"Lap" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Saint Andrew!" exclaimed the amazed Roland Graeme to himself, "was there ever such an audacious quean!—she seems a little ashamed of her mummery too, for she holds the lap of her cloak to her face, and her colour is heightened—but Santa Maria, how she threads the throng, with as firm and bold a step as if she had never tied petticoat round her waist!—Holy Saints! she holds up her riding-rod as if she would lay it about some of their ears, that stand most in her ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... hours out of each of the fourteen nights; whilst her godmother played bridge or poker, paid and received visits, took her to dances and parties, and busied her fingers in the tangled threads Fate had tossed into her lap. ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest
... pussy gave a great yawn, and stretched out both her paws, claws and all. Harry saw the sharp nails like hooks, and watched them go back into their sheaths. Then she curled herself up on his lap. ...
— Chambers's Elementary Science Readers - Book I • Various
... quiet, or you'll be worse off than you thought your father was," snarled Ab. Dexter. He had Dick jammed down on the floor, the boy's head just above the man's lap. Dexter's fingers kept their fearful grip at ...
— The Grammar School Boys of Gridley - or, Dick & Co. Start Things Moving • H. Irving Hancock
... that—just as if he had known them before. He was puzzled, but went on talking with the woman, and arranging the price. Having fixed it, he prepared the measure. The woman lifted the lame girl on to her lap and said: "Take two measures from this little girl. Make one shoe for the lame foot and three for the sound one. They both have the same size feet. They ...
— What Men Live By and Other Tales • Leo Tolstoy
... porch. Around the house appeared the dogs, then, in the storm, two or three turbaned negresses. Mammy, coifed and kerchiefed, came down the stairs and through the house. "O my Lawd! Hit's my baby! O glory be! Singin' jes' lak he uster sing, layin' in my lap—mammy singin' ter him, an' he singin' ter mammy! O Marse Jesus! let ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... a bright eagerness came into his eyes as he rode deeper into the pine-timbered mountains. To-day he was on the last lap of a delectable journey. Three days ago he had ridden out of the sun-baked town of San Juan; three months had passed since he had sailed out of ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory
... daisies on the sod, With their faces turned to God, Their hearts' roots are in the island green that nursed them on her lap. ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall
... the previous year at anything that amused her, but only smiled. As she could see to read excellently, she passed hours reading "Corinne" or Lamartine's "Meditations." Then she would ask for her drawer of "souvenirs," and emptying her cherished letters on her lap, she would place the drawer on a chair beside her and put back, one by one, her "relics," after she had slowly gone over them. And when she was alone, quite alone, she would kiss some of them, as one kisses in secret a lock of hair of a loved ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... had been some idle dallying. Did I not worship her? Did I not pour out my whole heart into her lap from the first moment in which I saw her? Did I hide it even from you? Was there any ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... the bee, that active hero, Gathered honey in the meadow, And a little time passed over, Very little time passed over, When he came on whirring pinions, Coming with his mission finished, 460 In his lap six cups he carried, Seven upon his back he carried, Brimming o'er with precious ointment, With the best ...
— Kalevala, Volume I (of 2) - The Land of the Heroes • Anonymous
... time must they be plucked unless the feathers are "ripe"; that is, dry at the root, so that no bleeding or injury to the skin is caused. An old stocking is drawn over the head of the victim, and the bird held in the plucker's lap on a burlap apron; then the soft feathers on the body are quickly and very gently removed; but those on the side of the body which support the wings should not be taken. Great care should be exercised not to injure the skin or pinfeathers or pull the down. To grow new feathers ...
— One Thousand Questions in California Agriculture Answered • E.J. Wickson
... with an expression that made her laugh more. She got up and, opening the door, she whispered a second with Jacoba who was stationed as sentinel outside. In a few minutes the stout go-between re-opened the door and brought in the sleeping child. Amalia sat down, and told her to put it on her lap. And then, for a long time, they both gazed in ecstasy at the little delicate creature as it softly breathed in its sleep. It was a moment of happiness. The count forgot his fears and became quite calm, whilst a smile of real pleasure ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... excited and contentious heads multiply at the windows of the train; then your long rumble on the immense white railway-bridge, which, in spite of the invidious contrast drawn, and very properly, by Mr. Ruskin between the old and the new approach, does truly, in a manner, shine across the green lap of the lagoon like a mighty causeway of marble; then the plunge into the station, which would be exactly similar to every other plunge save for one little fact—that the keynote of the great medley of voices borne back from the exit is not ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... something to an elephant rather than to a man; be bolder." 3. Once as he was sitting in judgment, Maece'nas perceiving that he was inclined to be severe, and not being able to get to him through the crowd, he threw a paper into his lap, on which was written, "Arise, executioner!" Augustus read it without displeasure, and immediately rising, pardoned those whom he was disposed to condemn. 4. But what most of all showed a total alteration, was his treatment ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... put her arm about the slender figure and drew her closer. "Lay your head on my lap and sleep a little. You can do no good ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... perpetual about dues and tithes, it is little blame or wonder, if the starving sheep went anywhither else for pasturage and water. So, then, Susan was a good mother, a kind neighbour, a religious, humble-minded Christian: is it not a comfort now to know that the gold was poured into her lap, and that she hallowed her good luck by prayers ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... With that she let loose the most owdacious white bantam and scattered some corn on the floor; then she sat down and laughed like an imp when the foolish thing hopped up to her and flopped onter her lap. Well, I kept the sassy little hen—there wasn't anything else ter do—but one day Marg, she followed Nella-Rose up and when she saw what was going on, she stamped in and cried out: 'So! yo' can have playthings while us-all go starved! Yo' can steal what's our'n,—an' with that she took ...
— The Man Thou Gavest • Harriet T. Comstock
... Miss Madison, delicately feeling of the member—an operation which, even under her gentle touch, caused increased outcry, "it is evidently broken. Let me take him on my lap;" and Scofield saw that her face had ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... her for a moment, growing very red. Then the redness finished up, like a thundercloud breaking into rain, by his bursting into tears, and hiding his face in Bee's lap. ...
— Rosy • Mrs. Molesworth
... though," said Dorothea. "Has anyone thought of sending for Doctor Ibbetson? He must be fetched at once. A towel, please—three or four—from the dresser there." A footman brought the towels. She knelt, folded two on her lap, and, resting Raoul's foot there, drew the stocking gently from the wound. "A basin and warm water, not too hot. Polly, you will find a small sponge in the, second drawer . . ." She nodded towards the medicine chest. "One ...
— The Westcotes • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... previous—that Isaac started, blushed, dropped the bread—already near enough to his teeth to have felt uncomfortable, had it been capable of feeling—endeavored to catch it—blundered—and finally upset his plate and contents into his lap, in a manner so truly ridiculous, that Ella and Mrs. Younker, unable to restrain their mirth, laughed heartily, while the stranger and Algernon smiled, and the stern features of the father relaxed into an expression of quiet humor ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett
... so soon as it has a being in the soul, is like the child that has a being in the mother's lap; it must have something to feed upon; not something at a distance, afar off, to be purchased (I speak now as to justification from the curse), but something by promise made over of grace to the soul; something to feed ...
— The Pharisee And The Publican • John Bunyan
... than the cold ones to besprinkle the white face Edie had lifted into her lap, as she sat on the floor, bending down from time to time to kiss the marble forehead and ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn
... the steps of his house and burst into the living room with a smile. Betty was sitting by one of the windows, her hands lying relaxed in her lap. She turned a somber face toward her husband, and spoke before he had time to say a ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various
... "I know there used to be children in the water, and mermaids too, and mermen. I saw them all in a picture at home, of a beautiful lady sailing in a car drawn by dolphins, and babies flying round her, and one sitting in her lap; and the mermaids swimming and playing, and the mermen trumpeting on conch-shells; and it is called 'The Triumph of Galatea'; and there is a burning mountain in the picture behind. It hangs on the ...
— The Water-Babies - A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby • Charles Kingsley
... the window-sill a pot of convolvulus climbed along its threads and over this frail ladder stretched its tendrils which were caressed by a ray of sunlight. Louisa was sitting in a low chair bending over her great Bible which was open on her lap, but she was not reading. Her hands were laid flat on the book—her hands with their swollen veins, worker's nails, square and a little bent—and she was devouring with loving eyes the little plant and the patch of sky she ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... flask, and several bottles in front of her. The contents of the flask were boiling furiously, while a villainous smell filled the room. Clara lounged in an arm-chair with her feet upon a second one, a blue-covered book in her hand, and a huge map of the British Islands spread across her lap. "Hullo!" cried the Doctor, blinking and sniffing, "where's ...
— Beyond the City • Arthur Conan Doyle
... want bitters—though made outer the simplest yarbs of the yearth, with jest enough sperrit to bring out the vartoos—ez Deacon Stoer's Balm 'er Gilead is—what yer meaning? Ef I was like some folks I could lie thar and smoke in the lap o' idleness—with fourteen beds in the house empty, and nary lodger for one of 'em. Ef I was that indifferent to havin' invested my fortin in the good will o' this house, and not ez much ez a single transient lookin' in, I could lie ...
— Jeff Briggs's Love Story • Bret Harte
... is of course true that in a certain sense the individual is predestined to talk, but that is due entirely to the circumstance that he is born not merely in nature, but in the lap of a society that is certain, reasonably certain, to lead him to its traditions. Eliminate society and there is every reason to believe that he will learn to walk, if, indeed, he survives at all. But it is just as certain that he will never learn to talk, that ...
— Language - An Introduction to the Study of Speech • Edward Sapir
... her consciousness, she found herself reclining on the lap of Henry, who had been bathing her face with snow and tears. A long, painful call of her name had reached the inmost recess of her being whither consciousness had repaired. Springing to her feet, startled as if from a frightful dream, she gazed around. Memory and ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly
... beyond the power to answer, for he would not trust himself to answer—Lionel prepared to quit the room. He began to wish he had not had Verner's Pride, if this was to be its domestic peace. Sibylla petulantly threw the French book from her lap upon the table, and it fell down with its ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... mother. Sometimes when the day's work was done and the sober, still twilights came on, this reverent soul, sitting with his family gathered about him near the threshold of his single homeless room,—his oldest boy standing beside his chair, his wife holding in her lap the sleeping babe she had just nursed,—would begin to sing. The son's voice joined the father's; the wife's followed the ...
— The Reign of Law - A Tale of the Kentucky Hemp Fields • James Lane Allen
... should descend on the earth and try the goodness and virtue of king Sivi, the son of Usinara. And addressing each other,—"Well"—Agni and Indra came to the earth. And Agni took the form of a pigeon flying away from Indra who pursued him in the form of a hawk, and that pigeon fell upon the lap of king Sivi who was seated on an excellent seat. And the priest thereupon addressing the king said, "Afraid of the hawk and desirous of saving its life, this pigeon hath come to thee for safety. The learned have said that the falling of a pigeon ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... actress was seated by the door of her house; overhead a rude canvas awning sheltered her from the sun; on her lap lay the manuscript of a new part in which she was shortly to appear. By her side was the guitar on which she had been practising the airs that were to ravish the ears of the cognoscenti. But the guitar had been thrown aside in despair; her voice this morning did not obey her will. The manuscript ...
— Zicci, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... "and help me to prepare the winding sheet to receive the body." They spread the linen on the ground at Mary's feet, placing one end upon her lap. ...
— King of the Jews - A story of Christ's last days on Earth • William T. Stead
... had any idea that it was such a lot of trouble to teach children how to eat and drink. Their favorite method is to put their mouths down to their mugs and lap their milk like kittens. Good manners are not merely snobbish ornaments, as Mrs. Lippett's regime appeared to believe. They mean self-discipline and thought for others, and my children have got ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster
... into the hall, and now Father Blossom opened the front door to find Mother Blossom sitting on the last stair-step, Meg crying in her lap, and the rest of the family standing ...
— Four Little Blossoms and Their Winter Fun • Mabel C. Hawley
... they had finished eating, and all were seated on the ground. The countenance of the father was clouded with a melancholy expression. Dona Isidora sat by his side and tried to cheer him, endeavouring to force a smile into her large black eyes. The little Leona, with her head resting on her mother's lap, overcome with the heat and fatigue, had fallen asleep. Leon, seeing the dejected look of his father, was silent and thoughtful. Guapo was busy with ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... play beneath its wide-spreading branches, one fine day in the early spring. He had his lap full of flowers, which the fields and lanes had supplied him with, and he was humming a tune to himself as ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... shore for the first time, thousands of years after its conception beneath the glacier that excavated its basin. The landscape, cold and bare, is reflected in its pure depths; the winds ruffle its glassy surface, and the sun thrills it with throbbing spangles, while its waves begin to lap and murmur around its leafless shores,—sun-spangles during the day and reflected stars at night its only flowers, the winds and the snow its only visitors. Meanwhile, the glacier continues to recede, and numerous rills, still younger than the lake itself, ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... air, one other sound beside the restless murmur I have mentioned,—the lap, lap of the lake whose waters bathed the bank which ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... Road that night—which now seemed so long ago. There was a dress on which she had been sewing; for the needle was stuck in the blanket with the thread still in the garment; but she was not working. She had in her lap as she sat cross-legged on the blanket, a little wax doll to which she was babbling and talking as little girls do. She had taken off its dress, and was carefully wiping its face, telling it to shut its eyes, saying that mama wouldn't ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... lifted her hands and let them fall into her lap again, palm upward, and regarded him in gentle exasperation. "Stephen, you know, really, sometimes I feel that you are not a bit of help to me with ...
— Play the Game! • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... bred out of the Spartan kind, So flu'd, so sanded; and their heads are hung With ears that sweep away the morning dew. Crook-knee'd and dew-lap'd like Thessalian bulls, Slow in pursuit, but match'd in mouths like bells, Each under each: a cry more tuneable Was never halloo'd to, ...
— The De Coverley Papers - From 'The Spectator' • Joseph Addison and Others
... of rice, the showering chorus of gay good wishes and good-bys, and then they shot away in the night for some mysterious bourne of the honeymoon. And behind them the dance went on till dawn. The paper dropped in Mavis's lap, and Martha Hawn sighed and rose to get ready ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.
... loneliness of things for gotten. And I lay there all the while in the careless grip of the mud, never wholly covered, yet never able to go free, and I longed for the great caress of the warm Earth or the comfortable lap ...
— A Dreamer's Tales • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... infinity. Sylvie watched Pierrette narrowly. The girl colored; but the color, instead of rising evenly, came out in patches on her cheekbones, in burning and significant spots. A mother, seeing that symptom of illness, would have changed her tone at once; she would have taken the child on her lap and questioned her; in fact, she would long ago have tenderly understood the signs of Pierrette's pure and perfect innocence; she would have seen her weakness and known that the disturbance of the digestive organs and the other ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... however, by no means thus dismissed. Some time later the subject writes: "I have again restarted masturbation for the relief of localized feelings. One morning I was engaged in reading a very heavy volume which, for convenience sake, I held in my lap, leaning back on my chair. I had become deep in my study for an hour or so when I became aware of certain feelings roused by the weight of the book. Being tempted to see what would happen by such conduct, I shifted so that the edge of the volume came in closer contact. The pleasurable ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... senses. I should have fallen from my mule had not Manco lifted me off. A grey mist floated before my eyes, and I could neither see, hear, nor feel distinctly. Manco sat down, and took my head in his lap; when after a time I began to recover, and I saw that he was anxiously looking at a dense mass of ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston
... come up and we turn our faces towards the harbour. The dusky oarsmen are waiting for us, and we are soon skimming over the dark water—I with my hoard of flowers in my lap and my eyes fixed on the great dim hulk of the San Miguel anchored out ...
— Under the Southern Cross • Elizabeth Robins
... heart by marching steadily and straight up to her, despite Martha's laughing pulls on the lariat looped about his neck. With ears pricked forward, he made friendly overtures to the new-comer on the spot. He poked his nose into her lap and rubbed it against her hands and ate ...
— Southern Stories - Retold from St. Nicholas • Various
... numerous one turns to the protection of his hammock and net immediately after the evening meal. It was at such times that I found the electric lamp so helpful. Reclining in the hammock, I held the stock of the light under my left arm and with diary in my lap wrote up my records for the day. I sometimes read by its soft, steady light. One charge of battery, to my surprise, lasted nearly a month. When forced to pick out a camping spot after dark, an experience which comes to every traveller in the tropics in the rainy ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt
... bushes. Hamoud raised a rifle from the moss into his lap. Amid the leaves two balls of green fire appeared and disappeared. It was a leopard that had peeped ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman
... light showed the location of his listeners. Gloria was now half sitting, half lying, in Anthony's lap. His arm was around her so tightly that she could hear the beating of his heart. Richard Caramel, perched on the apple-barrel, from time to time stirred and ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... horse was an object that afforded Mrs. Washington, as it did the other substantial Virginia ladies of that day, quite as much, if not more, real pleasure than their more delicate grand-daughters of the present now find in their handsome carriages, lap-dogs, and canary-birds. So great was her fondness for this noble animal, that she usually suffered two or three of her finest to run in a meadow in front of the house, where she might look at them from time to time as she sat sewing ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady
... themselves in those honest but occasionally somewhat bloodshot eyes. Besides, goodness knows! the poor fellow's weakness is palpable enough. No, that is not the reason. It is no guilt that keeps his name hidden,—at least, not his. (Seating herself, and arranging flowers in her lap.) Poor Sandy! he must have climbed the eastern summit to get this. See, the rosy sunrise still lingers in its very petals; the dew is fresh upon it. Dear little mountain baby! I really believe that fellow got up before ...
— Two Men of Sandy Bar - A Drama • Bret Harte
... the lap of the rich and wooded valley of the Liffey, and is overlooked by the high grounds of the beautiful Phoenix Park on the one side, and by the ridge of the Palmerstown hills on the other. Its situation, therefore, is eminently picturesque; and ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 4 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... been held to be a greater number than Wilkes's 1143! This, he said, was flying in the face of all law and freedom: a robbery of the liberty of freeholders; and making the birthrights of Englishmen a mere farce. He then represented Colonel Luttrell as sitting in the lap of John Wilkes, and the majority of the house as being turned into a state engine. He added, in conclusion, "I am afraid this measure originated too near the throne. I am sorry for it; but I hope his majesty will soon open his eyes, and see it in all its deformity." ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... her knees his head lies satisfied; And upward, downward, dark eyes look and rest, Finding their home in likeness. Lifting then Her hair upon her white arm heavily, The overflowing of her beauteousness, Her hand that cannot trespass, singles out Some of the curls that stray across her lap; And mingling dark locks in the pallid light, She asks him which is darker of the twain, Which his, which hers, and laugheth like a lute. But now her hair, an unvexed cataract, Falls dark and heavy round his upturned face, And with a heaven shuts out the shallow sky, A heaven ...
— A Hidden Life and Other Poems • George MacDonald
... laboured to befit the snow white egg for a rare tenant—attar-gul. Well do we remember how that face, usually so cloudless, became darkened almost to a frown, as our heart's mistress saw the missile approach her. What a radiant smile bewitched us, as it burst on her lap, and filled the air with its fragrance! Truly we ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... for her care; for when she was sick and sulky, the little squaw gave her bits of maple-sugar and parched rice out of her hand. At last Silvy grew tame, and would suffer herself to be taken out of her house, to sit on her mistress's shoulder, or in her lap; and though she sometimes ran away and hid herself, out of fun, she would not have gone far from the tent of the good Indians, on any account. Sometimes she saw the red squirrels running about in the forest, but they never ...
— Lady Mary and her Nurse • Catharine Parr Traill
... Other men, wounded, were being cared for by the women. Little Rish Hardacre had been struck in the arm by a heavy ball. He was no more than six, and I remember looking on with mouth agape while his mother held him on her lap and his father set about bandaging the wound. Little Rish had stopped crying. I could see the tears on his cheeks while he stared wonderingly at a sliver of broken bone sticking ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... the new doll; so Polly carried Rosalinda into the play-room, put her in the little chair, and began to get ready for the party. Rosalinda looked as though she would like to help; so Polly filled one of her prettiest cups with milk, and put it in the dolly's lap, while she went out for three lumps ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, May, 1878, No. 7. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... and that those who had supported Harold were traitors, and their lands confiscated to the crown. As nearly all had been loyal to Harold, the result was that most of the wealth of the Nation was emptied into William's lap, not by right of conquest, ...
— The Evolution of an Empire • Mary Parmele
... and was going to bed, but Joseph would not suffer her to go. He said he had stories to tell her, and he fell to telling of the several preachers he had heard in the synagogues, and his voice beguiled the evening away so pleasantly that Rachel let her knitting drop into her lap and sat looking at her grandson, stupefied and ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... on the floor, he raised her gently, and placing her in a half-sitting, half-reclining position in his lap, laid her head tenderly on his breast. While in this position Minnie administered restoratives, and the widow, ere long opened her eyes and looked up. She did not speak at first, but, twining her arms round Ruby's neck, gazed steadfastly into his face; then, drawing him closer to her heart, ...
— The Lighthouse • R.M. Ballantyne
... cried, springing out to the sidewalk, "that I've been spending the last year traveling around Europe with Lydia! I haven't heard any more than you have." He threw aside the lap-robe of supple broadcloth, and offered his hand to Lydia. A flash of resentment at the cool silence of this invitation sprang up in the girl's eyes. There was in her face a despairing effort at mutiny. Her hands nervously opened and shut the ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... worked, do you? Because I didn't. I ate and drank and slept and went in swimmin' with the court officers and did a little fishin' an' fightin'; and on moonlight nights I used to sprawl in the grass out on the edge of Hakatuea with my head in my queen's lap, rubberin' up at the Southern Cross and watchin' the rollers breakin' white over the reef. And everything'd be as still as death except for that eternal swishin' of the surf on the beach, babblin' of 'Peace! Peace! Peace!' an' maybe once in a while ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... in the light of the window, as usual, with one of the mystic books of Emanuel Swedenborg open on her lap. She solemnly lifted her hand on our appearance, signing to us to occupy our customary corner without speaking to her. It was an act of domestic high treason to interrupt the Sibyl at her books. We crept quietly into our places. Mary waited until she saw ...
— The Two Destinies • Wilkie Collins
... than ever: she looked like a miserable dwarf, with a frog's head and webbed fingers. There was something very sad in her eyes; voice she had none except a kind of croak like a child sobbing in its dreams. Then would the Viking's wife take her in her lap; she would forget the ugly form, and look only at the melancholy eyes; and more ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen
... (place) platajxo. Landlord bienulo, landsinjoro. Landmark terlimsxtono. Landscape pejzagxo. Landslip terdisfalo. Lane strateto. Language lingvo. Language (speech) lingvajxo. Languid malfortika. Languish malfortigxi. Lank maldika. Lantern lanterno. Lap leki, lekumi. Lapis lazuli lapis lazuro. Lapse (of time) manko, dauxro. Larceny sxtelo. Larch lariko. Lard porkograso. Larder mangxajxejo. Large granda. Largely grandege. Lark alauxdo. Larva ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... methods as each course arrived; envied the composure with which Clarence dealt with such trying dishes as vol au vent and artichokes. Her serviette was of a larkish disposition, declining to remain on her lap, and distress increased each time that Henry recovered it; generally, at these moments of confusion, Lady Douglass took the opportunity to send down some perplexing inquiry, and the girl felt grateful to Henry for replying on her behalf. Henry, it appeared, was to contribute to the ...
— Love at Paddington • W. Pett Ridge
... biplanes can be best seen at a race meeting at some aerodrome. Thus at Hendon, when a speed handicap is in progress, the slow biplanes have a start of one or two laps over the rapid little monoplanes in a six-lap contest, and it is most amusing to see the latter dart under, or over, the more cumbersome biplane. Recently however, much faster biplanes have been built, and they bid fair to rival the swiftest ...
— The Mastery of the Air • William J. Claxton
... plenitude of quaint, impossible chairs, seemed quite cosily exiguous. An old lady with a beautiful, refined face and a wealth of white hair, which was still charming to look at, sat in an attitude full of comfortable indolence, with a small pug in her lap, who bounced at Rainham with a bark of friendly recognition. A young lady, at the other side of the room (she was at least young by courtesy), who was pouring out tea, stopped short in this operation to greet the new visitor with a little soft exclamation, in which pleasure and ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... my lap, as I draw a long breath of mingled relief and disappointment. A whole long evening—long night of this solitude before me! perhaps much more, for they do not even say that they will come to-morrow! I must utter my disappointment ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... the terrible fact that his friend Bax had really gone from him, perhaps for ever, he went straight up to the cottage, sat down on the kitchen floor at the feet of Mrs Laker, laid his head on her lap, and wept as if his ...
— The Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne
... night I could hear the gay music of the bells and hoofs, the rumbling of the wheels the cracking of the eternal whip, as I fidgeted from one familiar lap to the other in search of sleep; and waking out of a doze I could see the glare of the red lamps on the five straining white and gray backs that dragged us so gallantly through the ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... toward the peak of the mountain, pushing out now and then to blot a star from the purple. Now and then a white, ragged gash cut through, but no sound reached up to where we were camped on the high mesa that was the lap of Starvation Mountain. I will explain that Casey had come back to Starvation to see if there were not another good silver claim lying loose and needing a location monument. We faced Tippipah Range twelve miles away,—and to-night the fire ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower
... heavy of metal it was! Idly, she thought she would count the leaden missiles. When finally she laid the belt aside, a bullet remained in her lap. It had fallen there out of its shell. Starting to fit the bullet in again, she suddenly dropped both bullet and cartridge. Her hands trembled. This particular shell contained no powder. But it contained a tightly rolled slip of oiled paper. The cartridge was a dummy, ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... the window with no thought of Trouville or their hurried flight. With each throb of the carriage-wheels the train flashed nearer to Chamonix. She opened the book which lay upon her lap—the book in which she had been so interested when Monsieur de Camours and his mother passed her by. It was a volume of the "Alpine Journal," more than twenty years old, and she could not open it but some exploit of the pioneers took her eyes, some history of a first ...
— Running Water • A. E. W. Mason
... [laughter], when I myself am matured, as I look to complete my second centennial on Saturday afternoon [laughter and applause], there is a kind of repose, as it seems to me, in coming back here to sit in the lap of this dear old nurse who is well on toward her three hundred, and who will certainly never ask any of us to celebrate her centennial either in prose or verse. To this college our Revolution which we are celebrating this year is modern. ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... plate-glass window of Mackey's drug-store. After that I always hitched him up with his head toward the carriage, and then he seemed to feel better contented, only sometimes he became too sociable, and used to put his head over the dasher and try to chew my legs or to eat the lap-cover. ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... Till coffee has her stomach lined; But, when her breakfast gives her courage, Then think on Stella's chicken porridge: I mean when Tiger[2]has been served, Or else poor Stella may be starved. May Bec have many an evening nap, With Tiger slabbering in her lap; But always take a special care She does not overset the chair; Still be she curious, never hearken To any speech but Tiger's barking! And when she's in another scene, Stella long dead, but first the Dean, May fortune and ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... abrupt withdrawal of her eyes, then a sudden effusion of blood to her forehead that finally extended to her cheekbones, and then an interval of forgetfulness where she remained with a plate held vaguely in her hand. When she succeeded at last in putting it on the table instead of the young man's lap, she said in a voice quite ...
— By Shore and Sedge • Bret Harte
... ten to twelve thousand feet above sea level, and the relation of these mountain tributaries to the San Juan, which runs from east to west, not remotely from the base of these mountains, in such a manner as to invite and receive into its lap, so to express it, the vegetable wealth developed in these mountain chains, are facts that force themselves upon the attention ...
— Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines • Lewis H. Morgan
... seems a stronger basis for supposing that the prayer is a later introduction than the Song. Rothstein points out (p. 181, note d) that v. 1 (24) in Θ has relation to the Song, but not to the Prayer, and originally, as he imagines, took the place of the present v. 28 (91) of similar import. Corn. a Lap. notes of v. 1 (24) "est hysterologia." This view is also mentioned with favour in Charles' article on Apocrypha in the 1902 vols. of Encycl. Brit. (cf. 'For whom written,' ...
— The Three Additions to Daniel, A Study • William Heaford Daubney
... the prevailing tone here, and who was specially remarkable by the possession of an eagle-beaked nose, a peculiarity that I had not before observed among these people, began to frown as Jack brusquely approached him. But I could not interfere before Jack had thrown a handful of coin in his lap, and, reaching up, had put his hand upon one of the curious ...
— A Columbus of Space • Garrett P. Serviss
... eyes again slowly filled with tears. She sat still, away from him, with her face drooped aside, and her hands folded in her lap. The tears fell very slowly. There was complete silence. He too sat there motionless and silent on the hearthrug. The strange pain of his heart that was broken seemed to consume him. That he should love her? That this was love! That he should be ripped open in this way!—Him, a doctor!—How ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence
... is poppycock. What's coming is the same damn thing we used to have. And when it gets back it'll take its old darlings back into its lap. Ted is one of them. So hold ...
— Class of '29 • Orrie Lashin and Milo Hastings
... be more beautiful than Neelie," said Sophie, with gentle emphasis. "What has made you change your opinion?" As she spoke, she closed the book on her lap, and leaned her cheek upon her hand. Some of the sunshine fell upon her white dress, but left her face in shadow. It struck Bressant, however, that the clear morning light which filled the room emanated from her eyes ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... "Then the shield of earls, the king stout in battle, bade fetch Hrethel's sword, mounted in gold; there was not then among the Geats a better treasure in the like of a sword. He laid it on Beowulf's lap." (ll. 2190-94).—Beow., Child.] ...
— The Relation of the Hrolfs Saga Kraka and the Bjarkarimur to Beowulf • Oscar Ludvig Olson
... turned his head with a hand that gently caressed as it pushed. "I like that view best. Yes, you are strong and brave. You will succeed! No—I'll not keep you a minute." She kissed his hand, rested her head for an instant on his lap as he sat on the edge of the bed, suddenly flung herself to the far side of the bed, with her ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... have run wild and uncovered into the woods, is that a reason for him to break into my house, or the houses of my friends, to filch our children's clothes, in order to cover his children's nakedness. This Constitution never was, and never can be, strained to lap over all the wilderness of the West, without essentially affecting both the rights and convenience of its real proprietors. It was never constructed to form a covering for the inhabitants of the Missouri and Red River country. And whenever it is attempted to be stretched ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... as ever I saw!" said Mr. Morton, heartily, as he took Sidney on his lap, and stroked ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... cross de river to de Sand Hills to see bout grandmammy cause she been took down wid de fever en was bad off. Pa Cudjo tell her de river been mighty high, but dat he would risk to take us. Say, Ma, she get in de boat wid Pa Cudjo en take me in her lap en dey start cross de river. De wind, it begin gettin higher en higher en de boat, it go dis way en den it go de other way. Cose I never recollect nothin bout dat day cause I won' nothin, so to speak, but a sucklin child den. But I ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... saying, "Ho, Shejeret ed Durr!" Whereupon a slave-girl answered him from her chamber and came in to us, with a lute of Indian make, wrapped in a silken bag. She sat down and laying the lute in her lap, preluded in one-and-twenty modes, then, returning to the first, sang the following verses ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume IV • Anonymous
... to do it; so your difficulties ain't my difficulties. I'll take the hall at your figures; term, five years; and if the baron'll come down and spend a month with us at any time, I don't care when, we'll show him what a big lap Luxury can ...
— The Water Ghost and Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... shriller, and became something like the bark of a lap-dog. Laevsky tried to get up from the table, but his legs would not obey him and his right hand was strangely, without his volition, dancing on the table, convulsively clutching and crumpling up the bits of paper. He saw looks of wonder, Samoylenko's grave, frightened face, and the eyes of the ...
— The Duel and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... dejected look was gone, and though there was exhaustion, there was rest; but he was neither sleeping nor waking, and showed no heed when his brother dropped on one knee by his mother's side, put an arm round her waist, and after one fervent kiss laid his black head on her lap, hiding his face there while she fondled his hair, and said, "Frank, Frankie dear, here's Miles come home." He did not seem to hear, only his lips murmured something like 'Anne,' and the tender hand and ready touch of his unwearied nurse at once ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... flock of birds arose with welcoming cries; and there, in a little cave, imprisoned by a huge stone that had fallen from the rock above across its mouth, the trees and shrubs around her black with watching birds, sat Birdie, her little hands patiently folded in her lap, a smile on her pale lips, and faith shining from her heaven-blue eyes. And for once—her heart being full to overflowing with love for her wee daughter, and gratitude to the good God and them—the mother too understood the language of the birds as ...
— Harper's Young People, February 17, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... hill, as to complete our hap, Has ta'en us in the shelter of her lap; Well sheltered in our slender grove of trees And ring of walls, we sit between her knees; A disused quarry, paved with rose plots, hung With clematis, the barren womb whence sprung The crow-stepped house itself, that now far seen Stands, like a bather, to the neck in ...
— New Poems • Robert Louis Stevenson
... over-fond of the amusements which took up a good deal of the time of my fellow-workmen. I was most pleased when, on pay-day, I could carry home to my mother ten, fifteen, or even twenty dollars—could throw it into her lap, and kiss her ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale
... felt, rather than saw, a glance fixed upon her. Mrs. Lawrence was wide awake, lying back in her chair, her dark eyes bent on Anita, whose hands lay idle in her lap. ...
— Betty at Fort Blizzard • Molly Elliot Seawell
... Over all he laid a charming lilac silk gown, and under the hem in the most natural attitude peeped the little party slippers. A small lace and velvet bonnet with streamers was hung at the apex of the creation, and in her lap (for the time has come to use the feminine pronoun) he spread the gauzy fan. He hung over her tenderly, as an artist over his subject—each fold must be in place—the empty sleeves curved just so—one fancied a rounded chin ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche
... world, when it was young summer in Ireland, old Grannie Malone sat by her fireplace knitting. She was all alone, and in her lap ...
— The Irish Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... long time. He heard the cries nearer him, then farther away, and, at last, at such a great distance that they could barely be separated from the lap of the waters. He was growing cold now; the chill from the lake was rising in his body, but with infinite patience bred by long practice of the wilderness he did not stir. He knew that silence could be deceptive. Some of the warriors might come back, and might ...
— The Lords of the Wild - A Story of the Old New York Border • Joseph A. Altsheler
... womanhood can be fitly employed all is well, but remember that most women are, in thought, rebels for romance. Nature, too, runs fullest in the veins of those who live with her naturally, aloof from the veneer of society. Nature is lusty in Nature's lap, and she mothered our Corgarff without let or hindrance, in sun and in snow, ...
— The Black Colonel • James Milne
... wise, creams of nature, leaving the sour and the dregs for philosophy and reason to lap up.—Swift. ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou |
