"Twinkle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... had gained her house I met her, as I supposed, coming toward me across the down, greeting me from afar with the familiar twinkle of her great vitreous badge; and as it was late in the autumn and the esplanade was a blank I was free to acknowledge this signal by cutting a caper on the grass. My enthusiasm dropped indeed the next moment, for it had taken me but a few seconds to perceive that the person thus assaulted ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James
... should be, with ruddy-flaxen hair, moustache, and beard, and a pair of deep blue eyes that looked one straight and honestly in the face, and could, upon occasion, flash very lightnings of righteous indignation. The professor could remember the time when it had been an easy matter to bring a twinkle of rich humour into those same eyes; but, for the present, at all events, all sense of humour had disappeared in face of the constant humiliation and petty tyranny to which he had been subjected ever since ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... said Mrs. Bardell, colouring up to the very border of her cap, as she fancied she observed a species of matrimonial twinkle in the eyes of her lodger; 'La, Mr. ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... trifle loppy and loose-jointed, looking me squarely in the face in a straightforward, honest manner, a twinkle where her shoe-button eyes reflect ...
— Raggedy Ann Stories • Johnny Gruelle
... glancing from one eager face to another (for between the wine and the excitement even Mrs. Allen was no longer a colorless, languid creature, ready to faint at the embrace of her child), he said with a twinkle in his eye— ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... best of trainings—," he murmured. And Lady Cantourne turned on him with a twinkle amidst ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... this trap. He would keep recommending her to try the coarsest viands on the table; and, at last, he told her if she could not fancy the cold beef to try a little with pickled onions. There was a twinkle in his eye as he said this, that would have betrayed his humour to any observer; but Mr. Gibson, Cynthia, and Molly were all attacking Osborne on the subject of some literary preference he had expressed, and Dr Nicholls had Mrs. Gibson quite at his mercy. She was not sorry when luncheon was ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... approaches it. He does so, because he sees that the comic muse only ceases to be a mask when sentiment is allowed to play over her features. And even he only half perceives it; for the sentiment of friendship is not strong enough for complete animation, the muse's eyes may twinkle, but passion alone will give them depth and let the soul shine through. But, in order that passion should fill comedy with the breath of life, it was necessary that both sexes should walk the stage on an equal footing. That which comedy before 1580 lacked, that which alone ...
— John Lyly • John Dover Wilson
... probably not," answered Bernardine. "One is not easily missed, you know." There was a twinkle in Bernardine's eye as she added, "He is probably ...
— Ships That Pass In The Night • Beatrice Harraden
... scrupulous about her precious heart? Even the younger, unmarried sort had a knowing and disapproving look on their faces when she met them. As for the stream of invitations, there was a sudden drought, as of a parched desert, and the muteness of the telephone after its months of perpetual twinkle was simply ghastly. ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick
... pippin, his coat is a marvel both in cut and in texture, but his linen is irreproachable, and what hair nature has still left him is most carefully brushed. There is, too, in his small gray Irish eyes a mischievous twinkle, and a fund of honest good humor that goes far to defy the ravages of time. In spite of his seventy years and his quaint attire, he still at times can hold his own ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... was rather rude and abrupt, but Mr. Lucas did not seem to mind it. His eyes still retained their amused twinkle, but he condescended to argue the point more seriously with me, and sat down in Miss Ruth's low chair, as though to bring himself more ...
— Esther - A Book for Girls • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... had the look of a man who owns a guilty secret, and is ready to be rather proud of his guilt,—providing society consents to wink at it with him. He was not smiling, exactly; he had a wicked kind of twinkle in his eyes. ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower
... with the bells— Silver bells! What a world of merriment their melody foretells! How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle, In the icy air of night! While the stars that over sprinkle All the heavens, seem to twinkle With a crystalline delight; Keeping time, time, time, In a sort of Runic rhyme, To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells From the bells, bells, bells, bells, Bells bells, bells— From the jingling and ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... peace, on this high wold, And on the dews that drench the furze, And on the silvery gossamers, That twinkle into ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... mouths, composed a cast of features which their burnt-sienna complexion, and hair like ill-got-in hay did not much enhance. The expression of their countenances was not unintelligent; and there was a merry, half-timid, half-cunning twinkle in their eyes, which reminded me a little of faces I had met with in the more neglected districts of Ireland. Some ethnologists, indeed, are inclined to reckon the Laplanders as a branch of the Celtic family. Others, again, maintain them to be Ugrians; while a ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... as Jerry O'Keefe, but Halloway would not have needed the name, once he had seen the lazy challenging twinkle in the gray-blue eyes, to spot him as a man of Irish blood. O'Keefe had need to look up to meet the glance of the giant, but that was for him unusual. Into most eyes he looked down, for when he stood in his socks he was six feet two inches of ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... rushed on through the woods of Fontainebleau and across wide plains intersected by poplar-fringed canals. As the evening mists rose lights began to twinkle in cottage windows, and in the villages the church bells were ringing the prayer to the Virgin. Olive had laid aside her book some time since, and now, wearying of the grey twilit ...
— Olive in Italy • Moray Dalton
... was feeling something wet and warm upon his cheek. He opened his eyes and saw that the little dog was licking his face. Sitting up, he looked about him. He was in the grass on the top of the bald hill; night was very near, and the first star was just beginning to twinkle. ...
— A Book for Kids • C. J. (Clarence Michael James) Dennis
... penny, because he had not got a pocket to put it in. A pocketful of money would have sent him to the bottom of the sea, that breezy April night, when he drifted for hours, with eyes full of salt, twinkling feeble answer to the twinkle of the stars. But he had made himself light of his little cash left, in his preparation for a slow decease, and perhaps the fish had paid tribute with it to the Caesar of this Millennium. Captain Van Oort was a man of his inches in length, but in breadth about one-third more, being thickened ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... pain: For priests, with prayers, and other godly gear, Have made the merry goblins disappear; And where they play'd their merry pranks before, Have sprinkled holy water on the floor: And friars, that through the wealthy regions run, Thick as the motes that twinkle in the sun, Resort to farmers rich, and bless their halls, 30 And exorcise the beds, and cross the walls: This makes the fairy quires forsake the place, When once 'tis hallow'd with the rites of grace: But in the walks where wicked elves have been, The learning of the parish now is ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... but what I crave; My thoughts are true, and honour is my love; I fainting die whom yet a smile might save; You gave the wound, and can the hurt remove. Those eyes like stars that twinkle in the night, And cheeks like rubies pale in lilies dyed, Those ebon hands that darting hath such might That in my soul my love and life divide, Accept the passions of a man possessed; Let love be loved and grant me leave to live; Disperse those clouds ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles - Phillis - Licia • Thomas Lodge and Giles Fletcher
... Bluelake, Beta had already set, and the sky was fading; stars had begun to twinkle. There were more fires—one, close to the city in the east, a regular conflagration—and fighting had broken out in the native city itself. He was wishing now, that he hadn't thought it necessary to use those screens. The shoonoon were noticing what was going on in them, and talking among ...
— Oomphel in the Sky • Henry Beam Piper
... rara-ra! What the devil is in the measure that it makes the blood course like quicksilver through the veins? Was there ever a pair of eyes like Fillide's? Nothing of the cold stars there! Yet how they twinkle and laugh at thee! And that rosy, pursed-up mouth that will answer so sparingly to thy flatteries, as if words were a waste of time, and kisses were their proper language. Oh, pupil of Mejnour! Oh, would-be Rosicrucian, Platonist, Magian, I know not what! I am ashamed of ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... in Wellesley's bowering rhododendrons—in blossom time he is always hovering there, a winged bloom, for eyes that are not holden. Those were the nights when Puck came dancing up from Tupelo with Titania's fairy rout a-twinkle at his heels; when the great Hindu Raj floated from India in his canopied barge across the moonlit waters of Lake Waban; when Tristram and Iseult, on their way to the court of King Mark, all love distraught, ...
— The Story of Wellesley • Florence Converse
... forehead, with heavy brows and eyes deep set and expressive. It was decidedly a Websterian head, though the large, firm mouth and admirably moulded chin rather recalled those of Henry Clay. The face would have been austere, forbidding easy approach, except for the good-natured twinkle in the eye and a quiet smile lingering about the mouth. Marcy was above the ordinary height, with square, powerful shoulders, and carried some superfluous flesh as he grew older; but, at the time of which ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... Charles," replied Dad with a sly twinkle in his eye, "but we're not all of the same tough stock and 'ready—ay, ready' on all occasions when wanted, though we might be willing enough, ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... be very wicked if I were not happy, when I have so much to make me so; but sometimes, when I hear the shore roaring so loud as it does this evening, and look up at the stars, as they twinkle in their homes far away in the sky, there is something which comes over me of sadness, making me a great deal happier; and there is one particular star which I always notice, for it seems as if it was looking down at me so ...
— Natalie - A Gem Among the Sea-Weeds • Ferna Vale
... He leaned forward. The twinkle was gone from his eyes and he extended his hand to Hardy. The latter reached out with an impulsive gesture, wrung the proffered hand, and then slipping back into his chair ...
— The Untamed • Max Brand
... man reached the old manor, the quietude of the library, with its blackened mahogany table, its faded green Axminster, the meridional globe with its dusty twinkle, banished the incident from his mind. He returned to his work of card-indexing the Captain's books. He took half a dozen at a time from the shelves, dusted them on the piazza, then carried them to the embrasure of the window, which offered a pleasant light for reading and ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... question her. He avoided looking at the Beauchenes, but there was a malicious twinkle in his little eyes, and it was evident that he took pleasure in recapitulating the employer's arguments against excessive prolificness. He pretended to get angry and to reproach the Moineauds for their ten wretched children—the boys fated to become food for ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... a sly twinkle in his eye, "your tobacco pays no tax. With a debt like ours it is the duty of every good citizen to pay his share of it. Half the cost of this cigar goes ...
— Colonel Carter of Cartersville • F. Hopkinson Smith
... dioptrics[obs3], catoptrics[obs3]. [Distribution of light] chiaroscuro, clairobscur[obs3], clear obscure, breadth, light and shade, black and white, tonality. reflection, refraction, dispersion; refractivity. V. shine, glow, glitter; glister, glisten; twinkle, gleam; flare, flare up; glare, beam, shimmer, glimmer, flicker, sparkle, scintillate, coruscate, flash, blaze; be bright &c. adj.; reflect light, daze, dazzle, bedazzle, radiate, shoot out beams; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... bad, and miniatures can be handled very easily," answered Tim Crapsey. His small eyes began to twinkle. "Jest you let me git my hands on 'em, and I'll show you wot I kin do. I know a fence in New York who'll take pictures jest as quick ...
— Dave Porter and His Double - The Disapperarance of the Basswood Fortune • Edward Stratemeyer
... of the new Volonsky, Cletus had entered the lobby of the Droshky Hotel on Red Square. The cherubic scout had obeyed orders and made himself bellhop size, large size. He didn't exactly resemble the one in the cigarette ad but he had the kid's twinkle in his dark eyes. And he had already latched onto a luscious blonde; or, more likely, Nick concluded, ...
— Satan and the Comrades • Ralph Bennitt
... seemed to pass into his cookery and give it a flavor all its own. His bacon sizzled with joy. His coffee bubbled over with mirth. His turnovers wore a scout smile. His baked potatoes had his own twinkle in their eyes. His dumplings were indented with merry dimples like those ...
— Roy Blakeley in the Haunted Camp • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... greater. The song spread wide through the evening air. We passed through Rovigliano, where the lamps were beginning to twinkle, and came out again upon the high road. The church bells rang softly behind us. A moist breeze rustled in the trees that cast a faint blue shadow on the white road, and in the air a shadow ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... spur of the moment that he often regretted later on. Anything in the form of a practical joke appealed to him immensely, and he was never happier than when he was planning something that would produce a laugh. When Teddy's brown eyes began to twinkle, it was time to look ...
— The Rushton Boys at Rally Hall - Or, Great Days in School and Out • Spencer Davenport
... to do with it?" she asked, with a twinkle of fun in her eye and a saucy little toss of ...
— The Two Elsies - A Sequel to Elsie at Nantucket, Book 10 • Martha Finley
... and the young lady signed the slip of paper he gave her: Mr. and Mrs. Daniel Killigrew, Miss Killigrew and maid. "I shall probably keep you very busy." There was a twinkle in her eyes, but he was English and ...
— The Voice in the Fog • Harold MacGrath
... Archbishop's mitre may be about a yard high: formed within probably of consecrated pasteboard, it is without covered by a sort of watered silk of white and silver. On the two peaks at the top of the mitre are two very little spangled tassels, that frisk and twinkle about in a very ...
— The Second Funeral of Napoleon • William Makepeace Thackeray (AKA "Michael Angelo Titmarch")
... Meade was included under that heading—-gave themselves over to enjoyment. Belle, with a quiet twinkle in her eyes that was born of the love of teasing, tried very hard to draw Mr. Jetson out, thereby causing that young man to ...
— Dave Darrin's Fourth Year at Annapolis • H. Irving Hancock
... pleader with a wave of his hand and a twinkle in his eye says: "Look at the difference between the position of a lawyer who, alert with restless energy, momentarily forgets his manners in fighting for his client, and on the other hand the calm"—pointing to the judge who is still half reclining in his chair—"the calm, I repeat, ...
— The Man in Court • Frederic DeWitt Wells
... a man and such a piece of armament, one gray Friday morning in the edge of winter, Mrs. Fanny Tobin was traveling from Sanscrit Pond to North Kilby. She was an elderly and feeble-looking woman, but with a shrewd twinkle in her eyes, and she felt very anxious about her numerous pieces of baggage and her own personal safety. She was enveloped in many shawls and smaller wrappings, but they were not securely fastened, ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... pitiful thing in the presence of the King. She tried to do her best to please him. The thought of offense to the Monarch beset her with fear. The Princess Palatine wrote of her once: "When the King came to her she was so gay that people remarked it. She would laugh and twinkle and rub her little hands. She had such a love for the King that she tried to catch in his eyes every hint of the things that would give him pleasure. If he ever looked at her kindly, that day was bright." Madame De Caylus ...
— The Story of Versailles • Francis Loring Payne
... is she no bonnie? She shines like a twinkle—twinkle in the sky." And he would hold it out at arm's length, his head cocked sideways the better to ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... have not," replied friend Sliver, with a slight twinkle in his bright gray eye. "Can ...
— Be Courteous • Mrs. M. H. Maxwell
... in Stephen's rank, "so we won't qua'l as to who's host heah. One thing's suah," he added, with a twinkle, "I've been heah longest. Seems like ten yeahs since I saw the wife and children down in the Palmetto State. I can't offer you a dinner, seh. We've eaten all the mules and rats and sugar cane in town." (His eye seemed to interpolate that Stephen wouldn't be ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... edge of crowd. Sean looked at him steadily with slight twinkle in his eye. Miss Barton, Miss Pankhurst, and I climbed up a low stone wall that commanded the guarded street, and clung to the iron paling on top. Sean came ...
— What's the Matter with Ireland? • Ruth Russell
... spice-cupboard of solid mahogany, ages old, glowed red across the room, and from the neighbouring wall the great sword and back-and-breast with which Smite-and-spare-not Wheatman, Captain of Horse, had done service at Naseby, seemed to twinkle congratulations to me as one not unworthy of my name. Not an unsuitable frame, perhaps, this ancient, goodly house-place, for the beautiful picture now in it, on which I looked as often as I dared with furtive ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... with a twinkle in his eye, "our Foreign Office is well aware of that. Have you not noticed the significance of the two dates, March 6, when the torpedo is said to have been fired, and March 16, when it struck? Do you not see that our diplomats have still one more loop-hole in case they are ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin
... of the Universe, in a somewhat supercilious manner, not long ago informed one of our local friends that his own home was hundreds of miles to the southward. "'Deed, sir, how does you manage to live so far off?" with a scarcely perceptible twinkle of one ...
— Le Petit Nord - or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour • Anne Elizabeth Caldwell (MacClanahan) Grenfell and Katie Spalding
... come. I come, I warrant thee; the least twinkle had brought me to thee; such another kind syllable or two would turn me to a meteor, and draw ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... Merkel. "But from what I've seen," he added, with a twinkle in his eyes, "they're middlin' well able to look after themselves. Paregoric for that Greaser! That's pretty good!" and he chuckled as he rode ...
— The Boy Ranchers - or Solving the Mystery at Diamond X • Willard F. Baker
... the musician's name," he said, with a merry twinkle in his eye, from which every trace of artistic inspiration had faded; "can you guess it now?" Nino seemed tongue-tied still, ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... to their hotel. Thurston raised his eyes to the summer heavens. Faint stars were beginning to twinkle; there was one ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various
... is the moon amid the starry choir That twinkle o'er the sky, Shining in silvery, mild tranquillity;— The mother with her sons more fair! See! blooming at her side, She leads the royal, youthful pair; With gentle grace, and soft, maternal pride, Attempering ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... the latch slowly and cautiously, for it was near the door of her mother's room—and then crept out like a guilty thing into the dark dampness of the night, groping her way to the gate, and stumbling along down the road. It had been raining, and there was not one star-twinkle in the sky; the only light was that of glow-worms illuminating here and there two or three blades of grass by feeble shining. Now and then a fire-fly made a spot of light in the blackness, only to leave a deeper spot ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston
... take half!" exclaimed Mr. Keith. "I have more money now than I'll ever spend. Mary, half of it is yours, and if you don't let Tom Swift have a say in the spending of it— Say, Mary, have you thanked him yet?" he asked with a twinkle of his eyes. "Well, Uncle Barton, I—I ...
— Tom Swift and his Undersea Search - or, The Treasure on the Floor of the Atlantic • Victor Appleton
... Terence saw a twinkle in the doctor's eye, which made him suspect a quiz, and the laughter of Jack, Alick, and some of his other messmates who stood round, confirmed this suspicion. At first he felt that he ought to be very indignant, but ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... Author very often perpetrates nonsense. Come Jurgen, you who are King of Eubonia!" says Horvendile, with his wide-set eyes a-twinkle; "what is there in you or me to attest that our Author has not composed our romances with his ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... gave a cry, only half uttered, of astonishment, restrained by politeness, turning his eyes, which grew twice their size in the bewilderment of the moment, from Lucy to the Contessa and back again. Then he burst into a breathless laugh—a twinkle of humour lighted in those eyes which were big with wonder, and he turned a look of amused admiration towards the Contessa. How had she done it? There was no fathoming the cleverness of women, he said to himself, and for the rest of the day he kept ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... to Canopus in the southern hemisphere, the other to Wega in the northern. Imagination loses itself in this sublime Infinity, amid which the projectile was gravitating, like a new star created by the hand of man. From a natural cause, these constellations shone with a soft luster; they did not twinkle, for there was no atmosphere which, by the intervention of its layers unequally dense and of different degrees of humidity, produces this scintillation. These stars were soft eyes, looking out into the dark night, amid the ...
— Jules Verne's Classic Books • Jules Verne
... know how much I missed, him. At a distance, in a foreign land, ignoring, abjuring, unlearning him, I discovered what he had done for me. I owed him, oh unmistakeably, certain noble conceptions; I had lighted my little taper at his smoky lamp, and lo it continued to twinkle. But the light it gave me just showed me how much more I wanted. I was pursued of course by letters from Mrs. Saltram which I didn't scruple not to read, though quite aware her embarrassments couldn't but be now of the gravest. I sacrificed to propriety ...
— The Coxon Fund • Henry James
... shadows gather on the bay. In amber sky the swallows fly and sail and circle o'er the deep; The light-winged night-hawks whir and cry; the silver pike and salmon leap. The rising moon, o'er isle and dune, looks laughing down on lake and lea; Weird o'er the waters shrills the loon; the high stars twinkle in the sea. From bank and hill the whippowil sends piping forth his flute-like notes, And clear and shrill the answers trill from leafy isles and silver throats. The twinkling light on cape and height; the hum of voices on the shores; The merry laughter on the night; ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... subside. And—sub silentio—let you slide! Your Grand Old Man, dears,—well, he's human. He doesn't want some Grand Old Woman As colleague or as rival. WOODALL? Well, he is gentle, genial, good all; But there's a twinkle in his eye Persuades me that he would not die Did you consent to drop your "claim." And now there comes another name To raise for Shes the party slogan. Well, trust, dears—if you like—to LOGAN; He "will support you at all times!" ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 22, 1891 • Various
... glistened and gleamed as the box was passed from hand to hand! As if the thickest cluster of stars you ever saw, could shine out in the midst of a yellow sunset sky, and the colors of the rainbow could twinkle through them at the same time! It was superb, but then that was nothing compared to the glory of receiving it ...
— Twilight Stories • Various
... are not one to keep hitching and twiddling around," the clockmaker presently remarked, with a twinkle. "We shall get on famously together. ...
— Christopher and the Clockmakers • Sara Ware Bassett
... naively, but without hesitation, that there is a fee to be paid of a shilling a head on such a claim if established, and that he only had twenty shillings in the world; so, as he remarked with a knowing twinkle in his eye, "What was the use of my claiming more cows than I had money to pay the fee for?" But times have improved with Tevula since then, and he is now in a position to claim the poor defendant's whole herd, though he generously says he will not insist on his ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... not needed a lion to defeat Mr. Babington," observed Ned, looking up from his book with a sober twinkle in his eye, which set them all laughing, though his father declared that he ought to have his ears boxed ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and you don't get on with him any too well yourself. But don't look so solemn. I'll be quite good and proper if you'll let that twinkle come into your eye again; it isn't you ...
— Sarah's School Friend • May Baldwin
... right," she answered, with an Irish twinkle in her eyes. "Yer riverence will be saved by ...
— Best Short Stories • Various
... that?" inquired old Mr. Bell innocently, although the twinkle in Jimsy's eye had put the ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham
... is the Fly-Away Horse— Perhaps you have seen him before; Perhaps, while you slept, his shadow has swept Through the moonlight that floats on the floor. For it's only at night, when the stars twinkle bright, That the Fly-Away Horse, with a neigh And a pull at his rein and a toss of his mane, Is up on his heels and away! The Moon in the sky, As he gallopeth by, Cries: "Oh! what a marvelous sight!" And the Stars in dismay Hide their ...
— Love-Songs of Childhood • Eugene Field
... one kind ov a laff that i always did rekommend; it looks out ov the eye fust with a merry twinkle, then it kreeps down on its hands and kneze and plays around the mouth like a pretty moth around the blaze ov a kandle, then it steals over into the dimples ov the cheeks and rides around into thoze little whirlpools ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... is flattered," he declared, "especially," he added, with a twinkle in his eyes, "as the subject seemed to ...
— The Double Traitor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... boy, how absurd of you!" returned the sharp-eyed old lady with a twinkle of merriment. "In the first place, all the motor-boats in the world couldn't keep a young man like you chained up indefinitely in a sleepy little Cape Cod village. ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... in passionless clusters Above the green hills of the south; A bobolink fluttered to leeward With a twinkle ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... fleshed up considerable since he quit jugglin' the brushes, and he's lost a little of the good-natured twinkle from his wide-set eyes. He glances up at me sort of surly when I first steps into the office; but the minute I takes off the straw lid and ducks my head at him, he lets loose ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford
... greatly dreaded beforehand, proved an unexpected source of solace and delight. He was a quiet, shrewd little man, not unlike Sylvia in many ways, but with a merry twinkle in his eye, and a brisk manner of speech which she did not possess. He sized up the Gray family quickly, and apparently with satisfaction, for he talked quite freely of his niece to them, and they saw that they were not alone in their ...
— The Old Gray Homestead • Frances Parkinson Keyes
... you," said Jessac, shyly, but for the first time in his life Hughie's courage failed, and though he would have given much to be able to make his feet twinkle through the mazes of the Highland reel, he could not bring himself to accept teaching from Jessac. If it had only been Thomas or Billy Jack who had offered, he would soon enough have been on the floor. For a moment he hesitated, then with ...
— Glengarry Schooldays • Ralph Connor
... the hermit, with a slight twinkle in his eyes. "Nothing discourages—nothing subdues him. Twice I pulled him out of deadly danger into which he had run in his eager pursuit of specimens. And he has returned the favour to me, for he ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... stupid of me!" Bet tried to look innocent. "Was that there all the time? Imagine me not seeing it!" There was remorse in her voice but a merry twinkle in her eyes that did not ...
— The Merriweather Girls in Quest of Treasure • Lizette M. Edholm
... leaving the two police officers he found himself blindly floundering his way through an inky forest. The sky was jet black. The moon had long since switched off her light. The last star had concealed its twinkle behind the banking clouds of the summer storm. Now great warm splashes of ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... said Dick. "Suppose," he said, turning to Fosdick, with a twinkle in his eye, "Johnny Nolan should call upon us here. What would he think of our living ...
— Fame and Fortune - or, The Progress of Richard Hunter • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... unquestionably the greatest and most prodigal exhibition of Shelley's powers, this amazing lyric world, where immortal clarities sigh past in the perfumes of the blossoms, populate the breathings of the breeze, throng and twinkle in the leaves that twirl upon the bough; where the very grass is all a-rustle with lovely spirit-things, and a weeping mist of music fills the air. The final scenes especially are such a Bacchic reel and rout and revelry of beauty as leaves one staggered ...
— Shelley - An Essay • Francis Thompson
... some twenty-eight years old, strong and bony; his hair was red, and the natural colour of his face was obscured by a host of freckles; his eyes were blue, and his nose had an upward turn; his expression was merry and good humoured, but there was a twinkle about his eyes that seemed to show that he was by no ...
— In the Irish Brigade - A Tale of War in Flanders and Spain • G. A. Henty
... wet and pitchy dark. Only by the help of the lightning I had stumbled and plunged home to bed, when at about eleven a perfect storm of rifle-fire suddenly swept along the ridges at our end of the town. Rushing out I saw the edges of the hills twinkle with lines of flashes right away to Gun Hill and Bulwan. Alarmed at the darkness, and hearing strange sounds in the rain the Boers had taken a scare and were blazing away at vacancy, in terror of another night attack. The uproar lasted about five minutes. ...
— Ladysmith - The Diary of a Siege • H. W. Nevinson
... spiritless and sad, his very tail a mortified stump, and the whole beast a picture of meek misery, fit to touch a heart of stone. The jovial mule was a roly-poly, happy-go-lucky little piece of horseflesh, taking everything easily, from cudgeling to caressing; strolling along with a roguish twinkle of the eye, and, if the thing were possible, would have had his hands in his pockets and whistled as he went. If there ever chanced to be an apple core, a stray turnip or wisp of hay in the gutter, this Mark Tapley was sure ...
— Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor • Thomas L. Masson (Editor)
... was a twinkle in the principal's eye. "You know if you hadn't got lost you wouldn't have a nice ...
— Left Tackle Thayer • Ralph Henry Barbour
... me, but they are not my most intimate friends. These call me—never mind what," added the old woman, with a soft twinkle in her eyes. "So as you know me, and know me well, you may give me any name you please; it doesn't matter. But I am your godmother, child. I have few godchildren; those I have love me dearly, and find me the greatest blessing in ...
— The Little Lame Prince - And: The Invisible Prince; Prince Cherry; The Prince With The Nose - The Frog-Prince; Clever Alice • Miss Mulock—Pseudonym of Maria Dinah Craik
... owing to the unsteadiness of the air that stars are seen to twinkle. A night when this takes place, though it may please the average person, is worse than useless to the astronomer, for the unsteadiness is greatly magnified in the telescope. This twinkling is, no doubt, in a great measure responsible for the conventional "points" ...
— Astronomy of To-day - A Popular Introduction in Non-Technical Language • Cecil G. Dolmage
... transversal avenues running far up into the land and into the dusk. In these vast avenues and across these vast squares infrequent carriages sped like mechanical toys guided by mannikins. The sound of the sea waxed. And then he saw the twinkle of lights, and then fire ran slowly along the promenade: until the whole map of it was drawn out in flame; and he perceived that though he had walked a very long way, the high rampart of houses continued still interminably beyond him. He turned. He was tired. His face caught the full strength ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... loved sultana In sleep still breathes the sigh, The name of some black-eyed Tirana, Escapes our lips as we lie. Till, with morning's rosy twinkle, Again we're up and gone— While the mule-bell's drowsy tinkle Beguiles the rough way on. Oh the joys of our merry posada, Where, resting at close of day, We, young Muleteers of Grenada, Thus sing the ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... You are not going?" Peggy cried. She breathed quickly, and her teeth and eyes alike seemed to twinkle. "Can—can't ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark
... where the horses had been left, and there they were found without change of a rope. Coleman rejoiced to see that his dragoman now followed him in the way of a good lieutenant. They both dashed in among the trees and had the horses out into the road in a twinkle. When Coleman turned to direct that utterly subservient, group he knew that his face was drawn from hardship and anxiety, but he saw everywhere the same style of face with the exception of the face of Marjory, who looked simply of lovely marble. He noted with a curious satisfaction, as if the thing ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... said the man. "Beautiful, I may say. That little fellow with the twinkle in his eye and his coat out at elbows; he is charming, if I do say it. But what is going on now? here comes a crowd of big, hulking, ruffianly fellows, jostling the little people and driving them to the wall. What a villainous-looking set! Their faces are wholly strange ...
— The Silver Crown - Another Book of Fables • Laura E. Richards
... of some further allusion which was made to my tale, and to Captain Yorke's share in it,—"Amy, I am going to invite Captain and Mrs. Yorke to visit New York this winter, and," with a twinkle in his eye, "shall depend upon you and Milly to escort them hither and thither to ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews
... conscious of their personality. In Professor Huxley's work, on the other hand, we never miss his fascinating presence; now he is gravely shaking his head, now compressing the lips with emphasis, and from time to time, with a quiet twinkle of the eye, making unexpected apologies or protesting that he is of a modest and peace-loving nature. At the same time, one becomes accustomed to a rare and delightful phenomenon. Everything which has entered the author's brain by eye or ear, whether ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... the doctor gravely, and no doubt with an amused twinkle in his eye, "I had thought of asking you to sing the Rocky Mountains, but as the mountains are so high, and the amount of time I have so limited, I have decided that perhaps it ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... would have it, both landed over the mustang's head, but while Dan's was drawn tight with great quickness, Ralph's remained loose, so that in a twinkle the mustang shook it off, and then of course the line ...
— For the Liberty of Texas • Edward Stratemeyer
... replied Valentine, puzzled by the significance in the face of his old companion. That sly twinkle in the Captain's eyes, that triumphant smile wreathing the Captain's lips, must ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... it came to pass, that one evening in the beginning of February, just when the stars were beginning to twinkle, Cornelius heard on the staircase of the little turret a voice ...
— The Black Tulip • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... was now home for the holidays. Presently he appeared. He was a youth of about nineteen, wearing a blouse like any other peasant. There was certainly nothing in his appearance to indicate that he was destined for the cure of souls. The proud father said: 'He is in philosophy.' The young man had a twinkle in his eye that might have been philosophical. Neither of them had a suspicion of the vanity concealed ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... be those who think our royal Charles the Messiah, and petition him to declare himself," said Sasportas, with his genial twinkle. "Hath he ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... somewhat corpulent person. His countenance bore as little the marks of self-denial, as his habit indicated contempt of worldly splendour. His features might have been called good, had there not lurked under the pent-house of his eye, that sly epicurean twinkle which indicates the cautious voluptuary. In other respects, his profession and situation had taught him a ready command over his countenance, which he could contract at pleasure into solemnity, although its natural expression was that of good-humoured ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... person," she replied; adding with a whimsical twinkle, "they're all like the dishes, Aunt Ellen,—bound to accumulate crumbs and scraps, and do ...
— The Tangled Threads • Eleanor H. Porter
... me, at that moment I could not tell whether to leave the room in a fit of angry disgust or to accept the ludicrous side of the situation and laugh. Fortunately for me, perhaps, I caught Eve's eye, in which there was more than the suspicion of a twinkle. I chose, therefore, the latter alternative. Mr. Moss watched us ...
— An Amiable Charlatan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... reach, or I'd go off there for the night," answered Tony, adding with a twinkle in his eyes: "And although I might, of course, sleep outside, if you preferred—on the top of the Roche d'Or, for instance!—I'm afraid it wouldn't help matters much, as my frozen corpse would require about as much explaining away as the fact that ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... we know that the Absolute is constantly creating Universes in Its Infinite Mind—and constantly destroying them—and, though millions upon millions of aeons intervene between creation and destruction, yet doth it seem less than the twinkle of an eye to The ...
— A Series of Lessons in Gnani Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... having no legal vent, eddied around, and formed over the heads of the assembled council a clouded canopy, as opake as their metaphysical theology, through which, like stars through mist, were dimly seen to twinkle a few blinking candles, or rather rushes dipped in tallow, the property of the poor owner of the cottage, which were stuck to the walls by patches of wet clay. This broken and dusky light showed many a countenance ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... bunny's was the first to drop into the hole, although Twinkle Tail's was very close and ...
— Little Jack Rabbit and the Squirrel Brothers • David Cory
... then we sever; Ae fareweel, alas! for ever! Deep in heart-wrung tears I'll pledge thee, Warring sighs and groans I'll wage thee. Who shall say that fortune grieves him, While the star of hope she leaves him? Me, nae cheerfu' twinkle lights me; ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... white house in the middle of a big lawn. There were vines on the porches, and it must have been early in the evening, for the fireflies were beginning to twinkle over the lawn. And the grass had just been cut, for the air was sweet with the smell of it. A woman, standing on the steps under the vines, was calling "Jules, Jules, it is time to come ...
— The Gate of the Giant Scissors • Annie Fellows Johnston
... taught the art of engraving. In 1804-5 they jointly wrote Original Poems for Infant Minds, followed by Rhymes for the Nursery and Hymns for Infant Minds. Among those are the little poems, "My Mother" and "Twinkle, twinkle, little Star," known to all well-conditioned children. Jane was also the author of Display, a tale (1815), and other works, including several hymns, of which the best known is "Lord, I would own Thy tender Care." The hereditary talents of the family were represented in the next generation ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... sailing sunlit seas of bliss, fully embarked at last upon the most magic and immortal of all illusions. Sitting cramped and numb in his narrow quarters, he peered eagerly into the darkness, watching for the first lights of the Sunny South to twinkle through the gloom. And as he watched he chanted in a ...
— Mr. Opp • Alice Hegan Rice
... hurried glance, caught a twinkle of amusement in the eyes of the woman back of her. Elizabeth could form no opinion about the girls in the seat ahead. She had no precedent to guide her. All she knew was learned from her parents ...
— Elizabeth Hobart at Exeter Hall • Jean K. Baird
... tidbit, she would first drop it into a kind of pocket in the bark, and pound it a while to reduce it to a proper consistency; the while the youngster would sit near and watch her with hungry eyes, and often scream in his coaxing way and twinkle his wings, until she was ready to deliver up the ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... man was doing on Lost Island?" speculated Jerry, crossing wearily to the north edge of the bridge and peering through the gray dawn-mist toward the island, barely visible now. A mere twinkle of light showed among the trees, and he stood there for a long minute. Dave come to his side, and the two waited in silence for the dawn. Jerry had almost fallen asleep standing up, when a sudden clutch ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Air on Lost Island • Gordon Stuart
... peasant, always a peasant. The mere suggestion of a bargain to be struck brought a twinkle of awakened alertness into the artist's eyes, and hardened the lines of ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki
... says he won't take it without water," protested Nick, though there was a twinkle in his eye. "He's a fellow that's jest rode in from The ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco
... newspapers lying against each other like fallen soldiers. If any one disturbs this row Crichton seems to know of it from afar and appears noiselessly and replaces the wanderer. One thing unexpected in such a room is a great array of tea things. Ernest spots them with a twinkle, and has his epigram at once unsheathed. He dallies, however, ...
— The Admirable Crichton • J. M. Barrie
... body!' cried Mr Inspector. 'Talk of trades, Miss Abbey, and the way they set their marks on men' (a subject which nobody had approached); 'who wouldn't know your brother to be a Steward! There's a bright and ready twinkle in his eye, there's a neatness in his action, there's a smartness in his figure, there's an air of reliability about him in case you wanted a basin, which points out the steward! And Mr Kibble; ain't he Passenger, ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... of church-bells; the twilight deepened, the shadows lengthened, the luminous stretch of water grew narrower and narrower until it disappeared entirely and all was dark upon the lake, save here and there the twinkle of lights from moving boats,—shifting stars in ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy
... it is a part of all we have." If after such an offering and invocation the night wind rustles the tops of the trees or shakes the thatch of leaves on the roofs, they know that the ghost is in the village. The twinkle of a glow-worm near his grave is the glitter of his eye. In the morning, too, before they sally forth to the woods, one of the next of kin to the dead huntsman will go betimes to his grave, stamp on it to waken the sleeper below, and call out, "So-and-so, come! we are ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... and graduate from college. Carl could have his trip to Europe and get an option, perhaps, on a tent in Persia. A friend was telling me recently of running into Carl on the street just before he left for Europe and asking him what he was planning to do for the future. Carl answered with a twinkle, "I don't know but what there's room for an energetic up-and-coming young ...
— An American Idyll - The Life of Carleton H. Parker • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... the girl who whirled and fled. Her white robes fluttered and I saw the twinkle of her flying feet as she vanished into a space between the houses ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... cried. "Don't get a chair, ma'am. I like the steps better. Did you call him David?" he asked, with a twinkle of amusement in his kind gray eyes, as he seated himself on the low step, with his long legs trailing off ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... soft-voiced giant turning and looking down on the stranger with an amused twinkle in his deep brown eyes. He stood as erect as an Indian, though his ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... had found me in and I rather think I had turned red. He did not smile, but there was a sort of grim twinkle in his eyes. ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... I am finding fault with," she said with a sudden twinkle of fun in her eyes. "You have managed to keep from it so long. But seriously, I am not the kind of a woman I should have fancied you would care for. I am, at least I was, very weary of life; I knew too much about it. And I ...
— The Master-Knot of Human Fate • Ellis Meredith
... high, and a look in her gray eyes which told the Grand Duchess that it would be hopeless for her to argue down the resolution. At first it was a proud look, and a sad look; but suddenly a beam of light flashed into it, and began to sparkle and twinkle. Virginia smiled, and showed her dimples. Her color came and went. In a moment she was a different girl, and her mother, bewildered, fearful still, dared to hope ...
— The Princess Virginia • C. N. Williamson
... young shipbuilder—he was a man in his early thirties, who had inherited this shipbuilding business from his father—allowed his eyes to twinkle in a way that suggested there was something ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Middies • Victor G. Durham
... she whipped off her white coif. Her bronze hair ruffled up all over her head in a shining crop of short curls. She put up her hands to tidy the mass, enduring his exploring gaze with a twinkle in her eyes, perfectly sure the alteration in her appearance would not help him, since on that other occasion she had worn a hat. After a close scrutiny ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... up your sword, sir," said the surgeon, and I saw a friendly twinkle in his eyes. "I am a Pole by birth, and I have no ill-feeling to you or your people. I will do my best for my patients, but I will do no more. Capturing Hussars is not one of the duties of a surgeon. With your permission I will now descend with this ...
— The Adventures of Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... occasionally accommodating art-lover may accept it philosophically, I think; for the interior, though admirably effective as a whole, has no great sublimity, nor even purity, of pitch. It is splendidly vast and dim; the altarlamps twinkle afar through the incense-thickened air like foglights at sea, and the great columns rise straight to the roof, which hardly curves to meet them, with the girth and altitude of oaks of a thousand years; but there is little refinement ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... back silently in his big arm-chair, with the quiet twinkle in his keen eyes, remarked, "And you will look like the principal boy ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... sure," replied Mr. Browning; "I was always very fond of her, but I fancy she had not much tact, and did not quite know how to treat her husband. I think she worried him a little. But if you want to know any more," he continued, with a twinkle in his eye, "you had better ask the Browning Society,—you have heard ...
— The Brownings - Their Life and Art • Lilian Whiting
... a twinkle, master. I ain't rum a bit; my mother allers said as I wor a real quiet boy; but when my heart is full to bustin' it seems a relief to talk to a body, and you, tho' yer puts on bein' fierce, have ...
— Sue, A Little Heroine • L. T. Meade
... were right enough, but I was all wrong. The boat has been gliding along stem first, and I have been confused and looking at the farther shore, seeing nothing but the faint twinkle of the fire-flies." ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... matron of the painted house, a tall, angular woman, with the hectic of the orthodox Yankee consumption on her cheeks, and the orthodox Yankee twinkle in her eye; "ye can manage my boys whatever way ye please, teacher. I ain't pertickeler. They've been coaxed and they've been whipped, but they've always made out to mind by doin' pretty much as they was a mind to. They're ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... found no creed in the prayer-book that accounted for the stars. Here at the bottom of an ocean of sky, we look aloft and see them thick-speckled—mere barnacles, perhaps, on the keel of some greater ship of space. He remembered how at home there had been a certain burning twinkle that peeped through the screen of the dogwood tree. As he moved on his porch, it seemed to flit to and fro, appearing and vanishing. He was often uncertain whether it was a firefly a few yards away, or a star the other side of Time. Possibly ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... sky overhead that had stars in it; also, sometimes, a moon. But by dawn, the starred sky was gone—been left behind, or got slipped to one side; in its place was a plain, unpatterned stretch of Heaven which, in due time, was once more succeeded by a firmament adorned and a-twinkle. ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... and not for the sake of Mrs. Grundy, who will soon sit alone in her dowdy disorder, a chaperon bereft of her debutante, the hopeless and frowsy leader of a lost and discredited cause. Yes, wisdom has nearly had its day, and the stars are beginning to twinkle in the ...
— The Green Carnation • Robert Smythe Hichens
... at him, and smiled in return. There was a very perceptible twinkle in her eyes, which seemed to be eyes that would like to be merry ones, and a slight movement of the corners of her mouth which indicated a desire to say something in reply, but, restrained probably by loyalty to her employer, or by prudent discretion regarding conversation with strangers, ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton
... he said, with a menacing gesture. "You, Savoy!"—to one in a patched shirt and with a mischievous twinkle,—"you don't come none o' yer monkey-shines. If you scare de Kid you'll get it in de ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... the whole story. Mr. Thornton could not keep a twinkle from his eyes as he listened. But he did not laugh; he saw that Drusilla was too ...
— Drusilla with a Million • Elizabeth Cooper
... But the lady's calm infallible eye saw a cunning twinkle in those black twinkling orbs. Young as he was, he was on his guard, and waiting for her. Nor was this surprising: Reginald, naturally intelligent, had accumulated a large stock of low cunning in his travels ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... of Mistress Dawe be injured beneath thy roof, goodwife," said he, with a twinkle in his eye, "and a whole host of wild fellows from caves and holes in the mighty forest will swarm hither for revenge. Dark, terrible beings are they, who spend much of their time in the gloomy depths of the mighty woodland or in the very ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... humour saved his temper. To the twinkle in Iff's faded blue eyes he returned a reluctant smile ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... charmed," said Robin, a twinkle in the tail of his eye. "An eight or ten mile jaunt will do you a world of good, I'm sure. Shall we explore this little road up the mountain and then drop down to Red Roof? I don't believe it can be more ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... precision, "This was a pathetic description of the decease of Mr. Bardell, who had been knocked on the head with a quart-pot in a public-house cellar." The gravity of the Reader's countenance at these moments, with, now and then, but very rarely, a lurking twinkle in the eye, was of itself irresistibly provocative of laughter. Even upon the Serjeant's mention of the written placard hung up in the parlour window of Goswell Street, bearing this inscription, "Apartments ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent |
