"Motherless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... about half-past nine it was this night, and I was lying quietly in bed, looking up to the ceiling; no light on account of the mosquitoes, and Maud, the little girl I was caring for, a romping dear of seven or eight, a motherless child, had been tossing about restless like, and her arm was flung over me. All at once I saw a lady standing by the side of the bed in her night dress and looking earnestly at the child beyond me. She then came nearer, took Maud's arm off me, and ...
— Adopting An Abandoned Farm • Kate Sanborn
... said, "you ARE 'big, and splendid, and fine,' or you never would be going to Chicago after this little motherless child. You haven't said a word, but I know from the joy of you and Robert during the past months that Mrs. Southey isn't troubling you any more; and I'm sure enough to put it into words that when you get your little child, she will lead you straight where mine as led me. Good-bye and good luck ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter
... rolling, dreary moorland that looked like a heaving ocean under a leaden sky. One brother these five sisters had, a brilliant but superficial boy, with no stable character, who became a drunkard and died after lingering on for years, a source of intense shame to his family. The girls were left motherless at an early age. Four were sent to a boarding school for clergymen's daughters, but two died from exposure and lack of nutritious food, and the others, starved mentally and physically, returned ...
— Modern English Books of Power • George Hamlin Fitch
... Maria Bronte as Charlotte's wonderful power of representing character could give. In 1825 both Maria and Elizabeth died of consumption, and Charlotte was suddenly called from school into the responsibilities of the eldest sister in a motherless family. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... fed, the old and knowing, the young and optimistic, and all the yellow babies with uncertain feet and tiny noises. After that, a setting sun which set fire to the sky and water and trees, melting and mingling them together, and Tootles turned the corner. The motherless waif slept that night on Nature's maternal breast and ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... a rake determined the life of this girl. She fell, not through ignorance or curiosity, but moved by anger and, as it were, out of bravado. Since she was without social position, motherless and isolated, having no family, without a prop and unloved, well, she threw off the yoke absolutely. She broke through her shackles at one bound. ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... as though the whole world, once aroused By the first notice of such wonder's birth, Would break bounds to contest my prize with me The first discoverer, should she but emerge From that safe den of darkness where she dozed Till I stole in, that country-parsonage Where, country-parson's daughter, motherless, Brotherless, sisterless, for eighteen years She had been vegetating lily-like. Her father was my brother's tutor, got The living that way: him I chanced to see— Her I saw—her the world would grow one eye To see, I felt no sort of doubt at all! 'Secure ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... murmured Minty, in a child's voice—the grown-up woman, under that magic touch, having lapsed again into her father's motherless ...
— A Phyllis of the Sierras • Bret Harte
... bequeathed to his only son his professional ability, with ample means of commencing his career in a handsome manner. When he first came to Scotland to visit his mother's sister, he found her a corpse; and there, in the house of mourning, the consoler of the motherless Barbara, he learnt to love her with a sincerity of affection to which she fully responded. Great was his vexation and surprise to receive a stern denial of his suit from the minister, who, although he had never testified any degree of partiality for his wife's nephew, ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, August 1850 - of Literature, Science and Art. • Various
... wept, and I have not done that before since my mother died," and now I saw that there was the moisture of tears about her eyes. It was near to making me cry myself when I thought of all that poor child had been through. Motherless and unprotected; hunted across a savage, primeval world by that hideous brute of a man; exposed to the attacks of the countless fearsome denizens of its mountains, its plains, and its jungles—it was a miracle that she ...
— At the Earth's Core • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Kennedy passing from the world, and as she felt the approach of death she leaned more and more upon her daughter, talking to her often of the future and commending Louis to her care, when with her he would be motherless. Maude's position was now a trying one, for, when her mother became too ill to leave her room, and the doctor refused to hire extra help, saying, "two great girls were help enough," it was necessary for her to go into the kitchen, where she vainly tried to conciliate old Hannah, who "wouldn't ...
— Cousin Maude • Mary J. Holmes
... looking away, "was a Russian noblewoman. Sophia is Farrell's daughter by adoption only. Farrell was once my closest friend. When my wife died...." He covered his eyes with his hand and remained silent for a few seconds. "When Sophia was left motherless, an infant in arms, Farrell offered to adopt her. Because I became, about that time, aware of this horror that has poisoned my life—this thing of which you have seen something to-night—I accepted on condition that the truth be never revealed to her. It cost me the friendship of Farrell; he ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... But motherless Bernice bought her own clothes and paid her own bills; and so generous was her father, that there was no stint, and as a consequence, she too, cared and thought little about money as ...
— Two Little Women on a Holiday • Carolyn Wells
... not to hear her voice, not to gaze upon her form, but to weep over her grave, and with his motherless child to sit in sorrow on the spot where she breathed her last. Such was the violence of her fever that she said but little, and left her husband without many of those tokens of kindness which surviving friends esteem of so ...
— Daughters of the Cross: or Woman's Mission • Daniel C. Eddy
... force, the crisis was passed, and the attending physician had pronounced the patient much better; still, when Salome stooped to kiss her sister, the matron held her back, assuring her that perfect quiet was essential for her recovery. Kneeling there beside the motherless girl, Salome noted the changes that time and suffering had wrought on the delicate features; and, as she listened to the quick, irregular breathing, the fountain of tenderness was suddenly unsealed in her own nature, and she put out her arms, yearning to clasp Jessie ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... features: He was precociously intelligent, and knew more than most children older than himself." When Meneval—the former secretary of his father, giving up his post in Austria with Maria Louisa, as he was about to rejoin Napoleon—took farewell of the Prince in May 1815, the poor little motherless child drew me towards the window, and, giving me a touching look, said in a low tone, "Monsieur Meva, tell him (Napoleon) that I always love him dearly." We say "motherless," because Maria Louisa seems to have yielded up her child at the dictates ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... Travers's guarded smiles. Her earlier victims were kept a-dangling until Rayner, too, succumbed, and then were sent adrift. She meant that no penniless subaltern should carry off her "baby sister,"—they had long been motherless,—and a season at the sea-shore had done her work well. Steven Van Antwerp, with genuine distress and loneliness, went back to his duties in Wall Street after seeing them safely on their way to the West. "Guard her well for me," he whispered to Mrs. Rayner. "I dread those fellows in ...
— The Deserter • Charles King
... a world of unconscious longing in Patricia's voice; no one, not even Daddy, knew quite what the coming of her grandmother meant to the little motherless girl. And a grandmother she had not seen since babyhood. The coming weeks seemed to Patricia ...
— Patricia • Emilia Elliott
... her sensations nor wake her discriminative power, and choose others that speak to her more clearly. Let us watch her closely, both to penetrate the secret of her condition and to protect the other children. What a joy, what a triumph to say to her some dear day, a few years hence, "You poor, motherless bairn, we have swept away the cobwebs of your dreams, given you back your will, put a clue to things in your hand: now go on and learn to live and be mistress of your ...
— Marm Lisa • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... told her, that if she would see that Saviour's face in Heaven, and dwell with him in joy and peace for ever, she must learn to pray for those dreadful men who had made her fatherless and motherless, and her home a desolation; that the fire of revenge must be quenched within her heart, and the spirit of love alone find place within it, or she could not become the child of God and an inheritor of the kingdom of Heaven. How hard were ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill
... intimate, in spite of the difference in their ages. Marthe was full of indulgent kindness for her friend, whom she had known as quite a child, motherless and left to herself; whereas Suzanne was less even-tempered with Marthe, now gushing and coaxing, now aggressive and satirical, but always ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc
... saw one pausing for a space To lift a wistful face Up to a certain window where there dreamed A little brood left motherless; and there One turned to where the unploughed fields lay bare; And others lingering passed—but one there seemed So over glad to haste, she scarce could wait To ...
— The Haunted Hour - An Anthology • Various
... present denuded state, every approaching visitor was so easily visible. She was still very young, though her child was about eight; she having been married, so to speak, out of the nursery, a young creature of sixteen, a motherless girl, with no one to investigate too closely into the character of the young lover, who was not much more than a boy himself, and between whom and his girlish bride a hot, foolish young love had sprung up like a mushroom, in a week ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... figure of a young girl, dirty and shabbily clad. Still her great black eyes, her coarse, uncombed, lusterless black hair falling over her sun-burned face, her red arms and feet streaked with the red soil, were all familiar to him. It was Melissa Smith—Smith's motherless child. ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... as to be the youngest of five children who, soon after I was born, were left motherless. I had to bear the humiliating name "Hakadah," meaning "the pitiful last," until I should earn a more dignified and appropriate name. I was regarded as little more than a plaything by the rest of ...
— Indian Boyhood • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... of that sacred flag; but, as has been said, that was before it was pointed out to him that this was the Honorable M. C. from the Pelican State, now prominent as a member of the House Committee on Military Affairs. Motherless and sister-less was the wounded boy, yet gentle and almost caressing hands had blessed his pillow and helped to drive fever and delirium to the winds. It was twelve days after they brought him back to Frayne before the father could ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King
... Flemish city had been few and far apart, fondly though he loved his motherless girl. He had been a wanderer for the most part during those years, tossed upon troubled seas, fighting with Conde against Mazarin and Anne of Austria, and reconciled with the Court later, when peace was made, and his friends the Princes were forgiven; an exile ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... pushed away his half-eaten supper. He knew himself what it was to be friendless and lonely, and his heart softened toward this worse than motherless child. ...
— He Fell in Love with His Wife • Edward P. Roe
... straight to Bray's,' said Nicholas. 'I will see this man. If there is a feeling of humanity lingering in his breast, a spark of consideration for his own child, motherless and friendless as she ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... of winter were sweeping those northern latitudes. The health of Hortense was extremely frail. She was fatherless and motherless, alienated from her husband, bereaved of one of her children, and all her family friends dispersed by the ban of exile. She had no kind friends to consult, and she knew not which way to turn. Thus distracted ...
— Hortense, Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... which was essentially womanly, had in reality long craved for the intimate sympathy and intercourse which only another woman could supply. There was something indolent and restful in the very atmosphere of the house that supplied a distinct want in the motherless girl's life. There were a number of vague possibilities of trouble in the world, half perceived, half divined by Eve; which possibilities Mrs. Harrington seemed capable of meeting ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... did, and had a family. But all His children died save one, and then his wife. And so he hither came to change the scene. Bolton, just widowed then, received his friend With more than brother's kindness, for their griefs Bound them, like ties of soul, in sympathy. De Vere was ill, and, with his motherless babe, He found in Bolton's home the rest he sought. And there he died, and left his little daughter To his friend's guardian care; and to his will A codicil annexed, unknown to Bolton, That gave him all if Isabelle should die Before she reached the ...
— Godey's Lady's Book, Vol. 42, January, 1851 • Various
... when Bill shall have yielded up his wages. Old ladies of the locality are here in plenty, doubtfully fingering the pieces of meat which smother the slabs of the butchers' shops. Little Elsie is here, too, buying for a family of motherless brothers and sisters with the few shillings which Dad has doled out. Who knows so well as Little Elsie the exact spending value of twopence-halfpenny? Observe her as she lays in her Sunday gorge. Two penn'orth of "pieces" from the butcher's to begin with (for twopence you get a ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... associates in his old haunts. When he returned to his home after these seasons he found the gloom and emptiness there more hard to bear. He hated with a deeper hatred the feeling of responsibility and care that was thrust upon him by the sight of his motherless children. He felt himself sinking under the strain, and he longed to ease himself in some way. If only a friend had been found to take the burden and bear it, how gladly would he have relinquished his place; but there was no one who would accept it. ...
— The Hero of Hill House • Mable Hale
... never forget—nor could Bess—how she had come to them in their loneliness, and taken the motherless little flock into her arms, comforting them and wrapping them all about with her love and sympathy. How could ...
— The Story of the Big Front Door • Mary Finley Leonard
... the public also, the benefits I received from the use of a half dozen bottles of it. My condition was pitiful before I was persuaded to use it. I had leucorrhea, no appetite, cold feet, weakness, fainting spells, melancholy. I felt that I would soon leave my children motherless. I fell off in flesh to a pitiful looking object. My friends around said I must be consumptive. My family doctor gave me nearly all kinds of blood medicine for over a year—all kinds of tonics to build up flesh, but ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... a father's heart, as soft and weak as a woman's. His-wife's death, and the care which he had been obliged to bestow all alone on his little ones, as well as the thought that these poor motherless children needed a great deal of love, combined to make him thus. So such a sharp struggle went on within him, all the more because he was ashamed of his weakness and tried to hide his confusion from little Marie, that the sweat started out on his ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... Paul, contain passages of humour and pathos, and of humour and pathos mingled together and shot in warp and woof, like some daintiest silken fabric, that are scarcely to be matched in the language. As I go in my mind through the motherless child's short history—his birth, his christening, the engagement of the wet-nurse, the time when he is consigned to the loveless care of Mrs. Pipchin, his education in Dr. Blimber's Academy under the classic Cornelia, and ...
— Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials
... faithful servants, is struck down by the dagger of the assassin. Her youth, her beauty, the sanctity of slumber, all were powerless to shield her. Full of life, and hope, and happiness, she is foully and hideously murdered—her babe left motherless, her young husband bereaved and desolate. If anything were needed to make the dreadful tragedy yet more dreadful, it is, that Sir Victor Catheron lies, as, we write, hovering between life and death. The blow, which struck her down, has stricken him too—has laid ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... When the motherless child was weeping her heart out over some trouble that had possessed her, even when she was quite a big school-girl, he would take her in his arms and carry her up and down the room, consoling and comforting her, till the wild sobbing ceased at last. She ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... trouble descried, To each troubled inquiry she calmly replied. Not so he. At the sight of that face back again To his mind came the ghost of a long-stifled pain, A remember'd resentment, half check'd by a wild And relentful regret like a motherless child Softly seeking admittance, with plaintive appeal, To the heart which resisted its entrance. Lucile And himself thus, however, with freedom allow'd To old friends, talking still side by side, left the crowd By the crowd unobserved. ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith
... those who tended the pile: she with many others was cast alive into the flames. The Queen, it was said, needed her attendance in another world. I stood amongst the people, still a child, and heard my mother's cry, and saw her burn! Fatherless and motherless, I went thence into the world alone, and wandered in the woods without knowing whither. There came people who seized me, and carried me back to the Court of King Atle. They said that I wished to run away, and I was conducted to the presence of the king. I answered ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... gloom which bereavement had cast over his life in the autumn of 1839 was at best only partially dispelled by the close and sympathetic relations with his family. It was, therefore, with satisfaction that all his friends, both on his own account and that of his motherless young children, heard of his approaching second marriage. Immediately after the election for the City, Lord John was married to Lady Fanny Elliot, second daughter of the Earl of Minto, a union which brought him ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... grievously disturbed for that. Mrs. Davis had wakened him up with a vengeance. WAS he such a remiss, careless father as she had accused him of being? HAD he so scandalously neglected the bodily and spiritual welfare of the four little motherless creatures dependent on him? WERE his people talking of it as harshly as Mrs. Davis had declared? It must be so, since Mrs. Davis had come to ask for Una in the full and confident belief that he would hand the child over to her ...
— Rainbow Valley • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... the carriage roll away): Poor girl! Poor, happy, unconscious, motherless child! If only I had the power to stay the blow! ... Who can it be, ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath
... answered sternly, and his answer vibrated through the room, "I have never admired, pitied, or loved Jeanne so much as now that I know that she has been—motherless." ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... should inform you in the first place that I have a daughter. Her mother has been dead for many years, and perhaps I have not given her the attention which a motherless girl is entitled to expect from her father. I don't mean," he said, hastily, "that we are in any sense out of sympathy, but latterly in some way I must confess that we have got a little out of touch." He glanced anxiously at his guest, ...
— Fire-Tongue • Sax Rohmer
... on an egg cooked by the heat from an alcohol lamp, I went to rescue the little I could from my office, and saw the resistless approaching fire shortly consume it. Lack of provisions and scarcity of water drove me the next morning across the bay. Two days afterward, leaving my motherless children, I returned to bear a hand in relief and restoration. Every person going up Market Street stopped to throw a few bricks from the street to make possible a way for vehicles. For miles desolation reigned. In the unburned districts bread-lines ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... herself, "why should not there be a woman to listen to the prayers of women? A mother in heaven for all motherless girls like me? In all God's thought and care for us, can he have withheld this boon, which ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... objections. The horse reached around and bit him sharply in the neck. It hurt, hurt awfully, but he persisted, only to receive another sharp bite, this time more savage. Sounding a baby whimper of despair, he ran back to the door and out into the motherless corral. ...
— Bred of the Desert - A Horse and a Romance • Marcus Horton
... dangerous fit of illness, through which my kind, well-meaning aunt had patiently nursed me. At the first news of my sickness she had, unsummoned, left her comfortable home in Rockland, in mid-winter, and had crossed the mountains to watch beside the feverish pillow of her motherless niece. Careful and kind was her nursing; and even the physicians owned that to her patient watchfulness I owed my life. How grateful was I; and with what looks of love did I gaze on her trim, spinster figure, as she moved earnestly and pains-taking around my chamber; but, alas! ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... the Lady Mildred passed Unto the rest prepared for her pure soul; Words that meant only this: I cannot trust Unto her earthly parent my young child, So leave her to her heavenly Father's care; And Heaven was gentle to the motherless, And fair and sweet the maiden, Gladys, grew, A pure white rose in the old castle set, The while her father ...
— Poems • Marietta Holley
... done her duty conscientiously after her lights, had now gone to finish three other young ladies, the motherless daughters of an Anglo-Indian colonel, over whom she was to exercise maternal authority and guidance, in a tall narrow house in Maida Vale. She had left Mrs. Tempest with all honours, and Violet had lavished gifts upon her at parting, feeling fonder of her governess ...
— Vixen, Volume I. • M. E. Braddon
... the head of her grief-stricken daughter, she said: "farewell, my dearest husband; it is but a little parting; you will meet me there at last." Turning to the Sea-flower, with her hand still upon the head of her daughter, she added, "my child will soon be motherless; through you, she is what I could wish to see her; and when I am gone, will you never lose sight of her? make her to be like yourself!" In a feeble voice she continued, "thank God that we may see heaven upon earth; ...
— Natalie - A Gem Among the Sea-Weeds • Ferna Vale
... her mother, and have come to see you, who loved her so well, and your good mother, who cared for her when she was motherless"— ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin
... I marry him?" she answered with passion, "because I was forced into it, bullied into it, starved into it. What would you do if you were a defenceless, motherless girl of eighteen, with a drunken father who beat you—yes, beat you with a stick—apologised in the most gentlemanlike way next morning and then went and got drunk again? And what would you do if that father ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... incredible luxuries from the Charity doctor (of which all could taste), but it brought in its train the assiduous attendance of Mrs. Simons. To see the kindly brown face bending over it with smiling eyes of jet, to feel the soft, cool hand pressed to its forehead, was worth a fever to a motherless infant. Mrs. Simons was a busy woman and a poor withal, and the Ansells were a reticent pack, not given to expressing either their love or their hunger to outsiders; so altogether the children did not see so much of Mrs. Simons or her bounties as they would have liked. Nevertheless, in ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... one kind, a wing of another, or a head of a different species. The ends of the world had been searched to make this patchwork of blood. The women raved over the cruel display; they gloated over our beauty; but they cared nothing for the pathetic story the hats told of rifled nests and motherless young. ...
— Dickey Downy - The Autobiography of a Bird • Virginia Sharpe Patterson
... his absent-minded, startled way. He had never understood her since she was first put into his hands, aged six months, a fluffy bundle of motherless babyhood. She never ceased to startle him. She was an enigma beyond any puzzle in mathematics he had ever brought his mind ...
— Bambi • Marjorie Benton Cooke
... tears, nor prayers could avail to keep the mother longer. Her work on earth was done, and after this conversation with her daughter, she grew worse so rapidly that hope died out of Alice's heart, and she knew that soon she would be motherless. There were days and nights of pain and delirium in which the sick woman recognized none of those around her save Alice, whom she continually blessed as her darling, praying that God, too, would bless and keep His covenant child. At last there came a change, and one lovely Sabbath morning, ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... crying, with a woeful voice, "The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away, blessed be the name of the Lord;"—but it was manifest to all that her faith was fainting within her. But of all the piteous objects there, on that doleful evening, none troubled my thoughts more than three motherless children, that belonged to the mate of one of the vessels in the jeopardy. He was an Englishman that had been settled some years in the town, where his family had neither kith nor kin; and his wife having died about a month before, the bairns, of whom the eldest was but nine ...
— The Provost • John Galt
... heavy silks of gleaming blue—was laid on a bamboo pyre. Dhoop Ki Dhil tenderly sprinkled flower-petals and incense-oils over all, and lighted the four corners for the motherless one, herself. Cadman and Skag watched the clean flames, till only silver ashes were on the ground. And all the while the people sang their great soft lullaby, without tears ...
— Son of Power • Will Levington Comfort and Zamin Ki Dost
... some day the boy would come back—she and one other whose faith in his last boyish promise, phrased in bitterness, also endured. For during the next five years there was not a summer which brought Allison into the hills but what the first question of his daughter Barbara, motherless now herself, ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... which Emily Bronte clung with the passionate love of the Swiss for his white mountains, with a homesickness in absence that strained the very cords of life. Yet her childhood in that motherless home had few of the elements of childish happiness, and its busy strictness of daily life was saddened by the loss of Maria and Elizabeth, dear, never-forgotten playfellows. Charlotte, now the eldest of the family, was only two years older than Emily, but her sense of responsibility made ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... cold world, out in the street, Nothing to wear and nothing to eat, Fatherless, motherless, sadly I roam, Child of misfortune, I'm driven ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... conceal from you, that my tender interest in the future of Adele counted for a great deal more. As I had supposed, the communication to Julie (which I effected through her brother) that her child was still living, and living motherless, woke all the tenderness of her nature. I cannot say that the sudden change in her inclinations was any way flattering to me; but knowing her recent religious austerities, I was prepared for this. I shall not undertake to describe to you our ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... in the cold world, out in the street, Asking a penny of each one I meet; Shoeless I wander about through the day, Wearing my young life in sorrow away. No one to help me, no one to love, No one to pity me, none to caress, Fatherless, motherless, sadly I roam; A child of misfortune, ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... Durham do you dwell?' She check'd herself in her distress, And said, 'My name is Alice Fell; I'm fatherless and motherless. ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various
... over the deep grief which preyed upon the hearts of the unfortunate brothers, for weeks after they had been compelled to acknowledge the stern truth that they were indeed motherless. Those who have, at that tender age, known what it is to lose an affectionate mother, and under circumstances at all similar to those just described, will be at no loss to comprehend the utter desolation of their bruised spirits: to those who have not sustained ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... tenderly over mother and babe, and covered them with earth, saying many prayers. Then he went back to his fatherless, motherless maid. ...
— The Gathering of Brother Hilarius • Michael Fairless
... the only—the motherless—daughter of the stern General Campbell, who early installed her into the duties of housekeeper, and it sometimes happened that, in setting down the articles purchased, and their prices, she put the "cart before the horse." Her gruff papa never lectured ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... loud weeping and lamentations, entreating him to let her go that instant to Zachow. Eat and drink could she not from grief, though she had eaten nothing the whole morning. So the mournful knight, who had himself risen from the table without eating, to hasten to his little motherless lamb, asked her where she had passed the morning, for he had not seen her in the church? To which she answered, that she had sunk down almost dead on the altar-steps; and, as he seemed to doubt her, she repeated part of the ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... the pastor of one of the largest churches in the city, he always had time for his beloved and motherless daughter. ...
— Rosa's Quest - The Way to the Beautiful Land • Anna Potter Wright
... that really gave savour to life. But the first faint line of Europe brought my child to my horizon; and all the rest of the way she kept her place, holding out her little arms to me, beckoning me on. Her four motherless years brought compunction to my heart and tears to my eyes; she should have all the compensation that could be. I suddenly realized how ready I was—how ready!—to have her back. I rebelled fiercely against John's decision ...
— The Pool in the Desert • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... consequences that would arise in case she herself were to share that fate. She felt greatly relieved upon hearing the cave-woman speak so hopefully of her own case, for she bethought herself of those whom she would leave motherless. But her curiosity was raised to the highest pitch. Eager and anxious to learn upon what grounds Shotaye based her assurance of safety, Say nestled close to her side in order not to lose a syllable of the talk. It was necessary, for Shotaye proceeded ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... bent over it. He looked with tender sympathy at the little marble image which yesterday was a poor, ragged peasant, to-day was a bright and winged angel. His thoughts flew back to the imperial palace, where his little motherless daughter was fading away from earth, and the father prayed for his only child. He took from the passive hands a rose, and softly as he came, he left the solitary cottage, wherein an ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... silently take my hand, and sit at my feet when I stopped in beautiful places. She seemed to understand without a word; and I never shall forget her little figure, with its light, but pensive motion, and her delicate, grave features, with the pale, clear complexion and soft eye. She was motherless, and much left alone by her father and brothers, who were boatmen. The two little girls were as pretty representatives of Allegro and Penseroso as one ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... far out on the lonely moor sat down to think. Like a weird magician, Memory led me back into the past, calling up the hopes and passions buried there. My childhood,—fatherless and motherless, but not unhappy; for no wish was ungratified, no idle whim denied. My boyhood,—with no shadows over it but those my own wayward will called up. My manhood,—when the great joy of my life arose, my love for Agnes, a midsummer ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... what she had fancied in the way of a daughter-in-law, but, wisely, she determined to make the best of Alden's choice. Something in her stirred in answer to the infinite appeal in the girl's eyes. At the crowning moment of her life, Rosemary stood alone, fatherless, motherless, friendless, with only brown alpaca to take the place of all the pretty things that seem ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... Reveley, who had with her the children before the mother's death, continued her care till they returned to the father on the 17th. Mrs. Fenwick, who had been in constant attendance on Mary, then took care of them for a time. Indeed, Mary's fame and character brought forward many willing to care for the motherless infant, whose life was only saved from a dangerous illness by this loving zeal. Among others Mr. and Mrs. Nicholson appeared with offers of help, and as early as September 18 we find that Godwin had requested Mr. Nicholson to give ...
— Mrs. Shelley • Lucy M. Rossetti
... have no income; on the other hand, how could he continue wholeheartedly painting pictures while consumed with the idea of the telegraph? The idea would not down; yet he must live; and there were his three motherless children in New Haven. He would have to go on painting as well as he could and develop his telegraph in what time he could spare. His brothers, Richard and Sidney, were both living in New York and they did what they could for him, giving him a room in a building they had erected at Nassau and ...
— The Age of Invention - A Chronicle of Mechanical Conquest, Book, 37 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Holland Thompson
... it was the living bereaved father who turned in the bewilderment of his grief to the "dear patient heart" of his sister, to find a second mother for his two motherless boys. To Martin Field, Mary was a guardian daughter, to Charles K. and Roswell M. 1st, she was a loyal and mediating sister, and to Eugene and Roswell M. 2d, she was a loving aunt, as her daughter Mary was an indulgent mother and unfailing friend. The last name survived ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... science toward a vain and deluded race that knew little and learned reluctantly. A man is either better or worse than the manner he chooses for purposes of conciliating or defying the world. Dr. Schulze was better, as much better as his mind was superior to his body. He and his motherless daughters were "not in it" socially. Saint X was not quite certain whether it shunned them or they it. His services were sought only in extremities, partly because he would lie to his patients neither when he knew what ailed them nor when he did not, and partly because he was ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... prisoner's friend. My soul responded to that; for I had realized it. About six years ago, I was one of those who got good advice from 'the old man.' I carried it out, and met with great success. I was fatherless, motherless, and friendless, with no home, nobody to take me by the hand. I felt, as the ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... will share my dear mother with you," she added with a sweet, bright smile. "Everybody loves mamma, and she has a heart big enough to mother all the motherless children with whom she comes ...
— The Two Elsies - A Sequel to Elsie at Nantucket, Book 10 • Martha Finley
... Preston, and watching every look of the teacher she loved and grieved at losing, sat Lucy Raymond, the minister's motherless daughter, a slight, delicate-looking girl, with dark hair and bright grey eyes, full of energy and thought, but possessing a good deal of self-will and love of approbation,—dangerous elements of character unless modified and restrained ...
— Lucy Raymond - Or, The Children's Watchword • Agnes Maule Machar
... on his return, he would shoot her through the head." Partly through fear, and partly from the goodness and rectitude of her mind, Lady Lovat devoted her attentions so entirely to the care of the delicate and motherless boy, that she saved his life, and won his filial reverence and affection by her attention. He loved her as a real parent. The skill in nursing and in the practical part of medicine thus acquired, was never lost; and Lady Lovat was noted ever after, among ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson
... he grow sick with weeping, And with sore heart mourn his loss; Sadly look on those two babies, Left so early motherless. ...
— Verses and Rhymes by the way • Nora Pembroke
... be wondered whether any girl who was ever born into the world could boast a stranger or a happier upbringing than Miriam. She was, it is true, motherless, but by way of compensation Fate endowed her with several hundred fathers, each of whom loved her as the apple of his eye. She did not call them "Father" indeed, a term which under the circumstances they thought incorrect. To her, one and all, they ...
— Pearl-Maiden • H. Rider Haggard
... Annie would cry for 'em jest for pure meanness, and whatever it was that Annie cried for they had to give it up or git a whippin'. She'd break up their rabbit-traps and their bird-cages and the little wheelbarrers and wagons they'd make, and they didn't have any peace at home, pore little motherless things. I ricollect one day little Jim come runnin' over to my house draggin' his wagon loaded up with all his playthings, his little saw and hammer and some nails the cyarpenters had give him when Old Man Bob had his new ...
— Aunt Jane of Kentucky • Eliza Calvert Hall
... young daughter (whom he named Marina, because she was born at sea) to Tarsus, intending to leave her with Cleon, the governor of that city, and his wife Dionysia, thinking, for the good he had done to them at the time of their famine, they would be kind to his little motherless daughter. When Cleon saw prince Pericles, and heard of the great loss which had befallen him, he said: 'O your sweet queen, that it had pleased Heaven you could have brought her hither to have blessed my eyes with the sight of her!' Pericles replied: 'We ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... Dunes. Cap'n Billy's girl! Been brought up like a wild thing! Sails a boat like an old tar! Swims like a fish! Motherless—old Billy, a poor shote, according to the gossip! The women have a sort of pitying contempt for him; the men keep their mouths shut, but you can fancy the training of this girl. I'm always interested in heredity and I'd like to know the girl's mother. Something ought to account ...
— Janet of the Dunes • Harriet T. Comstock
... The motherless boy looked after her until she had disappeared, and stared at the door that had closed upon her until he was recalled from his reverie by the voice of his friend, suggesting that they now see the rabbits. ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... the Motherless Girl.—Nowdays, the wealthy widower, instead of putting his young daughter at the head of the household, secures some woman of good reputation and social standing as his daughter's chaperon. She is, practically, the feminine head of the house, and in so far as possible, takes a mother's ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... out an artisan, A low-browed, stunted, haggard man, And a motherless girl, whose fingers thin, Pushed from her faintly want ...
— The Social Principles of Jesus • Walter Rauschenbusch
... nothing in this world which I will suffer to come between you and me. I have been lonely all my days—fatherless, motherless, friendless. Now I have found you, and I know how bitterly I must have suffered. If there are battles to fight I will fight them, if you would have me famous first, I will make myself famous, but no power in this world or any other shall take you away from ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... instead of the tatter of rags in which she had returned to the little Indian pueblo. She replied briefly to his queries regarding her welfare, and when he asked where she was living, she accompanied him to an old adobe where there were two other motherless children—victims of ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan
... case,' I said, 'it is different,'" Mrs. Yocomb continued. "'She is a motherless girl and has appealed to me for advice and sympathy. In her honest struggle to be loyal to thee she has worn herself almost to a shadow, and I have grave fears for her reason and her life, so great is her prostration. She has for ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... say, it is the will of God. If we see any of our brethren sick, we claim it to be the will of God. If we see the father of a family taken away, we bow our heads and say God's will be done. If we see a family of children left motherless, again we bow our heads and say God's will be done. If we see a beautiful infant snatched by death from the breast of it's heart-broken mother, we meekly bow again, and, with heart full of sorrow, say, it's the will of God. I tell you it is not the will ...
— The Pastor's Son • William W. Walter
... left motherless at a very early age, and during his first four years of life his father was entirely engrossed with parish duties, and the child had only occasional supervision from a hard-worked servant. Thus it happened that he was frequently ...
— Froebel's Gifts • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... day and went back to the house in Cuylerville, which had been closed for a few weeks, Miss Frances being away with some friends in Connecticut. But she returned at once when she heard the dreadful news, and was there to receive her brother and his motherless little ones. He told her of Daisy when he could trust himself to talk at all, of Julia's sickness and death, and Miss Frances felt her heart go out as it had never gone before toward the woman about whom little ...
— Miss McDonald • Mary J. Holmes
... Countess of Beaumanoir, and mistress of fiefs and manors, rights of chase and warren, mills and hospices, the like of which were not in Picardy, was happy in all things but her family. Her one son had fallen in his youth in an obscure fray in Guienne, leaving two motherless boys who, after her husband's death, were the chief business of life to the Countess Catherine. The elder, Aimery, grew to manhood after the fashion of the men of her own house, a somewhat heavy country gentleman, much set upon rustic sports, slow at learning, ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... Ericthonius took, "Offspring created motherless, and close "In basket twin'd with Attic twigs conceal'd. "The charge to keep, three sister-maids she chose, "Daughters of Cecrops double-form'd, but close, "Conceal'd what lodg'd within; and strict forbade "All prying, that her secret safe might rest. ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... sisters through a mission schoolmaster, who—knowing that they had been left motherless, and that a Hindu of good position had obtained something equivalent to powers of guardianship, and thus empowered had placed them with a Temple woman—was most anxious to save them, and wrote to us; and, as he expressed ...
— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael
... course; yes, of course He knows the best to do; but 'pears to me, His mercy hid its face behind His wrath, when He saw fit to let that poor innercent young creetur in there get well, after her ma was laid in the grave. It will be a harder heart than mine what can stand by, and tell her she is motherless." ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... folks know the best turn to take. I'm going to see what the little one's course will be. It seems very much as if my own two children were in the way of getting some lessons in gentleness and self-forgetfulness from the poor little motherless child, which I don't know so well as she does ...
— Harper's Young People, August 3, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... planet at length will be wheel'd thro' the silence of space, Motherless evermore ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs
... them scattering like ants before the shell whose direction you have ordered, you somehow forget to think of them as individuals, any more than the bear-hunter thinks of the cubs that will be left motherless. You watch your victims through your glasses as God might watch his mad universe. Your skill in directing fire makes you what in peace times would be called a murderer. Curious! You're glad, and yet at close quarters only in hot blood would you ...
— Carry On • Coningsby Dawson
... would sting so. 'Member the last switchin' I got. Dr. Henderson—I think he was old master's son-in-law. Me? Well, he whipped me 'cause I'd steal his eggs. I don't reckon I would a been so bad but I was raised up a motherless child. My mother died and ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Arkansas Narratives Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... Denmark he could do more for it than in Greenland, now he was alone. On July 29, 1736, he preached for the last time to his people and baptized a little Eskimo to whom they gave his name, Hans. The following week he sailed for home, carrying, as all his earthly wealth, his beloved dead and his motherless children. ...
— Hero Tales of the Far North • Jacob A. Riis
... against herself, but not his crime against dead Richard's child. And she stretched out long black-sleeved arms gropingly in the thick, numbing darkness that hemmed her in, and moaned to the Mother of the motherless to ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... grove for the burying-ground, and made ready some small bits of slate on which to write the names of those who died. He did not have it ready an hour too soon, for at sunset two little graves were needed, and Nurse Nelly shed tender tears for her first losses as she laid the motherless mice in one smooth hollow, and the gray-coated rebel in the other. She had learned to care for him already, and when she found him dead, was very glad she had been kind to him, hoping that he knew it, and died happier in her hospital than all ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... trail. And what happened then, M'seur? Just this: While the man-fiend urged on his dogs the son fired back with a rifle, and one of his bullets went straight through the heart of the pursuing Factor, so that in the space of one day and one night the little Meleese was made both motherless and fatherless by these two whom the devil had sent to destroy the most beautiful thing we have ever known in this North. Ah, M'seur, you turn white! Does it bring a vision to you now? Do you hear the crack of that rifle? Can ...
— The Danger Trail • James Oliver Curwood
... very sorry, yet I keep my grief within bounds. What seems to me so lamentable is that two honourable ladies should in the very spring-time of life have been carried off at the moment of becoming mothers. I am grieved for the infants who are left motherless at their birth; I am grieved for their excellent husbands, and grieved also on my own account. For even now I retain the warmest affection for their dead father, as I have shown in my pleading and my books. Now but ...
— The Letters of the Younger Pliny - Title: The Letters of Pliny the Younger - - Series 1, Volume 1 • Pliny the Younger
... Betsey had brought up a flock of motherless brothers and sisters, and done it wisely and well, though she never got any thanks or praise for it, and never expected any for doing her duty faithfully. If it had not been for aunty, Harry and Kitty would have long ago carried out their favorite plan, and have run away together, like ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... will serve," in Mercutio's modest phrase, so far as frequency is concerned. For a just estimate of the importance of the singular circumstance, it might be proper to consult the languid survivors, the widowed husbands, and the motherless children, as well as "the ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... for and looked after in every way; but their life, separated as they inevitably are from all they hold most dear, and with no prospect before them but that of a slow and cruel death, must indeed be a miserable one. In Molokai there are many tiny children, fatherless and motherless, parents without children, husbands without wives, wives without husbands, 'all condemned.' as Miss Bird says, 'to watch the repulsive steps by which each of their doomed fellows goes down to a loathsome death, knowing that by the same they too must pass.' A French priest ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... (himself a gifted but somewhat erratic man) brought his young wife into the solitude of this moorland parsonage and shut her up in a seclusion from which she was only removed by death, all the way down through the lonely childhood of the little motherless children, and on into their no less lonely and more afflicted womanhood, even to the deaths of all the gifted group, there is a depth of sombre gloom from which the sympathetic heart must turn away with a bitter pain and almost a feeling ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... trained nurses. Madge, poor girl, had to go away not knowing what arrangement was to be made for the care of the two little girls and infant son, the first Vars heir, by the way, whom she left behind. Oliver went as far as Hilton with her and got off there with his motherless brood, joining us at Edith's, while Madge and Marjorie were whisked away out West with the doctor and ...
— The Fifth Wheel - A Novel • Olive Higgins Prouty
... brother Marten had been sent away to school at Reading; but little Lucy was growing old enough to be something of a playmate; and Margaret, the motherless cousin, had been brought again to Stanford on a long visit. We can fancy what a delightful companion to these two small ones Mary must have been. She had left off, for the time, writing stories, but she was never tired of telling ...
— The Fairchild Family • Mary Martha Sherwood
... was very long ago, In the days of good Queen Bess, When upon the cold world's care, Fatherless and motherless, ...
— On the Tree Top • Clara Doty Bates
... then said: "My friend, I first tried, unsuccessfully, to have the United States take Texas as a gift. Not until I threatened to turn Texas over to England did I finally succeed. There may be within the sound of my voice some who have knowledge of sheep culture. They have doubtless seen a motherless lamb put to the breast of a cross old ewe who refused it suck. Then the wise shepherd calls his dog and there is no further trouble. My friend, ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... the motherless babies as four ruthless hands pulled apart their cosey nest, and there, among the nibbled fragments, appeared enough finely printed, greenish paper, to piece out parts of two bank bills. A large cypher and part of a figure one were ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, July 1878, No. 9 • Various
... abandon of sorrow that seemed to leave no room for hope. The fatal question burned a moment on his lips, then died away unuttered, leaving them pale as ashes, and a big tear fell upon the bright head of the girl whom he now believed to be with himself motherless. But in a moment his father took his hand in a tense, strong grasp, and drew him quickly forward. "She yet breathes," he whispered, "but is unable to recognize any of us. Heaven grant she may know you. For days past her moan has been, 'I cannot die until I see ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam
... was once an elephant who accidentally trod on the mother of a brood of newly-hatched chickens. Her tender heart filled with remorse for what she had done, and, overflowing with pity for the fluffy orphans, she wept bitterly, and addressed them thus: 'Poor little motherless things, doomed to face the rough world without a parent's care, I myself will be a mother to you.' Whereupon, gathering them under her with maternal fondness, she sat down on ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... suspicious moisture from his eyes with his rough, toil-hardened hand, "she takes it pretty hard now; but the time will come when she will thank me for it. Heaven knows there's nothing in this world more valuable than an education; and she will need it, poor little, motherless child!" ...
— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey
... on his pretty sister, and often could not find it in his heart to rebuke her, because she was motherless, and had only him and Cary to look to; and Cary's office was not to rebuke any one, much less her dear little sister-in-law. So Barbara was spoiled and humoured; while the children were kept in high order—a proper discipline being exercised in the nursery, as became a well-regulated ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 441 - Volume 17, New Series, June 12, 1852 • Various
... by Mr. and Mrs. Thrale to dine at Maesnynan, with my relation, Mr. Lloyd, who, with his pretty young daughter (motherless), received them at the door. All came out of the carriage except the great lexicographer, who was crouching in what my uncle jokingly called the Poets' Corner, deeply interested evidently with the book he was reading. A wink from Mrs. Thrale, and ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... pleasant over it, and all the way up the street she chatted right along as if nothing serious had ever happened. But when we stopped at the house, just as I was leaving the carriage, she quickly took my face between her hands and kissed me hard on the forehead. "You poor little motherless duck," she said, and left me with the impression there had been ...
— The Other Side of the Door • Lucia Chamberlain
... would be a responsible one," continued the lady, scrutinising Anna's face, and smiling again at what she saw there. "Taking charge of a motherless girl always is. And the circumstances in this ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... live in a better manner; and [so do] the rough Getae, whose uncircumscribed acres produce fruits and corn free to all, nor is a longer than annual tillage agreeable, and a successor leaves him who has accomplished his labor by an equal right. There the guiltless wife spares her motherless step-children, nor does the portioned spouse govern her husband, nor put any confidence in a sleek adulterer. Their dower is the high virtue of their parents, and a chastity reserved from any other man by a steadfast security; ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... women and rough on his friends; And he didn't have many, I'll let you know; He hated a dog and disgusted a cat, But he'd run off his legs for a motherless brat, And I guess there's many ...
— Pike County Ballads and Other Poems • John Hay
... round his legs, he heeded them not; they sought a father's smile—they found an idiot's stare. They cried: was it for their mother's embrace, or did they miss their brother and sisters? Not even the piteous cry of motherless infancy could light one spark of emotion in the widowed husband's breast—all was one awful blank of idiocy. A wife and three children, buried beneath piles of freight, had found a wretched grave; his heart and his reason had ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... care that Aimee had been given when the motherless girl had grown beyond old Miriam's ministrations, and for nearly nine years in the palace madame had maintained her courteous and tactful supervision. Indeed, it was only this last year that madame had undertaken new relations with the world outside, perceiving ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... was the saddest of my life. It was a bright May morning. Everything around seemed joyful and happy, but to me the world was gloomy. I imagined my wife lying at home a corpse, surrounded by my weeping, motherless little ones. She had passed away without my being at her bedside to go with her to the brink of the dark river. Mr. Morgan, my attendant, had lost his mother but a short time before this, and he could sympathize with me in a manner that aided me in ...
— The Twin Hells • John N. Reynolds
... guess. It was his daughter he talked about that way. She was all right enough, though astounding when you had expected something highly zoological and mouthless instead of motherless. She was a tall roan girl with the fashionable streamline body, devoted to the ukulele and ladies' wearing apparel. But not so young as that sounds. Her general manner of conduct was infantile enough, but she had tired eyes and a million little lines ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... wheel, tossed countlessly away into howling winter wind along five hundred leagues of rock-fanged shore. Or, worst of all, rotted down to forgotten graves through years of ignorant patience, and vain seeking for help from man, for hope in God—infirm, imperfect yearning, as of motherless infants starving at the dawn; oppressed royalties of captive thought, vague ague-fits of bleak, ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... you, fair stranger?' said he; and she, with tears, told him she was homeless, houseless, motherless. Then he fell in love with her sweet face and soft words; so he asked her to be his bride, and she went with him to the palace, her heart full of gratitude to the Sun, who had sent ...
— Tales Of The Punjab • Flora Annie Steel
... but I have wandered a motherless child; nor have I a father like the sons of men: alone ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson
... it, Jessie; and, with you to help me, I hope to make the child feel that she is not quite fatherless and motherless." ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott
... me," said Pete. "I never did the Lord no harm that I know of, but He's taken my young wife and left my poor innocent lil one motherless." ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... strange one. There had been no near relatives to interest themselves in the motherless girl left to the tender mercies of a brother nearly twenty years her senior, who was frankly and undisguisedly horrified at the charge that had been thrust upon him. Wrapped up in himself, and free to indulge in the wander hunger that gripped him, the baby sister was an intolerable burden, ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... Babe could speak, When he would kiss his mother's cheek And to her bosom press, The brightest angels standing near Would turn away to hide a tear— For they are motherless. ...
— The Posy Ring - A Book of Verse for Children • Various
... hurt. So now her heart went straight across the miles that still separated them and found Arethusa. That she was Ross's daughter was reason enough by itself, thought Ross's wife, to love her, had not the story of that blue-eyed girl who had died so long ago, also drawn Elinor's heart to the motherless baby the girl had left. And the motherless baby ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox
... bade adieu to the words "I can't" and with determination went about her task. As God never lets such zeal go without assistance, this mother found help in time of need. Another scene which I love to recall is that of a devoted father and by his side his two motherless daughters just entering womanhood. He gives them every spare moment that he has, and both are real examples ...
— The value of a praying mother • Isabel C. Byrum
... nature has been transformed into the pangs of the human mother; and the poet dwells much on the pathetic incident of death in childbirth, making [25] Dionysus, as Callimachus calls him, a seven months' child, cast out among its enemies, motherless. And as a consequence of this human interest, the legend attaches itself, as in an actual history, to definite sacred objects and places, the venerable relic of the wooden image which fell into the chamber of Semele with the lightning-flash, ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... this is cousin Marion's little girl who has been motherless for years! We heard you were dead. If I had known you were living I should have come for you. We were very dear to each other but on her marriage she went away. I can't see that you resemble her much except that she was fair and had light curly ...
— A Modern Cinderella • Amanda M. Douglas
... Bunk, had been for some years inhabited by an elderly half-pay naval officer, Captain Carnegy, and his motherless boys and girls. The other house was the Vicarage, the habitation of Mr. Vesey, the good old vicar, his invalid wife, and a pair of excitable Yorkshire terriers, Splutters and Shutters, thus curiously named for the sake of rhyme, ...
— The Captain's Bunk - A Story for Boys • M. B. Manwell
... received, meanwhile, a handsome and, indeed, munificent allowance. About sixteen years before the date at which this narrative opens, Philip Beaufort had "run off," as the saying is, with Catherine Morton, then little more than a child,—a motherless child—educated at a boarding-school to notions and desires far beyond her station; for she was the daughter of a provincial tradesman. And Philip Beaufort, in the prime of life, was possessed of most of the qualities that dazzle the eyes and many of the arts that betray the affections. It was ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... the girl, interrupting him, though nearly choked by her own emotions; "do you believe all you hear about a poor, motherless girl? Is the foul tongue of Hurry ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... hills, and again took up our line of march, "too sad to talk, too dumb to pray." But ten weeks after, our Willie, the baby, was buried in the sands of the Burnt River mountains. Reaching Oregon in the fall with our broken household, consisting of my father and eight motherless children, I engaged in school-teaching till the following August, when I allowed the name of "Scott" to become "Duniway." Then for twenty years I devoted myself, soul and body, to the cares, toils, loves and hopes of a conscientious ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... proud of his recent Q.C.-ship. The new Mrs. Le Geyt sat at the head of the table, handsome, capable, self-possessed; a vivid, vigorous woman and a model hostess. Though still quite young, she was large and commanding. Everybody was impressed by her. "Such a good mother to those poor motherless children!" all the ladies declared in a chorus of applause. And, indeed, she had the face of ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... in a passion of desire to give and claim sympathy. Her baby had been born and she was dead and buried before they had heard of it; twenty-three years ago! And Matilda's grief for her own child had been always mingled with love and longing for the motherless, unattainable young thing across the distance. Brown had kept the girl to himself and had never brought her back—because ...
— Andrew the Glad • Maria Thompson Daviess
... motherless girl. My daddy said he looked at her struggling along. All the other girls were trying to have a good time. But she would be settin' down trying to make a quilt or something else useful, and he said to a friend of his, 'That woman would make a good wife; ...
— Slave Narratives: Arkansas Narratives - Arkansas Narratives, Part 6 • Works Projects Administration
... wonderfully pleasant to feel, and Thor stood there for many moments, making neither movement nor sound while the cub licked his wound. Then he lowered his great head. He sniffed the soft little ball of friendship that had come to him. Muskwa whined in a motherless way. Thor growled, but more softly now. It was no longer a threat. The heat of his great tongue fell once on ...
— The Grizzly King • James Oliver Curwood
... the applications for the admission of destitute orphans are so many, does both quicken me to prayer, and is also a great encouragement to me that the Lord will give me the desire of my heart, to provide another home for these destitute, fatherless and motherless children. ...
— The Life of Trust: Being a Narrative of the Lord's Dealings With George Mueller • George Mueller
... much about you, Ralston, but your record is clean since you came here—despite some attempts to blacken it. I like your face—and if you can make my motherless girl happy when I'm gone, you'll have ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... wiser than most lads, Richard. You've a head on your shoulders. I've known you long; but you have never spoken—until to-night. It was your will that took you through your puny childhood, fatherless, motherless, and made your stern old uncle proud of you. Why now be down-hearted? I've heard you spoken of as a lad of spirit by Dr. Warren, aye, and ...
— Patriotic Plays and Pageants for Young People • Constance D'Arcy Mackay
... as I have said, took me at first by surprise. I remembered how devotedly Lady Westwick had soothed her sister-in-law's death-bed sufferings, and how tenderly she had afterward watched over the welfare of the little motherless child—I remembered the innumerable claims she had established in this way on her brother's confidence in her affection for his orphan daughter, and I was, therefore, naturally amazed at the appearance of a ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... home, from the bedside of his nearest and dearest, and sent to domicilio coatto to live or die in a silence as deep as that of the grave. Oh, I know what I am saying. I have been in the midst of it. I have seen a father torn from his daughter, and the motherless child left to ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... youngsters' clothes; the last necessity arising from the fact that they had filled the bathtub and taken a glorious dip without the formality of removing their garments. "You're the plague of my life, so you are; but poor motherless darlin's, I can't but love you! And sorra the day, when him 't you belongs to ...
— Dorothy's House Party • Evelyn Raymond
... death of his first wife, Prince Toyonari married again, a lady of noble birth named Princess Terute. Very different in character, alas! to the good and wise Princess Murasaki, this woman had a cruel, bad heart. She did not love her step-daughter at all, and was often very unkind to the little motherless girl, ...
— Japanese Fairy Tales • Yei Theodora Ozaki
... as bad circumstances as ever any poor Christians were ever in; for the cries of the widowers, widows, fatherless and motherless children are enough to pierce the hardest of hearts. Likewise it is a very sorrowful spectacle to see those that escaped with their lives with not a mouthful to eat, or bed to lie on, or clothes to cover their ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... till I encounter him; and then, uncle, when I have an old gentleman by the hand, who has been disabled in his country's service, and is struggling to support his motherless child, a poor relation, and a faithful servant, in honorable indigence, impulse will supply me with words to express ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... just received, my dearest Sir, your kind present, and still kinder letter. Surely, never had orphan so little to regret as your grateful Evelina! Though motherless, though worse than fatherless, bereft from infancy of the two first and greatest blessings of life, never has she had cause to deplore their loss; never has she felt the omission of a parent's tenderness, care, or indulgence; ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney |
