Let us forget this, and remember how much we have to be thankful for. We have our health, and our home, and the bright sunshine, and—I declare," she interrupted, catching a glimpse of something through the window, "if the cows haven't broken from the lower ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... water has entered that you feel it possible to receive, turn off the faucet, rise from the "Cascade," sit over the closet, or vessel, and allow the contents of the bowel to escape. At the same time repeat the stroking movement previously described, but this time reverse it, commencing in the right groin, up, across and down to the left groin. These movements have a three-fold object: they assist the water in its passage ...
— The Royal Road to Health • Chas. A. Tyrrell
... kiss her, and sit down for a little while by her couch, before he ate his supper, to tell her of the trivial happenings out of doors, while he caressed her by stroking her hair gently back from her forehead. After the meal the three would chat for an hour or so while he smoked his pipe and Mrs. Gray washed the dishes. Then before they went to their rest he would laboriously ...
— Ungava Bob - A Winter's Tale • Dillon Wallace
... bid you throw yourself down at full length," he said, unconsciously stroking Sylvia's hair with his free hand. "In a minute or two we'll make for the avenue. Meanwhile, let us listen. If any one is coming in this direction we ought to hear him, and ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... preaching, doing my best, and expatiating till the tears came into my eyes, I could not divine what was the cause of the inattention of my people. But the two vain haverels were on the bench under me, and I could not see them; where they sat, spreading their feathers and picking their wings, stroking down and setting right their finery; with such an air as no living soul could see and withstand; while every eye in the kirk was now on them, and now at Miss Betty Wudrife, who was in a worse situation than if she had been on the stool ...
— The Annals of the Parish • John Galt
... Stroking his long moustaches covered with dew, he seated himself heavily on the horse and screwed up his eyes, looking into the distance, as though he had forgotten something or left something unsaid. In the bluish distance where the furthest visible ...
— The Witch and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... bowed, and said, stroking his ragged beard—'In a few days will arrive the strangers to build the palace, and the Almayne leech: the Holy Virgin only knoweth whether there be not evil men among them also. Dost thou vouchsafe me to speak what hath come into ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... great privilege to have charge of such a beautiful and promising child, Captain Crewe," she said, taking Sara's hand and stroking it. "Lady Meredith has told me of her unusual cleverness. A clever child is a great treasure in an establishment ...
— A Little Princess • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... He kept stroking Miriam's hand, a white hand with blue veins—a strong hand, though so delicately fashioned. The touch of the wedding-ring again gave a new ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing |
