"Lap" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... not in the savage state. The poor man sees daily and hourly all the vast disparities produced by civilized society; and reversing the divine parable, it is Lazarus who from afar, and from the despondent pit, looks upon Dives in the lap of Paradise: therefore, his privations, his sufferings, are made more keen by comparison with the luxuries of others. Not so in the desert and the forest. There but small distinctions, and those softened by immemorial and hereditary ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... spiritual eyes, and beautiful, Pagan mouth. Tall and slender, her rounded arms and fine hands with their short pointed fingers seemed to terminate naturally in anything she held, such as a fan or flower, or fell in graceful curves in her lap. Sylvia had not the chiffonnee restless charm of the contemporary pretty woman; she did not, like Felicity, arouse with stimulating intensity one's sense of ...
— The Twelfth Hour • Ada Leverson
... belt. How 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, a wee ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... with delicacies which they declined to put in their mouths; all except Fetch, the beautiful liver-colored water-spaniel, which sat with its forepaws firmly planted and its expressive brown face turned upward, watching Grandcourt with unshaken constancy. He held in his lap a tiny Maltese dog with a tiny silver collar and bell, and when he had a hand unused by cigar or coffee-cup, it rested on this small parcel of animal warmth. I fear that Fetch was jealous, and wounded that her master gave her no word or look; at last it seemed that she could bear ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... followed Mrs. Slater's words, during which she sat with an absent expression of countenance and a faraway look, as if recalling in fancy the scene which she had described. Miss Ludington's hands trembled as they lay together in her lap, and she was regarding the picture of the girl over the fireplace with a fixed and intense gaze, ...
— Miss Ludington's Sister • Edward Bellamy
... all his mother's love for the beauties of nature, as well as her enthusiasm. His cheeks glowed and his blue eyes sparkled as she piled her treasures in his lap, charging him to guard them ...
— Bertie and the Gardeners - or, The Way to be Happy • Madeline Leslie
... in a large room, before tables piled with great bolts of material, and stamp tickets and style cards, fasten them to the roll, fold over the raw edges of the material in a lap, tie two pieces of ribbon around the bolt, wrap it in paper, stamp and attach other tickets, and tie it up with cord to be shipped. Here, after a time-study was made of the quicker girls in all the operations, different tasks were set ...
— Making Both Ends Meet • Sue Ainslie Clark and Edith Wyatt
... a lullaby was like a blessing. My mother did not speak to me; only smiled gently in my face and kissed me on my forehead. Her tenderness touched my heart, and my head drooped to her shoulder, then to her lap, and I lay there like a boy comforted by his mother's touch, just as I was. A kind of peaceful stupor came over me. Helen went on singing some quiet German piece of which her father was fond, with many verses and a sweet, moving story. Her voice was delicious ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various
... sympathetic and puzzled mistress phrased it, or "made whole," as the reticent man of God preferred to say. She was now as tractable and inoffensive "in her daily walk and conversation" (Huggins) as a little child. Her new master used to take her ailing leg trustfully into his lap, and for that matter, might have taken it into his mouth if he had so desired. Her entire character appeared to be radically changed—so altered that one day my Aunt Patience, who, fondly as she loved her, had ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... in the chair and let her hands rest quietly in her lap. "Would you have preferred me to remain outside, in the yacht, in the near neighbourhood of these wild men who captured you? Or do you think that they, too, were got up to carry on ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... woman with a pretty face, that, however, looked as if it had been prematurely sapped of color and vitality, here laid aside some white sewing she had in her lap, ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte
... reluctantly, "she wasn't pretty—but she looked like the woman in that picture the Story Girl's father sent her last week—the one with the shiny ring round her head and the baby in her lap. I've seen Aunt Jane look at me just like that woman looks at her baby. Ma never looks so. Poor ma is too busy washing. I wish I could dream of my Aunt Jane. I ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... the porch, while at her side was a basket overturned, its contents scattered about, as though she had been holding it in her lap at ...
— Five Thousand Dollars Reward • Frank Pinkerton
... man on the box grew quite indignant. He asked if the other man wouldn't like a silver-mounted harness and a lap-robe ...
— Horses Nine - Stories of Harness and Saddle • Sewell Ford
... remembrance sooth his mind With dreams of former days, When, in the lap of peace reclined, He framed his infant lays; When Fancy roved at large, nor Care, Nor cold Distrust alarmed, Nor Envy, with malignant glare, ...
— The Minstrel; or the Progress of Genius - with some other poems • James Beattie
... presently fell asleep, so I covered her, kimono and all, and extinguishing the light, lay down beside what had once been a tiny baby, whose feeble life opening with the day had been nurtured on the milk of old Ladybird, the spotted cow with a dew-lap and a crumpled horn. She was now, I trusted, enjoying the reward of her earthly labours in that best of heavens we love to picture for the dear animals that have served us well, and but for whose presence the world would be dreary indeed, while the sleep of her beautiful foster-daughter ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... expecting her unusual beauty to influence Bab, as it had many other older people. Mrs. Wilson looked tired and in a softened mood. Her head rested against a pile of dark silken cushions. Her hands were folded, in her lap. ...
— The Automobile Girls At Washington • Laura Dent Crane
... France, and Russia moving together against the common enemy, who with his polypus arms enfolds the globe. The iron onslaught of the three allied Powers will free the whole of Europe from England's tight embrace. The great war lies in the lap of the future. ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann
... more worlds the Macedonian cried, He wist not Thetis in her lap did hide Another yet; a world reserved for you, To make more great than that ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... before, he had given a still better specimen of his effrontery. He had picked up a number of old Harrovians, with whom he had repaired to a tavern for song, supper, and sociability, and as usual in such cases, in the lap of Alma Mater, the babes became sufficiently intoxicated, and not a little uproarious. Drinking in a tavern is forbidden by Oxonian statutes, and one of the proctors happening to pass in the street outside, was attracted into the house by the sound of somewhat ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... best of all my playthings. Sometimes my papa called me his little Valentine, but they named me Phyllis, after my grandmamma, my papa's mamma. Why, Uncle Peter, she was your mamma, too, wasn't she?" Phyllis, sitting on Sir Peter's lap, regarded him gravely, with new interest. In the end, however, she returned to the subject. All the valentines—boxes and boxes of them—were to be brought to her, ...
— Old Valentines - A Love Story • Munson Aldrich Havens
... little Blossoms all tried to hug their father at once. They were at the station, where Sam and the car had brought them, and the train that was to take them on the first lap of the journey to Aunt Polly's farm was turning the curve down ...
— Four Little Blossoms at Brookside Farm • Mabel C. Hawley
... in the way in which she folded her work and smoothed the white brocaded surface in her lap. There was decision, too, in the quickness with which he rose and stood looking down at her. For a second she expected him to turn from her, as he had turned once before, and leave her with no explanation beyond a few laconic words. She held ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... parts borax and powdered sugar. Old damask towels. One cake old white castile soap, or Colgate's nursery soap. One bottle unscented vaseline. As many sachets as you can get. Some few yards of the narrowest ribbon, pink and blue. Two old handkerchiefs. One lap protector. Brush ...
— Making Good On Private Duty • Harriet Camp Lounsbery
... Caper, breaking through the crowd, and running up-stairs two steps at a time, he nearly walked into the lap of a tall female model, named Giacinta, dressed in Ciociara costume, who was calmly seated on the stair-case, glaring at another female model, named Nina, who stood leaning against the ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... look at all pleased at this remark. She coloured slightly, and, taking the open book from her lap, ...
— In a Steamer Chair And Other Stories • Robert Barr
... of nature weak as others are; I might have chosen comfortable ways; Once from these heights I shrank, beheld afar, In the soft lap of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... impression which the distracted opinions and doctrines in the Fatherland have left in my mind, but I feel rest in the persuasion that, through the dispensation of Providence, my lot has been cast in this Roman seclusion, not that I intend to lay my hands idly in my lap, but, on the contrary, I shall endeavour to work with my utmost ability, spurred on all the more by the thought that even here at a distance I shall move in your circle." Assuredly as to professional prospects the passage of the ...
— Overbeck • J. Beavington Atkinson
... executed, half an inch lap, and sometimes more, being often allowed to the glass, from the mistaken idea that rain, in a driving storm, will find its way through. A lap of one-eighth of an inch is amply sufficient in any case. The glass should be well "bedded" down to the sash bar, in putty containing ...
— Woodward's Graperies and Horticultural Buildings • George E. Woodward
... in the lap Of THETIS, taken out his nap, 30 And, like a lobster boil'd, the morn From black to red began to turn, When HUDIBRAS, whom thoughts and aking, 'Twixt sleeping kept all night and waking, Began to rub his drowsy eyes, 35 And from his couch prepar'd to ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... sat in the porch swing, a walking stick across her lap. Her straight, white hair was done in a prim coil low on the neck, and her print dress and white apron were clean and neat. In answer to the visitor's inquiry, she smiled and said: "This is Nellie Smith. Won't you come in out of ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... uncertainty that's so hard to bear," remarked Ravonino to Mark one day, lifting his hands high above his head, and letting them fall, with the clanking chains, into his lap. ...
— The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar • R.M. Ballantyne
... a dozen little domestic arrangements, to which no one else seemed capable of attendance, and Mellicent laid her head on her mother's lap, and never ceased crying, except for one brief interval, when she darted upstairs to peep inside the old oak chest, prompted thereto by a sudden reminiscence of the bride of the "Mistletoe Bough." There ...
— About Peggy Saville • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... will be wise. [25] And now maybe I have said enough of this. As for my body, when I am dead, I would not have you lay it up in gold or silver or any coffin whatsoever, but give it back to the earth with all speed. What could be more blessed than to lie in the lap of Earth, the mother of all things beautiful, the nurse of all things good? I have been a lover of men all my life, and methinks I would fain become a part of that which does good to man. [26] And ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon
... they present; And, charmed by Hope's sweet music, on they fare, And think they soon shall reach that blissful goal, Where never more the sullen knell of Care For buried friends and severed loves shall toll: So on they fare, till all their troubles cease, And on a lap of earth they lie them down ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles
... sleep: 15 And with him thousand phantoms join'd, Who prompt to deeds accursed the mind: And those, the fiends, who, near allied, O'er Nature's wounds, and wrecks, preside; Whilst Vengeance, in the lurid air, 20 Lifts her red arm, exposed and bare: On whom that ravening[15] brood of Fate, Who lap the blood of sorrow, wait: Who, Fear, this ghastly train can see, And look not ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... with pride, And nothing to look forward to with hope, So now and never any different." Part of a moon was falling down the west, Dragging the whole sky with it to the hills. Its light poured softly in her lap. She saw And spread her apron to it. She put out her hand Among the harp-like morning-glory strings, Taut with the dew from garden bed to eaves, As if she played unheard the tenderness That wrought on him beside her ...
— North of Boston • Robert Frost
... friends, he showered her with the most flattering attentions. His shyness, it seemed, was but a pretense—at heart he was a bold and enterprising fellow—and so, as a mark of his admiration, he presented her with all his personal treasures. First he fetched and laid in her lap a cigar-box wagon with wooden wheels—evidently the handiwork of his father. Then he gave her, one by one, a highly prized blue bottle, a rusty Mexican spur, and the ruins of what had been a splendid clasp knife. There were ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... wouldn't say a word to explain how the mistake arose. He was sitting on the visitor's lap, shrieking about what he would have done to me if they hadn't ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... Charlie, as he dropped something yellow and shining into her lap. "I was in a bad fix last summer, and I know how 'tis, so I ought to help on more than the rest of you. You just keep still and don't ...
— In Blue Creek Canon • Anna Chapin Ray
... the head he held fall back again into the lap of the trembling Emma. "If only some one would come—if the peasants had only ...
— The Dead Are Silent - 1907 • Arthur Schnitzler
... offer hope; and he said musingly: "I wonder if it could be done? If it could—if we could reach New Spain, we might build ourselves a home in the beautiful green mountains and hide ourselves safely away from all the world, in the lap of some cosy valley, rich with nature's bounteous gift of fruit and flowers, shaded from the hot sun and sheltered from the blasts, and live in a little paradise all our own. What a glorious dream! but it is only a dream, and we had ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... while how I've been lickit, And by fell Death was nearly nickit; Grim loon! he got me by the fecket, And sair me sheuk; But by gude luck I lap a wicket, And ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... Flattering me with impossibilities.— My eye's too quick, my heart o'erweens too much, Unless my hand and strength could equal them. Well, say there is no kingdom then for Richard, What other pleasure can the world afford? I'll make my heaven in a lady's lap, And deck my body in gay ornaments, And witch sweet ladies with my words and looks. O miserable thought! and more unlikely Than to accomplish twenty golden crowns. Why, love forswore me in my mother's womb; ...
— King Henry VI, Third Part • William Shakespeare [Rolfe edition]
... least pleasant of its four seasons, its character being truly that of "winter lingering in the lap of May." Mr. Effingham, who the reader will probably suspect, by this time, to be a descendant of a family of the same name, that we have had occasion to introduce into another work, had sent orders to have his country residence ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... in from milking; but one morning, when the pail was set on the floor, the kittens were too hungry to wait for the milk to be dipped out for them, and, putting their paws on the side of the pail, began to lap from the top ...
— The Nursery, January 1873, Vol. XIII. - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest People • Various
... at her. "So she won't raise a finger, won't she? And I've got to do it myself, have I? Well, then, I suppose I'll have to raise her finger for her." Patty's hand was lying idly in her lap, and he picked up her slender pink forefinger slowly, and with an abstracted air. "I don't know how raising a finger helps to patch up a spoiled friendship," he went on, as if to himself, "but she seems to think it does, and so, ...
— Patty's Social Season • Carolyn Wells
... see the City so ill advised as to complain in a thing where their proofs were so weak. Thence to my cousin Turner's, and thence with her and her daughters, and her sister Turner, I carrying Betty in my lap, to Talbot's chamber at the Temple, where, by agreement, the poor rogue had a pretty dish of anchovies and sweetmeats for them; and hither come Mr. Eden, who was in his mistress's disfavour ever since the other night that ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... the highest value must have a different origin, an origin of THEIR own—in this transitory, seductive, illusory, paltry world, in this turmoil of delusion and cupidity, they cannot have their source. But rather in the lap of Being, in the intransitory, in the concealed God, in the 'Thing-in-itself—THERE must be their source, and nowhere else!"—This mode of reasoning discloses the typical prejudice by which metaphysicians of all times can be recognized, this mode of valuation is at the back of all their ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... could not suspect for any but her Spouse, till upon her setting him down I heard her call him dear Pugg, and found him to be her Favourite Monkey. A fourth brought a huge Bale of Cards along with her; and the fifth a Bolonia Lap-Dog; for her Husband, it seems, being a very Burly Man, she thought it would be less trouble for her to bring away little Cupid. The next was the Wife of a rich Usurer, loaden with a Bag of Gold; she told us that her Spouse was very old, and by the course of Nature could not expect to live long; ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... 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
... be done until the storm should abate, Matt climbed into the wagon again and protected himself as well as he could with the rubber blanket and the lap-robe. The back shade of the wagon was down, and he was glad to see that so far the stock inside ...
— Young Auctioneers - The Polishing of a Rolling Stone • Edward Stratemeyer
... noses so short as hardly to count for noses, goggle eyes that expressed shrewdness, greediness, and affection. Puck snuggled cosily in the soft lace of his lordship's shirt; Ganymede sat and blinked at the sunshine from Angela's lap. Both snarled at Mr. Manningtree, the steward, and resented the slightest ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... of the court, farthest from the heavy gateway, was the box of the concierge, who was a brisk little shoemaker, forever bethwacking his lap-stone. If I remember right, the hammer of the little cordonnier made the only sound I used to hear in the court; for though the house was full of lodgers, I never saw two of them together, and never heard them talking across the court from the ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... I can understand, but not the other. You may remember, when your servant Maria looked in and found you sitting in my lap one day, and I was afraid she might tell your mother, you said "You did not care, for you had no secrets from your mother." This seemed to me odd at the time, but I thought no more of it, till other things brought it to my mind. Am I to suppose, then, ...
— Liber Amoris, or, The New Pygmalion • William Hazlitt
... languidly in her largest arm-chair, watching the raindrops dripping down the window-pane. The unfortunate box of novels was open by her side, and the books were lying, for the most part, strewed about on the ground at her feet. One volume lay open, back upward, on her lap, and her hands were crossed over it listlessly. To my great dismay, she was yawning—palpably and widely yawning—when I ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... the buggy, Dorothy holding Eureka safe in her lap. The girl sat in the middle of the seat, with Zeb and the Wizard on each side of her. When all was ready the boy ...
— Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz • L. Frank Baum.
... met A glance that swept athwart them like a sword, Making the blood strain back from their blanched faces Into their quivering hearts, with unknown dread, As that accuser pointed to the shape Before his feet. "Dogs, will ye lap his blood Before ye die? Make haste; for it grows cold! Ye will not, will not even dabble your hands In that red puddle of flesh, what? Are ye Spaniards? Come, come, I'll look at you, perchance there's one ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... me is but a void; I have felt much, and want to feel no more; My soul is hungry for some poorer fare— Some earthly nectar, gold not unalloyed:— The little child that's happy to the core, Will leave his mother's lap, run down the stair, Play with the servants—is ...
— A Book of Strife in the Form of The Diary of an Old Soul • George MacDonald
... kind. A little boy was sitting in his father's lap in the street car when a charming young lady entered, and as the little fellow observed there was no seat, he quickly jumped off his father's lap and said to the young lady, "please ...
— Supreme Personality • Delmer Eugene Croft
... sewing. Jim watched the swift deft fingers proudly; they had acquired the habit of industry in a day when the Blaisdells had had to wrestle with the problem of slender income. After a few minutes' silence she let her sewing fall to her lap. ...
— The House of Toys • Henry Russell Miller
... the image of our departed mother, as she looked the last time I remembered to have seen her, seated in an easy chair which she rivalled in whiteness, so mild and calm, with the little curly head of my baby-sister in her lap, while she dictated to her the simple form of prayer,—'God bless my ...
— Hurrah for New England! - The Virginia Boy's Vacation • Louisa C. Tuthill
... upon her lap, and her large, dark eyes looked blankly out over the cold, gray, rain-beaten sea. This was the life she longed for, prayed for, dreamed of, the life for which she would have sold half the years of her life. The balls, the operas, ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... last bunch of standing corn, which is commonly viewed as very sacred, being the last refuge of the corn-spirit retreating before the reapers, is not suffered to touch the ground; the master or "gueedman" sits down and receives each handful of corn as it is cut on his lap.[29] ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... cooking. Uncle Dick walked up the river to where he had landed his boat the evening previous, and dropped down closer to the camp. The day still was young when the tent was struck and everything packed aboard the boat, which presently landed them on the farther shore, ready for the next lap of their journey and the new transportation ...
— The Young Alaskans on the Missouri • Emerson Hough
... rocking-chair before the hearth sat the wife of the family man before referred to. She was a tall, angular creature, the mother of fifteen, comprising in their number three sets of twins. She held her snuff-stick between her teeth and the child on her lap, ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Elaine left us. Aunt Josephine followed shortly. Del Mar and I sat down at a table. As he talked he placed the magazine in his lap beneath the table, on his knees. I could not see, but he was in reality secretly putting together the torn note which the farmer ...
— The Romance of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... cried, bending away from him. "I don't want any ring!" and she tore it from her finger and threw it out on the grass. Then she got up, and, brushing the grass-seed off her lap, put on ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... guess," Jan answered, feeling of her doll's head. "I forgot all about her being in my lap. Oh, aren't you going to play any more, Ted?" she asked as she saw her brother toss the big coat on a chair and take ...
— The Curlytops at Uncle Frank's Ranch • Howard R. Garis
... platform, and on its seat, reckless of danger, stood Camille waving the dust-cloth in utter forgetfulness of what she had in her hand. In close proximity stood Dorette, and by Dr. Browne's side, in his shambling old buggy, sat Madame Bonnivel, directing the demonstrations of Dodo, on her lap. Nate ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... the back of the front seat, my knee pretty nigh on Bradbury's head. But, would you believe it, that Jonadab man let go of the wheel with one hand—let GO of it, mind you—and give me a shove that sent me backward in Henrietta Bassett's lap. ...
— The Depot Master • Joseph C. Lincoln
... He is an American who, leaving behind him all his ancient prejudices and manners, receives new ones from the new mode of life he has embraced, the new government he obeys, the new rank he holds. He becomes an American by being received in the broad lap of our great ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... sat up that night, With her in my lap, Till eleven o'clock that night, Then she seemed to ...
— A Complete Edition of the Works of Nancy Luce • Nancy Luce
... from Colonel ——'s, we traveled all night on the railroad. One of my children slept in my lap, the other on the narrow seat opposite to me, from which she was jolted off every quarter of an hour by the uneasy motion of the carriage, and the checks and stops of the engine, which was out of order. The carriage, though full ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... knelt upon her lap and tore out his solitary safety-pin. He then clasped her tightly and made his explanation. He began in the softest of whispers, which increased in volume as it did in interest, so that he reached the climax at the full power ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume III. (of X.) • Various
... what she pleased, with Maria and Mr Enderby both devoted to her. Hester was off with Mr Rowland, and Margaret with one child on her lap, and the others rejoicing at having possession of her, before Mrs Rowland discovered the shifting of parties which had taken place. Often during the ride she wanted to speak to her brother: three times ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... dining-room where she and Lady Anne used to have their meals together. Mrs. Gray held a terrified reception of the few fine folk whom Lady Drummond had declared it necessary to ask in the long drawing-room with the three windows where Lady Anne used to sit with little Fifine in her lap. ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan
... Raphael: Madonna (The Bridgewater Madonna). M. sits in Cn., turning to Left; C. lies across her lap, head to Left, but his face turned up to Right, and all the lines of his body ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various
... passers-by wondered who she could be. She had not gone far before the heat of the sun and the weight of the box tired her so much that she sat down to rest in the shade of a little wood which lay on one side of a green meadow. She was carefully holding the box upon her lap when she suddenly felt the greatest desire ...
— The Red Fairy Book • Various
... laws are so for bird and beast, And so we must live: They give the most who have the least, And gain of what they give. For working women 'tis the luck, A child on the lap; And when a crust he learn to ...
— The Village Wife's Lament • Maurice Hewlett
... the chivalry av Spain. She should fill the most dazzlin' position in all the worruld. She should be the cynosure av r'y'l majistic beauty. She should have wealth, an' honors, an' titles, an' dignities, an' jools, an' gims, all powered pell-mell into her lap; an' all the power, glory, moight, majisty, an' dominion av the impayrial Spanish monarchy should be widin the grasp av her little hand. What say ye, me ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille
... lay unopened on her lap. She took it up with trembling hands, and broke the seal. It was a short letter compared to her mother's, but it was in the handwriting she ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade
... the letter drop on her lap, and stared before her with blank eyes. Through the curtains could be seen a glimpse of the house opposite, the blind at Bridgie's window drawn up ...
— More about Pixie • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... said Madame Sagittarius, spreading a silk handkerchief that exactly matched the ostrich tips in her bonnet carefully over her velvet lap. "All who have read Mrs. Markham's work of genius with understanding must hold her name in reverence. A noble creature! ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens
... reached for a glass mug containing a strong decoction to which he was resorting more and more as his troubles grew intolerable. A strange thing happened! As he put it to his lips its bottom dropped upon the table and the contents streamed into his lap and down to the floor. It was the straw that broke the camel's back, for it had aroused ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... his aunt's bony frame and thought of Aunt Cindy's soft, fat, ample lap. A wistful look crossed his childish face as he dropped down in front of her and laid his head against her knee, then the bright, beautiful little face took on an angelic expression as he closed his eyes and softly chanted: "'Now I lays me down to sleep, ...
— Miss Minerva and William Green Hill • Frances Boyd Calhoun
... like her, and to go about in the village with a raven, a pigeon, and a lark on my shoulders, admired and talked about by everybody. All sorts of nonsense passed through my head as I sat, with the book on my lap, staring straight before me; and I was just fancying the kind condescension with which I would behave to everybody when I became a Goody Twoshoes, when I saw a bird come out of the holly-bush and fly away. It was a blackbird: there was no doubt of it; and it must have a nest in the tree, or why ...
— Melchior's Dream and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... And for the many sins of Israel. Hark! I can hear within the sound of scourges! I feel them more than ye do, O my sons! But cannot come to you. I, who was wont To wake at night at the least cry ye made, To whom ye ran at every slightest hurt, I cannot take you now into my lap And soothe your pain, but God will take you all Into his pitying arms, and comfort ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... replied, and she rested her head on her mother's lap, whose hand parted the clustering ringlets on the fair, smooth brow, while Lillie's eyes looked up most lovingly to that beloved mother, as she added—"How we shall miss the quiet reading hours, mother, darling. What time shall we have during ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various
... asleep, with their heads under their wings. And when he came into the palace, the flies were sleeping on the walls; the spit was standing still; the butler had the jug of ale at his lips, going to drink a draught; the maid sat with a fowl in her lap ready to be plucked; and the cook in the kitchen was still holding up her hand, as if she was going to ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm
... only the eternally damned were doomed to walk the earth, I was tempted to comment on this stricture on her departed parent, but a large cat, much scarred with fighting and named Violet, insisted at that moment on crawling into my lap, and ...
— Sight Unseen • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... has a cat that is devoted to blue. When she puts on a particularly pretty blue gown, the cat hastens to get into her lap, put her face down to the material, purr, and manifest the greatest delight; but let the same lady put on a black dress, and the cat will not ...
— Concerning Cats - My Own and Some Others • Helen M. Winslow
... into her lap. She began to tremble. Suvaroff saw her hands greedily close over the coins, and the ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... baby's afghan, and Polly was almost obscured by a rumpled, yellow dress which lay in her lap. ...
— Polly Oliver's Problem • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... vehicle turned into the drive that led to the handsome cottage owned by Mr. Racer. Mrs. Racer hurried to the door as she heard the sound of wheels, and at the sight of Frank sitting in the wagon, holding the head of another lad in his lap, Mrs. ...
— Frank and Andy Afloat - The Cave on the Island • Vance Barnum
... ears. I tried to rouse myself up. That was, however, more than I could do, and at last I dropped off into a real sound sleep. When I awoke the vessel lay as quietly as in a mill-pond, and not a sound was to be heard except the soft lap of the water against the hull. I couldn't even hear the breathing of the midshipmen, and for a moment the dreadful thought came to me that they were dead, or had got loose somehow or other, and had slipped into the sea. I lifted myself up so ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... 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 came very near her; but she used to watch ...
— Lady Mary and her Nurse • Catharine Parr Traill
... the flood lap his breast, but as his arms went in he struck something with his knee and found that he could stand on a submerged ledge. This carried him a yard or two, but the next moment he had stepped suddenly over the end of the ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss
... eminence, back of the town, and see the wild beauty of these Tuscan mountains on the main land. Now, we will over to the Italian coast, and cross, if you will, from Leghorn to Florence. There, we are now in the very lap of genius and of poetry; let us pause here and breathe the dreamy, soothing, balmy air ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray
... fortune," answered Tommy without raising her head from her task. Hazel observed that Tommy was pulling a daisy apart. A heap of daisies that she had pulled up by the roots, lay in her lap, regardless of the dirt that was accumulating on her stiffly starched white dress. One by one Tommy pulled the daisy petals from the flower, muttering rhythmically ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Under Canvas • Janet Aldridge
... condition of mind, then, I was lying in my library chair here at Sevenhays, at two o'clock on the morning of January 4th. I had just finished another reading of the Tenth Vision and had tossed my book into the lap of an armchair opposite. Fire and lamp were burning brightly. The night outside was still and soundless, ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... falling. Knowing that we were now at our last long lap, we encouraged the worn-out men. At R——I lost touch with my formation. I halted on the roadside, calling aloud into the darkness. An artillery train passed, covering me with mud to my eyes. Finally, I picked up my friends, and we marched on through villages illumined by ...
— The New Book Of Martyrs • Georges Duhamel
... finding the mistress. And with that there was a brown ripple and a patter of many soft feet, and a broken wave of dogs came around the corner, seven little cairn-terriers. Sticky and Sandy and their offspring. The woman let Sticky settle in her lap and drew Sandy under her arm, and the puppies looked up at her from the step below with ten serious, anxious eyes and then fell to chasing quite imaginary game up and down the stone steps. Mavourneen sighed deeply and dropped with a heavy thud, a great ...
— Joy in the Morning • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... fringe of hair stood up in a crown where the elastic had rumpled it. Her grammar, lexicon and text-book occupied most of the table, but Robbie did not complain. She could manage very well by laying her books, one on the open face of another, in her lap. For once she was grateful that an ENGAGED sign shielded them from interruptions, for Latin was her shakiest subject, especially the rules of indirect discourse. The instructor had warned the class that this weak spot was to be the point of attack. If Robbie Belle should not succeed in drumming ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz
... as stupid as possible. I mean to win my sister-in-law's heart through the children; I know all their names already, and am going to attach myself with the greatest sensibility to one in particular, a young Frederic, whom I take on my lap and sigh over for his dear ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... sister's graduation ball, and too proud to accept the fact that I'm a farmer, with a farmer's friends and family and work, and that I'm damned glad of it, and won't give them up, or be supported by any woman on the face of the earth, or let her make a pet lap-dog of me, you can go straight back to the life you came from, for all me! You seem to prefer it, after all, and I believe it's all you deserve. If you don't—don't ask my forgiveness for the things you've said ...
— The Old Gray Homestead • Frances Parkinson Keyes
... of public men, I said aloud, "Oh! if there were Some place to make me young awhile, I would go there, I would go there, And if it were a many a mile!" Then something cried—perhaps my map, That not in vain I oft invoke— "Go seek again your mother's lap, The dear old soil that gave you sap, And ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... doll said, "You're welcome." And, gee whiz, it sounded just as if it came out of his own throat. Pee-wee just stood there staring at Sam, and Sam sat there on the ventriloquist's lap, ...
— Roy Blakeley's Camp on Wheels • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... offered to the monks and vegetarians. Monks and vegetarians the Christian Church included in her lap, but also ...
— The Agony of the Church (1917) • Nikolaj Velimirovic
... her, and she looked at the pocket-book with the stupid, sleepy look of one suddenly aroused. It fell off her lap and sprang open and gold and bank bills were scattered on the floor of the carriage. This roused her completely, and Jeanne gave vent to her mirth in a merry ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... delicate ones. When the beetle is at rest its two hard wings meet in a straight line down the back. This peculiarity distinguishes it from the true bug, which has four wings. The two outer wings are partly horny, and in folding lap over each other. Butterflies and moths are much alike in appearance but differ in habit. The butterfly works by day and the moth by night. Note the knob on the end of the butterfly's feeler (Fig. 143). The moth ...
— Agriculture for Beginners - Revised Edition • Charles William Burkett
... hand, toward the end of the book, that the Druid Adamas was an ingenious allegory, representing the Lieutenant-General of Montbrison, of the family of the Papons. Her weary eyes closed, and the great book slipped from her lap to the cushion of velvet upon which her feet were placed, and where the beautiful Astree and the gallant Celadon reposed luxuriously, less immovable than Marie de Mantua, vanquished by them and by ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... utterly failed to do. The little creature hopped away on three feet, and Mrs. Dallas, with pretty foreign words of pity, followed it and brought it to the fireside where she sat down with it on her lap, and stroked and soothed it, laying the wounded little paw against her lips and making, what seemed to Noel, munificent atonement for the injury inflicted ...
— A Beautiful Alien • Julia Magruder
... mouth as sweet as that in her eyes. She had delicate hands, beautifully white, and her neck was whiter still. It could easily be seen that she was a very lovely girl, and as yet she was not engaged. The provision basket lay in the lap of the young girl as the family drove out to the forest, and the neck of the bottle peeped out from between the folds of the white napkin. There was the red wax on the cork, and the bottle looked straight at the young girl's face, and also at the face of the young sailor who sat near ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... to young Ascanius flies, And in a pleasing slumber seals his eyes: Lull'd in her lap, amidst a train of Loves, She gently bears him to her blissful groves, Then with a wreath of myrtle crowns his head, And softly lays him on a flow'ry bed. Cupid meantime assum'd his form and face, Foll'wing Achates with a shorter pace, And brought the gifts. The ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... beside the creek; but the camp was soon abandoned and the chute is in decay, for between the hours of ten and twelve each night the wraith of the Indian, accompanied by the bad spirit of the stream, ranges through the wood, his form shining blue in the gloom, his groans sounding above the swish and lap of ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... was over. Amelia did not dare to look at Rebecca's pale face and burning eyes, but she dropt the letter into her friend's lap; and got up, and went upstairs to her room, and cried her ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... as the whole fish must be, and plyant like a glove, which will be in less then an hour. Pull then the bones out, and throw them away, and pluck off the skin (as whole as you can; but it will have many breaches and holes in it, by the beating) then gather all the fish together, and lap it in the skin as well as you can, into a round lump, like a bag-pudding, and tye it about with cords or strings (like a little Collar of Brawn, or souced fish) and so put it into lukewarm water ...
— The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened • Kenelm Digby
... sin remains and is even deepened (subsequent verses), and yet is different. A light of hope is in it. The very sense of sin brings us to Him, to hide our faces on His heart like a child in its mother's lap. ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... said, referring to the miniature streamlet. "It is safe in the woods; but to-morrow or next day the sun will lap it up ere it can reach the skirt of the shadow above there. A farewell ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... of an original. It is probable that every hero is. He resolved to surprise his mother by pouring the money he had brought into her lap, and for this purpose had, while in Hull, converted all his savings into copper, silver, and gold. Those precious metals he stowed separately into the pockets of his huge pea-jacket, and, thus heavily laden, went ashore about dark, as soon as ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne
... is all trouble," said Mary, rushing forward and hiding her face in her old friend's lap as she knelt on the ground before her. Lady Ushant longed to ask a question, but she did not dare. And Mary Masters longed to have one friend to whom she could confide her secret,—but neither did ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... "The women in the place couldn't embarrass me although they tried hard enough," he boasted. "One of the girls in the house tried to get fresh but I fooled her. As soon as she began to talk I went and sat in her lap. Everyone in the room laughed when I kissed her. I taught her ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... for one person, and the captain actually had to sit on the Czar's lap. Three horses were yoked to it tandem-fashion, and a fourth ran beside the leader. The whip cracked, and the Czar played being at sea. "A good wind, isn't it? Twelve knots! Furl ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg
... with the broad back ate tea-cake incessantly; the two daughters looked scornful, as though they were above their company with reference to the five pupils; and the five pupils themselves sat in a row with the utmost propriety, each with her hands crossed on her lap before her. ...
— The Relics of General Chasse • Anthony Trollope
... or pork or chicken is unknown, bread gives place to bannock (with its consequent indigestion "bannockburn"), and coffee is a beverage discredited. Tobacco to smoke, strong, black, sweetened tea to drink from a copper kettle,—this is luxury's lap. ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... months of toil in a strange city was thenceforward their portion; a sick-bed was the strong man's heritage, and days of fasting and misery and labor devolved on the delicate wife. The child that had been nursed in the lap of luxury went out into dirty streets to get her bread from pitying strangers, and the three—husband, wife, and child—were alone in the wide world, with their burden of poverty and woe, all the harder to bear from the fact that they were unused to it. ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... teeth? Hath not a dog great, dirty paws, a venomous and fiery tongue, and a throat which is the organ of all discords? Hath he not feet which can carry his unpleasantnesses into other people's presence, perhaps deposit them on your lap, or cause you to stumble and be offended and made weak by standing in your way? An ideal dog, a china dog, a dog behind a picture-frame, the dog of literature, are not without their aesthetic side,—are certainly things to be let alone. But the realistic, vigorously vital, intrusively ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... grove were mute, The bittern forgot his toot, And the owl forbore his hoot, And the king-bird set his wing, And the woodpecker ceas'd his tap On the hollow beech, And the son of the loon on the neighbouring strand Gave over his idle screech, And fell to sleep in his mother's lap. ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... the roll of parchment, dropped down upon her lap. Her eyes too were dim and the hot tears fell from them one by one. A sadness that was in no way bitter and yet was immeasurable as death had filled her ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... of it up the boulder, bearing a stick in his hand. Presently his face, preternaturally solemn and gnomish behind the goggles, protruded over the rim. The girl was sitting with her hands folded in her lap, contemplating the scenery as if she'd never had another interest in her life. Apparently she ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... was alive, anyway, for now he did stir drowsily, and mumbled as if objecting. Charley noticed that his hands were clenched tightly over the side-pockets of his old jacket, where the corners were drawn into his lap. ...
— Gold Seekers of '49 • Edwin L. Sabin |
