"Petting" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... at any show of brotherly emotion. The Lampton men were fine lovers; no woman had ever found them wanting in the art. But it was part of their tradition to suppress all outward signs of family affection. Instinct told him that some caresses and a petting were what his sister longed for. For weeks she had been robbed of a lover's devotion, a very fine lover, who had filled her days with romance and her ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... girls of eighteen Priscilla had learned to kiss and be kissed on every possible occasion; in the exotic and not at all uncommon pleasure of "petting" she had acquired infinite wisdom and complete disillusionment. But in all her "petting parties" on the "Mayflower" and in Plymouth she had found no Puritan who held her interest beyond the first kiss, and she had lately reverted in sheer boredom to her boarding school habit of drinking ...
— A Parody Outline of History • Donald Ogden Stewart
... will want much petting and caressing, and she must foster his love by lavishing on him much fondness, and ignoring amours as but the mischievous results of his ...
— Epilepsy, Hysteria, and Neurasthenia • Isaac G. Briggs
... a Scotchman with a little literature very disagreeable. He is a superficial German or a dull Frenchman. The Scotch will attribute merit to people of any nation rather than the English; the English have a morbid habit of petting and praising foreigners of any sort, to the unjust disparagement of their ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... the close of the great naval engagement of the 17th of September, 1894, a hawk alighted on the fighting-mast of the Japanese cruiser Takachiho, and suffered itself to be taken and fed. After much petting, this bird of good omen was presented to the Emperor. Falconry was a great feudal sport in Japan, and hawks were finely trained. The hawk is now likely to become, more than ever before in Japan, a symbol ...
— Kokoro - Japanese Inner Life Hints • Lafcadio Hearn
... writer of this (all parties of the Third), that Lieutenant A had knocked Private B down. The officer appeared in his own defense, and gave in extenuation of his crime, that Private B had hit his (Lieutenant A's) chicken a stunning blow on the head while they were "petting" them between rounds. Now that decision of the courtmartial astonished our Colonel as much as the men who were parties to the combat themselves. Now it read something like this—time, ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... big pow-wow they had had about another tribe infringing on their rights away off somewhere. Then the women brought out the roast meat, owned up like nice little squaws, and expected to get some petting and praise, for they had done well and knew it. But, bless you! what happened? The more the braves gorged themselves on the turkey and duck, the madder they got, and after supper they all met out in the open and began to fret and fume. They sat down in a ring and passed a pipe ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... memory of all the kindnesses he had formerly received came back to his mind. Yes, an elephant never forgets an injury, but he never forgets a kindness either. Perhaps Mukna remembered at that moment all the petting he had received when he was a good elephant, all the sugar-canes and bananas and pancakes—and all the rewards for being gentle and docile and obedient. And now he realized that, instead of receiving these ...
— The Wonders of the Jungle, Book Two • Prince Sarath Ghosh
... Bobbsey twins knew it was out of the question to take their pets with them, so they made the best of it, Bert petting Snap and talking kindly to him. Snoop had gone out to the barn where he knew he might ...
— The Bobbsey Twins in the Great West • Laura Lee Hope
... everything that was beautiful, and dressed herself at haphazard; she could not endure to have young men pay court to her, but in books she read only those pages where love was the theme; she did not care to please, she did not like petting and never forgot caresses as she never forgot offences; she was afraid of death, and she had killed herself! She had been wont to say sometimes, "I do not meet the sort of man I want—and the others I will not have!"—"Well, and what ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... Mary on the knees of Saint Anne. The indefinite smile, the innocent consciousness, the tender maiden ways! Wife, mother, handmaid of high God, he thought of her as of Molly in apotheosis; dutiful for love's sake, yet incurably a child, made for the petting place. ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... removed by emigration and replaced by Protestants. The blame of the present disturbed condition of the country he laid upon four parties: First, the Government, who administered the country in a fitful manner, now petting, now coercing, while they should keep the country steadily under coercion, for alternately petting and coercing sets parties against one another more than ever. Second, landlords and agents, who rented land too high and raised the rent on the tenant's own invested improvements. ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall
... already heard. Her mamma and the count were going, with some friends, up the Nile after Christmas. Why might not she go also? Her lips quivered resentfully. Only that morning she had found the count in the aviary, petting the birds; she had wound her arms about his neck, and said, "Oh, how beautiful you are! When I have grown as tall and handsome as a woman can be ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 7 • Various
... no forgetting This much if no more, That a poet (pray, no petting!) Yes, a bard, sir, famed of yore, 10 Went where suchlike used to go, Singing for ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... her have her cry out, petting her awkwardly. Presently she dried her eyes, set at her supper in a businesslike way, heard the story to an end quietly, ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine
... himself, and that he knew she must know it; but at such hard moments she had the good sense to leave him to the soothing ministrations of his wife. Amy never set herself against him: first of all she would show him that she understood what was troubling him: then would say something sympathetic, or petting, or coaxing, and always had her way with him. She had the great advantage that not yet had he once ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... not regard the trouble seriously and I so enjoyed the fond nursing and petting of my wife that the pain brought its own recompense. It soon became evident, however, that I required ...
— The Romance and Tragedy • William Ingraham Russell
... desires, of which the self does not recognize the real character. As a matter of fact, a good deal of religious emotion is of this kind. Instances are the childish longing for mere protection, for a sort of supersensual petting, the excessive desire for shelter and rest, voiced in too many popular hymns; the subtle form of self-assertion which can be detected in some claims to intercourse with God—e.g. the celebrated conversation of Angela of Foligno with the Holy Ghost;[77] the thinly veiled human ...
— The Life of the Spirit and the Life of To-day • Evelyn Underhill
... turning away, began to whistle carelessly, while Vi, putting her small arms about Eddie's neck, said, "Phil Ross, you shouldn't 'sult my brother so, 'cause he wouldn't 'tend to hurt papa; no, not for all the world;" Harold chiming in, "'Course my Eddie wouldn't!" and Bruno, whom he was petting and stroking with his chubby hands, giving a short, sharp bark, as if he too had a word to say in ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley
... the pleasantness of the lad's voice and to enjoy it, and for a long time Ralph sat there petting him and talking ...
— Burnham Breaker • Homer Greene
... if you live to be a hundred years old, you will still die young; a child in heart, full of youth's joyous joy in living. You must not mind if your wife occasionally treats you as though you were a dear big baby, requiring maternal care and petting. You are such a veritable boy sometimes, and it soothes the yearning for a little son of yours to cuddle in her arms, when she plays that her big boy ...
— The Upas Tree - A Christmas Story for all the Year • Florence L. Barclay
... older I grow, the more I find out, and the better care I take of my stock. My grandfather would open his eyes in amazement; and ask me if I was an old women petting her cats, if he were alive, and could know the care I give my sheep. He used to let his flock run till the fields were covered with snow, and bite as close as they liked, till there wasn't a scrap of feed left. Then he would give them an open shed to run under, and throw down their hay outside. ...
— Beautiful Joe - An Autobiography of a Dog • by Marshall Saunders
... disadvantage. Dale did not bridle him, because he had not been broken to a bridle; and though it was harder for Bo to try to ride him bareback, there was less risk of her being hurt. Bo had begun in all eagerness and enthusiasm, loving and petting the mustang, which she named "Pony." She had evidently anticipated an adventure, but her smiling, resolute face had denoted confidence. Pony had stood fairly well to be mounted, and then had pitched ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... to go to an infant whom we could hear crying in an inner room; and, when he returned, he had the child in his arms—a little girl, in a night gown. He sat down, petting her, stroking her hair with his supple lean hand, affectionately, and smiling with a sort of absentminded tenderness as he took ...
— Under the Prophet in Utah - The National Menace of a Political Priestcraft • Frank J. Cannon and Harvey J. O'Higgins
... his back and fairly wallowed at my feet; jumped up and sprang upon me, rolling me upon the ground by his great weight; then wriggling and squirming around me like a playful puppy presenting its back for the petting it craves. I could not resist the ludicrousness of the spectacle, and holding my sides I rocked back and forth in the first laughter which had passed my lips in many days; the first, in fact, since the morning Powell had left camp when his horse, long ...
— A Princess of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... to Tad to go on, which the lad did, petting his pony as he reached him, and then pulling himself into ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Texas - Or, The Veiled Riddle of the Plains • Frank Gee Patchin
... such women as Isabel, Claire Belgarde, Mrs. Tristram, and certain others, with a thoroughness that is one of the best testimonies to their vitality. This comes about through their own qualities, and is not affected by insinuation or by downright petting, such as we find in Dickens nearly always and in ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... with a capacity of patient submission to hardship, and of wrestling with calamity, such as is rarely found amongst the endowments of youth. I have reason, also, to think that the state of degradation in which he believed himself to have passed his childish years, from the sort of public petting which I have described, and his strong recoil from it as an insult, went much deeper than was supposed, and had much to do in his subsequent conduct, and in nerving him to the strong resolutions he adopted. He seemed ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... continued to speak in this petting and almost flattering vein, while at the same time he fed the feverish and maltreated lad with pieces of choice candy and other tidbits for which he had sent while Jim was yet unconscious, and stroked the boy's hair and dressed his wounds with vaseline-soaked rags ...
— The Trail of the Tramp • A-No. 1 (AKA Leon Ray Livingston)
... you that are unjust. It is you that have spoilt Deleah, with petting and praising and telling her how ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... resent the fact that people laughed at her for petting a rooster. She liked the Blythes because ...
— Rainbow Valley • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... And you must not think, Maggie, that if Turks do not pet dogs they are cruel to them. It is not the case. A Turk would never dream of petting a dog, but if he saw one looking hot and thirsty in the street he would be more likely to take trouble to get it a dish of water than many English people who feed their own particular pets on mutton-chops. Jack was not likely to be ill-treated after ...
— Miscellanea • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... are checks on child slavery which do not exist, or are less powerful, in the case of manual and industrial slavery. Sensationally bad cases fall into two classes, which are really the same class: namely, the children whose parents are excessively addicted to the sensual luxury of petting children, and the children whose parents are excessively addicted to the sensual luxury of physically torturing them. There is a Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children which has effectually made an end of our belief that mothers ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw
... floor. The children could tell when this had happened. Her eyes would be red, and there would be blue marks on her face and neck. "Poor Mrs. Tony," they would say, and nestle close to her. Tony did not roar at her for petting them, perhaps, because they spent money on the multi-hued candy in ...
— The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories • Alice Dunbar
... would be so glorious to be independent," said Anna, "and now somehow it isn't. It is tiring. I want someone to tell me what I ought to do, and to see that I do it. Besides petting me. I long and long sometimes ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... is or not," the speaker pulled down the veil under her hat-brim and avoided her husband's eyes, "but he's lonely and heartbroken over the way that unprincipled woman has treated him, and he needs petting and nursing and some company in that big, gloomy house to take his mind off his trouble ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... government. And it might be further illustrated by the present condition of the largest subject race in the world—the race of women—to whom all the protective legislation and boasted chivalry and lap-dog petting, fondly supposed to be lavished upon them by men, are not to be compared in personal value with just the small right to a voice in the management of their ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... assuredly was wrong. "Miss Effingham," said Mr. Kennedy, "never seems to know her own mind." "I suppose she is like other beautiful girls who are petted on all sides," said Phineas. "As for her beauty, I don't think much of it," said Mr. Kennedy; "and as for petting, I do not understand it in reference to grown persons. Children may be petted, and dogs,—though that too is bad; but what you call petting for grown persons is I think frivolous and almost indecent." Phineas could not help thinking of Lord Chiltern's opinion that ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... he will run away," said Mr. Winkler, petting his furry companion. "I'm glad he didn't do any damage. My sister said he'd be sure to this time, but I'm ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue Keeping Store • Laura Lee Hope
... his wife were mightily astonished, but still more delighted; for, having no children of their own, they looked on the tiny maiden as a godsend, and determined to adopt her. So they took the greatest care of her, petting and spoiling her, and always calling her the Princess Aubergine; for, said the worthy couple, if she was not a Princess really, she was dainty and delicate enough ...
— Tales Of The Punjab • Flora Annie Steel
... if there was a single living being in the town that would not know that all his pleasures were reduced to kissing a new girl on the forehead and petting her behind the ears! Nadejda Stepanovna told me how they all laughed watching Polenov through the keyhole.... "Thanks," I said, "I am through with the Oficerskaya Street." So he went alone, trying ...
— Rescuing the Czar - Two authentic Diaries arranged and translated • James P. Smythe
... necessarily in the exact accidental state of the moment. She will tell you, for instance, that she sees him ailing slightly, lying in a deck-chair in a garden of such and such a kind, surrounded by certain flowers and petting a dog of a certain size and breed. On enquiring, you will find that all these details are strictly correct, with one exception, that at that precise moment this person, who ordinarily spends his time in the garden, was inside his ...
— The Wrack of the Storm • Maurice Maeterlinck
... and the work grows upon me, and fascinates me. It is the most magnetic as well as terrible sight: the lots of poor wounded and helpless men depending so much, in one ward or another, upon my soothing or talking to them, or rousing them up a little, or perhaps petting, or feeding them their dinner or supper (here is a patient, for instance, wounded in both arms,) or giving some trifle for a novelty or change—anything, however trivial, to break the monotony ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... petting the horses and trying to quiet them, dark clouds drifted rapidly across the sky. The sunshine passed away, and a breath of cold wind seemed to drift past us. It was only a breath, however, and more in the nature of a warning than a fact, for the sun came out brightly again. Johann looked under ...
— Dracula's Guest • Bram Stoker
... group, Charley dismounted, and petting and soothing his trembling horse, ran his keen eyes over the animal's legs and flanks. From the little pony's left foreleg trickled ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... St. Nicholas hotels. They get high prices for their pets. Dogs sell readily. It is the fashion in New York to discourage the increase of families, and to attempt to satisfy the half-smothered maternal instinct by petting these dumb creatures. ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... men, of course, but they had been several cuts above him in importance, and his relations with most of them had been formal. His whole being glowed and expanded. After the first cocktail or two, and after a little of this grateful petting, he had some difficulty in keeping himself from getting too expansive, in holding himself down to becoming modesty, in not talking too much. He quite realized the meaning of this sudden cordiality; but he welcomed it as another endorsement, from the highest, most unimpeachable sources, ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... Nevertheless, if the animal was dozing somewhere and anybody came near it, she would immediately notice his steps, and would distinguish them, for she would jump up frightened, if the newcomer was unknown, and would stretch herself with pleasure in the expectation of petting if she felt a friend coming. She would sense the lightest touch on the object she occupied, bench, window-seat, sofa, etc., and she was especially sensitive to very light scratching of the object. Such sensitivity is duplicated frequently ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... exhausted. I think she has had a very hard time of it, and has been wounded in the foot. Her foot is all right now, but she seems to have no life left in her. The war has utterly beaten her. Hunt is grazing and grooming and petting her all day. So she may pick up. At present she is somehow rather pathetic. She was with the Indian cavalry before she got wounded. And then she went to a veterinary hospital. She is well made, and may possibly brighten up. Hunt declares ...
— Letters to Helen - Impressions of an Artist on the Western Front • Keith Henderson
... because the animal knew that the boy was petting him, or because he had been treated harshly, and was willing to make friends with the first one who was kind to him, it is difficult to say; certain it is that as soon as he found himself in Toby's arms he nestled down with his face by the boy's neck, remaining there as contentedly ...
— Mr. Stubbs's Brother - A Sequel to 'Toby Tyler' • James Otis
... when Vixen was leaning upon the half-door of Arion's loose-box, giving herself up to a quarter of an hour's petting of that much-beloved animal, Captain Winstanley came into ...
— Vixen, Volume II. • M. E. Braddon
... of an advanced civilization there are those who have been spoiled by the petting to which they have been subjected. Life has been made so easy for them that when they come upon hard places which demand sturdy endurance they break forth into angry complaints. They have been given the results of the complicated activities of mankind, without having done their share in ...
— Humanly Speaking • Samuel McChord Crothers
... If petting and praise and devoted attention could spoil a dog, Hero's head would certainly have been turned that day, for friends and strangers alike made much of him. A photographer came to take his picture for the leading daily paper. Before nightfall his story was repeated in every home ...
— The Little Colonel's Hero • Annie Fellows Johnston
... took Daisy to her own room, and there the wonderful transformation began. She dressed Daisy in her own white satin dress, and twined deep crimson passion-roses in the golden curls, clapping her hands—at Daisy's wondrous beauty—kissing her, and petting ...
— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey
... amphora in the Louvre with a picture of the dicephalous Kerberos. Upon the forehead of each of the two heads rises a serpent. Herakles in tunic and lion's skin, armed with bow, quiver, and sword, stoops towards the dog. He holds a chain in his left hand, while he stretches out his right with a petting gesture. Between the two is a tree, against which leans the club of ...
— Cerberus, The Dog of Hades - The History of an Idea • Maurice Bloomfield
... loudly. Eurie ran. Dr. Mitchell was always so troubled about bumps on the head. She bathed this in cold water, and in arnica, and petted, and soothed, and pacified as well as she could a child who thought it a special and unendurable state of things not to have mamma and nobody else. Between the petting she administered wholesome ...
— The Chautauqua Girls At Home • Pansy, AKA Isabella M. Alden
... the most charming old man she had ever known, and liked nothing so much as to go out a walk with him. That, indeed, was one of the signorino's pleasures; he loved to take the young girl all over his gardens and vineyards, talking to her in the amiable, half-petting, half-mocking manner that he had adopted from the first; and twice a week he ...
— Stories By English Authors: Italy • Various
... the petting that is given them does not make them happy. They are too helpless: their lives are too frail. A weasel or a mouse that gets its own living is more interesting. I like to think that the animals about us have souls something like our own, and either carry on their own little ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... drear-nighted December, Too happy, happy brook, Thy bubblings ne'er remember Apollo's summer look; But with a sweet forgetting, They stay their crystal fretting, Never, never petting About the ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow, Vol. IV (of IV) • Harrison S. Morris
... He looks a little tired and hollow-eyed, but when the Boy crowed and smiled up at him his poor tired face softened so wonderfully that it brought the tears to my eyes. I finally persuaded him to stop petting Babe and pay a little attention to me. After supper he opened up his extra hand-bag and hauled out the heaps of things he'd brought Babe and me. Then I sat on his knee and held his ears and made him blow away the smoke, every shred of it, so I could kiss him in my ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... one of them would venture to take a liberty with him. But Bella had no fear of his grim face and stern ways, and "just twiddled her father round her finger," as her mother said, with a great show of impatience. But, in spite of all her petting from her big brothers and her father, Bella remained quite unspoiled, the light of her home and the joy of her father's heart. It had not escaped the father's jealous eye that Big Mack Cameron found occasion for many a visit to the boys on an evening ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... roses picks his finger pricks No matter what befall; In winter-time he finds them gone And gets no rose at all. Our petting and caressing here, Our joy or misery It all shall rest sub rosa, love, And our own ...
— The Breitmann Ballads • Charles G. Leland
... provided with a home for the small sum of five francs a month and her service in tending the sheep: she was not strong enough for more laborious work. Here Bernadette lived a calm and uneventful life, her duties causing her to be much in solitude, which she whiled away in petting her lambs. Very often the time had been set when she was to return home, but it was as often postponed. Her friends at Bastres could not bear to give her up, and year after year she had lingered with them. She had been at home only two weeks upon ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various
... Why the outgoing President's felicitation on the indorsement? Why the delay of a reargument? Why the incoming President's advance exhortation in favor of the decision? These things look like the cautious patting and petting of a spirited horse preparatory to mounting him, when it is dreaded that he may give the rider a fall. And why the hasty after-indorsement of the decision ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... with the old family furniture; the rather dirty, far from stylish, but respectful footmen, unmistakably old house serfs who had stuck to their master; the stout, good-natured wife in a cap with lace and a Turkish shawl, petting her pretty grandchild, her daughter's daughter; the young son, a sixth form high school boy, coming home from school, and greeting his father, kissing his big hand; the genuine, cordial words and gestures of the old man—all this had the day before roused an instinctive feeling ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... Billy True Blue Freeborn, the pride of the crew. No one shouted louder than Tim Fid and Harry Hartland; but Gipples growled out as he sneaked below, "It'll be all the same some day when a shot takes his head off. They can't keep that on with all their petting." ...
— True Blue • W.H.G. Kingston
... little postage stamps. It don't look dignified.' 'No?' says Harvey. 'No,' says Safety First in a firm tone. 'I won't ever have another single thing come by mail if I can help it.' 'I bet you're superstitious,' says Harvey, climbing back to his seat and petting the new gun again. 'I bet you're so superstitious you'd take this here shiny new implement off my hands at cost if I hinted I'd part with it.' 'I almost believe I would,' says Safety First. 'Well, it don't seem like I'd have much use for ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... the little creature in his arms and carried him home. The puppy's head was bleeding where Richard had struck him with the stone. James washed the blood away and gave the little dog something to eat, talking to him kindly and petting him ...
— A Hive of Busy Bees • Effie M. Williams
... morning," he continued, "two other moose cows came along up the lake shore, followed by their long-legged, shambling youngsters. They stopped to discuss the condition of lily roots with their tall sister; but at the sight of her nursing and petting and mothering a calf—a baby of the cattle tribe whom they despised and hated for its subservience to man and for living tamely behind fences, they became quite disagreeable. They sniffed loudly and ...
— Children of the Wild • Charles G. D. Roberts
... man who wanted so many things explained. Don't you see that, as long as Frida stays at home, petting and pampering him and doing all his work for him, he'll never take the trouble to marry; but as soon as she ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... accommodated themselves to the change in their circumstances. Certain it is that aunt Emily and Milly found peace and serenity reigning: Mrs. Yorke with the little cripple in her capacious lap, coddling and petting her as the good soul well knew how to do; the captain piloting the blind child about the house and garden, familiarizing him with different objects, by which he might learn his own way about by his acute sense of touch; the youngest—a teething, not consumptive, baby—fast asleep; ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews
... little joke of John's; he used to say that a regular course of "the Birtwick horseballs" would cure almost any vicious horse; these balls, he said, were made up of patience and gentleness, firmness and petting, one pound of each to be mixed up with half a pint of common sense, and given ...
— Black Beauty • Anna Sewell
... these little details, Joseph heaped attentions upon her in return. If mother and son had no sympathies in the matter of art, they were at least bound together by signs of tenderness. The mother had a purpose. One morning as she was petting Joseph while he was sketching a large picture (finished in after years and never understood), she said, as it ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... you wouldn't make such a fuss over those men," said Devers, petulantly. "Just leave 'em alone. They'll come out all right. This coddling and petting isn't going to do any good. Soldiers are not like ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... after petting them to my heart's content, they staggered up to their feet and came out of their house. Their mother had told them to stay; but here was another big, kind animal, evidently, whom they might safely trust. "Take the gifts the gods provide thee" was the thought in their little heads; and the salty ...
— Wood Folk at School • William J. Long
... Roxanne; and she gave me such a hug around the neck that it hurt awfully, only I liked it. It did feel funny to have somebody sniffing tears of sympathy against your cheek, and I didn't know exactly what to do. Petting has to be learned by degrees and you can't come to it suddenly. But I ...
— Phyllis • Maria Thompson Daviess
... secret, or the remnants of Montauban gossip, prevented any familiarity between Eustacie and the good ladies who surrounded her; they were very civil to each other, but their only connecting link was the delight that every one took in petting pretty little Rayonette, and the wonder that was made of her signs of intelligence and attempts at talking. Even when she toddled fearlessly up to the stately Duchess on her canopied throne, and held out ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... agreed—that point was the admitted fact that Tony Johnson was "delicate," and the difference lay chiefly in this: Mrs. Johnson said that Tony was delicate—meaning that he was more finely strung, more sensitive, a properer subject for pampering and petting than Jackanapes, and that, consequently, Jackanapes was to blame for leading Tony into scrapes which resulted in his being chilled, frightened, or (most frequently) sick. But when Miss Jessamine said that Tony Johnson was delicate, she meant that he was more puling, less manly, ...
— Jackanapes, Daddy Darwin's Dovecot and Other Stories • Juliana Horatio Ewing
... come." Mrs. Bishop (Isabella Bird) eloquently describes (II, 135-136) the attachment to her of a Persian horse, and incidentally suggests the philosophy of the matter in one sentence: "To him I am an embodiment of melons, cucumbers, grapes, pears, peaches, biscuits, and sugar, with a good deal of petting and ear-rubbing thrown in." Cases of attachment between husband and wife no doubt abound among savages, even when the man is usually contemptuous and rude in his treatment of the wife. The Niam-Niam husbands ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... After petting the two cats, and scratching them under their ears, which they seemed to like very much. Teddy held Snuff in his arms, and told Janet to ...
— The Curlytops and Their Pets - or Uncle Toby's Strange Collection • Howard R. Garis
... liked companionship, but he wouldn't be petted, or fussed over, or sit in any one's lap a moment; he always extricated himself from such familiarity with dignity and with no show of temper. If there was any petting to be done, however, he chose to do it. Often he would sit looking at me, and then, moved by a delicate affection, come and pull at my coat and sleeve until he could touch my face with his nose, and then go away ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... work to cry. My aunt, as well as my cousin Jeanne, to whom I was very devoted, hastened to me to know what was the matter. I answered like Marie: "My head aches." It would seem that complaining was not in my line; no one would believe that a headache was the reason of my tears. Instead of petting me as usual, my aunt spoke to me seriously. Even Jeanne reproached me, very kindly it is true, and was grieved at my want of simplicity and trust in my aunt. She thought I had a big scruple, and was not giving the real reason of my tears. At last, getting ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)
... had been safely transferred to that region of abstract facts, which she could consider dispassionately, and judge by the light of her kindly impulses; and it was under the influence of these that she was now bent on petting and making much of Madelon, giving her cakes and confitures and all kinds of good things. On second thoughts she had rejected the idea that M. Linders was going to die; it would be so very troublesome and inconvenient, ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... Krafft-Ebing.[40] In this case a congenital neuropath, of good intelligence but delicate and anaemic, with feeble sexual powers, had a great love of domestic animals, especially dogs and cats, from an early age; when petting them he experienced sexual emotions, although he was innocent in sexual matters. At puberty he realized the nature of his feelings and tried to break himself of his habits. He succeeded, but then began ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... from the first—that is something neither expects from the other—therefore any show of caressing fondness upon your part would be quite out of keeping with our position. I have watched with some amusement, and a little pain that you should imagine it requisite, your attempts at petting me during these last two weeks. Poor, helpless man! it was a little hard to have to pretend an interest and tenderness you did not feel. Will you let this cease, with every other demonstration of affection, in our ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... were busily engaged with Corwen, who had been ailing since the previous evening. Ellis was instantly struck by the picturesque beauty of the group before him. Corwen, standing with drooping head, and rather enjoying her extra petting; Shoni, with his brawny limbs and red hair, patting her soft, white flanks, and trying, with cheerful chirrups, to make her believe she was quite well again. Valmai stood at her head, with one arm thrown round her favourite's neck, while she kissed the curly, white forehead, and ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... We need to be very careful of our thoughts, and where our eyes wander. Keep the right kind of thoughts. A mother told her son when he was taking a trip, "Son, never do anything to place your body where your soul would not be the master." Petting and kissing among young people will lead to wrong thoughts and lead them into traps. We need to be careful and watchful about all of these things. "Keep thyself pure." My dear Grandson, we are in a battle in this ...
— The Key To Peace • A. Marie Miles
... Tinker, poor fellow, used to go with me most times, but I never gave much heed to him. He'd always follow without a word. He was an ugly brute, people used to say—a sort of lurcher, and he never got much petting ...
— Golden Moments - Bright Stories for Young Folks • Anonymous
... escaped a great deal of the ordinary consequences of this petting, but not all. He was at bottom really true-hearted, frank and generous—generous even to an extreme—but he had acquired a habit of producing striking impressions which dogged and perverted his every action and speech. He disliked losing a few shilling ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... cry!" Flora begged, petting the large expanse of heaving shoulders. "I didn't mean anything. I was just silly. Of course it may be that she wants to marry him. But she never has before—at least, I mean, I don't believe she wants to now. What makes you think she does? What has ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... night Evelyn was dreaming of feeding a big flock of little chickens and little pigs, and looking after and petting the mild-eyed milch-cows, and awoke fully convinced that she was going to have the happiest time of her life with her brother and her sweetheart ...
— Fred Fearnot's New Ranch - and How He and Terry Managed It • Hal Standish
... times already, without the slightest result. They were dull children, wearisome and uninteresting. On the other hand, the little Morleys were full of life and eagerness. The fault in them was that they wouldn't take petting; and what's the good of a child that won't be petted? They lacked that something which ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... exactly!" Penny protested thornily. "I was playing again at the other table. I suppose it was about ten minutes, for Ralph and I had made another rubber, I remember.... Anyway, Karen was smiling like a baby that has had a lot of petting, but she said Hugo had promised her she wouldn't have to play bridge any more that evening, so Flora remained at that table, playing opposite Hugo, while Tracey played with Polly. As soon as Tracey became dummy, Flora suggested he go ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... tree beside the Crystal Lake is now hanging full of ripe wheels, I thought I would gather one and ride over into the next valley in search of adventure." You see, this Prince was the King's youngest son, and had been rather spoiled by petting, as youngest sons ...
— The Surprising Adventures of the Magical Monarch of Mo and His People • L. Frank Baum
... quite a crowd had gathered around the six little Bunkers and their father and mother. Margy still sat on the sidewalk, with the kitten in her lap, petting and rubbing it. ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Cousin Tom's • Laura Lee Hope
... and the next Dan spent his time alternately begging for Crippy's life and petting him; but all to no purpose, so far as inducing his mother to ...
— A District Messenger Boy and a Necktie Party • James Otis
... had Emperor fast. Then after a final affectionate petting Phil ran lightly to the other tent and quickly made his way to his seat. The people were so engrossed in the acts in the ring that they did not observe ...
— The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... to the mother for love and petting," she would say. "Miss Winstead may complain of the darling as much as she pleases, but need not suppose that I ...
— Daddy's Girl • L. T. Meade
... see me very sweet, and giving you sugar-and-water, and petting you in my house, this very ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... to have his antipathic animal; and I know one bred from his childhood to zoology by land and sea, and bold in asserting, and honest in feeling, that all without exception is beautiful, who yet cannot, after handling and petting and admiring all day long every uncouth and venomous beast, avoid a paroxysm of horror at the sight of the common house-spider. At all events, whether we were intruding or not, in turning this stone, we must pay a fine for ...
— Glaucus; or The Wonders of the Shore • Charles Kingsley
... which her husband had ordered; and cleaned up the room, and prepared everything for tea, and coaxed and duly bemoaned her cat (who had pretty nearly forgotten his beating, but very much enjoyed the petting), having done all these and many other things, Mrs. Jenkins sate down to get up the real lace cap. Every thread was pulled out separately, and carefully stretched: when, what was that? Outside, in the street, a chorus of piping children's ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell
... the wake of the handsome barge which Master Headley shared with his friend and brother alderman, Master Hope the draper, whose young wife, in a beautiful black velvet hood and shining blue satin kirtle, was evidently petting Dennet to her heart's content, though the little damsel never lost an opportunity of nodding to her friends in the plainer barge ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... believe herself to be the half-despairing girl of a few hours before. "Now come," resumed Mrs. Bodine, "let us all be girls together and have a good talk. At this rate I'll soon be younger than either of you. I haven't had my share yet. Do you believe it, Ella? Mara has been downstairs petting your father for ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... blindness which poets, no less than patrons, too frequently discover for the excellence of their contemporaries. Chatterton himself spoke with contempt of the productions of Collins. As to Walpole, he had no doubt more pleasure in petting the lap-dog that was left to his care by the old blind lady at Paris, than he could ever have felt in nursing the wayward ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... squalls that would have exasperated Job; and then, instead of consoling Jock, Lucy took the little demon to her arms and soothed him. "Did they want it to make friends against its will," Lucy was so ridiculous as to say, like one of the women in Punch, petting and smoothing down that odious little creature. Both she and the nurse seemed to think that it was the baby who wanted consoling for the appearance of Jock, and not Jock who had been insulted; for one does not like even a baby to consider ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... the nursery maid petting me, and all three examining my chest, where I told them I felt the puncture, and pronouncing that there was no sign visible that any such thing had ...
— Carmilla • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... hour!" chortled the little man, petting his beloved volume as if it were a loved child and executing a shuffling and improvised step-dance of unalloyed rapture. "This book has been donationed to me because I was brave enough to request for it while yet your heart was warm at me, howadji. ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... returned during the next few weeks; there was no real neglect, and she would not so have felt it if she had not depended on him alone, and so long enjoyed his exclusive attention. His fondness and petting were the same, but she perceived that he found in his sister a companionship of which she did not feel capable. But to Theodora herself, whenever she succeeded in engrossing Arthur, it seemed a victory of sisterly affection and ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... rose. "David," he said sternly, "you're spoiling Phoebe Metz with your petting and fooling around her. What for need you pity her when she gets kept in for ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers
... itself into one or the other of these two principles—strict obedience, rigidly enforced by punishment; or a vacillating policy of petting and scolding, leading to moral confusion—there could be little hesitation in deciding which would be apt to give better results in the formation of character. The old way, if somewhat crude and summary, has proved itself capable ...
— Heart and Soul • Victor Mapes (AKA Maveric Post)
... effect that she's the showiest goods on the shelf, but the vital thing for a fellow to know is whether her ears are sharp enough to hear him when he shouts that she's spending too much money and that she must reduce expenses. Of course, when you're patting and petting and feeding a woman she's going to purr, but there's nothing like stirring her up a little now and then to see if she spits fire and heaves things ...
— Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... few weeks she lived a life of working for Mrs. Peters from dawn to dark, under the stimulus of what a sweet girl she was, how splendidly she did things, how fortunate Henry was, interspersed with continual kissing, patting, and petting, all very new and unusual to Polly. By that time she was so very ill, she could not lift her head from the pillow half the day, but it was to the credit of the badly disappointed Peters family that they kept up the petting. When Polly grew better, she ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter
... Kitty. Often she would come to him and rub against him and purr, fairly begging him to stroke her back. Unless he pulled her tail at such times she kept her claws carefully out of sight and basked under Johnnie's petting. ...
— The Tale of Miss Kitty Cat - Slumber-Town Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... you and I haven't had a vast number of people to be fond of. There was Aunt Eleanor, but I defy anyone to be fond of her. Respect her one might, fear her we did, but love her—it would have been as discouraging as petting a steam road-roller. We hadn't even a motherly old nurse, for Aunt Eleanor liked machine-made people like herself to serve her. I don't think it did you much harm, you were such a sunny-tempered, affectionate little boy, but ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... putting one arm over his back, to let him feel the weight of his body. At last he leaped softly up and hung partly over his back. Naturally the colt shied and reared, but Harold dropped off instantly and renewed his petting and soothing. It was not long before the pony allowed him to mount, and nothing remained but to teach him to endure the saddle and the bridle. This was done by belting him and checking him to a pad strapped upon his back. He struggled fiercely to rid himself of these fetters. He ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland
... morning, helping him on with his great-coat, mending his gloves, talking an infinite deal of merry fond nothing; and then, clinging to his arm, she would accompany him in his visits to the stables, going up to the shyest horses, and petting them, and patting them, and feeding them with bread all the time that her father held converse with Dixon. When he was finally gone—and sometimes it was a long time first—she returned to the schoolroom to Miss Monro, and tried to set ...
— A Dark Night's Work • Elizabeth Gaskell
... in Japan, as in the Isle of Man, with stumps, where they should have tails. Sometimes this is the result of art, sometimes of a natural shortcoming. The cats of Yedo are of bad repute as mousers, their energies being relaxed by much petting at the hands of ladies. The Cat of Nabeshima, so says tradition, was a monster with ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... stare dumbly at nothing. Racey, realizing well enough that her world had crashed to pieces about her, wished that she would burst into tears. A sobbing woman is easily comforted. It is simply necessary to pet her and keep on petting her till her grief is assuaged. But this hard stillness of Molly Dale's gave Racey no opening. He could but gaze at her uncomfortably and shift his weight from one foot ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... been fascinated by the style of domestic paradise that English novels depict,—half a dozen unmarried daughters round the family hearth, all assiduously doing worsted-work and petting their papa. I believe a sufficiency of employment to be the only normal and healthy condition for a human being; and where there is not work enough to employ the full energies of all at home, it seems as proper for young women as for ...
— Women and the Alphabet • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... tremendously. It was the first time I was ever thrown with people who were unanimously agreed that, after all, nothing is very serious. Mrs. Charteris, of course, was different; but she, like the others, found me divertingly naive and, in consequence, petted and cosseted me. I like petting; and since everyone seemed agreed to regard me as "the Child in the House"—that was Alicia Wade's nickname, and it clung,—and to like having a child in the house, I began a little to heighten my very real boyishness. There was ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... those cuddling girls. She appealed to you with her eyes, and you found yourself petting her and sympathizing with her, when, if you stopped to think, you would see that she had more of everything than you had. She possessed a rich father, a beautiful house, and perfect health. Nevertheless, you found yourself asking after "poor Flossy," and your voice commiserated her if your words ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... we could prevent, we do not merely tolerate but become accomplices in wrong-doing. I am of opinion that subjects are made good by bad, I mean, by harsh and disagreeable Superiors. The severity of a mother is more wholesome for a child than the petting of an indulgent nurse, and the firmness of a father is always more useful to his children than their mother's tenderness. The rougher the file the better it smoothes the iron, and the more rust it rubs off; the ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... were all laughing over and petting Goliath, a queer thing happened. The candles, which had been burning now for several hours, had, unnoticed by all, been gradually guttering and spluttering out. At length only four or five flames remained, feebly wavering in their pools of melted ...
— The Boarded-Up House • Augusta Huiell Seaman
... pesters that have deluged down on you at one time," said Uncle Tucker with a dubiously appreciative smile at Rose Mary's hospitable enthusiasm. "Looks to me like a girl tending three old folks, one rampage of a boy, a mollycuddle of a strange man, and a whole petting spoiled village has got enough on her shoulders without this ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess
... said Bulba. "Don't listen to your mother, my lad; she is a woman, and knows nothing. What sort of petting do you need? A clear field and a good horse, that's the kind of petting for you! And do you see this sword? that's your mother! All the rest people stuff your heads with is rubbish; the academy, books, primers, philosophy, and all that, I spit upon it all!" Here Bulba added ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... Liddy," she sobbed. "There's nothing wrong; we'll be happy enough here, only I think I looked for a little—petting." ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson
... come looking for her before this, if it was not for you petting and pampering her the way you do, and encouraging her flightiness and follies. It is likely she will get no offers till such time as I will have taught her the manners and ...
— Three Wonder Plays • Lady I. A. Gregory
... with him during the entire campaign, and was shot seven times; at least, as a little fellow I used to brag about that number of bullets being in her, and since I could point out the scars of each one, I presume it was so. My father was very much attached to and proud of her, always petting her and talking to her in a loving way, when he rode her or went to see her in her stall. Of her he ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... consequently two joys—her nephew, little Nicholas, and religion—and these were the favorite subjects of the prince's attacks and ridicule. Whatever was spoken of he would bring round to the superstitiousness of old maids, or the petting and spoiling of children. "You want to make him"—little Nicholas—"into an old maid like yourself! A pity! Prince Andrew wants a son and not an old maid," he would say. Or, turning to Mademoiselle Bourienne, he would ask her in Princess Mary's ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... was the canticle of exultation, the joyous welcome of a being yet little, stammering forth respectful caresses, petting with gentle words, and fondness of a child who seeks to coax his mother—this is the "Salve Regina, Mater misericordiae, vita, dulcedo et spes nostra, salve." Then the soul so candid, so simply happy, has grown, and knowing the wilful failings of thought, the repeated loss through sin, ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... friends who will subject them to varied climates in widely separated localities. If, however, you find them vigorous and productive on the light, poor soil of your own place, you may hope much for them elsewhere. No berry will be generally popular that requires much petting. I only state this as a fact. In my opinion, some varieties are so superb in size and flavor that they deserve high culture, and ...
— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe
... Sue did, and soon she and Bunny were petting one of the calves. They were in little pens, by themselves, near the mother cows, and the children could reach over the sides of the pens, inside the barn, ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue Playing Circus • Laura Lee Hope
... hero revelled awhile under the protection of Sir Charles Sterling, and the petting of peers, Members of Parliament, and loungers who swarm therein. Certain gentlemen of Stock Exchange mannerism and dressiness gave the protege the go-by, and even sneered at those who noticed him with ...
— Ginx's Baby • Edward Jenkins
... to Babbitt, they wore evening-clothes, and with hauteur they accepted cigarettes from silver cases. Babbitt had heard stories of what the Athletic Club called "goings on" at young parties; of girls "parking" their corsets in the dressing-room, of "cuddling" and "petting," and a presumable increase in what was known as Immorality. To-night he believed the stories. These children seemed bold to him, and cold. The girls wore misty chiffon, coral velvet, or cloth of gold, and around their dipping bobbed hair were shining wreaths. He had it, upon urgent and secret ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... to the roach. Or not men, no; but women. Men are in this matter more tolerant, more live-and-let-live in their ways. But women have condemned the roach not only unheard, but unjudged. Not one of them has ever tried petting a roach to gain his affection. Not one of them has studied him or encouraged him to show his good side. Some cockroaches, for instance, are exceedingly playful and gay, but what chance have they to show this, ...
— The Crow's Nest • Clarence Day, Jr.
... three little girls scrambled over the fence and roamed through the lot. The lamb was used to a good deal of petting and he supposed, of course, that was what they had come for. So he poked himself into their ...
— Mary Jane—Her Visit • Clara Ingram Judson
... Johnson was "delicate"; and the difference lay chiefly in this: Mrs. Johnson said that Tony was delicate,—meaning that he was more finely strung, more sensitive, a properer subject for pampering and petting, than Jackanapes, and that, consequently, Jackanapes was to blame for leading Tony into scrapes which resulted in his being chilled, frightened, or (most frequently) sick. But when Miss Jessamine said ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... returns, and usually greeted him from the banister post. Amiable, intelligent, pretty, affectionate, and already putting forth the tender leaves of a great gift, her father thought her quite perfect, and they had long conversations whenever he was at leisure in his home. She demanded a great deal of petting, and he was always ready to humour her, the more as she was the only girl, and the one quiet member of his little family—although she had been known to use her fists upon occasion. Her prettiness and intelligence delighted him, ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... finds again the prepossessions which he brought to the consideration of the subject, returned to him with a little more intense faith. The philosophical drift in the mores of our time is towards state regulation, militarism, imperialism, towards petting and flattering the poor and laboring classes, and in favor of whatever is altruistic and humanitarian. What man of us ever gets out of his adopted attitude, for or against these now ruling tendencies, so that he forms judgments, not by his ruling interest or conviction, ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... to visit the famous trotter, and to feed him with bread and butter and sugar which David begged from the cook. They were still petting the affectionate animal when ...
— Polly of Lady Gay Cottage • Emma C. Dowd
... aside, too, all the dominant dignity and absolute sway with which he lorded it in his little empire, the school, and became wonderfully gentle and ingratiating. He found favor in the eyes of the mothers by petting the children, particularly the youngest; and like the lion bold, which whilom so magnanimously the lamb did hold, he would sit with a child on one knee and rock a cradle with his foot for whole ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... Dicky Sharpe to the home of his father and mother, Sir John and Lady Sharpe. They were excessively kind, and made a great deal of me; and so did the Misses Sharpe, who, being a good deal older than Dicky, treated us somewhat like little children, petting and humouring our fancies, which did not altogether please me. It made me much more inclined to act like a child, and to join Dicky in any pranks he proposed. I was very sorry, however, to have to go away. It was, at the same ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... Honor's desk and opened it, when out jumped Pete, purring with satisfaction, and arching his back as if in expectation of petting. The teacher seized him by the scruff of the neck and gave him to Janie Henderson, at the same time quelling the unseemly mirth of her class with ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... he was a little fearful, for all that, so new was this adventure. The dogs rose again and snuffled, but the better groomed of the circle held back, and in their place a pack of odds and ends of the company ran down to meet him. The Boy Scout was reassured by their friendly attitude, and after petting them impartially, he chose an old-fashioned black and tan, and the two ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... to the place where Molly stood; and began petting her with pretty words and actions, while Lady Cuxhaven turned over heavy volumes in search of one that might interest ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... stones, rocks, or trees, have all been in vogue, and some of them survive even to-day in England and in other parts of Europe as popular tests of puberty and virginity. Mr. Dyer, in his Church Lore Gleanings, mentions the "louping," or "petting" stone at Belford, in Northumberland (England), a stone "placed in the path outside the church porch, over which the bridal pair with their attendants must leap"—the belief is that "the bride must leave all her pets and humours behind her when she crosses it." At High-Coquetdale, according ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... after petting Bayard and Miraut until they were in ecstasies of delight, chose from among the horses a beautiful, spirited chestnut for himself, the duke selected a Spanish jennet, with proudly arched neck and flowing mane, which was worthy to carry an Infanta, and an exquisite ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier |
