"Errand" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... everything else, what was most evident about him, as he came up the path, was confidence in the happiness promised by his errand; the anticipation in his eyes could have been read by a stranger. His look at the door of Isabel's house was the look of a man who is quite certain that the next moment will reveal ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... ill last night, but I thought nothing of it. When I returned from an errand this noon, he had fallen into a kind of stupor—last night he was so excited—and I was alarmed. I had Mrs. Ducharme telephone for you then. He did not come out of his stupor," she ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... amounted almost to anguish. It cannot be called love, that a lad of twelve years of age, little more than a menial, felt for an exalted lady, his mistress: but it was worship. To catch her glance, to divine her errand and run on it before she had spoken it; to watch, follow, adore her; became the business of his life. Meanwhile, as is the way often, his idol had idols of her own, and never thought of or suspected the admiration of her little ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... mysterious errand Paul had had in Liege was explained. He had brought with him all he thought he could use of a lot of wire and telephone instruments that one of their fellow scouts had used in setting up a miniature telephone exchange ...
— The Belgians to the Front • Colonel James Fiske
... comfits, [Footnote: Comfits: sweetmeats.] a cigar, a pipe and tobacco, a sheet of paper or a postage-stamp, all of which and many other things were in his capacious haversack. From another he would receive a dying message for mother, wife, or sweetheart; for another he would promise to go an errand; [Footnote: To go an errand. What is the usual form?] to another, some special friend very low, he would give a manly farewell kiss. He did things for them no nurse or doctor could do, and he seemed to leave a benediction [Footnote: Benediction: blessing.] at every cot as he passed ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... worlds miss Peggy Hesseltine's party, which we know awaits us in Act II. An excellent example, of a more serious order, is to be found in The Benefit of the Doubt. When poor Theo, rebuffed by her husband's chilly scepticism, goes off on some manifestly harebrained errand, we divine, as do her relatives, that she is about to commit social suicide by seeking out John Allingham; and we feel more than curiosity as to the event—we feel active concern, almost anxiety, as though our own personal interests were involved. Our ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... New York. He had, in fact, descended so far and so low that he found himself, when a boy, a sort of street Arab in that city; but he had ambition and native shrewdness, and he speedily took to boot-polishing, and newspaper hawking, became the office and errand boy of a law firm, picked up knowledge enough to get some employment in police courts, was admitted to the bar, became a rising young politician, went to the legislature, and was finally elected to the bench which ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... dreameth. Her form it was so fair in seeming, Her eyes so heavenly in their beaming, So pure her heart in every feeling, So high her mind in each revealing, A band of angels thought that she Was one of their bright company; And on some homeward errand driven, Hurried ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... and respectable servitor had received his commission and departed, Alida took a seat herself, in the confidence of having deprived the visit of Ludlow of its clandestine character, and at the same time having employed the valet on an errand that would leave her sufficient leisure, to investigate the inexplicable meaning ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... daring party of the Sultan's emissaries had made a secret incursion with the object of kidnapping the Voivodin. They must have been bold of heart and strong of resource to enter the Land of the Blue Mountains on any errand, let alone such a desperate one as this. For centuries we have been teaching the Turk through bitter lessons that it is neither a safe task nor an easy ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker
... Ostia under the command of Caesarius, the son of the Neapolitan duke, a noble and valiant youth, who had already vanquished the fleets of the Saracens. With his principal companions, Caesarius was invited to the Lateran palace, and the dexterous pontiff affected to inquire their errand, and to accept with joy and surprise their providential succor. The city bands, in arms, attended their father to Ostia, where he reviewed and blessed his generous deliverers. They kissed his feet, received the communion with martial devotion, and listened to the prayer of Leo, that the same God ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... at college I was interested in a lad who was working as errand boy for a city firm. I helped him to get better training, and spent money on him. My father was making me some allowance at the time and demurred. I said I would in future support myself, and in this way came to take up schoolmastering. I at once became quite absorbed in my work with the ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... the grandfather, entered the Bank as an errand-boy, and rose by slow stages to Principal of the Stock-Room. He served the Bank full half a century, and saved from his salary a goodly competence. This money, tightly and rightly invested, passed to his son. The son never secured the complete favor of his employers ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... men up to be quarrelling: it's to save you many a heart-ache, and many a sting of sorrow and remorse; it's to prevent all the evil of unlawful love—bad blood, and false looks—that I've come here on a most disagreeable and thankless errand; and now you tell me I'd be putting the young men up ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... had just opened the Gulf of Nauplia out when the look-out man shouted, 'A vessel on the port bow!' She was carrying full sail, and steering towards us. We soon discerned that she was on an unfriendly errand, and that the intention was to try and board us. No one could be seen about the decks except the helmsman and a man apparently on the look out. If we altered our course she did the same; and whichever way we went, her sailing ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... comes back as the note of diffused sociability and domestic, in fact more or less aesthetic, ingenuity, with the street a perpetual parlour or household centre for the flitting, pausing, conversing little bourgeoise or ouvriere to sport, on every pretext and in every errand, her fluted cap, her composed head, her neat ankles and her ready wit. Which is to say indeed but that life and manners were more pointedly and harmoniously expressed, under our noses there, than ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... close of the last century a thoughtful young Englishman asked the governor of the East India Company to go to India to preach the Gospel. The answer was: "The man that would go to India upon that errand is as mad as a man who would put a ...
— Five Sermons • H.B. Whipple
... proved in distressing instance after instance in the progress of the cruel and unmanly business, but a certain degree of restraint was observed. The new policy has swept every restriction aside. Vessels of every kind, whatever their flag, their character, their cargo, their destination, their errand, have been ruthlessly sent to the bottom without warning and without thought of help or mercy for those on board, the vessels of friendly neutrals along with those of belligerents. Even hospital ships and ships carrying ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... my errand, and thought I'd take a walk to see the sights," he returned. "How is it you are not ...
— Richard Dare's Venture • Edward Stratemeyer
... how she herself dabbled daintily in all the fine arts, but the old man diverged irrevocably into politics, breathed fire and fury against the French, spoke of his near visit to Paris on a diplomatic errand, and, growing more confidential, hinted of a great scheme, an insurrection in Normandy, Admiral Tromp to swoop down on Quilleboeuf, a Platonic republic to be reared on the ruins of the French monarchy. Had Spinoza seen the shadow of a shameful death hovering over the ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... WILLIAM ARCHER, and some new Critics, and unconventional Dramatists. They are following the text with books of the Play. But there are no more errand-boys with baskets. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, March 26, 1892 • Various
... "has gone to the town on an errand. She will be back at any moment. Meanwhile, I shall introduce you to a cooling drink of my own manufacture, with a basis of that cocoanut milk which I need not ask you whether you appreciate, recalling the pleasant circumstance of our ...
— Pieces of Eight • Richard le Gallienne
... morning after mingling awhile with the indignant crowd of citizens, who were collected together on hearing of the theft, and pouring out invectives on the "villain of a thief" in no measured quantity, the two ruffians, Bill and Dick, set out on their errand of death? Learning that Hadley had started the previous afternoon, they followed after him on two of the fleetest horses in the ...
— Eveline Mandeville - The Horse Thief Rival • Alvin Addison
... the house to do an errand at the barn, Mr. Peaslee hailed him over the dividing fence. Somewhat put out, Mr. Edwards nevertheless turned and walked toward his neighbor. Mr. Peaslee, ...
— The Calico Cat • Charles Miner Thompson
... when he returned. His demeanor was so untroubled and his air so eagerly invited her to go on from where she had left off that she did not bother her mind about the errand which had ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... her errand done and returned ahead of me, bringing with her a pair of porpoises. These were already conversing in low tones with John Dolittle. I beached the canoe ...
— The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting
... most gloomy errand, indeed," said Sholto. "My lord rides with a small company into the very stronghold of his enemy, and will ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... slave! How darest thou presume to answer me? Be silent! Nay, thou shalt, thou must! And next Here on this salver, high-embossed with gold, I set this jeweled chalice, rich and fair To see, and o'er it lay the best of all, The thing her heart most craves—the Golden Fleece!— Go hence and do thine errand. Nay, but first Spread o'er these gifts this mantle—fair it is And richly broidered, made to grace a queen— To cover all from sight and keep them hid.— Now, go, and do what I commanded thee, And take these gifts, that ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... day, of all the days of th' year, I'd choose, For on this day my grandmother was born. Gods! I will make Tom Thumb an April-fool; [1] Will teach his wit an errand it ne'er knew, And send it ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... can befall us; but it is always well in such times as these, when such strange things occur, to provide for all emergencies. I may tell you that Louis de Lactre and Reginald Poupart have arrived with me in Paris bent on the same errand, and anxious like myself to testify their gratitude to you; so that we shall be a strong body, and could if necessary ride through France without any pass at all, since one or other of us is sure to find a friend in every town which we ...
— At Agincourt • G. A. Henty
... had been sent to deliver clothes he performed his errand quickly, and boarding a passing street car, paid one of his very few five-cent pieces to ride down to the office of the Hon. Mr. Brown, the colored lawyer whom he had visited when he first came to the city, and who was well known to him ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... were light that day. To begin with, every clerk and teller and errand-boy had to shake him by the hand and hear all about it. And it was not for the money's sake. Old Mr. Bowdoin had been shrewd enough to guess what only thing could make the clerk want so much liberty; and the news had leaked down to the others,—"that ...
— Pirate Gold • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... up to the window and, tossing a letter into Rebecca's lap, went off to the barn on an errand. ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... Ternate sent me a present by his priest. The 5th, at sun-rise, we observed the variation to be 4 deg. 48' easterly. This day a Moor came aboard with a sample of cloves, and offered to sell us some quantity if we would go for them to Machian; being sent on this errand by his master, who was now on this island of Bachian. For this reason we deemed it proper to stay a day longer to have some conference with this person, whose name was Key Malladaia, being brother to ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... prythee Boy, run to the Senate-house, Stay not to answer me, but get thee gone. Why doest thou stay? Luc. To know my errand Madam ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... in village or in town, You've an uncle settled down, Always treat him courteously; Uncle will be pleased thereby. In the morning: "'Morning to you! Any errand I can do you?" Fetch whatever he may need,— Pipe to smoke, and news to read; Or should some confounded thing Prick his back, or bite, or sting, Nephew then will be near by, Ready to his help to fly; Or a pinch of snuff, maybe, Sets him sneezing violently: "Prosit! uncle! ...
— Max and Maurice - a juvenile history in seven tricks • William [Wilhelm] Busch
... like this. One day, Tom, the fourth of the nine hungry and turbulent children, sent to the store on an errand, returned, bringing a letter. A letter, that was not a circular about fertilizers, or one of those polite and persuasive invitations to vote for a certain man for a town office, which penetrated even to the Hand's little gray kennel of ...
— A Village Ophelia and Other Stories • Anne Reeve Aldrich
... restaurant that offered, and after a hasty glance around it to be sure no one lurked there that might betray her she subsided into the clatter with relief. It was one more place to let time pass in, for it would be full two hours before she could fulfil her errand. She stayed as long as she dared, drinking two cups of the hideous coffee; stayed while many came and went, until she felt the proprietor noticing her. That revived her consciousness of the possible dangers still between her and the end she held in view. ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... into my leisure, and of that I had no excess. Most of my time was spent doing things for Uncle Frapp, and my evenings and nights perforce in the company of the two eldest of my cousins. He was errand boy at an oil shop and fervently pious, and of him I saw nothing until the evening except at meals; the other was enjoying the midsummer holidays without any great elation; a singularly thin and abject, stunted creature he was, whose chief liveliness ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... doing," said a more cautious assailant. "The man that presses on Henry Gow's retirement may go into his house with sound bones, but will return with ready made work for the surgeon. But here comes one has good right to do our errand to him, and make the recreant hear reason on both sides of ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... morning with them before me, and make all my arrangements—my lunches, discussions, and lagers—so as to reach the theatre at four o'clock; they save me from a life without an object, and add a zest to everything I do; they correspond to the trifling errand which renders a ten-mile walk in the country an enjoyment. But those who come here for nothing but the theatre, who do not feel the charm of the Bayreuth life, will, I am much afraid, answer No. Had I no friends ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... that day had she a chance to let out, through music, any of her surcharged devotionalism. Mother kept piling on her one errand after another. Mother was in an unwonted flurry; for the next day was the one she and Aunt Nettie were going to Junction City and there were, as she put it, "a hundred ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... anointed deputies of heaven!— To thee, King John, my holy errand is. I Pandulph, of fair Milan cardinal, And from Pope Innocent the legate here, Do in his name religiously demand Why thou against the church, our holy mother, So wilfully dost spurn; and, force perforce Keep ...
— King John • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... Miltiades, one of the Athenian generals. Relying on Greek discipline and Greek valor to win the day, he decided to take the offensive. His heavy armed soldiers made a smashing charge on the Persians and drove them in confusion to their ships. Datis and Artaphernes then sailed back to Asia with their errand of vengeance unfulfilled. ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... all as one that shares our lot. It was the dead of night, and now no more The camp fires shone, when Ajax took his sword, Uncalled, and was in act to leave the tent, And I reproved him. "Ajax," I exclaimed, "What errand is it upon which you go Unbidden, summoned by no messenger, No trumpet call; the host is all asleep?" Brief was his answer in a well-known strain: "Peace, woman; silence best beseems thy sex." I said no more. He sallied forth alone. What may have there befallen ...
— Specimens of Greek Tragedy - Aeschylus and Sophocles • Goldwin Smith
... there was no order to keep me in a cell, the warden allowed me to roam about the prison at will, and I made myself generally useful about the place. I tried to write to you, to inform you of my condition, but it was forbidden. To-day, the warden sent his assistant to town upon an errand, and he himself went down into one of the lower corridors to dispose of some new prisoners. He had left his keys upon his table. At last I saw liberty within reach! There was nobody about. I seized the keys, unlocked the outer gates and ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith
... after the retreating figures of the two men. "The master I truly know by name as one of the worst instruments of the tyrant; as to the man, knave is written on his face. He is as thin as a scarecrow — he has a villainous squint and an evil smile on his face. If I had been bent on any other errand I would have given very different answers, and taken my chance of holding my own with this good stick of mine. At any rate I told them no absolute lies. The councillor will not have a chance of asking me any more ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty
... next day, when evening approached, Varney summoned Foster to the execution of their plan. Tider and Foster's old man-servant were sent on a feigned errand down to the village, and Anthony himself, as if anxious to see that the Countess suffered no want of accommodation, visited her place of confinement. He was so much staggered at the mildness and patience with which she seemed to endure her confinement, that he could not help earnestly ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... about her waist and feeling her arms clasped tightly about his neck. One of those odd combinations of events and places made him connect the idea of love-making with this girl and a spot he had visited some days before. He had gone on an errand to the house of a farmer who lived on a hillside beyond the Fair Ground and had returned by a path through a field. At the foot of the hill below the farmer's house Seth had stopped beneath a sycamore tree and looked about him. A soft humming noise had greeted his ears. ...
— Winesburg, Ohio • Sherwood Anderson
... rode slowly on through the clear frosty night; not back to the country town which he had left on his hateful errand, nor into the broad road to London. With a strange desire to avoid the haunts of men, he selected—at each choice of way in the many paths branching right and left, between waste and woodland—the lane that seemed the narrowest and the ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of figure whenever she came alone to me, but as Jane generally was running in and out, I did not attempt further action. One morning I overheard Mrs. Nichols tell Jane to put on her bonnet and go to Oxford Street on some errand; I knew thus that Ann would attend on me, and there would be no chance of interruption from Jane, so I determined to come at once to the point. We had become on friendly, chatty terms, and when she had laid breakfast ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... pistols," she continued, pointing to a pair of pistols on the table, "for they are loaded, and I am always terrified for them." Saying this, she disappeared; and Miss Cochrane, who would have contrived some other errand for her had the well been near, no sooner saw the door shut than she passed, with trembling eagerness, and a cautious but rapid step, across the floor to the place where the man lay soundly sleeping in one of those close ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... commissionaire, and bade him get my passport from the police, and have it visee, and secure me a passage on the boat to Leghorn. He returned very soon, and said with an air of bewilderment, "Signore, you sent me on a useless errand. Here is your passport put all en regle, and ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... piece of childishness. I had despatched my squire on a sudden errand, a short ways back, and had no notion of danger, when these rogues suddenly set upon me. I made short work of two of them and would have got through, without difficulty, but for the death of my horse. They ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott
... gone, and the lad had wandered about a little, he called to mind that he had been sent out on an errand thither, and had come to fetch something for his mother's health; and though he said to himself, "After all the old dame was not so bad but she's all right by this time"—still he thought he ought to go and just see how she was. So he went and found both the man and ...
— East of the Sun and West of the Moon - Old Tales from the North • Peter Christen Asbjornsen
... their social intercourse, and did not make him forget to exhibit the warm feelings of hospitality which so largely influence the Southerner. I went to him, as a traveller in search of truth, upon an honest errand. Under such circumstances a Northerner does not require a letter of introduction to nine out of ten of the citizens of the fifteen ex-slave states, which cover an area of eight hundred and eighty thousand square miles, and where fourteen millions of people desire to be permitted to enjoy ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop
... the errand boy, who believed that it was the Devil; but, whatever or whoever it was, he was ready to bet a week's wages that its lingo ...
— Dutch Fairy Tales for Young Folks • William Elliot Griffis
... wicked plan was never to be carried out. The very hour that Gashford came on this pitiless errand, while he roughly bade Emma prepare to depart, the doors flew open. Men poured in, led by Edward Chester, who knocked Gashford down; and in another moment Emma was clasped in her uncle's embrace, and Dolly, laughing and crying at the same time, fell into the arms of her father. Their place of ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives
... his BUSINESS being to negotiate a loan; in short, to ask me to lend him 100 pounds. There must have been something very innocent and confiding in "the cut of our jib" to encourage his boarding us on such an errand; or perhaps it was the old marauding, toll-taking spirit coming out strong in him: the politer influences of the nineteenth century toning down the ancient Viking into a sort of a cross between Paul Jones and Jeremy Diddler. The seas which his ancestors once swept with their galleys, ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... "my errand, which began with the acquisition of your pins, studs and other jewelry, now reaches toward treasure far ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... I cast about to see how I could carry it into effect. I am not a coward, but I have a respectability to maintain, and what errand could Miss Butterworth be supposed to have in the streets at twelve o'clock at night! Fortunately, I remembered that my cook had complained of toothache when I gave her my orders for breakfast, and ...
— That Affair Next Door • Anna Katharine Green
... she saw him lying asleep, to all appearance as sound as a church door. But he must have heard the little one cry; for, certain it is, he had dragged her out, and was licking her little face and hands when the mother came back from her errand. You'll not wonder after that to hear that we would one and all of us share our ...
— Georgie's Present • Miss Brightwell
... whom he found already seated at his books again after dinner, took him out when he had heard his errand, and the two began to walk up and down together on the raised walk that ran along under a line of pines a ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... late when he went, because his mother had taken him with her down to the Square to do an errand, and when he came back he had to change his clothes and put on his overalls. His mother wouldn't let him wear his overalls ...
— The Doers • William John Hopkins
... boyhood his taste was for mercantile pursuits. At the age of seventeen he obtained a position in an extensive country store at Bristol Basin, on the Farmington Canal, (now Plainville.) By diligence and perseverance, he was soon promoted from the duties of errand boy to a responsible position, and in course of time stood at the head of all ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... was Greek and Hebrew to him of the bronze countenance. "If it were a Consul indeed, there might be something in that." At last our guide, the ranchero, promised to call upon the judge in the evening, and explain the matter to his satisfaction; and again our alcalde departed upon his bootless errand—bootless in every sense, as he stalked down the hill with his bare bronze supporters. As we passed along, a parcel of soldiers in the village were assembled in haste, who struck up an imposing military air, to give us some idea of ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... pushing up to whiten the sky above it. It was late March now, and the air was full of vernal promise. Johnnie stepped out on the porch and glanced toward the west. She was expecting Gray that evening. Would there be time before he came, she wondered, for a little errand she wanted to do? Turning back into the hall, she caught a jacket from the hook where it hung and hurried down to the gate, settling her arms in the sleeves as she ran. There would be time if she went fast. She wished to get the little packet ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke
... me on the river. He came back with me so willingly because he wanted to know more about us. That was plain. It would be well, Father, to enquire at the Mission. We should know more of them and their errand at ...
— The Road to Frontenac • Samuel Merwin
... that was "exhibiting" in the town, to request the proprietor or his wife, or both, to come at once to the hotel, as he wished to speak with them. There was quite a contention down stairs, as to who should go on the degrading errand. ...
— Wilton School - or, Harry Campbell's Revenge • Fred E. Weatherly
... wrath I call it—an overwhelming, all-mastering desire to kill and destroy. I forgot that Philippa waited for me in the great hall. All I knew was my wrongs—the unpardonable interference in my affairs by the gray old man, the errand of the priest, the insolence of Fortini, the impudence of Villehardouin, and here Pasquini standing in my way and spitting in the grass. I saw red. I thought red. I looked upon all these creatures as rank and noisome growths that must be hewn ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... was to wait on the madam, do any errand necessary, attend to the dining room—in fact I was installed as general utility boy. It was different from the quiet manner of life I had seen before coming here—it kept my spirits up for some time. I thought of my mother often, but I was gradually growing to the idea that it was useless ...
— Thirty Years a Slave • Louis Hughes
... for two weeks, the increasing physical disabilities of her condition compelling her to give up work at the academy. She found him engaged in the invention of a new country dance for a forthcoming competition. Mavis explained her errand, but had some difficulty in convincing even kindly Mr Poulter of Miss Nippett's ambitious leanings: in the course of years, he had come to look on his devoted accompanist very much as he regarded "Turpsichor" who stood by the front door. Mavis's request surprised ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... merchandise, to the wharves. One of Gordon's old steamers lies moored by the bank. Another, worked by the crew that manned it in Egyptian days, is threshing up the Blue Nile, sent by the Khalifa to Sennar on some errand of State. Far away to the southward the dust of a Darfur caravan breaks the clear-cut skyline ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... once that it was Lieutenant Barrows and a squad of cavalrymen, and that they were armed with carbines. He resented this, as the lieutenant had no business to arm his men in this way for such an errand. ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... cursed deeply, saying that as they had given part payment, they would get their errand, or ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... the man who had been my special servitor. He wrote me how he admired them and wished he could wear them, but alas! his feet had both been worn to a stub long ago from such continuous running and climbing to satisfy my seldom-satisfied needs. He added that several of the errand boys had become permanently crippled from over-exertion. I then understood why he had married a famous woman doctor. It is hard to get the books asked for in very large libraries. Once I was replying to an attack ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... affair must be decided at once; he therefore sent his servant to Accous to fetch it, recommending him great promptitude and address in inventing some story to prevent his father from guessing his errand. The servant used his utmost despatch, and thought he had managed very cleverly to avert suspicion: the old knight, however, was too clear-sighted in such matters; and, having divined the state of the case, mounted his mule instantly, and secretly followed the ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... on it!" said Blount, as he descended the stairs; "had he sent me with a cartel to Leicester I think I should have done his errand indifferently well. But to go to our gracious Sovereign, before whom all words must be lacquered over either with gilding or with sugar, is such a confectionary matter as clean baffles my poor old English brain.—Come with me, Tracy, and come you too, Master Walter ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... told him at last of the return of the two men, he drew back out of sight of the window while the obsequious khansama went forth upon his errand. Then a moment or two later he heard them separate, and one alone came in his direction. Everard entered with the ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... begged his friend to draw off his boots, and to take his hat and coat as well, and to make all speed on his charitable errand. ...
— Old-Fashioned Fairy Tales • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... said I, "that this young man and yonder personage should belong to the same street." "Oh, the same princess Pride rules them both," answered the angel,—"this young man is only speaking fair on account of the errand he comes upon; he is seeking popularity at present, with the intent to raise himself thereby to the highest office in the kingdom—it is easy for him to lament to the people how much they are wronged by the oppression of bad masters; but his own exaltment, and not the weal of ...
— The Sleeping Bard - or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell • Ellis Wynne
... God,[1009] who is so dull as not to see plainly in the coming of this blessed man, and his passing, a truly great purpose of the divine compassion?[1010] From the uttermost parts of the earth he came[1011] to leave his earth here. He was hastening, it is true, on another errand; but we know that by reason of his special love for us he desired that most of all.[1012] He suffered many hindrances in the journey itself, and he was refused permission to cross the sea till the ...
— St. Bernard of Clairvaux's Life of St. Malachy of Armagh • H. J. Lawlor
... that he was alone with this good man, he began to tell him his errand, walking side by side in the court, till he saw his opportunity; and getting the good man near the brink of the well, he gave him a thrust, and pushed him into it, without being seen by any one. Having done thus, he returned, got out at the gate of the ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... gleamed the golden and sleepless eyes of the Broadway district. The sharp frosty air quivered with a thousand noises. Motors hurried by in an unending procession, little gleaming worlds, each holding its group of strangers, gazing, gesticulating, laughing, intent on some unknown errand. The pavements were thronged with pedestrians, muffled to the ears and walking swiftly. The taxi-cab, caught in the maze of traffic, jerked as the chauffeur applied the brakes, and slowed down almost to walking pace. Under a lamp Claude saw a colored woman wearing a huge pink hat. She ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... absence of life in the sea, he saw small shells in it; he saw no traces of any buried cities; and as to the stories regarding the statue of Lot's wife and the proposal to visit it, he says, "Nor could we give faith enough to these reports to induce us to go on such an errand." ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... began, without waiting for him to state the errand that had brought him there, "have you come to bring me news of my sister? Was she in that fatal ...
— His Heart's Queen • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... spring if we happened to see a strange wagon or horsebacker. One of Master Sam Love's women was stole and sold down in Texas. After freedom she made her way back to her fambly. Master Frank sent one of my brothers to Sherman on an errand. After several days the mule come back but we never did see my brother again. We didn't know whether he run off ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various
... encamped in their subsidiary huts to watch and cleanse it. No other foot of man was suffered to draw near; only the priest, in the days of his running, came there to sleep—perhaps to dream of his ungodly errand; but, in the time of the feast, the clan trooped to the high place in a body, and each had his appointed seat. There were places for the chiefs, the drummers, the dancers, the women, and the priests. The drums— perhaps twenty strong, and some of them twelve feet high— continuously ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... The errand was not his. Willis had lighted the lamp: moreover, one might have sent a workman, but when a job was urgent Lister went himself. The job was urgent and dangerous. Unless he made good speed, he would meet the train on the bridge ...
— Lister's Great Adventure • Harold Bindloss
... her consternation that Ekpenyong had risen stealthily during the night and gone off on his errand of death. Fortunately a chief some miles off detained him by force until she arrived. She stuck resolutely to him, and as all the more powerful chiefs came over to her side from sheer admiration of her pluck, he had ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... Charles had despatched an adjutant to Presburg with orders to the Archduke John to march at once and attack the enemy's rear. The story at first accepted was that the messenger found the bridges over the river March destroyed, and arrived six hours too late for his errand to be successful. There were, however, many at the time who attributed criminal negligence to John, among them his own brother, the commander-in-chief. For a time, by means of court intrigue and persistent misrepresentation, ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... Senate—for a little patch of ground. To the credit of the Secretary of State it should be said, that he sold her the property on very favorable terms, and gave her some time for payment. To this house she removed her parents, and set herself to work to pay for the purchase. It was on this errand that she first visited Boston—we believe in the winter of 1858-59. She brought a few letters from her friends in New York, but she could herself neither read nor write, and she was obliged to trust to her wits that ...
— Harriet, The Moses of Her People • Sarah H. Bradford
... dark and puzzled long over the identity of that man, and his errand. And the longer she thought about it, the more completely she was at sea. All the men that she knew were aware that she kept this room habitable, and visited the ranch often. That was no secret; it never had been a secret. No one save Lite Avery had ever been in it, so far ...
— Jean of the Lazy A • B. M. Bower
... not tell Lizzie of her errand and that faithful soul was too glad to see her eat her dinner to think to ask her why she had skated so long. Kent came out in the afternoon and the two fished through the ice until sunset, when they came in with a string ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... get away before noon for the pleasant errand of purchasing the beds, and Polly was overflowing with bliss. She had her choice in everything, with the Doctor and the merchant as advisers; and although the bill footed up to a little more than the check, the difference was ...
— Polly of the Hospital Staff • Emma C. Dowd
... that she had an errand to do on the river road, so that she might go to the antique ...
— The Motor Girls on a Tour • Margaret Penrose
... upon other things that morning Young Denny forgot it, perhaps there was an even deeper reason for his remissness, but the Judge, while he stood and listened to the boy's tersely short explanation of his errand, was himself too taken up with other thoughts to note the omission. He was already formulating the rounded sentences with which he would introduce the subject that night to the circle in the ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans
... now to be put under the care of some Twybridge teacher—such an one as Miss Cadman's acquaintances could recommend. For her own credit, the milliner was anxious that these nephews of hers should not be running about the town as errand-boys or the like, and with prudence there was no necessity for such degradation. An uncommon lad like Godwin (she imagined him named after the historic earl) must not be robbed of his fair chance in life; she would gladly spare a little money for his ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... Tom on the like errand, but not very sanguine, for he said there had of late been an outcry against the number of reprieves granted, and the public had begun to think itself not sufficiently protected. He thought the best chance was the discovery of some additional fact that might tell in favour of ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Foster comin' to pay his rent," he said. "There'll be many a one on that errand along about now," he declared with satisfaction. "Cheer up," he added, turning back to the pale face and tremulous lips of the young girl. "Your father wasn't the first fine man to go wrong; but they don't all have somebody to stick by 'em and shield 'em as he did. The ...
— In Apple-Blossom Time - A Fairy-Tale to Date • Clara Louise Burnham
... He replied that he couldn't think of leaving me alone in such a place. So there was nothing for me to do except to go. I would have to return later without Mr. Poritol. 'Come along,' I said. 'My errand is done.' ...
— The Girl and The Bill - An American Story of Mystery, Romance and Adventure • Bannister Merwin |
