"Telltale" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the telltale flush, and slowly shaking his head, remarked, "I don't know, Leslie, about the advisability of leaving you here; you were always inclined to be very philanthropic, and it would be like you to adopt some young man out here, thinking you had money enough for yourself and him, too; that clerk ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... the suit and hat so warmly that a flush of pure pleasure in her clothes rose to Ruth's face. Grace, however, examined the inside of the coat and the lining of the hat with the utmost care. Every telltale mark had been removed. Even the boxes themselves were plain. The giver had evidently wished his or her identity to remain a mystery. The writing on the card was not particularly distinctive. There was only one thing of which ...
— Grace Harlowe's First Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... along the beam of light, searching for some telltale discoloration in wiring, or a gleaming icy patch which would indicate a fuel leak. "Might be the ...
— Tight Squeeze • Dean Charles Ing
... his lookout and drove them into the only available hiding-place—the box canyon. Many years in the sheep business had taught him into what small compass a band of sheep can be pressed, and he knew that, once thrown together in the dark canyon, they would stop their telltale blatting and go to sleep. Leaving his herders to hold them there he climbed back up to his peak and beheld the cowboys in the near ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... not so long ago, neither?" he said, darting ferret eyes now at the telltale marks and now into the quarry beneath or through the ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... school roll. "Kid McCoy uses too much slang. We'll teach her manners. Rosalie doesn't like to study. We'll pour her full of algebra and Latin. Harriet Gladden's a jelly fish, Mary Deskam's an awful little liar, Evalina Smith's a silly goose, Nancy Lee's a telltale—" ...
— Just Patty • Jean Webster
... dreamed she possessed, she was about to hit him again when he seized the cane and threw it away. But across his pale, handsome face lay a telltale red mark, the smart of which ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow
... "Why, I'll keep on this trail till my legs is wore off above my boots!" and he turned to guide his pony up a little branch trail at the top of which stood a tent with the telltale windlass ...
— The Heart of the Desert - Kut-Le of the Desert • Honore Willsie Morrow
... ground, and clasped her left wrist with her right hand. But in this latter movement she again exposed her brother by the very means she took to protect him; for quick-seeing Madge, observing the action, gently but firmly unclasped the younger sister's hand, and so disclosed the telltale marks of Ned's fingers upon the delicate wrist, by squeezing or wrenching which that tyrant ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... and the shadows had grown heavy. As she reached the bars again, on her homeward track, she stopped suddenly, and her face broke into smiling at the pungent fragrance rising from the bruised herbage beneath her feet. She stooped and gathered one telltale, homely weed, mixed as it was with the pasture grass. "Pennyr'yal," she said happily, and felt the richness ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... Louis hastened to Miss Blanche, and she grasped his hand as he approached. No loving expressions passed between them, but what they might have said that could be classed under this head was seen on their telltale faces. ...
— Four Young Explorers - Sight-Seeing in the Tropics • Oliver Optic
... now, Bumpus?" asked Thad, some time later, as he once more stopped to allow all the stragglers pull up; for some of the boys were beginning to look rather fagged, though they tried to hide the telltale signs, being too proud to own up to any weakness that ill ...
— The Boy Scouts' First Camp Fire - or, Scouting with the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... beloved BROTHER, who was in the Bounty with Captain BLIGH at the Time of the FATAL MUTINY, which happened April 28th, 1789, in the South Seas, and who, instead of returning with the Boat when she left the Ship, stayed behind. Tell me, thou busy flatt'ring Telltale, why— Why flow these tears—why heaves this deep-felt sigh,— Why is all joy from my sad bosom flown, Why lost that cheerfulness I thought my own; Why seek I now in solitude for ease. Which once was centred in a wish to please, When ev'ry hour in joy and gladness past, And each new day ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow
... fingers over it, his eyes following them. What was that? A finger-print? Upon the left side half way up a tiny smudge was visible. Barney examined it more carefully. A round, white figure of the conventional design that was burned into the tile bore the telltale smudge. ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... I was on the threshold of the hotel, I met Falfani full, as he came running out excitedly, holding in his hand the telltale blue envelope, which, with his elated air, indicated clearly that he ...
— The Passenger from Calais • Arthur Griffiths
... only condition being that the combination should be a happy one—I mean all those singularly expressive words formed by a combination of verb and substantive, the former governing the latter; as 'telltale', 'scapegrace', 'turncoat', 'turntail', 'skinflint', 'spendthrift', 'spitfire', 'lickspittle', 'daredevil' (wagehals), 'makebate' (stoerenfried), 'marplot', 'killjoy'. These with a certain number ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... his mother became | |worried when he failed to recover from drowsiness | |which had overtaken him and she called Dr. J. N. | |Pait. The physician made an examination of the boy, | |but found nothing to account for his condition. | | | |Then he rubbed his hand over his head. The telltale | |blood revealed the fact that the boy had been | |injured. With the little brother holding on to his | |coat the boy walked bravely to an automobile and was| |taken to the Kenosha hospital, where the X-ray | |machine revealed his secret. ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... either horizon at present. The boat was storming along to the southward, as he knew by a glance at the "telltale" overhead, and all seemed well with the runaways until a sudden stopping of the engines roused him up, to peer out the deadlights, and speculate as to ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson
... a sudden expansion of Mrs. Devar's prominent eyes, he gave a quick turn to a dangerous topic, since it was in Calcutta that the gallant ex-captain of Horton's Horse had "borrowed" fifty pounds from him. Naturally, the lady omitted the telltale prefix to her son's rank, but it was unquestionably true that the British army had dispensed with ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... gifts ever given, if the value of gifts is gauged by the measure of self-sacrifice involved. In that little book was immortal love—old laughter—old tears—old beauty which had bloomed like a rose years ago, holding still its sweetness like old rose leaves. She removed the telltale fly-leaf; and late on the night before Sylvia's birthday, the Old Lady crept, under cover of the darkness, through byways and across fields, as if bent on some nefarious expedition, to the little Spencervale store where the post-office was kept. She ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... dropped several garments upon the floor, and the telltale fur that had fallen partly within the corridor had proved the means of guiding me to the very spot he would least have wished me to have ...
— Warlord of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... when she and Jack found themselves alone in some remote spot. She went fearfully, with uneasy laughter, where Hank led. They stopped beside the tree where she and Jack had talked the other day. Hank pointed down at the telltale snow. ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... hear anything," said Virgie, breathing very fast; but she too had heard it—a sound above them, a scraping sound, as of someone lying flat along the rafters and shifting his position and, while she spoke, a telltale bit of plaster fell, and broke as it ...
— The Littlest Rebel • Edward Peple
... beasts that roam the wilds are free game to Indian hunters. The cattle begin to disappear, the Indians to lurk armed along the paths to the water springs. The woods are full of danger. Any bush may conceal painted foe. Men as well as cattle lie dead with telltale arrow sticking from a wound. The Norsemen begin to hate these shadowy, lonely, mournful forests. They long for wild winds and trackless seas and open world. Fur-clad, what do they care for the cold? Greenland with its rolling drifts is safer hunting than this forest world. What glory, doomed ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... three passages, rightly thought by Calvin Ross Shelby's audience the most telling of his speech, the first and second are unmistakably plagiarisms of ideas, while the third, differing from its original in but one telltale, damning word, is shameless, flat-footed theft. Either of the first two offences committed singly might be unconscious; conjoined they betray deliberation; united with the third they 'smell to heaven.' It is high time for ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... them had any lights behind them. Only the one door that he had come through showed the telltale glow from the other ...
— Viewpoint • Gordon Randall Garrett
... desert there was music that evening at Sidi-bel-Abbes, headquarters of the Foreign Legion. The soul of the Legion was speaking in its tragic-sweet voice, and the Place Carnot was full of soldiers sauntering singly or in pairs, mostly silent, as if to hear their own heart-secrets cried aloud by telltale ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... another place where the road-agents had halted, for there were the three telltale spots ...
— Buffalo Bill's Spy Trailer - The Stranger in Camp • Colonel Prentiss Ingraham
... turkey, and done to a turn. But all along Trotter had been wondering just how he was going to get rid of those telltale bones. At the merriest moments of the feast the question of the corner in which they could be secreted or the aperture out of which they could be thrust had hung over him like a ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... himself face to face with Miss Easton. Try as he would, the telltale blood slowly mounted to his tanned cheeks, suffusing his entire face with a ruddy hue. Instinctively he crumpled up the letter in his hand and thrust it into his coat-pocket, then, with a poor attempt at a smile, answered her question. ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... laughed as she powdered her face, and when she alighted at the door of the Hotel du Rhin, no marks remained of conflict except the telltale ear. ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn
... remained exactly as he had put it down. His cap and gloves were still beside it. Obviously there was no possibility of breakfast here, and he moved toward the adjoining room. On his way he passed a hook where upon arrival he had hung his riding blouse. Telltale with its litter of dust and grass stems, it hung there now; and unconsciously he scowled ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge
... night at Ranelagh The pretty Sly-boots fell a-blushing; And all the mettled bloods looked round To see what caused that telltale flushing. Up stepped a grizzled Poet Fellow To dance with Pam ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... published preliminary report had been made up from censored secret files, the use of those familiar words might have been overlooked, since, read casually, they would appear harmless. If the report had been thrown together hastily, the use of these telltale words could be easily understood, and so could the ...
— The Flying Saucers are Real • Donald Keyhoe
... where one of them is sitting ten feet above and still he makes no sign. We throw a clod, but yet there is no movement of his wings. Not till a stick hits the limb close to where he is sitting does he stretch his long wings with their telltale white spots and fly rapidly away. And the other two sit unmoved. But some night we hear the whirr of the nighthawk's wings as he drops rapidly from a great height, or we see him skimming close to the surface of the stream in search of insects in some twilight hour and then he ...
— Some Spring Days in Iowa • Frederick John Lazell
... restless fidgetings, which ended with a sigh of relief and a guilty look, and producing from a hiding-place a cigarette, he smoked it out of the window, so that his room might not carry forward the faintest trace of its telltale odor. ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris
... with his elbows on his knees, murmuring lover's confidences behind the shield of his tilted hat, which hid from all but Evadna his smiling lips and his telltale, glowing eyes. He looked up at that last sentence, though it is doubtful if he had heard much of what she ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... than the flowers, To justify a life of sensuous rest, A question dear as home or heaven was asked, And without language answered. I was blest! Blest with those nameless boons too sweet to trust Unto the telltale confidence of song. Love to his own glad self is sometimes coy, And even thus much doth seem to do him wrong; While in the fears which chasten mortal joy, Is one that shuts the lips, lest speech too free, ...
— Poems of Henry Timrod • Henry Timrod
... its perpetrator. There were ample accounts of the capture of the horse, the finding of the body, its position, and the nature of the wound,—medical opinion in addition that death had been instantaneous, and probably received before the breaking of the storm. If there had been any telltale track or mark in the soil of the river road, the continued and beating rain had made the way impossible to read. Witnesses from Malplaquet told of Ludwell Cary's setting forth that morning, and Forrest, the blacksmith, vouched for his passing the forge, alone. ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... what we want to believe, it did not quite banish a certain hollow, hungry feeling, a sense of distaste for such food as the letters did provide. She was not experienced enough to know that the expression of the countenance of a letter is telltale beyond the expression of the countenance of its writer; that the face may be controlled to lie, but never yet were satisfying and fully deceptive lies told upon paper. Without being conscious of the action of the sly, ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... such an admission from him or to entrap him into the use of some technical phrase, some slip of the tongue which would verify their suspicions. They even examined his hands with minutest care, as if to find some telltale callous or chemical discoloration which would convict him. Then finally, to give him the lie absolute, the aggressive colonel seized a nickel- plated atomizer from the table and brandished it triumphantly before ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... sweet-entangled arms, Catullus and his love's alarms. Da basia mille, so the poem ran; And, lip to lip, our hearts began With ne'er a word translate the words complete:— Did Lesbia find them half so sweet? A hundred kisses, said he?—hundreds more, And then confound the telltale score! So may we live and love, till life be out, And let the greybeards wag and flout. Yon failing sun shall rise another morn, And the thin moon round out her horn; But we, when once we lose our waning light,— Ah, Love, ...
— The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance • Paul Elmer More
... when she saw some one coming, she felt the necessity of bringing her telltale face to order and getting ready to answer whoever she was to meet. As she drew nearer she became suddenly aware that it was Rosa Rogers coming with her arms full of bundles and more piled up in front of her on her pony. Margaret knew at once that Rosa must have seen Forsythe go ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... me not to go nearer. An old Mexican, ignorant, rough, and callous as he was, begged me, with tears streaming down his face, to retrace my steps. Alas, when would impulsive youth ever listen to wise counsel and take heed! I entered the ruins and saw a dark telltale pool oozing forth from under the door of a cellar. Oh, had I but then overcome my morbid curiosity and fled! But no! I must needs open the door and look in. I saw—I saw a beautiful whiskey barrel, its belly bursted and ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann
... his kites without the slightest doubt that he was to get them. But still another lad stepped in between him and his property. The telltale hair, vividly red, sprouted likewise on this lad's head, and Joe knew him at once for what he was, another member of the Simpson clan. He was a younger edition of his brothers, somewhat less heavily built, with a face covered with a vast ...
— The Cruise of the Dazzler • Jack London
... the listlessness of the tone in which it had been uttered. So I went skipping down-stairs and closed my baby grand and inspected the table and twisted the glass bowl that held my nasturtium-buds about, to the end that the telltale word of "Salt" embossed on its side would not betray the fact that it had been commandeered from the kitchen-cabinet. Then I turned up the lamp and smilingly waited until my lord and master seated himself at ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... the stairs I fell into thought, and made a mental survey of all these people as they stood in respect to myself. Alphonse had progressed, as was visible on his telltale face, from suspicion to something near hostility. Isabella—always a puzzle—was more enigmatic than ever; for she showed herself keenly alive to my faults, and made no concealment of her distrust, though she threw open her house to me with a persistent and almost anxious hospitality. Here ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman
... at the sand, where telltale traces of her cousin's presence were plainly in evidence. From the entry door to the kitchen were tracks of snow, and on the sand in the kitchen there were wet spots where the snow had melted. ...
— Peggy Owen and Liberty • Lucy Foster Madison
... my curiosity altogether," said Clara, smiling, "but have given it a little hope to feed on for the present, I think, woman though I am, I can promise all you wish. Seriously, Basil," she continued, "that telltale locket of yours has so pleasantly brightened some very gloomy thoughts of mine about you, that I can now live happily on expectation, without once mentioning your secret again, till you give ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... rope was moving. A similar expedient adopted by the same ingenious aeronaut is worthy of imitation, namely, that of tying ribbons on to a rod projecting laterally from the car. These form a handy and constant telltale as to the flight of the balloon, for should they be fluttering upwards the sky sailor at once knows that his craft is descending, and that he must ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon
... difficult to sit down again; and would not have done so had not the measured striking of the clock upon the chimney-piece reminded him that he was expecting a visit from Max. Then a curious change came over his deportment; he stood considering, glancing from the telltale volumes upon the table to the door through which he was presently expecting his son to enter. Then with a secretive look and a shake of the head, "Oh, dear me, no," he murmured very softly; and taking up the books he put ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... the upper levels. He rode the swiftest walkways and travel strips, his eyes drinking in the long-hidden sights. From an observation dome he looked out over the wooded mountain slopes of Outside, and saw the telltale ridging of rock and earth that marked the scores of hidden vehicular tubes linking Appalachia with its sister cities ...
— Second Sight • Basil Eugene Wells
... was stirred beyond his usual depth of emotion, and it was not altogether the sight of Fred Thurman's battered body that unnerved him. He wanted to believe that Thurman's death was purely an accident,—the accident it appeared. But Lorraine and the telltale hoofprints by the rock compelled him to believe that it was not an accident. He knew that if he examined carefully enough Fred Thurman's body he would find the mark of a bullet. He was tempted to look, and yet he did not want to know. ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... ravine, hid them from the valley as they ascended. Its bottom was covered with rock and shale. The wounds Thor had received in the fight, unlike bullet wounds, had stopped bleeding after the first few minutes, and he left no telltale red spots behind. The ravine took them to the first chaotic upheaval of rock halfway up the mountain, and here they were still more ...
— The Grizzly King • James Oliver Curwood
... the valley he found a gully which gave access to the water's edge. He descended, located a ford, and crossed. There were cattle-trails through the cottonwoods; he might have followed them, but he feared the telltale shoe-prints. He elected the more difficult route down the stream itself. The South Y.D. ran mostly on a wide gravel bottom; it was possible to pick out a course which kept Pete in water seldom higher than his knees. An hour of this, and Drazk, peering ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead
... should be some chance for discovering telltale imprints near by. Max was unusually clever with regard to such things; and always thought of them first when there was a ...
— Chums of the Camp Fire • Lawrence J. Leslie
... knowing that this was not true, I protested through the Daily Telegraph against the misleading rumor. A controversy arose, but it was subsequently proved by two artillery experts who inspected the guns in question that they were really Bulgarian guns painted gray, with their telltale breech-blocks removed. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... smut, on the edge of one of the chambers, is the telltale, sirs. A bullet passing out always leaves smut behind. The man who fired this, remembering the fact, cleaned the barrel, but forgot the cylinder." And stepping aside he ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green
... love; yet I did not surrender to her charms. Her bracelets and the rings which covered her fingers did not prevent me from noticing that her hand was too large and too fleshy, and in spite of her carefully hiding her feet, I judged, by a telltale slipper lying close by her dress, that they were well proportioned to the height of her figure—a proportion which is unpleasant not only to the Chinese and Spaniards, but likewise to every man of refined taste. We want a tall women to have a small foot, ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... and Deston turned to his wife. "Stay here at the port, Bobby. Wrap one leg around that lever, to anchor you. What does your telltale read? That gauge there—your radiation meter. It reads twenty, same as mine. Just pink, so we've got a minute or so. I'll roust out some passengers and toss 'em to you—you toss 'em along in there. ...
— Subspace Survivors • E. E. Smith
... externally quite like all the others in town, and their playground, beaten bare like that of the Washington Street School, was filled with laughing, shouting children, ranging from shoe-black through coffee-color to those occasional tragic ones with white skin and blue eyes, but with the telltale kink in the fair hair and the bluish half-moon at the base of ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... unspeakably magnificent in a naval uniform induced Osh Popham to cry spontaneously: "Three cheers for the Admiral! I don't know what he ever done, but he looks as if he could, all right!" at which everybody cheered and roared, and the Admiral to his great surprise made a speech, during which the telltale tears appeared so often in his eyes and in his voice, that Osh Popham concluded privately that if the naval hero ever did meet an opposing battleship he would be likelier to drown the enemy ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... his tests every morning. Every morning the little crooked tubes are brought out and filled and carefully watched to ascertain if the telltale gas develops which is an index of "death in the cup." Thus is the ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... which lay about a foot below the level of the sill. I pick'd myself up and listen'd. Outside, the regular tramp of the sentry prov'd he had not heard me; and I drew a long breath, for I knew that without a lantern he would never spy, in the darkness, the telltale rope dangling from ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch
... Calvary I saw another sacrifice; I overtook small shrivelled forms, children they were, by the dim dawn. How their immature coughings racked my heart and gave me that strange tightening of the chest! I could not keep my eyes from the ground whence came the sound of small telltale splashes, after each cough. Many times I stopped to hold a child ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood
... back home when she should learn of the loss of her two idolized sons, he put the picture behind him. Here was a transport full of men, his own command largely, and a deep anxiety beset him when he looked over the sea, searching its surface for a glimpse of a telltale periscope. ...
— The Boy Scouts on a Submarine • Captain John Blaine
... last and stood up, shaking his head. Suddenly the Med Ship seemed empty. Then he saw Murgatroyd staring vexedly at the exit port. The inner door of that small airlock was closed. The telltale light said the outer door was not locked. Someone had gone out ...
— This World Is Taboo • Murray Leinster
... Hepson. "Then get back to your room. Get out clean linen and get into it. While you're doing that I'll negotiate the loan of a dress coat that will fit. Then you can go to the O. C., after you've changed the telltale linen." ...
— Dave Darrin's Third Year at Annapolis - Leaders of the Second Class Midshipmen • H. Irving Hancock
... disguised hand," said Rolfe. "Of course he printed it in order not to give us a specimen of his handwriting. There are telltale things about a man's handwriting which give him away even when he tries to disguise it. But he's tried to disguise even his printing. Look how irregular the letters are—some slanting to the right and some to the left, and ...
— The Hampstead Mystery • John R. Watson
... in a certain square, Or court, or lane,—in short, no matter where; Time,—early morning, dear to simple souls Who love its sunshine and its fresh-baked rolls; Persons,—take pity on this telltale blush, That, like the AEthiop, whispers, "Hush, ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... The telltale color swept back into her cheeks in swift wave. For an instant her eyes wavered, then came back ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... cautiously she dropped from the form, and began to creep underneath the table in the direction of the open door. Lennie and Hetty, after a glance at the paper, comprehended her scheme, and moved nearer together, lest her absence should be betrayed by a telltale gap. Some of the other girls of course noticed the occurrence, but, being loyal to Gipsy, they held their tongues and made no sign. As gently as a mouse she crept under the whole length of the table, chuckling inwardly at the fun ...
— The Leader of the Lower School - A Tale of School Life • Angela Brazil
... moments seemed like hours. Gradually, however, the leader of the silent ships drew nearer. There was no mistaking the telltale reports in the wireless room. Basing his calculations on the chief electrician's reports, McClure figured the leader of the oncoming squadron to be now not more than half a mile away and moving steadily forward toward the desired ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Submarine Fleet • James R. Driscoll
... assumed amiability. The querulousness of incompetent complaining natures confesses itself almost as much as in the tones of the voice. The anxiety which strives to smooth its forehead cannot get rid of the telltale furrow. The weakness which belongs to the infirm of purpose and vacuous of thought is hardly to be disguised, even though the moustache is allowed to hide ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... two hours evidences grew thick and fast that tribes inhabited the island. Muro, and the different men, were continually finding traces, none of them, however, which indicated that the people were near at hand, or that the telltale marks ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Adventures on Strange Islands • Roger Thompson Finlay
... morning, with every bone and muscle in him aching from his long night of tedious exertion, the chuckle grew into a laugh as he looked upon the telltale signs in ...
— The Country Beyond - A Romance of the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... of that telltale feather all the birds knew that Weaver was right, and led by Scrapper the Kingbird they began a noisy search of the Old Orchard for the sly robber. But Sammy wasn't to be found, and they soon gave up ...
— The Burgess Bird Book for Children • Thornton W. Burgess
... through the streets loaded with armed men. There were crowds looking for a telltale face in their own midst. Guards, deputies, coppers were surrounding houses and peering into alleys, raiding saloons, ringing doorbells. The whole city was on his heels. The city was like a pack of dogs sniffing wildly for his trail. And when they found it they would ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... scarlet. Luckily, Mrs. Bazalgette was evading her niece's eye, so did not see her telltale cheek. ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... a book, and the photograph was back where she had first discovered it, face downward under the box of chocolates. And she was now standing by the window, her veil drawn tightly over her close little hat, so that one might not read the trouble in her telltale eyes. The daisy drooped now, as if ...
— Contrary Mary • Temple Bailey
... for it as being the nearest possible point where water might be procured. The station-master gave her a tin can and filled it for her; and ten minutes later she set about scrubbing the tinker free of all the telltale make-up of melodrama. It was accomplished—after a fashion, and with persistent rebelling on the tinker's part and scolding on Patsy's. And, finally, to prove his own supreme indifference to physical ...
— Seven Miles to Arden • Ruth Sawyer
... broken his vertical ascent and was slanting toward the latitude Bridget requested. The Pacific rolled up under the atomjet's polished nose, which sparkled with myriads of brighter star reflections. Then he recalled he couldn't play over the ocean and veered slowly northward, up the coast to the telltale configuration ...
— A Fine Fix • R. C. Noll
... Selecting a branch where the tufts and hoppers seemed most prolific, I brought my magnifying-glass to bear upon them at a respectful distance. Was ever actual thorn more motionless or non-committal than most of these?—their under surfaces hugging close against the bark, their telltale feet closely withdrawn, and all their pointed helmets inclined in the same parallel direction. One after another of the sly little family was examined without a revelation. Not until I had reached the upper limit of the group did I get any encouragement. Here I discovered one of the midgets ...
— My Studio Neighbors • William Hamilton Gibson
... orchid which she was pinning to the bosom of her gown. Her intent gaze met the mask of Shirley's ingenuous smile, reading in his telltale eyes a message which needed no court interpreter! Quickly she turned to her mirror to put the finishing touches to her coiffure, the golden curls ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... watching that telltale hand, "I myself should prefer a slice of roast beef—or a rasher ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... heart itself generates," pursued Kennedy, hammering home the new and startling idea. "That current is one of the feeblest known to science, for the dynamo that generates it is no ponderous thing of copper wire and steel castings. It is just the heart itself. The heart sends over the wire its own telltale record to the machine which registers it. The thing takes us all the way back to Galvani, who was the first to observe and study animal electricity. The heart makes only one three-thousandth of a volt of electricity ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... if the record in my pocket burned—spontaneously—so intense was my feeling. There in the glass was that fatal, telltale white precipitate. ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... parapet nor to receive the support of his arm. Her chatter had dwindled to sighs and exclamations. He felt the need of a competing sound as the chug of the spearhead in the ditch should announce the discomfiture of the West Germans. But before committing the telltale runes to this ditch, Hauptmann scanned it carefully over Linda's curly head, and considered thoughtfully its worthiness to receive so important a deposit. The survey could not have been more reassuring. Like so many of the main ...
— The Collectors • Frank Jewett Mather
... made no farther objections, and having rolled himself in his blankets was almost immediately asleep and breathing heavily. The moment Dan heard his companion draw breath with a telltale regularity, he sat up again in his blankets. Bart was instantly at his side. He patted the shaggy head lightly, and pointed towards ...
— The Untamed • Max Brand
... respect came into the little girl's wisely regarding blue eyes. She, with the swiftness of her sex, recognized in forlorn little Johnny the making of a man. "Oh, well," said she, loftily, "I never was a telltale, and, anyway, we are not grown up, and there will be my trousseau to get, and a lot of other things to do first. I shall go to Europe before I am married, too, and I might meet a boy much nicer than ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... the wide, old boards of the floor gave a telltale snap. It was behind him, and so loud that it shattered his vision of Big Tom and the pudding bowl. Some one was in the room! Father ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... away from the corpse, and gazes for a moment after the retreating form of his friend; then he picks up the handkerchief; it is of softest linen, and across one corner he reads the embroidered name of Clifford Heath. For a moment he stands with the telltale thing held loosely in his hand, and then he bends down, spreads it once more over the dead face, and turns to ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... of people go Heedless; the trees upon the Common show No hint of green; but to my listening heart The still earth doth impart Assurance of her jubilant emprise, And it is clear to my long-searching eyes That love at last has might upon the skies. The ice is runneled on the little pond; A telltale patter drips from off the trees; The air is touched with southland spiceries, As if but yesterday it tossed the frond Of pendent mosses where the live-oaks grow Beyond Virginia and the Carolines, Or had its will among the fruits and vines Of ...
— Gloucester Moors and Other Poems • William Vaughn Moody
... the colour to her soft cheeks and curved lips; and in her eyes, when she looked at him again, there was a strange, glowing light that thrilled him. During the next half-hour he almost forgot his telltale disfigurements. At breakfast Paul and Peggy Blackton were beautifully oblivious of them. Once or twice he saw in Joanne's clear eyes a look which made him suspect that she had guessed very near to ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... disappointment troubled her; but as he moved a chair for Maud, she saw on the one ungloved hand a little scar which she remembered well, for he received it in saving her from a dangerous fall. At the sight all the happy past rose before her, and if her telltale eyes had not been averted they would have betrayed her. A sudden flush of maidenly shame dyed her cheek as she remembered that last ride, and the childish confidences then interchanged. This Helen was the little sweetheart whose picture he wore, ...
— The Mysterious Key And What It Opened • Louisa May Alcott
... nose was so thoroughly and always her guide that it was not likely she thought of the white-feathers being the telltale. But now she realized that a man, one she knew of old as a treacherous character, one whose scent had always meant mischief to her, that had been associated with all her own troubles and the cause of nearly all her desperate danger, ...
— Johnny Bear - And Other Stories From Lives of the Hunted • E. T. Seton
... in one wild panic-stricken surge of terror went tearing off through a blind alley of palms, dodging a cafe table, jumping an improvised trellis—a hundred pursuing voices yelling: "Where is she? Where is she?"—the telltale tinsel scarf flapping frenziedly behind her, flapping—flapping—till at last, between one high, garnished shelf and another it twined its vampirish chiffon around the delicate fronds of a huge potted fern! There was a jerk,—a blur,—a blow, the ...
— Little Eve Edgarton • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... coat of paint or two, and it would look less like a crazy-quilt solidified into a homestead. And I suddenly remembered Dinky-Dunk's question called out to Olie from the car-end—and I knew he'd hurried off a message to have that telltale tinning-job painted over before I happened to clap ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... on." Then, after a pause, she continued, "I found your note, Lizzie, and I am sorry that I have such a telltale face; but I am unhappy, Lizzie; yes, I am miserable, and I cannot conceal it. I would not obtrude my sorrow upon others, but it is my face and not my tongue that ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott
... walls of the adjoining room in the other house, we could see the shape of a similar door, and the secret was out. There was no need to open that other door to know that it led to Ruth Schuyler's rooms. There was yet more telltale evidence. In the little cupboard between the houses was a small safe. This Stone had opened and in it was the black wig of Vicky Van and also a brown wig which I recognized at once as Julie's ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells
... bitter harvest from her summer's sowing. She sat and thought till her cheeks burned and her temples throbbed; but she dared not ease her pain with tears. The gong sounded like a Judgment-Day trump of doom, and she trembled at the idea of confronting many eyes with such a telltale face; but she could not stay behind, for Aunt Pen must know the cause. She tried to play her hard part well; but wherever she looked, some fresh anxiety appeared, as if every fault and folly of those months had blossomed suddenly within the hour. ...
— A Modern Cinderella - or The Little Old Show and Other Stories • Louisa May Alcott
... two bobbins of the electro-magnet end in two clamps, 1 and 2. The second of these latter is insulated from the clock-case. Both communicate with the extremities of the circuit in which is interposed the seismic telltale that brings about a closing of the current. Having noted the position of the hands on the dial when the clock was running, one can deduce therefrom the moment at which the shock occurred that set the clock ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 455, September 20, 1884 • Various
... vicinity of Suez. I slipped copper rings around their tails and tossed them back into the sea. A few months later off the coast of Syria, I recaptured a few specimens of my fish, adorned with their telltale rings. So this proved to me that some connection existed between the two seas. I searched for it with my Nautilus, I discovered it, I ventured into it; and soon, professor, you also will have ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... the three little baby foxes all licked smooth now, and by them were two of our hens fresh killed. The newly heaved earth was printed all over with telltale signs—signs that told me that here by the side of her dead she had watched like Rizpah. Here she had brought their usual meal, the spoil of her nightly hunt. Here she had stretched herself beside them and vainly offered ...
— Wild Animals I Have Known • Ernest Thompson Seton
... of hearing her voice and of looking into her dear face once more had passed, his skilled eyes probed the deeper. He noted with a sinking at the heart the dark circles under the drooping lids, the drawn, pallid skin and telltale furrows that had cut their way deep into her cheeks. Her eyes, too, had lost their lustre, and her step lacked the spring and vigor of her old self. The diagnosis alarmed him. Even the mould of her face, so distinguished, and to him so beautiful, had undergone a change; ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... and Cortlandt saw by the faces about him that the others were pleased. His own gaunt features turned more sallow than ever. The memory of what he had heard on the porch of his own house a few afternoons ago, of what he had seen at other times, of his wife's telltale behavior on this very evening, swept over him, fanning anew the sullen emotions he had cherished all these months. How far would this fellow dare to go, he wondered? What motive inspired him thus to pose before his friends, and ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... of the home habits of the male biped she gleaned from the telltale hints of the inanimate garments that passed through her nimble hands. She could even tell character and personality from deductions gathered at heel and toe. She knew, for example, that F.C. (in black ink) was an indefatigable fox trotter ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... was not down at once. She was not down until she had taken time to bathe her red eyes, powder her telltale nose, smoothe her ruffled hair, and whip herself into the calm, steady-eyed, self-controlled young woman that Arkwright finally rose to meet when she ...
— Miss Billy Married • Eleanor H. Porter
... The telltale newspaper item, reproduced above, outlines the story behind this volume. What is not made clear is the fact that the entire expedition was painstakingly planned many months ago, the publishers themselves making it financially possible by ...
— The Cruise of the Kawa • Walter E. Traprock
... was plainly fencing for time to regain her composure. Jimmy looked so big and strong and DEAR there in the door of the summerhouse that she feared her eyes had been surprised into a telltale ...
— Pollyanna Grows Up • Eleanor H. Porter
... was constantly on the lookout for them. For those gray coiled horrors were deadly. We knew that. There were plenty of stories of people who heard that dry rattle, saw the lightning speed of the strike and the telltale pricks on arm or ankle, and waited for the inevitable agony and swift death. The snakes always sounded their warning, the chilling rattle before they struck, but they rarely gave ...
— Land of the Burnt Thigh • Edith Eudora Kohl
... not answer, save through the crimson of her telltale cheeks and the smile akin to tears about her ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... leather strip made a wide belt that went on somewhat after the fashion of a life preserver, the thongs being used for shoulder straps—a belt that, once on, the vest would hide completely, and, fitting close, left no telltale bulge in the outer garments. It was not an ordinary belt; it was full of stout-sewn, up-right little pockets all the way around, and in the pockets grimly lay an array of fine, blued-steel, highly tempered instruments—a compact, powerful ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... it," returned the old man with composure, and as he spoke his foot erased the telltale print. "I 'low there won't anybody go to the pen for he'pin himself to Mr. Morse's gold dust. I don't give a ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... court rather than be wrapped around your body. The best way to "groove your strokes" and to keep the ball low is to consciously aim your racquet head on your follow-through at the very, top of the "telltale." ...
— Squash Tennis • Richard C. Squires
... chairs and tables; he even opened the window and hurled two half-smoked cigars far out into the night; and his eye was as calm, his brow as placid, his cheek as rosy as ever, only his whiskers—those snowy, telltale whiskers, quivered spasmodically, very much as though endeavouring to do the manifestly impossible and flutter away with Mr. Brimberly altogether; yes, it ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... developed along our starboard side. It grew into a bluff covered with pines and thick-coated cedars and white-trunked sycamores and gray beeches. This woodland too had the year writ old. The surviving green of cedar and pine could not hide the telltale leafless trees that stood between. But more significant than leafless trees was the luxuriant holly with its ripe, red berries, gayly ready for Christmas decorations and to grace the birth of ...
— Virginia: The Old Dominion • Frank W. Hutchins and Cortelle Hutchins
... The telltale smoke rose from the heart of a woodland bluff, and near by a large herd of cattle was grazing, watched over by three mounted men whose horses were moving slowly over the ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum
... should come to hear that I had flown for succour to the enemy's camp, I fear it would be all over with the bargain for which Anthony and I are selling our souls. T. Slaney says he never shall know. He guarantees that Cook labels and other telltale marks shall be removed from everything, though time is short and there is much to do. He will be the power behind the tents, and I will be in ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... intent were they on this phenomenon they were facing, they paid it no heed. Their eyes were alight, their lips in firm straight lines of resolve, as they dived down upon the invisible obstruction—whatever it was—from whose surface the telltale updraft came. ...
— Lords of the Stratosphere • Arthur J. Burks
... whistling, a picture of homely contentment, hands in pocket, smiling jovially. She knew there must be no telltale tears on her cheeks, even if her heart was crying out in the cold and snow. She knew the bitterness of being denied the comfort of tears. It was but one of the hideous train of horrors that pursued a woman in ...
— 'Way Down East - A Romance of New England Life • Joseph R. Grismer
... fist struck the panel; an echo alone replied. Count von Breitstein began to be alarmed for the success of his plan. He thanked the night which hid from the keen eyes of the Emperor—cynical now, no doubt—the telltale vein beating hard in ...
— The Princess Virginia • C. N. Williamson
... coming of the night and on account of the prevalence of the fog he would find that shipping of the ordinary sort had stopped moving. However, in a few minutes he heard telltale whistles ahead, and he signaled half speed. A lumbering old lighter with a yawing derrick passed close aboard. An auxiliary fisherman, his exhaust snapping like a machine-gun, and seeming to depend on that noise ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... Again that telltale flush mantled the man's cheek. He cursed himself inwardly for his lack of self-control. The girl would have his whole secret out of him in another half-hour if he ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... was some feeling between the two men, though what it was about I could not say. As Miss Grey introduced us, I glanced hastily out of the corner of my eye at Kennedy. Involuntarily his hand which held the telltale sequin had sought his waistcoat pocket, as though to hide it. Then I saw him check the action and deliberately examine the piece of tinsel between his thumb ...
— The Treasure-Train • Arthur B. Reeve
... before the first course was served, Commander Bainbridge ordered the ward-room doors closed after the attendants had passed outside. Then he stated that Captain Gales wished it understood that the finding of the telltale envelope under Ensign Darrin's mattress was the only circumstance against that officer, and that, in the captain's opinion, it was wholly likely that some one else had placed the envelope there with the ...
— Dave Darrin at Vera Cruz • H. Irving Hancock
... words were grave and kindly. "It is a frightful risk, young man, but the trail to the glacier is your only open road. The sheriff is tired. Even if he finds out that you are here he may not come back to-night. He will know you cannot escape. You can't stir without leaving a telltale mark. If you could only get below the snow ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... the telltale writing which might have compromised Clelia, and to tear out a number of leaves from the prayer-book, with which he made several alphabets; each letter was neatly formed with powdered charcoal moistened with wine. The alphabets were quite dry when at a quarter to twelve Clelia ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner |
