"Combing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a cold blue-green light like the depths of the sea, and the faded curtains wavered slowly in the breeze like long swaying strips of seaweed. Blanche, swathed in a pale wrapper and sitting on the bed whose whiteness was dimmed by the greenish dusk, was suggestive of a stage mermaid combing her ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... evening Anastasia accompanied me to my room with a candle, and seeing that I had no valet she insisted combing my hair. She felt flattered at my not presuming to go to bed in her presence, and kept me company for an hour; and as I was not really amorous of her, I had no difficulty in playing the part of the timid lover. When she wished me good night she was delighted to find my ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... old clergyman, such as Dr. Chauncey, wearing a white wig, which the barber took from his head and placed upon a wig-block. Half an hour, perhaps, was spent in combing and powdering this reverend appendage to a clerical skull. There, too, were officers of the Continental army, who required their hair to be pomatumed and plastered, so as to give them a bold and martial aspect. There, once in a while, was seen the thin, care-worn, melancholy visage of an ...
— Grandfather's Chair • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... glides sweetly with a pleasant trotting tinkle of bells by the green parkside of Piccadilly, and sweet is it to hear the sirens singing, and to see them combing their gilded locks, on the yellow sands of Piccadilly Circus—so called, no doubt, from the number of horses and the skill of their drivers. Here are the whirling pools of pleasure, merry wheels of laughing waters, where your hansom glides along with a golden ease—it is only ...
— Prose Fancies (Second Series) • Richard Le Gallienne
... sat my friend of the tangled tresses, which he had evidently succeeded in combing well out, for they now hung down quite smooth on his back and as long as a woman's hair. Another person was also seated near the fire, whose age might have been anything from twenty-five to forty-five, for he had, I think, a mixture of Indian blood in his veins, and one of those smooth, ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... king began to eat, but in the first mouthful the sun-god found a hair. He got very very angry, and called out, "To what sinful woman does this hair belong?" Then the poor queen remembered that during her twelve years of poverty she had always sat under the eaves combing her hair, and knew that it must have been one of her hairs which had got into the sun-god's food. She begged for mercy, but the sun-god would not forgive her until she had clothed herself in a black blanket, plucked a stick out of the eaves, and had gone ...
— Deccan Nursery Tales - or, Fairy Tales from the South • Charles Augustus Kincaid
... a man of lively imagination. Had he been an ordinary, prosaic and plodding individual, he would have stayed at home combing wool as did his prosaic and plodding ancestors for several generations. At the age of fourteen he went to sea and soon developed an active curiosity about regions then unknown but believed to exist. ...
— Cuba, Old and New • Albert Gardner Robinson
... and mist, day after day through long months. Feeding hungry horses their breakfast at five o'clock in the morning; brushing, currying, combing till they shone satin-smooth. Harnessing, unharnessing; washing mud from rigs that would be splashed and plastered again before night. Driving to houses that were known by the number over the door, giving the reins over to somebody and walking back in the rain. Piling ...
— The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories • B. M. Bower
... the cheek. His hair had been black, but was now turning to a sort of iron-grey; it was very dry, wiry, and plentiful, and part of it projected almost horizontally over his forehead. He had a habit of stretching it in this direction, by irritably combing it out, from time to time, with his fingers. His lips were thin and colourless, the lines about them being numerous and strongly marked. Had I seen him under ordinary circumstances, I should have set him down as a little-minded man; a small tyrant in his own way over those ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... there a week. Each day the papers were full of our mysterious disappearance ... reporters were combing the country to find us. Reports of our being in various places were sent ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... Harold as long as he lived. Then it quickly passed through his mind that, instead of the leads and the little yard, there would be the playground; and instead of the church bells, the rooks; and instead of Susan, with her washing and combing, and scolding and kissing, there would be plenty of boys to play with. As he thought of these things, he started up, and toppled head over heels on the grass, and then was up by his mother's side again, saying that he did not care about anything that was to happen ...
— The Crofton Boys • Harriet Martineau
... already looked everywhere, yet there was nothing to do except to continue the search, only more systematically. The sheriff assumed control—clear headed, and accustomed to that sort of thing—calling in Hickock and his deputies to assist, and fairly combing the town from one end to the other. Not a rat could have slipped unobserved through the net he dragged down that long street, or its intersecting alleys—but it was without result; nowhere was there found a trace of either ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish
... beneficent than evil, though occasionally both are treacherous. "Fishermen sometimes see the Mermaid in the bright summer sun, when a thin mist hangs over the sea, sitting on the surface of the water, and combing her long, golden hair with a golden comb, or driving up her snow-white cattle to feed on the islands. At other times she comes as a beautiful maiden, chilled and shivering with the cold of night, to the fires the fishers ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... "Yes, there is a-plenty of that hereabouts, what with the Seneca scalping parties combing the woods around us, and the cattle-guard fired upon in plain ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... hurried on, and when they came up close to the rocks they saw sitting on a flat and polished stone a mermaid combing her golden hair, and singing a strange sweet song that brought the tears to their eyes, and by the mermaid's side was ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy
... eyes, and I do believe they were for me. I could have wept myself. Where now was our project of remasting the Ghost? He had done his work well. I sat down on the hatch-combing and rested my chin on ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... once. All round me were little ripples, combing over with a sharp, bristling sound, and slightly phosphorescent. The Hispaniola herself, a few yards in whose wake I was still being whirled along, seemed to stagger in her course, and I saw her spars toss a little against the blackness of the night; nay, as I looked longer, I made sure she also ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... face was white and drawn, and the redness of his eyelids more pronounced than ever as he faced Stott in the pale October dawn. He clutched at his beard with a nervous, combing movement, as he shook his head decidedly in answer to the ...
— The Wonder • J. D. Beresford
... nothing," said Sancho; "but I told her how your worship was left doing penance in her service, naked from the waist up, in among these mountains like a savage, sleeping on the ground, not eating bread off a tablecloth nor combing your beard, ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... she spoke, locking the door again, and Mollie got up with a heavy sigh. She had taken off only her outer garments before lying down; and after washing, and combing out her bright silken hair, she resumed the glittering, bride-like finery of the evening before. Poor Mollie looked at the silver-shining silk, the cobweb lace, the gleaming, milky pearls, with ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... be a big telling, if Alice ever begins," the beach-combing and disreputable kamaainas (old-timers) gleefully told one another over ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... on her scaled and fish-tailed costume. When her turn came, a spot-light on the clubhouse was to illuminate the float and reveal her, combing her golden hair with a golden comb and singing away like the ...
— The Green Mouse • Robert W. Chambers
... Shaftoe's fat and fair, Combing down his yellow hair; He's my love for evermair, ...
— Pinafore Palace • Various
... all moved the Iron Heel, impassive and deliberate, shaking up the whole fabric of the social structure in its search for the comrades, combing out the Mercenaries, the labor castes, and all its secret services, punishing without mercy and without malice, suffering in silence all retaliations that were made upon it, and filling the gaps in its fighting line as fast as they appeared. And hand in hand with this, ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London
... an idea that will find favor with all women who have long hair and dread the long, tedious process of drying, and the misery and tangles that are a part of the first combing ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 55, November 25, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... somewhat the worse for drink already, were telling stories of scandal and duelling, to which Tom could not but listen with ill-concealed interest. Others were discussing the last new play, or the last new toast. A few fine dandies sat combing their periwigs as they talked of the latest fashions, taking snuff freely, and sprinkling themselves with perfume from a small pocket flask, if they were ever too nearly ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green
... for the loading of the ship continued by torchlight, until within an hour of the time of their departure. After tossing about for some hours in their narrow beds, they were glad to go on deck, and to plunge their heads into a pail of water, and were then, after combing their long hair, able to take an interest in what was ...
— A Jacobite Exile - Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden • G. A. Henty
... sunless, and the warning of an autumn storm spoke from the flying grey clouds and the buoyant wind which blew steadily from the west. Madame and her companion sat upon the shore, attracted by the combing swells as they sifted and shifted the yellow sand, deadwood, and weed. Pallid greens and browns flashed hither and thither over the tops of the whispering rushes; and from their deeps the blackbird trilled a querulous note. ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... body of Osiris from a column of the palace, 379-u. Isis found the body of Osiris at Byblos marked by a shrub of tamarisk, 376-l. Isis in her search had with her Anubis and Nepthe, sisters of Osiris, 378-l. Isis in the procession was attended by women combing her hair, 387-l. Isis is Nature, the Queen, 279-u. Isis of Gaul, called Hertha or Wertha, Virgin to bear a child, 104-u. Isis, sister before she was the wife, of Osiris, 849-l. Isis: the Egyptians deemed it unlawful ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... seated in her arm-chair. In her hand she held a piece of knitting. She was making a quilt for Beatrice's bed. This quilt was composed of little squares of an elaborate pattern, with much honey-combing, and many other fancy and delicate stitches ornamenting it. Mrs. Meadowsweet liked to feel her fingers employed over ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... to answer the telephone while he was away. All of his other riders were already out combing the hills under supervision of Curly. Luck had waited with Sam only to get some definite information before starting. Now he had his lead. Fendrick was either telling the truth or he was lying with some sinister purpose in view. The ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine
... have got blood in their eyes now. The coach has been combing them down, and they're just bound to carry things before them, or die trying. It's going to be hotter ...
— The Boys of Columbia High on the Gridiron • Graham B. Forbes
... Mr. Meadow Mouse, your grandfather a thousand times removed, was a very fine gentleman. He took a great deal of pride in his appearance, did Mr. Meadow Mouse, and they used to say on the Green Meadows that he spent an hour, a full hour, every day combing his ...
— Mother West Wind's Children • Thornton W. Burgess
... of whom he has lent some of his own traits) pleases the soul well, as do the feats of Gymnast against Tripet, and the fate of the unlucky Touquedillon, and the escalade of La Roche Clermande, and (a little less perhaps) the pure burlesque of the eating of the pilgrims, and the combing out of the cannon balls, and the contrasted sweet reasonableness of the amiable though not at all cowardly Grandgousier. But the advice of the Evil Counsellors to Picrochole is still ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... her mother hold her hand while she fell asleep and no longer found herself suffocating in nightmares. A fortnight went by in this fashion. Then, one morning, while sitting at her dressing-table, combing her hairs she bent her head toward the glass, as the weather was overcast, and she saw in it, not her own face, but the face of the dead man. A thread of blood was trickling from one corner of his mouth; he was smiling ...
— A Mummer's Tale • Anatole France
... Greeks, beautiful legends grow up which express the aspects of various localities. From the distant sand-banks in the lakes, glittering in the sun, come stories of enchantresses combing, on the shore, the long golden hair of a beautiful daughter. The Lorelei of the Rhine, with her syren song, and the sad events that follow, is found on the lonely ...
— Summer on the Lakes, in 1843 • S.M. Fuller
... needed no second order. Every morning just after eight bells Shrap would be taken over by the watch below. Every man took a delight in combing the animal's long hair, until Shrap's coat was the pride of the Capella's crew and the envy of the rest of the flotilla, whose mascots never aspired to be more than a tame rat, parrot, ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... causes a more beautiful bead of hair. The head, after each washing, ought, with a soft brush, to be well brushed, but should not be combed. The brushing causes a healthy circulation of the scalp; but combing the hair makes the head scurfy, and pulls out the ...
— Advice to a Mother on the Management of her Children • Pye Henry Chavasse
... neck by means of a loop; so that, when I draw back my head, the shilling follows it. I suppose you wish to know how I got the hair," said he, grinning at me. "I will tell you. I once, in the course of my ridings, saw Miss Berners beneath a hedge, combing out her long hair, and, being rather a modest kind of person, what must I do but get off my horse, tie him to a gate, go up to her, and endeavour to enter into conversation with her. After giving her the sele of the day, and complimenting her on her hair, I asked her ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... made a great splashing in his corner and let her go without more words, feeling more than ever that he needed time to think. "Just visiting—'cause it's Sunday, eh? The dickens it is!" Meditating deeply, he was very deliberate in combing his hair and settling his blue tie and shaking the dust out of his white silk neckerchief and retying it in a loose knot; so deliberate that Mama Joy was constrained to call out to him: "Your dinner is getting cold, Mr. Boyle," before he went in and took ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower
... reported that the stubborn Hellenes had cast a wall across the entrance, and that so far from showing terror at the advent of majesty, were carelessly diverting themselves by athletic games, and by combing and adorning their hair, a fact which the "Lord Prexaspes" at least comprehended to mean that Leonidas and his Spartans were preparing for desperate battle. Nevertheless, it was hard to persuade the king ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... comes, fields and meadows are looking well—oh, the year will turn out well, never fear! Little happenings and big, all in their turn: food, sleep, and work; Sundays, with washing of faces and combing of hair, and Isak sitting about in a new red shirt of Inger's weaving and sewing. Then an event, a happening of note in the ordinary round: a sheep, roaming with her lamb, gets caught in a cleft among the rocks. The others come home in the ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun
... chains. These chains reaching nearly to the bottom of the river were fitted up at the lower end with heavy pronged steel hooks. At that same moment, two similarly equipped boats started up the river from the lake. They were combing the river with a ...
— Triple Spies • Roy J. Snell
... the combing, feeling vaguely for the steps of the ladder. Dan sat up and laid by his pipe; two seamen went to assist in the ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... Dahcotah had been trying to persuade his wife to come to him, and return to the lodge; but she refused to do so, and sat combing her long hair. The child had cried itself to sleep; and the Dahcotah, worn out with fatigue and grief, thought he would go to ...
— Dahcotah - Life and Legends of the Sioux Around Fort Snelling • Mary Eastman
... face was changed, as if by magic. Several leaped to their feet. Gode, the Canadian, skilled in snow-craft, ran to a bank, and drawing his hand along the combing, shouted back— ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... and lawgiver of this Island when a barque strove with a cyclone which eventually shattered her to pieces and scattered her cargo of cedar-logs to the four winds. After the wreck a boat put out from a not distant port on a beach-combing cruise. The boat was known as the CAPTAIN COOK. About a hundred years before her namesake had reported that he had seen about thirty natives, all unclad, on an adjacent islet. With the captain was his mate, two other white men, a black boy, and a young gin. Many derelict ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... His racking, scooping, combing insight, into the recesses of man's natural appetites will never be surpassed. How under the glance of his Norman anger, all manner of pretty subterfuges fade away; and "the real thing" stands out, as Nature and the Earth know it—"stark, bleak, terrible and lovely." His subjects may ...
— One Hundred Best Books • John Cowper Powys
... Lavretsky blushed, muttered something unintelligible, and ran away. For five whole days he was struggling with his timidity; on the sixth day the young Spartan got into a new uniform and placed himself at Mihalevitch's disposal. The latter being his own valet, confined himself to combing his hair—and both ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... resume again, If other tasks we yet are bound unto, Combing the hoary tresses of the main With ...
— Verses and Translations • C. S. C.
... of hair, me dear! It's wearing well. ... D'you remember the day you and Esmeralda had the trick played on you about going to bed, and sat up half the night brushing and combing to ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
... at the time. His mother was busy "washing his face and combing his hair," so he had double cause for whimpering. But the smell of the tarts thrilled him; he jumped up, and when his mother tried to hold him he squalled, and I am afraid—he bit her. She should have cuffed him, but she did not. She only gave ...
— Johnny Bear - And Other Stories From Lives of the Hunted • E. T. Seton
... they should never be about the house at midnight. But one night as he lay in bed he had forgotten something and asked her to fetch it from below. She looked at him with a disdain out of the mists of her black hair, which she was combing to her knee. Perhaps for a minute she resented his unfaithfulness to the dead. 'No,' she said, with deliberation, 'not till that dog and his companion pass.' She flung the door open, and looked half with fear, half with defiance, at the black void outside. There was the ...
— An Isle in the Water • Katharine Tynan
... the millionaire went into the tin basin with a will. Big Shanty Brook, that morning, was as cold as ice. He rubbed his face and neck into a glow, combing his hair as best he could with his hands. He was as hungry as a wolf. Thayor was now beginning to understand their unwillingness to accept pay for ...
— The Lady of Big Shanty • Frank Berkeley Smith
... early, and on going down to the beach as usual to wash himself, he saw Malva. She was seated on the bow of a large fishing boat anchored in the surf and letting her bare feet hang, sat combing ...
— Twenty-six and One and Other Stories • Maksim Gorky
... magistrate beheld the pretty Countess sitting on the ground at Genevieve's knee, while the peasant girl was wholly absorbed in combing out Stephanie's long, black hair with a huge comb. The Countess submitted herself to this, uttering low smothered cries that expressed her enjoyment of the sensation of physical comfort. A shudder ran through M. d'Albon as he saw her attitude ...
— Farewell • Honore de Balzac
... on in silence across the Dunes to the beach. There, drawn up above high water line, they found a skiff. The captain and Jean shoved off, sprang in, and the little boat plunged into the combing waves. They reached the Southern Cross without misadventure. The captain blew a call upon a boatswain's whistle. A rope was lowered and Jean made the skiff fast to the ladder at the schooner's side. The captain took out his ...
— The Inn at the Red Oak • Latta Griswold
... complexion, with dark harmonizing eyes, and he wore a closely trimmed black beard of more advanced growth than is usual at his age; this, with his great mass of black curly hair, was some trouble to him in combing and washing out the stone-dust that settled on it in the pursuit of his trade. His capabilities in the latter, having been acquired in the country, were of an all-round sort, including monumental stone-cutting, gothic free-stone work for the restoration of churches, ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... when you're used to it. I always think when first we get sight of land, there's no colour so lovely as grass-green. However, she had green hair sure enough: and were proud enough of it, too; for she were combing it out full length when first they saw her. They all thought she were a fair prize, and maybe as good as a whale in ready money (they were whale-fishers, you know). For some folk think a deal of mermaids, whatever other folk ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... important labour-saving processes now in common use are directly traceable to them. In the case of many of our most potent self-acting tools and machines, manufacturers could not be induced to adopt them until compelled to do so by strikes. This was the ease with the self-acting mule, the wool-combing machine, the planing machine, the slotting machine, Nasmyth's steam arm, and many others. Thus, even in the mechanical world, there may be "a soul of ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... stiff plait of hair which stuck out almost horizontally from the nape of Harriett's neck, and watched her combing out the tightly-curled fringe standing stubbily out along her forehead and extending like a thickset hedge midway across the crown of her head, where it stopped abruptly against the sleekly-brushed longer strands which strained over her poll ...
— Pointed Roofs - Pilgrimage, Volume 1 • Dorothy Richardson
... bad moment for sina Tona. The thief! The bandit! You just trust these smooth talkers! So that was to be her pay for giving him her last cent—and combing his hair, the towhead, out there under the shed in the afternoon, as kind ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... Dick Hackerbody were in comfortable places of retirement, just under the combing of the hedge; all waiting for a whistle, yet at leisure to enjoy the whisper, the murmur, or even the sigh, of a genuine piece of "sweet-hearting." Unjust as it may be, and hard, and truly narrow, there does exist in the human mind, or at least in the masculine half of it, ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... no signs of Jack Hardy's rustler gang. They were not, however, deceived. With every passing minute they were approaching closer to Midway, the Hardy stronghold. And not only that, but the outlaws were probably combing the ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens
... only points in which I think your daughter may fail is in properly washing, combing, and examining the dogs, and cutting her ladyship's corns; but surely she can practice a little of both, as she will not be wanted for a month. There can be no difficulty about the first; and as for the latter, as all people in your ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... receding flow it had swirled him into a round cavity in the rocks, where as a boy he had often played and bathed and fished; he knew it well, and saw in a moment that he was saved! Clasping Valmai firmly, he ran up the beach, another combing, foaming wave coming dangerously near his hurrying footsteps; but in spite of the buffeting wind, he gained the shelter of the cliffs, and at last laid his burden tenderly down on the rocks. And now the fight for life was replaced by the terrible ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... lit in the room, and Emily sat on the hearth to comb her hair. She was thinner than ever now—the tall, loose-jointed "slinky" girl—her hair in its plenteous dark abundance was all of her that was not marked by the branding finger of death. She sat on the hearth combing her long brown hair. But soon the comb slipped from her feeble grasp into the cinders. She, the intrepid, active Emily, watched it burn and smoulder, too weak to lift it, while the nauseous, hateful odour of burnt bone rose into her face. At last the servant came in: "Martha," ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... lamb!" grunted John, who was combing his hair at the wash-basin in the corner. "I thought it was a ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie
... very fond of cats was she, and whiskey, too, 'tis said, She didn't feed 'em very much, but she combed 'em well instead: As may be guessed, these large tom-cats did not get very sleek Upon a combing once a day and ...
— Concerning Cats - My Own and Some Others • Helen M. Winslow
... echo of the command and the promise, a dull concussion shuddered through Nissr. The drone of the helicopters sank to a sullen murmur; and down below, waves began combing angrily over the gallery. ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... heard was a heavy crash of glass, and I woke up just in time to catch the tail end of a combing wave, that dashed in through one of the stern ports, washing the cabin fore and aft. The ship had evidently been pooped by a heavy following sea, that travelled through the water faster than she did before the stiff northward ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... Princesses. The Queen used it in the same manner and place for undressing herself in the evening. She went to bed in corsets trimmed with ribbon, and sleeves trimmed with lace, and wore a large neck handkerchief. The Queen's combing cloth was presented by her first woman if she was alone at the commencement of the toilet; or, as well as the other articles, by the ladies of honour if they were come. At noon the women who had been in attendance four ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
... thrown into flurries and panics quite to Aunt Pen's mind, running after the doctor at two o'clock of the morning, building a fire in the range ourselves at midnight to make gruel for her, rubbing her till we rubbed the skin off our hands, combing her hair till we went to sleep standing; but Aunt Pen had cried wolf so long, and the doctors had all declared so stoutly that there was no wolf, that our once soft hearts had become ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... as usual," she said. "But don't leave on my account." She disappeared into the lavatory, and emerged a moment later in a combing-jacket; seating herself before her own mirrors, she dove into a cosmetic can and vigorously applied a priming coat to her features, while the dresser drew her hair back and secured it tightly with a wig-band. "Lorelei's got her nerve to talk to you after the panning you gave Demorest," she continued. ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... You married men are mere sieves. You'll run straight home with your tongue out and tell Lady Newhaven that I want to marry Miss—I can't clinch her name—and then she'll tell her when they are combing their back hair. And then if I find, later on, I don't like her and step off the grass, I shall have behaved like a perfect brute, and all that sort of thing. A man I knew out in Melbourne told me that by the time he'd taken a little notice of a likely girl, he'd ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... don't think Blake liked it very much because Kennedy insisted on playing the lone hand, but he said nothing, for it was part of the agreement. Maloney seemed rather glad than otherwise. He had been combing out some tangled clues of his own about Mrs. Branford. Still, Kennedy smoothed things over by complimenting the detective on his activity, and indeed he had shown remarkable ability in the first place in locating ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve
... Gabry called her away to arrange her hair for the amiable lady had insisted upon combing and plaiting, with her own hands, the hair of the child confided to her care. As I had come a little before the hour agreed upon, I had interrupted this charming toilet. By way of punishment I was told to ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... suppose the lady has done anything amiss,—any more than combing her husband's hair, and the like of ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... It was a simple preparation. He took his pistol from its holster, examined it, then shoved it between his overalls and his shirt in front, and pulled his waistcoat over it. He might have been combing his hair for all the attention any one paid to this, except myself. Then the two friends went out, and I bethought me of that epithet which Steve again had used to the Virginian as he clapped him on the ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... that fear for the safety of their wives and children made the faces of these men gray as they rode the sage, combing the hollows and hills for the sight of old Mark Thorn. One by one they began to drop out of the posse, until of the fourteen besides Macdonald who had ridden in the hunt on the second day, only five remained on the ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden
... and a company of my friends, entered a garden one day to buy somewhat of fruit; and we saw in a corner an old woman, who was bright of face, but her head-hair was white, and she was combing it with an ivory comb. We stopped before her, yet she paid no heed to us neither veiled her face: so I said to her, 'O old woman,[FN251] wert thou to dye thy hair black, thou wouldst be handsomer than a girl: what hindereth thee from this?' She raised ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... now combing the Lost Creek watershed. Phil knew the camp would be either at Peaceful Valley or higher up, near the headwaters of the creek. Before he reached the valley the steady bawl of cattle told him that the outfit was camped there. He topped the ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine
... and busied herself in untying and combing her beautiful hair; for it was truly beautiful, not only of a fine, glossy quality, but it was so very long that it hung over the eaves of the house and reached down on the ground, as ...
— The Indian Fairy Book - From the Original Legends • Cornelius Mathews
... Madden, suspicion giving place to certainty and open accusation, while Hasbrook, combing at his beard, was muttering in a like tone. "You'll take him off to yourself, will you? Where you can do as you damned please with ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory
... was the earnestest o' them a", and I dinna deny but when I saw him wi' his head bowed-like in prayer during the singing I says to rnysel', 'Thou art the man.' Ay, but Betsy wraxed up her head, and he wasna praying. He was combing his hair wi' his fingers ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... respective duties; blacksmiths busy at the forge, reapers gathering in the harvest, furriers preparing rich skins, children picking maize, drovers tending their flocks, wood-cutters returning heavily loaded from the mountains. Others again are engaged in carding and combing wool, navvies are digging irrigation canals, chemists are manufacturing saltpetre and gunpowder, armourers are making or mending firearms. Tailors, shoemakers, bricklayers, potters, millers, sawyers—every ...
— Modern Saints and Seers • Jean Finot
... Nova, I think," Frank answered, his eyes combing the demons' landscape beyond the thick, darkened glass of ...
— The Planet Strappers • Raymond Zinke Gallun
... in the tumbleweed. While one was searching, the rest would get ahead of him. The line became disorganized, broke into groups, finally disintegrated entirely. Each man hunted for himself, circling the tumbleweed patches, combing carefully their edges for the quail that sometimes burst into the air fairly at his feet. When he had killed one, he walked directly to the spot. On the way he would flush two or three more. They were tempting; but we were ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... "Speaking of combing and things of that sort," remarked Mr. Rabbit, turning to Mrs. Meadows, "did I ever tell you how Brother Bear ...
— Little Mr. Thimblefinger and His Queer Country • Joel Chandler Harris
... the wave-beaten shore were combing out with combs the horses' hair, weeping, for there had come a messenger saying, that Hippolytus no longer trod on this land, having from thee received the sentence of wretched banishment. But he came bringing to us on the shore the same strain of tears: and an innumerable throng of his friends ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... of the meadow stood a huge stone castle, with an iron gate leading to it, which was wide open. Everything in the castle seemed to be made of copper, and the only inhabitant he could discover was a lovely girl, who was combing her golden hair; and he noticed that whenever one of her hairs fell on the ground it rang out like pure metal. The youth looked at her more closely, and saw that her skin was smooth and fair, her blue eyes bright and sparkling, and her hair as golden ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Various
... round pleasant face, which looked fresh and blooming as a rose. "I have long been wishing for a dear little maiden like you," said the old woman, "and now you must stay with me, and see how happily we shall live together." And while she went on combing little Gerda's hair, she thought less and less about her adopted brother Kay, for the old woman could conjure, although she was not a wicked witch; she conjured only a little for her own amusement, ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... Little Wun-lee, combing her hair, Saw a blue butterfly float through the air— Saw a blue butterfly flicker and settle On an azalea's rosy ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 1, 1914 • Various
... the act of combing his beard, which he had allowed to grow, as well as his hair, in order to reproach Mazarin with his wretched appearance and condition. But having some days previously seen from the top of the donjon Madame de Montbazon ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... is not sufficient front hair to make a wave with. It's odd how gradually these things happen. I could have sworn that I had that wave, and there is a photograph of me in the drawing-room with a fully-developed tidal bore; and I went on brushing my front hair and combing it and thinking of it all the time as constituting a wave, and lo it had vanished, leaving me under the impression that it was still there and accountable for the pleasing effect ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 8, 1919 • Various
... going to like it here, Alice?" asked Ruth as they sat in the room they were to share. Ruth was manicuring her nails, and Alice was combing ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Rocky Ranch - Or, Great Days Among the Cowboys • Laura Lee Hope
... with olive oil or vaseline, and the scalp treated with ointment of ammoniated mercury, four per cent strength. Shampoos with tar-soap suds should be given once in four or five weeks, and the hair should not be wet with water between the shampoos. The hair must be arranged by combing, the brush being used to smooth the surface of the hair only. Deep and repeated brushing does great damage, which is equalled only by the frequent washing some ill-advised sufferers employ. Massage of the scalp is useless to control seborrheic eczema, which ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume II (of VI) • Various
... nothing about flowers. By a bit of luck, James, my gardener, whom I pay half a crown a week for combing the beds, knows nothing about them either; so my ignorance remains undiscovered. But in other people's gardens I have to make something of an effort to keep up appearances. Without flattering myself I may say that I have acquired a certain manner; I give the impression ...
— Once a Week • Alan Alexander Milne
... submissively offered to dress them herself, and especially to arrange their hair, an accomplishment in which she excelled many a noted coiffeur. The important evening came, and she exercised all her skill to adorn the two young ladies. While she was combing out the elder's hair, this ill-natured girl said sharply, "Cinderella, do you not wish you were going ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... cried the bold Yankee, combing out his matted locks hastily with his fingers, and sitting up in what he conceived to be a proper position. "Here you are, sir. I'm your man; fix me off slick. Only think! Big Waller in a book—a ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... by this time. He could read plainly the advertisement posters outside the cinema theatre facing the esplanade: "Wilkins and the Mermaid. Comic Drama." There was a picture of the lady combing her hair; also of Wilkins, a stoutish gentleman ...
— Malvina of Brittany • Jerome K. Jerome
... mermaids, who were strange creatures with heads of beautiful, long-haired maidens, but with scaly bodies and the tails of fish. In pictures they are usually represented as sitting upon reefs holding a mirror in one hand and combing their long locks with the other. Holmes, in The Chambered Nautilus, speaks of the "cold sea-maids" who "rise to sun their streaming hair." Mermen were not so often spoken of, but there are some ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... was almost completely covered with a blanket of debris, but I could move my arms, and managed to prop myself up in a sitting posture. It was there that my father and his searching party found me; he had been combing that district all night. They carried me back, terribly bruised, but without even a bone broken. It was a miracle that I escaped, and the miracle must have been worked by your ...
— Riders of the Silences • John Frederick
... through; nor can he until his back has rubbed along the sticky, overhanging stigma, which is furnished with minute, rigid, sharply pointed papillae, all directed forward, and placed there for the express purpose of combing out the pollen he has brought from another flower on his back or head. The imported pollen having been safely removed, he still has to struggle on toward freedom through one of the narrow openings, where an anther ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... Philadelphia, on which are good improvements and domestics, A single Woman of unsullied Reputation, an affiable, cheerful, active and amiable Disposition; cleanly, industrious, perfectly qualified to direct and manage the female Concerns of country business, as raising small stock, dairying, marketing, combing, carding, spinning, knitting, sewing, pickling, preserving, etc., and occasionally to instruct two Young Ladies in those Branches of Oeconomy, who, with their father, compose the Family. Such a person will be treated with respect and esteem, and meet with every encouragement ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... eyes of Crichton the Chancellor were turned full upon the speaker. His hand tugged nervously at his thin reddish beard as if it had been combing the long goat's tuft which ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... the living-room, combing her hair, for she had something of the slattern in her nature, and there was no ...
— Where Angels Fear to Tread • E. M. Forster
... time, because of our rehearsal; and when I crawled from under the masts and sails to seat myself on the beach with the Wrig, I had scarcely strength enough to remove the cooky from her hand and set her a-combing ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... these poor men prepare themselves for their end; not less beautiful in their resolution, not less deserving the everlasting remembrance of mankind, than those three hundred who in the summer morning sate combing their golden hair in the passes of Thermopylae. We will not regret their cause; there is no cause for which any man can more nobly suffer than to witness that it is better for him to die than to speak words which he does not mean. Nor, in ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... sitting beside the hearth, by the side of which was an armful of furze. The evening meal was slowly cooking in a marmite suspended from a hook. Between her knees she held the child, combing his hair. She stopped when she saw the visitors enter, and the child ran towards the Count who ...
— The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt
... by Alan Cope (Nicholas Harpsfield) for his inaccuracy, Foxe replied: "I hear what you will say: I should have taken more leisure and done it better. I grant and confess my fault, such is my vice, I cannot sit all the day (Moister Cope) fining and mincing my letters, and combing my head, and smoothing myself all the day at the glass of Cicero. Yet, notwithstanding, doing what I can, and doing my good will, methinks I should not be reprehended, at least not so much be railed of at M. ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... watching our neighbours. Two in particular engage my attention: sisters by different mothers. The daughter of an Indian woman is a young person of fast propensities,—her chocolate- coloured skin, long hair, and parrot-like profile [1] are much admired by the elegants of Zayla; and she coquettes by combing, dancing, singing, and slapping the slave-girls, whenever an adorer may be looking. We sober- minded men, seeing ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton |
