"Deftly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... on fire and light the jewels at her throat and hair. She knew her clear skin, dark hair, and eyes would bear the startling contrast, and how her white shoulders gleamed from the crimson velvet. She knew how to arrange the flaming scarf of gauze deftly about those white shoulders so that it would reveal more ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... said that telegraphic work was too hard for her, because her cheeks were losing the fresh bloom that she had brought from the west of Ireland, and the fingers with which she manipulated the keys so deftly were growing very thin. But sorrow had more to do with the ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne
... whom it has come from the mountains in rather dirty condition. Indian women are the sole laborers employed in these cleaning houses. First, the coffee beans are separated from the dry empty husks by tossing the whole into the air from bamboo trays, the workers deftly permitting the husks to fly off while the beans are caught again in the tray. The beans are then surface-cleaned by passing them gently between two very primitive grindstones worked by men. A third process is the complete clearing of the bean from the silver skin, ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... little still locomotives in the din whispering across the street; with the wide black crowd streaming up and streaming down, and the big, faraway, other-worldly church above, I am strangely glad. It is like having a picture of one's whole world taken up deftly, and done in miniature and hung up for one against the sky—the white steam which is the breath of modern life, the vast hurrying of our feet, and that Great Finger pointing toward heaven day and night for ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... man in Avonlea, Mrs. Rachel, deftly putting this and that together, might have given a pretty good guess as to both questions. But Matthew so rarely went from home that it must be something pressing and unusual which was taking him; he was the shyest man alive and hated to have to go among ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... and milk, deftly directed the conversation to the possibilities of Dukla Pass from the Russian point of view as a means of invasion of the Hungarian plain, and it was soon quite clear that this possibility had not been absent from their minds. Renwick praised the effectiveness of the Austrian army ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... laconically. Druse dragged a chair to the side of the couch, and for some minutes there was silence—that is, the comparative silence that might exist in the Vere De Vere—while she deftly touched the burning smooth flesh ...
— A Village Ophelia and Other Stories • Anne Reeve Aldrich
... failed him. The same qualities that had made Richard stick to the motor were in his own blood. His delicately modelled slender fingers, white as ivory, and as sure as a pair of callipers —so like his father's—and which as we watch him work so deftly arranging the colors on his palette, adjusting the oil-cup, trying the points of the brushes on his thumb-nail, gathering them in a sheaf in his left hand as they answer his purpose, had served him in more ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... simply a piece of machinery for paying the bills; and if he had money for that purpose, why demand asceticism and the finer sensibilities from him? The real thing that mattered was the question of who was going to play the leading part, that deftly drawn character which had so excited the admiration of Elsa Doland. She sought ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... for the Sunday? 'Twill be re-open'd to-morrow, and plane and saw will be working. Thus will the busy hours be pass'd from morning till evening. But remember this: the rimming will soon be arriving, When the master, together with all his men, will be busy In preparing and finishing quickly and deftly your coffin, And they will carefully bring over here that house made of boards, which Will at length receive the patient as well as impatient, And which is destined to carry a roof that's unpleasantly heavy. All that he mention'd I forthwith saw taking place ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... cried again, and would once more have caught her deftly to him, but again she slipped from him. "Sit down," she cried petulantly, motioning to the fallen log. "You're out of breath, you've had a long climb." She herself sat down and he followed her example, encircling her ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... first round of the ring she removed the bridle, tossing it mischievously in Phil's direction. He caught it deftly, placing it on the ground beside him, then edged a little closer to the ring that he might ...
— The Circus Boys Across The Continent • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... without being aware of his knowledge, which was mainly instinctive. The billy was on the blazing fire, and Done sat watching Mike smartly mixing a damper in the lid. To Jim this, too, was a wonderful accomplishment. Water and flour were deftly manipulated until a ball of dough that quite filled the small lid resulted. It was done with the cleanness and quickness of a conjuring trick. The dough was divided into two pats, to be cooked under the ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... of the morning and fitted into any part of the day she happened to be found in: always of a gallant spirit, always wholesome as apples, always ready. This was not altogether youth. It was, besides, something notable and particular which was Nan. He laughed out, she caught his mood so deftly. ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... Episcopal Book of Common Prayer, and pointed out how deftly the Church has managed to slip in a prayer for worldly prosperity. But the Catholic Church does not show any squeamishness in dealing with its "million imbeciles", its "rough, ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair
... laughing, chatting, joining in the choruses with the performers on the stage. Now and then he would catch a little of his host's conversation, which was of all the capitals of Europe, and of art-worlds, the very existence of which was unknown to him. And then, on his left hand, there was Mlle. Armand, deftly picking off the leaves of an artichoke and dipping them into mayonnaise, and saying in her little bird's voice, "They tell me, Monsieur, that you have du genie. Oh, you should go to Paree to live—it is not here that ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... their morning's exertions to notice the slim white figure which slipped backwards and forwards behind them, supplying every want with quick and delicate intuition, aiding Marged Hughes' clumsy attempts at waiting, so deftly, that Essec Powell's dinner ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... shyness, this dropping into conventional phrases. He led her deftly through them to a greater confidence in his interest, as you steer a boat through shallow, rapid-running water. He wanted to get to the woman beneath it all, knowing that the woman was there. So he made for deep water, guiding her ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... mountain and must surely come into some valley or other—then suddenly his foot slipped on the needles that cushioned the trail, he fell, just as one does on the ice—only much more softly—and slid on, down and down, deftly steering himself around a bend, and came to a stop against a dead log just in time to escape bumping over a flight of rocky steps, neatly built by Nature in the side of the mountain and which led to a grassy terrace, open on one side to the wide sweep of valley and surrounding mountains ...
— Highacres • Jane Abbott
... stir the soil deeply without moving it or covering the plants. These cultivators are followed by women, with light, sharp hoes, who cut away the few weeds left between the plants. They handle these tools so deftly that scarcely any weeding is left to be done by hand; for, by a rapid encircling stroke, they cut within a half-inch of the plant. For several years past, I have urged upon Mr. Young the advantage of the narrow row system, and his own experience has led him to adopt it. He is now able ...
— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe
... Who then were joyful but us? But even at the word the king spake arose great turmoil in the mote, for they smote the feud and contention awake, and men thronged forward against each other, and swords were drawn and brandished. But the king arose in his place and spake long and deftly, and waxed exceeding wroth, while none heeded him nor hearkened. And there stood our three men, who laid no hand to hilt, but abode heart-whole by seeming amid the tumult. And lovely they were to look on. At last the wise men and old barons went between, and by ...
— The Water of the Wondrous Isles • William Morris
... pleasant to give pleasure; you like to see a joyous sparkle of the eye, whether lit up by your presence or by some buoyant fancy. It is a beguiling task to weave words into some soft, melodious flow, that shall keep the ear and kindle the eye; and to strew it over with half-hidden praises, so deftly couched in double terms that their aroma shall only come to the heart hours afterward, and seem to be the merest accidents of truth. It is a happy art to make such subdued show of emotion as seems to struggle with ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... tenement bairns nor marred their pleasure in the adventure. Presently there was a tap-tap-tapping of crutches on the heavy gallery that fronted the Cunzie Neuk, and on the stairs that descended from it to the steep and curving row. The lassie draped a fragment of an old plaid deftly over her thinly clad shoulders, climbed through the window, to the pediment of the classic tomb that blocked it, and dropped into the kirkyard. To her surprise Bobby was there at her feet, frantically wagging his tail, and he raced her to the gate. She caught him on ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson
... over them deftly, as if they were the separate strings of an instrument which could afford gratification to her only when swept lightly all at one time by her tingling finger tips, or, more likely, by the intangible plectrum in her ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... me in the district town at the inn; I sent for the doctor. In half-an-hour the district doctor appeared, a thin, dark-haired man of middle height. He prescribed me the usual sudorific, ordered a mustard-plaster to be put on, very deftly slid a five-ruble note up his sleeve, coughing drily and looking away as he did so, and then was getting up to go home, but somehow fell into talk and remained. I was exhausted with feverishness; I foresaw a sleepless night, ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... was too quick for him, and deftly placed a pair of twisters about his wrists, with such force as to wring a howl of agony ...
— True Love's Reward • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... drifting, uncontrolled, the rower rowed no more, But deftly turned the slender prow ...
— India's Love Lyrics • Adela Florence Cory Nicolson (AKA Laurence Hope), et al.
... sober, even stately. But soon, either from the steep, insecure nature of the ground or from less obvious and material cause, her pace quickened until it became a run. She ran neatly, deftly, all of a piece as a boy runs, no trace of disarray or feminine floundering in her action. More than ever, indeed, did she appear a fine nymph-like creature; so that, watching her flight Tom Verity was touched alike with self-reproach and admiration. For he had succeeded in asserting ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... deftly, rapidly, making fast the great blank canvas which had been squared and set with an enormous oval ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... broadsword With both hands to the height, He rushed against Horatius, And smote with all his might. With shield and blade Horatius Right deftly turned the blow. The blow, though turned, came yet too nigh; It missed his helm, but gashed his thigh: The Tuscans raised a joyful cry To see ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... come. He had come late on an afternoon in the preceding summer, when she was picking wild raspberries in the wood above Duck Rock. It was a lonely spot in which she could reasonably have expected to be undisturbed. She was picking the berries fast and deftly, because the fruitman who passed in the morning would give her a dollar for her harvest. Was it the dollar, or was it the sweet, wandering, summer air? Was it the mingled perfumes of vine and fruit and soft loam loosened as she crept among the brambles, or was it the shimmer of ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... and eat them when it suits you," said the girl, deftly thrusting a plateful of hot cakes upon him. Divided between gratitude and annoyance, Geoffrey stood still, stupidly holding out the dainties at arm's length, while flavored syrup dripped from them. It was equally impossible to return them without flagrant discourtesy or to retire with any dignity. ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... cabbages, eggs, fish, cheese, butter, beans, and other things, according to circumstances; so that a vegetable diet was perhaps commoner in those days even among the middle classes than at present. This youth, when he is asked what he drinks, replies, water, or ale if he can get it. The dish so deftly constructed by King Arthur, according to one of his numerous biographers, exhibited that wedlock of fruit with animal matter—fat and plums—which we post-Arthurians eye with a certain fastidious repugnance, but which, notwithstanding, ...
— Old Cookery Books and Ancient Cuisine • William Carew Hazlitt
... milkman shoes his cows and the other leaves his horse unshod. It is not customary in this country for man's noble friend to wear more than his own natural hoof. A visit to the blacksmith is entertaining. The smith, by means of a short lasso, deftly trips up the animal, and, with its legs securely lashed, the cow must lie on its back while he shoes ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray
... time I had ever seen Dr. Janeway in the sick-room. It would be hard to describe the difference between this man I now saw examining the sick woman and the Dr. Janeway I had known before. There was a light in his eyes and an alertness in his voice, entirely new to me, as he deftly built up his diagnosis, pointing out this physical sign and that, until the complete pathological picture seemed to stand out as on the page ...
— Some Personal Recollections of Dr. Janeway • James Bayard Clark
... later the train moved on again, and when well under way there was a rap at her door. When she opened it, the conductor said that he would make up her berth now, if it so pleased her. She stood out in the corridor while this was deftly and swiftly done. She could not restrain her curiosity regarding the mysterious occupant of Room A, and to satisfy it she walked slowly up and down the corridor, her hands behind her, passing and repassing ...
— Jennie Baxter, Journalist • Robert Barr
... it this way," explained Mrs. Hornblower, deftly cutting in. "He says he couldn't enjoy himself just idling, but he don't look on travel and improving his mind in that light. Robert feels that enlarging your horizon, and getting culture and polish is a part of anybody's duty. Robert feels real strongly on ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... tells him that if it should ever be discovered he will suffer as an accomplice; and then, with the promise of a substantial bribe, the clerk consents to give his aid. The missing paper is produced and deftly inserted in its former place in the book, and Miss Chudleigh becomes the Countess of Bristol. It is a curious story, but it has the merit of being true. Many strange romances are bound up within the stained and battered parchment covers of an ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... La Fosseuse deftly stirred the fire of dry branches and turfs of peat, then sat down in an armchair and took up one of the shirts that she had begun. She sat there under the officer's eyes, half bashful, afraid to look up, and calm to all appearance; but her bodice rose and fell with the rapid breathing that betrayed ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... Desiree, though she was still a mere girl, was endowed with exquisite taste, with a fairy-like power of invention, and no one could, insert two pearl eyes in those tiny heads or spread their lifeless wings so deftly as she. Happy or unhappy, Desiree always worked with the same energy. From dawn until well into the night the table was covered with work. At the last ray of daylight, when the factory bells were ringing ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... Mexicans thought of asking for quarter. One of the infantrymen, retreating before Dalzell's deftly handled sword, and fighting back with his rifle butt, retreated so close to the edge of the roof that, in another instant, he had fallen to the street ...
— Dave Darrin at Vera Cruz • H. Irving Hancock
... holy calm. A trim young American lady paused a yard or two from me, fixed her eyes on the mellow sparks flecking the far-off altar, bent her head reverently a moment, then straightened up, kicked her train into the air with her heel, caught it deftly in her hand, and marched ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... at the puncher. Dave flung the smaller of his opponents back against Steve, who was sitting tailor fashion beside him. The gunman tottered and fell over Russell, who lost no time in pinning his hands to the ground while Hart deftly removed ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... I too have the cowslips dewy and dear. Punctual as Springtide forth peep they: But I ought to pluck and impound them, eh? Not let them alone, but deftly shear And shred and reduce to—what may ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps
... is so pleasant as a clean "drive." The sensation is like that of hitting a ball to square-leg, fair and full, at cricket. Then the golfer must have the knack to lift his ball out of deep sand with the "iron," and to strike it deftly "a half-shot" up to the hole with the "cleek;" and, lastly, coolness and a good eye when he "putts" or hits his ball actually up ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... car deftly to a stop within a half-inch of the level of the desired floor. "Thank you. Mr. Sidwell—straight ahead, and turn to the left down the short hall," ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... down his bow, and, opening a knife which hung at his waist, went forthwith towards the nearest bush. He cut himself a stout ash staff and fell to trimming it deftly. ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... he deftly arranged the dishes with all the smiling ease of one to whom afternoon tea is the only business toward, and to whom an attempted murder is wholly alien. He impressed St. George vaguely as one who seemed to have risen from the dead of the crudities of mere events and to be living in ...
— Romance Island • Zona Gale
... for several hours, and when she came out it was night-time. On her way home she saw a light moving in the Den, where she had expected to play no more, and she could not prevent her legs from running joyously toward it. So when Corp, rising out of the darkness, deftly cut her throat, she was not so angry as she ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... take advantage, and the legs lightly planted but firm, so as to advance or retire with effect. In the flying leap of the leg lies the skill of the art; in turning the adversary upside down lies its ferocity; in planting a straight blow with the fist lies its rapidity; and in deftly holding the adversary face ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles
... to-day with an armful of fair chrysanthemums, deftly set them in tall brazen jars, pulled out his draperies and arranged them swiftly. There was a screen to be hung with a Chinese mandarin's dress, where, on black, gold dragons writhed squarely among ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... horoscope I had promised to Madame Morin. I found it an easy task to fill eight pages with learned folly; and I confined myself chiefly to declaring the events which had already happened to the native. I had deftly extracted some items of information in the course of conversation, and filling up the rest according to the laws of probability and dressing up the whole in astrological diction, I was pronounced to be a seer, and no doubts were cast ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... their feet in an instant. Mrs. Carleton running to a birch tree a few yards back from the beach, and breaking off a piece of bark, deftly bent it into a cup, which she handed to Miss Vyvyan to fill from the same pond that had supplied them with water the first day they were thrown upon the island. Refreshed by the draught the stranger ...
— Peak's Island - A Romance of Buccaneer Days • Ford Paul
... the arrangement—another instance of Matilde's tact which pleased Veronica. Matilde herself was no longer pale. She had seen how desperate she looked and had put a little rouge upon her cheeks so deftly and artistically that the young girl did not at first detect the deception. But her features had still been drawn and weary. They relaxed suddenly in a genuine smile when she saw the gardenia. But Bosio grew paler, Veronica thought, and looked very nervous. At table, ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... marked ACTIVE. She opened both books simultaneously and began to read. Without a glance at the bed behind her, she turned the pages slowly and uniformly until next morning when the books were finished. Word-for-word copies of them were now lightly etched on the tape reels behind her deftly molded Pigma-Foam forehead, and even now were being fed into the Action-and-Motion Editor at the ...
— The Amazing Mrs. Mimms • David C. Knight
... new maid, the deftly spoken admiration of her hairdresser, and the mirror upon her dressing-table, had prepared Madge for triumph. Her expectations were not disappointed, but they were almost forgotten. Her pleasure at ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... was badly enough as it was. The new nurse smoothed out his pillows and deftly tried to conceal as much as she could that would suggest how badly he was injured and at last Violet Winslow was allowed to enter the room where the ...
— Guy Garrick • Arthur B. Reeve
... wide straw hats covered with oiled cotton. Generally they wore the queue tucked into the girdle to keep it out of the way, but occasionally it was put to use, as, for example, if a man's hat was not at hand to ward off the glare of the sun, he would deftly arrange a thatch of leaves over his eyes, binding it firm with his long braid of black hair. On their feet they wore the inevitable straw sandal of these parts. Comfortable for those who know how to wear them, cheap even though not durable (they cost only four cents Mexican ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... was well-timed but she felt it was rather wasted later that afternoon. The little girls had accepted her invitation and had brought their flowers and May baskets over for her help and advice. Katy was filling hers deftly, chattering as she worked. She was especially particular with one, taking the flowers out and rearranging them several times before she could get them ...
— Chicken Little Jane • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... forgotten her presence—had quite forgotten the little quarrels that had all but ruined their chance at friendship. She knew that his mind was only on the child who lay so still under his hands—she knew that all the intensity of his nature was concentrated upon Lily. As she watched him, deftly obeying His simple directions, she gloried in his skill—in ...
— The Island of Faith • Margaret E. Sangster
... almost see your face in it, stood instead of the French woollen fabric of modern days. It left the jimp little waist as round and definite as the eye could ask, while the full flow of the skirt exposed the neat foot, deftly incased in stout Jefferson shoes. A plaited lawn, technically termed a "modesty-piece," was folded over the bosom, and concealed all but the upper part of the throat. Above that rose a face full of delicacy and healthy sweetness. Eyes full of sparkles, and dimples all about the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... gluttony, and still sugar the wine. In their cups the Germans use little mirth or discourse, but ply the business sadly, crying 'Seyte frolich!' The best of their drunken sport is 'Kurlemurlehuff,' a way of drinking with touching deftly of the glass, the beard, the table, in due turn, intermixed with whistlings and snappings of the finger so curiously ordered as 'tis a labour of Hercules, but to the beholder right pleasant and mirthful. Their topers, by advice of German leeches, sleep with pebbles in their mouths. For, as ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... softly, stepped quietly over the leaves, and deftly climbed up the door again, where he applied his eye ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... to Van der Kemp, who deftly caught it and held on tight. Another was flung to Moses, who also caught it and held on—slack. At the same moment, Nigel saw a large block with a hook attached descending towards ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... her own room and returned with the simpler devices for reducing a swollen eye. She did not notice, or pretended that she didn't, that he locked the door and put the key in his pocket. He sat down in a chair, under the light; and she went to work deftly. ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... with confident and jaunty air. "He has the contract?" said Toemon to the woman. O'Haru indicated a sleeve. The banto[u] and one of the wakashu[u] (young men employes) grasped the arms of Cho[u]bei. The incriminating document was deftly removed by O'Haru and passed over to Toemon. "Now the fellow can neither produce it, nor play his tricks with it." He looked it over carefully; then placed it with his own copy. Cho[u]bei was too outraged and frightened to do more than squat and ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... disappears. From studying the neighbourhood one can guess what it contains. Saveloys hereabouts are plentiful and only twopence each. There are pie shops, where meat pies are twopence and fruit pies a penny. The lady behind the counter, using deftly a broad, flat knife, lifts the little dainty with one twist clean from its tiny dish: it is marvellous, having regard to the thinness of the pastry, that she never breaks one. Roley-poley pudding, sweet and wonderfully satisfying, ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... stirrups, and several chairs. The chairs seemed to be systematically placed, and it was quite wonderful to see how the beggar twisted in and out among them without stumbling. I could not understand this, unless it was that he wished to practise moving about deftly, that he might be at least disadvantage in the cafes and public resorts. He never once stirred them, and I was presently surprised to see that they were all fastened to the floor. Sherry seemed as astonished as I. From this strangeness I came to ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... far honour me!" answered Walden;—he was strangely pale, and a slight tremor passed over him as he looked down at the small fingers,—pink-tipped as the petals of the flower they so deftly fastened in his buttonhole; "And how"—he continued, with an effort, addressing Cicely and Julian—"How have Music and Poetry ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... humiliation of it produced the antidote. She remembered that she had at last persuaded her lazy Sir John to stand for Parliament. Only wait until he was elected! She would exercise an influence then. The vision of a salon was miraged before her, with herself in the middle deftly manipulating ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... mischief as he gave a final tug and plunged the trainer into the water. Then while the man floundered about, the animal deliberately put his two front feet onto the edge of the shelf and reached out toward the pile of loaves. One by one he picked them up and deftly slipped them into his mouth, disregarding the ...
— The Boy Scout Fire Fighters • Irving Crump
... to and fro he twisted, turned, raced, and checked the combination, caressing it, humouring it, wheedling it, inexorably questioning it in the dumb language his fingers spoke so deftly. And in his ear the click and whir and thump of shifting wards and tumblers murmured articulate response in the terms of their ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... a low cool shed that smelt strongly of cut flowers, he took down a large open strawberry basket from a nail, and deftly arranged the leaves and fruit therein, with the ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn
... drew the tired fish gently into the shallows, swung him deftly upon the rocks, and laid ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... he had resumed his seat, deftly placed a lug-worm on his hook and thrown the lead into the water, where it sank rapidly, drawing after it the line over the low ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn
... trouble himself about the Warming Pan?"—which is yet "a harmless necessary and I will add a comforting article of domestic furniture." Observe necessary, as though every family had it as an article of their "domestic furniture." It is odd to think of Mary going round all the beds in the house, and deftly introducing this "article" between the sheets. Or was it only for the old people: or in chilly weather merely? On these points we must be unsatisfied. The practice, however, points to a certain effeminacy—the average person of our day would ...
— Pickwickian Manners and Customs • Percy Fitzgerald
... part in the broadcast was finished after he and Gail and Captain Moggs had told the story of the finding of the ship. Their narratives were deftly guided by ...
— Long Ago, Far Away • William Fitzgerald Jenkins AKA Murray Leinster
... of a broad chink in the folding doors that was making the dining-room an auditorium for their dialogue. She shut them deftly. ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells
... from a drawer, and spread it deftly on the table. As she straightened the corners daintily, to see if they were quite even, the ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XII, Jan. 3, 1891 • Various
... the flowers deftly arranged and surveyed them proudly. The chipmunk cocked his brown head and seemed ...
— Betty Gordon in Washington • Alice B. Emerson
... crown, whose snows flush'd rosy beneath them; Still each hand fulfilled its pious labour eternal. 310 Singly the left upbore in wool soft-hooded a distaff, Whereto the right large threads down drawing deftly, with upturn'd Fingers shap'd them anew; then thumbs earth-pointed in even Balance twisted a spindle on orb'd wheels smoothly rotating. So clear'd softly between and tooth-nipt even it ever 315 Onward moved; still ...
— The Poems and Fragments of Catullus • Catullus
... with the drying of his hands. The impatient Cazi Moto snatched the towel deftly but respectfully and packed it away. Simba, who had listened with deference until his bwana ...
— The Leopard Woman • Stewart Edward White et al
... evening, took his hat and coat away to some mysterious recess. Mrs. Martin led him into the parlor, lighted to a soft glow by deftly shaded electric bulbs. ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... no good, he opened a stall there for the sale of coffee and other refreshments, in the corner of a gambling hell. He calls to mind the way of domestic life and the every-day aspect of houses, gardens, people, and manners in Matamoras, and those he describes with especial skill—deftly introducing the portraiture of a dusky, black-eyed, volatile Mexican girl, to whom he lost, temporarily, the light heart of youth, and whom he thinks that he might have married had he not deemed it prudent to journey northward toward a cooler ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... himself by so much as a flicker of the eyelids. Calmly he uncrossed his legs and looking up at the ceiling he said, "Alas, certain scabby wethers succeed in stealing into the fold, but they are so rare as hardly to be worth thinking about." And he deftly changed the subject by speaking of a book he had just ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... the girls dressed Amelia in an old pillow-slip with eye-holes burned in it, and placed in her hand the staff of a broom, over the brush-end of which was drawn another bag, on which, in charcoal, Grace Mason deftly drew a very ...
— Nan Sherwood at Rose Ranch • Annie Roe Carr
... homeward bound from distant lands, Describes strange climes and visions passing fair, Yet deftly hides from others' eyes and hands A private casket filled with treasures rare, So, favored Countess, all that thou dost say Is nothing to thy secrets left unsaid; Thy printed souvenirs are but the spray Above the depths of ocean's briny bed. For, oh! how often must thy mind retrace Soft ...
— Poems • John L. Stoddard
... ever moonlight seen So clear and tender for our midnight trips? Go some one forth, and with a trump convene My lieges all!"—Away the goblin skips A pace or two apart, and deftly strips The ruddy skin from a sweet rose's cheek, Then blows the shuddering leaf between his lips, Making it utter forth a shrill small shriek, Like a fray'd bird in ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... runs through the exercise before the class does in order to get the "bugs" out of it—I am deliberately generalizing, since the above holds for all of the laboratory sciences—so when the student gets confusing or rather contradictory results, the instructor can deftly point out the error in the setup or calculations, or what have you. He may even indicate what results may be expected. The last is critical. Similarly other students in the laboratory usually have friends who have had the course before and know what results ...
— On Handling the Data • M. I. Mayfield
... Standard Oil Company did not represent a single dollar of honest toil or one trace of benefit to mankind. "The sugar trust," declared the senator, "has its 'long, felonious fingers' at this moment in every man's pocket in the United States, deftly extracting with the same audacity the pennies from the pockets of the poor and the dollars from the pockets ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... are laid in Paris and London; and a country-house party also figures, affording the author some daring situations, which she has handled deftly. ...
— One Day - A sequel to 'Three Weeks' • Anonymous
... doubt but that it might be possible for him to do it again. Any scheme, which she might be able to devise for saving him from so terrible a journey in the middle of winter, must be pondered over silently, and brought to bear, if not slyly, at least deftly, and without discussion. She made no reply therefore when he declared that on the following day he would walk to Barchester and back,—with the Lord's aid; nor did she see, or ask to see the note which he sent ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... being early risers; she, in order to leave a clear field for Mrs. Milward's prolonged toilet, and the elaborate operations of her clever maid. The pretty grey hair had to be taken out of pins, brushed, back-combed and deftly arranged, as the frame to its owner's beaming and youthful face. Lacing, buttoning and hooking also absorbed ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... this time, resolutely pulling, she had towed the General to a chair, and into this, his favorite leather-armed, canvas-backed, hickory-framed companion of many a year, she deftly dropped him and then, giving him no chance for a word, gayly pirouetting, she seized one after another upon each member of the party present—an accomplished little mistress of ceremonies encased in ...
— Found in the Philippines - The Story of a Woman's Letters • Charles King
... early autumn open their best joys only to the sturdy walker, who turns his back on the streets to seek the country roads, and leaves the roads behind him to explore the forest nooks, the ravines, and the sheltered meadows, hidden deftly away from the incurious traveler, and keeping a wild sweetness for him who finds them out for himself. If one is in good tune, he may get the finest flavor of such a walk by taking it alone, or with only rarely perfect companionship. The ideal companion is one who can fully enjoy, ...
— The Chief End of Man • George S. Merriam
... crinkling at the corners of his mouth—a flicker of light in his general gloom. After he had placed the coat in her hands he sat down on the transom and watched her busy fingers. She worked deftly. She closed in the rents and then darned the raveled places with bits of the thread pulled ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... He marshalled the jars and little pans and sticks of grease paint on her shelf into an orderly row and blew off the deep layers of powder she had scattered. Then he took down her street dress from its hook and slipped it deftly over her shoulders and had it buttoned up before Florette could yawn. He handed her her saucy bright hat. He flung ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... history, legend, mythology, and philosophy. Four-fifths of the poem consist of episodes, some of them very beautiful, as the tale of Nala and his wife Damayanti. These have no primary connection with the original, though they are worked in so deftly as to make the whole appear a splendid unity. For pathos, sublimity, and matchless language, no poem in the ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... tightening the cinch, lowering the stirrups, and gathering up the reins. He picked up the rope, coiled it deftly and tied it to the saddle—and now, relieved of the idea that he was noosed, the pony began to lift his feet and prance, softly, like a swift runner on the mark. At these signs of an early break Creede mounted hurriedly and edged in, to be ready in case the sorrel, like most half-broken ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... bull-whip exploded just beside Rip's left ear. The next shot took Squat exactly as aimed. There was a momentary scuffling of hoofs, an awful threat in the ox-driving language; then everything went on peacefully as before. The ox-driver caught the returning cracker deftly in two fingers of his right hand and settled down on his iron seat with his elbow on his knee while he took a chew of tobacco. The big tongue of his "busting" plow knocked in the ring of the wheelers' yoke; ...
— The Wrong Woman • Charles D. Stewart
... family of ten members, including four or five young children, and, looking, seemed at once to throw them into system, matured her plans, arranged her hours of washing, ironing, baking, cleaning, rose early, moved deftly, and in a single day the slatternly and littered kitchen assumed that neat, orderly appearance that so often strikes one in New England farmhouses. The work seemed to be all gone. Everything was nicely washed, brightened, put in place, and stayed in ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... opened the drawer and taking the beads from the box deftly fastened them about Elfreda's neck. "Grace will be glad to hear of this," she remarked. "May I tell ...
— Grace Harlowe's Second Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... Julia fell back, and, having deftly caught a fly on the doorpost, occupied herself in plucking it to pieces, while she listened to ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... Silence. Perhaps he had been mistaken. No. There it was again—fainter now. He ran his fingers softly along the edges of the woodwork, seeking a latch, a handle, but could find none. If there were a secret spring, it was so deftly hidden that he could not discover it. But in the brief moments of his search he had decided that he must enter this room at all costs. And so rising to his feet, he gave up trying to find the secret of admittance and slowly put his weight against ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... retreat, the girl might be frightened, and would unquestionably be annoyed. It was impossible to creep away unseen. He was well below the crest of the slope crowned by the trees, and the nymph now disporting in the lake could hardly fail to discover him, no matter how deftly he crouched and twisted. ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... questions, ever Rippling like a restless river, Puzzling many an older brain Dost thou hour by hour increase thy store Of marvelous lore. Thus a squirrel, darting deftly, Up and down autumnal trees, Sees its hoard of chestnuts growing swiftly In a ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... of a rare lot," said Mac-an-Ward, deftly poising the tin can on the top of his fingers, so that it stood level with Festus Clasby's great face. Festus Clasby took this as a business proposition, and the soul of the trader revolved within him. Why not buy the tin can from this tinker and sell it at a profit across his ...
— Waysiders • Seumas O'Kelly
... has been limned by a masterly hand. Little by little, sometimes directly and sometimes indirectly; sometimes by the words of his own mouth, oftener by the mouths of those whom he attacked, and almost constantly by the unfriendly newspapers, she deftly portrays the elements of his character. Warmoth had almost unlimited power and he used it like Cataline to corrupt the corruptible elements of the State. He was essentially a Nero, callous to the last degree and indifferent to the progressive anemia which was destroying the State's ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... minutes before had been eloquent of the minstrel in him. She rode in silence, regarding him critically from time to time, and when they came to the tree where the panther hung he gave her the calf to hold while he deftly skinned the dead marauder, tied the pelt behind his saddle, relieved her of the calf and jogged ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... man of taste as well as means. He improved his garden by acquiring adjoining property and extending his grounds as far east as Washington Street and as far north as King, adding several new outbuildings. Nor did he stop with horticulture. He took up architecture and deftly transformed his home to the ample size and satisfactory design all admire. The earlier flounder house became one of the fine houses of Alexandria—and one of the loveliest. By the addition of a wing to the left ...
— Seaport in Virginia - George Washington's Alexandria • Gay Montague Moore
... black case. Dave Cowan finished "In the Gloaming," brazenly, though it was not thought music by either Lyman or Winona, who would presently dash into the "Poet and Peasant" overture. The twins begged to be let to see Lyman assemble his flute, and Dave overlooked the process with them. Lyman deftly joined the ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... will pardon me," said Edith, rolling her hair up deftly and neatly as she spoke, with the air of a privileged person ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... Yes, yes! I'll run down to-night, and to-morrow I can return. I can trust my boy to you. Let nothing be spared; there's my purse. The doctor seemed a downright good sort of chap and she is worth a gold-mine!' He pointed to the nurse, who was deftly bathing Alick's ...
— The Captain's Bunk - A Story for Boys • M. B. Manwell
... turned aside in his chair and stopped the grinding of the graphophone. He made no further guess. Jim, with his dimple deepening, tossed the small paper into the air and caught it again deftly. ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt
... to earth the quaint Red worm and, deftly troweling, He makes it with his boweling ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... from the doorway; she was waiting for that flash from the end of his cigar, and when it came she passed out through the door swiftly, and caught him as he was about to fall from his chair to the floor of the piazza; caught him, and held him, and then deftly raised him to his feet, and half carried him inside the house before anybody—had a person been observant of the scene—could have realized that ...
— A Woman at Bay - A Fiend in Skirts • Nicholas Carter
... you are. Oh, no, don't you be getting it into your head that your father doesn't care for you." Mrs. Hunt made decided plunges at the yellow dough at each attack leaving behind a scalloped circle. "How I talk," she said as she deftly lifted the cookies into a pan, "but my tongue runs away with me sometimes. When do you think you'll be smart enough to get that ...
— Little Maid Marian • Amy E. Blanchard
... acidulated voice, only that now it tickled the public in the right quarter so deftly that momentarily it caused them to give a little shiver of pleasure. Nana still smiled her smile: it lit up her little red mouth and shone in her great eyes, which were of the clearest blue. When she came to certain rather lively verses a delicate ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... in his inkstand, and deftly laid it on a piece of paper close beside him; then resumed his former attitude. The stranger stepped up to the desk, and wrote in a rather tremulous hand—Mr Inspector taking sidelong note of every hair of his head when ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... think of these yer herrings?"—three in his hand, while the remaining stock are deftly balanced in the basket on his head. "Don't you think they're good?" and he offered me the opportunity of testing them by scent, which I courteously but firmly declined, "and don't you think they're cheap ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... as souvenirs. If, instead of all this senseless superfluity, I were allowed to give a table d'hote meal to-morrow, with the chef I have, I could provide an exquisite dinner, perfect in every detail, served at little tables as deftly and silently as in a private house. I could also discharge half of my waiters, and charge two dollars a day instead of five dollars, and the hotel would become (what it has never been yet) a paying investment, so great ...
— Worldly Ways and Byways • Eliot Gregory
... white apron on. It is a pleasant story, and only told properly in our second edition. King Nash had issued an edict forbidding the wearing of aprons. The Duchess dared to disobey. Nash walked up to her and deftly snatched her apron from her, throwing it on to the back benches where the ladies' women sat. What a splendid moment! Imagine the excitement of all that fashionable company—the drawn battle between the Majesty of ...
— Gossip in a Library • Edmund Gosse
... attacked with a maniac fury by the man whose murderous purpose he had thwarted. Still gripping the knife-wrist, he was sore put to it to fend off an avalanche of blows from the other arm and of kicks from both of the assailant's deftly plied feet. ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... slice the onions very deftly with a tuning-fork, after which she rubbed the ice-cream of the pavement with the slices, making a circle all around the Teacup, and another all around Sara, somewhat like the ring they used to burn about ...
— The Garden of the Plynck • Karle Wilson Baker
... saw. She saw Jamie, his whole self alert, deftly balance his weight on one crutch and swing his burden to the ground. She saw the happy light on his face, and she heard ...
— Pollyanna Grows Up • Eleanor H. Porter
... Wai-manu finished, 'tis cut at Wai-pi'o; Ha'l takes the bamboo Ko-a'e-kea; [Page 55] 35 Deftly wields the knife of small-leafed bamboo; A bamboo choice and fit for the work. Cut, cut through, cut off the corners; Cut round, like crescent moon of Hoaka; Cut in scallops this shift that makes tabu: 40 A fringe ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson |
