"Breathless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... dim morning it was ever the comforter of misery it could not rightly understand, not the playfellow of happiness that stirred it to leaps and barks of wonder and excitement. In the mornings Cuckoo held it long against her thin bosom, sometimes crushed it nearly breathless, pushing its little head down in the nest of her arms and telling it a tale of the world's woe that sent long and thin whimpers twittering through its body. The fluttering whisper of morning misery, or the silence of vacant fatigue, these were accustomed things to Jessie. Even if she did not ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... there is room for history and fiction of every kind. The crooked ones of the earth have vied with the detectives in the proper relation of their experiences. On the one hand you find the great Pinker-ton publishing to the world a breathless selection from his own archives; on the other, so practised a novelist as Mr Julian Hawthorne embellishing the narrative of Inspector Byrnes; and it is evident that both of them satisfy a general curiosity. In these records of varying merit and common interest the attentive reader may ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley
... sounded a dull bang, followed by the loud ring of tin, a breathless cry, and the swish of flying water—as Johnnie came hurtling headlong out of the stall, the bucket preceding him, a shod hoof in his immediate wake, and the contents of the pail showering in all directions. There was a second bang also dull, as he landed against the bottom ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... but watched the progress of this extraordinary person with the most breathless interest. On she went, swinging herself from bough to bough, and running along them like a monkey. At last she reached the top, and began to swarm up a thin branch towards the ripe fruit. When she was near enough she shook the branch violently. There was a crack—a crash—it ...
— Allan's Wife • H. Rider Haggard
... of the least delay, and who had not observed his son retire, despatched one of his attendants to summon the young Prince. The servant, who had not stayed long enough to have crossed the court to Conrad's apartment, came running back breathless, in a frantic manner, his eyes staring, and foaming at the month. He said nothing, but pointed to ...
— The Castle of Otranto • Horace Walpole
... Bushing breathless upstairs, she exclaimed, "Oh, mother, mother, I've done it now! They've come, and I've beat him over the head with ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... their office, getting myself out of sight, posted over the meadow to the wood as swift as Daphne from the god of day, till I arrived most luckily where I found the chariot waiting; attended by Brilliard; of whom, when I (all fainting and breathless with my swift flight) demanded his lord, he lifted me into the chariot, and cried, 'a little farther, Madam, you will find him; for he, for fear of making a discovery, took yonder shaded path'—towards which we went, but no dear vision of my love appeared—And ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... in breathless interest, and as he pauses asks a characteristic question: "How did you feel ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 5, Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 5, May, 1886 • Various
... pipe and listen to his wife's account of the village doings. Since before daylight he had been toiling hard with his men, in a place where tons of ice and snow had thundered down a mountainside and covered the rails, four or five feet deep. The work had been hurried, breathless, anxious, but finally they had been able to remove the warning signals after clearing the track in time to let the eastbound freight thunder by, with a lowing of cold, starved cattle tightly packed and a squealing of hogs by the legion. A frost-encased man had waived a thickly-mittened ...
— The Peace of Roaring River • George van Schaick
... without the least apparent fear of us, and we pelted them with empty bottles for lack of better sport. Twenty-four hours afterward these bottles would be still lying on the glassy water under our noses, showing that the ship had not moved out of her place in all that time. The calm was absolutely breathless, and the surface of the sea absolutely without a wrinkle. For a whole day and part of a night we lay so close to another ship that had drifted to our vicinity, that we carried on conversations with her passengers, introduced each other by name, and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Here the breathless little mother, who had been shrieking these short sentences into the old man's ear, until her pretty face was crimsoned, held up the Baby before him as a stubborn and triumphant fact; while Tilly Slowboy, with a melodious cry of 'Ketcher, Ketcher'—which ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... there. The impossible had become possible, the unattainable was about to be attained. He gave another mighty dig with his shoes, the last reach of the slope passed behind him, and he shot out on the frozen surface of the lake, bruised and breathless, but without a single ...
— The Scouts of the Valley • Joseph A. Altsheler
... less-known Whig names, we sent Marshall, Morrison, Baker, and Hardin; they all fought, and one fell, and in the fall of that one we lost our best Whig man. Nor were the Whigs few in number or laggard in the day of danger. In that fearful, bloody, breathless struggle at Buena Vista, where each man's hard task was to beat back five foes or die himself, of the five high officers who perished, ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... came cool and refreshing, when the quick eye of little Mila discerned a white sail, a mere speck, upon the blue sea. It skimmed rapidly along, and approached the island. They watched the vessel with breathless attention. ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... work with the Ethiopian statesman is done, then he is swept away by the power of the Spirit of God, as Ezekiel had been long before by the banks of the river Chebar, and is set down, no doubt all bewildered and breathless, at Azotus—the ancient Ashdod—the Philistine city on the low-lying coast. Was Philip less under Christ's guidance when miracle ceased and he was left to ordinary powers? Did he feel as if deserted by Christ, because, instead ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... triumph voiced by the boys when the Fortuna floated free was echoed when Frank came to the surface after having bent on the line he carried to the end of the chain cable. He was nearly breathless when he reached the surface, but willing hands pulled him over the stern of the rowboat in which the boys had searched for the lost anchor. Soon he recovered ...
— Boy Scouts in Southern Waters • G. Harvey Ralphson
... count, fixing his glaring eyes upon the handsome countenance of the young man, who now awaited, in breathless suspense, a communication thus solemnly prefaced. "This key," continued the nobleman, taking one from beneath his pillow as he spoke, "belongs to the door in ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... because some rifle-firing is going on.... When I arrived the Japanese had already discovered that a Chinese camp had been quietly established less than a quarter of a mile away. Half an hour afterwards a breathless Japanese sailor brought in a report that snipers had been seen stealthily approaching. I was just in the nick of time, as Colonel S—— immediately decided on a reconnaissance in force; any one who liked could go. Would ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... 'With breathless speed, like a soul in chase, I took him up and ran— There was no time to dig a grave Before the day began: In a lonesome wood, with heaps of leaves, I hid the ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various
... lacking even for putting on helmets and uncovering shields. In such an unfavorable state of affairs, various events of fortune followed. The soldiers of the ninth and tenth legions speedily drove back the Atrebates, who were breathless with running and fatigue. Many of them were slain. In like manner the Veromandui were routed by the eighth and eleventh legions; but as part of the camp was very exposed, the Nervii hastened in a very close body, under Boduagnatus, their leader, to rush against ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... Chiron de la Peyronie in the holy bonds of wedlock. The bridal pair knelt before him, the solemn office of the Church began, when the sharp ring of a horse's hoof struck the stones of the courtyard, and the breathless hush of the sacred place was broken as the betrayed lover burst into ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... fact, the gipsy never moved a limb. There he lay, prone, stiff, and breathless. In vain they tickled his nose and his heels; he did not stir. Then they placed him on the table with a circle of burning candles round him like one laid out for burial, and the heydukes had to sing dirges over him, as over a corpse, while the poet was obliged to stand upon a chair and pronounce ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... steadfast truth the sand Of men and time and circumstance dost sway! The slave-cloud dwindles on this golden day, And over all the pestilent southern land, Breathless, the dark expectant millions stand, To watch the northern sun rise on its way, Cleaving the stormy distance—every ray Sword-bright, sword-sharp, in ...
— The Poets' Lincoln - Tributes in Verse to the Martyred President • Various
... breathless now, a little dazzled by the beauty of the man, his princely air, and the confidence of power he seemed to radiate. Involuntarily almost, she contrasted him with his critic—the lean and impudent Andre-Louis in his plain brown coat and steel-buckled shoes—and she felt guilty of an unpardonable ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... of Queen Christina and the infant Queen Isabella, and as soon as he sets foot on Spanish soil his adventures begin. Arthur is one of Mr. Henty's most brilliant heroes, and the tale of his experiences is thrilling and breathless from first to last. ...
— Condemned as a Nihilist - A Story of Escape from Siberia • George Alfred Henty
... men were waiting in the cloisters, waiting for the doors to open for "Hall." As Olva came towards the gates an undergraduate, white, breathless, brushed past him and burst into the quiet, ...
— The Prelude to Adventure • Hugh Walpole
... when anything went wrong. Even General Desdichado, still officially confined to his bed and unable to receive even a visit of condolence, mounted a telescope on his roof, so it was whispered to Gerrard, and watched the proceedings with breathless interest. This war-fever could hardly last, and Gerrard wondered when it would begin to die down. The expected outbreak at Agpur had not occurred, and in a short time Cowper's leave would be up and another man would ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... Wellington then moved that it should be read a second time on the 2nd of April. This motion was opposed by Lord Bexley and the Earl of Malmesbury, as too precipitate, urging that on all former occasions a longer time had been allowed for consideration, and that breathless haste was the conduct of men called upon to decide as another dictated, rather than of legislators called to deliberate on a grave matter of public policy. Lord Holland, however, justified the motion, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... looking at his young friend saw her taking it in. There was something he had been trying to fathom about her during her breathless chattering. She talked, danced, whirled, laughed, let loose giggling cries. And yet her eyes, the part that the rouge pot or the bead stick couldn't reach, seemed to ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... creature of central London. She was very feminine and provocative and unparlourmaidish, standing there in the hall, and George passed by her as callously as though she had been a real parlourmaid on duty. She had to fly to her mother for the key of the office. Taking the key from the breathless, ardent little thing, he said that he would see to the front door being properly shut when he went out. That was all. Her legitimate curiosity about his visit had to go to ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... sounded through all the country must have risen to a passionate pitch in those crowded streets, where the gates were closed and all the defences set, and nothing looked for but the approach of the victorious English with swords still dripping with Scottish blood. While Edinburgh waited breathless for this possible attack an extension of the existing wall was begun to defend the southern suburb, then semi-rural, containing the country-houses of the wealthy burghers and lawyers, the great convent of the Greyfriars, that ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... pang of fear shot through her. She thought he felt himself dying, and she sank on her knees at his feet, holding his hand, while she looked up at him, almost breathless. ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... Ssu Kou a week later a free half-day gave me a chance for a little run over the border. Guided by a respectable villager I crossed the rickety bridge over the Tarchendo and after a breathless climb came out on the top of the cliff, where I overlooked a wide rolling plateau sloping steeply to the Ta Tu on the east, and enclosed north and west by high mountains. The country seemed barren and almost uninhabited, as though removed by hundreds ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... to Flossie or to anybody else; it was doubtful indeed if it was known altogether to himself; for Mr. Spinks conceived that honour bound him to a superb reticence on the subject. He had followed with breathless anxiety every turn in the love affairs of Flossie and his friend. He could not deny that a base and secret exultation had possessed him on the amazing advent of Miss Harden; for love had made him preternaturally keen, and ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... in spite of her weariness, and used the hall-porter's telephone to ring up Julia. Miss Winter would come and was very pleased, thank you. Marie went upstairs again, the ascent making her breathless. ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton
... hideous clamor. The earth shook as if struck with a paralytic stroke; trees shrunk aghast, and withered at the sight; rocks burrowed in the ground like rabbits; and even Christina creek turned from its course, and ran up a hill in breathless terror!" ...
— The Quaker Colonies - A Chronicle of the Proprietors of the Delaware, Volume 8 - in The Chronicles Of America Series • Sydney G. Fisher
... sunflowers by the glaring pike Lift shields of sultry brass; the teasel tops, Pink-thorned, advance with bristling spike on spike Against the furious sunlight. Field and copse Are sick with summer: now, with breathless stops, The locusts cymbal; now grasshoppers beat Their castanets: and rolled in dust, a team,— Like some mean life wrapped in its sorry dream,— An empty wagon rattles through ...
— Poems • Madison Cawein
... would have split the ship from her keel to her top-timbers, had we come upon a sunken rock. The chances were about even; for I regarded the pilotage as a very random sort of an affair. We glanced on in breathless expectation, therefore; not knowing but each instant would involve ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... neighbor was being berated. The birds would take turns at looking in upon him, and uttering their alarm-notes. Every jay within hearing would come to the spot, and at once approach the hole in the trunk or limb, and with a kind of breathless eagerness and excitement take a peep at the owl, and then join the outcry. When I approached they would hastily take a final look, and then withdraw and regard my movements intently. After accustoming ...
— A Year in the Fields • John Burroughs
... usual ungainly frolics, first to the Baron and then to Rose, passing his hands over his clothes, crying, 'Bra', bra' Davie,' and scarce able to sing a bar to an end of his thousand-and-one songs for the breathless extravagance of his joy. The dogs also acknowledged their old master with a thousand gambols. 'Upon my conscience, Rose,' ejaculated the Baron, 'the gratitude o' thae dumb brutes and of that puir innocent brings the tears into my ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... way home soon after, Ruth began to ponder. Once clear of Janie's observant eye, the girl turned back through the shrubbery, and ran to the spot where she had last seen Andy. All was as silent as a breathless summer day could make it. There was no side-path; no ...
— Then Marched the Brave • Harriet T. Comstock
... a sketch of his previous career, telling them his real name, his action under the Restoration, and revealing himself as a new man since his arrival at Besancon, while pledging himself for the future. This address held his hearers breathless, it was said. These men, all with different interests, were spellbound by the brilliant eloquence that flowed at boiling heat from the heart and soul of this ambitious spirit. Admiration silenced reflection. Only one thing was clear—the thing ...
— Albert Savarus • Honore de Balzac
... Cuyler, who had been condemned to death, but whom Arnold agreed to spare on consideration of his implicitly carrying out his plan. Accordingly, Cuyler, having made several holes in his coat to imitate bullet shots, rushed breathless among the Indian allies of St. Leger and informed them that he had just escaped in a battle with the Americans who were advancing on them with the utmost celerity. While pointing to his coat for proof of his statement, a sachem, also in the plot, came ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... disappointment of her pious wishes, and came so near the point of tear-letting, that the advocate felt obliged to sally forth in person to see what he could do to console her. In less than an hour he was back again, breathless and exultant. He ran up-stairs with the agility of a much younger and less corpulent man, and hastened to the princess's room, regardless of the fact that she was at the ...
— Manasseh - A Romance of Transylvania • Maurus Jokai
... In the breathless silence of suspense the irritable, high-pitched voice of Colonel Sheldon came to my ears. It seemed that after all he had sent out a few troopers and that one had just returned to report a large body of horsemen which had passed the Bedford road at a ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... but unbounded contrition, not humble dependence alone but joy, peace and power, not rapture alone but mysterious darkness, must be woven into the fabric of love. In this world the soul may sometimes wander as if in pastures, sometimes is poised breathless and intent. Sometimes it is fed by beauty, sometimes by most difficult truth, and experiences the extremes of riches and destitution, darkness and light. "It is not," says Plotinus, "by crushing the Divine into a unity but by displaying its exuberance, as the Supreme Himself has displayed ...
— The Life of the Spirit and the Life of To-day • Evelyn Underhill
... fleece In such peace, And the slopes and rills in undistinguished gray Melt away— That a girl with eager eyes and yellow hair 55 Waits me there In the turret whence the charioteers caught soul For the goal, When the king looked, where she looks now, breathless, ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... of gossip had spread quickly over the audience, that sat waiting with breathless interest for the appearance ...
— Grace Harlowe's Sophomore Year at High School • Jessie Graham Flower
... to be looked over, and she had blushed a little and had been rather breathless as she had talked to Mr. Kingdon, and he had been aware of the vividness of her young beauty; for Nannie had red hair that curled over her ears, and her skin was warm ivory, ...
— The Gay Cockade • Temple Bailey
... and sunk back breathless and exhausted into his chair. "Shut up now this Tabernacle," exclaimed Dr. James W. Alexander. "Let no man dare speak ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
... shouted the colonel, Warner and Pennington all together. Then they stood breathless, and ...
— The Tree of Appomattox • Joseph A. Altsheler
... What with indignation and breathless—she had run so fast— Clementina had exhausted herself in that one exclamation, and stood panting and staring. The black bulk of Kelpie lay outstretched on the yellow sand, giving now and then a sprawling kick or a wamble like a lumpy snake, ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... as a stage financier, paused here to gasp; for the utterance of this string of banalities, this rigmarole of commonplaces, had left him breathless. He was very much dissatisfied with his performance; and ready to curse his barren imagination. He longed to hit upon swelling phrases and natural and touching gestures, but in vain. He could only look at Mademoiselle de Guerchi with a miserable, heart-broken air. She remained quietly seated, ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - LA CONSTANTIN—1660 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... Breathless, he reached at last a bowlder from which the path was easy to the valley below, and he leaned quivering against the soft rug of moss and lichens that covered it. The shadows had crept from the foot of the mountains, darkening the valley, and lifting up the mountain-side beneath ...
— A Mountain Europa • John Fox Jr.
... boy went to the window and tried to disentangle the window cord. The others looked on in breathless silence, when suddenly a big lad, in sailor's clothes, who had just come home on the brig ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... thing, for he scarce used hand or foot at all, Richard slowly crawled and slid along the sloping roof, then swiftly over the vertex, while the patrol was at the most distant portion of his round, and then once more, motionless and almost breathless, he lay down behind the western parapet. The exercising-yard, into which it was his object to drop, was just below him; but it was necessary to find some object to which to fasten his rope; and here ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... The breathless state of Helena's affections did not interfere with her desire to lead in all things those favoured of her acquaintance. Although, in deference to Trennahan's emphatic wish, she forswore eccentricities, she taxed her fertile brain to keep Menlo ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... shadow flecked here and there with gold. A sudden turn in the narrow gorge, through which ran a brawling tributary of the wider Towy, brought the brothers full in sight of their ancestral home, and for a few seconds they paused breathless, gazing with an unspeakable and ardent love upon ...
— The Lord of Dynevor • Evelyn Everett-Green
... Barbara was too breathless to reply and too much amused, perhaps, really to mind. The country was pretty enough, but it soon began to grow dusk, and they wondered when they would arrive in Paris. The train was due at 7.30, but there did not ...
— Barbara in Brittany • E. A. Gillie
... grew up in a shoemaker's shop, and whose boyish games were played in the street of a Welsh hamlet remote from all the refinements of civilization and all the clangours of industrialism, announced to a breathless Europe without any pomposity of phrase and with but a brief and contemptuous gesture of dismissal the passing away from the world's stage of the Hapsburgs and Hohenzollerns—those ancient, long glorious, and most puissant ...
— The Mirrors of Downing Street - Some Political Reflections by a Gentleman with a Duster • Harold Begbie
... the admiration of all his countrymen - and Igali and myself are lionized to our hearts' content; but this evening we are quite startled and taken aback by the reappearance of the assistant editor, excitedly announcing the arrival of a tricycle in town. Upon going down, in breathless anticipation of summarily losing the universal admiration of Eszek, we find an itinerant cobbler, who has constructed a machine that would make the rudest bone-shaker of ancient memory seem like the most elegant product of Hartford or Coventry in ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... hastened to give the three or four final strokes, the boy, between them, helping him on with his coat to save time; then, after paying or receiving the balance of his account with trembling hands, he ran in breathless haste to the house of the dean. There the tresillo lasted till eight o'clock. Then home to supper. At nine he repaired to Don Pedro Quinone's house to spend an hour or two in the same sort of way, and if he did not go there, he went to Don Juan Estrada-Rosa's ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... toys For girls and boys, For bits of brass And broken glass, (these four lines being spoken in a breathless hurry) A penny or a vial-bottell . . . . (this being drawled out ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... What had become of Lily? was she indeed absent from her home? Had he conjectured rightly that the letter which had evidently so gladdened Melville was from her, or was it possible—here a thought of joy seized his heart and held him breathless—was it possible that, after all, she had not married her guardian; had found a home elsewhere,—was free? He moved on farther down the lawn, towards the water, that he might better bring before his sight that part of the irregular building ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... having evidently decided it to be unwise to deflect his thoughts from matters in hand, did not mention Mahr. Even when he brought up the name himself with a casual mention of the possibility of acquiring the Heim Vandyke, there was nothing said to give him an opportunity to speak and he was breathless for details, to learn if his ruse had succeeded. At last he called Brencherly, both Denning and Langley endeavoring to divert him from ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford
... self-revealing narratives of restless wanderers by land and sea, crammed to repletion with details and local colour which no one but their author could command without actual experience as a derelict of five continents and as many oceans. They leave the reader veritably breathless with wonder at the objectivity and imagination which can enable a New-England poetess to mirror with such compelling vividness in thought and language the sentiments of so utterly opposite a type. Not even the narrowly specialised genius ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... it? A score of voices called for silence; a breathless hush fell on the crowd. A moment the fiercest listened, with parted lips and starting eyes. Then, "It was the bell!" cried one, "let us out!" "It was not!" cried another. "It was a pistol shot!" "Anyhow let us out!" the crowd roared in chorus; "let us out!" ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... negotiation to be opened with the leading Whigs. But a deep mutual distrust which had been many years growing, and which had been carefully nursed by the arts of France, made a treaty impossible. Neither side would place confidence in the other. The whole nation now looked with breathless anxiety to the House of Lords. The assemblage of peers was large. The King himself was present. The debate was long, earnest, and occasionally furious. Some hands were laid on the pommels of swords in a manner which revived the recollection of the stormy Parliaments of Edward the Third ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... yacht," a tremendous swirl, and we are fast into a famous trout. Directly he feels the insulting sting of the hook he rushes down stream at a terrific rate, so that the line, instead of being taut, dangles loosely on the water. We gather the line through the rings in breathless haste—there is no time to reel up—and once more get a tight strain on him. Fortunately there are no weeds here; the current is too rapid for them. Twice he jumps clean out of the water, his broad, silvery sides flashing in the sunlight. At length, ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... trying to flirt. Policemen should be homely. So I wait until the street is entirely empty. I wait a long time—it is empty—I run like a steer—and suddenly out of nowhere a machine is yelling at me individually and I know no more until, breathless and red, I reach the ...
— Vignettes of San Francisco • Almira Bailey
... breathless pause: "Well," said I, "what will you do about it?"—for he was looking murder ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers
... a lurch, a twist, a sharp descent, and the breathless horses halted on the bank of a stream whose shallow waters were crowded with flatboats, generally ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... it appeared as though the boat must be overrun by the sea and swamped; but the coxswain in charge of her was an old man-o'-war's-man, and each time he avoided disaster by a hairbreadth, until, at the expiration of a breathless five minutes, Frobisher saw her living cargo leap safely out on the beach, and heaved a sigh of relief. By this time, too, the second and third boats had been got into the water without mishap, and were also on their way shoreward, leaving about a hundred and fifty men still remaining ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... in the afternoon, where Flood rejoined us, but refused any one permission to go into town, with the exception of McCann with the wagon, which was a matter of necessity. It was probably for the best, for this cow town had the reputation of setting a pace that left the wayfarer purseless and breathless, to say nothing about headaches. Though our foreman had not reached those mature years in life when the pleasures and frivolities of dissipation no longer allure, yet it was but natural that he should wish ...
— The Log of a Cowboy - A Narrative of the Old Trail Days • Andy Adams
... by measuring one another round the biceps, round the chest, or else, with their elbows on the table, played at who should first bend back the other's wrist. Lily sat down for a moment with them, then stopped, breathless with larking and talking, and went ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... half to himself; and then, with a quick motion hastening to open the door for her, "Go, madam," he added, almost breathless with conflicting emotions, "go, and be your happiness unalterable as ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... were not disappointed. When he came home in June his friend was awaiting him; at least, she was so pleased to see him again that for a few minutes after their first encounter she was a little breathless, and a great deal glowing, and quiet withal. Their sentimental friendship continued, though sometimes he was irritated by her making it less sentimental than he did, and sometimes by what he called her "air ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... next garden. Beth did so, and the cat led her to a little warm nest where, to Beth's wild delight, she showed her a tiny black kitten. Beth picked it up, and carried it, followed by the cat, into the house in a state of breathless excitement, shrieking out the news as she ran. Beth was immediately seized upon. What was she doing at home when she ought to have been at school? and without her hat, too! Beth had no explanation to offer, and was hustled off to the nursery, ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... A moment of breathless suspense, and another cheer rose from the delighted throng of sailors, as the stranger's sails were seen for a moment to shiver in the wind, and the frightened chase luffed to the wind, and then lay motionless with the Stars and Stripes at her mizenpeak. Another ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes
... She stopped, breathless with her recital, and Vandeloup, pale but composed, would have answered her, when a cry from Pierre startled them. He had come close to them, and was ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... minutes passed Christopher watched her in breathless but confident expectation. The crisis had come and she was passing it—she had passed it safely. They talked on fondly—five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen minutes, and still there were no untoward developments, no sign of anything evil or irrational. Penelope was ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett
... stands the Toll House Hotel. We came up the one side, were caught upon the summit by the whole weight of the wind as it poured over into Napa Valley, and a minute after had drawn up in shelter, but all buffetted and breathless, at the Toll ...
— The Silverado Squatters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... judgment of a scholar deeply read in Elizabethan lore to Lord Penzance's heated and almost breathless admiration for the 'teeming erudition' of ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... Mr. Brassfield with reference to the unanswered letters. Professor Blatherwick was engaged in taking down his answers. In a disastrous moment, Mr. Alderson knocked at the door, and, following his knocking, delivered a breathless message to Brassfield that an important telegram ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... A breathless silence reigned during the reading of the important paragraph, while Richards and myself were making almost superhuman efforts to restrain our laughter. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... silence so fearful, so breathless, so searching as the night silence of a wild country buried five feet deep in snow. For thirty miles or so, north, south, east, and west of the small, half-smothered speck of gold in Pierre Landis's cabin window, there lay, ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt
... was the novelty, the flattery, the admiration that pleased me, not he himself, I believe Lily. I rarely thought of him. He interested me; he had eloquent words at his command, and seeing how I loved romance, he told me stories of adventure that held me enchanted and breathless. I lost sight of him in thinking of the wonders he related. They are to blame, Lily, who shut me out from the living world. Had I been in my proper place here at home, where I could have seen and judged people rightly, it would not have happened. At first it was but a pleasant break in a life ...
— Dora Thorne • Charlotte M. Braeme
... the arm, made a stiff bow, and stepped to the door. Here, on hearing the news that Willy was about to leave the school, most of his companions had assembled to bid him good-bye. Many shed tears, and Peppo, at the last moment, came flying in breathless. "Oh, Willy, Willy," he cried embracing him, "never, never shall I forget how good you were to me. Who will protect me now when they all ...
— The Shipwreck - A Story for the Young • Joseph Spillman
... character. I have known the mother of such a lady to bend over her daughter, and with tearful eyes entreat her to withdraw her affections from that unworthy object and give them to another who, in breathless suspense, and with a soul and character and surroundings worthy of her, was but waiting to receive them. And did that young lady change? Did she withdraw her love from the unworthy object and give it to the other? She did not. Her answer every time was: "Mother, I cannot." ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... I have to cram the record of my day's work into five breathless minutes. You will understand what bare justice I can do ...
— The Holiday Round • A. A. Milne
... he himself had played in the plan to dynamite Nelse Ackerman's home, but he had told everything that the others had done—just how the dynamite had been got and prepared, and the names of all the leading citizens of the community who were to share Nelse Ackerman's fate! Peter read, on and on, breathless with wonder, and when he got thru with the story he rolled back on his bed and laughed out loud. By heck, that was the limit! Peter had framed a frame-up on Guffey's man, and of course Guffey couldn't send this man to prison; so he had had him ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... higher, and clutching desperately to the iron spikes, I hung there quivering, breathless, with a thumping heart. A glimmer of white flitted between the box rows on a lower terrace, and I saw that the princess of the enchanted garden was none other than my little girl of the evening before. She was playing quietly by ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... Haldimar," exclaimed Sir Everard, after a few moments of breathless and intense anxiety. "See, there is one in the belt that Ellen Halloway has girt around her loins. Quick, for Heaven's sake, quick; our only chance of ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... extricated without a murmur. I hesitate to record the many other instances of his sagacity, which rest, unfortunately, upon the statements of prejudiced friends. Some of them were not without a tinge of superstition. "I crep' up the bank just now," said Kentuck one day, in a breathless state of excitement "and dern my skin if he was a-talking to a jay bird as was a-sittin' on his lap. There they was, just as free and sociable as anything you please, a-jawin' at each other just like two cherrybums." Howbeit, whether creeping over the pine boughs or lying lazily on his ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... months in the Bastille, the trial commenced. The depositions of the witnesses having been heard, Cagliostro, as the principal culprit, was first called upon for his defence. He was listened to with the most breathless attention. He put himself into a theatrical attitude, and thus began:—"I am oppressed!—I am accused!—I am calumniated! Have I deserved this fate? I descend into my conscience, and I there find the peace that men ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... water all night, like some terror-stricken creature, and the incessant pumps seemed to be her poor heart, beating loud with breathless fear. ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... would have liked a day's preparation at least, so as to think the change over and discuss it at home. Miss Roscoe, however, always did things in a hurry; she never had a moment to waste, and at present she whisked her pupil along the corridor and into the Fifth Form room with almost breathless energy. ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil
... here. One day the bark of pistols was heard ringin' out in the air, And a Greaser, chased by some ranchmen, tore round here into the square. I don't know what he's committed,—'tain't likely anyone knew,— But I wouldn't bet a check on the issue; if you knew the gang, neither would you. Breathless and bleeding, the Greaser fell down by the side of the wall; And a man sprang out before him,—a man both strong and tall,— By his clothes I should say a cowboy,—a stranger in town, I think,— With his pistol he waved back the gang, who was wild with rage and drink. ...
— Songs of the Cattle Trail and Cow Camp • Various
... his horse a little way, then launched him into a gallop, tearing on and on, sun, wind, trees swimming, whirling like a vision, hearing nothing, feeling nothing, save the leaden pounding of his pulse and the breathless, terrible ...
— The Tracer of Lost Persons • Robert W. Chambers
... the farmer, John Wilson, carried away the cheque, quite stunned. She was breathless with amazement and turned rather faint with excitement, bewilderment and her sense of relief. She had to sit down in the vicarage kitchen for a few minutes and drink a glass of the ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... of breathless silence between them. Then as, without speaking, he would have turned away, a loud, peremptory knock resounded upon the door of the keep and echoed and re-echoed with lugubrious reverberation through the old stone passages ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... the ships through which they had slipped dare not follow them too near the coast, in case they ran upon the rocks, and the Castle sheltered them from any arrows which might be sent from the land. It sheltered us too, and we crowded down to the little landing-stage, and watched with breathless interest the boat which was bringing safety and ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson
... playing the tune of the season, "The Regency Hornpipe," which is danced as a country-dance by some thirty couples; so that by the time the top couple have danced down the figure they are quite breathless. Two young lords talk desultorily ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... glance at those who were waiting. And with her face bowed down, but with a firm step, she "carried her father's head" out of the house which was "to know him no more." In breathless silence the friends and neighbours fell into their places, and she stood white and tearless gazing after them till the last of the long train had disappeared around the hill. Then she went slowly back toward the house. At the door ...
— Allison Bain - By a Way she knew not • Margaret Murray Robertson
... to-night," said Betty to herself as she gently and steadily pulled the handle of the latch and saw the dreaded door open to her hand. Inside stepped Betty, and made breathless pause while she closed it, and the amiable latch fell softly down again into its place. Swift as a flash the girlish figure flitted up the winding narrow stairs, and gasping but triumphant Betty seated herself on the ...
— An Unwilling Maid • Jeanie Gould Lincoln
... sent to the Lillooet illihae (country) with the glad tidings, and at the close of two days a swarm of smootlatches (women), and keekas (girls), rushed into camp breathless, and began hysterically searching for their respective sweethearts or husbands among the prisoners. The scene was more than poetic; and it was pathetic in the extreme. It was a scene that had not occurred before on the broad surface of the earth—those fifty distracted squaws rushing into the jaws ...
— Skookum Chuck Fables - Bits of History, Through the Microscope • Skookum Chuck (pseud for R.D. Cumming)
... comes. It comes in man's own good time. It comes in the crack of a rifle, and the moose jolts round with a spasmodic jerk. In a moment a movement amongst the surrounding tree-trunks captures its gaze. There is a pause, breathless, silent. Savage wrath leaps anew, and down sweeps the great head till the spread of antlers is couched like a forest of lance points. The huge body is hurled ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... light and graceful leap sprang right over the little fellow's head, tore open the door, and spread out his arms as he caught sight of Irene, who, though trembling like a hunted gazelle, flew down the narrow ladder-like stairs to meet him, and fell on his breast laughing and crying and breathless. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... back as fast as they could and found that General Jackson had moved his headquarters to the little village of Port Republic. They found him and told him the news as he was mounting his horse, but at the same time an excited and breathless messenger came galloping up from another direction. The vanguard of Shields had already routed his pickets, and the second Northern army was ...
— The Scouts of Stonewall • Joseph A. Altsheler
... it in his hands Marguerite Delarue came running over the hill. Her sunbonnet hung by its strings around her neck, her hair had come down and was streaming over her shoulders, her dress hung in rags and tatters, and she was panting and almost breathless. She had hurried on behind Mead as rapidly as she could walk, until she heard the first pistol shot. Then, fearful of trouble, she had run as fast as possible, stopping at nothing, her anxiety giving speed to her feet ...
— With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly
... consternation at these words, but Gordon's manner was so confident and the audacity of his admission so surprised his hearers that they were silent again immediately, and waited, with breathless interest, while Gordon unfolded one of ...
— The King's Jackal • Richard Harding Davis
... fluently than he can count on the fingers of both hands. He began to tell tales in a sing-song eastern snarl —a tale in Persian, then in Turkish, and the night grew breathless, full of listening, until pent-up interest at intervals burst bonds and there were "Ahs" and "Ohs" all amid the dark, like little breaths ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... of the conqueror, who was enjoying the fruits of his victory, to hear Ninon exclaim in a breathless voice, repeating it three times: "Ah! Ah! le bon billet qu'a la Chatre!" (Oh, the fine bond ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... breathless silence. Once again the terrible howling seemed to circle the hut, but it grew less distinct as it went across the marsh and up the mountains on the other side of the valley. Then came an ominous stillness. Presently some man, who couldn't hold in any longer, ...
— Jerusalem • Selma Lagerlof
... wagons!" said the merchant, dashing down a narrow cross-street. They still heard in the distance shots and cries of discord; and breaking through bands of curious and terrified inhabitants, who hindered their progress, they arrived breathless, and fearing the worst, at the ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... forcibly as to prevent his uttering a single cry. You may remember that I was remarkable at Salamanca for the power of my arm: It now rendered me an essential service. Surprised, terrified, and breathless, the Villain was by no means an equal Antagonist. I threw him upon the ground; I grasped him still tighter; and while I fixed him without motion upon the floor, Marguerite, wresting the dagger from his hand, plunged it repeatedly in his ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... and Rosita were at his feet begging for forgiveness. Then Stephano hastened to the granary, and called the lieutenant's name, but there was no response, and soon Stephano's surprise was changed to uneasiness. He rushed into the granary. It was empty. Stephano reappeared, pale, tottering and breathless. ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 27, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... genuine love of justice. Poor Bauer hardly realised that she was defending him, but he said to himself even then that he had never seen her beauty flame out so magnificently. And then before Mrs. Van Shaw could reply to Helen, he said to the astonishment of all in the breathless group: ...
— The High Calling • Charles M. Sheldon
... descending among the spectators; she remained spent and breathless, but resolute still, where she could spy the first wayfarer, hear the first shout of triumph, and steal away in the darkness, fleeing ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... it relieved the tension of the past half-hour. From the first moment David began to speak he had commanded his hearers. His voice was low and even; but it had also a power which, when put to sudden quiet use, compelled the hearer to an almost breathless silence, not so much to the meaning of the words, but to the tone itself, to the man behind it. His personal force was remarkable. Quiet and pale ordinarily, his clear russet-brown hair falling in a wave over his forehead, when ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... electric button numbered nineteen. As he does so the electric current is sent flashing, perhaps along four or five miles of insulated wire on the bottom of the harbor. At the other end of that wire is submarine mine number nineteen. In a breathless instant the current traverses the whole length of the wire. The spark has reached the gun-cotton! There is a dull, booming sound; a great column of water shoots up from the surface. In the midst of the commotion the enemy's ...
— The Submarine Boys for the Flag - Deeding Their Lives to Uncle Sam • Victor G. Durham
... stood, the ourang-outang was fully half a mile gone, and only the poor, feeble exhausted women running screaming after him. Before I overtook the women, I heard the agonized cries of my dear boy, my darling William, in the paws of that horrible monster. I pursued, breathless and altogether unnerved with agony; but, alas! I ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 398, November 14, 1829 • Various
... her young companions flocked round the door, each one eager to give her joy on the return of her birth-day. The door of the chaise was opened: Charlotte was not there. "Where is my child?" cried Mrs. Temple, in breathless agitation. ...
— Charlotte Temple • Susanna Rowson |
