"Alertly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... her down with motherly care - Head, shoulders, arm, and foot, To the very hem of the robes that drape her - All expertly And alertly, Till a long stream, black ...
— Moments of Vision • Thomas Hardy
... at home, but he left the book," said Kitty, alertly climbing the steps. Bringing the book, she recognized him as Doctor McCall, who had once before been at the shop when her father was gone. He was a young man, largely built, with a frank, attentive face, red hair and beard, and cordial voice. It was ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... in the guise of ben Saoud had been busy, and it was up to me to seize my cue alertly. I was at pains to look alarmed. Ben ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy
... outbreak of file firing, mingled with savage yells. He wheeled, drove spurs into his horse, and flew back to Waldron. As he re-entered the wood he met wounded men streaming through it, a few marching alertly upright, many more crouching and groaning, some clinging to their less injured comrades, but all ...
— The Brigade Commander • J. W. Deforest
... in silent amaze, her brain working alertly. She even watched her daughter don the immaculate white golf suit, and made ...
— Jewel - A Chapter In Her Life • Clara Louise Burnham
... a few yards away from the house, crouched alertly, and gazing out prairiewards. He called the dog ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum
... pinnace yonder you, my friends, discern, Of every ship professes agilest to be. Nor yet a timber o'er the waves alertly flew She might not aim to pass it; oary-wing'd alike To fleet beyond them, or to ...
— The Poems and Fragments of Catullus • Catullus
... come hurrying over now to aid its mate. Dixon was effectually barred from attempting any progress toward the projectile by the two grotesque creatures as they stood alertly there beside each other with their green tubes menacing him. Dixon waited tensely at bay, remembering those searing radium ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... clerk's, there was the blot in the top of the L! Tom's heart gave one wild bound, then all sensation, except the sight of the writing, ceased, the exclamations of those around him came surging gradually on his ear, as if from a distance, and he did not yet hear them distinctly when he replied alertly, almost lightly, 'Here is a name that surprises me. Let me ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... place, they have so well got that German lesson! The supply of shell and gun is so abundant, also of fresh troops in reserve thanks to "Papa" Joffre's frugality with human lives; the first, second, third lines—on ad infinitum to Paris—are so carefully fortified, so alertly held against any "drive"! And the troops are so fit! They have made themselves at home in their new camping life behind the lines of dugouts and caves; they have become gnomes, woodsmen, cavemen, taking on the earth colors of the primitive world to which they have been forced to return in order ...
— The World Decision • Robert Herrick
... if to One who heard. Thereafter a quickened energy possessed her. She got her dinner alertly, and with some vestige of the interest she had been used to feel when she cooked for two. All the afternoon it was the same. Her mind dwelt passionately upon the compact she had offered the Unseen. ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... took sober shape, while mine were still the wild emotions of a young man's mind. Many an hour I had spent on the ship, watching the foam speed past her side, trying to foresee my course like hers in a trackless world. But it seemed I must wait alertly for what destiny was ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... less of this pride of dignity she might perhaps avoid her tendency to assign to decorum a larger power than it actually exercises, even in the societies about which she writes.... The illusion of reality in her work, however, almost never fails her, so alertly is her mind on the lookout to avoid vulgar ...
— Contemporary American Literature - Bibliographies and Study Outlines • John Matthews Manly and Edith Rickert
... body crashed Frederick's strong fists. Tessibel stood looking on, her head bent forward alertly. One arm was clasped about her neck—excitement sparkling from the flushed face and panting lips. Once the throat sound that came when she was excited rolled forth; otherwise she ...
— Tess of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... to give chase, the adventurer swung alertly into the narrow passage and opened the door to Stateroom 29. The room was dark, but as he fumbled for the switch, the door in the forward partition was thrust open and the girl's slight figure showed, tensely poised against ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... the taxi and away through the maze of San Francisco's streets, Michael lay alertly on the floor near Del Mar's feet, making no overtures of friendliness, by the same token making no demonstration of the repulsion of the man's personality engendered in him. For Harry Del Mar, who was base, and who had been further abased by his money-making ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... He removed his stainless identification plaque and slipped its chain about her throat. "If you see any of the guys who're watching for you, tell me but don't look at them." He took her arm again and alertly began to work through the throng. ...
— DP • Arthur Dekker Savage
... syrup, of a deadly menacing green. Sometimes we saw a loathsome crocodile lying with his nose just out of water, or heard the snorting blow of a hippopotamus coming up for air. Then the thicket forced us inland again. We stepped very slowly, very alertly, our ears cocked for the faintest sound, our eyes roving. Generally, of course, the creatures of the jungle saw us first. We became aware of them by a crash or a rustling or a scamper. Then we stood stock listening with all our ears ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... that her companion drank very little and exhibited a most unmasculine lack of interest in the inspirations of the chef. Yet she knew intuitively that he was alertly conscious of the quiet perfection of it all. She dropped into a brief reverie of which the man beside her was the subject and from which his ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... Shawnee's ears went forward alertly, but Drew did not need that signal of someone's approaching. He backed into the shadow-shade of a tree and sat ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... up the bank, Musa saw a man standing on a pinnacle, alertly watching the center of the caravan. His guess had been right. The bandit leader's strategy had been to cut the caravan in two, and to deal with the rear guard first. As the watcher started to aim at something down on the trail, Musa quickly raised his own bow and sent an arrow ...
— The Players • Everett B. Cole
... down his cheeks. Da Costa moved toward him again and again Huldricksson watched him, alertly, wickedly, from his ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt
... He swung alertly through to the hall window, pausing there only long enough for an instantaneous glance through the draperies—a fugitive survey that discovered the impasse Stanislas no more abandoned to the wind and rain, but tenanted visibly by one at least who lounged beneath the lonely lamp-post, a shoulder ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... however, that he who appeared to have hardly sufficient strength to support himself could not help me. This poor looking, feeble old man, however, took hold of me with one arm, and lifted me with a single jerk upon the horse so quick and so alertly that it quite ...
— Travels in England in 1782 • Charles P. Moritz
... think that I haunt here nightly: How shall I let him know That whither his fancy sets him wandering I, too, alertly go? - Hover and hover a few feet from him Just as I used to do, But cannot answer his words addressed me - Only ...
— Satires of Circumstance, Lyrics and Reveries, with - Miscellaneous Pieces • Thomas Hardy
... me, are you?" leered her tormentor. He stepped forward, holding out his hand, as though to seize the young woman's wrist, but she alertly ...
— Dave Darrin at Vera Cruz • H. Irving Hancock
... been special fun; or rather, last night was the only time I can recollect these four years when it would not have been so; yet, at this moment, I cannot tell you how I longed to be rid of Dame Martin. I almost wished she would sprain one of those 'many-twinkling' ankles, which served her so alertly; and when, in the midst of her exuberant caprioling, I saw my former partner leaving the apartment, and with eyes, as I thought, turning towards me, this unwillingness to carry on the dance increased to such a point, that I was almost about to feign a sprain or a dislocation myself, ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... natural, which it was. Also as calling for no particular notice, except, as it were, for a certain graceful obliviousness on her part, modified by a possessive glance or two from her fearless black eyes—glances for which Stair watched more alertly than he had ever gazed into the night for the signal flashes from the ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... the fact that he held the words back only served to increase his ill-humor and make a worse outbreak possible. But, if Chad did not understand, Snowball did, and his black face grew suddenly grave as he sprang more alertly than ever at any word from his little master. Meanwhile, all unconscious, Chad fished on, catching perch after perch, but he could not keep his eyes on his cork while the little girl was so near, and more ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... intermediation of a door, to a spacious transverse passage. This passage ran between polished pillars of some white-veined substance of deep ultramarine, and along it came the sound of human movements, and voices and a deep undeviating droning note. He sat, now fully awake, listening alertly, forgetting the viands ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... office. Morely examined the younger man, carefully appraising his appearance. The sector leader, he saw, was properly attired. The neat uniform looked as if freshly taken from the tailor shop. The man stepped forward alertly, to halt at the correct distance ...
— Final Weapon • Everett B. Cole
... attendant, sometimes called the hugger, places his left arm across the shoulder of the first dancer and walks beside and a step behind him, using his feather wand or snake whip to distract the attention of the snake. (See Figure 11.) Just behind this pair walks their gatherer, who is alertly ready to pick up the dropped snake, when it has been carried four times around the dance circle; sometimes ...
— The Unwritten Literature of the Hopi • Hattie Greene Lockett
... The Etonian sprang up, and the quickness of his movement, aided but by a slight touch of his hand, made Lenny lose his balance, and sent him neck-and-crop over the stocks. Burning with rage, the young villager rose alertly, and, flying at Randal, struck ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the black ray projector alertly covering the men, he strode over to a closed metal door in the wall just beyond them. He took a small tube from a rack beside it and opened the door by sending a flash of yellow light into the mechanism ...
— The Cavern of the Shining Ones • Hal K. Wells
... solitude which had weighed heavily on Decoud after the lighter had slipped off the shore. But while the man on the island was oppressed by a bizarre sense of unreality affecting the very ground upon which he walked, the mind of the Capataz of the Cargadores turned alertly to the problem of future conduct. Nostromo's faculties, working on parallel lines, enabled him to steer straight, to keep a look-out for Hermosa, near which he had to pass, and to try to imagine ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... all-familiar sound of its name the bird suddenly ceased its monotonous beak and claw gymnastics for a space, becoming on the instant alertly attentive. There came a preliminary craning of neck and winking of white-parchment-lidded eyes, and then, in shockingly human fashion it proceeded to give voluble utterance to some startling samples of barrack-room profanity. ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... Junction, halfway to Rebecca Mary, she descended alertly from the train and crossed the platform. She must wait here, they told her, an hour and twenty minutes. On the other side of the station a train was just slowing up, and she stood a moment to scan idly the thin stream of people that trickled from the cars. There ...
— Rebecca Mary • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... Listening alertly, with the cold air from the open window blowing on my face, I heard in turn the crowing of the cocks in the village, the irregular breathing of Philippe, sleeping the sleep of exhaustion not far from me, and the blows ...
— The New Book Of Martyrs • Georges Duhamel
... at the front door-bell. Letitia, wrought-up, nervously clutched my arm. For a moment a sort of paralysis seized me. Then, alertly as a young calf, I bounded toward the door, hope aroused, and expectation keen. It was rather dark in the outside hall, and I could not quite perceive the nature of our visitor. But I soon gladly realized that it was something feminine, and as I held the door open, a thin, small, soiled ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... alertly as he probed the southern bay of Ramasarett. He was a scientist-12 and also a hereditary hunter. If the giant fish, long since eliminated from the rest of the seas, were breeding in some secret ...
— Join Our Gang? • Sterling E. Lanier
... heretofore divided his attention between what his uncle imparted and what he imbibed, had, by careful counting, discovered that the ninth mug invariably closed their evening lessons: so, without waiting for any further signal that such was now the case, he alertly bounced from his chair, and, snatching up a basket of big red apples that black daddy had just brought in and set on the hearth, began handing them round to the rest of the company with a great show of playing the polite and obliging, but ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady
... woke it was broad day, and a bloom of early light lay on wood and garden and on fields and farms for miles away. The comparative common sense that daylight brings even to the sleepless drew him alertly to his feet, and showed him all his companions standing about the lawn in similar attitudes of expectancy. There was no need to ask what they were expecting. They were waiting to hear the nocturnal experiences, comic or commonplace or whatever they might prove to be, of that eccentric friend, whose ...
— The Trees of Pride • G.K. Chesterton
... drawing-room so rife with poignant recollections. There, she thought, was Anna. From within it, more faintly now, came those sounds of a mason at work which had seemed to ring with the song. But the song had ceased. About the hall highly gilded officers conferred alertly in pairs or threes, more or less in the way of younger ones who smartly crossed from room to room. Here came Greenleaf! Seeking her? No, he would have passed unaware, but her lips ventured ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... seeing wooden quails and chickens picking and strutting around clock-faces, and still more tired of seeing wooden images of the alleged chamois skipping about wooden rocks, or lying upon them in family groups, or peering alertly up from behind them. The first day, I would have bought a hundred and fifty of these clocks if I had the money—and I did buy three —but on the third day the disease had run its course, I had convalesced, and was in the market once more—trying to sell. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... said Kate, alertly, jumping up and beginning to fetch the plates and cups from the dumb-waiter. "Here, Bel!" And she tossed three or four long, soft, clean towels over to her from ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... blood, my dear lady,' cried Graham, alertly; 'the gipsies do not come from Arabia, but, as is believed, from the north of India. They appeared in Europe about the fifteenth century, calling themselves, falsely enough, Egyptians. But both Borrow and Leland are ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... Louison as alertly awake as bird and beast stirring in the ruined splendors of old Shahjehanabad. Long before the anxious Justine Delande arose to deck herself furtively for her tryst with Alan Hawke, Berthe Louison knew that all her orders of the ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... dozen exclamations; a man in a cutaway coat left his place near the desk and advanced alertly; the stout person made a sort of lightning-like spring toward the short, dark soldier, and then the lobby closed around the little group and blotted them from the sight of Mr. In and ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... Meeking looked towards an inner door of the court. An attendant came forward at his nod, bearing a heavy package done up in Crown canvas and sealed. At the same moment a smart-looking young man answered to the name of Samuel Owthwaite and stepped alertly into the witness-box. ...
— In the Mayor's Parlour • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... stopped, and Dolores stood up alertly. There was but a moment's delay, while Pascherette bound her hair more securely; then, with a flirting hand-wave, the little octoroon darted from Milo, wriggled through the bushes, and ran lightly down to the ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... five-and-twenty Frenchmen, armed with cutlass and pistol, scrambled alertly in over the Aurora's bulwarks, the leader singling out George, notwithstanding the darkness, and exclaiming, as he promptly presented a pistol at ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... got away by a road unseen from where the Maroons were, and when well away put their horses to a canter and got into the hills. Once in the woods, however, they rode alertly, and Dyck's eyes were everywhere. He was quick to see a bush move, to observe the flick of a branch, to catch the faintest sound of an animal origin. He was obsessed with anxiety, for he had a dark fear that some ill had happened to the two. His blood almost dried ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... cold, with a nipping wind down the northward running streets. I walked fast to avoid being overtaken. Every crossing was a danger, every passenger a thing to watch alertly. One man as I was about to pass him at the top of Bedford Street, turned upon me abruptly and came into me, sending me into the road and almost under the wheel of a passing hansom. The verdict of the cab-rank was that he had had some sort ...
— The Invisible Man • H. G. Wells
... Greeby alertly. "You found the letter in Pine's tent when he was camping here as Hearne, and passed it to Silver so that he might ask ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume
... her chicks went across the road before him. The little yellow balls ran briskly forward on their wiry legs, darting at invisible insects, turning their shiny black eyes about alertly and filling the air with their sweet, thin pipings. Nathaniel stopped to watch them, and as he noticed the pompously important air with which one of the tiny creatures scratched the ground with his ineffectual little feet, cocking his eye upon the ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... people whirled around alertly, and Julia Cloud sat up with a wild attempt to bring her hair into subjection as she recognized her neighbor. The color flooded into her sweet face, but she rose with ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... the girl drew away from him with suspicion in her eyes, and something else, alertly defiant. Then she put out her hands to ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... Fulkerson leaned alertly forward, and touched him on the shoulder, with a compassionate smile. "My dear boy, they haven't got the genius of organization. It takes a very masculine man for that—a man who combines the most subtle and refined sympathies with the most ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... law-abiding community, as he called the town, and so he had replied that the work was his, and that it would be performed as soon as he believed himself justified to act. Harlan and his friends were fully conversant with the feeling against them and had become a little more cautious, alertly watching ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various
... of trees should be kept along the mowing, Tenney came. Jerry at once said he'd go in and get his dinner pail and Raven waited for Tenney. This was not the man of yesterday. He carried his axe and dinner pail. He walked alertly, as if his mind were on his day's work, and the pale face had quite lost its livid excitement. It was grave and even sad. Raven, seeing that, wondered if the fellow could feel remorse, and was conscious of a lift in the cloud of his own anxiety. ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... repellent to the general gay sense of the summer morning. Spargo shivered involuntarily as he entered it and took a first glance around. But the young barrister showed no sign of feeling or concern; he looked quickly about him and stepped alertly to the side of the dead man, from whose face the detective was turning back a cloth. He looked steadily and earnestly at the fixed features. Then he drew back, ...
— The Middle Temple Murder • J.S. Fletcher
... of the telephone cut him short. Emma's head came up alertly. She glanced at her wrist-watch and gave a ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber
... balls of red fire,—a shriek, that rang in every forest hollow, that startled every winter-housed thing, that stirred and woke the least needle of the tasselled pines, tore through her lips. A moment afterward, the beast left the arm, once white, now crimson, and looked up alertly. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various
... exclusion of everything else, in the desire for his own safety. So gigantic was his selfishness, that the working of his mind was not disturbed by the enormity of the crime he had committed; he saw now that, as events had turned out, he had acted unwisely in taking the jewels from their box; and, alertly and with something like calmness, he unlocked the safe, replaced the jewels in the box and left the safe door open; he was actually turning away, leaving the jewel-case in its place, when his cupidity got the better of him and he took up the case, ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice
... gentlemen of this company is to be seen one who looks strikingly like Emile Zola, or the late Mr. Pierpont Morgan slightly gone to seed. All these charming folk make of looking at old-fashioned pictures a very busy occupation, and also in effect a rather mundane occupation, as though they were alertly considering the possibility of making a selection from among a variety ...
— Walking-Stick Papers • Robert Cortes Holliday
... moved a little from uneasy twitchings of his lips. His clear eyes were slightly clouded to a look of apprehension, as they roved the room furtively. He made no answer to the Inspector's greeting for a few moments, but remained standing without movement, poised alertly as if sensing some concealed peril. Finally, however, his anxiety found expression in words. His tone was pregnant with alarm, though he strove to make ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... name of his entertainer. For all this forgetfulness the little lady with the dark-brown eyes was directly responsible. Almost before he realized it, Blount found himself chatting with her as if he had always known her, making rapid strides on the way to confidence and finding her alertly responsive in whatever field the talk happened to fall. Apparently she knew the world—his world—better than he knew it himself: she had summered on the North Shore and wintered in Washington. She knew Paris, and when the conversation ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... impression also—that the Queen of England is intensely and alertly mental—alive to her finger tips, we should say in America. She has always been active. Her days are crowded. A different type of royal woman would be content to be the honoured head of the Queen's Guild. But she is in close touch with it at all times. It is she who dictates its policy, and so ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... leader began the day's work as a sorely wounded dog, it was certain that each dog behind him began it with one sore spot to occupy his mind withal. Inside of one minute he had the six of them standing alertly to attention in their respective places, waiting for their harness and itching to be off; not by reason of any sudden access of virtue or industry in them, but because the leader they had thought too sore and stiff to accomplish much that day was pacing sternly up and ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... clearer; her beautiful mouth had grown firm and a bit of gray showed in her hair. She was altogether adorable, like a wee wren after a stormy day. The stilted phrases were slipping away. She spoke more alertly. Bits of Dulcie's lingo were creeping into her speech. But she still answered with a literalness that took one's ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke
... alertly and closed the door. Then she soliloquized, "I don't see why there has to be doors on the inside of houses. I like to smell the good things all over the house, but then it's ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers
... stage made its brief stop in Miller's Flat to take on mail bags Blackie was leaning out smoking a cigar and looking about him alertly. A lounger near the post-office door turned to watch in great seeming idleness. His eyes met the bartender's for a ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
... girl at the same time she saw him. He had just rounded an outcropping of rock about ten miles from the East Coast Mausoleum. They were facing each other, poised defensively, eyes alertly on each other, about twenty feet apart. She was blond and lean with the conditioning of outdoor life, almost to the point of thinness. And although not really beautiful, she was attractive and young, probably not yet twenty. Her features ...
— The Happy Man • Gerald Wilburn Page
... crunched the gravel behind him. Without turning his head, he sat alertly motionless for several minutes, listening, holding his breath. Then he ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... multitude, the grief of the Abbot, the exultation of the enthusiastic Magdalen, were all mistimed and unnecessary. Howleglas, mortally wounded as he was supposed to be, sprung alertly up from the floor, calling aloud, "A miracle, a miracle, my masters! as brave a miracle as ever was wrought in the kirk of Kennaquhair. And I charge you, my masters, as your lawfully chosen Abbot, that you touch no one without my command—You, wolf and bear, will guard this pragmatic ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... far too alertly engaged with troubled thoughts of Phil Abingdon to be susceptible to the influence of those delicate etheric waves which he had come to recognize as the note of danger. Practically there had been no development whatever in the investigation, and he was almost tempted to believe that the whole ...
— Fire-Tongue • Sax Rohmer
... The leadys watched without emotion as the men marched slowly back toward the warehouse. Franks and Moss and Taylor led them across the ground, glancing alertly at the leadys ...
— The Defenders • Philip K. Dick
... eighteen men charged, the original seven leading; the eleven recruits, less whole-hearted in the business, came less alertly in the rear. The charge of the assassins was abruptly arrested by Lagardere's bulwark, and over that bulwark the swords of the two defenders flashed and leaped, and before every thrust a man went ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... alertly, "I half believe that a good cuffing is what you really stand in need of. Now you stop all this nonsense, and lie quiet and keep ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... in the corner behind it, thrown like a sack of potatoes, but corded like a railway trunk, lay Mr James Todhunter, with a scarf across his mouth, and six or seven ropes knotted round his elbows and ankles. His brown eyes were alive and shifted alertly. ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... some way the colonists could not quite pin down. It may have been the way they walked around on their long, fragile hind legs, the way they stroked their pointed chins as they sat and watched and listened with their pointed ears lifted alertly, watching with soft gray eyes, or the way they handled objects with their little four-fingered hands. They were so remarkably human-like in their elfin way that the colonists couldn't help but be drawn to ...
— Image of the Gods • Alan Edward Nourse
... waited, when not directly addressed or concerned, in a sort of blank patience, suddenly started out of his daze, and following the captain too alertly up the gangway stairs drove his hat against the hatch—with a force that sent him back into ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells
... as though paralyzed. Heavy swirls of dust hung in the morning air. The empty cages from which the pigeons had escaped lay scattered. Judas stood stock-still behind Jesus, not daring to protest again. The Roman guards peered alertly from the Tower of Antonia, but now all had ...
— Men Called Him Master • Elwyn Allen Smith
... speaking evidently caught March's ear, for he turned alertly and looked. It was one of the oddest experiences John Wollaston had ever had. The moment he met March's gaze, the whole infernal pattern, like an old-fashioned set-piece in fireworks, extinguished itself as suddenly as it had flared. There was something ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... the Squire said in a low voice and loosed his hold. Dylks lifted his head alertly as he was accustomed to do when he gave his equine snort, but now he made no sound. He leaped forward and ran with vast bounds up the smooth turnpike toward the wall of woodland, where the whiteness of the highway ceased in the shadow of the trees. He far outdistanced the foremost of his pursuers, ...
— The Leatherwood God • William Dean Howells
... He alertly obeyed me, carried the plate carefully to his seat, and, when he was established, went on. "Did Bly disagree ...
— The Turn of the Screw • Henry James
... came to fetch his guests away. They entered the room while he was entertaining the baby with a whistled selection from his repertoire of flute music, and he broke off short as they regarded him from the doorway. The Jewess looked up alertly ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... motionless for a matter of two minutes, her head poised alertly. She went to the gong and struck it ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... by picking one's way between cities can one walk under, or as it were in, a pure sky. The horizon in Venice is thick and ochreous, and no one cares; the sky of Milan is defiled all round. In England I must choose a path alertly; and so does now and then a wary, fortunate, fastidious wind that has so found his exact, uncharted way, between this smoke and that, as to clear me a clean ...
— Hearts of Controversy • Alice Meynell
... watching the men's faces. They did not seem vile to him now as they had seemed that first evening in the hotel office. He began thinking of them silently and alertly at work all day long, surrounded by such influences as Ed and Bill, and the thought sweetened his ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... Despeaux fastened upon Blanchard, of the Conawin, the moment the latter left the company of Mayor Morrison on the arrival of the twain at the Corson mansion; and Mr. Blanchard seemed alertly willing to break off his companionship with the passenger he had brought ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... little that, far behind me (though not so far from where the trail ended), the big buck began his twilight wandering along the ridges, sniffing alertly at the vanishing scent of the man on his feeding ground. The best things that a hunter brings home are in his heart, not in his game bag; and a free deer meant another long glorious day following him through the October woods, making the tyro's mistakes, to be sure, but feeling ...
— Secret of the Woods • William J. Long
... the rope, and as she protested, talking of her mistress, I told her all would be well if she would only descend. Thus reassured—for she had understood but imperfectly what had happened through her ignorance of English—she jumped on the rail alertly and disappeared. Lane followed, and Ellison, despite his wound, was lithe as ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... alertly, and then hesitated over her reply. "No," she said at last. Upon reflection, and with a dim smile flickering in her side-long glance at Celia, she added, "He wants ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... stunning, for a fact," remarked Harry, watching alertly. On yesterday's excursion he had ridden Essex Maid, after all; and he smiled with interest now, in the couple who were evidently talking to one another with the utmost zest as they finally disappeared at ...
— Jewel's Story Book • Clara Louise Burnham
... man looked up alertly under his shaggy brows. "They were dusty, I dare say. You ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham
... other, "Webster's coming out! I guess here's where your Uncle Tom gets a whack at Old Nassau—maybe." He sat up and watched the head coach alertly. The next moment Pemberton was peeling ...
— The New Boy at Hilltop • Ralph Henry Barbour
... these days. Pretty soon. Tightening up, I tell you. Well, I'm off, Sabre. When are you coming up to the Mess again? Friday? Well, guest night the week after. I'll drop you a line. So long." He was off, carrying his straight back alertly up ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... drawn, there was a scent of violets in the air, and a fire glowed warmly in the grate. He noted these things carefully, telling himself that a man should always be alertly sensible of his surroundings; then all at once the nice balancing of detail suddenly gave way. He forgot everything but the one circumstance that Eve was standing in the window—her back to the light, her face towards him. With his pulses beating faster and an unsteady sensation in ...
— The Masquerader • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... of the string on his hand. His senses are avenues of knowledge not because external facts are somehow "conveyed" to the brain, but because they are used in doing something with a purpose. The qualities of seen and touched things have a bearing on what is done, and are alertly perceived; they have a meaning. But when pupils are expected to use their eyes to note the form of words, irrespective of their meaning, in order to reproduce them in spelling or reading, the resulting training is ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey
... left Ashton's cheeks, but his full lips were set in resolute lines. His gaze alertly took in the ground before his horse and at the same time the girl's graceful, swaying figure. Fortunately he knew enough to let his horse pick his own way. But such a way as it was! Had not the two animals been as surefooted as goats and as quick as cats, both must have pitched head ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet
... wheels sounded on the road, and he put the pistol quickly down. Dreaminess vanished from his face. He looked around alertly, but no one had seen him. The clanking was still among the trees a little distance up Box Elder. It approached deliberately, while he watched for the vehicle to emerge upon the open where his cabin stood; and then they came, a man and a woman. At sight of her Mr. McLean half rose, but sat ...
— Lin McLean • Owen Wister
... steep slope covered, not with the great boulders and granite blocks, but with a fine loose shale. At every stride we stepped ten feet and slid five. It was gloriously near to flying. Leaning far back, our arms spread wide to keep our balance, spying alertly far ahead as to where we were going to land, utterly unable to check until we encountered a half-buried ledge of some sort, and shouting wildly at every plunge, we fairly shot downhill. The floor of our valley rose to us as the earth to a descending balloon. In three quarters of an hour we ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White
... "Sir?" replied the desk-clerk alertly. All the employes of the Hotel Cosmopolis were alert. It was one of the things on which Mr. Daniel Brewster, the proprietor, insisted. And as he was always wandering about the lobby of the hotel keeping a personal eye on affairs, it was ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... served with coffee in the Turkish room, as it was called from its cushions and hangings of Indian and Egyptian stuffs. "What is the instance you've got up your sleeve?" He smoked with great energy, and cast his eyes alertly about as if to make sure that there was no chance of Wanhope's physically escaping him, from the corner of the divan, where he sat pretty well hemmed in by the rest of us, spreading in an irregular ...
— Questionable Shapes • William Dean Howells
... under the scanty shadow of trees that bordered the walk to the officers' quarters. Clara, book in hand, alertly rose. ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... thank you!" replied the man, rising alertly and limping to the sledge. "Only knocked the skin off my ...
— The World of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... visibly quickened, and a series of small spruce-clad islands began to come in view, standing out of the water for all the world like ships in battle line, a look of interest came on his face, and he began to look alertly in front of him and from side to side, all his ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns
... sacrifice to those whom he has slain. So he drew back, and holding his long spear against his side he hid himself behind the door and stared at the young lad. Ushiwaka beheld him, and holding his sword at his side he crouched at a little distance. Kumasaka waited likewise. They both waited, alertly; then Kumasaka stepped forth swiftly with his left foot, and struck out with the long spear. It would have run through an iron wall. Ushiwaka parried it lightly, swept it away, left volted. Kumasaka followed and again lunged out with the spear, and Ushiwaka parried the spear-blade ...
— Certain Noble Plays of Japan • Ezra Pound
... Harboro thought it must have been—a change had come over her. There was a glad tranquillity about her now which was as a tonic to him. She was no longer given to dark utterances which he could not understand. She was devoted to him in a gentle, almost maternal fashion—studying his needs and moods alertly and affectionately. Something of the old tempestuous ardor was gone, but that, of course, was natural. Harboro did not know the phrases of old Antonia or he would have said: "It is the time of embers." She was softly solicitous for him; still a little wistful at times, to be sure; but then ...
— Children of the Desert • Louis Dodge
... alertly at a distant sound, and the same note, faint as it was, roused Breed from his nap. Somewhere off across the foothills several men had raised their voices in a wild outburst of cheers. This sounded again and again, each time from a point nearer to where Breed lay. A band of antelope sped past ...
— The Yellow Horde • Hal G. Evarts
... hands at his mouth and shouted. The figure straightened alertly and looked around. He called to her again. His voice must have reached her very faintly. She did not try to answer in words, but fired twice with a revolver. Evidently she had ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine
... was with the languid drawl of the Western plainsman. In humor he feigned to conceal his passion, but Joyce knew him to be alertly conscious of her every word, every ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine
... done with vigor; and, after a stiff struggle in the small way, drove them all in;—in, all of them, more or less;—and then did nothing farther whatever. Henri had to contract his quarters, and stand alertly on his guard: but nothing came. "Shall have to winter in straiter quarters, behind the Mulda, not astride of it as formerly; that is all." And so the Campaign in Saxony had ended, "without, in the whole course of it", say ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... of her car, so that they might go up inclines, instead of pushing against the straight walls of mud they had thrown up. On these inclines he strewed the brush she had brought, halting to ask, with head alertly lifted from his stooped huddle in the mud, "Did you have to get ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... her eye-glass, and held her pencil alertly poised above her book, ready to note which side Mr. —— took. Mr. —— fidgeted, pulled himself together with a violent jerk, and finally spoke his mind. Someone else did likewise, also someone else, then the women interposed, and jumped on the men, the men retaliated, ...
— Violets and Other Tales • Alice Ruth Moore
... Leclere cursed the other dogs off as they fell upon Batard. They drew back into a wider circle, squatting alertly on their haunches and licking their chops, the hair on every ...
— The Faith of Men • Jack London
... stiffly or alertly, according to their several grades of repletion, Vogelstein attached himself to me almost affectionately. "Do stop in the cafe and talk to me," he urged. "It's queer, here are a lot of my customers, some of my artists, besides you literary ...
— The Collectors • Frank Jewett Mather
... to wonder how much longer the siesta would be protracted when Omar rose stiffly, and going to his brother's side awoke him with a hand on his shoulder. Said sat up blinking sleepily and then leaped alertly to his feet. In a few minutes the oasis was once more filled with noisy activity. But this time there was no confusion. The men mounted quickly and the troop was reformed with the utmost dispatch. The horses broke almost immediately into the long swinging gallop that ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... Alertly his chums sprang to their posts. In a twinkling they were seated, each with his paddle in hand, holding ...
— The High School Boys' Canoe Club • H. Irving Hancock
... alertly about her at the dark streets of the little town. Mud squelched beneath their feet, planks tilted. Beside Martin Cherry entered the bright, cheerful lobby of a cheap hotel where men were smoking and spitting. She was beside ...
— Sisters • Kathleen Norris |
