"Hearthrug" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... cupboard, let into the panelling, from which the watch had been stolen. In the years that had passed, only one thing in the room had changed, and that was the tall figure in uniform standing on the hearthrug. ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery
... attitude towards Fate was in strong contrast. He held his head up and faced the world without encumbrance, without a settled ambition, without any sense of responsibility at all. The sharp-eyed dog on the hearthrug looked from one to the other. A moment before, the atmosphere of the room had been one of ease and comfortable assurance—an atmosphere that some men, without any warrant or the justification of personal success or distinction, seem to carry with them through life. Since Horner had crossed the ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman
... Colonel Bellairs' study by now, and he sat down heavily in his old leather arm-chair. Magdalen was standing on the hearthrug near him with the letter in her hand. She held it over the fire, he nodded, and ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley
... continued the other, "like the fool I was, instead of proving that I was something more than a hearthrug ornament, I shut up at that remark, and retired still further into my shell. I stayed there for a long time. The years passed, and youth with them, and then, one day, when I had learned quite a few lessons, I realised that the ...
— East of the Shadows • Mrs. Hubert Barclay
... He had got out of his chair by that time, and had taken up a position on the hearthrug, his back to the fire, his hands in his pockets, his eyes on his visitor. He was thinking—and for the moment he let ...
— The Borough Treasurer • Joseph Smith Fletcher
... "On the hearthrug in front of Mr. Vanderbridge. To reach the fire you had to walk straight through her, for she didn't move. She didn't give ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... but, nevertheless, I think the feeling that it was a strange world she had come to, was rather prominent in Dolly. She suddenly stooped to a great Maltese cat that was lying on the hearthrug, and I am afraid the eyes were glad of an excuse to get out of sight. She touched the cat's fur tenderly ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... get his hand into his pocket under his hearthrug, and when he rolled his eyes in agonies of sentiment, and said, "Farewell, dear Beauty! Return quickly, for if you remain long absent from your faithful beast he will assuredly perish," he pressed a ring into her hand and added: ...
— The Enchanted Castle • E. Nesbit
... of the duke to receive her to Pollyooly. She followed him eagerly and came into the smoking-room with a brave air, though she was not feeling as brave as she looked. The duke stood on the hearthrug and ...
— Happy Pollyooly - The Rich Little Poor Girl • Edgar Jepson
... through the keyhole, and a run to the door, to make sure of there being no interruption there, and then the boy's face assumed a very serious expression. He took the cloth from the little table in the corner, rolled up the hearthrug longwise, and tied it in two places with string, and then treating it as a patient, he laid it on the settee, and drew over ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn
... in the portfolio of du Maurier the epic of the drawing-room. Many of the Victorians, including the Queen, and Alfred Lord Tennyson, seem to have viewed life from the drawing-room window. They gazed straight across the room from the English hearthrug as from undoubtedly the greatest place on earth. They were probably right. But some of this confidence has gone. Actually in these days there are people who won't own up to having a drawing-room at all. If they have a room that could possibly answer to such a description, ...
— George Du Maurier, the Satirist of the Victorians • T. Martin Wood
... had shaken hands with Janet and Tom, they all stood together on the hearthrug waiting, so Radmore supposed, for the parlourmaid to come in ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes
... and—well the rest must wait. Several other calls were also more than due, but it was useless even to consider those to-day. In spite of an oppressive sense of having much to do—perhaps because of it—Hadria felt as if it were a sheer impossibility to rise from that hearthrug. Besides, Martha would not hear of it. A desire to rest, to idle, to float down the stream, instead of trying always to swim against it, became overpowering. ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... empty. It is, of course, possible that the suggestion came from my own subconscious mind. I never saw the aura of a human being, but I once had a kind of vision of this dog, which experts have told me was her aura. I was sitting by the fire, somewhat somnolent, and he was lying on the hearthrug. All at once his golden brown coat disappeared, and I saw a mass of reddish brown or perhaps I should say brownish red, and on one side of it was an irregular patch of fleecy white, bordered with sapphire blue. I was told that the brownish red represented the dog's animal instincts, ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell
... years. Harriett was sixty-eight. She had a faint recollection of having given Maggie notice, long ago, there, in the dining room. Maggie had stood on the hearthrug, in her large white apron, crying. ...
— Life and Death of Harriett Frean • May Sinclair
... relief the picture I saw within quite assured me that all was well. There sat my jolly old dad and my dear mother, cosily taking their tea, quite unsuspecting who would shortly join them in a cup. They looked very happy; so did a couple of dogs gambolling on the hearthrug, while our old cat sat on a rush hassock close by, looking dreamily at them through her half-closed eyes, when they threatened to knock her off her ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... upon his hearthrug, conversing with the Bishop of Bellminster and covertly regarding his betrothed out of the corner of an apprehensive eye. They had not met alone since the morning, and he was naturally anxious to find ...
— Father Stafford • Anthony Hope
... swayed the trees to and fro, betokening rain. From time to time the cat, with arched back, and tail erect, came loudly purring, and rubbing its sleek sides against the skirts of its mistresses; the lap-dog was restless; and upon the hearthrug a drowsy spaniel lay with his nose between his paws, and whined fitfully in a dog's day-dream; whilst the females, at length altogether ceasing to eat, sat self-absorbed. On the face of the elder was an expression of sorrow tempered with patience, but on that ...
— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege
... Downing Street and was shown straight into a large, rather bare room. By the fireplace sat Jason, and beside him, on the hearthrug, stood the Premier. Jason introduced me and I was ...
— The Blue Germ • Martin Swayne
... hostess caused Miss Crossman to pause. In fact, they all stared wonderingly at Georgiana. She stood upon the hearthrug, her colour, usually ready to glow in her dusky face, now receding suggestively, her dark eyes sparkling dangerously. "The only trouble with that sort of thing," she answered with suspicious quietness, "or rather ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond
... she had expected from this man whose manner always seemed to hint that at least half of creation was at his sole disposal. They expressed a consideration on his part that she had been far from anticipating. He waited for an interval of several seconds for her to speak. He was standing up on the hearthrug, his ill-proportioned figure thrown into strong relief by the firelight behind him. At last, as she quite failed to answer him, he drew a pace ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... Parrot and gave it the run of his house. It revelled in its liberty, and presently flew up on to the mantelpiece and screamed away to its heart's content. The noise disturbed the Cat, who was asleep on the hearthrug. Looking up at the intruder, she said, "Who may you be, and where have you come from?" The Parrot replied, "Your master has just bought me and brought me home with him." "You impudent bird," said the Cat, "how dare you, a newcomer, make a noise like that? Why, I was born here, and have ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... quickly downstairs, Sheila with less dignity, perhaps, than she had been surprised into since she had left a slimmer girlhood behind. She swept into the gaze of the two gentlemen standing together on the hearthrug; and so was caught, as it were, between a rain of conflicting glances, for her husband had followed instantly, and stood now behind her, stooping a little, and with something between contempt and defiance confronting ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... at him again inquiringly, opened the door, walked in, and allowed the stranger to follow. The man entered the room and stood before Barndale on the hearthrug. He had one hand in the breast of his coat; and somehow, as Barndale looked at him, he bethought him of the Greek who had stood with his hand at his breast in the ...
— An Old Meerschaum - From Coals Of Fire And Other Stories, Volume II. (of III.) • David Christie Murray
... sense of uneasiness I pushed my chair back. It caught the hearthrug, and in my efforts to disentangle it the screen fell over with a crash and in the flickering light of the fire I saw the face of the creature opposite. With a sharp catch of my breath I left my chair and stood with clenched fists beside it. Man or beast, which was it? The ...
— Lady of the Barge and Others, Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... as when she went to bed; but she said nothing more about going: and Friskarina took care at breakfast to show her every possible good-natured attention; she gave her by much the largest share of the cream, took the draughty side of the hearthrug herself, and, in short, did everything she could to show that she was anxious to be kind and civil to her; but all her little politenesses seemed ...
— Tales From Catland, for Little Kittens • Tabitha Grimalkin
... if you have any scheme in view?" he said, strutting on the hearthrug in front of a grate filled with ferns. He always stood there,—in winter because it was warm, and he was a martyr to chilblains; in summer because of the ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... to ascertain whose entrance they thus greeted. A long stride measured the schoolroom, and presently beside Miss Temple, who herself had risen, stood the same black column which had frowned on me so ominously from the hearthrug of Gateshead. I now glanced sideways at this piece of architecture. Yes, I was right: it was Mr. Brocklehurst, buttoned up in a surtout, and looking longer, narrower, and more ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... 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 pious bookmaker, and a voice in ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... was an ingenious double lock which turned the wrong way when you thought you were turning it the right, and could otherwise baffle the unskilful. Occupied with this task he could peep over his shoulder, through the unlighted front drawing-room, and see his adored one standing on the hearthrug, his hands clasped behind him, and his head bent, ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... Tom and Debby were trundling a small tin train across the table from side to side, trying to avoid collisions with forks and spoons and cups and saucers, et cetera, by moving such things away. Faith was playing on the hearthrug with Joan. "Look, Audrey," she cried as her eldest sister entered, "this is ...
— Anxious Audrey • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... in The Irrational Review, states that he has it on the best authority that when the GERMAN EMPEROR read the Criccieth New Year's interview with Mr. LLOYD GEORGE he exclaimed, "This beats the Tango," and fell heavily on the hearthrug. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 21, 1914 • Various
... uncle, of course. What do you think my uncle's going to say to all this? If I sprang it on him cold, he'd tie himself in knots on the hearthrug." ...
— Death At The Excelsior • P. G. Wodehouse
... making no remark, helped himself to a cup of coffee, and then to a glass of Curacoa, and then looked industriously at a Spanish quarto of Don Quixote, and lastly walked over to me on the hearthrug. ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... into one of the master's studies and felt a carpet under my feet, and saw a pleasant litter of pipes and novels lying on the table, it seemed to me that I was in a holy place, and I looked at the hearthrug, the wallpaper, and the upholstered chairs with a kind of desolate love for things that were nice to see and touch. I suppose that if we had been in a workhouse, a prison, or a lunatic asylum, our aeesthetic environment would have been very much the same ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton
... Janet's kindly eyes, sat as usual, whether in winter or in summer, near the fireplace, surveying with placidity the theatre where the innumerable dramas of her motherhood had been enacted. Tom, her eldest, the thin, spectacled lawyer, had, as a boy of seven, rampaged on that identical Turkey hearthrug, when it was new, a quarter of a century earlier. He was now seated at the grand piano with the youngest child, Alicia, a gawky little treasure, always alternating between pertness and timidity, aged twelve. Jimmie and Johnnie, ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... the hearthrug, and the moment afterwards, the silence outside was broken by a shrill, clear call which seemed ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... hearthrug. "David Rossi," he said compassionately, "is a creature of his age. A man of generous impulses and wide sympathies, moved to indignation at the extremes of poverty and wealth, and carried away by the promptings of the eternal religion in the human soul. ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... leave them. In about half an hour, when the short twilight was becoming dusk, Mrs. Woodward returned, and found Norman standing alone on the hearthrug before the fireplace. Gertrude was away, and he was leaning against the mantelpiece, with his hands behind his back, staring at vacancy; but oh! with such an aspect of dull, ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... led the way in and sat down. I went across to the hearthrug and stood before him. "Now," I said, "we must think this out from the very beginning, and to do that properly we must consider every detail. Have you any objection to ...
— A Bid for Fortune - or Dr. Nikola's Vendetta • Guy Boothby
... don't know." He secured a chair and sat down facing her. "He insists that I'm officially free to kick over the traces, that he's not the kind of father who 'thunders vetos from the family hearthrug!'" ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... a calm, even tone, without once removing his eyes from the man who stood upon the hearthrug with ...
— The Doctor of Pimlico - Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime • William Le Queux
... he showed us how to make coffee—according to the Arabian method. Arabia must be a very untidy country if they made coffee often over there. He dirtied two saucepans, three jugs, one tablecloth, one nutmeg-grater, one hearthrug, three cups, and himself. This made coffee for two—what would have been necessary in the case of a party, one dares ...
— Novel Notes • Jerome K. Jerome
... in the latch. Invisible people went up the stairs in silence. But he knew that Christine was among them. He knew because of the sense of sweet security and rest that came over him. He tumbled on to the hearthrug and ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... sheltered, and the subdued light from a Queen's reading-lamp, and from the glowing embers of a half burned-out fire, were very pleasant. Uncle Jasper was leaning back in an armchair, but Charlotte stood on the hearthrug. Soft and faint as the light was, it revealed burning cheeks and shining eyes; but the old face these tokens of excitement appealed to ...
— How It All Came Round • L. T. Meade
... hand. I knelt on the hearthrug until the merry blaze and crackle of the wood assured ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... seated, and a single gas jet illuminated the region of the hearth, where John, lounging almost at full length in a vast chair, read the newspaper; otherwise the room was in shadow. John dropped the 'Signal,' which slid to the hearthrug with a rustle, and turned his head so that he could just see the left side of his wife's face and her left hand as it moved over the keys of the piano. She played with gentle monotony, and her playing seemed perfunctory, yet agreeable. John watched the ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... be nice to lie on the hearthrug before the fire, leaning his head upon his hands, and think on those sentences. He shivered as if he had cold slimy water next his skin. That was mean of Wells to shoulder him into the square ditch because ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... silence. Wingrave was standing upon the hearthrug, cold, passionless, Sphinx-like. Lady Ruth was seated a few feet away, ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the matter, Eustacia?" he said. She was standing on the hearthrug in the bedroom, looking upon the floor, her hands clasped in front of her, her bonnet yet unremoved. For a moment she did not answer; and then she replied in a ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... he cared much for that, though he was in pitch darkness, for he was as much at home in a chimney as a mole is underground; but at last, coming down as he thought the right chimney, he came down the wrong one, and found himself standing on the hearthrug in a room the like of which he ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester
... as half-a-dozen pokers, and a hall lamp. A set of window curtains with no windows belonging to them, would be seen gracefully draping a barricade of chests of drawers, loaded with little jars from chemists' shops; while a homeless hearthrug severed from its natural companion the fireside, braved the shrewd east wind in its adversity, and trembled in melancholy accord with the shrill complainings of a cabinet piano, wasting away, a string a day, and faintly resounding to the noises of the ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... belligerently at Uncle Denny and strode out into the night. Uncle Denny, left alone in the living room, stood long on the hearthrug, talking to himself and now and again shaking ...
— Still Jim • Honore Willsie Morrow
... time immemorial to be in bed by ten, and that I was accordingly going there. He looked surprised and wider awake than ever, but nothing shook me, and I walked away, leaving him standing on the hearthrug after the manner of my countrymen, who never dream of opening a door for ...
— The Solitary Summer • Elizabeth von Arnim
... was sitting on the hearthrug playing with her two kittens, and you would have thought she was as happy as a queen, and quite contented to stay where she was instead of wanting to run about the world meddling with other people's property. ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... letter slowly, pondering every sentence and every word, and when he had finished it his hand dropped upon his knee; and when the letter fell upon the hearthrug he did not stoop to pick it up, but sat looking into the fire, convinced that everything was over and done. There was nothing to look forward to; his life would drag on from day to day, from week to week, month to month, year to year, ...
— The Lake • George Moore
... and into a dirty, slatternly parlour, smelling infamously of gin; where the first object I beheld was Jemmy Downes, sitting before the fire, three-parts drunk, with a couple of dirty, squalling children on the hearthrug, whom he ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... past thousand years in combining so many excellent qualities. His was the wisdom of the serpent combined with the gentleness—I will not say of the dove, but rather of the cat, our little tiger on the hearthrug, the most beautiful of four-footed things, so lithe, so soft, of so affectionate a disposition, yet capable when suddenly roused to anger of striking with lightning rapidity and rending the offender's flesh with its cruel, ...
— Dead Man's Plack and an Old Thorn • William Henry Hudson
... a part of our narrow outlook," I answered from the hearthrug, after a pause. "It's because we're so—limited that everyone is translating the greatness of empire into preferential trading and jealousy of Germany. It's for something bigger than ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... at first, then more loudly, finally with such vigour that I ran the risk of damaging my throat, and still there was no movement of that head bent over the fire and resting in the palms of the hands. At last I made a step forward, then another, finally finding myself on the knitted cloth hearthrug beside her. I now had the full view of her profile. That she should be still unconscious of my presence was unaccountable, for I stood at the end of the rug gazing at her. Again I coughed and hemmed, but without producing the smallest effect. Then ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... for a walk after that, and coming back with a bored air stood on the hearthrug in the living-room and watched ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... much youth among the bathers, but there was no youth (the young person always excepted) in the articles of Podsnappery. Bald bathers folded their arms and talked to Mr Podsnap on the hearthrug; sleek-whiskered bathers, with hats in their hands, lunged at Mrs Podsnap and retreated; prowling bathers, went about looking into ornamental boxes and bowls as if they had suspicions of larceny on the part of the Podsnaps, and expected to find ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... an easy attitude upon the hearthrug, and pointed with a smile to the chair which his last visitor had occupied. But he did not offer his hand to Mr. Brown, nor did Mr. Brown ...
— The New Tenant • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... have not, and to be finding, when we have it, that it is not what we wanted. That is the law of life, dear. Do you think as you lie upon the floor with your head upon your arms, that you are the only woman whose tears are soaking into the hearthrug at that moment? My dear Princess, if you could creep unseen about your City, peeping at will through the curtain-shielded windows, you would come to think that all the world was little else than a big nursery full of ...
— The Second Thoughts of An Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... sleep. She was in a large library, the room was surrounded by book-shelves, the backs of the books glistened in the ruddy firelight. All around spoke of luxury and comfort. She was sitting on the hearthrug, her head against the knee of—whom? A gentleman was stroking her hair, and she heard him say, 'It is the sweetest name on earth to me, my darling.' What name? She was sure he pronounced it, but no sound seemed to come from his lips. Weeping, she entreated, oh, if she could ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... him from his wanderings. She had made the coffee. He drank it where he stood, on the hearthrug, ignoring his old place on the sofa by ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... she went up the snakes were safe back in the pot. She did not see this, because she was not the kind of girl who sweeps under things every day. That night Hildebrand secretly slept in the boxroom, on a pile of newspapers, with a rag-bag and a hearthrug ...
— Oswald Bastable and Others • Edith Nesbit
... and greatest name which the parson's daughter now seized and emptied into her lap. A ten-shilling piece, some small silver, and twopence halfpenny jingled together, and roused a silver-haired, tawny-pawed terrier, who left the hearthrug and came to smell what was the matter. His mistress's right hand—absently caressing—quieted his feelings; and with the left she held the ten-shilling piece between finger and thumb, and gazed thoughtfully ...
— Jackanapes, Daddy Darwin's Dovecot and Other Stories • Juliana Horatio Ewing
... up again, poked the fire violently, then stood on the hearthrug with his back to it, and his hands thrust into the high pockets ...
— Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens
... head like wine. It was evident that only privileged visitors were received there, for apart from the air of intimacy which seemed somehow to pervade the place, there were several articles of apparel, and a pair of slippers lying upon the hearthrug. ...
— The Moving Finger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... looked more interested in life than he had looked in four years when he stood on the hearthrug in the drawing-room and received his son's guests. He was a bold figure among all the young men, not only because he was tall and white-haired, and for the moment erect, and of a noble and gracious cast of countenance, but because he clung to his old style of dress—his knee-breeches and silk stockings, ...
— The Story of a New York House • Henry Cuyler Bunner
... left the table and, without making any remark, stood on his head on the hearthrug. Thus did his joy find vent. Jock, on the other hand, seemed ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... He gave a sound that might have been caused by a smothered chuckle, or have been meant for a snort of contempt, and going from the table, placed himself upon the hearthrug, where he paused, making a prayer perhaps for patience to be given him to deal with this fool in her untrained, ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... and time was lost in forwarding it." She handed it to her aunt, who raised her eyebrows when she saw the writing, as if she recognized it, hastily drew the letter from its envelope, and held it so that the blaze fell upon it while she read. Evadne knelt on the hearthrug, and stirred the fire, making it burn ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... would have been as faithful a member as the immortal Toby, M.P. for Barkshire, of Mr. Punch, to whom ever my best regards. Jack considered himself entitled to precedence wherever he went, and maintained it. He was a famous judge of upholstery, and the softest chair or sofa, hearthrug or divan, was instantly appropriated. This sometimes made the local dignitaries sit up a little. They might be accustomed to the dignity of one of her Majesty's Judges, but the impudence of her Majesty's "Jack"—for ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... One is about forty-five,—a tall, thin man, with a wiry frame, a jovial face, and eyes which have the wild, roving look of the Arab's. He is dressed after the fashion of English sportsmen, and his dog—a fine gray bloodhound—is stretched on the hearthrug near him. He looks a reckless, desperate character, and has an adventurous history.[D] In battle he is said to be a thunderbolt,—lightning harnessed and inspired with the will of a devil. He is just the character to lead the dark, desperate expedition on which they are entered. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... like the Bishop, and after we had played for a bit, and The Seraph had demonstrated, on the hearthrug, how he could turn a somersault, some ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche
... the little automatic pistol with which I had provided myself in case of just such an emergency, took a quick aim and fired. Buttinbridge gave a convulsive leap, fell face downwards on the hearthrug and lay quite still. It was a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 28th, 1920 • Various
... thought you'd be only too glad to have it to play with. I wonder how you'd like being a boy? Lickings, and lessons, and impots, and sent back from breakfast to wash your ears. You wash yours anywhere—I wonder what they'd say to me if I washed my ears on the drawing-room hearthrug?' ...
— The Magic World • Edith Nesbit
... later the young people were left alone. First the Dean went to his study. Then Mrs. Conover departed to write letters. Marmaduke advancing across the room from the door which he had opened, met Peggy's mocking eyes as she stood on the hearthrug with her hands behind her back. Doggie felt very uncomfortable. Never had he said a word to her in betrayal of his feelings. He had a vague idea that propriety required a young man to get through some wooing before asking a girl ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... away, but I fancied that Jess, now highly strung, had gone into hiding, and I went after her. I was mistaken. She had lit the room lamp, turning the crack in the globe to the wall. The sheepskin hearthrug, which was generally carefully packed away beneath the bed, had been spread out before the empty fireplace, and Jess was on the arm-chair hurriedly putting on her grand black mutch ...
— A Window in Thrums • J. M. Barrie
... away and hailed another taxi, driven by a shaggy grey hearthrug. I told him my difficulties, and he at once offered to drive me anywhere and made no bones about the distance whatever. So it was arranged that he should come for me on the morrow—say Tuesday, at a quarter to eleven, and we would then get through the preliminaries and my lunch ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 16, 1914 • Various
... had left him, his small shabby figure in the attitude of a diminutive colossus on my hearthrug. About him were the recently vacated chairs, solemnly and ridiculously suggestive of still continuing the high and choice conversation that had lately finished. The same fancy had evidently taken Andriaovsky, for he was ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions
... as you like, my dear. That was all I could do for you;—and more than most men would have done, when all things are considered." Then he got up from the sofa, and stood himself on the hearthrug, with his back to the fireplace. "At any rate, you may be sure of this, Jane;—that I shall do nothing more. You have come here to torment me, but you shall get nothing ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... upon the thick Turkey hearthrug with his cigar between his lips, watched me closely. Apparently he was considerably perturbed at my sudden illness, for he expressed regret, hoping that the brandy ...
— The Stretton Street Affair • William Le Queux
... a great meeting," Mr. Bullsom remarked, sidling towards the hearthrug, and with his thumbs already stealing towards the armholes of his waistcoat, "a great meeting, my dears. Not that I am surprised! Oh, no! As I said to Padgett, when he insisted that I should take the chair, 'Padgett,' I said, 'mark my words, we're going to ...
— A Prince of Sinners • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... of people in the hall, mostly gathered about a round table near the fire. He discerned Mrs Ffolliot in the very act of "dispensing tea" and General Grantly standing on the hearthrug warming his coat tails. Mary, too, he saw give a cup of tea into her grandfather's hands, and he was conscious of the presence of Mrs Grantly seated on an oaken settle at the other side of the fire from Mrs Ffolliot. These four were clear to him ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker
... hearthrug, beautifully dressed—too beautifully dressed, it is possible, to sit down. Her maid had a moment earlier confessed that she could do no more, and Etta had come down stairs a vision of luxury, of womanly ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... fool I am!" he muttered, standing up on the hearthrug, and leaning his elbows upon the broad mantelpiece. "And yet I wonder whether the world ever held such another enigma in her sex. Paris looms behind—a tragedy of strange recollections—here she emerges Phoenix-like, subtly developed, a flawless woman, beautiful, self-reliant, witty, ...
— Anna the Adventuress • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... placed his head on the hearthrug, his hands on either side in front, and threw his heels in the air, to the great endangerment of the ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn
... a delight to the children. They had many of them on the hearthrug in the firelight, their father leaning back in his chair and smoking his pipe whilst ...
— 'Me and Nobbles' • Amy Le Feuvre
... understood my silence. She rose, leaving me on my knees. I threw myself on the sofa and she went to the hearthrug. She knew that what I had asked of her I asked no more. There was a long silence between us. At last she spoke ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... to pace the hearthrug and gesticulate, while Mr. Fotheringay sat with his arm on the table and his head on his arm, looking worried. "I don't see how I'm to manage about Winch," ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... man: but, for all his hard life, he could enjoy comfort. He found it here; in the good food, the generous liquor, the twinkle on the glass and decanter, the ill-executed but solid portraits on the walls, the hearthrug soft beneath his sole, the April combination of sunshine slanting through the window and a brisk but not oppressive coal fire ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... had brought in from Colonel and Miss Winwood. From this he sorted the few letters which it would be necessary to answer in his own handwriting, and laid them aside; then taking the great bulk, he planted himself on the hearthrug, with his back to the fire, and, cigarette in mouth, dictated to the self-effacing young woman. She took down his words with anxious humility, for she looked upon him as a god sphered on Olympian heights—and what socially ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... member of the cloth—a supreme egoist—who was visiting at a house when but the mother and her little girl—a mere child—were at home. As the self-esteemed great man was holding the mother in conversation, he noticed with pride that the child, who reposed on the hearthrug with a school-slate tilted on her knee, was making furtive glances up at his face, and returning her attention regularly to the slate, on which she kept scrawling with a pencil. When at length she stopped and looked serious, "Well, my dear," he exclaimed, "have you been trying to draw my portrait?" ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford
... find old Joe Wilkings, and mighty anxious they were about him; and a nice tramp they had up hill and down dale before they discovered him; and when they did, they found him rolled up in a shawl on the policeman's hearthrug, for, of course, Mr. Podder, the policeman, was not going to lock up the likes of an old boy of his age. Joe Wilkings had recovered a bit now, and he was that pugnacious he wanted to fight Mr. Podder and all those that had come to find him; and what should he do ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 28, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... may say and even believe that in allowing their children to leave home they are sacrificing themselves for their children's good; but there are very few pet dogs who would not be the better for a month or two spent elsewhere than in a lady's lap or roasting on a drawingroom hearthrug. Besides, to allege that children are better continually away from home is to give up the whole popular sentimental theory of the family; yet the dogs are kept ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw
... the center of the room. The electric light was turned on, revealing the bareness and absence of all ornament of the apartment; a fire was laid in the grate but not lit, and Priscilla's ugly square trunk, its canvas covering removed, stood in a prominent position, half on the hearthrug, half on the square of carpet which covered the center of the floor. Priscilla had taken off her jacket and hat. She had washed her hands, and removed her muddy boots, and smoothed out her straight, light brown hair. She looked what she felt— a very stiff and unformed specimen of girlhood. There ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... standing with his back to the fire unless he was quite alone. In the presence of the Chief Butler, he could not have done such a deed. He would have clasped himself by the wrists in that constabulary manner of his, and have paced up and down the hearthrug, or gone creeping about among the rich objects of furniture, if his oppressive retainer had appeared in the room at that very moment. The sly shadows which seemed to dart out of hiding when the fire rose, and ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... knocking against a chair to attract attention, and the girl on the hearthrug looked round with a startled exclamation; then ...
— The Phantom Lover • Ruby M. Ayres
... the other door, and would not have me shut it. So I stood between her and the hearth, on which lay the captain's corpse, with the hearthrug turned up on ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... things in good order." "The furniture of both houses wants much rubbing. Mrs. ——'s carpets are absurd beyond anything I have seen. I want her to turn the fenders up with the bottom to the fireplace: the carpets, when not likely to be in use, folded up and laid as a hearthrug partly under the fender." ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... her, with some vehemence, to take to glasses before her eyesight became further impaired. Mrs. Mills went back to the shop with a waggish caution against too much love-making. Bulpert, after shifting furniture, took up a position on the white hearthrug, and gave a stirring adventure in the life of a coastguardsman who saved from a wreck his wife and child. At the end, Bulpert mopped face, readjusted collar, and waited ...
— Love at Paddington • W. Pett Ridge
... she found herself, and when her eyes met his own they struck him as anxious and appealing. She was evidently not thinking of his song, though she said three or four times over that it was beautiful. "Well, I only wanted you to know, and now I must go," she added; but on his hearthrug she lingered with such an odd helplessness that he felt almost sorry ...
— Sir Dominick Ferrand • Henry James
... Frances sat in the beautiful drawing-room of their house, one on each side of the fireplace. They had it all to themselves, except for the cats, Tito and Timmy, who crouched on the hearthrug at their feet. Frances's forehead and her upper lip were marked delicately with shallow, tender lines; Anthony's eyes had crow's-feet at their corners, pointing to grey hairs at his temples. To each other their faces were as they had been fifteen years ago. The flight of time was measured for ...
— The Tree of Heaven • May Sinclair
... Dixon, standing on the hearthrug in the sanctuary of the housekeeper's room, one wet afternoon, shortly after the Coppinger return: "I see changes here, better and worse, good and bad, but I didn't think I'd live to see what I seen to-day—the children of this ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... the plain, homely room—where the table was on trestles, the chairs were stools, and the arm-chairs ingeniously cut out of casks, the carpet sacking, and the hearthrug skins—and the performance in the way of sleep on his arrival, interfered sadly with Nic's ...
— First in the Field - A Story of New South Wales • George Manville Fenn
... in the little flat, music made part of every day's programme. Pixie, seated on the hearthrug, would sing Irish ballads in a voice of crooning sweetness, she and Pat would join in duets, occasionally Stephen was persuaded to join in a trio, and presently, as the performers became "worked up" to their task, they would ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
... she said, with quiet amusement at his evident relief, and he got her a chair, the largest and most solid that the room offered, and planted himself opposite her, standing on the hearthrug, with one hand resting on the corner of the high mantelshelf, and the toe of a spurred riding-boot on ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... return to his friends as nothing more tangible than a padding of soft paws on the stairs, a movement under the dining-table, where he had been accustomed to lie in life, a sound of a dog lying down with a sigh, or getting up from the hearthrug before the billiard-room fire. ...
— Love of Brothers • Katharine Tynan
... of men. From the time she had put her hair up every man she had met had grovelled before her, and she had acquired a mental attitude toward the other sex which was a blend of indifference and contempt. For the cringing specimens who curled up and died all over the hearthrug if she spoke a cold word to them she had nothing but scorn. She dreamed wistfully of those brusque cavemen of whom she read in the novels which she took out of the village circulating library. The female novelist who was at that time her favourite always supplied with each chunk ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... see the fire on the edges of the furniture. The very thought of a hearthrug seems like a heathen luxury. What will you do first when you get ...
— A Dream of the North Sea • James Runciman
... at his listener. Mr. Silk, very pale and upright, was standing on the hearthrug, shaking all over with nervous excitement. Twice he tried ...
— At Sunwich Port, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... since he was no longer in the army —a tall, fine-looking man, slightly horsy in his get-up, with a very large red moustache, reddish-brown hair, and keen blue eyes. He wore a cut-away coat, and was standing on the hearthrug, his hands thrust into his trousers pockets, and smiling as he talked to a young clerical gentleman near him—the Rev. Octavius Brown. The Rev. Octavius was curate of a neighbouring ritualistic church, but in his life he was ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... seeing Mr. Bundercombe look more cheerful than when, at his urgent summons, I left Eve in the drawing-room and made my way into the study. He was standing on the hearthrug, with the tails of his morning coat drooping over his arms and an expression on his face that I can only describe as cherubic. Seated on chairs, a yard or so away from him, were two visitors of whom at first glance I formed a most unfavorable opinion. One was a flashily dressed, ...
— An Amiable Charlatan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... because I love you so dearly, because I would give all the world if I had it to have you for my wife, I would not make you the wife of a man who could become the thing that was lying on the hearthrug of the Den four nights ago—a man drunk against his own will, a slave to one of the vilest of habits—no, something much worse than a habit, a disease inherited ...
— The Missionary • George Griffith
... office windows and Cartwright, with his feet on the hearthrug studied an Atlantic weather chart. The temperature reported by the liners' captains was low, and winter had begun unusually soon. Since Cartwright had hoped for a mild November, this was unlucky. As a rule, cargo is plentiful at Montreal shortly before the St. Lawrence freezes ...
— Lister's Great Adventure • Harold Bindloss
... hearthrug in the winter-time We lay and read it over; We read it in the summer's prime, Amidst the hay and clover. The trees, by evening breezes fann'd, ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
... mountainous regions we passed through I saw several paddies no bigger than a hearthrug. At one spot a land crab scurried across the road. It was red in colour and about 2-1/2 ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... growing domestic circle his hours of relaxation were spent. There those who had only known him in his professional capacity were surprised to find him displaying the tenderness and jocosity of a parent. The dignified and stern headmaster was actually seen to dandle infants and to caracole upon the hearthrug on all fours. Yet, we are told, 'the sense of his authority as a father was never lost in his playfulness as a companion'. On more serious occasions, the voice of the spiritual teacher sometimes made itself heard. An intimate friend ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey |
