"Demure" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... taken up in front and pinned behind, after the manner of washerwomen. Yet there were faces among them on which the eye loved to linger,—some not too young for their years, some furtive glances, some demure looks from the yet undeadened youth under those ugly robes,—some faces of struggle and some of victory. O Mother Church, here I do not believe in you! These natures are gnarled, not nurtured. These elaborately reposeful ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... hand to her companion, a girl of some four or five and twenty years old, with one of those rounded and supple figures which combine strength and delicacy, endurance and elasticity, and are very slow in yielding to the attacks of Time. A demure hood tied under the chin framed a round face, whose firm fair skin had defied the tarnish of the sea, and only gained a somewhat warmer glow in cheek and lip than its native tone. Little tendrils of sunny brown hair pushed their laughing way from ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... did to look demure and avoid speaking upon the subject which all were discussing, Betty could not keep her dancing eyes in order, and before the meal was over she flashed so roguish a glance at Oliver that, irritated at her mute opposition, he could ...
— An Unwilling Maid • Jeanie Gould Lincoln
... their faces and attitudes something strangely and elusively familiar, seemed in a sense to be nameless, and to represent rather types and abstractions than actual personalities. Such was the case, for instance, with a female member of the company, seated in a place of honour near the host, whose demure garb and gentle countenance seemed to indicate her as a Lady Pacifist, but denied all further identification. The mild, ecclesiastical features of a second guest, so entirely Christian in its expression as to be almost devoid of expression altogether, ...
— Further Foolishness • Stephen Leacock
... would have thought it? This is master's favorite! This is parson Wilson's sober Tommy! We sha'n't have Tommy thrown in our teeth again, if we go to get a birdsnest, or gather a few nuts on a Sunday." "Your demure ones are always hypocrites," says another. "The still sow sucks all the milk," says ...
— Stories for the Young - Or, Cheap Repository Tracts: Entertaining, Moral, and Religious. Vol. VI. • Hannah More
... the origin of St. Mary's Hospital. Mr. Lower says that it was founded in 1229 for a chaplain and thirteen bedesmen. In 1562 a warden and five inmates were the prescribed occupants. Now there are eight sets of rooms, each with its demure tenant, all of whom troop into the little chapel at fixed hours. Mrs. Evans, sacristan, who does the honours, would tell me nothing as to the process of selection by which she and the seven other occupants came to be living there; all that she could ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... too often as it is. Why is it that girls must blush so ridiculously when they don't want to? That's the question of the day for me. I could flirt desperately in old times, and yet look as demure and cool as if I were an innocent. But now, oh! I'm fairly enraged with myself ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... followed. She went up to the altar; a woman brought her a cushion; she knelt, crossed her self, and prayed. He stole up, and knelt by her. Conceive her face, if you can, when she turned and found him close to her. In his demure voice, he said, 'Pray, ma'am, how long has your ladyship left the pale of our church?' She looked furies, and made no answer. Next day he went to see her, and she turned it off upon curiosity. But is any thing more natural? No; she certainly means to go armed with every viaticum: ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... in a shabby old frock which she had outgrown—a dear, affectionate little soul, with so few ideas on people and things, that she actually took me for one of the best and wisest of human beings. See how much vanity there is in it all! I come back, and find a demure, well-drilled, fashionable young lady. I might have known how it would be, but it gave me a sort of shock, I own—my little wild Madelon gone for ever and a day, and this proper ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... flies, Where marchionesses rest demure, Weary of love, in exquisite guise, In chapels ...
— Enamels and Cameos and other Poems • Theophile Gautier
... beautiful fox. Jacko continued to deport himself well until the young chickens came; he was actually cured of the fox vice of chicken-stealing. He used to go with me about the coops, pricking up his ears in an intelligent manner, and with a demure eye and the most virtuous droop of the tail. Charming fox! If he had held out a little while longer, I should have put him into a Sunday-school book. But I began to miss chickens. They disappeared mysteriously in the night. ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... me that she looked with a less demure look into my face as I did so: I think she might have cared to have me hold her hand a little longer ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... Little Eva, whose real name was Edith. She was a demure looking little girl, who came in every afternoon at four o'clock for her breakfast. She usually came to Jimmy's table when it was vacant, and at four o'clock she always ate alone. Later in the evening she would come in again with a male escort, who was ...
— The Efficiency Expert • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Great-Grandmother of both the parties; so were the Georges, Father and Grandfather of Fred: little Fred himself was highly charmed, when told of it; even little Wilhelmina, with her dolls, looked pleasantly demure on the occasion. So it remained settled in fact, though not in form; and little Fred (a florid milk-faced foolish kind of Boy, I guess) made presents to his little Prussian Cousin, wrote bits of love-letters to her; and all along afterwards fancied ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume V. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... that it was nothing of very great importance, sire," said the lady, with a look of demure triumph ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... along there with her satchel swung over her left shoulder, her turban set all askew on her bright, black hair, her cheeks flushed from the jumping of fences and running of races that had been going on since she left the house, and that saucy twinkle in her eyes. Joy was always somewhat more demure, but she looked, too, that morning, as if she were quite as ready to have a good time as any ...
— Gypsy's Cousin Joy • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... contempt; and, in the more rude regions, the refusal to partake in the very social employments of wrestling or whiskey-drinking, has brought the scrupulous personage to the more questionable enjoyments of a regular gouging match and fight. A demure habit is the most unpopular among all classes. Freedom of manner, on the other hand, obtains confidence readily, and the heart is won, at once, by an off-handed familiarity of demeanor, which fails to recognise any inequalities in human condition. The society and the continued presence ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... enfolding him, his eyes were still intent upon the fire, when Blake entered, triumphant, carrying a coffee-pot, and followed by a demure girl with blonde hair and ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... Boeotian patrons. Sometimes a stolid inhabitant of central New York, evidently of Dutch extraction, would regard him with an open stare expressive of a desire to enjoy that which was said if the point of the joke could by any possibility be indicated to him. At other times a demure Pennsylvania Quaker would benignly survey the poor lecturer with a look of benevolent pity; and on one occasion, when my friend was lecturing at Peoria, an elderly lady, accompanied by her two daughters, left ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 1 • Charles Farrar Browne
... to see them watch their opportunity from the porch, and cut in where there was a place next the wall! And to see one man with an umbrella (brought on purpose, for it was a fine day) hoisting himself, unlawfully, from stair to stair! And to observe a demure lady of fifty-five or so, looking back, every now and then, to assure herself that her legs were ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... soon seated at the table with an ample allowance of corn-bread and tea, and he looked so demure, and conducted himself in such an exemplary manner, that one would have scarcely thought him given to marbles and dirty company. Having eaten to his satisfaction he quite ingratiated himself with Caddy ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... thus addressing her by her Christian name the mother started somewhat, and the demure eyes of the girls were turned to the floor, lest they should meet ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... remark he considered curly hair "messy looking"; but Raymond's approval, for some reason, doesn't seem to count for as much as it used to, and, anyway, he is spending the summer in Michigan.) However, just below that too-demure parting, the eyes are such as surely to give her no regret. Twin morning-glories, we would call them-grey morning-glories!—opening expectant and shining to the Sun which always shines on enchanted seventeen. And, like other morning-glories, ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... her gloves with downcast eyes and that demure air by which the talented fair imply the consciousness of being alone and out of others' earshot with an interesting ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... have all the long week to flutter their magnificence in. Their lunches, dinners, teas, dances, games, yachts, links, race-courses—everyone gives occasion for glorious display. Will they not, then, be sweetly demure on Sunday for the sake of the "picture," spare their sisters the agony of craving for like beautiful apparel? for God has made them so, and they can't help wanting ...
— Stage Confidences • Clara Morris
... conducted by a demure little Swiss maid to a large room on the third floor of the house, overlooking the Rhine. There was no luxury, but there was every comfort. There were two beds, each with a soft feather mattress, pillows of down, and warm, ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... had taken off his great-coat and was standing with his back to the hearth. He loomed up very big in the demure room, a slender, boyish figure, still too slim for his shoulder-width and height, clad in a ragged uniform, a pistol bulging from one hip at his belt. He looked about him at the bright hangings, with a wandering ...
— Four Days - The Story of a War Marriage • Hetty Hemenway
... came that one had been found, Mr. Wales had started at once for the city. When he saw the child, he was dismayed. He had expected to see a girl of ten; this one was hardly five, and she had anything but the demure and decorous air which his Puritan mind esteemed becoming and appropriate in a little maiden. Her hair was black and curled tightly, instead of being brown and straight parted in the middle, and combed smoothly over her ears as his taste regulated; ...
— The Pot of Gold - And Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins
... audience. He was habited in a cassock and bands, and had taken off his cap, which was held by an attendant, who stood near the stool on which he was mounted. The latter differed materially from his master. His closely-cropped hair, demure looks, sugar-loaf hat, and suit of rusty sable, seemed to proclaim him a Puritan; but his twinkling eye—for he had but one, and wore a black patch over the orifice—his inflamed cheeks, and mulberry ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... seems to imply that he had himself seen her. "He (Richard III.) caused," says More, "the Bishop of London to put her to an open penance, going before the cross in procession upon a Sunday, with a taper in her hand; in which she went in countenance and face demure, so womanly, and albeit she were out of all array save her kirtle only, yet went she so fair and lovely, namely while the wondering of the people cast a comely red in her cheeks (of which she before ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... if you read them to make yourselves merry, as in manner of pastime I wrote them, you and I both are far more worthy of pardon than a great rabble of squint-minded fellows, dissembling and counterfeit saints, demure lookers, hypocrites, pretended zealots, tough friars, buskin-monks, and other such sects of men, who disguise themselves like masquers to deceive the world. For, whilst they give the common people to understand that they are busied about nothing ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... minutes later, Billy and Mr. M. J. Arkwright were speeding toward Corey Hill. It was during a slight pause in the conversation that Billy turned to her companion with a demure: ...
— Miss Billy's Decision • Eleanor H. Porter
... as if it had been picked up bodily in some rural district in Germany, and set down unaltered here in Iowa. "Wie gehts," I venture, as I wheel past a couple of plump, rosy-cheeked maidens, in the quaint, old-fashioned garb of the German peasantry. "Wie gehts," is the demure reply from them, both at once; but not the shadow of a dimple responds to my unhappy attempt to win from them a smile. Pretty but not coquettish are these communistic maidens of Amana. At Tiffin, the stilly air of night, is made joyous with the mellifluous voices of whip-poor-wills-the ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... and parental reproof I answered, with a demure and innocent countenance (for I soon regained my presence of mind) that I did not think there had been any harm in doing that which most of the officers of the navy did at one time or another (an assertion, by-the-by, much too general); that we often got up plays on board of ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... looked up from her needlework. She was a gentle, fair-haired woman of thirty, with demure blue eyes, which regarded the girl with a mingling of pity, ...
— Viviette • William J. Locke
... How demure, how innocent she looked, plying her knitting-needle, and stopping to take up a stitch! How little at that moment she knew of Ducklow's trouble and ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... lady seemed, With step demure and slow, And gravely to the mantle With mincing pace ...
— Book of Old Ballads • Selected by Beverly Nichols
... I fancy," Meddoes answered lightly. "He ran some Austrian fellow off. She was quite the rage, in a small way, you know. Strange, demure-looking young woman, with wonderful complexion and eyes, and a style about her, too. Care for a ...
— Anna the Adventuress • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... bright flush on Abbie's face, and a little sparkle in her eye, as she turned and gave her hand to the minister, and then said in a demure and softly tone: "Cousin Ester, let me make you acquainted with ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)
... clever productions by means of daguerreotype and wood-engraving. They are very nicely executed in this volume, and wonderfully like. It is needless to particularise where all is so graphic and faithful; but let the studious little rabbit over his arithmetic lesson at p. 32, with that demure conscience-striken pair behind him wincing at the flogging of their idle ...
— The Comical Creatures from Wurtemberg - Second Edition • Unknown
... demure, bocsome, and obedyent, Gyue none occasyon to men by your foly If one ought asshe, deny it incontynent And euer after auoyde his company Beware of cornes, do nat your erys aply To pleasaunt wordes nor letters eloquent If that Helena had so done certaynly ...
— The Ship of Fools, Volume 1 • Sebastian Brandt
... her slight coldness, he seemed quite determined to overcome it. He took small notice of Nan, who busied herself at once arranging the flowers under his eyes; even Phillis, who looked good and demure this evening, failed to obtain a word. He talked almost exclusively to Mrs. Challoner, plying her with artful questions about their old home, which he now learned was at Oldfield, and gaining scraps of information that enabled him to obtain a pretty clear ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... remarkable personage; unless it be remarkable that she entertained the most profound veneration for her husband, quoted his commonest sayings as witticisms, and was ready to laugh herself into convulsions if he sneezed louder than usual. Marie was a charming little person; perhaps a little too demure in her manners, considering her wicked black eyes. She was soon very friendly with Claude and me, but seemed to prefer passing her time in whispered conversations with Nathalie. I was let into the secret that their conversation turned principally on the means of getting ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... meet them, but the spring had gone from his tread and the light from his eye; he was thrown back upon his perplexities. The sisters, still arm in arm, made a demure little bow, and stopped to say "Good-morning," but Mr. Denner was evidently depressed ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... said, plucking impatiently at her demure sleeve, and even in my semi-consciousness I smiled at the sound of the words from his ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman
... spirit,” I declared defensively. “She simply must find an outlet for the joy of youth,—paddling a canoe, chasing rabbits through the snow, placing kittens in durance vile. But she’s demure enough when she pleases,—and a satisfaction to ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson
... was only conversing, but his eyes dwelt on her with loving admiration all the time. Her posture was favorable to this furtive inspection, for she leaned her fair head over her work with a pretty, modest, demure air, that seemed to say, "I suspect I am being admired: I will not look to see: I ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... in the yard, some in their shirt-sleeves, some in blue aprons. Two figured conspicuously in the van of the party. One, a little dapper strutting man with a turned-up nose; the other a broad-shouldered fellow, distinguished no less by his demure face and cat like, trustless eyes than by a wooden leg and stout crutch. There was a kind of leer about his lips; he seemed laughing in his sleeve at some person or thing; his whole air was anything but that ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... for your kind remembrance," returned O-Yone, smiling.... "Now as for my mistress,"—she continued, turning towards O-Tsuyu, who had all the while remained demure and silent, half-hiding her face with her sleeve,—"as for my mistress, she actually says that she would not mind being disowned by her father for the time of seven existences,(3) or even being killed by him, for your sake! Come! will you not allow ...
— In Ghostly Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... she passed cups and glasses, this demure-looking damsel heard much fine discourse, saw many famous beings, and improved her mind with surreptitious studies of the rich and great when on parade. But her best time was after supper, when, through ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... "pas de trois" with Mariette and Tullia, is thinking steadily about your affair, and so is Florine,—who has finally given up Lousteau and taken Nathan. That shrewd pair have found you a most delicious little creature,—only seventeen, beautiful as an English woman, demure as a "lady," up to all mischief, sly as Desroches, faithful as Godeschal. Mariette is forming her, so as to give you a fair chance. No woman could hold her own against this little angel, who is a devil under ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... this inane compliment with a demure and conscious droop of the eyelids, and gracefully steering her dress among the mingled litter, now with a smile, now with a sigh, reviewed the wonders of the two apartments. She gazed upon the cartoons with ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... of this varnished rottenness than in truth and verity he is, I must define him to be a demure creature, full of oral sanctity and mental impiety; a fair object to the eye, but stark naught for the understanding, or else a violent thing much given to contradiction. He will be sure to be in opposition with the Papist, though ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... let me be understood. The straight, smooth hair, the folded hands, the demure face and exact deportment from ten years of age to eighty, do not always indicate womanliness; nor does the attempt to turn young girls into elderly women produce it. So many patchwork quilts, so many hand-stitched ...
— Hold Up Your Heads, Girls! • Annie H. Ryder
... her ascent of the steps, had remained standing at their head, gazing dreamily downward in her own demure manner and evidently considering that she had ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... visiting," Lucy said, instead of at home in their own house. She was amused at all this form and ceremony, and came down to the drawing-room with a little flush of pleasure and merriment about her, quite different from the demure little Lady Randolph, half frightened and very serious, with the weight on her mind of a strange language to be spoken, who but for Sir Tom's intervention would have been standing by the fire awaiting her visitor. The Dowager was downstairs before her, ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... considered the greatest beauties I presume, since with the Turk obesity is the chief element of comeliness. As the carriages passed along in review, every now and then an occupant, unable or unwilling to repress her natural promptings, would indulge in a mild flirtation, making overtures by casting demure side-glances, throwing us coquettish kisses, or waving strings of amber beads with significant gestures, seeming to say: "Why don't you follow?" But this we could not do if we would, for the Esplanade throughout its entire length was ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... me. I saw only a surface of stained canvas, tucked in carefully around the edges. This I tore off and flung aside—eclipsing poor Benjy, who was a most interested spectator of my strange proceedings. Still no gleam of gold, merely demure rows of plump brown bags. With both hands I reached for them. Oh, to grasp them all! I had to be content with two, because they were so heavy, ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... Her hair had tumbled down into two thick, loose braids. She submitted now to the gown, and wrapped herself carefully in it. Propped high against the pillows, a braid of brown hair falling forward over each shoulder, and her bare arms lying still at her sides, she looked very demure indeed and ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain
... pompadour, followed by a demure young lady, entered the room. She slipped quietly into a chair beside the president's desk and laid her copy-book on the slide of the desk and waited while her employer arranged the words in his mind. Her pencil was delicately poised above the ruled page. While she waited she ...
— Mike Flannery On Duty and Off • Ellis Parker Butler
... canvas representations of the man of brass with feet of clay, and other portentous characters of the prophecies, and then challenged the clergy to meet him in public debate. At the appointed time a body of college youth appeared, most sober in habit and demure in manner, having at their head "Bill'' Howell of Black Rock and "Tom'' Clark of Manlius, the two wildest miscreants in the sophomore class, each over six feet tall, the latter dressed as a respectable farmer, and the former as a country clergyman, wearing ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... the back of her head. Its double tints and strange changefulness, and the smooth creamy cheeks with their moving islets of roses that would come and go at a word, were pretty protests of Nature, I used to think, against the demure tints of her pearl-gray silken gown. She was looking out into the garden, quite heedless of the older dame, who sat as her wont was between the windows, and chirruped now and then, mechanically, "Has thee a four-leaved clover?" As I learned some time after, one of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various
... but I can't be a bounder, you know. He really behaved extremely well in the Dalahaide affair. The man couldn't believe, against a mountain of evidence; nevertheless, he did what he could for his friend, guilty as he thought him. All this happened four years ago, when you were a demure little schoolgirl—if you ever could have been demure!—in your own Virginia, not allowed even to hear of, much less read, the great newspaper scandals of the moment. I can't remember every detail of the affair, but it was said to be largely through Loria's efforts that Max was saved ...
— The Castle Of The Shadows • Alice Muriel Williamson
... volume mildly with a demure introduction, we suddenly are over head and ears in "dialectic regeneration," which seems like theology, only that it introduces us to a mild baby-talk in that wonderful language, the Annamitic, where the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... had already opened his mouth to accept this demure invitation when Excalibur, rising from the hearthrug, stretched himself luxuriously and wagged his tail, thereby removing three pipes, an inkstand, a tobacco jar, and a half-completed sermon from the ...
— Scally - The Story of a Perfect Gentleman • Ian Hay
... had not known what made the things so heavy. I frowned at the swindle, but they said all was fair with a pedler,—and I own I was glad the things were well out of Richmond. But when I said I thought it was a mean trick, Lizzie and Sarah looked demure, and asked what in the world I would have them do with the old things. Did I expect them to walk down to the bridge themselves with great parcels to throw into the river, as I had done by Julia's? Of course it ended, as such things ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale
... pulled together her lagging wits, marshaled her fighting forces, and flaunted a war banner in the shape of a smile that was demure. ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... upon her face as she crossed the passage and knocked at the door of Hesden's room, thinking how she had flattered her mistress into a revelation of her own ignorance. She was demure enough, however, when Hesden himself opened the door and ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... road for her sake—he was as well acquainted with the joys which belong to social intercourse, when instruments of music speak to the feet, when the reek of punchbowls gives a tongue to the staid and demure, and bridal festivity, and harvest-homes, bid a whole valley lift up its voice and be glad. It is more difficult to decide what poetic use he could make of his intercourse with that loose and lawless ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... come there, she took me into the great hall, and made a very dainty and impudent bow, mocking me. And so made me known to another lady, who sat there, upon her task of embroidering, which she did very demure, and as that she had also a dainty Mischief ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson
... sit up night after night to nurse me with the most unrepining patience; but with the fever of the heart, which my Matilda has soothed so often, she has no more sympathy than her old tutor. And yet what provokes me is, that the demure monkey actually has a lover of her own, and that their mutual affection (for mutual I take it to be) has a great deal of complicated and romantic interest. She was once, you must know, a great heiress, but was ruined by the prodigality of her father and the villainy of a horrid ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... wind lifted the edge of her white skirt. She followed the woman's instinct to tuck it safely under her before making demure answer. "Captain Kilmeny is his own certificate of ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine
... daughter she (in Saturns raign, Such mixture was not held a stain) Oft in glimmering Bowres, and glades He met her, and in secret shades Of woody Ida's inmost grove, While yet there was no fear of Jove. 30 Com pensive Nun, devout and pure, Sober, stedfast, and demure, All in a robe of darkest grain, Flowing with majestick train, And sable stole of Cipres Lawn, Over thy decent shoulders drawn. Com, but keep thy wonted state, With eev'n step, and musing gate, And looks commercing with the skies, Thy rapt soul sitting ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... self-evident proposition. It was but yesterday I had before me a glaring specimen of the sort of canting hypocrisy which is the object of my censure. It was a reverend and dignified pillar of the church, as demure as a saint, turning up his eyes, and professing and preaching morality, which I had more than once or twice before heard him do, while, with a sanctified leer, he expressed great horror at my breach of ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt
... we heard some one drive up to the door, and were in a moment greeted by Murden, although at first he did not recognize the two demure looking strangers seated in the room as his ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... out, gently closing the front door behind her. The wide street was almost empty; a milkcart bearing the legend, 'Sales Hall Dairy,' was being drawn at an easy pace by a demure pony, his harness adorned with jingling bells. The milkman whistled and, as the cart stopped here and there, she missed the London milkman's harsh cry, and missed it pleasurably. This man was in no hurry, there was no impatience ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... placed the chairs around the table, then drawing out two of them, turned toward the maidens, his face flushing at the necessity of addressing them, his whole manner betokening the diffidence that beset him. With demure looks but twinkling eyes the girls awaited his next words eagerly. "Have these ...
— Peggy Owen and Liberty • Lucy Foster Madison
... Joseph and, though at heart she was really very fond of him, whenever he attempted to make love to her, she would never listen seriously, but always laugh at him and make fun of his clumsy devotion. This was quite unlike the way a demure Puritan maiden should conduct herself, and at times Elizabeth was obliged to chide her ...
— The Children's Longfellow - Told in Prose • Doris Hayman
... from the tip of her pearly shoulders down to the tip of her pearl-beaded slippers—white and demure. Her skin looked even more pearly than when she wore the brilliant red-velvet gown. It had a pure, dazzling whiteness, different from most skins. It perplexed him. It did not look like flesh, but more like some ethereal substance meant for ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... Here the only dwelling was a tavern, a large house built of stone. On entering it, the party was shown into a spacious apartment, crowded with boatmen and other persons, who had just arrived from St. John's in Canada. The man of the house was a judge; a sullen, demure old gentleman, who sate by the fire, with tattered clothes and dishevelled locks, reading a book, and was totally regardless of every ...
— Travels in North America, From Modern Writers • William Bingley
... He had a charming demure little face, chiefly differing from the faces of the other children of the district by an overwhelming superiority in the matter ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... when women were delightfully irrational creatures, but now they're no longer so. They've become practical and coarse, like men. They smoke, drink, and tell improper stories with demure expression and heads a little on one ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... to that dinner, and did full justice to it. For many, that was the only meal eaten for days. Chester was not seated at the same table as his friends. At his right was a chatty old gentleman and at his left a demure lady who ate in silence. Strangeness, however, is soon worn off when a company of people must eat at the same table for a week; that is, if the dreaded sea-sickness does not interfere too much with the gathering ...
— Story of Chester Lawrence • Nephi Anderson
... advertising age, and an advertising age is a sensational age. Religion itself—the staid, the demure—shares in the general tendency. She preaches in the style of the auction room, she beats drums and shakes tambourines in the streets, she affects criminals and dotes on vice, she bustles about the reformation of confirmed topers. By-and-bye she will get up a mission ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote
... arm, it now flushed as red as the balsam blossoms in the window, and then paled again. She had formerly gazed around her boldly enough, but now she lowered her eyes to the floor as modestly as any demure maiden on ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... to a hearty sorrow for the sins and miscarriages of the time past. Is there a more usual thing than for a man to impose upon himself, by putting on a grave and demure countenance, by casting a severe look into his past conduct, and making some few pious and devout reflections upon it, and then to believe that he has repented to an excellent purpose, without ever letting it step forth into practice, and shew ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift
... manual in the knitted brows and the tightly pressed lips. Then she smiled and the dark eyes grew softly radiant. "The dear old saint!" she whispered; "the dear, dear old saint!" And when Broffin came down a few minutes later, she went to open the hall door for him, serenely demure and with honey on her tongue, as befitted the role of ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... of large grey pearls, from which hung a chaplet of sapphires and opals, lying on her forehead. A veil fell over the back of her head and she sat gazing into her lap as if she were absorbed in prayer; her hands were folded and held a cross. This placid and demure attitude she deemed becoming to a Christian matron and widow. Everyone might see that she had not come for worldly pleasure, but merely to be present at a triumph of her fellow-Christians—and especially her son—over the idolaters. Everything about ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... yet so gentle and kind, You could not but love him I'm sure it you'd try— This dog so demure and so kindly inclined— This dog with the mild and ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... reduced to necessity, scorned by the world, and cast off by her husband, with whom she was paired in her childish years, and forced to fling herself into the arms of Hastings. "In her penance she went," says Holinshed "in countenance and pase demure, so womanlie, that, albeit she were out of all araie, save her kirtle onlie, yet went she so faire and lovelie, namelie, while the woondering of the people cast a comlie rud in hir cheeks, (of which ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 492 - Vol. 17, No. 492. Saturday, June 4, 1831 • Various
... to touch at another port soon, and a ball is given to us there," said Tom, with a demure look; "provided I have the luck to meet a partner with ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... individual dignity and power Engulf'd in Courts, Committees, Institutions, Associations and Societies, A vain, speech-mouthing, speech-reporting Guild, One Benefit-Club for mutual flattery, We have drunk up, demure as at a grace, Pollutions from the brimming cup of wealth; Contemptuous of all honourable rule, Yet bartering freedom and the poor man's life For gold, as at a market! The sweet words Of Christian promise, words that even yet Might stem destruction, were they wisely preached, ...
— Poems of Coleridge • Coleridge, ed Arthur Symons
... humour of her own in spite of her demure looks, laughed at the dejection and martyrdom of Sir Harry; and taking the eagerly-proffered arm of a callow lieutenant, ostentatiously and hopelessly in love with her, went away to play her part of deputy hostess. She moved from group to group, and everywhere received smiles and congratulations, ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... native town, where he spent the remainder of his life in works of charity and mercy. Here we might leave the subject, but cannot refrain from adding a few concluding words as to the moral characteristics of this truly good man. Though habitually religious, he was neither demure nor morose, but cheerful, gay, and humorous. He took great interest in the pleasures of the young people about him, and exerted himself in all ways to promote their happiness. He was fond of books, pictures, poetry, and music, though the indulgence of ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... other. We can speak very low, and we shall not disturb any one." She crossed her feet and rested her elbow on his Gladstone. Though she still wore her gold slippers and stockings, she did not, he thanked Heaven, have on her concert gown, but a very demure black velvet with some sort of pearl trimming about the neck. "Wasn't it funny," she proceeded, "that it happened to be you who picked me up? I wanted a word with ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... in silence until the demure Miss La Noyes reappeared. A narrow, straight-hanging, wrinkleless cloth skirt covered the much discussed under-garment. "Turn slowly, please. Thanks. You see, Mr. Buck? Not a wrinkle. No bunchiness. No lumps. No crawling up about the ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber
... knack of making herself appear ten or fifteen years younger than she is if she needs to. She is chameleonic as to age, and takes on always something of the years of the particular man she is talking to. I saw her talking to the dominie the other night, and a more spiritual-looking bit of demure middle-aged piety you never saw in a nunnery, and the very next day when she was conversing with young George Harris, a Freshman at Yale, at the Barbers' reception, you'd have thought she was herself a Vassar ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... appearance put an end to it. He saw the nurse's slender, capable fingers replace the cap, watched her smooth the tendrils of her hair at the sides. She was demure once more, utterly seemly, and the sly glance she shot him conveyed the hint that she might, perhaps, admit him into the joke. He felt inclined to modify his judgment and give her the benefit of the doubt. "Probably," he heard ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... woman wears her expensive clothes for other women, and produces her "effects" for men. She wears scarlet on a cold or raw day, and the eyes of the men light up when they see her. It makes her look cheerful and bright and warm. She wears gray when she wants to look demure. Let a man beware of a woman in silvery gray. She looks so quiet and dove-like and gentle that she has disarmed him before she has spoken one word, and he will snuggle down beside her and let her turn his mind and his pocket-book wrong side out. A woman could not look ...
— From a Girl's Point of View • Lilian Bell
... loves like a downright pest, especially if she loves us; and I do love you, Mr. Hope, dearly, dearly, and I promise to be a pest to you all your days. Ah, here he comes at last." She made two eager steps to meet him, then she said, "Oh! I forgot," and came back again and looked prodigiously demure and innocent. ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... urge her, and waited till she was somewhat more advanced in age and could mate herself to her own liking. For, said he—and he said quite right—parents are not to settle children in life against their will. But when one least looked for it, lo and behold! one day the demure Marcela makes her appearance turned shepherdess; and, in spite of her uncle and all those of the town that strove to dissuade her, took to going a-field with the other shepherd-lasses of the village, and tending her ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... was so nicely attuned by Trix that Miss Georgiana (nor many of the girls besides Agnes herself) did not hear it. But it got on Agnes' nerves and one afternoon, before the first week of school was over, she turned suddenly on the demure Trix in the middle of ...
— The Corner House Girls at School • Grace Brooks Hill
... light in the sky— a perfume of lilac in the air from the window-boxes and flower-barrows. I took Eve's fingers in mine and held them. I think she knew that something in the nature of an inquisition was coming, for she sat very demure, her eyes fixed on ...
— An Amiable Charlatan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Children's Inari.' It is very small, but very famous; and it has been recently presented with a pair of new stone foxes, very large, which have gilded teeth and a peculiarly playful expression of countenance. These sit one on each side of the gate: the Male grinning with open jaws, the Female demure, with mouth closed. [17] In the court you will find many ancient little foxes with noses, heads, or tails broken, two great Karashishi before which straw sandals (waraji) have been suspended as votive offerings by somebody ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... bright-colored petticoats, and handkerchiefs folded three-cornerwise over the head and knotted under the chin. The costumes of the young girls were modelled after those of their mothers; and the little ladies appeared as demure and walked as stately as their elders. The gentlemen also were garbed in plainer costumes than their wont, and, for custom's sake, rode on horseback even the short distances which little ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton
... show herself to friend or foe until just as the afternoon recess was ended, and then she entered the schoolroom with such a demure, innocent look on her face that every girl knew she had decided upon some plan that promised success. Even Si Kelly looked anxious when she came in, and he immediately resolved to collect, on the very next morning, the money each of the boys was to pay towards the sleigh-ride, in order that no ...
— A District Messenger Boy and a Necktie Party • James Otis
... that my grandmother and my aunt Amelia should both come and take up their residence with my mother, and in due time they arrived. Milly, as my aunt was called, was three years younger than my mother, very pretty and as smart as her sister, perhaps a little more demure in her look, but with more mischief in her disposition. My grandmother was a cross, spiteful old woman; she was very large in her person, but very respectable in her appearance. I need not say that Miss Amelia did not lessen the attraction at the circulating library, ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... man along with me whilst I had a look into the Grey Room. I opened the door, and peeped in. The candles were still burning, wan against the daylight; and behind them was the pale, glowing star of the Electric Pentacle. And there, in the middle, was the ring ... the gateway of the monster, lying demure and ordinary. ...
— Carnacki, The Ghost Finder • William Hope Hodgson
... "that's sad to be sure; But, ah," with a sigh, "no one guesses The cares and anxieties mothers endure. For though Dora appears so sedate and demure, She spends all the money that I can secure On her cloaks and ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, October 1878, No. 12 • Various
... "Your face is demure enough. But you look too damned attractive about those beautiful feet of yours to be respectable ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... A nun demure, of lowly port; Or sprightly maiden, of Love's court, In thy simplicity the sport Of all temptations; A queen in crown of rubies drest; A starveling in a scanty vest; Are all, as seems to suit thee best, ...
— The Evolution of Expression Vol. I • Charles Wesley Emerson
... on the train, and the little girls were glad to meet again. Stella and Molly were about as different as two children could be, for while Molly was headstrong, energetic, and mischievous, Stella was timid, quiet, and demure. ...
— Marjorie's Vacation • Carolyn Wells
... Rabelaisian humour, such as generous souls love. Elia's style is the only thing in English prose that can be called absolutely perfect. Compared with the rich, capricious, wilful, lingering by the way of Lamb's manner, Pater's is precise, demure and over-grave, Wilde's fantastic and over-provocative, ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys
... stood a couch of juniper wood, inlaid with precious stones and surmounted by a canopy of red satin, looped up with pearls as big as hazel-nuts or bigger. Thereon sat a lady of radiant countenance and gentle and demure aspect, moonlike in face, with eyes of Babylonian witchcraft and arched eyebrows, sugared lips like cornelian and a shape like the letter I. The radiance of her countenance would have shamed the rising sun, and ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous
... cooperate with Bob in protecting the fishing of the Blent. She was, in a word, very much the proprietor. It was difficult for Neeld to sit and hear all this. And opposite to him sat Mina Zabriska, rather silent and demure, but losing no chance of reminding him by a stealthy glance that this ordinary talk covered a remarkable situation—as indeed it did, but not of the precise nature that Mina supposed. Neeld felt as though he were behind the scenes of fate's theatre, and he did not find ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope
... schemer! And it is for that you cover up that beautiful hair of yours, and wear that demure cap? ...
— The Wolves and the Lamb • William Makepeace Thackeray
... luncheon yesterday. He is very much grown, and looks uncommonly demure, and as much disposed to set ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Whatever his grace may think of himself, they look upon him, and everything that belongs to him, with no more regard than they do upon the whiskers of that little long-tailed animal, that has been long the game of the grave, demure, insidious, spring-nailed, velvet-pawed, green-eyed philosophers, whether going upon two ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... I don't worship Miss Preston," replied Stella, always ready to tease, "she looks so demure. And as for dressing, why, Ada and Sophy wouldn't be seen out in the morning in that common-looking ...
— Lucy Raymond - Or, The Children's Watchword • Agnes Maule Machar |
