"Maidenly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... wondered, vaguely, if she, like Aunt Jane, would grow to a loveless old age. It seemed probable, for, at twenty-five, The Prince had not appeared. She had her work and was happy; yet unceasingly, behind those dark eyes, Ruth's soul kept maidenly match for ...
— Lavender and Old Lace • Myrtle Reed
... away: For never saw I mien, or face, In which more plainly I could trace Benignity and home-bred sense Ripening in perfect innocence. Here scattered, like a random seed, Remote from men, Thou dost not need The embarrassed look of shy distress, And maidenly shamefacedness: Thou wear'st upon thy forehead clear The freedom of a Mountaineer: A face with gladness overspread! Soft smiles, by human kindness bred! And seemliness complete, that sways Thy courtesies, about thee plays; With ...
— The Hundred Best English Poems • Various
... figure a Victory and place its date no earlier than the second century B.C. However this may be, the statue is justly one of the most famous in the world. It represents an ideal of purity and sweetness. There is not a trace of coarseness or immodesty in the half-naked woman who stands perfect in the maidenly dignity of her own conquering fairness. Her serious yet smiling face, her graceful form, the delicacy of feeling in attitude and gaze, the tender moulding of breast and limbs, make it a worthy companion of the Hermes ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... face, uplifted suddenly, was piteous as he could wish. It fell again for shame at her self-betrayal, for sheer helplessness and dismay, for the sudden realization of what the long days now would be without him, for what life might be if he never came back. With all her pride and strength and maidenly reserve she was struggling hard to fight back the sob that was rising to her throat, the tears that came welling to her eyes, but he would have the tribute of both, and ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... was that of maidenly reserve, and a ladylike dignity, a quiet serenity, approaching—at periods, when any remark calculated to infringe in the slightest degree upon those precincts with which feminine delicacy and form have guarded ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... at this sudden and audacious act, that she was rendered almost powerless. A joy surpassing words possessed her, and she longed to remain forever in her lover's strong embrace. But in a few seconds, a feeling of maidenly reserve swept over her, and she tore away ...
— The Unknown Wrestler • H. A. (Hiram Alfred) Cody
... such a wedding as Edie had pictured to herself in her first sweet maidenly fancies; but still, when they drove away alone in the landau from the side-door of the Red Lion to Calcombe Road Station, she felt a quiet pride and security in her heart from the fact that she was ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... the maids on the banks o' the Ayr, But by the sweet side o' the Nith's winding river, Are lovers as faithful, and maidens as fair: To equal young Jessie seek Scotland all over; To equal young Jessie you seek it in vain; Grace, beauty, and elegance fetter her lover, And maidenly modesty fixes the chain. ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... possessed an imaginative temperament, and one of her favorite and most satisfying habits was to evoke from the realm of the future a proper hero, shining with zeal and virtue like Sir Galahad, in whose arms she would picture herself living happily ever after a sweet courtship, punctuated by due maidenly hesitation. This fondness for letting her fancy run riot and evolve visions splendid with happenings for her own advancement and gladness was not confined to matrimonial day-dreams. On the morning when she entered the school-house door for the first time the eyes of ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... never mentioned his name after her marriage. There were gay parties given in honor of the wedding, and her delicate, drooping, phantom-like figure hung upon the arm of her handsome, elegant husband. People said that her maidenly shyness was beautiful to behold, and that she clung to her husband like the waving ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... said, after an agitated pause. "I'm not overcome. I'm only laughing so much that I can't make a sound! Zebedee! Oh! No! That's very funny." She straightened herself. "Helen dear, did you think you'd discovered my little secret, my maidenly little secret? I only want Uncle Alfred to come and take me away. This is a dreadful family to belong to, but there are humorous moments. It's almost worth while. John, here's Helen suggesting that I'm in love ...
— Moor Fires • E. H. (Emily Hilda) Young
... English girl of the sort who show "good" figures and fresh complexions. The sister, who was not pretty, was also straight and slender and grey-eyed. But the grey in this case was not so pure, nor were the straightness and the slenderness so maidenly. The brother of these young ladies had taken off his hat as if he felt the air of the summer day heavy in the great pavilion. He was a lean, strong, clear-faced youth, with a formed nose and thick light-brown hair which lay continuously and profusely ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... and fully developed, but no looks. Clever, masculine brain, and strong physically. Skillfully concealed her passionate nature, which, however, was long in developing and was long kept in check by maidenly modesty. ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... gathering the coloured leaves at random, as though he hardly knew what he was doing, and that, after that first look, he was avoiding her eye, as though he were afraid that he had betrayed himself. Audrey's maidenly consciousness was up in arms in a moment. The gleam in Cyril's eyes had opened hers. Some instinct of self-defence made her suddenly entrench herself in stiffness; the soft graciousness that was Audrey's chief ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... not alone, his own temporal and eternal welfare, but that of all whom he loved or cherished; his own pure, beautiful, inimitable Julia, to whom his heart now reverted with a far deeper and more earnest tenderness, after its brief inconstancy; as he compared her strong, yet maidenly and gentle love, with the wild and ungovernable passions of the wanton, for whom he ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... he broke the stem of his tobacco-pipe in three! Never did the sheep turn upon her shearer with a more commanding front. Her voice was calm, her enunciation a little slow, but perfectly distinct, and she stood before him, as she spoke, in the simplest and most maidenly attitude. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... misunderstand; McNulty and Hill and the rest of them had just been in her own thoughts, on her own tongue. "I shall be responsible, after all," she said within herself. Then she gave Virgilia a slight frown of disapproval: it was not precisely a maidenly part that her niece had chosen to play; neither did it show the degree of deference due to an elder, a chaperon and—if you came right at it—to a stock-holder. "If this thing must be engineered," thought Eudoxia, "I think I should prefer ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... once to her mother—so she called my cousin—and tell her so. Thus saying, she left me. And I—I did not then understand the struggle and the victory of the poor girl over herself. I did not reflect that no maidenly blush, no charming confusion, announced my happy destiny,—no kiss, no caress, no sign that the heart's citadel had surrendered; but, instead, a calmness, a composure, and a hastening from my presence. No, I thought nothing of this; I only considered that ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... all made plain, arose And curtsey'd to the Spaniard. Ah, methinks I yet behold her, gracious, innocent, And flaxen-haired, and blushing maidenly, When turning she retired, and his black eyes, That hunger'd after her, did follow on; And I bethought me, 'Thou shalt see no more, Thou goodly enemy, my one ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Jean Ingelow
... is of us and takes care for us. Beneath are two figures adoring, each in their own manner. On one side is a pontiff, on the other a virgin each a most sweet and solemn example, the one of aged, the other of maidenly piety and reverence. Between, are two winged boys, evidently presenting a wonderful pattern of childlike piety. Their eyes, indeed, are not turned towards the Virgin, but both in face and gesture, they show how careless of themselves they are in the ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... sister of whom he was fond, and she accepted his frank, old-time brotherliness in the same spirit, gayly and happily, revealing but little of herself, and holding a slight reserve in her manner which seemed to him quite delightful and maidenly. Then, all too suddenly, he was gone again, but in his heart he carried a memory of her that made a continual undercurrent ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... was wound round her supple neck. Puce-coloured boots clasped her slim little ankle so charmingly, that even those uninitiated into the mysteries of beauty would infallibly have sighed, if only from wonder. There was something maidenly in her easy, but aristocratic gait, something eluding definition yet intelligible to the glance. As she walked past us an indefinable perfume, like that which sometimes breathes from the note of a charming woman, was wafted ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov
... certainly added brilliancy. There stood this most singular apparition, holding before her a fan about the size of a modern tea-tray; while at each repetition of her name by the servant, she curtesied deeply, bestowing the while upon the gay crowd before her a very curious look of maidenly modesty at ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... receives my laborious politeness with a cachinnation like that of a Cheshire cheese, which strikes me all of a heap. Her female parent excuses to me such flabbergasting demeanour on the plea that her daughter is afflicted with great shyness and maidenly modesty, but, on perceiving that she can be skittish and genial in the company of other masculines, I am forced to attribute her contumeliousness to the circumstance that I am a native gentleman of ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... white, and his eyes shone darker than usual. She sat very quiet as he gathered up the reins, and it was not until they were well on their way along the Trumansburg road that the boy turned to her. How beautiful she looked, her shoulders completely covered with dusky-dark curls and her head bowed in maidenly shyness! All his doubts as to the expediency of his act were set at rest. She was deeply essential to his happiness, to his progress. To know she was his wife, married to him, so that none could separate them, would make his absences from Tessibel ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... him? Mlle. Armande made up her mind that she would go to the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse and tell her all. Still, some sort of pretext was necessary to explain the journey to the Marquis and the whole town. At some cost to her maidenly delicacy, Mlle. Armande allowed it to be thought that she was suffering from a complaint which called for a consultation of skilled and celebrated physicians. Goodness knows whether the town talked of this or no! But Mlle. Armande saw that ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... nursed at Moss Brow, Charley,' said Molly; and Sylvia dropped her little maidenly curtsey, and said, 'Good-by;' and went away, wondering how Molly could talk so freely to such a hero; but then, to be sure, he was a cousin, and probably a sweetheart, and that would make a great deal of difference, ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. I • Elizabeth Gaskell
... it,—long, long before you asked it, before you even cared for my friendship? Not love only, but life, my very whole being, centred in you, does now, and will always. Is it right to say this?—maidenly? But I am not ashamed. I shall always be proud to have loved you, though only to lose you,—and to be loved by you is glory enough for all ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... been standing, for from a maidenly shyness (rather new in her, and which I liked) she would not ask me to sit beside her, and there was no other seat. Now ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... wife, and that the walnut-shell purse would be kept as a token, she should be laughed at as a silly child, perhaps forbidden to make it, or else her uncle might hear and make a joke of it. It was not exactly disingenuousness, but rather the first dawn of maidenly reserve and modesty that reddened her cheek in a manner her mother did not fail ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... income a really splendid one. Certainly he spared no expense upon his ward. She was taught reading, writing, grammar, music, and embroidery by the best tutors the town could provide, and she grew daily, we are told, in beauty and maidenly charm. ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford
... eye, her perhaps rather demonstrative cordiality to the young officer. "She is changeable and coquettish," he said to himself, while still carrying on his conversation with the talented, refined, and thoroughly maidenly Princess Ulrica. ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... may guess, I saw nothing of the strange lady. And on the morrow until dinner-time I had but a glimpse of her. This was in the forenoon. She stood, with her hound beside her, in an embrasure of the wall, looking over the sea: to the eye a figure so maidenly and innocent and (in a sense) forlorn that I recalled Gil Perez' tale as the merest frenzy, and wondered how I had come to listen to it with any belief. Her seaward gaze would be passing over the very spot where we had laid him: ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... one thing more,' said the Princess Julia, suddenly rising from her mother's side, but with a forced and trembling courage, 'which remains for me to do. If there appear any want of maidenly reserve in what I say, let the cause, good friends, for which I speak and act, be my excuse. It is well known to you who are familiar with the councils of the state, that not many months past Persia sought through ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... no merriment now in the eyes that met his, no word of the return of handkerchief or any maidenly coquetry. The mood of the day of blowing leaves had passed away. She had a shawl over her head, drawn close about her shoulders. Underneath it her eyes were like night. But her lips showed on her pale face like a geranium ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... the wagon backwards, making a maidenly effort to keep the connection between the hem of her black silk skirt and the top of her calf-skin shoes inviolate, and brushing the dust of the wagon wheel from her dress carefully after her safe arrival in the dog-fennel. Marg'et Ann ignored the chair which had been placed beside the wagon for ...
— The Wizard's Daughter and Other Stories • Margaret Collier Graham
... all soft black and old yellow lace, stood in the doorway. Then before she could answer a second one appeared at her side, and I had a vision of two slender maidenly figures, who reminded me, meek heads, drooping faces, and creamy lace caps, of the wallflowers in the border outside blooming in a patch of sunshine close against the old grey house. At first there seemed to me to be no visible difference between them, but after a minute, I saw that the second ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... sympathised with her maidenly distress, but that wicked Victoria burst into absolute shrieks ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... spirits! My dear, my dearest Froeken,—I fear you do not understand me! Yet it is natural that you should not; you were not prepared for the offer of my—my affections,"—and he beamed all over with benevolence,—"and I can appreciate a maidenly and becoming coyness, even though it assume the form of a repellant and unreasonable anger. But take courage, my—my dear girl!—our Lord forbid that I should wantonly play with the delicate emotions of your heart! Poor little heart! does it flutter?" and Mr. Dyceworthy leered sweetly. "I will give ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... modestly and gracefully, and made a low obeisance to the aged Croesus. His eyes rested long on the maidenly and lovely countenance, and the longer he gazed the kindlier became his gaze. For a moment he seemed to grow young again in the visions conjured up by memory, and involuntarily he went up to the young girl, kissed her affectionately ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... face In which full plainly I can trace Benignity, and home-bred sense, Ripening in perfect innocence. Here scattered, like a random seed, Remote from men, thou dost not need The embarrassed look of shy distress And maidenly shamefacedness. Thou wear'st upon thy forehead clear The freedom of a mountaineer. A face with gladness overspread, Soft smiles, by human kindness bred, And seemliness complete, that sways Thy courtesies, about ...
— Sanitary and Social Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... livers; sepulchres, fresh colours but rotten bones; women, fair faces but false hearts. Remember, Alexander, thou hast a camp to govern, not a chamber; fall not from the armour of Mars to the arms of Venus, from the fiery assaults of war to the maidenly skirmishes of love, from displaying the eagle in thine ensign to set down the sparrow. I sigh, Alexander, that, where fortune could not conquer, ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... in the glimmer of a moon just beginning to take colour, he alternately raged at her light rebuff, and applauded her maidenly hesitation. As a Hindu and a man of breeding, his natural instinct had been to approach her parents; but he knew enough of modern youth, by now, to realise that English parents were a side issue in these little affairs. For ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... hopelessness of further argument. He bowed silently, but as he passed through the little gate the sound of the hastily closed door followed him up the hill to Hatton Hall. Lugur went into the parlor to look for his daughter; she had gone to her room. Some feeling of maidenly reserve had led her to take this step. She never asked herself why or wherefore; she only felt that it would be good for her to be alone, and the need had been so urgent that she forgot her father's usual good-night kiss ...
— The Measure of a Man • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... said Simon, turning to his master, with an utter disregard of Miggs's maidenly affliction, 'a box of things upstairs. Do what you like with 'em. I don't want 'em. I'm never coming back here, any more. Provide yourself, sir, with a journeyman; I'm my country's journeyman; henceforward that's ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... daughter (was his syncophant word) to have it put in my power to convince all the world that there never was a truer penitent. And why, why this anger, dear Madam, (for she struggled to get her hand out of his,) these violent airs—so maidenly! [impudent fellow!]—May I not ask, if ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... inn across the river, well known to the wilder blades of Plassenburg. There they go to be outside the authority of the city magistrates, to make rendezvous with maids more complaisant than maidenly, to fight their duels, and generally to do those things without remark which otherwise bring them under the eye of the Miller's Son, as they one and all call (behind his back) ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... her old friend and playfellow, Kit Smallbones. Her childish freedom of manner had given way to grave discretion, not to say primness, in her behaviour to her father's guests, and even the apprentices. It was, of course, the unconscious reaction of the maidenly spirit, aware that she had nothing but her own modesty to protect her. She was on a small scale, with no pretensions to beauty, but with a fresh, honest, sensible young face, a clear skin, and dark eyes that could be very merry when ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... Her maidenly modesty seemed first to tell her to banish his image from her heart, and his name from her lips. To accomplish this she threw herself with renewed diligence into the duties incident to her simple yet laborious life, and by her very activities endeavoured ...
— Oowikapun - How the Gospel Reached the Nelson River Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young
... effort of maidenly reserve over feminine sympathy Josephine refrained from throwing her arms round his neck and weeping on his shoulder for pity at his past sorrow. She had none of the vice of jealousy, and she could ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... But something more than maidenly modesty and pride made Alice shy and reserved when with Harcourt. She would think more about him, but talk less to him than to others when in company. She was a peculiarly sensitive, diffident girl, and instinctively ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... absolutely wooing conduct of Miss Euphemia which, notwithstanding her beauty and the softness that was its vehicle, filled him with the deepest disgust. He could not trace real affection in her words or manner; and that any woman, instigated by a mere whim, should lay aside the maidenly reserves of her sex, and actually court his regard, surprised whilst it impelled him to ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... would he, Amadis de Jocelyn, say of it and of her "mother" if he knew! He looked at her sideways now and then, curiously moved by mingled pity, admiration and desire,—the cruelty latent in every man made him long to awaken the first spark of passion in that maidenly soul,— and with the full consciousness of a powerful personality, he was perfectly aware that he could do so if he chose. But he waited, playing with the fire of his own inclinations, and talking lightly and charmingly of things which he knew would interest ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... and great Jupiter, After so many conquests won in field, After so many monsters quelled by force, Yielded his valiant heart to Omphale, A fearful woman void of manly strength. She took the club, and wear the lion's skin; He took the wheel, and maidenly gan spin. So martial Locrine, cheered with victory, Falleth in love with Humber's concubine, And so forgetteth peerless Gwendoline. His uncle Corineius storms at this, And forceth Locrine for his grace to sue. Lo here the sum, ...
— 2. Mucedorus • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... of thee so to do; 'tis maidenly that thou shouldst; 'tis the way of woman. Thou art not afraid, yet thou dost tremble; thou dost try to be brave, yet thou must be assured, and I am here by thy side to assure thee ever," he whispered in ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... would not suffice forever, any more than a mother's vigilance, maidenly timidity, convent walls or yashmaks will infallibly prevail. But they managed to kill a good ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... often cut out such offending paragraphs. But I never attached much importance to their absence before, because I thought it was merely a little fussy result of auntie's good old English sense of maidenly modesty. I supposed she merely meant to spare my blushes. I knew girls were often prevented on particular ...
— Recalled to Life • Grant Allen
... had Dane beheld such a vision of loveliness and maidenly charm. The girl fascinated him, and moved by a sudden impulse, he was upon the point of going to her side, fearful lest she should vanish, when the ...
— The King's Arrow - A Tale of the United Empire Loyalists • H. A. Cody
... softly in a minor key, but gradually the singing turned to talk. The talk, in accordance with the moonlight and flying clouds, was in a sentimental vein; and it ended, naturally, with Rosalie's Great Experience. Between maidenly hesitations and many promptings she retold the story—the new girls had never heard it, and to the old girls it ...
— Just Patty • Jean Webster
... picture. I never can bear a picture crooked, and I had Jane tip it a little this morning, just to vex me. Fred Rangely will come in unannounced. Of course I shall be dreadfully confused, and have to get down. In my maidenly confusion I am almost sure I can't help showing my slippers, and just a trifle—a very discreet trifle, of course,—of these beautiful, beautiful stockings. Nothing vulgar, you ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... with a faint hope that it might appease Chu Chu. SHE certainly looked beautiful in her glittering accoutrements, set off by her jet-black shining coat. With an air of demure abstraction she permitted me to mount her, and even for a hundred yards or so indulged in a mincing maidenly amble that was not without a touch of coquetry. Encouraged by this, I addressed a few terms of endearment to her, and in the exuberance of my youthful enthusiasm I even confided to her my love for Consuelo, ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... both in his own handwriting and in that of the Protector. And some of these cases, as the records we have copied show, were those of perfectly innocent girls, acknowledged to be virgins, until assaulted by these abominable medical officials and robbed of the fresh bloom of maidenly chastity. ...
— Heathen Slaves and Christian Rulers • Elizabeth Wheeler Andrew and Katharine Caroline Bushnell
... Max's strength and virtues lost nothing, fell into the hands of Madame d'Hymbercourt, and thus came under the eyes of Princess Mary. That fair little lady also built in her heart an altar to an unknown god, if hints in Hymbercourt's letters were to be trusted. Her maidenly emotions were probably far more passive than Max's, though I have been told that a woman's heart will go to great lengths for the sake of an ideal. Many a man, doubtless, would fall short in the estimation of his lady-love were it not for those ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... man's of his generation. The introductions and notes to his poems and novels are even overburdened with learning. But this, though important, was but the lesser part of his advantage. "The old-maidenly genius of antiquarianism" could produce a Strutt[11] or even perhaps a Warton; but it needed the touch of the creative imagination to turn the dead material of knowledge into works of art that have delighted millions of readers ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... daughter. I never saw a girl more cheerful, more lovable, more worthy of long life—nay, of immortality. She had not yet completed her fourteenth year, and she had already the prudence of an old woman, the gravity of a matron, and still, with all maidenly modesty, the sweetness of a girl. How she would cling to her father's neck! how affectionately and discreetly she would greet us, her father's friends! how she loved her nurses, her attendants, ...
— A Handbook for Latin Clubs • Various
... flaying tongue was not softened by any gentleness of divine inspiration. Incidentally, the Lord had given her a plump figure, and a knack of apparel which had long appealed to Widower Yarnell's eye. And the Lord approved; in truth He said "Yes!" so audibly that Miss Spinster hesitated hut one maidenly minute. ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll
... brick walls were hung with ivy greener than emeralds, and enamelled with white bell-flowers; on the ground floor was a fairly spacious apartment, in which the men slept and the family took their meals; on the floor above was Nisida's little maidenly room, full of coolness, shadows, and mystery, and lighted by a single casement that looked over the gulf; above this room was a terrace of the Italian kind, the four pillars of which were wreathed with vine branches, while its vine-clad ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... which murmurs against the lies and the deceptions of many lives that defile the land, and takes so many more to itself that they may persist no longer in their evil doing. And perhaps it was her vision of the sea that swept from Lily any desire to be a coquette, or to be maidenly,—that is, false. She looked from ...
— Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens
... the daughters of Israel, even though surrounded by the retarding influences of the ghetto. We have seen how well Recha had been educated and her daughter Kathinka was being brought up in the same way. She was independent in thought as well as in action, but never at the cost of maidenly sentiment. Piety and purity shone in her lustrous eyes. Superior to her position, she possessed the faculty of adapting herself to her surroundings. There was no pride in her breast save that which might arise from the consciousness of doing right. ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith
... why when the Rev. Mr. Denham Halloway was called to the vacant parish of St. Joseph's and fell down in its maidenly midst like a meteor from an unexplored heaven,—a young, handsome divine, in every way marriageable, though still unmarried, and in every way attractive, though still to the best of hope and belief unattracted,—this was why no ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield
... to take a melancholy pleasure in contemplating the sacrifice of herself to the man whom a maidenly sense of propriety compelled her to regard as her only possible husband. She would meet him, and do all that lay in her power to marry him. To guard against a relapse, a note was at once despatched to his father's ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... prison, bringing the stake in all its horror before the eyes of the judges as before her own. No other thing could have been suggested by that piteous prayer. The stake, the scaffold, the fire—and the shrinking figure all maidenly, helpless, exposed to every evil gaze, must have showed themselves at least for a moment against that dark background of prison wall. It was enough that it should be long—to hide her as much as was possible from those ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... angel of innocence and maidenly simplicity. When I say the Prince must declare himself, I mean by that that he must sue for your hand; he must say to you in so many words that he ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... not forget— An orator, the latest of the session, Who had deliver'd well a very set Smooth speech, his first and maidenly transgression Upon debate: the papers echoed yet With his debut, which made a strong impression, And rank'd with what is every day display'd— 'The best first speech that ever ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... upon her; for the present she must enjoy her freedom. It was like a recovery of girlhood. There are few married women who would not, sooner or later, accept with joy the offer of some months of a maidenly liberty. Amy would not allow herself to think that her wedded life was at an end. With a woman's strange faculty of closing her eyes against facts that do not immediately concern her, she tasted the relief of the present and let the future lie unregarded. Reardon ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... Suffrage movement, which he wasn't, and concealed a wife; the second was a Being too perfect to endure beyond Chapter 10, where he expires eloquently of heart-failure, leaving Alan, the third, to bear the white man's burden and clasp Frieda to his maidenly heart. This sentimental progress is, I suppose, what is implied by the title and the symbolic staircase (if it is a staircase?) on the wrapper. But my trouble was that I could never discern in the sweet girl-graduate ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, April 23, 1919 • Various
... bright star of maidens, A beam without haze, No murkiness saddens, No disk-spot bewrays. The swan-down to feeling, The snow of the gaillin,[134] Thy limbs all excelling, Unite to amaze. The queen, I would name thee, Of maidenly muster; Thy stem is so seemly, So rich is its cluster Of members complete, Adroit at each feat, And thy temper so sweet, Without banning or bluster. My grief has press'd on Since the vision of Morag, As the heavy millstone ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... and maidenly resolution," answered De Lacy, who seemed, on his part, rather glad that the conference was abridged, "and, as I trust, not altogether unfavourable to the suit of your humble suppliant, since the good Lady Abbess hath been ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... these last three days? Well, tell me what you think my purpose was in abandoning all maidenly reserve and throwing ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... time or chance for any maidenly hesitation or softening aureole of words. Aunt and Mrs. Saxby had almost reached the point where they invariably turned. I had barely time to spell out a plain, blunt "yes" and ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Pierre Philibert had occupied her thoughts for years, and now all at once she knew he was a man, and a great and noble one. She was thoroughly perplexed and half angry. She questioned herself sharply, as if running thorns into her flesh, to inquire whether she had failed in the least point of maidenly modesty and reserve in thinking so much of him; and the more she questioned herself, the more agitated she grew under her self-accusation: her temples throbbed violently; she hardly dared lift her eyes from ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... not answer me?" pleaded Gustave, in nowise alarmed by Diana's silence, which seemed to him only the natural expression of a maidenly emotion. "Tell me that you will give me measure for measure; that you will love me as my mother loved my father—with a love that trouble and poverty could never lessen; with a love that was strongest when fate was darkest—a star which ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... have no effect upon the professor's pure astonishment, but Marjory looked at her mother suddenly. However, she said no word, exhibiting again that strange and, inscrutable countenance which masked even the tiniest of her maidenly emotions. ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... Hypatia; pride forbade her to follow her own maidenly instinct, and to recoil among the crowd behind her; and in another moment the Amal had lifted Pelagia from her mule, and the rival beauties of Alexandria stood, for the first time in ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... a supreme moment, would attempt to suggest that his call was unthinking and without significance. But, gentlemen, I shall prove to you that such was the foolish, self-convicting custom of the defendant. With the greatest reluctance, and the—er—greatest pain, I succeeded in wresting from the maidenly modesty of my fair client the innocent confession that the defendant had induced her to correspond with him in these methods. Picture to yourself, gentlemen, the lonely moonlight road beside the ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte
... times too when she asked herself in anxious discomfort whether she was not possibly a transgressor against a deeper and simpler law than that of station—whether she was altogether maidenly in the encouragement she had given and was giving to the painter. It must not be imagined that she had once visited him without a companion, though that companion was indeed sometimes only her maid—her ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... mind, will you, especially when the charms of Le Bocage most favorably impress you? Remember you will become its mistress the day that you marry Clinton, make my mother adopt him, and release me. If my terms are not sufficiently liberal, confer with Clinton as soon as maidenly propriety will permit, and acquaint me with your ultimatum; for I am so thoroughly weary and disgusted with this place that I am anxious to get away on almost any terms. Here come the autocrats of the neighborhood, the nouveaux enrichis! ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... handkerchief with the flowers was gone. She made a few rapid dives in search of it. Had she, or had she not, seen him putting something in his pocket? And why had she behaved so unlike herself? In a few miles Miss Wood entertained sentiments of maidenly resentment toward her rescuer, and of maidenly hope to see ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... involuntarily from Miss Stead, who blushed and cast down her eyes as if conscious of having said too much for maidenly propriety, but the smile of acknowledgment on Colonel Washington's face gave way to a look of grave anxiety as he replied, "No lady of Carolina shall ever need a defender while a man of my command is left to draw a sword; but we have news of movements on the enemy's part which require our presence ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... flowers, and she, busied with her broidering needle, would question him of his doings, and betimes her breast would heave and her dexterous hand tremble and falter to hear of dangers past; or, talking of the future, her gracious head would droop with cheeks that flushed most maidenly, until Beltane, kneeling to her loveliness, would clasp her in his arms, while she, soft-voiced, would ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... for instinctively she knew whose hand had written it. It was the first letter she had received from him; what would it say to her? No doubt it was to tell her why he had not been able to meet her that morning, to ask her to meet him later in the day. With a blush of maidenly shame she lifted the envelope to her lips and kissed each ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... just opposite, and as he rowed higher, Adam fixed his eyes on Sylvia with a look peculiar to himself, a gaze more keen than soft, which seemed to search one through and through with its rapid discernment. He saw a face full of contradictions,—youthful, maidenly, and intelligent, yet touched with the unconscious melancholy which is born of disappointment and desire. The mouth was sweet and tender as a woman's should be, the brow spirited and thoughtful; but the eyes were by turns eager, absent, ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... appealed from one to another. "You see, I never dared say anything at all about love before Grandma or Heppie, but it is talked about so much in books, I thought I might mention it in company. I'm sorry if I've not been maidenly, which Miss Hepburn is ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... Hermia, have we two, sitting on one cushion, both singing one song, with our needles working the same flower, both on the same sampler wrought; growing up together in fashion of a double cherry, scarcely seeming parted! Hermia, it is not friendly in you, it is not maidenly to join with men ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... Gallery is also a picture of the year 1512, the Virgin holding the naked Child in her arms. She has a veil over her head and blue drapery. Her face is of the form usual with Albert Duerer, but of a soft and maidenly character; the Child is beautiful—the countenance particularly so. It is painted ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies
... amid the imposing circumstance of arms, Bloemfontein lost something of its charm. The noise and dust and commotion of the army did violence to its pastoral quietness, and the pretty shops put up their shutters at midday as though in maidenly horror at the eagerness of crowds of soldiers running amuck like children with their Saturday pennies. I entered the town early enough to see what its normal condition must be, and there was something rude and unkind in the din of the multitude breaking on this quiet place where the bees sang ...
— The Relief of Mafeking • Filson Young
... cheeks into which the hot blood was beating. Nevertheless, the feeling existed that she wished one of the others had stayed instead of him. It was born, no doubt, partly of the wave of shyness running through her, but partly too of instinctive maidenly resistance to something in his look, in the assurance of his manner, that seemed to claim too much. Last night he had taken her by storm and at advantage. Something of shame stirred in her that he had found her so easy a conquest, something too of a new vague fear of herself. She resented the ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... hook underneath, and there were swing toilet-glasses in the tawdry bedrooms at the inn. Something stirred in her, whispering in the grimy little ear, "It is good to be clean," and with the awakening of the maidenly instinct the womanly ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... upon them, so as to leave her hands and arms to the elbow free for her occupations. But most of all I loved her simplicity and her quietness and her discretion. Her father bade her expressly to shew me all the house; or she would not have done it, for she was very maidenly and modest; but as soon as he said that, she did it without affectation. She shewed me the parlour too, with the hangings upon the walls, and the chapel of the Grail, with the Grail itself upon an altar within, flanked by two candlesticks, that was represented over ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... the elevator, I was painfully conscious of two ideas. One was that Marguerite had been quite correct with her information about the free women who found it profitable to play the role of maidenly innocence. The other was that Dr. Zimmern's precious geography was in the hands of the artful, child-eyed hypocrite who had so cleverly beguiled me with her role of heroic virtue. Clearly, I was ...
— City of Endless Night • Milo Hastings
... reason," replied Lucie, "to blush for an attachment which was honorably sought, and bestowed on a worthy object; but involved, as it long was, in uncertainty, maidenly pride forbade the confession, even to you; and De Valette surely had no reason to expect it from me! Without this motive, my regard for him never could have exceeded that of a friend, or sister; my conscience acquits me of having shewn him any ungenerous encouragement; and, if he suffers disappointment, ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney
... that made me involuntarily bow my head in a reverential salutation as she passed? I know not. It was not beauty—for though the child was lovely I had seen lovelier; it was something inexplicable and rare—something of a maidenly composure and sweet dignity that I had never beheld on any woman's face before. Her cheeks flushed softly as she modestly returned my salute, and when she was once outside the church door she paused, her small white fingers still clasping the carven brown beads of her rosary. She hesitated ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... was dazzled by a wonder; he saw Linda de Romeiro. When she raised her veil, beauty and brightness streamed out of a rising sun; delicate, maidenly colours, lovely lines and sweet fullness of youth played like a flower garland about the brow of a goddess, with soft blossoms around the holy seriousness and mighty will on brow and lip, and around the dark glow ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... understand that there is a boy-and-girl attachment between you; that he won your attachment under a disguised identity, and that you were thus innocently deceived,—and that, in order to satisfy his own honourable scruples, as well as your sense of maidenly virtue, he has, still under a disguise, gone through the ceremony of marriage with you. Therefore, it seems that you now imagine yourself to be his lawful wife. This is a very natural mistake for a girl to make ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... ill-defined and apparently causeless dread. Now an actual, imminent, and fearful peril confronted her. Under such circumstances most women would have fainted, and, indeed, if Gwen had herself been asked how she would have acted under such a supreme test, she would have prophesied the same maidenly course as her own, yet, in the real exigency—how little do we know of ourselves, save what actual experience has taught us!—this is precisely what she did not do. When the horrible apparition first rose in her very face, as it were, a momentary weakness ...
— The Darrow Enigma • Melvin L. Severy
... so peculiar. The form, color, and expression of the boles are to be noted. A reader may smile at the phrase "expression," but look at a tattered old birch, or a silvery young beech-hole, "modest and maidenly, clean of limb," or a lightning-scarred pine. Tree-study has advantages because it is always within reach. The axe has been so ruthlessly wielded that you must go far into the woods to get the best specimens of the pine, and the forests about ...
— Doctor and Patient • S. Weir Mitchell
... for a man as they bulged and heaved even before the strings of the breastplate were uncut by his sword. And then she sat up and hailed the sun, and Georgie felt for a moment that he had quite taken the wrong turn in life, when he settled to spend his years in this boyish, maidenly manner with his embroidery and his china-dusting at Riseholme. He ought to have been Siegfried.... He had brought a photograph of her in her cuirass and helmet, and often looked at it when he was not too ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... alternately, so as to suggest the alternating beads of a necklace. A youth leads off the dance: his active steps are such as will hereafter be of use to him on the field of battle: a maiden follows, with the modest movements that befit her sex; manly vigour, maidenly reserve,—these are the beads of the necklace. Similarly, their Gymnopaedia is but another ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... childhood had been broken off, and that it was necessary that a renewed intimacy under another aspect should take place, to restore us to our former relations. Here it was for me to make the first overtures; not for her, as maidenly reserve would not permit it. Bramble seemed to be most anxious that such should be the case—indeed, considered it as a matter of course: perhaps Bessy thought so too in her own bosom; and the continual raillery of Bramble ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... very like other people. And besides this, she was not so forward in her questions or pert in her replies at sea as on shore. Neither did she laugh so much; and when she did laugh, it was more gently. She seemed altogether more modest and maidenly in the water than out of it. But when the prince, who had really fallen in love when he fell in the lake, began to talk to her about love, she always turned her head towards him and laughed. After a while she began to look puzzled, ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... told of in a book of a friend of mine, was of old a house inhabited by three maidens. They left no near kinsfolk, I believe; whether they did or not, I have no ill to speak of them; for they lived and died in all good report and maidenly credit. The house they lived in was of the small, gambrel-roofed cottage pattern, after the shape of Esquires' houses, but after the size of the dwellings of handicraftsmen. The lower story was fitted up as a shop. Specially was ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... beautiful Sleeper, Jealous Aurora's approach would not have startled the boy? Hero had glanced on Leander but once at the Festival—instant Plunges the passionate youth into the night-mantled wave. Rhea in maidenly glee caroll'd down with her urn to the Tiber— But in a moment she sank mute on the breast of the God: Hence the illustrious Twins that were nursed in the den of the She-wolf; Worthy of Mars were the boys:—Rome was ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... anywhere but by her side, of his having any interest apart from hers, the universe is, in a moment, shrouded in gloom. Her heart is sick, and there is no rest for it, for her self-respect is gone. She has been reared in a maidenly pride, and an innocent confidence: her confidence is wholly broken-down; her pride is wounded and the agony of the wound is intolerable. We are wont to say, Margaret, that everything is endurable but a sense ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... gazing into my face, those happy tears still shining in her eyes, listening to my words; but alas! on that sweet, beautiful face, so full of changeful expression, there was not the expression I sought, and no sign of that maidenly shame which gave to Genevieve in the ballad such an exquisite ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson
... into a plot (1090) to chaff elaborately his newly-found long-lost daughters, whom he has spent a lifetime in seeking, before disclosing his identity to them (1211 ff.). Saturio's daughter in the Per. is at one time the very model of maidenly modesty and wisdom (336 ff.), at others an accomplished intriguante and demi-mondaine (549 ff., esp. 607 ff.). When the plot of the Ep. is getting hopelessly tangled, of a sudden it is magically resolved as by a ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • Wilton Wallace Blancke
... retrieve the slip. He was in the family enough to be a part of the Graham conspiracy. Poor Graham, distracted by her innocent inability to make up her mind to marry him! He would be all right as soon as her maidenly hesitations should have come to an end, and she'd made him the happiest man in the world ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... pleased with her appearance, and received her very kindly, telling her that if she desired to be his wife she would have to gaze into the magic mirror, and if she had done aught which was not consistent with her maidenly character, the mirror would show as many stains on its surface as there might be ...
— Tales from the Lands of Nuts and Grapes - Spanish and Portuguese Folklore • Charles Sellers and Others
... grew more and more interested in the idea of having the young duke for her husband; and it seemed as if the maidenly resolutions, which had stood their ground so firmly for twenty years, were to be conquered at last. The more, however, she seemed to approach toward a consent to the measure, the more did all the officers of her government, ...
— Queen Elizabeth - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott |
