"Motherly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of the house was opened by a motherly looking colored woman, and Abe, taking Calhoun once more in his arms, carried him into the house. Aunt Liza, as the wife of Abe was called, seeing Calhoun looking so pale and thin, put her fat, black hand on his forehead, ...
— Raiding with Morgan • Byron A. Dunn
... of about thirty years of age was looking, pipe in mouth, at the mail boat and the sailing vessels lying in the stream. There were four in all—the steamer, an American whaling barque, a small brig of about two hundred tons flying the Hawaiian Island colours, and a big, sprawling, motherly-looking full-rigged ship, whose huge bow ports denoted her ...
— Edward Barry - South Sea Pearler • Louis Becke
... her a bit and she will insist on staying up to take care of Stanley. Truly they are all right, Charlotte, and you mustn't worry." Betty's tone was so motherly and insistent that Charlotte couldn't help smiling. She closed her eyes sleepily and didn't even trouble to open them when she felt herself lifted from the sofa and ...
— Glenloch Girls • Grace M. Remick
... back to Java with him? Yes—Then, knowing what you do of her, can't you see that this is only another example of the splendid loyalty that actuates her? My good fellow—" Mrs. Goring's tone became almost motherly, and Barry worshipped her for it—"poor Natalie is to experience a sad disillusionment very soon; she will suffer; but from the suffering she will emerge as clean as before in mind and body, and when her loyalty is enlisted in the proper place, the fortunate man will ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... deadly feeling of faintness came upon her before she had been carried to the little bed which had been made ready for her. When she opened her eyes, while a spoon was held to her lips, the first thing she saw was the sweetest, calmest, most motherly of faces bent over her, one arm round her, the other giving her the spoon of some cordial. She looked up and even smiled, though it was a sad contorted smile, which brought a tear into the good sister's eyes; but then she fell asleep, and only half awoke when the Countess came up to see her for ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge
... my new boy? I am glad to see you, my dear, and hope you'll be happy here," said the lady, drawing him to her, and stroking back the hair from his forehead with a kind hand and a motherly look, which made Nat's lonely little heart ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... want more beauty, or more assurance, or more sympathy, or more antiquity. Have you never noticed how all converts personify their new Church in feminine terms? She becomes a Madonna, something at once motherly and young. It is the passion with which the child turns away from what is male and rough, to the mother, the nurse, the elder sister. The convert isn't really in search of dogmas and doctrines: he is in love with a presence, a shape, something which can clasp and embrace ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... appeared, we are told, with a low-necked dress badly cut, tightly laced, her arms held back as if pinioned, her hair curled all over her head, and she danced quadrilles very badly. This escapade was not allowed to repeat itself. Certain kind and motherly Cambridge ladies took the neglected child in hand, tamed her rude strength, and subdued her manners. Col. Higginson mentions half a dozen of these excellent ladies, among them his mother, at whose feet "this studious, self-conscious, overgrown girl" would sit, "covering ...
— Daughters of the Puritans - A Group of Brief Biographies • Seth Curtis Beach
... But good motherly Mrs. King saw it all, and how he had been weeping where her child had so long rested. Indeed, his face was swelled with crying, and his voice ...
— Friarswood Post-Office • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Dick, as he noticed one standing beside the stout, motherly-looking woman in the doorway of ...
— The Boy Ranchers - or Solving the Mystery at Diamond X • Willard F. Baker
... Church was spoken of throughout the whole world. That letter to the Corinthians proves that, by the end of the first century, the Roman Church had already drawn up fixed rules for her own guidance, that she watched with motherly care over outlying communities, and that she then knew how to use language that was at once an expression of duty, love, and authority.[317] As yet she pretends to no legal title of any kind, but she knows the "commandments and ordinances" ([Greek: prostagmata] and [Greek: dokaiomata]) of ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 2 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... time to recount—all her kindness, her cheerfulness, her powers of dispensing comfort, and warmth, and happiness, and promoting the direct and indirect welfare of everyone who came in her path. By what strange coincidence the brothers Foxley had been led to her glowing fireside and her motherly arms brimming over with zeal and kindness for the whole human race, does not matter. It is sufficient that they found her and found with her a sense of comparative peace and security which compensated for ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison
... the characters of the parties and the detail of the incidents.) Edward, however, though perplexed by her strange detractions from her daughter's good qualities, yet in the innocence of his own heart still mistook[268:2] her increasing fondness for motherly affection; she at length, overcome by her miserable passion, after much abuse of Mary's temper and moral tendencies, exclaimed with violent emotion—"O Edward! indeed, indeed, she is not fit for you—she has not a heart to love you as you deserve. It is I that love you! Marry me, Edward! and I ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... programs denounced him as misled; realestate operators, fearful of all this talk about the grass bringing doom and so depreciating the value of their properties, complained to the Federal Communications Commission; Sundayschools voted him the Man of the Year and hundreds of motherly ladies stored the studio with cakes baked by their own hands. Brother Paul's answer to indorser and detractor alike was to buy up ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... world where Louise is not mine! Perhaps the young universe may contain a panacea for my anguish! Solitude shall pour its balm in my wound; once away from this civilization which stifles me, nature will cradle me in her motherly arms; the elements will resume their empire over me; ocean, sky, flowers, foliage will draw off the feverish electricity that excites my nerves; I will become absorbed in the grand whole, I will no longer live; I will vegetate ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin
... downstairs. "You know that nice Mrs. Randall in the Models; well, she has a lodger, but she expects that he will leave her in a week or so, as he has work at a distance. I might take the room for Barton, it is a clean, tidy little place. And Mrs. Randall is a motherly sort of woman, ...
— Doctor Luttrell's First Patient • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... to me on the road, such as the waggoner's looking liquorish on me, the schemes laid for me by some of the passengers, which were defeated by the valiance of my guardian Esther; who, to do her justice, took a motherly care of me, at the same time that she taxed me for the protection by making me bear all travelling charges, which I defrayed with the unmost cheerfulness, and thought myself much obliged to ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... and Jean's letter were in Mrs. Morrison's lap. She had read them both, and sat looking at them with a varying sort of smile, now motherly and ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... attending to the damp shoes and socks before going to bed. Boo lay with his round face turned up to hers, stroking her cheek while the sleepy blue eyes blinked lovingly at her as she sang her lullaby with a motherly patience sweet to see. They made a pretty little picture, and Mr. Bemis looked at it with pleasure, having a leisure moment in which to discover, as all parents do sooner or later, that ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... asked Mr. Goodchild, on his knee, of the motherly landlady of the little Inn: stopping in his examination of Mr. Idle's ankle, with the aid of ...
— The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices • Charles Dickens
... Taylor, shocked at the poet's appearance, procured for him at once the services of the principal physician in Peterborough. Clare had also an excellent and warm-hearted friend in Mrs. Marsh, wife of the Bishop of Peterborough, who corresponded with him frequently, in a familiar and almost motherly manner, from 1821 to 1837. When Clare complained of indisposition, a messenger would be dispatched from "The Palace," with medicines or plaisters, camphor lozenges, or "a pound of our own tea," with sensible advice as to personal ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry
... a bad little thing, au fond, when you get to know her. It is society that has spoilt her. She would have made a nice, helpful, motherly body ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... her, for, suddenly, with the new respect for him the knowledge of his trained and ready muscles gave her, arose a new consideration for him, almost motherly. He would be breasting dreadful peril in the passage of the flames—peril to his eyes and face and clinging, tight-clasped hands especially. And round her limbs there was the means of saving him, ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... kingdom.' And Jesus made answer, 'Amen, I say to thee, This day thou shalt be with me in Paradise.' Magdalen, Mary of Cleophas, and John stood near the Cross of our Lord and looked at him, while the Blessed Virgin, filled with intense feelings of motherly love, entreated her Son to permit her to die with him; but he, casting a look of ineffable tenderness upon her, turned to John and said, 'Woman, behold thy son;' then he said to John, 'Behold thy mother.' ...
— The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ • Anna Catherine Emmerich
... as fast as she could, eager to dilate on the subject of the embarrassed Orlando's virtues, flattered in her motherly old heart by the praise of his sermons, and yet, all the time, while her peaked chin worked excitedly, thinking about the roasted young pig that waited for her to attend ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... bed, O bed, delicious bed, that heaven on earth to the weary head," as sang poor Hood, you are a kind old nurse to us fretful boys and girls. Clever and foolish, naughty and good, you take us all in your motherly lap and hush our wayward crying. The strong man full of care—the sick man full of pain—the little maiden sobbing for her faithless lover—like children we lay our aching heads on your white bosom, and you gently soothe us off ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... Friend who led me to this choice point of observation is her father. The plump and motherly matron on the high seat, whose face alone is a remedy for care and worry, is her mother. They will invite me home with them when meeting is over. Already I see the tree-embowered farmhouse, with its low, wide veranda, and ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... and, as the conductor moved on, she said, "The nasty thing. They have no consideration at all. Look, child." For a moment Plato thought she was going to offer him flight fare from Space Junction to Venusberg, but she was not, he discovered, as motherly as that. "You know what you'll do when you get off? Send a 'gram, collect, to your people in Venusberg. They'll wire you your fare. And you'll reach them in a ...
— Runaway • William Morrison
... to her after she was in bed that evening, and kissed her good night with motherly tenderness. Then she sat for some ...
— A Modern Cinderella • Amanda M. Douglas
... tortured girl seemed to yield herself, and slipped inertly from her grasp till kneeling down she laid her head in the motherly lap and sobbed. Miss Rowly kept stroking her hair in silence. Presently the girl looked up, and with a pang the aunt saw that her eyes were dry. In her ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... sensation among the other dwellers in our old tree. Jays were constantly inquiring how the nestlings were getting on, an inquisitive Magpie peeped into the nest, trying to get a glimpse of the pretty ones, and received a sharp peck from the angry father as a reproof for the intrusion; as to the motherly Rooks, who were supposed to care for nothing save their own family concerns, they kindly advised the young parents how to rear the brood, saying, 'Care, care,' was all that was necessary; nay, it is even recorded, as an undoubted fact, that an old Owl, who had lived for ages in a hole in ...
— Parables from Flowers • Gertrude P. Dyer
... know well enough what you like, and how to praise it to your better liking. I could talk to you about moonlight, and twilight, and spring flowers, and autumn leaves, and the Madonnas of Raphael—how motherly! and the Sibyls of Michael Angelo—how majestic! and the Saints of Angelico—how pious! and the Cherubs of Correggio—how delicious! Old as I am, I could play you a tune on the harp yet, that you would dance to. But neither you nor I should be a bit the better or wiser; ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... the trees. Her boots and stockings followed the skirt, for the bare sole of the human foot does not slip upon dry or even wet bark as does the hard leather of a boot. She would have liked to discard her riding breeches also, but the motherly admonitions of My Dear had convinced Meriem that it was not good form to go ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... reached the last of the passengers. She was middle-aged and motherly-looking. She peered down at him with more than common interest as he went through his pat little presentation formula. A psychologist would have gathered much from the lad's tense, flushed face and in the oddly strained look of ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm - Novelised From the Play • David Belasco
... These motherly words gave Psyche heart, and she reverently took leave of the goddess and set out for the temple of Venus. Most humbly she offered up her prayer, but Venus could not look at her earthly ...
— Old Greek Folk Stories Told Anew • Josephine Preston Peabody
... is the right stuff in you. Blood will tell, and you will come right in time. I am not afraid my boy will ever disgrace me; I am only vexed he should sometimes talk nonsense." And then he would pat my shoulder or my hand with a kind of motherly way he had, very affecting in a man so strong ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... little empty, with that placid emptiness of the nursing mother—to mark the change that my not-to-be-deceived scrutiny soon discovered. We left the sleepy Mary slowly patrolling the brick walks in a pompous perambulator propelled by a motherly English nurse under Miss Jencks's watchful eye, and strolled, in our customary hand-in-hand, to the boat-house, a low, artfully concealed structure, all but hidden under a jagged cliff, and faced wherever ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... she said with motherly gentleness; "it is very kind of you to come and see me, and I am very glad to know you. Shall we go in where ...
— The Mettle of the Pasture • James Lane Allen
... had a vast number of people to be fond of. There was Aunt Eleanor, but I defy anyone to be fond of her. Respect her one might, fear her we did, but love her—it would have been as discouraging as petting a steam road-roller. We hadn't even a motherly old nurse, for Aunt Eleanor liked machine-made people like herself to serve her. I don't think it did you much harm, you were such a sunny-tempered, affectionate little boy, but it ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... children come into the world in the same imploring helplessness, with the same general organization and wants, and demanding either from the newly-awakened mother's love, or from the memory of motherly feeling in the nurse, or the common appeals of humanity in those who undertake the earliest duties of an infant, the same assistance and protection, ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... is a most kind, motherly woman," Harry said. "But it isn't the Back Kitchen, neither," he added ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... A motherly-looking woman stood at the door, and gave me a cheery invitation to come in. She looked rather askance at my boy, but finding him properly convoyed by my sober self, she admitted him within the portal. A good many young gentlemen of ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... the road announced that John was now near the parental roost. Mrs. Fogel with her motherly solicitude was awaiting him with happy tears dimming her eyes. She took in with all a mother's fondness his high-stepping prancers, his prosperous appearance, last but not least the entire ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus
... certainly attended to that face, and to that beneficent attitude, more than to be service. When the terrors of my desolate situation used to begin to creep over me in my lonely bed, I could, without much effort of imagination, bring that sweet motherly face before me, and view it visibly in the gloom of the room, and thus defy the dread glance of the visage above me. I used to whisper to myself these words—"Lady with the glory, come an sit by me." And I ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... being, as I have explained, strange old-fashioned young people, full of nineteenth-century ideas, hated these convenient creches exceedingly and at last took their little daughter to one with extreme reluctance. They were received by a motherly person in a uniform who was very brisk and prompt in her manner until Elizabeth wept at the mention of parting from her child. The motherly person, after a brief astonishment at this unusual emotion, changed suddenly into a creature ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... rapid journey, the next evening. I slept all the way from Paris to beyond Montargis. My lord and master put his arm round me and pillowed my head on his shoulder, upon an arrangement of handkerchiefs. This was the one liberty he took; and the almost motherly tenderness which got the better of his drowsiness, touched me strangely. I fell asleep then under the fire of his eyes, and awoke to find them still blazing; the passionate gaze remained unchanged, but what thoughts had come and gone meanwhile! ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... unusual affection, she gathered up her lustrous silk and pushed the little girl away saying, impatiently, "Don't touch me, child, your hands are dirty." Then the thought had come to Polly that the velvet cloak did n't cover a right motherly heart, that the fretful face under the nodding purple plumes was not a tender motherly face, and that the hands in the delicate primrose gloves had put away something very sweet and precious. She ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... of that placid, motherly face breaking into lines of anguish while the gray old head bowed in weakness, completely unmanned the self-centred young scientist, and bending above ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... the stuff of our evanescent joys. There was nothing that could be called incompatibility of temper between these two; no one saw more clearly than Sophia the generosity and courage of Mrs. Rexford's heart; no one else sympathised so deeply with her motherly cares, for no one else understood them half so well; and yet it might have been easier for Sophia Rexford to have lived in external peace with a covetous woman, able to appreciate and keep in steady view the relative importance of ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... the rainbow; but the queen-mother had far more important business to attend to than the adornment of her person, and in her self-devotion to her commonwealth had long ago, of her own free will, laid aside flounces and furbelows. What a good motherly body she was! and how devoted her subjects were to her! Every-where she went she was followed by an admiring crowd. No home was too humble for her to enter, and under each roof she was received with the liveliest demonstrations of loyalty and delight. The happy people ...
— Miss Elliot's Girls • Mrs Mary Spring Corning
... like this treatment, and began to expostulate in a fretful, complaining way. Instantly Polly's motherly instincts awoke; she wiped her own tears from the baby's face, and raising it in her arms, pressed its little soft velvet cheek to her own. As she did so, a thrill of warm comfort ...
— Polly - A New-Fashioned Girl • L. T. Meade
... turned back to the sorrow she had known when her firstborn went from her, when the aching void came into her life and robbed it of every joy and every zest, till the waif was brought to her, the care of whom filled her life with happiness and content. Her big motherly heart was trying to understand something of the anguish she would have known had that waif not come to her then; and she thought of the anguish that other mother must have known if the story she ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... of these little adventures of childhood days with irritating exactness, and there mingled with it a bitter feeling of regret for the lost opportunities. The kiss blown me from a window in Naples, the extraordinary, more than motherly cares of the hotel chambermaid in Vienna, the roses pressed into my hands on the street by a young Spanish girl somewhere in the south of France, the embrace and the kiss on my cheek which I once suddenly felt in a dark garden where I stood ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... precious Encyclopedia, his evening with General Grant, and his efforts to become something more than an office boy. No boy had ever so gracious a listener before; no mother could have been more tenderly motherly than the woman who sat opposite him and seemed so honestly interested in all that he told. Not for a moment during all those two hours was he allowed to remember that his host and hostess were the President of the United States and the first lady ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)
... odd, grave look, that rather startled Kitty, Jack vanished, to return presently with a comfortable cup of tea and a motherly old lady to help repair damages and soothe her by the foolish little purrings and pattings so grateful to female nerves after ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... her and drew the things up about her neck in a half-tender, motherly way, looking at the girl's face. Then she hesitated ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... the dean and Mrs. Greystock would think so;—Lady Fawn was very sure of that. Lady Fawn was one of the best women breathing,—unselfish, motherly, affectionate, appreciative, and never happy unless she was doing good to somebody. It was her nature to be soft, and kind, and beneficent. But she knew very well that if she had had a son,—a second son,—situated as was Frank Greystock, she would not wish him ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... Morning Glory Club will furnish genuine amusement to the reader. Originally formed to "elevate" the village, it quickly develops into an exchange for town gossip. It has a saving grace, however, in the person of motherly Mrs. Stout, the uncultured but sweet-natured and pure-minded village philosopher, who pours the oil of her saneness and charity on the troubled ...
— The Passenger from Calais • Arthur Griffiths
... as when our words seem all too rude We cease from speech, to take our thought and brood Back in our heart's great dark and solitude, So sank the strings to heartwise throbbing, Of long chords change-marked with sobbing— Motherly sobbing, not distinctlier heard Than half wing-openings of the sleeping bird, Some dream of danger to her ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... only known their neighbors across the hall since coming to the Fenmore Apartment. Yet one could not live near motherly Mrs. Sarah Dalwood and not get to know her rather intimately, in a comparatively short time. She was what would have been called, in the country, "a good neighbor." In New York, with its hurry and scurry, where people live for years in adjoining ...
— The Moving Picture Girls - First Appearances in Photo Dramas • Laura Lee Hope
... fire years ago, Mrs. King places her age at about eighty years. Her husband, Albert King, who died two years ago, was the first Negro policeman employed on the Toledo police force. Mrs. King, whose hair is whitening with age, is a kind and motherly woman, small in stature, pleasing and quiet in conversation. She lives with her adopted daughter, Mrs. Elizabeth King Kimbrew, who works as an elevator operator at the Lasalle & Koch Co. Mrs. King walks with a limp and moves about ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: The Ohio Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... was engaged in motherly care, removing a part of the wet clothing, and lamenting for the state in which her sturdy offspring had returned. But presently order was restored, and the bustle was succeeded ...
— Phil the Fiddler • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... a motherly woman, and Mr. Bancroft was a fatherly man. Five children sat round the tea-table, distinguished by the Bancroft nose. Helen and I were seated each side of Mr. Somers. The table reminded me of our table at Surrey, it was so covered with vast viands; but the dishes were alike, ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... motherly Esmeralda. She, too, was happy, for was she not returning to her beloved Maryland? Already she could see dimly through the fog of smoke the murky headlight of the oncoming engine. The men began to gather up the hand ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... crippled, another great misfortune befell me. This was the death, on the 5th of August, of my mother, a woman of distinct culture and intellectual power, to whom her children had been indebted for many things in addition to the motherly love which she lavished upon them all so freely. It was, I think, the shock of her death, and the exertion of the railway journey to my brother Stuart's house at Wilmslow, Cheshire, which I took in order that I might see her before she died, that brought about a relapse in my condition. ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... not love-letters, though, that Lieutenant Doherty sent Eileen, for the schoolgirl had always taken him in a motherly way, and indeed signed herself "Your Mother-Confessor." But the mystery and difficulty of smuggling the letters to and fro lent colour to the drab Convent days, far vivider colour than the whilom passing of verses. So long as Marcelle's desk remained next to Eileen's it was comparatively ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... you approve and applaud my design of withdrawing myself from all tumult and business of the world and consecrating the little rest of my time to those studies to which nature had so motherly inclined me, and from which fortune like a step-mother has so long detained me. But nevertheless, you say—which But is aerugo mera, a rust which spoils the good metal it grows upon. But, you say, you would advise me not to precipitate that resolution, ...
— Cowley's Essays • Abraham Cowley
... am not dead yet, but I will be soon. Will you defend me then? No, you need not. But defend your sisters. Think only of my children, Adele. Take a motherly care of Therese; she is the youngest and liveliest, quick for good and bad, thoughtless but weak. See to it that she marries soon, if it can be arranged. Now, I can ...
— Plays: Comrades; Facing Death; Pariah; Easter • August Strindberg
... figures on the platform, and then threw himself back in his seat and gave free vent to his own feelings. Two girls sitting beside him sniggered at the sight of the strong-built young fellow giving way to tears, but a motherly-looking woman opposite presently put her hand ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... dozen times a day. Cherry shared her mail, which was always heavy now, with him; she flitted into the sick-room every few minutes with small messages or gifts. With her bare, bright head, her busy white hands, her voice all motherly amusement and sympathy and sweetness, she had never seemed so much a wife. She had the pleasantest laugh in the world, and she often laughed. The sick-room was kept with exquisite simplicity, with such freshness, bareness, ...
— Sisters • Kathleen Norris
... knew of that affair, she commenced by informing me that at ten years of age she was a scholar of Mrs. Chatterton, his mother, where she was taught plain work, and remained with her until she was near twenty years of age; that she slept with her, and found her kind and motherly, insomuch that there were many things which in moments of affliction Mrs. C. communicated to her, that she would not have wished to have been generally known; and among others, she often repeated how happy she was that her unfortunate ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... the foot of the rocks by the sea, I ventured into one of the larger of these chambers, and saw that it had at the far end an opening leading apparently to an inner room. I had walking with me an old Italian female servant who took a motherly interest in my proceedings, and who, relying principally upon a very slight knowledge of English, had constituted herself my body-guard. Encouraged by her presence, I penetrated this inner room and found that it again opened in turn into another, and so on until we had passed ...
— The Lost Stradivarius • John Meade Falkner
... spacious and comfortable, and there was a motherly decency in her long nursing rock and her rustling old-fashioned gait, the multitudinous swish, in her wake, as of a thousand proper petticoats. It was as if she wished not to present herself in port ...
— The Patagonia • Henry James
... farther back than the advent of my uncle at Lake Adieno, and all my early associations were connected with the cottage and its surroundings. I had a glimmering and indistinct idea of something before our coming to Parkville. It seemed to me that I had once known a motherly lady with a sweet and lovely expression on her face; and I had a faint recollection of looking out upon a dreary waste of waters; but I could not fix the idea distinctly in my mind. I supposed that the lady was my mother. I made several vain efforts to induce my ...
— Breaking Away - or The Fortunes of a Student • Oliver Optic
... with Rhaetia," was the practical response which jumped into the mind of the Grand Duchess; but she would throw no more cold water upon the rose-flame of her daughter's exaltation. She kissed the girl on the forehead, breathing a few words of motherly sympathy; but when the Princess had flown off to her own room to dress, she ...
— The Princess Virginia • C. N. Williamson
... to the rooms and told the girls how the rooms were to be kept, and she was such a motherly, warm-hearted body that very often if she found a homesick girl in her room she would know just how to cheer and comfort her, and help her to ...
— Ruby at School • Minnie E. Paull
... talk in the sweet clear voice that was like the voice of a child. Then came my astonishment. She knew, it seemed, all about me and my doings, and the doings of my relations and friends—not as if she had wished to be prepared to surprise me; but because her motherly heart had wanted to know, and had been unable to forget. The essence of that charm, which flooded all one's mind with love and loyalty, was not that she was great, but that she was entirely simple and kind; because she loved, not her great part ...
— Joyous Gard • Arthur Christopher Benson
... in a balcony, the whole of which was occupied by a big gray goat. There was not room for the police inquisitor and the goat too, and the former had to wait till the animal had come off his perch. Mrs. Shallock is a widow. A load of anxiety and concern overspread her motherly countenance when she heard of ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... patiently. You never saw any thing so exact—every motion and tone. He had pulled the curls over his eyes, and tied up his face with a great handkerchief over the cap, as Gruffy has been doing lately when she had the face-ache, and he went about among the little chaps in such a motherly, bustling way, it was quite affecting. Sally, who helped him, hadn't the least idea it wasn't Gruffy. However, the best of it is to come," said Salisbury, pausing a moment to recover the mirth which the recollection produced:—"He ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May
... door caused Elsie to turn from the cot. A sweet motherly woman of fifty, in an old faded black dress, was pleading with the guard to be allowed ...
— The Clansman - An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan • Thomas Dixon
... them, and deteriorating the manners and morals of all who live in them. For these have gone the way of the other classes mentioned and become perverted from the uses they were designed for. In the seventies there were still motherly women who had come to town to make a home for the children no longer content out of it. They were willing and capable of mothering a few other children and lonely teachers and clerks, so the boarding-house began as a real family home for the homeless. ...
— The Cost of Shelter • Ellen H. Richards
... liked to killed you," said Mrs. Bailey. "If I'd 'a' knew the boys was up to this . . . and him just a boy! Jim Bailey, you ought to be ashamed of yourself!" Ma Bailey wiped Pete's face with her apron and put her motherly arm beneath his head. "If he was my ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... and a motherly woman, just the one fitted to inspire young men with confidence and that home feeling which all men desire to find somewhere. Her house was a free and easy ground, social for most of the young people of her acquaintance, and Harry was a favorite ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... as Aurore and with eyes so bright one would not fancy them bathed in tears so lately, or the smooth brow as containing a single anxious motherly thought. But the Marquise having heard that story of the son, wondered as she looked at her if the handsome mother had not many an anxious thought ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan
... the door. She put the fatal glass away and turned guiltily. A dark little woman was there, and a soft, motherly voice spoke. It must be Mrs. Braywood's. She could not have suspected, for her tone ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... Mrs. Denys gently. She put a motherly arm about the slim body that leaned against her, looking up into the pale young face with ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... and with her face fully tamed to me, was a kindly-looking, fat motherly woman, with light-coloured hair, not in the best order. She was hot and scarlet with exercise, being perhaps too stout for the steep steps of the fortress; and in one hand she held a handkerchief, with which from time to time she wiped her brow. ...
— The Relics of General Chasse • Anthony Trollope
... the old woman with a kind motherly smile: "it's a lang way to Lunnon, a lang way, ay. Ye'll be thinkin' we're a wild kind o' folk here-away; somewhat uncouth we are, ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... priceless boon to women. We are willing that our womanly character should stand by the side of those who oppose this movement. Do you call Lucy Stone, the woman reformer of the world, with her eloquence, her soft voice, her matchless, unwearied work for all that is good, with her motherly appearance, do you call such a woman unwomanly? Or Margaret Fuller, or Julia Ward Howe, do you call these women unwomanly? Then let us take our place by them, cast in our lot with them and be called unwomanly. It is said, and it is sadly true, that ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... moment came a rustling sound in the underbrush. "P'raps it's savages," thought Archie, and, half pleased, half frightened at the idea, he gave a loud whoop. Out flew a fat motherly hen, cackling and screaming. What she was doing there in the woods I cannot imagine. Perhaps she had lost her way. Perhaps she had private business there which only hens can understand. Or it may be that she, too, had built a little house ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... see all that was wanting in myself; there I obtained that for which I was thirsty. You will learn for yourself all that you have unconsciously been to me, to me a toiler who was misunderstood, overwhelmed for so long under misery, both physical and moral. Ah! I do not forget your motherly goodness, your divine sympathy for those who suffer. . . . Well, then as soon as you wish to come to Paris, you will come without even letting us know. You will come to the Rue Fortunee exactly as to your own house, absolutely as I used to go to Frapesle. I ...
— Women in the Life of Balzac • Juanita Helm Floyd
... what I know, As she weeping stood by his side this morning, Would she clasp me in motherly love and woe— Or drive me out in the cold with scorning? If she knew that I loved him better than life, Better than death; since for him I gave My hopes of rest, that I faced life's strife, And renounced the quiet and restful grave, When his strong, ...
— Poems • Marietta Holley
... not live in a palace; the Febrer mansion he would lose forever, according to the arrangement made by his friend Valls; but he would not fail to have a neat little house in the ward of Terreno or somewhere near the sea, and in it the motherly care of Mammy Antonia. No sorrow, no shame would await him there. He would even be rid of the presence of Don Benito Valls and his daughter, from whom he had so discourteously fled, without a word of excuse. The rich Chueta, according ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... anxiety when his mate was out of his sight did not, however, compare with her unrest in his absence, for her affection seemed to be of the motherly or protecting sort. Before they became familiar with the room, and learned that, though unseen, the partner was not lost, the moment he disappeared from view she began running around the cage excitedly, looking everywhere, ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller
... entered into all our suggestions eagerly. The environment of our simple home, the ministrations of motherly hands touched hidden chords. He did not hide his enjoyment, but talked well and entertainingly of everything—except himself. At times he was boyishly gay; then, seemingly without cause, the expectant look of his eyes ...
— The House of the Misty Star - A Romance of Youth and Hope and Love in Old Japan • Fannie Caldwell Macaulay
... some flowers she had in the front yard, anyhow. I remember looking out and seeing an old green plaid shawl of hers over the verbena bed. There was a fire in my little wood-stove. Mrs. Bird made it, I know. She was a real motherly sort of woman; she always seemed to be the happiest when she was doing something to make other folks happy and comfortable. Mrs. Dennison told me she had always been so. She said she had coddled her husband within an inch of his life. 'It's ...
— The Wind in the Rose-bush and Other Stories of the Supernatural • Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman
... Tiberius, who had been born before her second marriage, as well as the one who had been born after. So too when, a few years later, Tiberius Claudius Nero died, appointing Augustus their guardian, with equal serenity she took them back and educated them with the most careful motherly solicitude. To the second husband, whom politics had given her, she was a faithful companion. Scandal imputed to her absurd poisonings which she did not commit, and accused her of insatiable ambitions ...
— The Women of the Caesars • Guglielmo Ferrero
... to Weeko who was in the village came forward and released the children, as Nakpa gave a low whinny and stopped. Tenderly Zeezeewin nursed them at her own motherly bosom, assisted by another young mother of ...
— Old Indian Days • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... to the kind Sister of Mercy, whose sweet, patient and motherly face was bending over a soldier to speak her words of comfort, "are there any Massachusetts ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes
... a pension, seized on the bright pans of Marie's kitchen and the promise of the brick-and-sheetiron stove. She disapproved of Stewart, having heard strange stories of him, but there was nothing bacchanal or suspicious about this orderly establishment. Mrs. Boyer was a placid, motherly looking woman, torn from her church and her card club, her grown children, her household gods of thirty years' accumulation, that "Frank" might ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... carriage as soon as it drew up. She was a handsome woman of middle age and was richly dressed. She was now in a panic of motherly solicitude. ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... you are working too hard, Bensie, and it's quite true," Polly gave him another pat, this time a motherly one; "and ...
— Five Little Peppers Grown Up • Margaret Sidney
... I am so nervous anyhow I hardly know what I am saying. You remember my laundress, don't you? She is so nice and motherly and a Methodist and respectable and all that,—only old and hard up. She is coming to live with us,—she will have the den for her room, and is closing her cottage. She is to keep house and look after the babies ...
— Eve to the Rescue • Ethel Hueston |
