"Coquettish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... making my bargain with the Duke of Bevern, manage that the CORPUS DELICTI [my Intended] be brought up under her Grandmother [Duchess of Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel, Ludwig Rudolf's Spouse, an airy coquettish Lady,—let her be the tutoress and model of my Intended, O General]. For I should prefer being made a"—what shall we say? by a light wife,—"or to serve under the haughty FONTANGE [Species of topknot; so named from Fontange, an ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. IX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... Any farmer who attempts to raise grass and potatoes and strawberries on contiguous fields, subject to the same chance of drought or rainfall, has a vivid sense of his difficulties. The potatoes are spoiled by the water that helps the grass, and the coquettish strawberry will not thrive on the regimen that suits the grosser crops. In California, which by its climate and soil gives a greater variety of products than any other region in the Union, the supply of water is adjusted to ...
— Our Italy • Charles Dudley Warner
... Etienne and Germaine were buying, tempted by one thing after another, silks, laces, stuffs for dresses, and a number of toilet articles, for both were, though you would not have suspected it, rather coquettish. Father Gusson—delighted with his visit to the farm and the business he had done there—was anxious to leave Mother ...
— The Curly-Haired Hen • Auguste Vimar
... morning brought him a small pink note, faintly scented. The pointed handwriting was still childish, but there was a coquettish flourish beneath the pretty signature: Ephie Cayhill. Besides a graceful word of thanks, she wrote: WE ARE AT HOME EVERY SUNDAY. MAMMA WOULD ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... disconcerted by this little extravagance, that he forced the passage, and himself opened the door to admit the comte and his son. Truchen was quite dressed: in the costume of the shopkeeper's wife, rich yet coquettish; German eyes attacking French eyes. She left the apartment after two courtesies, and went down into the shop—but not without having listened at the door, to know what Planchet's gentlemen visitors would say of her. ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... a provoking smile, for he had given her a lead. "Then," she asked with a coquettish raising of the eyebrows, "why don't you get somebody else to do it ...
— Masters of the Wheat-Lands • Harold Bindloss
... like Madame Evangelista repulse, although flattered and graciously allowing them to exist upon the surface. Solonet remained therefore in a self-satisfied condition of hope and becoming respect. Being sent for, he arrived the next morning with the promptitude of a slave and was received by the coquettish widow in her bedroom, where she allowed him to find her in ...
— The Marriage Contract • Honore de Balzac
... is now one of the very first pianoforte- players; he produces as novel effects as Paganini does on the violin, and performs wonders which one would never have imagined possible. Hiller, too, is an excellent player, powerful and coquettish enough. Both are a little infected by the Parisian mania for despondency and straining after emotional vehemence [Verzweif-lungssucht und Leidenschaftssucherei], and often lose sight of time and repose and the really musical too much. ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... did not notice this peculiar uncomeliness until she was dying, and I felt then more than ever that she was not to be judged in accordance with our standard of beauty—though she had many of our little weaknesses. Her ignorance of civilised ways was pathetic, yet she was vain and coquettish as the fairest of her sex. And her besetting vanity was endeavouring to be a "lady." Work was sordid, for she wore garments which made her the leader of fashion. She possessed a pair of—well, a bifurcated garment—and her whole life was spent in trying to ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... ground floor window in each being filled up with a black gauze blind (an invariable index of gentility) which allowed the occupants to see all that was passing outside, but confronted gazers with their own rejections. Passers-by postured at these mirrors, twisting moustaches perkily, or giving coquettish pats to bonnets, unwitting of the grinning inhabitants. Most of the doors were ajar, wintry as the air was: for the Zachariah Squareites lived a good deal on the door-step. In the summer, the housewives sat outside on chairs and gossiped ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... kinds—all the dainty cates dear to the German palate. The pastor was talking to Herr Mueller, who stood near the pretty young Fraeulein Anna, in her fresh white chemisette, with her round white arms, and her youthful coquettish airs, as she prepared to pour out the coffee; our Fraeulein was talking busily to the Frau Mama; the younger boys and girls of the family filling up the room. A ghost would have startled the assembled ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell
... not your dainty head, Your artless look, I own; 'Tis not your dear coquettish tread, ...
— Collected Poems - In Two Volumes, Vol. II • Austin Dobson
... fidelity.[1390] Madame Pommerol[1391] represents the Arab women of the nomadic or semi-nomadic tribes of southern Algiers as destitute of moral training. They have no code of morals or religion. [What she means is that they have no character by education.] They shun men, but handle the veil in a coquettish manner according to artificial and excessive usages. They act only between impulses of desire and fear of fathers or husbands. Fidelity has no sense, since they do not feel the loyalty either of duty or affection. The Mayas of the lowest classes sent out their ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... thinking about her after I was left alone. I smiled to myself at the thought of her coquettish parting glance, for I was sure she would have kissed me again had I asked her; but I wanted no more of her kisses, although I had found them so sweet. I seemed to have suddenly grown stronger and wiser where she was concerned; yet I suppose the poor truth of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... canaille affectations of the workman who knows he is being stared at. And various little refinements of doubtful taste, the parting of the hair in the middle and brushing it down over the temples, the low shirt collars that left the whole neck bare, the striving after the coquettish effects that properly belong to the other sex, gave him an uncertain appearance, which was made even more ambiguous by his beardless face, marred only by a faint suggestion of a moustache, and his sexless features to which passion and ill-temper imparted all the ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... he had at first declined taking it; but Paulina had always persuaded him, with some pretty speech, some half coquettish, half caressing action. ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... other side, far hills, bathed in an amethystine mist, invade the horizon. Between stretches the flat green field of the valley, gashed with tawny streaks that are roads and dotted with soft, silvery bunches that are frisking new-born lambs. Little white houses, with a coquettish air of perpetual summer, flaunt long windows and wooden-lace balconies, Early roses flask pink flames here and there. The green-black meshes of the eucalyptus hedges film the distance. The madrone, richly leaved like the laurel, reflects the sunlight from a ...
— The Native Son • Inez Haynes Irwin
... theatre it is, too, and has been known to hold seventy-one pounds eight shillings." Here the actor fell into a reverie; and Percy, moving nearer to the coach-door, glanced at the damsel, who returned the look with a laugh which, though coquettish, was too low and musical to ...
— Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... was your whole behaviour regular, con- sistent, and dutiful to those to whom by birth you owed duty; and neither prudish, coquettish, nor tyrannical ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... falcon, in the Gallic van,[472] Which he, in sooth, long led to Victory, With a deaf heart which never seemed to be A listener to itself, was strangely framed; With but one weakest weakness—Vanity—[nt] Coquettish in ambition—still he aimed— And what? can he avouch, or ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... species of birds, among which a green Bulbul is the most common, then the fan-tailed Parus, with its coquettish airs; judging from the voice there is a species of Bucco. Both species of Phaenicornis, yellow and crimson, described in Gould's Century as male and female, and the black Edolius are found. The only animals are two species of squirrel, and a genet, of which ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... salootatory, Miss Bark, givin' a coquettish flourish to her winchester, goes trapsein' over to the O. K. Restauraw, leavin' us—as the story-writer puts it—glooed to the spot. You see it ain't been yoosual for us to cross up with ladies who, never ...
— Faro Nell and Her Friends - Wolfville Stories • Alfred Henry Lewis
... house fifty yards north of its old site were now in Avonlea. Three pallid little girls crowded into one seat were certainly Cottons; and there was no doubt that the small beauty with the long brown curls and hazel eyes, who was casting coquettish looks at Jack Gills over the edge of her Testament, was Prillie Rogerson, whose father had recently married a second wife and brought Prillie home from her grandmother's in Grafton. A tall, awkward girl in a back seat, who seemed to have too many feet and hands, Anne could not place ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... one of the singular changes. The smiles and flushes and glances, all that had been coquettish about her, had lent her a certain attractiveness, almost beauty and youth. But with some powerful emotion she changed and instantly became a woman of discontent, Duane ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey
... as he went quietly up stairs, and the steady murmur of a pleasant voice came down to him. Tom laughed at Polly's earnest way of talking when she was interested in anything. But he liked it because it was so different from the coquettish clatter of most of the girls with whom he talked. Young men often laugh at the sensible girls whom they secretly respect, and affect to admire the silly ones whom they secretly despise, because earnestness, intelligence, and womanly ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... dainty ways, and pretty speeches. Looking down from her window upon the passers by, it was her favourite pastime to fancy herself one of the hooped and powdered and gorgeously-apparelled ladies, with their monstrous farthingales, their stiff petticoats, their fans, their patches, and their saucy, coquettish ways to the gentlemen in their train. All this bedizenment, which had by no means died out with the death of a Queen who had loved and encouraged it, was dear to the eyes of the little maiden, whose ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... clustering locks, that clung about your slender brown throat), the red and pouting lips, the nose inclined to be retrousse, the dark complexion, with its bright crimson flush, always ready to glance up like a signal light in a dusky sky, when you came suddenly upon your apathetic cousin—all this coquettish espiegle, brunette beauty was thrown away upon the dull eyes of Robert Audley, and you might as well have taken your rest in the cool drawing-room at the Court, instead of working your pretty mare to death under ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... most exquisite slowness, which was indeed admirable. But at the moment when he was to crown her who was for him, according to a prophecy, 'the star of happiness,' he made himself, if I dare use the expression, coquettish. He arranged this little crown which was to stand over her coronet of diamonds, and placed it on her head, then lifted it up to replace it in another way, as if to promise her that this crown would be light and pleasant to ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... not being given her head at once; but finally trotted off with a coquettish gait that showed her fine breeding and her graceful proportions. And the beautiful woman on her back was like a bride going forth ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... Phil had been used to bring home a rare flower or two as a gift for Adele, which Rose had always lovingly arranged in some coquettish fashion, either upon the bosom or in the hair of Adele; but a new and late gift of this kind—a little tuft of the trailing arbutus which he has clambered over miles of woodland to secure—is not worn by Adele, but by Rose, who glances into the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... stout grandfather was a brave and truthful gentleman—that grandma yonder, smiling opposite, was worthy to be his wife. I do not remember her, but she must have been a beauty. Her head is bent over one shoulder, and she has an exquisitely coquettish air. Her eyes are blue—her arms round, and as white as snow—and what lips! They are like carnations, and pout with a pretty smiling air, which must have made her dangerous. She rejected many wealthy offers to marry grandpa, who was then poor. As I gaze, it seems scarcely courteous ...
— Gifts of Genius - A Miscellany of Prose and Poetry by American Authors • Various
... fell together for the last time, twenty-five girls dressed in white and carrying trays came into the hall. They wore coquettish little aprons, and large ribbon bows in a variety of color, and suggested butterflies as they flitted among the tables. One by one the performers, most of them still in costume, slipped out ...
— Glenloch Girls • Grace M. Remick
... remain long, however, in the Church's company," she said, "she had her morning calls to finish." She kissed the cheek of Amelie and the hand of the Lady de Tilly, and with a coquettish courtesy to the gentlemen, leaped nimbly into her caleche, whirled round her spirited horses like a practised charioteer, and drove with rapid pace down the crowded street of St. John, the observed of all observers, ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... herself into graceful attitudes in tempting nearness to a young man, casts coquettish glances, she has done that which will give a turn to the thought which may prove ...
— What a Young Woman Ought to Know • Mary Wood-Allen
... one of those faces which you sometimes pass in the street and remember afterward, ever connecting it with some exquisite picture, or, if you happen to be in a poetical mood, a dainty bit of music. That face was very sweet in the coquettish red and white "kiss-me-quick" which used to shade it sunny mornings, when Daisy went to market—a very beautiful face when she looked up earnestly—a very holy face when she sat thoughtfully in her room at twilight. Her hair was dark chestnut, ...
— Daisy's Necklace - And What Came of It • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... blooming host, with his daughter Nannette as the coquettish "roper in." Father and daughter spoke English about as well as William and myself spoke French; and what was not understood by our mutual words and phrases was explained by our gesticulation of hand, shoulder, foot, eye, and ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... last, a Soudanese woman poured rose-water over their hands, from a copper jug, and wiped them with a large damask napkin, embroidered by Aichouch, the pretty, somewhat coquettish married daughter of the house, Maieddine's only sister. The rose-water had been distilled by Lella Fatma, the widowed sister of Alonda, who shared the hospitality of the Agha's roof, in village or douar. Every one questioned Victoria, and ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... man who is going to marry you!" he answered fiercely; "and I think it's about time this nonsense stopped. It's nothing but coquettish foolishness, your coming here. I hate coquettish fools. I didn't think you had it in you to coquet, but it ...
— The Man of the Desert • Grace Livingston Hill
... swept by as steadily as the procession of the seasons. The "Dimbula" heard the "Majestic" say "Humph!" and the "Paris" grunted "How!" and the "Touraine" said "Oui!" with a little coquettish flicker of steam; and the "Servia" said "Haw!" and the "Kaiser" and the "Werkendam" said "Hoch!" Dutch fashion—and that ...
— McClure's Magazine, March, 1896, Vol. VI., No. 4. • Various
... "waltze" with a noble ne'er-do-weel, thereby earning the "stern disapprobation" of a respectable lover; comes down in the world; has Highland experiences which, at the book's early date, are noteworthy; marries (like her creatress) a minister; but "retains a little of her coquettish sauciness." "Bless her, poor little dear!" one can imagine Thackeray exclaiming in his later and mellowed days. Mrs. Brunton's letters breathe a lady-like and not unamiable propriety, and she is altogether a sort of milder, though actually ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... may this lady be with acquiline nose and large black eyes; with such height and noble bearing; with mien so proud, yet so coquettish, who enters my chamber without being announced, and makes her obeisance ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 566, September 15, 1832 • Various
... if laid on with a camel's hair brush; the nose was straight and delicate; the mouth, now set with deep thought, firm and sweet, while the chin carried out this look of decision, and would have been almost too square but for the coquettish little cleft which gave it ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... twin of Peterson's, was a certain amount of underclothing, much trimmed with cheap lace. There were silk petticoats with torn frilling, and shoes and slippers. But nothing was marked with name, or even initials. Kit, though gaudily coquettish in her taste, was apparently careless in her habits. Clo no longer visioned Kit large, masculine, and determined, a tigress woman. Instead she saw a lithe, cat-like creature, strong, no doubt (it ...
— The Lion's Mouse • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... traced eyebrows and delightful smile were somehow suggestive of her foreign descent. Her clothes were country-made, but perfect as regarded fit and trimness, her beflowered hat was worn with a touch of coquettish grace, a trifle un-English, but very delightful. She had not an atom of shyness or embarrassment. Only there was a great surprise in her face as she held out ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Pisani; La Foscari, with her black plumes; La Mocenigo, "the lady with the pearls." She has pinned them all to the canvas; lovely, frail, light-hearted butterflies, with velvet neck-ribbons round their snowy throats and coquettish patches on their delicate skin and bouquets of flowers in their high-dressed hair and sheeny bodices. They look at us with arch eyes and smile with melting mouths, more frivolous than depraved; sweet, ephemeral, irresponsible ...
— The Venetian School of Painting • Evelyn March Phillipps
... really,' exclaimed coquettish Miss Price, after another hand or two. 'It's all along of you, Mr Nickleby, I think. I should like to have you for a ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... in Lynde's manner which cruelly helped to pique her curiosity. His frank, half satirical, but wholly amiable way— an armor that had hitherto rendered him invulnerable to Miss Mildred's coquettish shafts—was wanting; he was less ready to laugh than formerly, and sometimes in the midst of company he fell into absent- minded moods. Instead of being the instigator and leader of picnics up the river, he frequently ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... you'll not mind being my best boy for the day," she said, with a coquettish glance. "You can escort me, first of all, to the Pegalls, and afterwards we can drive to Baxter & Co.'s in Bayswater, so that you can assure yourself I didn't ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume
... Spanish, and thereafter applied herself with childlike and unfeigned zest to the edibles. The younger, Mercedes by name, was a very sprightly damsel indeed. She too had shining black hair, over which she had flung the most coquettish sort of lace shawl they call a rebosa. Her eyes were large, dark, and expressive; and she constantly used them most provocatively, though with every appearance of shyness and modesty. Her figure, too, was lithe and rounded; and so swathed, rather than clothed, that ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... pressed upon her some present, but she laughingly said she was richer than I; and in truth her lessons must have been very well paid, for she always dressed in an expensively elegant manner, and the black dresses which, with coquettish care for her complexion and style of beauty she preferred, had the dull softness of velvet, the brilliancy of satin and jet, a confusion of silken lace, which revealed to the astonished eye, under an apparent simplicity, a world of feminine ...
— Artists' Wives • Alphonse Daudet
... felt deeply miserable, perturbed and agitated. What a punishment for giving way to that half-coquettish, half self-indulgent impulse that had made her write to Paris! She had begged him to come back; while, really, he was here, and had not even let her know. She had never liked what she had heard of Mavis Argles, but had vaguely pitied her, wondering what Vincy saw in her, and wishing to ...
— Tenterhooks • Ada Leverson
... did not indulge in an artful compliment or two to the dashing Miss Sophie, the point of which lay in a cleverly covered contrast of herself with the humdrum manners of the fair ones of Ashfield. Yet, to tell truth, he is not wholly untouched by certain little rallying, coquettish speeches of Miss Sophie in respect to Adele, who, in her open, girl-like way, has very likely told the full story of Reuben's ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... the afternoon. Harry would be sure to be there, and, with a conflict of feeling finding expression in her acts, she protected herself by taking all the children, while she inconsistently dressed herself in her most youthful and coquettish costume. She found herself almost grudging Johnnie his rapidly increasing inches, even while she relied on him for an assertion of her position as a matron. For the folly of last night was to be ...
— Frivolous Cupid • Anthony Hope
... middle with the luxuriance of her locks, and clad in a robe of azure blue and a mantilla of silk embroidered with gold and gems of price; and her waist was girt with a zone set with various kinds of precious stones. She ceased not to advance with her graceful and coquettish swaying, till she came to the couch that stood at the upper end of the chamber and seated herself thereon. But when Ali bin Bakkar saw her, he versified with ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... Rosamond; he wanted her to like him; then they should be married, of coarse, and go to Scotland, and have a good time; but this quiet philosophy cooled him somewhat. As they walked up the bank together, he wondered at himself a little that he did not feel worse about it. If she had been coquettish, or perverse, she might have been all the more bewitching to him. If he had thought she liked somebody else better, he might have been furiously jealous; but "her way of liking a fellow would be a slow kind of a way, after all." That was the gist of his thought about it; and I believe ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... already admired. Here his usual bold flirtation followed. The young lady, who was at first disturbed at his assurance, betrayed her youthful inexperience in such matters; yet for an innocent maiden, she was rather coquettish, and he went on ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... she heard a step behind her, and turning, saw Sal Rawlins, in the neatest of black gowns, with a coquettish white cap and apron, and an open book. Madge had been so delighted with Sal for saving Brian's life that she had taken her into her service as maid. Mr. Frettlby had offered strong opposition at first ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume
... discussed from every possible point of view, it may be interesting to know how it was regarded by one who represented the thoughtful side of the age in which their social power was first distinctly asserted. She classes her critics and enemies under several heads. Among them are the "light and coquettish women whose only occupation is to adorn their persons and pass their lives in fetes and amusements—women who think that scrupulous virtue requires them to know nothing but to be the wife of a husband, the mother of children, and the mistress of a family; and men who regard women ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... flying among the reeds and the ash-trees; cattle chewed the cud in the shade, the ruddy earth of the vineyards glowed, the adders glided up and down the banks. What a change in the sparkling and coquettish landscape while I slept! I sprang suddenly from the boat and ran up the road which went round Clochegourde for I fancied that I saw the count coming out. I was not mistaken; he was walking beside the hedge, evidently making for a gate on the road to Azay which ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... was settled Miss Devereux turned to Peter Rolls. "And you, sir?" she asked, slightly coquettish because he was a man, though not of the Four Hundred. "I suppose there's nothing we ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... attachment is quite invisible—and the result absolutely ravishing! No," she added hurriedly; "I am not wearing a pair myself, these are quite natural, word of honour! But we undertake to impart to any eyes the gaze soulful, or the twinkle coquettish, as the customer desires—as an artist, I assure you that these expressions are due, less to the eyes themselves than to the shade, and especially the curve, of the lashes. Many a woman has entered our saloon entirely insignificant, and turned the ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... beautiful apparition, with loose and streaming hair, seemed rather to fly than run, as her light and rapid steps, full of eagerness and animation, scarcely touched the earth while darting after the gaudy insect. How graceful she is, as, halting for an instant beneath the coquettish moth, she looks up to behold its gold-and-purple wings dancing round her head, mocking and playing with its gay pursuer! She thinks she has caught it; but, alas! the edge of her net only touched the butterfly's wings, and away it dashes, over hedge and copse, far, far beyond her ...
— The Poor Gentleman • Hendrik Conscience
... and here we are rewarded with something that is worth travelling even from Dover to see. There stands the old church, grim, rusted, and weather-beaten, rising in gloomy pride, huge enough to serve a great town; while facing it is the belfry before alluded to, one of the most elegant, coquettish, and original of these always interesting structures. The amateur of Flemish architecture is ever prepared for something pleasing in this direction, for the variety of the belfries is infinite; but ...
— A Day's Tour • Percy Fitzgerald
... been on Wetter and Wetter's words. Since she had smiled I concluded that my guess was not far off. Elsa turned to me with a blush and the coquettish air that now and then sat ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... Mr. Grimm sat staring, staring straight ahead, comprehending none of these things which lay before him as in a panorama. Instead, his memory was conjuring up a pair of subtle, blue-gray eyes, now pleading, now coquettish, now frankly defiant; two slim, white, wonderful hands; the echo of a pleasant, throaty laugh; a splendid, elusive, radiant-haired phantom. Truly, a woman of mystery! Who was this Isabel Thorne who, for months past, had been the storm-center and directing mind of ...
— Elusive Isabel • Jacques Futrelle
... and gobbled it down with difficulty himself. Not so my generous captive. The next day he complied with her request again, and after that it was he who did the tender coaxing, begging her to accept the slight offering of his love. Soon, too, she grew coquettish in manner, often turned a cold shoulder to him, opened her mouth at him, and scolded in the sweetest and softest voice; and one night, after they had settled on their perch, I heard gentle talk, and saw a little peck or two on her part. He did the talking, and she delivered the playful ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller
... sakes, with the elaborate "business" that goes on in Catholic devotion, and carries with it the social excitement of all more complex businesses. An essentially worldly-minded Catholic woman can become a visitor of the sick on purely coquettish principles, with her confessor and director, her "merit" storing up, her patron saints, her privileged relation to the Almighty, drawing his attention as a professional devote, her definite "exercises," and her definitely recognized social pose in ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... in dress and her free and easy manners made her appear old and ugly to him, although she was neither. He thought that such coquettish attire and such playful manners would be well suited to the age and keen wit of little Marie, but that such pleasantry on the widow's part was heavy and stale, and that there was no distinction in the way she wore her ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... as Monsieur Jourdain when invited to visit the Countess Dorimene. For the first adventuress who comes along, a born princess who has strayed into a house of ill fame, or one who frequents such a house, who masquerades as a princess in her coquettish house in Rue Bremontier, he will forsake father, mother, children, state documents, cabinet, councils, Chamber of Deputies, everything in fact. He will break away from his young wife who has grown up under his eyes in the same town with him, among all the sweet domestic graces, moulded amid all ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... veil, not the "Burka " or "nose bag" with the peep-holes. It is opposed to the "Tarkah" or "head veil." Europeans inveigh against the veil which represents the loup of Louis Quatorze's day: it is on the contrary the most coquettish of contrivances, hiding coarse skins, fleshy noses, wide mouths and vanishing chins, and showing only lustrous and liquid black eyes. Moreover a pretty woman, when she wishes, will always let you see something under the veil. (Pilgrimage ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... is perfect!" she cried. "The shape, the colour, the air of it. Manuela, quick! a mirror! hold it for me—so! look!" She took the ribbon from her belt, and began to twist it in one coquettish knot after another about the hat, which she had ...
— Rita • Laura E. Richards
... friend and confidante of Miss Hardcastle. A handsome, coquettish girl, destined by Mrs. Hardcastle for her son Tony Lumpkin, but Tony did not care for her, and she dearly loved Mr. Hastings; so Hastings and Tony plotted together to outwit madam, and of course won the day.—O. Goldsmith, She ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... accomplished Nero met the beautiful, but rather coquettish Mrs. Wyndham at Gretna Green, that place once so famous for runaway couples and matrimonial blacksmiths, upon the 4th of July, 1900 A.D. He said, 'Dearest madam, my tender heart will break if you refuse my hand;' but she replied, ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... reconciled by his glowing language. It was for him that she wished to appear especially attractive to-day, that Alexis, by the sight of her, might be made utterly to forget the Countess Eleonore Lapuschkin. In these coquettish efforts of her vanity she had utterly forgotten all the plans and projects of her friends and adherents; she thought no more of becoming empress, but she would be the queen of beauty, and in that realm she would reign alone with an ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... with palm trees over-shadowing a little fountain tinkling in a jade basin, with servants in gaudy liveries. The reception clerk overwhelmed me with the cordiality of his welcome to my companion and "the American gentleman," and after a certain amount of coquettish protestations about the difficulty of providing accommodation, allotted us a double suite on the entresol, consisting of two bedrooms with ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... human nature seems to rise and spread its wings in a glorious harmony of pairs and twos of a kind melting in passionate octaves and triplets. The groping, ardent, distracted, thwarted, but ever protesting bass, set against a coquettish, evasive, yet timidly yielding treble; the occasional introduction of a mysterious minor in the midst of a well-authenticated major, gives us an intimation that wooing ...
— Bluebeard • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... her that evening, and before the first course was over a decided flirtation was established. The pretty hostess, albeit wife of a doctor and daughter of a dean, had evidently a strong coquettish element in her composition, and a very slight spark was sufficient to relight ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... and began very naturally a conversation, in which Madame des Grassins gradually lowered her voice so as to bring it into harmony with the nature of the confidences she was making. With her, as with Charles, there was the need of conference; so after a few moments spent in coquettish phrases and a little serious jesting, the clever provincial said, thinking herself unheard by the others, who were discussing the sale of wines which at that season filled the heads ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac
... Janet with a little coquettish movement natural to every feminine thing, bird, flower, or human being, "you've always such a pleasant ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... women cold and coquettish by nature. The disposition flourishes best in courtly scenes, but it will grow anywhere, ay, and flourish anywhere. It unfortunately requires but little culture; still Helen was in her novitiate. If she had not been so, she ...
— Turns of Fortune - And Other Tales • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... genders), she draped her lissom form in the clinging folds of an enormous habit de peau de brebis—portions of ear and the tip of her nose tilted over the edge of the deep turned-up collar, which, on one side, supported the coquettish droop of the hairy "Tammy" that, dexterously pinned to the spikes of a diamond fender, gave a clou to the entire ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... occurrence had affected me, I determined at all events to conceal the matter from my wife, until further experience should discover to me the extent of this my unheard of calamity. Altering my countenance, therefore, in a moment, from its bepuffed and distorted appearance, to an expression of arch and coquettish benignity, I gave my lady a pat on the one cheek, and a kiss on the other, and without saying one syllable (Furies! I could not), left her astonished at my drollery, as I pirouetted out of the room ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... This wise, silly, prudent, coquettish demon was almost perfect in the family relations: an excellent daughter, a good sister, and a devoted mother. And so ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... stigmatize vice in high quarters, he has painted wicked women and queens (Catherine and Elizabeth), did he not likewise refresh our souls with the enchanting portraits of Angiolina (the wife of Faliero), and of Josephine (the wife of Werner). If he made merry at the expense of coquettish, weak, hypocritical women (like Adeline, for instance), has he not consoled us by painting, in far greater number, angels of loving devotedness, like Myrrha, Adah, Medora, Haidee, and in general all his delightful female creations? Are not all his heroes even, more or less, constant, devoted, ready ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... with her hair unbound. She sat down opposite me in a rocking-chair, shook off her slippers on the floor, and curling her toes around the rung, rocked violently back and forth. She punctuated her remarks by frequent clucks, which, I suppose, were meant to be coquettish. Her music-teacher was expected presently; so while I wrote a letter on her escritorio, the senorita smoked a cigarette upon the balcony. The maestro came at last; a little, pock-marked fellow, dapper, and neatly dressed, his fingers ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert
... know she was dead in love with him!" cried the rattling young lady, at the top of her voice. Then, observing the gentleman, who was looking in that direction, she bowed with a coquettish graciousness. The bow was returned, but the gentleman did not seem very anxious to approach the party; when the young lady, beckoning with her finger, obliged him ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... here to take up the "Scherzos," so unlike the coquettish, bantering pieces of the same name by other composers, Chopin seemingly representing tragedy mocking itself, as any one playing the B flat minor "Scherzo," Op. 31, may hear for himself; the "Ballades," so eloquently ...
— The Pianolist - A Guide for Pianola Players • Gustav Kobb
... happened to be composed of "pickled pork and taturs." Old Bill and Bob were gruffly but cordially invited to join the family circle, which they did; Bob making a thoroughly hearty meal, quite unmoved by the coquettish endeavours of Miss Turnbull, a stout, good-tempered, but not particularly beautiful damsel of some seventeen summers, to attract the attention and excite the admiration of ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood
... making eyes at him, the preposterous old person. It was really a little pitiful, with her gorgeous colours, and her trembling assumption of a coquettish youth that had left her long ago. Her attempt to storm a difficult position by the worst of all possible tactics made him extremely sorry for the daughter, who was forced to look on in silence. His thoughts, ...
— The Wooden Horse • Hugh Walpole
... coquettish, yet very good and lovely little being—this seraph from one of Fra Angelica's pictures, endowed with a frailty or two of humanity—found herself the heroine of a trying scene. Coronado hastened it; he judged her ready to fall into his net; he managed the time and place for the capture. The ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... in her hand, one pretty foot on the fender, sat Carmen, in a grayish, vaporous toilet, which took a warm hue from the color of the spreading lamp-shades. On the carved table near was a litter of books and of nameless little articles, costly and coquettish, which assert femininity, even in a literary atmosphere. Over the fireplace hung a picture of spring—a budding girl, smiling and winning, in a semi-transparent raiment, advancing with swift steps to bring in the season of flowers and of love. The hand that held the book rested upon the arm of ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... first time to the accompaniment of flashes of lightning. I think she was arrayed in little blue feathers, but if such a costume is not seemly, I swear there were, at least, little blue feathers in her too coquettish cap, and that she was carrying a muff to match. No part of a woman is more dangerous than her muff, and as muffs are not worn in early autumn, even by invalids, I saw in a twink, that she had put on all her pretty things to wheedle ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie
... instinctively recognized by Germain's little boy, who, with his unconscious childish influence, is one of the prettiest features in the book. Germain, by his journey's end, has his heart so well engaged in the right quarter that he is proof against the dangerous fascinations of the coquettish widow. ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... and Gutmann whispered to Niecks at different times that each was the particular soul, the alter ego, of Chopin. He appeared to give himself to his friends but it was usually surface affection. He had coaxing, coquettish ways, playful ways that cost him nothing when in good spirits. So he was "more loved than loving." This is another trait of the man, which, allied with his fastidiousness and spiritual brusquerie, made him difficult to decipher. The loss of Sand completed his misery and we find him in ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... you'd better sit with him a good distance during the show," said Mrs. Addcock, as I finished shoe-topping Mamie and picked up my pink-lined white sunbonnet, which had been a present from Mrs. Addcock herself and was astonishingly frilly and coquettish emanating from such a ...
— The Golden Bird • Maria Thompson Daviess
... a brave of so many scalps that in his present position they somewhat impede his progress. Bringing up the rear, the place of greatest danger, comes Tiger Lily, proudly erect, a princess in her own right. She is the most beautiful of dusky Dianas and the belle of the Piccaninnies, coquettish, cold and amorous by turns; there is not a brave who would not have the wayward thing to wife, but she staves off the altar with a hatchet. Observe how they pass over fallen twigs without making the slightest noise. The only sound to be heard is their somewhat heavy breathing. ...
— Peter and Wendy • James Matthew Barrie
... destruction. He was not without hopes of pleasing—what young man of nineteen or twenty is? He was not without chance of success, as it is called, with Peggy— what woman can be pronounced safe, who ventures to extend to a young lover the encouragement of coquettish smiles? Peggy said, "innocent smiles sure," "meaning nothing;" but they were interpreted to mean something: less would in his present dispositions have excited the hero who imitated Tom Jones to enterprise. Report says that, about this time, Harry Ormond was seen disguised in ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... the heroine from the rear and "breathes his attachment down her back," and the poor heroine is pursued by the relentless storm, while on the other side of the street the sun is shining. MacDowell portrays the coquettish "Soubrette," the longing "Lover," the strong-charactered "Witch," the gay "Clown," the sinister "Villain" and the simple, tender "Sweetheart," with a Prologue indicating "sturdy good humor" and an Epilogue to be ...
— Edward MacDowell • Elizabeth Fry Page
... the two great footmen in knee breeches who sleep in the big armchairs, made drowsy by the heavy warmth of the hot-air stove. She thought of the long salons fatted up with ancient silk, of the delicate furniture carrying priceless curiosities, and of the coquettish perfumed boudoirs made for talks at five o'clock with intimate friends, with men famous and sought after, whom all women envy and ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... were soon after solemniz'd, and for a whole Month successively, no two Turtles were ever more fond of each other. In Process of Time, however, he perceiv'd she was a little Coquettish, and too much inclin'd to think, that the handsomest young Fellows were always the most virtuous and the ...
— Zadig - Or, The Book of Fate • Voltaire
... disapproval. She took her decision quietly, and made no comment upon it one way or the other. But when it neared dressing time, and the girl had gone to her room to prepare, she tapped gently for admittance and came in, bearing in her hand a coquettish sealskin hood which she generously offered ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann
... go black till a long while after it is written. At least, the letters I write don't." She shot a veiled coquettish glance at the big K.C. from under her ...
— The Hampstead Mystery • John R. Watson
... of him she put on a careless, coquettish air, and began to move carelessly towards him, plucking leaves and grass as though perfectly ...
— Rataplan • Ellen Velvin
... household god laid low. I saw at one glance that in my breast alone his memory was enshrined; that there alone was sacred incense burning. Mrs. Lynn, (I will speak of her by her name hereafter,) though only one year had passed since his death, was assuming those light, coquettish airs which accord as little with the robes of widowhood as the hues of the rainbow or the garlands ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... defect, but from excess of sympathy. The restaurant was empty now, save for a man, four tables down, safely ensconced behind the pink pages of an evening paper, and for a couple, at the far end, in the window—a young Frenchwoman, whose coquettish hat and trim rounded figure were silhouetted against the yellow silk curtain, and a precocious black- haired youth, with a skin like pale, pink satin, round eyeglasses and an incipient moustache. His attention was entirely occupied with the young woman; ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... was the answer, and she arose to change the coquettish cap and morning-gown for her street costume. Then she took out her pencil, and jotted down two or three errands in her memorandum-book, and gathering up the samples to match for ...
— Harper's Young People, June 22, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... imagination you have the better it will go. I might call it a stylish piece; take the Prelude as capriciously as you like; put all the effect you can into it. The Valse proper begins in a very pompous style, with right hand very staccato; all is exceedingly coquettish. On the fifth page you see it is marked amoroso, but after eight measures the young man gives the whole thing away to his father! The beginning of the sixth page is very piano and light—it is nothing more than a breath of smoke, an airy nothing. But at the poco piu lento, there is an undercurrent ...
— Piano Mastery - Talks with Master Pianists and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... lanterns, while the bank round the ice was studded with lamps. The crowds walking about by the edge of the lake were all wrapped up in furs. A large proportion of those on skates wore uniforms, while the ladies were in short, tightly-fitting jackets, trimmed with fur, and with coquettish little fur caps. The crowd was far too great for any attempt at figure-skating, but they moved swiftly round and round the lake in a sort of procession, each lady accompanied by a cavalier, who held her hand, and all skating with a grace ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty
... the breath of a brighter world in his throat. Looking up, he saw a beautiful little fowl perched on the topmost twig of the birch-tree. It had a slender bill, and on its head a crest of splendid feathers, which it set up at Balder in a most coquettish manner. The next moment it flew over the wall, and from the farther side ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... southern-looking complexion, and large dark eyes. The gentleman wore powder; the lady had her dark hair gathered away from her face, and a little cap, with a cherry-coloured bow, set on the top of her head—a coquettish head-dress, but the eyes spoke of sadness rather ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... [Alert, mobile, and coquettish in her way in the waiter's presence.] You has to go back up the stairs. We has no use down here for ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume II • Gerhart Hauptmann
... how much more charming, when they come to you as a Human Philosopher; handsome, magnanimous, and the wittiest man in the world! Young Madame was not regularly beautiful; but she was very piquant, radiant, adventurous; understood other things than the pure sciences, and could be abundantly coquettish and engaging. I have known her scuttle off, on an evening, with a couple of adventurous young wives of Quality, to the remote lodging of the witty M. de Voltaire, and make his dim evening radiant to him. [One of Voltaire's Letters.] Then again, in public crowds, I have seen them; ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. X. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—At Reinsberg—1736-1740 • Thomas Carlyle
... coquettish and talkative) It's my lineage, of course. One can hold me in a muff. You've seen ...
— Barks and Purrs • Colette Willy, aka Colette
... for what intelligence and wisdom told her was only her romantic conception of a cowboy. She reasoned: If Stewart were the kind of man her feminine skepticism wanted to make him, he would not have been so blind to the coquettish advances of Helen and Dorothy. He had once been—she did not want to recall what he had once been. But he had been uplifted. Madeline Hammond declared that. She was swayed by a strong, beating pride, and her instinctive woman's faith told her that he could ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... headlong self-abandonment of Iseult is excused to some extent by the magic potion, it is of an "all-for-love-and-the-world-well-lost" kind which finds no exact parallel elsewhere in the legend. So too, whether it seem more or less amiable, the half-coquettish jealousy of Guinevere in regard to Lancelot is not Celtic: while the profligate vindictiveness attributed to her in Sir Launfal, and only in Sir Launfal, an almost undoubtedly Celtic offshoot of the Arthurian Legend, is equally alien from her character. We see Iseult planning the ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... the matter. She was about eighteen, as slim and straight as a dart, and, by far and away, the prettiest woman I had seen in the group. She stood there mighty sullen as I sized her up, and admired her splendid black hair that was bound by a red ribbon at the nape of her neck, very coquettish and attractive. I've always liked that proud, to-hell-with-you look in a girl, and it seemed to make her better worth having, like there was something to master before you could have your will with her. Yes, it was bargain day for me all right, ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... neck of the kind which women long to caress, and his soft, half-curling hair looked as if it were negligently arranged, or carefully disarranged, by a woman's coquettish hand. ...
— Tales of Two Countries • Alexander Kielland
... this fashion. He thinks far more of me than I find it convenient to be, while I am more at ease with you, you old cross- patch, you who know me to be coquettish ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... proportions, while her dancing eyes of jet black shamed the dyes of the Italian manufacturer by their superior radiance. A few ribbons of pink, disposed about her person with an air partly studied, and yet carelessly coquettish, seemed rather to reflect than lend the rich bloom that mantled around her laughing countenance, leaving to the eye no cause to regret that she was ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... lady, with a slightly coquettish laugh; "you have made him as much a woman-hater as yourself. I offered to take him in our party, and he ran away to you." She paused, and giving him a furtive critical glance said, with an easy mingling of confidence and audacity, "Why don't YOU ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte
... gay and coquettish as a girl of sixteen; but there was enough of real kindliness in her character to make those who knew her forgive these girlish affectations and the little delusion under which she labored—that certain specially-favored people, ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... him ten minutes before that on the lower terrace with Miss Reinhart, and they were going to the grounds. He was smoking a cigar; she was looking most fascinating and beautiful in her elegant morning dress and coquettish hat. Without thinking, ...
— My Mother's Rival - Everyday Life Library No. 4 • Charlotte M. Braeme
... white hand bare, And about her forehead pale Wound a thin, transparent veil, That doth not conceal her hair; Sovereign attitude and air, Cheek and neck alike displayed With coquettish charms arrayed, Laughing eyes and fugitive;— This is killing men that live, 'T is ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... was an extraordinarily successful piece of workmanship. There was nothing very wicked surely about that coquettish bending of her head, those playful escapes from her husband's embrace, that heel-and-toe tripping, that lithe elusiveness, that joyous ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes |
