"Doorstep" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... fathers had had supper and were settled safely by their candles, which were beacons that led them back into past ages, I sat by myself on the front doorstep in the perfumed darkness that was only faintly lit by stars that seemed so near the earth that they were like flowers of light blossoming on the twigs of the roof elms. In a lovely dream I had just gone into the arms of Pan when I heard out beyond the orchard a soft moo ...
— The Golden Bird • Maria Thompson Daviess
... there at once: I'll overtake you on his doorstep. (Christy turns to go.) Wait a moment. Your brother must be ...
— The Devil's Disciple • George Bernard Shaw
... the bath-chair up the hill from the village without any obvious effort. At the gate of the avenue she stopped. Two small children were playing just inside it. A rather larger child set on the doorstep of the gate lodge with a ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham
... considered using a large number of black soldiers in a totally integrated unit. The situation was not without its note of irony, for the purpose of the plan was not to abolish the racial discrimination that critics were constantly laying at the Army's doorstep. In fact, Army leaders, seriously dedicated to the separate but equal principle, were convinced the Gillem Board policy had already eliminated discrimination. Nor was the plan designed to carry out the ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... now upon the doorstep of old Miss Buchanan's London house, and he had come there to call upon young Miss Buchanan. The memory of Helen's unobtrusive, wonderfully understanding kindness to him during his last days at Merriston, remained for him as the only bright spot in a desolate ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... and brown, showed no sign of having been out of bed all night. From cold water and a razor in his own lodgings he came back at a round pace to St. Martin's Lane. He found his aide, Mr. Mackenzie, taking the air on the doorstep of the Blue House, and rebuked him. "I bade ye bide ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... like that. Take him right back to your stable, or I'll have you up before a justice.' 'Now look here, Miss Panney,' says I, 'which is the best, for a hoss to jog a little round town when he ain't feeling quite well, or for a man to sit idle on his front doorstep and see his family starve?' 'Now, Andy,' says she, 'is that the case with you?' and havin' brought up the pint myself, I was obliged to say that it was. 'Very good, then,' said she, and she took her roan mare by the head and led it up to the curbstone. 'Now then,' said ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton
... you asked. I'll tell you," he said, after a short pause, and his honest face seemed to express a vivid realisation of the whole misery of the situation. "I would have died upon the doorstep!" ...
— The Pilot and his Wife • Jonas Lie
... me,' he yelled. 'My house has been gutted by the French and harried by the English, and my feet have been burned by the brigands. I swear by the Virgin that I have neither money nor food in my inn, and the good Father Abbot, who is starving upon my doorstep, ...
— The Exploits Of Brigadier Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Mr Chatterton,' she said; and in another moment she was standing on the doorstep ...
— Bristol Bells - A Story of the Eighteenth Century • Emma Marshall
... in a court where the living green combined with age to glorify the buildings. We did not see the dilapidation, we did not smell the dirt, we did not feel the squalor. A woman was lighting a fire in a brazier on her doorstep. She looked hostilely at us. We beamed in counteraction. She looked more hostilely. As the Artist wanted to sketch her house, some words seemed necessary. I detailed our emotions. Was not her lot, cast in this picturesque ...
— Riviera Towns • Herbert Adams Gibbons
... of the two million quarts travels thirty-six hours before it lands on the front doorstep of the consumer. The situation in New York is duplicated in a less acute degree in every ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... be sure," declared Tommy. "I dreamed the cats were scratchin' me; an' then that very nex' mornin' the old doorstep scratched me!" cried the ...
— The Girls of Central High on Lake Luna - or, The Crew That Won • Gertrude W. Morrison
... was not looking at her; his eyes were fastened on the doorstep. "Oh, she started—?" he stammered. And without finishing his phrase or looking up he stiffly averted himself. But ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James
... with a rush of blood to his face and a strange tingling at the heart as the one true influence to make the soldier. For what should the soldier wander but to come again home triumphant, and find on the doorstep of his native place ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... be a slight difference of (h)opinion between you and I, so to speak, as to just w'at may constitute 'business.' Now, for (h)instance—" Mr. Wigglesworth was warming to his subject, but the old lady standing on her doorstep fixed her keen blue eyes upon him and ruthlessly swept away ...
— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor
... pointed out to us two pails of water behind the street-door. "Voila de l'eau pour vous debarbouiller," says she. And so there we made a shift to wash ourselves, while Madame Gilliard brushed the family boots on the outer doorstep, and M. Hector, whistling cheerily, arranged some small goods for the day's campaign in a portable chest of drawers, which formed a part of his baggage. Meanwhile the child was letting off Waterloo ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... at pause a few paces beyond the doorstep, his forefinger ready upon the trigger of the automatic pistol, was alone ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... side of the water, what is on the other side of the world! If he cannot go North, South, East and West himself, he must at least have his newspaper; and the newspaper brings all the ends of the earth every morning to his doorstep and his breakfast-table. This, I say, is the difference between a beast and a man; and James Chalmers—known in New Guinea as the most magnificent specimen of humanity on the islands—was every inch ...
— A Handful of Stars - Texts That Have Moved Great Minds • Frank W. Boreham
... were all seated at table, the new girl from the mountains took her cup of coffee and a biscuit and dropped upon the doorstep to eat her breakfast. The back yard was unenclosed, a litter of tin cans and ashes running with its desert disorder into a similar one on either side. But there were no houses back of the Himes place, the ground falling away sharply to the rocky creek bed. Across the ravine half ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke
... damask rose best of all. The flowers our mothers and sisters used to love and cherish, those which grow beneath our eaves and by our doorstep, are the ones we always love best. If the Houyhnhnms should ever catch me, and, finding me particularly vicious and unmanageable, send a man-tamer to Rareyfy me, I'll tell you what drugs he would have to take and how he ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... my work. My first visit is to be to a merchant, who lives in a street close to where the ships discharge. While I am in, do you sit down on a doorstep near, and keep a sharp lookout to see whether the house is watched. It is not likely, but all the better class of Catholics who remain in the town are regarded ...
— Orange and Green - A Tale of the Boyne and Limerick • G. A. Henty
... perpetually closed blinds suggest the owner's absence. But the householders of Madeira Place do not absent themselves, even in summer; they could hardly get much nearer to the sea. And if you will take the pains to seat yourself, toward the close of day, upon an opposite doorstep, between two rows of clamorous little girls sliding, with screams of painful joy, down the rough hammered stone, to the improvement of their clothing, you will see that the house ...
— In Madeira Place - 1887 • Heman White Chaplin
... with watchful and brilliant eyes, Liz walked up the avenue. On the doorstep of a brick tenement a curly-haired child sat, puzzling over the convolutions of a tangled string. Liz flopped down beside her, with a crooked, shifting smile on her flushed face. But her eyes had grown clear and ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry
... the doorstep. She opened the door and went in, and shut the door behind her before the echo of her step had died. Ford was lying as he had lain once before, upon a bunk, with his face hidden in his folded arms. He did not hear her—at any rate he did not know ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower
... In one of the little windows the shutters were not yet closed, and there was a candle standing on the window-ledge, evidently as a signal to the late guest who was expected that night. Thirty paces away Stavrogin made out on the doorstep the figure of a tall man, evidently the master of the house, who had come out to stare impatiently Up the road. He heard his voice, too, impatient ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... ignominious silence should have been broken long ago, and must be broken now. I should have broken it when he first proposed to come to Stallbridge-Minster; I should have broken it in the train; I should break it there and then, on the inn doorstep, as the omnibus rolled off. I turned toward him at the thought; he seemed to wince, the words died on my lips, and I proposed instead that we should ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... had she eyed very closely, standing out on the front doorstep in the rain, and she saw that one end of it seemed to touch the ground at the foot of a pine-tree on the side of the mountain, which was quite conspicuous amongst its fellows, it was so tall. The other end had nothing especial ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... instance, the dead body of a man is found lying on the doorstep, or a woman is seen who has the appearance of having been outraged. So far the facts are proved by the direct evidence of the person by whom they have been seen. Information is sought for by him as to the circumstances under which the death or outrages took place. ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... then Louise came rushing in, breathless with news. "Mother—father—there are goats here!" And little Lorentz came toddling in after her: "Goats, mother," he cried, stumbling over the doorstep. ...
— The Great Hunger • Johan Bojer
... was muttering between his clenched teeth as he rode away, while Steinmetz watched him from the doorstep. "It is well! Now I will ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... gray house, so close to the purring waves that in storms their spray splashed over its very doorstep, seemed deserted. Miss Rosetta pounded lustily on the front door. This producing no result, she marched around to the back door and knocked. No answer. Miss Rosetta tried the door. It ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... dark while Stanley sat in the little drawing-room, and Rachel stood on her doorstep, and saw his figure glide away slowly into the thin mist and shadow, and turn upward to return to Brandon, by that narrow ravine where they had held rendezvous with Mark Wylder, on that ill-omened night when trouble ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... she said, and a few minutes later Colonel Faversham stood on the doorstep, looking after them with obvious approval, as they were driven away from ...
— Enter Bridget • Thomas Cobb
... strolled about aimlessly under the stars, his soul blissful with the sense of a good deed that had only superficially miscarried. His feet took him to Hannah's house. All the windows were lit up. His heart began to ache at the thought that his bright, radiant girl was beyond that doorstep he had never crossed. ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... a path of gore. The wife from the window hath seen, and rushed; He hath reached the step, but the blood hath gushed; He hath crawled to the step of his own house-door, But his head hath dropped: he will crawl no more. Clasp Wife, and kiss, and lift the head, Harrington lies at his doorstep dead. ...
— Poems of American Patriotism • Brander Matthews (Editor)
... brighter world for Jaune d'Antimoine when he gave into Rose's hand the market-basket on her own doorstep, and turned reluctantly away. But there still were clouds in it. Rose had admitted that two things were necessary before getting married could be thought of at all seriously: something must be done by which the nose of the Count Siccatif de Courtray would be disjointed; something must be done ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... his leave of them. Mrs. Hall went as far as the door to light him down the slope. On the doorstep he said frankly—'I came to ask your daughter to marry me; chose the night and everything, with an eye to a ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy
... My favourite students often visit me of afternoons. They first send me their cards, to announce their presence. On being told to come in they leave their footgear on the doorstep, enter my little study, prostrate themselves; and we all squat down together on the floor, which is in all Japanese houses like a soft mattress. The servant brings zabuton or small cushions to kneel upon, and ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... Jack. "I don't think it's the sort of letter that a girl should write to a man who told her that he was going to blow his brains out on her doorstep. It doesn't seem to be altogether the right sort of thing ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille
... least a welcome distraction, and under its genial influence Mrs. Briggs's spirits rose. She was quite cheery by the time her two visitors took their leave. They left her waving farewell from her doorstep, the patches of paste still upon her ruddy countenance, but with no other traces of her recent ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... lying on a table in the hall, and as there was no blood on them it was presumed this was done before the murder. The housekeeper's keys were also found on the stairs. Opening the door to procure assistance, Lowes observed a woman on the doorstep, screening herself apparently from the rain, which was falling heavily at the time. She moved off as soon as the door was opened, saying, in answer to the request for assistance, "Oh! dear, no; I can't come in!" The gas over ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... to call weekly to receive ten shillings—for what service no one was able to form the faintest conception. Should he fail to appear Gilbert mailed the money. He was found one day fighting another man on the doorstep for daring to ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... Hamlet, did not even understand that this was necessary. And learned critics continue to investigate and extol this puzzling production, which reminds one of the famous stone with an inscription which Pickwick found near a cottage doorstep, and which divided the scientific world into two ...
— Tolstoy on Shakespeare - A Critical Essay on Shakespeare • Leo Tolstoy
... Hans had been very idle while they were gone. He sat absently on the doorstep, watching the grass that grew almost visibly in the warm spring sun. Occasionally he tapped his forehead with his finger tips. It helped him to think, and just now ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... it is not," said the Giant, "for if it were I should have been dead long ago. But I will tell you where it is—it is under the great doorstep at the entrance ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... speaking of the material house, made up of the walls and furniture, and not of any pleasantness or unpleasantness supplied by the inmates. It was a small house on the south side of the street, squeezed in between two large mansions which seemed to crush it, and by which its fair proportion of doorstep and area was in truth curtailed. The stairs were narrow; the dining-room was dark, and possessed none of those appearances of plenteous hospitality which a dining-room should have. But all this would have been as nothing if the drawing-room had been pretty as it is the bounden duty of all drawing-rooms ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... change-house, into which there was, even at that early hour, a great resorting of bein elderly citizens for their dram and snap. Moreover, at the head of the wynd, an aged carlin, with a distaff in her arms and a whorl in her hand, sat on a doorstep tending a stand of apples and comfits; so that, to a surety, had I made any attempt to escape by the window, I must have been seen by some one, and laid hold of. I therefore retired back into the obscurity of the chamber, ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... was natural, and the old lady's tears gushed forth the moment she looked upon it. There was the well, the garden, the gate partially open, the barn in the rear, now half fallen down, the curtain of the west window rolled up as it was wont to be, while on the doorstep, basking in the warm sunshine, lay a cat, which Mrs. ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes
... you would have thought that it was the funniest sight that you ever saw, though it may not sound so funny to tell about it. Kathleen was vexed that Terence could not go where she wanted him to, but she laughed till she had to sit down on a doorstep and rest. ...
— Fairies and Folk of Ireland • William Henry Frost
... Molly walked slowly home through the orchard. Neither spoke until the old man called to Spot at his doorstep, and then Molly noticed that his breath came with a whistling sound that was unlike his ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... and Verdayne heard the bell pealing through the silent house as he stood shivering and waiting on the doorstep. ...
— High Noon - A New Sequel to 'Three Weeks' by Elinor Glyn • Anonymous
... comme la Mort," of De Maupassant, is to rush out into the street and propose to the first girl he encounters, in order to avoid this dreadful nightmare of a solitary old age. But before he has got as far as the doorstep he reflects further. Suppose he marries, and after twenty years his wife dies and leaves him a widower! He will still have a solitary old age, and a vastly more tragical one than if he had remained single. Marriage is not, therefore, a sure remedy for a ...
— Mental Efficiency - And Other Hints to Men and Women • Arnold Bennett
... behind him. He was alone, and, as was his wont, he was whistling a sad little refrain which had neither beginning nor end. He walked slowly up the stone pathway, unlocked the door of his cottage, and stood only a moment on the doorstep to survey the growing thickness of the night, before he closed and bolted the door and ...
— The Daffodil Mystery • Edgar Wallace
... was Jeanne's foster sister. Her name was Rosalie, and her chief duty lay in guiding the steps of her mistress, who had grown enormous in the last few years and also had an affection of the heart, which kept her complaining continually. The baroness, gasping from over-exertion, finally reached the doorstep of the old residence, looked at the court where the water was streaming and remarked: "It really is not wise." Her husband, always pleasant, replied: "It was you who desired it, Madame Adelaide." He always preceded her pompous name ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... a photograph. "Why, certainly," I said, little knowing what I promised. But the request was to have a strange sequel, as you shall hear. Sykes came to say my car was at the door. As I clambered in and turned to wave a farewell, Madame and Jeanne stood on the doorstep to wish me bon voyage. "J'espere que vous tuerez plusieurs Allemands," cried Madame in a quavering voice. "Veuillez ne pas oublier, M'sieu'," cried Jeanne wistfully. I waved my hand, and had soon left rue Robert le Frisson ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... this. This one smiled, yet his face had much of the sadness in it. He had perhaps walked many weary miles in the heat. Would he—with a gesture interpreting her speech—be pleased to rest awhile? Without hesitation, he would. As he sat on the doorstep gazing contentedly at the flowers bordering the path, Anita's mother appeared from some mysterious recess of the 'dobe and questioned Anita with quick low utterance. The girl's answer, interpretable to Sundown only by its intonation, ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... she said, melting in spite of herself as she looked down from the doorstep into his dark, smiling eyes. His strong, tanned face was beardless, his teeth were white, his abundant brown hair tousled and boyishly awry,—and there were mud splashes on his cheek and chin. He was tall and straight and his figure was shapely, despite the thick ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... used to tell with delight of Palgrave's call on him just after he had moved into his new Queen Anne house in Kensington Square: "Palgrave called yesterday, and the first thing he said was, 'I've counted three anachronisms on your front doorstep.' " ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... father's door. A young man in a Norfolk suit jumped out, threw the horse's reins to his groom, and pulled the doctor's bell furiously. Effie leaned slightly out of her window in order to see who it was. She recognized the man who stood on the doorstep with a start of surprise, and the color flew into her face. He was the young Squire of the neighborhood. His name was Harvey. His place was two miles out of Whittington. He was married; his wife was the most beautiful woman Effie had ever seen; and he had one little girl. The Harveys were rich ...
— A Girl in Ten Thousand • L. T. Meade
... erect, and wind and water-tight once more. Only one thing was wanting—there was no handle. The only thing left was to try to catch Tricky, for there was nothing else on the island which would make a handle. But just then Tricky required no catching. At that moment he was sitting on the doorstep contemplating the group round the pump. Everybody being out, he had seized the opportunity to have a good breakfast—consisting of every particle of meal in the barrel—and was now enjoying a period of repose before recommencing hostilities. The shepherd ...
— The Monkey That Would Not Kill • Henry Drummond
... an almost physical collapse; neither he nor Henry Houghton had reckoned on maternal love. Mr. Houghton had implied that Lily's kind did not have maternal love. "She'll leave it on a convenient doorstep—unless she's a white blackbird," Henry Houghton had said. Maurice, too, had taken for granted Lily's eagerness to get rid of the child. In his amazement now, at this revelation of an unknown Lily—a white blackbird Lily!—he began, angrily, to argue: "It is impossible ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... lowered, tail lashing the air, one hoof pawing savagely, worthy representative of all the horrors it typified, and which she explained with maddening perspicuity. That night, when papa tore himself away from the club room at one o'clock, and met mamma on the doorstep—just coming home from a supper at Delmonico's after an opera party—they were ascending the stairs, when frantic cries drove from her ears the echoes of 'Traviata's' witching strain. Thinking only a conflagration ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... are like the poor—they are always with us; or like relations—perpetually on the doorstep on washing day. Perhaps one ought to live as if one were not aware of them. To have your eyes fixed steadfastly on some "star" makes you oblivious, as it were, to the creepy-crawly things which are creepy-crawling up your leg. The unfortunate thing, however, ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King
... journal with great attention; at last he tossed it from him in an impatient manner, and exclaimed, "Of all lying rascals, I think the reporters for this paper are the greatest. Now, for instance, three or four nights since, a gang of villains assaulted one of my tenants—a coloured man—upon his own doorstep, and nearly killed him, and that, too, without the slightest provocation; they then set fire to the house, which was half consumed before it could be extinguished; and it is here stated that the coloured people were the aggressors, and whilst they were engaged in the melee, ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... his way to the Anti-Slavery office, where the price demanded was considered so exorbitant that but little encouragement was given him. From here he went to the home of Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, where he arrived foot-sore and weary. After ringing the bell, he sat upon the doorstep weeping. Here Mr. Beecher found him and, taking him into his library, inquired ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various
... package. This time, it being a fine, sunny, summerlike day almost as warm as September, he went clad in careful dress with only a light motoring coat on over all to preserve the integrity of his attire. He left this in the car when he leaped out of it, and appeared upon the doorstep looking not at all like his own chauffeur, ...
— The Twenty-Fourth of June • Grace S. Richmond
... too much disappointed to make any remarks. The harper poses his harp—a huge instrument—upon our doorstep, sets all the strong ringing with a sweep of his grimy fingers, clears his throat with a sort of angry ...
— Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things • Lafcadio Hearn
... beauties, and one picture that she came upon held her spell bound for a moment. This was a small, poor cottage, painted only by the sun and rain, before which, on a tiny square of green, a baby was rolling about—a cunning little fellow with rings of silky light hair, while on the low doorstep sat a girl of such unusual appearance that the ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... few minutes. Madame Jordan and her family were protected, but she saw children dashed against trees, and her neighbors struck down and scalped before she could plead for them. And little good pleading would have done. An Indian seized Paul. His father and the old servant lay dead across the doorstep. His mother would not let him go. The Indian dragged her on her knees and struck her on the head. Madame Jordan ran out at the risk of being scalped herself, and got the poor girl into her cabin. The Indian came back for Madeleine's scalp. Madeleine ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... extract to follow, Francis Louis Michel of Switzerland speaks of the method of tonging oysters in 1701, but note that he says, "They usually pull from six to ten times." This could be taken to mean that each individual procured his own oysters from the lavish supply virtually at his doorstep, and stopped as soon as he had a "mess" to enjoy ...
— The Bounty of the Chesapeake - Fishing in Colonial Virginia • James Wharton
... beautiful in the simple things all about you; make the most of the common and the near at hand.' When I have gone abroad, I have carried this spirit with me, and have tested what I have seen by the nature revealed to me at my own doorstep. Well, I am glad I have triumphed at last; I feel much better and like writing again, now that this incubus is off my shoulders." But the incubus soon rested on him again, for the next mail carried a letter begging him to reconsider and let two of his women friends accompany him. So ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... brooding autumn dusk he came to their doorstep, dismounted, lifted his hat, smiled that wonderful smile of his, and made a bow that any courtier might have been proud to make. Behind him, on a brown horse, was Pedro, his lieutenant—the same monosyllabic Pedro, faithful ...
— The Bad Man • Charles Hanson Towne
... steep descent to the road except for one shelving bit of level ground upon which rested, as if it had alighted there, a one-room cabin, for which an end of a tree trunk served as a doorstep. A loosely-hung wooden door provided the only light by day, except that given by the flickering of the flames from the burning logs on the ...
— Home Missions In Action • Edith H. Allen
... never, never, never guess who's coming to Lock Willow. A letter to Mrs. Semple from Mr. Pendleton. He's motoring through the Berkshires, and is tired and wants to rest on a nice quiet farm—if he climbs out at her doorstep some night will she have a room ready for him? Maybe he'll stay one week, or maybe two, or maybe three; he'll see how restful it ...
— Daddy-Long-Legs • Jean Webster
... a merry Christmas to everybody!" added Dulcie, turning on her saddle to wave a parting salute to those who were left behind on the doorstep. ...
— The Princess of the School • Angela Brazil
... advice, and hadn't come downstairs yet. Ellaline, too, was still in her room, sulking, no doubt, and hadn't said good-bye to Sir Lionel or any of us. I know that, because my room at this hotel has been close to hers—and to his, too; so whenever a word is murmured on a doorstep I hear. No word has been murmured this morning; and E. has had her breakfast sent ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... Dorothy was found on the doorstep, taken in, and how she grew to be a lovable girl of twelve; and was then carried off by a person who held her for ransom. She made a warm friend of Jim, the nobody; and the adventures of the pair are as interesting as they ...
— The Outdoor Girls in Florida - Or, Wintering in the Sunny South • Laura Lee Hope
... enough decision to make it or stick to it. When I can shuffle off the responsibility on you it will be a real relief. If you won't let me cast in my lot with you I'll die of the disappointment and then I'll come back and haunt you. I'll camp on the very doorstep of Patty's Place and you won't be able to go out or come in without falling ...
— Anne Of The Island • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Stowsher scraped the doorstep with his foot; but whether he was "touched", or feared hysterics and was wisely silent, ...
— On the Track • Henry Lawson
... a poor old man, Tommie. I'll leave the cream jug on the doorstep every day and no questions ...
— The Faery Tales of Weir • Anna McClure Sholl
... possession of Mrs. Hogan, and she left her waggon and charged the latter, who fled in terror, bolting all her doors and throwing up a barricade in the passage. But the stranger was not to be foiled: she sat down on the doorstep and proclaimed the house under siege, announcing her intention to remain until she had wreaked her vengeance on Mrs. Hogan, and offering meanwhile to fight any four women of Waddy ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... law, instinct to reasoned action; he is on the side of Charles as against Joseph Surface; he admires the publican, and condemns the Pharisee without reserve; he loves the man who is nobody's enemy but his own, and despises the prudent person whose charity ends at his own doorstep. Such a doctrine—so absolutely stated—is rather a negation of all morality than a lax morality. If it implies a love of generous instincts, it denies that a man should have any regard for moral rules, which are needed precisely in order to control our spontaneous ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... rather carefully, Major Flint promising himself a studious evening over some very interesting entries in his Indian Diary, while Captain Puffin anticipated the speedy solution of that problem about the Roman road which had puzzled him so long. As they said their "Au reservoirs" to her on her doorstep, they took off their hats more ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... very slowly. After two years the tumor was discovered by her lover, who after a year of exhausting and upsetting arguments, forced Marie to seek treatment. Since Marie adamantly refused to go the conventional medical route, she ended up on my doorstep ...
— How and When to Be Your Own Doctor • Dr. Isabelle A. Moser with Steve Solomon
... by a great writer to a greater writer, by a great man to a great man, by a complex personality to a complex personality; above all it is a tribute by a lover of the things of the 'doorstep' to a writer who has made the doorstep and the street the road to heaven, because the beings who pass ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... surprised by these words, stop; and he seeing the alley quite empty and deserted, sits down on a doorstep, and I do likewise, both of us being ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... maid bounces out, the cook, seeking a victim, grabs away the gingerbread from the butcher's boy. And that still hungry juvenile slams the door as he leaves and kicks the slumbering cat off the back doorstep. ...
— The Nervous Housewife • Abraham Myerson
... a modest little residence, in nothing more remarkable than its neighbors, unless it was for a certain air of extra grooming: the area railing was sleek with fresh black paint; the doorstep looked the better for vigorous stoning; the door itself was immaculate, its brasses shining lustrous against red-lacquered woodwork. A soft glow filled the fanlight. Overhead the drawing-room windows shone ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... lodgers from draught while they were sitting about the fire. The doorway was two feet by five, and was covered with a raw deerskin hung from the top. A stick across the lower edge kept the skin taut. A log at the bottom of the doorway answered for a doorstep and in winter kept out the snow. Now the ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... be true for aught I knew, horrible as it was! I had heard similar ones attributing things almost as fiendish to him, times and again; from that poor fellow lying dead on Pavannes' doorstep for one, and from others besides. As the Vidame in his pacing to and fro turned towards us, I gazed at him fascinated by his grim visage and that story. His eye rested on the crowd about us, and I trembled, lest even at that distance he should ...
— The House of the Wolf - A Romance • Stanley Weyman
... arrival is often looked upon, from pecuniary reasons, with much apprehension, or, at best, till they do arrive, they may be described, in common phrase, as 'neither born nor thought of.' I am a father myself, but I wish to be fair and to take a just view of matters. If a mother leaves her child on a doorstep, for example, the filial bond can hardly be expected to be very strong. In such a case, indeed, the infant seems to me to have a very distinct grievance against its female parent, and to be under no very overwhelming obligation to its father. 'Handsome is as handsome does' is a principle that ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn
... had the desired effect of preventing any farther altercation, for Mr Jonas immediately proposed an adjournment, and the same being carried unanimously, they departed from the house straightway. On the doorstep, Mr Jonas gave an arm to each cousin; which act of gallantry being observed by Bailey junior, from the garret window, was by him saluted with a loud and violent fit of coughing, to which paroxysm he was still the victim ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... disposed to look askance at Mr. Tasker. Old-fashioned matrons clustered round to watch him cleaning the doorstep, and, surprised at its whiteness, withdrew discomfited. Rumour had it that he liked work, and scandal said that he had wept because he was not allowed ...
— Dialstone Lane, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... here one night when the moon was shining. He sat down on the doorstep. He was just the kind of a lad that's in need of a mother. So I asked him to lie on the sofa. He was tired, you see, and—I once had a son ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... garden or a well-kept house, or trying to get a peep into some room. Mr and Mrs Clinton criticised as they went along, comparing the window curtains, blaming a door in want of paint, praising a well-whitened doorstep.... ...
— Orientations • William Somerset Maugham
... establishment, which was still closed, silent, impenetrable. A quiet, but obstinate, drunken man was knocking at the door of the cafe, and then stopped and called Frederic, the waiter, in a low voice, but finding that he got no answer, he sat down on the doorstep, and waited the ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... Near him lay a heap that was Danny, and spread over the bare boards were the others, some with heads pillowed on their swags, and every man about as drunk as his neighbour. Yankee Jack lay across the door of the barmaid's bedroom, with one arm bent under his head, the other lying limp on the doorstep, his handsome face turned out to the bright moonlight. The "family" were sound asleep in the detached cottage, and Alice—the only capable person on the premises—was left to put out the lamps and "shut up" ...
— Over the Sliprails • Henry Lawson
... remainder of his coffee and as his heavy boots clumped noisily across the rough wooden floor he ventured to look again timidly at the very pretty young lady who sat beside the stove. Her friendly nod and smile sent him stumbling clumsily out over the doorstep with reddened face and a ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... and in that space of time by God's providence arrived Peter Lawler, the constable, a very religious man, who gave the ringleaders some advice and warning they were not likely to forget. Being by this made heartily ashamed of themselves, they obeyed his order to pick up the man from the doorstep, where he lay at Kirstie's feet, and carry him back to the "Leaping Fish;" and so slunk ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... held it against the undreamt-of reinforcements who poured down in their thousands from as far north as Anatolia is extremely doubtful. Further, the difficulties of maintaining a large army in this almost waterless region were enormous. The Turkish railhead was on their doorstep, as it were; ours was then twenty miles away ...
— With Our Army in Palestine • Antony Bluett
... apples were looked upon by boys as fair objects of sport,—if the head-master's favorite white poodle appeared dyed a deep blue, if Mr. Jones, the most unpopular master in the school, upon coming out of his door trod upon a quantity of tallow smeared all over the doorstep, and was laid up for a week in consequence, there was generally a strong suspicion that Tom and Peter Scudamore were concerned in the matter. One of their tricks actually came to the ears of the Provost himself, and caused quite a sensation in the place, but in ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... days and days round fifty-two, under the not unreasonable impression that their house must be next door, though, as a matter of fact, it is half a mile off at the other end of the village, and are discovered one sunny morning, sitting on the doorstep of number eighteen, singing pathetic snatches of nursery rhymes, and trying to plat their toes into door-mats, and are taken up and carried away screaming, to end their lives in the ...
— Diary of a Pilgrimage • Jerome K. Jerome
... persecution is a blessing in some way. The so-called modern literature, towards the close of the nineteenth century, was becoming more and more the illegitimate offspring of immaturity in thought and feeling. We were the slaves of our newspapers; each morning a library was thrown on our doorstep. But what a jumbled, inconsequent, muddled-up library! It was the best that could be made in such a hurry, and it satisfied most of us, though I believe there were conservative people who opened it only to read the marriage ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... to the printed sheet. "Your paper says 2370 veniremen were called into court. That's what money can do. If he'd been some poor devil charged with stealing a bottle of milk from the doorstep, how long would it take to ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... he proceeded to force the stronghold by peaceful but powerful methods. He fasted on the gentleman, and he did so to such purpose that he was admitted to the house; for to an hospitable heart the idea that a stranger may expire on your doorstep from sheer famine cannot be tolerated. The gentleman, however, did not give in without a struggle: he thought that when Finnian had grown sufficiently hungry he would lift the siege and take himself off to some place where he might get food. But he did not ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • James Stephens
... can't be too rare." A fading spring lily dropped on the doorstep by one of the children received an impatient kick, as though he would dismiss the present conversation in a similar manner. "Rose," he said, "I wish you would ask ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam
... doorstep Mark Rivers stood still and wiped the sweat from his forehead. There must be minutes in the life of the most spiritually minded clergyman when to bow a little in the Rimmon House of the gods of profane language would be a relief. ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... the silent dawn, shadowed in a lonely archway or on an abandoned doorstep the wet, bedraggled body of a hapless moth is sometimes found, her iridescent wings flattened in the mud. Then for a brief moment a cry of protest, or scorn, or pity goes up. The passers-by raise their hands in anger, draw their skirts aside in horror, ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
... "Not at all, the doorstep will be crowded from morn to night, but I shall leave it all to Fanny. Only tell ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... into the dark and strike the danger out of it?" I didn't frame all this into words. It was all only an intense feeling, but the mental judgment was very real. I turned from her and cleared the doorstep at a leap, and in a moment was by O'mie's side, chasing down the ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter
... Tom was a big, black, bobtailed cat eleven years old who had lived with Ed since he was a kitten. Not having any feline companionship to distract him, his only interest was hunting mice. Generally he killed a lot more than he could eat, racking the surplus in neat piles beside the trail, on the doorstep, or on a slab in the cellar. He was the best mouser in ...
— Cat and Mouse • Ralph Williams
... extending a mile back—in all a trifle over six hundred acres—was to be your inheritance. You were born here. I know that no other place means quite so much to you as this old log house with the meadow behind it, and the woods, and the sea grumbling always at our doorstep. Long ago this place came into my hands at little more cost than the taking. It has proved a refuge to me, a stronghold against all comers, against all misfortune. I have spent much labor on it, and most of it has been a labor of love. It has begun to grow valuable. In years to come it ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... sinful about carrying their feuding meanness right up to the doorstep of Uncle Al, if it could be said that a man living in a ...
— The Mississippi Saucer • Frank Belknap Long
... reason of his disappearance. Across the saddle was tied a huge tiger, whose tail dragged in the dust. There were traces of dark blood in his half opened mouth. He was taken from the horse and laid down by the doorstep. ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... magnificence where there was more renaissance than architecture and more bay-window than both; but the number was the number of his sister's house; and, as the street and the avenue corroborated the numbered information, he mounted the doorstep, rang, and leisurely examined four stiff box-trees flanking the ornate portal—meagre vegetation compared to what he had been accustomed to for so ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... fault for which he claimed to punish Antigone, Creon lets his temper get the mastery; after a violent quarrel Haemon parts from him with a dark threat that the girl's death will remove more than one person, and vows never to cross his father's doorstep again. ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb
... afternoon of the day after Rainham's return to the dock, Lightmark was caressing his fair moustache upon the doorstep of the Sylvesters' house, No. 137, Park Street, West, a mansion of unpretending size, glorious in its summer coat of white paint, relieved only by the turquoise-blue tiles which surrounded the window-boxes, and the darker blue of the ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... village near their dwelling, and hit upon a thousand artifices for obtaining admittance. Sometimes disguised lackeys presented themselves in the garb of simple gardeners, but, fortunately, Teresa always recognized their crafty countenances, and let them cool their heels on the doorstep. At other times old gipsy women sneaked into the courtyard whenever they had the chance, and by way of diverting the innocent damsel, showed her in the cards that a terribly great gentleman was in love with her, and would have ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... women looked blankly, despairingly, at each other. In the sunshine-flooded street one or two shabby idlers were pausing to eye the handsome equipage with its magnificent bay horses, and the two great ladies on the doorstep of the fencing-academy. From across the way came the raucous voice of an itinerant bellows-mender raised in the ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... Foe on his very doorstep. "Hallo!" said he. "What's wrong? . . . Looks as if you were suddenly reduced to selling newspapers. I'm not buying ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... them the more it seems to me that they often convey the actual need of some soul whose cry for comfort has gone out into the vast, perhaps to meet with an answer, perhaps to hear only silence. I will supply an instance. I see a child, a curious, delicate little thing, seated on the doorstep of a house. It is an alley in some great city, and there is a gloom of evening and vapor over the sky. I see the child is bending over the path; he is picking cinders and arranging them, and as I ponder I become aware that ...
— Imaginations and Reveries • (A.E.) George William Russell |
