"Maidenly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sweet side o' the Nith's winding river, Are lovers as faithful, and maidens as fair: To equal young Jessie seek Scotland all over; To equal young Jessie you seek it in vain; Grace, beauty, and elegance fetter her lover, And maidenly ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... cannot doubt the woman he adores: for he adores her because he believes and has proved her to be above all doubt. We may fairly conjecture that Othello's passion for the simple Venetian damsel was love at first sight. He loved Desdemona because she was pretty, and looked at him with sweet maidenly glances of pity when he told those prosy stories of his—with full traveller's license, no ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... Margaret, pulling a flower to pieces to discover whether Faust loves her; a very type of virginity and simplicity. The statue of Cleopatra, now only fourteen days advanced in the clay, is as wide a step from the little maidenly Margaret as any artist could take; it is a grand subject, and he is conceiving it with depth and power, and working it out with adequate skill. He certainly is sensible of something deeper in his art than merely to make beautiful ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... interesting, too. To be loved, even by the wrong person, seems in youth's selfish eyes to light up the world as the candle lights the Japanese lantern. And besides, after all, one can't be sure. And it is not maidenly to say "No," even by the vaguest movements of retreat, to a question that has not been asked ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... saw I mien or face, In which more plainly I could trace Benignity and home-bred sense Ripening in perfect innocence. Here scattered, like a random seed, Remote from men, thou dost not need The embarrassed look of shy distress, And maidenly shamefacedness: Thou wear'st upon thy forehead clear The freedom of a mountaineer: A face with gladness overspread! Soft smiles, by human kindness bred! And seemliness complete, that sways Thy courtesies, about thee plays; With no restraint, but such as springs ...
— Memories • Max Muller
... knew she was handsome, and knew also that Andrew would never feel one heart-throb more because of any such beauty as hers. Had he not as good as told her she was one of the dead who would not come alive! It would be something to be loved by a man like that! But Alexa was too maidenly to think of making any man love her—and even if he loved her she could not marry a man in Andrew's position! She might stretch a point or two were the lack but a point or two, but there was no stretching points to the marrying of a peasant, without education, who worked on his father's farm! The ...
— The Elect Lady • George MacDonald
... while in the water the princess was very like other people. And besides this, she was not so forward in her questions or pert in her replies at sea as on shore. Neither did she laugh so much; and when she did laugh, it was more gently. She seemed altogether more modest and maidenly in the water than out of it. But when the prince, who had really fallen in love when he fell in the lake, began to talk to her about love, she always turned her head towards him and laughed. After a while she ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... said the Dame. "Do not ruffle up thy feathers like a pigeon that has got bread-crumbs when he looked for corn! Why, child, 'tis but what all women have to put up with. We all have our calf-loves and bits of maidenly fancies, but who ever thought they were to rule the roast? Sure, Clarice, thou hast ...
— A Forgotten Hero - Not for Him • Emily Sarah Holt
... these girls, and in the whole tone of their appearance, than in the absolute loveliness of their features or the grace of their figures. There was about them a dignity of demeanour devoid of all stiffness or pride, and a maidenly modesty which gave itself no airs. In them was always apparent that sense of security which women should receive from an unconscious dependence on their own mingled purity and weakness. These two girls were never afraid of men,—never looked as though they were so afraid. And ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... also, his princess had recovered from her disappointment. Maybe she had been married off to some nobody of Portugal, or France, or Austria, for state reasons, and had entered on the usual loveless life of royalty. Or she may have beguiled her maidenly solitude by drinking much wine of Oporto, Madeira, and Xeres with her dinner, thereby acquiring that amplitude of girth, that ruddiness of countenance, and that polish of nose, which add so little to romance. At all events, we hear nothing more ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... of the brightest and most brilliant threads that compose the web of existence. It may not be said that this forest maiden was deeply and foolishly smitten at first sight. All reasonable time and space were granted to the claims of maidenly modesty. As for Boone, he was incurably wounded by her, whose eyes he had shined, and as he was remarkable for the backwoods attribute of never being beaten out of his track, he ceased not to woo, until he gained the heart of Rebecca Bryan. In a word, he courted her successfully, ...
— The First White Man of the West • Timothy Flint
... though he was not yet famous, Harriet Westbrook, the rosy-faced schoolgirl, fell in love with him, and rather plainly let him know that she had done so. There are a thousand ways in which a woman can convey this information without doing anything un-maidenly; and of all these little arts Miss Westbrook was ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... from one white company to the other," quoth Aylward. "But, by these ten finger-bones! it is a passing strange thing to me to think that it was but in the last fall of the leaf that we walked from Lyndhurst together, he so gentle and maidenly, and you, John, like a great red-limbed overgrown moon-calf; and now here you are as sprack a squire and as lusty an archer as ever passed down the highway from Bordeaux, while I am still the same old Samkin Aylward, with never a change, save that I have a few more ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the elevator, I was painfully conscious of two ideas. One was that Marguerite had been quite correct with her information about the free women who found it profitable to play the role of maidenly innocence. The other was that Dr. Zimmern's precious geography was in the hands of the artful, child-eyed hypocrite who had so cleverly beguiled me with her role of heroic virtue. Clearly, I was trapped, and to judge better with ...
— City of Endless Night • Milo Hastings
... of her dimples had vanished. She looked so sweetly grave, and withal so maidenly, sitting there slightly smoothing the lengths of her pink fingers, that ...
— The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... on this? Do men know how their young daughters feel when the first suggestion comes that they are not regarded as born for perpetual daughterhood in the father's house? Would she even encumber his plans, if she clung still to her maidenly life? ...
— Faith Gartney's Girlhood • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... chatter around her to remember that something pleasant had happened. Not that there was any foolishness in her thoughts. There was too much dignity and simplicity about the girl, young as she was, to allow her to deal even with her own thoughts in any but a maidenly way, and it was not in the ordinary way of a maid with a man that she thought of this young soldier. He was so far removed from her life in every way, and all the well-drilled formalities, that it never occurred to her to think ...
— The Search • Grace Livingston Hill
... has not often been visited in his dreams by maidenly ideals fairer than walk on earth, whom, waking, he has sighed for and for days been followed by the haunting beauty of their half-remembered faces? I, more fortunate than they, had baffled the jealous warder at the gates of sleep and brought my ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... little story it was, interspersed with sly looks, knowing nods, and rippling bursts of laughter. Listened to with, first, disdainful silence; then, growing interest; last, spasmodic giggles, apropos ejaculations, and much blushing and maidenly confusion. ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... piazza, talking and laughing, begging to see the manuscript, teasing Theodora about her secretiveness, and congratulating her again and again. It was an attractive group, Theodora in the midst, a tall, handsome girl in the full ripeness of her maidenly beauty, her arm linked in that of her twin brother, while pretty Hope stood facing them, with Archie at ...
— Teddy: Her Book - A Story of Sweet Sixteen • Anna Chapin Ray
... from the interest in the safety of her person, which is in constant jeopardy from the jealousy of her half-sister, Elizabeth wins upon the reader by her modest, maidenly bearing, her frankness of manner, and by a playfulness of disposition which readily adapts itself to the restraints which the Queen is ever placing upon her person, and which endears her to the ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... creature whatsoever suffer, not even the meanest. (Looking at her critically, but with dignity.) And for you, my child, I am sincerely sorry; I may say that much, after you have so far fought down your maidenly pride as to wait for me here. But please, Miss Coeurne, do take into account the life I have to lead. Just think of the mere question of time! At least two hundred, may be as many as three hundred charmingly attractive young girls of your age saw me on the ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... wasna maidenly. If that's what you want to be saying to me, Neal Ward. The other lassie wouldna have done it. Maybe not. But a' the lads I knew well were turning out and going to the fight, and what was to hinder a poor, wild lassie, that nobody cared about, from going, too? ...
— The Northern Iron - 1907 • George A. Birmingham
... office, which made his income a really splendid one. Certainly he spared no expense upon his ward. She was taught reading, writing, grammar, music, and embroidery by the best tutors the town could provide, and she grew daily, we are told, in beauty and maidenly charm. ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford
... wished; all these nothings were great events for me. Eyes and voice and gestures were freighted with mysterious messages of love in hours of ecstasy like these, and this was the only language permitted me by the quiet maidenly reserve of the young girl before me. Her manner towards me underwent no change; with me she was always as a sister with a brother; yet, as my passion grew, and the contrast between her glances and mine, her words and my utterance, became more striking, I felt at last ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... blooming gay plants lay the maidenly form raised upon cushions, pale, in a white robe, her lovely slender hands folded and holding a crucifix, her eyes closed, dark black tresses hanging full and heavy round her head, on which a wreath of roses and cypress and ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... be keen on the Suffrage movement, which he wasn't, and concealed a wife; the second was a Being too perfect to endure beyond Chapter 10, where he expires eloquently of heart-failure, leaving Alan, the third, to bear the white man's burden and clasp Frieda to his maidenly heart. This sentimental progress is, I suppose, what is implied by the title and the symbolic staircase (if it is a staircase?) on the wrapper. But my trouble was that I could never discern in the sweet girl-graduate any ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, April 23, 1919 • Various
... said Miss Howard, repulsing his familiar attempt to take her arm; and then advancing, with a maidenly dignity, nigher to her guardian, she continued, "I cannot know what stipulations have been agreed to by my cousin Plowden, in the secret treaty she has made this night with Mr. Barnstable: this for myself, Colonel Howard, I would have you credit your brother's child when she ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... disappointed face as he stood hat in hand, awoke regret and perhaps a trifle of girlish gratification. She had been sorry herself to miss that half hour among the roses but she was still too young and too happy to know how few are such hours, how irrevocable such losses. Also, it had seemed good to her maidenly pride that Dr. Callandar should know—well, that he should see—just exactly what he should know and see she did not formulate. But underneath her temporary disappointment she felt as light and glad as a bird ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... him from the dining-room window, and after some moments of maidenly hesitation rambled out into the garden in a reverse direction to Mr. Fortescue's steps, and encountered him with an ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... couldn't end it. It simply coiled and uncoiled itself and went off, in great loops, into eternity. It began in all innocence—naturally, as it was his maiden speech—when he rose, don't you know, to propose an amendment. I take it that speech was so maidenly that it shrank from anything in the nature of a proposal. It went on in a terrified manner, coyly considering and hesitating—till it cleared the House. And he was awfully pleased when we congratulated him on ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair
... me. I shall not reproach you. You are the master of your own actions. You have one daughter who is twelve years old; in a short time she will be a marriageable girl. I have not come to this house to make a scene, nor do I wish to preach about morality, or religion, or God, or maidenly innocence, subjects which great men and grand gentlemen simply sneer at as the stock-in-trade of hypocrites. I will therefore tell you in a couple of words why I have come. All I ask is that you ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... Blanche was slender and graceful as no other girl, and still better than that, more maidenly than ever maiden was; a maiden all ignorant of love, who knew not why or what it was; a maiden who wondered why certain people lingered in their beds; a maiden who believed that children were found in ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... they not together, alone, practically, in these blessed solitudes? Would they not meet to-morrow, and next day, and the day after? Were not time and opportunity all his own? How kind her looks are even now! Courage! And through that maidenly kindness his own passion shall send the ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... found me sleeping by the river's edge, she had made almost a daily pilgrimage to that vicinity. A maidenly premonition, a feeling that had first come to her several years before, told her of my coming, and her father's knowledge and scientific beliefs had led her to the outer surface of the world as the direction in which ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings
... it, Berna, I don't like it at all. I hate you to know the like of such people, such things. I just want you to be again the dear, sweet little girl I first knew, all maidenly modesty ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... her eyes set steadily and imperiously upon mine, I was filled with admiration and astonishment, and thought her even more beautiful than I had looked to find her. Nor could I think enough of one who, acting with so much boldness, yet preserved a maidenly air that was both quaint and engaging; for my wife kept an old-fashioned precision of manner through all her admirable life - an excellent thing in woman, since it sets another value on her ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... private claims to modest respect were so great as hers are known to be," said the same critic, "with such self-denial fling off their protection in her resolution to lay hold of the public at all risks. Her performances at times approached offense against maidenly reticence and delicacy. When she played Zerlina, in 'Don Giovanni,' such virtue as there was between the two seemed absolutely on the side of the libertine hero—so much invitation was thrown into the peasant girl's rusticity." Here was a capital ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... the longed-for letter did not come. Tillie tried to gather courage to question the doctor as to whether Fairchilds had made any arrangement with him for the delivery of a letter to her. But an instinct of maidenly reserve and pride which, she could not conquer kept her lips ...
— Tillie: A Mennonite Maid - A Story of the Pennsylvania Dutch • Helen Reimensnyder Martin
... Culpepero! If we throw ourselves unasked at your Excellency's feet (courtesy), if we appear unsought before the light of your Excellency's eyes (courtesy), if we err in maidenly decorum in thus seeking unbidden your Excellency's presence (courtesy), believe us, it is the fear of some greater, some graver indecorum in our conduct that has withdrawn your Excellency's person from us since you have graced ...
— Two Men of Sandy Bar - A Drama • Bret Harte
... instance, moreover, it involved a departure from dramatic probability. Euphrasia could, at any moment, by revealing her identity, have averted the greatest sufferings and dangers from Philaster, Arethusa, and herself, and the only motive for her keeping silence is represented to have been a feeling of maidenly shame at her position. Such strained and fantastic motives are too often made the pivot of the action in Beaumont and Fletcher's tragi-comedies. Their characters have not the depth and truth of Shakspere's, nor are they drawn so sharply. One reads their plays with pleasure and ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... we and our contiguity were not of the smallest importance to Miss March. Her fresh morning roses did not deepen, nor her eyes droop, as she looked for a moment at us both—a quiet, maidenly look of mere observation. Of course no recognition passed; but there was a merry dimple beside her mouth, as if she quite well knew who we were, and owned to a little harmless feminine curiosity ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... broadly. With his lawyer's caution, he waited a moment outside his wife's room, where he heard Lydia's voice, to see if her mother had hit upon some happy inspiration to quiet the girl's exaggerated maidenly shyness. He had the tenderest indulgence to his daughter's confusion, but he was not without a humorous, middle-aged realization of the extremely transitory nature of this phase of youth. He had lived long enough to ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... yet nothing could be more dissimilar or incomparable than these two beauties. Elizabeth's was wholly earthly, voluptuous, glowing with youth and love, but Eleonore's was chaste and sublime, pure and maidenly. Elizabeth allured to ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... Mr. Oxenham swaggered into the tavern, followed by his new men; and the boy took his way homewards, nursing his precious horn, trembling between hope and fear, and blushing with maidenly shame, and a half-sense of wrong-doing at having revealed suddenly to a stranger the darling wish which he had hidden from his father and mother ever since he was ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... told him: "You," or "according to your merchant fashion," it seemed to Foma that she was pushing him away from her with these words. This at once saddened and offended him. He was silent, looking at her small maidenly figure, which was always somehow particularly well dressed, always sweet-scented like a flower. Sometimes he was seized with a wild, coarse desire to embrace and kiss her. But her beauty and the fragility ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky
... I thought. But soon after these events another friend prevailed upon me to sample with him a most excellent brand of champagne. The blood mounts to my cheeks in "maidenly" shame as I now chronicle the occurrence. This friend said: "You don't know what a feeling of exhilaration and well-being a little good champagne will give you. Try it once; don't associate it with common ...
— Confessions of a Neurasthenic • William Taylor Marrs
... moment, would attempt to suggest that his call was unthinking and without significance. But, gentlemen, I shall prove to you that such was the foolish, self-convicting custom of the defendant. With the greatest reluctance, and the—er—greatest pain, I succeeded in wresting from the maidenly modesty of my fair client the innocent confession that the defendant had induced her to correspond with him in these methods. Picture to yourself, gentlemen, the lonely moonlight road beside the widow's humble cottage. ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... other girl in a kind of rage of maidenly shame. "Why have I got to get married, anyway?" she demanded. "Isn't there anything in this world besides getting married? Why do you all talk so about me? You don't seem so bent on getting married yourself. If you think so much of marriage, why don't ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... All that was maidenly and defensive in Miss Pillenger leaped to arms under that smile. It ran in and out among her nerve-centres. It had been long in arriving, this moment of crisis, but here it undoubtedly was at last. After twenty years an employer was going to court ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... Naomi's shyness of speech dropped away from her, and what was left was only a sweet maidenly unconsciousness of all faults and failings, with a soft and playful lisp that ran in and out among the simple words that fell from her red lips like a young squirrel among the fallen leaves of autumn. It would be a long task to tell how her lisping tongue turned everything then to ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine
... girls judged that there would be scant mercy for any sinner who failed to reach the required standard. A terrible atmosphere of gloomy convention pervaded the school. Miss Beasley was anxious for her pupils to appear at their very best before her scholarly brother, whose ideal of maidenly propriety was almost mediaeval, and she kept a keen eye on their behaviour. Nobody dared to speak at meal-times, except a whispered request for such necessary articles as salt and butter; laughter was out of the question, and even a smile was felt to be inappropriate. The girls sat subdued ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... he told his family that he was going to seek his fortune and, bidding them farewell, embarked on a slave ship. Their tears at his departure, the memory of how they followed him, renewing their farewell, how his affianced wife, forgetting her maidenly shyness, convulsively embraced him, covering his face with tears and kisses, sinking unconscious on the shore as his boat tossed on the waves toward the ship—all these things remained forever engraved on William's heart, though Fate in after days ...
— The Corsair King • Mor Jokai
... vaguely, if she, like Aunt Jane, would grow to a loveless old age. It seemed probable, for, at twenty-five, The Prince had not appeared. She had her work and was happy; yet unceasingly, behind those dark eyes, Ruth's soul kept maidenly match for its mate. ...
— Lavender and Old Lace • Myrtle Reed
... am far away: For never saw I mien, or face, In which more plainly I could trace 25 Benignity and home-bred sense Ripening in perfect innocence. Here scattered, like a random seed, Remote from men, Thou dost not need The embarrassed look of shy distress, 30 And maidenly shamefacedness: Thou wear'st upon thy forehead clear The freedom of a Mountaineer: A face with gladness overspread! Soft smiles, [6] by human kindness bred! 35 And seemliness complete, that sways Thy courtesies, about thee plays; With no restraint, but such as springs From quick and eager visitings ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... Dane beheld such a vision of loveliness and maidenly charm. The girl fascinated him, and moved by a sudden impulse, he was upon the point of going to her side, fearful lest she should vanish, when the Major's voice ...
— The King's Arrow - A Tale of the United Empire Loyalists • H. A. Cody
... courage, her devotion, and all she has done for you. Can you say that she abandons and denies you,—she who set aside all her reserve and her timidity for your sake, and came and spent a whole night in this prison? She was risking nothing less than her maidenly honor; for she might have been discovered or betrayed. She knew that very well, nevertheless ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... what was supposed to be my maidenly modesty cut me like a knife, but I could not permit myself to explain, so my Aunt ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... sense, but her complexion was good, her eyes were bright, her mouth expressive and her teeth fine. She had a great deal of wit, liked to use it, and did use it upon Mr. Child who was a frequent visitor; but her deportment was always maidenly and lady-like." ...
— Daughters of the Puritans - A Group of Brief Biographies • Seth Curtis Beach
... yet; Lawrence and Lowell. Pittsburg, and the great industrial New York towns, were still in the womb of the future. In almost every household throughout the land the old-fashioned spinning- wheel was humming under the pressure of matronly and maidenly feet, by which the homespun garments of the time were made. While the less well- to-do and laboring classes were content with clothing spun and knitted at their own firesides, the wealthier people arrayed themselves with far more ostentation ...
— The Nation in a Nutshell • George Makepeace Towle
... story, and its poetic capacities. The overmastering passion of love was evidently as present to the Indian mind as to that of the mediaeval Italian. In New as well as in Old Spain it could break the barriers of rank and overcome the hesitations of maidenly modesty. Love clouding the soul, as night obscures the day, is a figure of speech, used, I remember, by the most pathetic ...
— American Hero-Myths - A Study in the Native Religions of the Western Continent • Daniel G. Brinton
... fate. Zerbine loudly swears that this marriage shall never take place, and tries to console her weeping mistress. Matamore attributes this rather discouraging demonstration on the part of Isabelle to an excess of maidenly modesty, not doubting her penchant for himself, though he acknowledges that he has not yet properly paid his court, nor shown himself in all his glory to her—this last from prudential motives, fearing lest she might be dangerously dazzled ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... description; in the midst of which she tried to see a common-place rustic beauty, but could not quite succeed; and half against her will began to yield to the illusion (if illusion it was) which presented to her a queenly yet maidenly vision, a brilliant flower which might be worth transplanting from the woods even to the stately shelter of Hunsdon. It was clear enough that this girl, whatever she might be, had too firm a hold upon Maurice's heart ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 2 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... gray eyes. She was dressed very simply in white, with a blue band across her hair, and a blue scarf and sash around throat and waist. Her face, though showing signs of quiet strength, and of a self-confidence which was the flower of maidenly modesty and innocence, was not beautiful according to any recognized standard. Bressant, from his intuitive perception of form and proportion, was aware of this. The forehead was too high, the nose irregular, the mouth lacked the perfect curve, and the teeth, though ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... hand, (which she is bound to accept,) leads her into the centre, salutes her on the lips, and retires, taking his stand in the expectant circle. The girl, in her turn, throws a favorable regard on some fortunate young man, offers her hand to lead him forth, makes him happy with a maidenly kiss, and withdraws to hide her blushes, if any there be, among the simpering faces in the ring; while the favored swain loses no time in transferring her salute to the prettiest and plumpest among the many mouths that are primming themselves in anticipation. And thus ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... which he inhaled with a zest almost peculiar to a physical organization so refined that spiritual ingredients are moulded in with it. It was betrayed in the unconscious smile with which he regarded Phoebe, whose fresh and maidenly figure was both sunshine and flowers,—their essence, in a prettier and more agreeable mode of manifestation. Not less evident was this love and necessity for the Beautiful, in the instinctive caution with which, even so soon, his eyes turned away from his hostess, and wandered to any quarter ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... thoughts of the lover were as blows upon strung musical chords of her bosom. Her union with Dartrey was for the having an ally and the being an ally, in resolute vision of strife ahead, through the veiled dreams that bear the blush. This was behind a maidenly demureness. Are not young women hypocrites? Who shall fathom their guile! A girl with a pretty smile, a gentle manner, a liking for wild flowers up on the rocks; and graceful with resemblances to the swelling proportions of garden-fruits approved in young women by the connoisseur eye of man; ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... to the sun, led me to ask, "What right have you to approach such a creature? Think of her needs, of her being first, and not your own. Would you drag her into the turmoil of your world because she would be a solace? Would you disturb the maidenly serenity of that brow with knowledge of evil and misery, the nightly record of which you have collated so long that you are callous? You, whose business it is to look behind the scenes of life, will you disenchant her also? It is your duty to unmask hypocrisy, and ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... measure his own worth. There are many, as much above me in beauty as they are in rank; many who cannot venture to show the concern they doubtless feel. What has a poor slave girl to do with maidenly modesty—the plaything of any master who chooses to smile upon her for ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... and, being utterly without experience of the emotion even in its protective form of calf-love, which is the varioloid of the genuine infection, she imagined through sheer sympathy that she shared his passion. So she assented with maidenly reserve to his plea that she promise to marry him when he should return and provide a home for her. Her more cautious mother secured a modification of this pledge by limiting the time that Echo should wait for him to one year. If at the expiration of that period Lane did not return to claim ...
— The Round-up - A Romance of Arizona novelized from Edmund Day's melodrama • John Murray and Marion Mills Miller
... to the doorway, and stood in her maidenly dignity, confronting the pirates, who fell back a step, as ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... had had a little more self-control she would have attenuated the emotion to nothing by sheer reasoning, and so have killed it off. If she had had a little less pride she might have gone and circumambulated the Yeobrights' premises at Blooms-End at any maidenly sacrifice until she had seen him. But Eustacia did neither of these things. She acted as the most exemplary might have acted, being so influenced; she took an airing twice or thrice a day upon the Egdon hills, and kept ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... quiet as he gathered up the reins, and it was not until they were well on their way along the Trumansburg road that the boy turned to her. How beautiful she looked, her shoulders completely covered with dusky-dark curls and her head bowed in maidenly shyness! All his doubts as to the expediency of his act were set at rest. She was deeply essential to his happiness, to his progress. To know she was his wife, married to him, so that none could separate them, would make his absences from Tessibel much easier ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... Thomson and with Johnson. He kept pouring out song after song, criticising, rewriting, changing what was foul and impure into songs of the tenderest delicacy. He showed love in every mood, from the rapture of pure passion in the Lea Rig, the maidenly abandon of Whistle and I'll come to you, my Lad, to the humour of Last May a Braw Wooer and Duncan Gray, and the guileless devotion of O wert thou in the Cauld Blast. But he sang of more than love. Turning from the coldness of the high and mighty, who had once been his friends, he ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun
... in a low, lounging chair with a big ostrich feather fan in her hand, and she looked up expectantly into her lover's face. There was nothing else for it, and he took the plunge valiantly—and with precisely the correct amount of maidenly hesitancy, Lady Ethel named a day for their marriage. And then—somehow there seemed nothing more to be said; ...
— If Only etc. • Francis Clement Philips and Augustus Harris
... wife's fulness of help, till all her and his days together he is able to say, I have of God a helpmeet indeed! For in how many sloughs do many men lie till this daughter of Help gives them her hand, and out of how many more sloughs are they all their days by her delivered and kept! Sweet, maidenly, and most sensible Mercy was a great help to widow Christiana at the slough, and to her and her sons all the way up to the river—a very present help in many a need to her future mother-in-law and her pilgrim sons. Let every young ...
— Bunyan Characters - First Series • Alexander Whyte
... beneath the arches of a Suabian forest, with Gilbert de Hers and Henry de Stramen facing each other's swords as mortal foes; it closes with Gilbert and Henry, now reconciled, kneeling at the tomb of the fair and lovely Lady Margaret, their hates forgotten before the grave of innocence and maidenly devotion, and learning from the hallowed memory of the dead, the lesson of that ...
— The Truce of God - A Tale of the Eleventh Century • George Henry Miles
... wishing to lead Mr. Goulden to commit himself, for as far as she could love any one beyond herself she loved him, and she also realized fully that he could continue to her all that her elegant and expensive tastes craved. Notwithstanding her show of maidenly pride and reserve, she was ready enough to do as she had been bidden. Mr. Allen guessed as much. Indeed, as was quite natural, his wife was the type of the average woman to his mind, only he believed that ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... doings, and betimes her breast would heave and her dexterous hand tremble and falter to hear of dangers past; or, talking of the future, her gracious head would droop with cheeks that flushed most maidenly, until Beltane, kneeling to her loveliness, would clasp her in his arms, while she, soft-voiced, would bid ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... seemed constrained and distant in his manner, but I knew, that is, I thought—I mean I felt—oh, you know—he looked as if he were glad to see me and I—I, oh, God! I was so glad and happy to see him that I could hardly restrain myself to act at all maidenly. He must have heard my heart beat. I thought he was in trouble. He seemed to have something he ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major
... that I am not deficient in maidenly modesty," said Lady Julia, "when it is not incompatible with what I deem a higher virtue—sincerity. Now and ever, frankness is, and shall be, my only policy. The confidence I am about to repose in you, sir, is the strongest proof of my esteem, ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... clear-sighted not to have seen that Bee had fixed her pure maidenly affections upon him, and to see also that Bee's choice was well approved by her parents, who had long loved him as a son. While Ishmael's hands had been busy with the book- packing his thoughts had been busy with Bee and with the problem that her love presented him. He had loved Claudia ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... cheerfulness and pleasantness, such native good sense and Christian discretion, such sincerity, gentleness, and tenderness, that nothing could be more delightful. The matronly virtues of Christiana, and the maidenly qualities of Mercy, are alike pleasing and appropriate. There is a mixture of timidity and frankness in Mercy, which is as sweet in itself as it is artlessly and unconsciously drawn; and in Christiana we discover the very characteristics that can make the most ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... What had her fair, unclouded brow, her innocent face, her maidenly bearing in common with the vain, voluptuous, and corrupt women around, who were so lost to shame as not only to do homage to the king's mistresses, but to envy them the ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... struck by the large proportion of young people in the place, of all classes, both sexes, and strongly contrasting faces. Delicate girls looking with the sweet wistfulness of maidenly hearts for something strong to lean upon and love; sad-eyed women turning to heaven for the consolations or the satisfactions earth could not give them; anxious mothers perplexed with many cares, trying to find light and strength; young men ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... but Genevieve was too simple, genuine, and grateful to pause in selfish embarrassment. Had she toyed with Gilbert's affection, she could not have met his father with such maidenly modesty, and sweet sympathy and respect in her blushing cheek ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of the world, Son to Alemena and great Jupiter, After so many conquests won in field, After so many monsters quelled by force, Yielded his valiant heart to Omphale, A fearful woman void of manly strength. She took the club, and wear the lion's skin; He took the wheel, and maidenly gan spin. So martial Locrine, cheered with victory, Falleth in love with Humber's concubine, And so forgetteth peerless Gwendoline. His uncle Corineius storms at this, And forceth Locrine for his grace to sue. Lo here the sum, the ...
— 2. Mucedorus • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... noble prince, my fond heart is gushing With thoughts that no language can ever reveal; With the sweetest affection this warm cheek is blushing, And hopes to my maidenly bosom will steal, Of a time when our souls, with united expression, Shall mingle with harmony more than divine; And the priest—be he Greek, or of any profession— Shall bless this poor hand ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... dressed in her bridal garments, and as she knelt in all the bloom of her maidenly beauty, angels must have rejoiced over her; for the spirit of the maiden was in a heaven of love, and she knelt in the fulness of her joy, to pour out her gratitude to the Heavenly Father, that "seeth in secret." Yes, alone in her chamber, the young girl bowed herself ...
— The Wedding Guest • T.S. Arthur
... Truly, a marvellous change! In the dark night thou takest a roundhead prisoner; in the gray of the morning thou settest him free again! Hath one visit to his chamber so wrought upon thee? To an old man it seemeth less than maidenly.' ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... woman. On that most blissful evening, the sweetest prelude ever played by a Parisienne to what the world calls "a slip"; in spite of all her affectations of a coyness which she did not feel, the General saw all maidenly beauty in her. He had some excuse for believing that so many storms of caprice had been but clouds covering a heavenly soul; that these must be lifted one by one like the veils that hid her divine loveliness. The Duchess became, for him, the most simple and girlish mistress; she was the one woman ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... side. The mistress wore an equally memorable brocade, enormous bouquets thrown upon a silvery ground, so stiff and shiny that it seemed a texture of ice and frozen flowers. Her hair was cushioned and powdered; she looked comely and stately, and wore her lustres well. The pretty Bessie was attired in maidenly white muslin, an India fabric of marvellous fineness, with a sash and streamers of blue, and the light fleecy curls of her hair unadorned save by a slight pendent spray of jasmines. Her cousin's dress, though ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... her. As it was, she blamed her friend for inexcusable affectation. "I'm not sure," she reflected, "that a girl can be a detective—a regular detective—without spoiling her disposition or losing to some an extent her maidenly modesty. Of course, Josie has been brought up in an atmosphere of mystery and can't be blamed for her peculiarities, but—-I'm glad I'm not ...
— Mary Louise and the Liberty Girls • Edith Van Dyne (AKA L. Frank Baum)
... forgotten—but must not forget— An orator, the latest of the session, Who had delivered well a very set Smooth speech, his first and maidenly transgression Upon debate: the papers echoed yet With his debut, which made a strong impression, And ranked with what is every day displayed— "The best first speech that ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... once to her mother—so she called my cousin—and tell her so. Thus saying, she left me. And I—I did not then understand the struggle and the victory of the poor girl over herself. I did not reflect that no maidenly blush, no charming confusion, announced my happy destiny,—no kiss, no caress, no sign that the heart's citadel had surrendered; but, instead, a calmness, a composure, and a hastening from my presence. No, I thought nothing of this; I only considered that now the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... decided that they must do nothing that is so utterly unfeminine. 'But there are many subtle little ways in which a woman can convey to a man her preference for him,' I penned, 'without for a moment overstepping the bounds of that maidenly reticence which is one of ...
— Our Elizabeth - A Humour Novel • Florence A. Kilpatrick
... book of a friend of mine, was of old a house inhabited by three maidens. They left no near kinsfolk, I believe; if they did, I have no ill to speak of them; for they lived and died in all good report and maidenly credit. The house they lived in was of the small, gambrel-roofed cottage pattern, after the shape of Esquires' houses, but after the size of the dwellings of handicraftsmen. The lower story was fitted up as a shop. Specially was it provided with one of those half-doors ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... the Baptist was so clearly part of that of Jesus, that Mary could hardly recall the one without the other. And, besides, Elisabeth, as the angel said, was her kinswoman—perhaps her cousin—to whom she naturally turned in the hour of her maidenly astonishment and rapture. Though much younger, Mary was united to her relative by a close and tender tie, and it was only natural that what had happened to Elisabeth should have impressed her almost as deeply as her own memorable experiences. So it is possible that from the lips of ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer
... might have ended in a manner pleasant to Moriarty and interesting to the pig. The attraction of the occult would in all probability have overcome Mary Ellen's maidenly suspicions. She might not have sat upon the wall. She would have almost certainly have yielded her sticky hand if a sudden sound had not startled Moriarty. A motor-car hooted at the far end of the village street. Moriarty jumped ...
— General John Regan - 1913 • George A. Birmingham
... eyes shook and glittered in the sunshine; they seemed to emit lights from behind the black lashes surrounding them; the ruddy lips were quivering. There was an innocence about her brow, and yet a mystic wonder in her eyes which formed a mingling of the child-like with the maidenly ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... Hermia, have we two, sitting on one cushion, both singing one song, with our needles working the same flower, both on the same sampler wrought; growing up together in fashion of a double cherry, scarcely seeming parted? Hermia, it is not friendly in you, it is not maidenly, to join with men in scorning your ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... home until the house is broken up; and then they retire in a galaxy to some provincial Belle Vue-terrace or Prospect-place; where they endeavour to forestall the bachelors with promiscuous orange-blossoms and maidenly susceptibilities. We have characterised these heart-burning efforts after "station," as originating with, and maintained by, the female branches of the family; and they are so—but, nevertheless, their influence on the young men is no less ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... tries to seduce her. She resists every temptation, and at length marries the young squire, and reforms him. Pamela is very pure and modest, bears her afflictions with much meekness, and is a model of maidenly prudence and rectitude. The story is told in a series of letters which Pamela sends to her parents.—S. Richardson, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... magnetizi. Magnetism magnetismo. Magnificent belega. Magnify pligrandigi. Magnitude grandeco. Magpie pigo. Mahogany mahagono. Mahomet Mahometo. Mahometan Mahometano. Maid frauxlino. Maiden virgulino. Maidenly virga. Maid-servant servistino. Mail posxto. Mail (armour) masxo. Maim vundegi. Mainly cxefe. Maintain subteni. Maintain (assert) pretendi. Maintenance subtenado. Maize maizo. Majestic majesta. Majesty majesto. Major (milit.) ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... Nevertheless, the feeling existed that she wished one of the others had stayed instead of him. It was born, no doubt, partly of the wave of shyness running through her, but partly too of instinctive maidenly resistance to something in his look, in the assurance of his manner, that seemed to claim too much. Last night he had taken her by storm and at advantage. Something of shame stirred in her that he had found her so easy a conquest, something too of a new vague fear of ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... recaptured by a modern painter with more force and fire of fancy than in the "Galatea." The tenderness of Christian feeling has found no more exalted expression than in the multitudes of the Madonnas, one more lovely than another, like roses on a tree in June, from the maidenly "Madonna del Gran' Duca" to the celestial vision of the San Sisto, that sublimest lyric of the art of Catholicity.[260] It is only by hurrying through a list like this that we can appreciate the many-sided perfection ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... is throbbing as he steps quickly to her side. Well, indeed, she knows his foot-fall; knows he is coming; almost knows why he comes. She is burning with a sense of humiliation, wounded pride, maidenly wrath, and displeasure. All day long everything has gone agley. Could she but flee to her room and hide her flaming cheeks and cry her heart out, it would be relief inexpressible, but her retreat is cut off. She cannot ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... situation! No time or chance for any maidenly hesitation or softening aureole of words. Aunt and Mrs. Saxby had almost reached the point where they invariably turned. I had barely time to spell out a plain, blunt "yes" ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... was all very pleasant. It gave an instant rose colour to her life. She had achieved such a character down at Exeter for maidenly reserve, and had lived so sternly, that it was hardly in her memory that a man had squeezed her hand before. She did remember one young clergyman who had sinned in this direction, twelve years since, but he was now a Bishop. When she heard the other day that he had been ...
— Kept in the Dark • Anthony Trollope
... It was not obstinacy, she know; and that bit of injustice hindered her from seeing that it was really wilful recklessness. She was elated with Ernest's foolish school-boy account of her, which a more maidenly little girl would not have relished; she was strengthened in her notion that she was ill-used, by hearing that the De la Poers pitied her; and because she found that Aunt Barbara was considered to be a little wrong, she did not consider that she herself ...
— Countess Kate • Charlotte M. Yonge
... cousins living in the far West. The only human being in whom she felt any special personal interest was a certain captain in her father's regiment, who had paid her some attention. She had loved this man deeply, in a maidenly, modest way; but he had gone away without speaking, and had not since written. He had escaped the fate of many others, and at the close of the war was alive and well, stationed ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... Guidobaldo's breathed new courage into him. Nor ever after could he think that her coldness was other than a cloak, a sort of maidenly garment behind which modesty bade her conceal the inclinations of her heart. Reasoning thus, and having in support of it his wondrous fatuity, it so befell that the more she shunned and avoided him, ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... Carroll's skirts had rustled as she went out of the store that last afternoon when he had spoken to her. There was a soft crispness of ruffling lawns and laces, a most delicate sound, a maidenly sound which had not been unlike the sound of the young leaves of the willows overfolding and interlacing with one another when the soft breeze swelled high. Now and then all the afternoon came a slow, soft wave of warm wind out of the west, and all sounds deepened ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... know how easily I was discarding all previous teachings and traditions, and, without a struggle, embracing new creeds and customs. I recall that I realized it was my duty, as a properly reared product of civilization, to go out and sit on a fence, if need be, to maintain my maidenly isolation and dignity, but I ...
— Six Days on the Hurricane Deck of a Mule - An account of a journey made on mule back in Honduras, - C.A. in August, 1891 • Almira Stillwell Cole
... intellect apparently burned within her, which—being alternately pushed forward into a conspicuous expression by the irresistible instincts of her temperament, and then immediately checked in obedience to the decorum of her sex and age and her maidenly condition—gave to her whole demeanour, and to her conversation, an air of embarrassment, and even of self-conflict, that was almost distressing to witness. Even her very utterance and enunciation often suffered in point of clearness and steadiness, from the agitation of her excessive ...
— Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland A.D. 1803 • Dorothy Wordsworth
... gave him the hand, she must also let him—in this first tremor of a pure passion—take the kiss which was now his by right. That she should flush and draw away from him as she did, seemed to him the most natural thing in the world, and the most maidenly. ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... passed through the little gate the sound of the hastily closed door followed him up the hill to Hatton Hall. Lugur went into the parlor to look for his daughter; she had gone to her room. Some feeling of maidenly reserve had led her to take this step. She never asked herself why or wherefore; she only felt that it would be good for her to be alone, and the need had been so urgent that she forgot her father's usual good-night kiss ...
— The Measure of a Man • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... the pillow and repeated in low soft tones the simple words she had used from childhood on such occasions. Owen's name was mentioned without faltering, but in the other case, maidenly shyness was too strong even for religion, and that when supported by excellent intentions. At the name of Edward she stammered, and her voice sank to the faintest whisper in spite ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... shall be standing on the piano in the drawing- room, straightening a picture. I never can bear a picture crooked, and I had Jane tip it a little this morning, just to vex me. Fred Rangely will come in unannounced. Of course I shall be dreadfully confused, and have to get down. In my maidenly confusion I am almost sure I can't help showing my slippers, and just a trifle—a very discreet trifle, of course,—of these beautiful, beautiful stockings. ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... with their mothers and grandmothers, they are rather forward and fast, and that husband-hunting in their hands, is gradually being developed to an extent scarcely compatible with the old-fashioned theories about maidenly modesty and reserve. The change may be considered the effort of modern civilization to remedy an evil of its own creation. The tide advances in one direction because it recedes in another. If the men will ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... in themselves so many forms of vulgarity, were somehow not vulgar in him. Vjera, as she loved him, felt all this far more keenly than the others. And besides, to add to her embarrassment at present, there was the girl's maidenly shyness and timidity. Since she had told Johann Schmidt her secret, she felt as though all eyes were upon her, and as though every one were about to turn upon her with those jesting questions which coarse natures regard as expressions of sympathy ...
— A Cigarette-Maker's Romance • F. Marion Crawford
... appreciated its extravagance and folly; and if he counted me a madman, she was disposed to elevate me into a hero or a demi-god. The tones and looks of a maiden in such a temper, however perfect her maidenly reserve, would, I fancy, be very agreeable to men older than I was, either in constitution or even in experience. I doubt whether any man under fifty would have been more anxious than myself to cut short our period of repose, broken as it was, when ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... 'Mine;' but the maidenly feeling checked her again, and she said, 'We all thought you would ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... was under the two influences that were strongest with her. She loved John Harrington with all her heart, and she hated Vancouver with all her strength. It is true that her hatred was the only acknowledged passion, for her maidenly nature was not able yet to comprehend her love; and the mere thought that she cared for a man who did not care for her brought the hot blush to her cheek. But the love was in her heart all the same, strong and enduring, so that Vancouver found ...
— An American Politician • F. Marion Crawford
... botanical excursions of later spring which he had inaugurated, and to which the maidenly modesty of Rose had suggested that Adele should make a party, the young Catesby (who was a native of Eastern Massachusetts) had asked in his naive manner after her family connections. An uncle of his had known a Mr. Maverick, who had long been a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... been wondering these last three days? Well, tell me what you think my purpose was in abandoning all maidenly reserve and throwing myself at ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... sob in her voice cut him to the heart, "and these things are above love, above everything. I do not—I can not understand. I can not comprehend. You have rejected me—I have offered myself to you a second time—after the refusal of last night. Where is my Spanish pride? Where is my maidenly modesty? That reserve that should be the better part of woman is gone. I know not honor—duty—I only know that though you reject me, I am yours. I, too, am a slave. I love you. Nay, I can not marry Don Felipe de Tobar. 'Twere to make ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... wonder, and whose creditors were legion,—and he was sincerely sorry to see that even gentle and pretty Susie Prescott had taken to a new mode of doing her hair, which, though elaborate, did not suit her at all, and gave an almost bold look to an otherwise sweet and maidenly countenance. ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... grown into girlhood, and was, in truth, as beautiful as a poet's dream. She was timid, gentle, and silent; no strength of mind was enshrined in that faultless casket; and her transparent, maidenly brow, was never shadowed by the conflict of thought. Her words were few and commonplace, but they were spoken by a voice exquisitely musical, and her surpassing personal loveliness disarmed mental criticism. Theresa would regard her in unutterable admiration, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various
... having no suspicion of the real reason of Sophy Viner's departure, had thought it "extremely suitable" of the young girl to withdraw to the shelter of her old friends' roof in the hour of bridal preparation. This maidenly retreat had in fact impressed Madame de Chantelle so favourably that she was disposed for the first time to talk over Owen's projects; and as every human event translated itself for her into terms of social and domestic detail, Anna had perforce to travel the same round again. She felt a momentary ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... about your mother, but there was not much to tell. She never mentioned his name after her marriage. There were gay parties given in honor of the wedding, and her delicate, drooping, phantom-like figure hung upon the arm of her handsome, elegant husband. People said that her maidenly shyness was beautiful to behold, and that she clung to her husband like the waving ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... and as fair as could be, With her tempting smiles And maidenly wiles, And he was a trifle past seventy-three: Now what she could see Is a puzzle to me, ...
— Fifty Bab Ballads • William S. Gilbert
... have set forth in your wonderful story. You have seen the latent qualities, the nobler potentialities; you have shown me to myself. Melinda! Do not think that I do not appreciate the difficulties of this hour for you. I know how your heart is shrinking, how your delicate maidenly modesty is up in arms. But Melinda, you know! you ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... a white dress and a hat that set off her pompadour to advantage, and there was no special reason, as they had the afternoon before them, why they should not have taken some of the by-paths that the girl perceived to lead out from the subject into breathless wonder. She had ways, which were maidenly and good, of opening up to Peter comfortable little garden plots of existence which, though they lay far this side of the House and the Lovely Lady, had in the monotony of the long climb up the scale of Siegel Brothers, moments of ...
— The Lovely Lady • Mary Austin
... have entered the lists with her on equal ground; could I but have appeared before him in my own proper person, arrayed in appropriate and maidenly costume, I felt sure of gaining the victory, for I had youth on my side; I had already an interest in his heart; but, alas! I could not do this without first announcing myself as an impostor, as a liar and deceiver, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... June, returning to London, I was honoured by this admirable woman with an early visit. As soon as she arrived I guessed everything, and as soon as she told me that darling Ruth had been in her house nearly a month I had my question ready. "What in the name of maidenly modesty is she ...
— The Coxon Fund • Henry James
... Hermia, have we two, sitting on one cushion, both singing one song, with our needles working the same flower, both on the same sampler wrought; growing up together in fashion of a double cherry, scarcely seeming parted! Hermia, it is not friendly in you, it is not maidenly to join with men in scorning ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... Artavan of Hautlieu; but his heart was fixed on achieving the freedom of the beautiful Princess, nor did he suffer himself to be withdrawn from that object by any inferior consideration. He passed on, therefore, to a little ivory door, which, after a moment's pause, as if in maidenly hesitation, gave way like the rest, and yielded access to the sleeping apartment of the Princess herself. A soft light, resembling that of evening, penetrated into a chamber where every thing seemed contrived to exalt the luxury of slumber. The heaps of cushions, which formed a stately ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... appealed from one to another. "You see, I never dared say anything at all about love before Grandma or Heppie, but it is talked about so much in books, I thought I might mention it in company. I'm sorry if I've not been maidenly, which Miss Hepburn is ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... birds appeared,—a pair of the solitary vireo. They came flitting from point to point, alighting only for a moment at a time, the male silent, but the female uttering this strange, tender note. It was a rendering into some new sylvan dialect of the human sentiment of maidenly love. It was really pathetic in its sweetness and childlike confidence and joy. I soon discovered that the pair were building a nest upon a low branch a few yards from me. The male flew cautiously to ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... she, putting her hand in mine, in all maidenly devotion, "let us keep apart no longer. It is but for me to say that I can live contented upon such means as you have, and I well know you are happy. I say so from my heart. Strive no more alone; let us strive together. My dear Michael, it is not ...
— Some Christmas Stories • Charles Dickens
... the flowers was gone. She made a few rapid dives in search of it. Had she, or had she not, seen him putting something in his pocket? And why had she behaved so unlike herself? In a few miles Miss Wood entertained sentiments of maidenly resentment toward her rescuer, and of maidenly ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... whale the sense of touch is concentrated in the tail; for in this respect there is a delicacy in it only equalled by the daintiness of the elephant's trunk. This delicacy is chiefly evinced in the action of sweeping, when in maidenly gentleness the whale with a certain soft slowness moves his immense flukes from side to side upon the surface of the sea; and if he feel but a sailor's whisker, woe to that sailor, whiskers and all. .. What tenderness there is in that preliminary touch! Had this ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... shuttle-cock, which they are fond of striking to and fro, to make one another glow in the frosty weather of a single-state; but which, when a man comes in between the pretended inseparables, is given up, like their music and other maidenly amusements; which, nevertheless, may be necessary to keep the pretty rogues out of active mischief. They then, in short, having caught the ...
— Clarissa, Volume 6 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... with tender and romantic Mirtillo. Corisca's meretricious arts and systematized profligacy enhance the pure affection of Amarilli. Dorinda presents another type of love, so impulsive that it conquers maidenly modesty. The Satyr is a creature of rude lust, foiled in its brutal appetite by the courtesan Corisca's wiliness. Carino brings the corruption of towns into comparison with the ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... submissive nuances, the impossibility of her keeping house in the villa alone with a group of Nubians. Both women had really enjoyed themselves, as talent must when exercising itself with perfect adroitness. Mrs. Armine had regretted Marie's decision, while at the same time applauding her maidenly delicatesse, and had presently, by chance, discovered that several charming purchases from Paris were no good to her, that two or three remarkably attractive gowns made her look "like nothing at all," and that, ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... Prudence Inglefield. She wore the same neat and maidenly attire which she had been accustomed to put on when the household work was over for the day, and her hair was parted from her brow in the simple and modest fashion that became her best of all. If her cheek might otherwise have been pale, yet the glow of the fire suffused ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... of Minerva on the bookcase above her did not offer the spectator a face less free from maidenly confusion than Clementina's at that moment. Her father had certainly expected none, but he was not prepared for the perfect ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte
... Crawford, so different from the one she was expecting to hear, the momentary insanity, or delusion of Ella, vanished; she saw her position at a glance, and the hundred eyes that were upon her; and instantly her face became suffused with blushes; while she shrunk back, with a sense of maidenly shame and bashful timidity, almost overpowering to herself, and really painful for others to behold. She now strove to speak—to give an excuse for her singular conduct—but her tongue failed her, and she would have sunk to the earth, only for ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett
... run, then?" she asked him coolly, standing slim and straight before him, all in white and very maidenly save in her unnatural composure. "I am pressed," she informed him. "So you will forgive me if I ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... rather low-spirited," Tish said. "I expect she liked the first young man better than she thought she did. I intend to give her a piece of my mind as soon as I get a chance. This playing hot and cold isn't maidenly, ...
— Tish, The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... as a woman could not help saying under the circumstances, would end the complication, since it would send Don Cesar away baffled; and then there would be no occasion for his returning to the garden a little later. Maidenly fright and consternation cannot account rationally for such behavior; one sees that she holds her tongue because to set it in motion would be ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... was clear-sighted enough to notice something else—that Mr. Blake was talking eagerly and gathering the coloured leaves at random, as though he hardly knew what he was doing, and that, after that first look, he was avoiding her eye, as though he were afraid that he had betrayed himself. Audrey's maidenly consciousness was up in arms in a moment. The gleam in Cyril's eyes had opened hers. Some instinct of self-defence made her suddenly entrench herself in stiffness; the soft graciousness that was Audrey's chief charm ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... humanity, no impersonation of attributes, but an actual woman,—beautiful, modest, gentle, with companions only less beautiful than herself,—the most delightful figure in the midst of the picturesque life of Florence. She is seen smiling and weeping, walking with stately maidenly decorum in the street, praying at the church, merry at festivals, mourning at funerals; and her smiles and tears, her gentleness, her reserve, all the sweet qualities of her life, and the peace of her death, are told of with such tenderness and refinement, such pathetic melancholy, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... of being made love to. I'm going," she said, "to fling off all maidenly reserve and make love ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... was to run. Then supper was ready; it was always on the table as soon as the clock on the stairs struck eight, and down came Phillis—her face white and set, her dry eyes looking defiance to me, for I am afraid I hurt her maidenly pride by my glance of sympathetic interest as she entered the room. Never a word did she say—never a question did she ask about the absent friend, yet she forced herself ...
— Cousin Phillis • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell |
