"Primly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... not had the pleasure of casting my optics upon the individual of Nancy Ellen's choice," said Agatha primly, "but Miss Amelia Lang tells me he is a very distinguished person, of quite superior education in a medical way. I shall call him if I ever have the misfortune to fall ill again. I hope you will tell Nancy Ellen that we shall be very ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter
... primly and consciously by his side; she was a very handsome girl with bold eyes and was somewhat overdressed. She wore a big flowery hat and a white lace veil and looked at Anne with a ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... said Rose, primly. 'I like variety very well, but I don't seek it by running away the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Camp Ground," replied Slim, holding his voluminous bathrobe primly around him with one hand to cover the bathing suit which he wore under it, and shaking hands ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey
... succeeded very well. They have broken into this house when it was empty, and laboured to decipher the mystic hieroglyphics written on its walls, and learn to what uses the departed craftsman put the strange, delicate implements which they found fastened so primly in ...
— Dwellers in the Hills • Melville Davisson Post
... somewhere. It must have been at Heath's. Yes, it was. I put it on the counter while I opened this net thing. Don't you remember? You were taking some money out of your purse." Louis had a very distinct vision of his Rachel's agreeably gloved fingers primly unfastening the purse and choosing ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... kitchen proper are many plate-racks, containing shells; there are rows of these of one size and shape, which mark them off as dinner plates or bowls; others are as obviously tureens. They are arranged primly as in a well-conducted kitchen; indeed, neatness and cleanliness are the note struck everywhere, yet the effect of the ...
— The Admirable Crichton • J. M. Barrie
... SEDGWICK'S Autumn Crocuses (SECKER). Not only has the whole book a pleasant title, but each of these stories is happily called after some flower that plays a part in its development. I am aware of the primly Victorian sound of such a description applied to art so modern as that of Miss SEDGWICK. You know already (I hope) how wonderfully delicate is her almost passionate sensibility to the finer shades of a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 22, 1920 • Various
... for running, uncle; Miss Power said it was not lady-like for girls in their teens," answered Rose, primly. ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott
... Carver. I had some such thought myself," said Allerton rather primly, while Hopkins and Billington exchanged an irreverent grin, and Standish stroked ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... the little sad lady would never know whether she returned an answer or not, for her eyes seemed to be looking at something for away. Yet the reply was without hesitation, and primly courteous. ...
— Polly of the Hospital Staff • Emma C. Dowd
... triumphant. She had been waiting for days with the revelation when he should make that old request. Now she enunciated it with every vowel and consonant correctly and primly uttered; indeed, she repeated it four or five times in proof of ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... Their faces were weary, but flushed with expectation. The man kept looking up the line, and declaring that he heard the rumble of the engine in the distance; and whenever he said this, his wife pulled the shawl more primly about her shoulders, straightened her back, and nervously re-arranged ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the sixteenth century show that it was considered modest to squint. A Spaniard thought that it showed friendship for any one to squint at him. It was also considered a sign of probity to have the lips primly closed and drawn.[417] The Italian cicisbeo in the seventeenth century was a cavalier servente, who attended a married lady. Such men practiced extravagances and affectations, and are ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... come to a window for a few minutes and sit and talk to Miss Adela—one of the elder sisters, I mean; and when I caught sight of them, I used to think that it was no wonder they had taken to dressing so primly and so plain, for they must have given up all hope of getting husbands ...
— Begumbagh - A Tale of the Indian Mutiny • George Manville Fenn
... to you in cold blood—the coward—in the very moment when you were staking your life for love of her? I remember, if you do not—'You have deceived me,' she wrote, and her hand never trembled, for the words ran as neatly and primly as ever they did in her convent copy books. 'You are not what you represented yourself to be—You have taken advantage of the inexperience of an ignorant girl, I have been deluded and deceived. I never wish to see you, ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... bed, With shadowing folds of marble lace, And quilt of marble, primly spread And ...
— Verses • Susan Coolidge
... face in a Quaker bonnet, a white kerchief folded primly over a gown of dove-colored satin, a pure plain dress, looking very distinguished, for all its simplicity, among the gay toilet of the ...
— Holiday Stories for Young People • Various
... one of the quaint old-fashioned houses, behind a needless screen of climbing woodbine, two girls are whiling away the afternoon. One of them is lounging in a lassy rocking-chair, while the other sits more primly ...
— A Summer Evening's Dream - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... as she watched her walk primly down the corridor and out of the side entrance. "That infant," she said to Elinor who had been leaving Judith out, "is trembling on the brink of becoming a little prig. We've got to see to it, Norn, that she doesn't get too satisfied ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther
... the house, fanning herself with a certain stateliness, and carrying her handkerchief primly, by the exact centre of it. In her wake was a little old gentleman, with a huge bundle, surrounded by a shawl-strap, a large valise, much the worse for wear, a telescope basket which was expanded to its full height, ...
— Lavender and Old Lace • Myrtle Reed
... bottom of a carriage, unadorned by an imposing flounce that almost covered the robe; a little later, the one sober flounce was driven into obscurity by twenty coquettish small ones; and these were displaced by primly puffed bands; which gave way to fanciful "keys" running up the sides of the dress (where they seemed to have no possible right); and those vanished when double skirts commenced their brief reign; to be dethroned by a severe-looking quilted ruffle ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... cannot allow you to use this pump!" said a crisp voice primly. "This is not," with capital letters, ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... discovered somewhere in his travels and installed as his housekeeper. Janet paused with her hand on the gate latch to gaze around her, at the picket fence on which he had been working when she had walked hither the year before. It was primly painted now, its posts crowned with the carved pineapples; behind the fence old-fashioned flowers were in bloom, lupins and false indigo; and the retaining wall of blue-grey slaty stone, which he had laid that spring, was finished. A wind stirred ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... mustn't be too sure, but I think that is it. (Primly.) What is it exactly that you want, ...
— Dear Brutus • J. M. Barrie
... of green-brown waters, Smooth and framed in snow-white marble, Show between their mirrored statues Gold and silver fishes playing. Slender stems of oleander Cast their prim array of shadows On the primly close-cropped greensward. Overhead, the arching branches Meet and twine to sheltering niches, Where are grouped in loving couples Stiff-limbed heroines and heroes.... Dolphins three pour splashing streamlets In three shell-shaped marble basins. Chestnut blossoms, richly ...
— The Lonely Way—Intermezzo—Countess Mizzie - Three Plays • Arthur Schnitzler
... drawing-room and asserted that Phil Dunleavy, with his safe ancestry of two generations of wholesalers and strong probabilities about the respectability of still another generation, was her ideal of a Christian gentleman. She wore a full white muslin gown with a blue sash, her hair primly parted in the middle, her right hand laid flat over her left in her lap. Her vocabulary was choice. For a second, when she referred to winter sports at Lake Placid, she forgot herself and tucked one smooth, silk-clad, un-mid-Victorian leg under her, but ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... middle-class people who let children dine late," said Vic, primly, "I shan't come down ...
— Great Uncle Hoot-Toot • Mrs. Molesworth
... open; the tall columns of the portico entrance look down on you so grimly; the front of the booking-offices, in their garment of clean stucco, look so primly respectable that you cannot help feeling ashamed of yourself,—feeling as uncomfortable as when you have called too early on an economically genteel couple, and been shown into a handsome drawing-room, on a frosty day, without a fire. You cannot think of entering into a gossip ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney
... later the elevator had left him at the second floor. For a moment the mirrors bewildered him; they gave a sense of vastness, repeating the elegant apartment in every direction, and whichever way he glanced there was himself, seated on the edge of a chair, his square shoes set primly on the thick green carpet, his hat held stiffly over the crippled hand. Then an imposing young woman sauntered towards him. "Well," she said severely, ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson
... duty began. I couldn't even turn and say good night to the chauffeur, as I walked primly into the hotel, laden with my ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... dissimulator, like Mr. Hook. Calmly, almost sanctimoniously, he uttered those neat and telling sayings which the next day passed over England as 'Selwyn's last.' Walpole describes his manner admirably—-his eyes turned up, his mouth set primly, a look almost of melancholy in his whole face. Reynolds, in his Conversation-piece, celebrated when in the Strawberry Collection, and representing Selwyn leaning on a chair, Gilly Williams, crayon in hand, and Dick Edgecumbe ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... he said. "Les fleurs! C'est la vie parfumee." Waiting for the breakfast to be served, he showed us about in his apartment. In the salon, rather primly furnished, stood the grand piano. The bookshelves contained Cherubini's (his master) and his own operas, and his beloved Bach. A table in the middle of the room, covered with photographs and engravings, completed ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... the little girl had divided with his profession the doctor's days. Every morning after breakfast he stood to watch the trim, sturdy, round little figure dance down the steps, step primly down the walk, turn at the gate to throw a kiss, and then march away along the street to the corner where another kiss would greet him before the final vanishing. Every day they met at noon to exchange on equal terms the experiences of ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor
... horribly unhappy. I must look a sight." Then, remembering her manners, as the Street had it, she said primly:— ...
— K • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... nothing of Oxford,' she said a little primly, in answer to his question. 'I never was there—but I never was anywhere, I have seen nothing,' she added hastily, and, as Langham ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... and the need of trained troops not so important. He dropped a little as he recognized his location. He scanned Old Post lying on its low eminence, with the white hospitals spreading over their area, New Post with its wide parade ground and its trim rows of officers' quarters staring primly at the departmental buildings built in the old Mexican fashion on the other ...
— Battling the Clouds - or, For a Comrade's Honor • Captain Frank Cobb
... of Deacon Hotchkiss at church. A white virginal muslin was belted around her slim figure by a blue ribbon, and her Leghorn hat was drawn around her oval cheek by a bow of the same color. She had a Southern girl's narrow feet, encased in white stockings and kid slippers, which were crossed primly before her as she sat in a chair, supporting her arm by her faithful parasol planted firmly on the floor. A faint odor of southernwood exhaled from her, and, oddly enough, stirred the Colonel with a far-off recollection of a pine-shaded ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... inches high, so that from his present perch the board appeared to rest on the pavement itself. Behind the table in a row, as shopkeepers might await a customer, three of the Warlockians, seated cross-legged on mats, their hands folded primly before them. And at the side a fourth, the one whom he had trapped on ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... pleasant discovery that she was at times independent of her brother's perfections, Herbert smiled, and sympathetically drew a step nearer to her. She rose at once, somewhat primly holding back the sides of her skirt, school-girl fashion, with thumb and finger, ...
— The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... within the gates; so we left the fly at the inn, and set out to walk from the entrance to the house. There is no porter's lodge; and the grounds, in this outlying region, had not the appearance of being very primly kept, but were well wooded with evergreens, and much overgrown with ferns, serving for cover for hares, which scampered in and out of their hiding-places. The road went winding gently along, and, at the distance of nearly a mile, brought us to a second gate, through which we likewise ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume I. - Great Britain and Ireland • Various
... for a drive with somebody or other and didn't want me," said Miss Pringle primly. ...
— The Land of Promise • D. Torbett
... Great Falls last week," she told him primly, just grazing him with one of her impersonal glances which nearly drove him to desperation. "Aunt Mary has typhoid fever—there seems to be so much of that this spring and they sent for mamma. She's such a splendid ...
— The Lure of the Dim Trails • by (AKA B. M. Sinclair) B. M. Bower
... in the train," she said primly, and started to talk about something else. And she became most agreeable ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... looking stiffly over the heads of the rollicking maples, and making solemn reverences to the great gray clouds that swept inland from the ocean. The straight little saplings at their feet copied the manners of their elders, and folding their fingers primly, and rustling their stiff little green petticoats decorously, sat ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... 191-, Clement J. Cleggett walked sedately into the news room of the New York Enterprise with a drab-colored walking-stick in his hand. He stood the cane in a corner, changed his sober street coat for a more sober office jacket, adjusted a green eyeshade below his primly brushed grayish hair, unostentatiously sat down at the copy desk, and unobtrusively opened ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis
... for her change of policy and manner was revealed with distressing suddenness. At daylight one morning the door of the room in which she slept under lock and key was wide open, and on her quaintly embellished table a primly ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... the slightest authority over you," said Eileen very primly, as she drew back in the shadows. "You have come and gone exactly as you pleased. All I ever tried to do was to keep up a decent appearance before the neighbors ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... ever when they heard her voice, and new ones came from their burrows and sat up to watch her, with their fore paws held primly in front of them, their tails lying out motionless behind, and their slender heads poised pertly—with no movement except the twinkle of sharp, black eyes and the quiver of ...
— The Biography of a Prairie Girl • Eleanor Gates
... looked as if they had made up their minds to be forsaken for a term of months; it was impossible to imagine that a cheerful supper had ever been laid upon the stiff cold-looking table that stood with its leaves down so primly against the wall. All that a blazing fire could do to make amends for deficiencies, it did; but the wintry wind that swept round the house shook the paper window-shades in a remorseless way; and the utmost efforts of said fire could not prevent ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... it so primly, so correctly, and with such detachment, that they might have been in church, and she saying: "Will you kindly let me look over ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett
... know the custom," she replied primly. Would he expect her to say "Sir?" Anyhow, she wouldn't! She compromised with a dainty meekness which might be interpreted as respect for a superior. Mr. Meggison fixed her with a sharp look which would have detected the impudence ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... "I mean," he added hastily, "don't be a fool. There are some things one can't bet on. As you ought to have known," he said primly. ...
— A Wodehouse Miscellany - Articles & Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... no dancing, I suppose," said Mr. Medlicott primly, "because, if so, I am sorry, but I cannot accompany you—it is not that I disapprove of dancing for others," he hastened to add, "but I do not care to watch it myself. And I do not think it wise for Stella to grow to care ...
— The Point of View • Elinor Glyn
... A Spanish mahogany desk with a cylinder cover, and innumerable drawers fitted with invisible Bramah locks, occupied the centre of the room; and four ponderous Spanish mahogany chairs, with padded backs, and seats covered with crimson morocco, were primly ranged against the wall. Upon the mantelpiece ticked a skeleton clock; above which there hung the sternest and grimmest of almanacks, on either whereof were fastened divers lists and calendars of awful character, affected by gentlemen ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... he had set out to break down without having, or even thinking he had, the rudiments of rebuilding in him; and he effected nothing national even in the way of destruction. The Tennysonians still walked past him as primly as a young ladies' school—the Browningites still inked their eyebrows and minds in looking for the lost syntax of Browning; while Browning himself was away looking for God, rather in the spirit of a truant boy from their school looking for birds' ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton
... and she drove the woman Warwick down their ranks, amazed by the vision of a puppet so unlike to herself in reality, though identical in situation. That woman, reciting her side of the case, gained a gradual resemblance to Danvers; she spoke primly; perpetually the creature aired her handkerchief; she was bent on softening those sugarloaves, the hard business-men applying to her for facts. Facts were treated as unworthy of her; mere stuff of the dustheap, mutton-bones, old shoes; she swam above them in a cocoon of her spinning, sylphidine, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... read some improving books," said Jean primly. "I wish I had your chance. If Mrs. Jarvis had taken a fancy to me I'd be a Ph.D. ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... suspicion. "Thank you very much," she replied primly. "I'll take your advice and have it like that in my story, if I ever write it. What a wonderful old street this is! It's full of ghosts of kings and queens, and noblemen and great ladies, and soldiers and robbers, every one of them more important ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... girls ought not to make up in the street, either," Louise remarked, primly. "A little powder in the house is all very well"—(Louise had a nose which gave her trouble)—"but I really don't think it ...
— A Prince of Sinners • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... kind of life, thanks," said Andrew primly, "and I repeat that I am not going to have my business—enlivened, if that's how you choose to put it, and my family disgraced, and my reputation lost; and if I let you go on another day as you've been going, it'll ...
— The Prodigal Father • J. Storer Clouston
... brown house stood a big comfortable sleigh of the old-fashioned pattern. Although it had once been very handsome, it was now faded and ancient. A man who almost looked as if he had gone into service along with the sleigh and the other belongings of his mistress, sat primly upon the front seat. He expressed as much pleasure at seeing the little Peppers coming, as his stoical countenance would allow, but he didn't move a muscle of face or figure. At any other time Joel would have howled with delight at seeing Miss Parrott's man sitting ...
— The Adventures of Joel Pepper • Margaret Sidney
... that will strike us, after this love of clouds, is the love of liberty. Whereas the mediaeval was always shutting himself into castles, and behind fosses, and drawing brickwork neatly, and beds of flowers primly, our painters delight in getting to the open fields and moors; abhor all hedges and moats; never paint anything but free-growing trees, and rivers gliding "at their own sweet will"; eschew formality down to the smallest detail; break and displace the brickwork which the mediaeval would ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... ring for tea and candles, sister?" asked Miss King primly.—"We have had tea of course, Hyacinthe, but we will have some ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... parson's bold hand, "The doctrine of Election compatible with the infinite goodness of God." It is hard to say which of the two was the better, or which commended itself most to the church full of people who listened. Deacon Tourtelot,—a short, wiry man, with reddish whiskers brushed primly forward,—sitting under the very droppings of the pulpit, with painful erectness, and listening grimly throughout, was inclined to the sermon of the morning. Dame Tourtelot, who overtopped her husband by half a head, and from her great scoop ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... think about her,' said Anthea, primly, 'because it would be evil speaking, lying, ...
— The Phoenix and the Carpet • E. Nesbit
... stood before the cottage, set primly in the center of a great lot that extended for half a square on all sides. A winter-sodden, bare enough sight it was in the gray of that March day. But it was not long before Alma Pflugel, standing in the midst of it, the March winds flapping her neat skirts about her ankles, filled ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... and lean officer with a smooth face entered the barn. The sentry saluted primly. The officer flashed a comprehensive glance ...
— The Little Regiment - And Other Episodes of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... 28. was Lewis ab Ellerichshausen. Vnder this man there arose a dangerous sedition in Prussia betweene the chiefe cities and the knights of the Order. The citizens demanded libertie, complaining that they were oppressed with diuers molestations. Whereupon they primly made sute vnto Casimir then king of Polonia. The Master of the Order seeing what would come to passe began to expostulate with the king, that he kept not the peace which had bene concluded betweene them to last for euer. Also Frederick the Emperour commaunded the Prussians to returne vnto ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, v5 - Central and Southern Europe • Richard Hakluyt
... here in the country has very bad manners," commented Martha, puckering her lips primly. "I wouldn't put myself out for them, if I was ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... not cure her. However, he had to stick grimly to the perambulator. Nellie tripped primly in black silk on one side of it. Nurse had the wayward Ralph by the hand. And Robert, taciturn, stalked alone, adding up London and making a ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... she had gone, primly grateful for the scrap of comfort, Corinna stood for a minute with her eyes on the sunbeams at the window. Outside there were the roving winds and the restless spirit of April; and feeling suddenly that she could stand the close walls and ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... a stop before the box-shaped ornate house, its rough concrete front pretentiously inlaid over the doors and windows with a design of pebbles stuck like dates on a cake, and perched primly on the topmost step of the square veranda the inert ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst
... when Raymond got there at six. She prided herself on this. She would say, primly, to her friends, "I make a point of being there when Ray gets home. Even if I have to cut a round of bridge. If a woman can't be there when a man gets home from work I'd like to know what she's ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber
... the grimly rigid aspect of the silent Queen, Rebecca straightened herself primly and remarked, with her most formal air: "I s'pose you are the Queen, ma'am. You seem to be havin' a little party jest now. I hope I'm not intruding but to tell ye the truth, Mrs. Tudor, I've got into a pretty pickle and I want to ask a ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... somewhat when we finally came to a halt. I confess that just at that minute even Sunnyside seemed a cheerful spot. We had paused at the edge of a level cleared place, bordered all around with primly trimmed evergreen trees. Between them I caught a glimpse of starlight shining down on rows of white headstones and an occasional more imposing monument, or towering shaft. In spite of myself, I drew my breath in sharply. We were on the edge ...
— The Circular Staircase • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... like some tea," she said, primly, as Bella appeared. "He has had a long journey." The captain started and eyed her fiercely; Mrs. Kingdom, her good temper quite restored by this little retort, folded her hands in her lap and gazed at him with ...
— At Sunwich Port, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... we thought you ought to know," Celie began primly, "so Ma and I hurried right over, so as to ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... of a dying man. There were always two or three lachrymose women in front of the chilled heating-pan. Beautiful Lisa meantime discharged the duties of chief mourner with silent dignity. Her white apron fell more primly than ever over her black dress. Her hands, scrupulously clean and closely girded at the wrists by long white sleevelets, her face with its becoming air of sadness, plainly told all the neighbourhood, all the inquisitive gossips who streamed into the shop from morning to night, that they, ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... the Album; hand it here! Exactly! page on page of gratitude For breakfast, dinner, supper, and the view! I praise these poets: they leave margin-space; Each stanza seems to gather skirts around, And primly, trimly, keep the foot's confine, Modest and maidlike; lubber prose o'er-sprawls And straddling stops the path from left to right. Since I want space to do my cipher-work, Which poem spares a corner? What comes first? ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... she was born. To all that to her guests made the unique charm of her present home she had grown callous, if she had ever felt it at all, while dwelling with an incurable regret upon the neatly painted houses and fenced door-yards, the gatherings of women in their best clothes in primly furnished parlors on summer afternoons, the church-going, the passing in the street, and, more than all, the housekeeping conveniences she had been used to, accumulated through many years' ...
— In Exile and Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... to give each stalk ample room in which to adjust itself. A vase with a flaring top is what this flower ought to have, as its stalks have just the curve that fits the flare. A straight vase obliges it to stand up so primly that half the charm of the flower ...
— Amateur Gardencraft - A Book for the Home-Maker and Garden Lover • Eben E. Rexford
... wait for you," she said primly. "There are bad places where the trail goes close to the bluff, and the lava rock will be slippery with this snow. And it's getting dark so fast that ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... I was giving audience to my tenants, five or six boys made their appearance and stood in a primly proper row before me. Before I could put any question their spokesman, in the choicest of high-flown language, started: "Sire! the grace of the Almighty and the good fortune of your benighted children have once more brought about your ...
— Glimpses of Bengal • Sir Rabindranath Tagore
... not a great reader myself," remarked Miss Mitty, a trifle primly. "My father used to say that when a lady had read a chapter of her Bible in the morning, and consulted her cook-book, she had done as much literary work as was good for her. Too intimate an acquaintance with books, he always said, was apt to unsettle the views, and the best ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... lines that could be spared from the book you were reading," she said, her voice primly firm ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... happy buzz that arose from all the seats in the entire orange-tinted brilliant auditorium. The ladies would not go; the ladies feared, they said, to impose their company upon Miss Fiddle in the tremendous strain of her activities. They spoke primly and decisively. It was true that they feared; but their fear was based on consideration for themselves rather than on consideration for Miss Fiddle. Ozzie was plainly snubbed. He had offered a wonderful privilege, and ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... he met his pretty truelove skipping along most lady-like and primly. She was dressed in a light blue dress with a white sash tied at the side in two knots. Her long fair hair hung down her back tied with a pink ribbon, and her fringe was fluttering in the breeze. Behind her fringe she wore a wreath ...
— Daisy Ashford: Her Book • Daisy Ashford
... at its foot, her back resting against the Cyclopean wall, sits a young woman of eight-and-twenty, soberly, almost primly dressed, with three or four tiny children clustering round her. In front of them, on a narrow spit of sand between the rocks, a dozen little girls are laughing, romping, and pattering about, turning the ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... having been recorded, and "Very hungry" put down under Symptoms, she came back to her chair by the window, facing him. She sat down primly and smoothed her white apron in ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... ministers had almost entire control. A church reproof was the heaviest punishment, and knotty points in theology caused the bitterest discussion. A pillion was the grandest equipage, and a plain blue and white gown, with primly starched apron, was the common attire ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.
... warrant that if you relieved Clapham,—whose crimes, says Kipling very wisely, are 'chaste in Martaban,'—of police and the Pax Britannica for a hundred years or so, lurid Martaban would have little pre-eminence left to brag about. The class that now goes up primly and plugly to business in the City day by day would be cutting throats a little; they would be making life quite interesting. Their descendants, I mean. It would take time; Mother Grundy would not be disthroned in a day. But it would come; because ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... Torquay, but I soon discovered that the place was impossible for me. Torquay is the chosen home of the proprieties, the respectabilities, and all the conventions. Nothing could dislodge them from its beautiful hills; the very sea, as it beats primly, or with a violence that never forgets to be discreet, on the indented shore, acknowledges their sway. Aphrodite never visits there; the human race is not continued there. People who have always lived within the conventions go there to die within ...
— Sacred And Profane Love • E. Arnold Bennett
... Toni looked across the river with frank interest at the Cot, the Dinky House, the Mascot, and the rest of the tiny shanties. She liked the houseboats, too, with their gaily-striped awnings, their hanging baskets filled with gaudy pink geraniums and bright lobelia. Their primly-curtained little windows amused her; and in the evenings she would lure Owen out on to the terrace to look down the river to where the Chinese lanterns hung on their poles like globes of magic ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... little boys were still some distance from her. The water, muddy beyond all chance of transparency, came up to their chests. To them, however, this was not enough. The excessive modesty of eight or nine made them keep even the white of their angular little shoulders primly covered. ...
— The Hickory Limb • Parker Fillmore
... sitting primly behind her desk, with a ruler over her shoulder, opened her gray eyes widely at this, ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... the little old lady said primly. "I do wish you'd give your own Queen credit for some ability. Goodness knows you think you're ...
— That Sweet Little Old Lady • Gordon Randall Garrett (AKA Mark Phillips)
... By-and-bye, when school was in and the dominie dozed, I would lower that timid little whiffet of a Puritan maid out through the window to the turnstile. Then I would ride her round till our heads whirled. If Jack Battle came along, Rebecca would jump down primly and run in, for Jack was unknown in the meeting-house, and the meeting-house was Rebecca's measure of the ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... said Susan primly. But so irresistible was the well of gaiety bubbling up in her heart that she made the ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... David was at that moment writing to Grizel in Thrums. But was it, then, all a dream? he cried, nearly convinced for the first time, and he went into the arbour saying determinedly that it was a dream; and in the arbour, standing primly in a corner, was Grizel's umbrella. He knew that umbrella so well! He remembered once being by while she replaced one of its ribs so deftly that he seemed to be looking on at a surgical operation. The old doctor had given it to her, and that ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... very primly dressed in black, and wearing a curious cap with long white strings, bustled me away. As Feurgeres opened the door of the room, in front of which we had been standing, the air seemed instantly sweet with the perfume of flowers. The old lady sighed as she poured me out some coffee. I am ashamed to ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... well—as well, at least, as could be expected, considering the cataract of "trials" that perpetually descended upon their devoted heads—they sat down as primly as if their visitor were a perfect stranger, and entered into a somewhat lengthened conversation as to the intended voyage, commencing, of course, with ...
— The Red Eric • R.M. Ballantyne
... wife, and it is her duty to like her husband's home," said Miss Heredith a little primly. She disapproved of the speaker, whose khaki uniform, close-cropped hair, crossed legs, and arms a-kimbo struck her as everything that was modern ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... the lee of the easternmost rock, Stolz primly opened his sewing-bag and drew forth various torn garments. The garments were for the most part white, but one or ...
— Bruce • Albert Payson Terhune
... Indians have just broken up their camp, and retired in dudgeon, because the young officers were for ever drinking with the squaws—and—and—hum—ha." Here Mr. Harry pauses, as not caring to proceed with the narrative, in the presence of little Fanny, very likely, who sits primly in her chair by her mother's side, working her ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... saints, angels, and geniuses. Her smiles and her tones were irresistible. They were like the wand of some magical princess come to break a sinister thrall. They nearly humanised the gaunt parlourmaid, who stood grimly and primly waiting until these tedious sentimental preliminaries should cease from interfering with her duties ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... preferred the gaudy pink-and-blue vases of a Regent-street china-shop to all the dingy chefs-d'oeuvre of a Wedgwood, or the quaint shepherds and shepherdesses of Chelsea. As for books, were there not four or five resplendent volumes primly disposed on one of the tables; an illustrated edition of Cowper's lively and thrilling poems; a volume of Rambles in Scotland, with copper-plate engravings of "Melrose by night," and Glasgow Cathedral, and Ben Nevis, and other scenic and architectural glories of North ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... word Jim held out his band to Cynthia, and she climbed, with unbending dignity, to the driver's seat. "You know you've got that dress to turn, Lila," she said, as she settled her stiff skirt primly over her knees. ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... the centre aisle one by one, in orderly fashion, and the six little girls in their green costumes and their fair hair disappeared from view. The elderly governess primly followed, and then the lady in black silk also left her pew. But as she did so she paused and said something to the verger, who was in the aisle. Rosamund, whose eyes were fixed on her, noticed that the verger pointed to the ...
— A Modern Tomboy - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... to enter a protest," Arthur began primly, "against the serving of the papers in the coming Endicott divorce ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... our wicked ways, she is sure to be torn, or splashed, or something, and we have shrieks and lamentations, and accusations of Jock and Joe, amid floods of tears; and Jessie comes to the rescue, primly shaking her head and coaxing her little sister, while she brings out a needle and thread. I can't help it, Mary. It does aggravate me to look ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... arrayed herself in the character of "Martha Washington," as painted by Gilbert Stuart. The snowy kerchief folded across her bosom and the big mob cap on her head are precisely like those in the portraits of the colonial lady. The child purses her lips together primly and folds her hands in a demure attitude in her lap, as if to play her part well, but she is far too shy to look us directly in the face, and glances ...
— Sir Joshua Reynolds - A Collection of Fifteen Pictures and a Portrait of the - Painter with Introduction and Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... was checking his blastoff ticket, as if he didn't remember the number primly typed on it. Frank Nelsen had GO-12. GO—Ground-to-Orbit. But it might as well mean go! glory, or ...
— The Planet Strappers • Raymond Zinke Gallun
... right took me into a kind of lane or by-road, where there were some old-fashioned, semi-detached cottages, sheltered by a row of sycamores, and shut in by wooden palings. I opened the low gate before the third cottage, and went into the garden,—a primly-kept little garden, with a grass-plat and miniature gravel-walks, and with a grotto of shells and moss and craggy blocks of stone in a corner. Under a laburnum-tree there was a green rustic bench; and here I found a young lady sitting reading by the dying ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... approve of that?" she rejoined. "When I was engaged, I made Bruce go to you before I even let him—" here Edith broke off primly. "Of course that was some time ago. An engagement, Laura tells me, is 'a mere experiment' nowadays. They 'experiment' till they feel quite sure—then notify their parents and get ...
— His Family • Ernest Poole
... blamed," said Mrs. Atwater primly. "He really ought to have known better than to put such an instrument as a printing-press into the hands of an irresponsible boy of that age. Of course it simply encouraged him to print all kinds of things. We none of us think Uncle Joseph ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... answered, somewhat primly. It was evident that she was ill at ease. "I understood from Allison that you were doing all this yourself. Instead, I find you sitting on the veranda like a landed proprietor, in command ...
— Old Rose and Silver • Myrtle Reed
... said Maude primly, and so proceeded to save her sixpence on the gloves. As she was tempted, however ('such a civil obliging shopman, Frank!'), to buy four yards of so-called Astrakhan trimming, a frill of torchon lace, six dear little festooned handkerchiefs, and ...
— A Duet • A. Conan Doyle
... raciness of the original. Let the reader imagine a smug, elderly, sleek, and venerable-looking man, approaching seventy years of age, rather (as novel-writers say) below than above the middle height, somewhat inclined to corpulency, and upright in his carriage withal; with his hair most primly powdered, and nicely curled round his brow and temples: let them imagine such a person habited in sober black, with his feet thrust carelessly into a pair of unlaced half-boots, and his hands into the pockets of his "peculiars," and they have the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 341, Saturday, November 15, 1828. • Various
... his children) Run on home to your mother and don't get dirty on the way. (The two children start primly off down the street but just out of sight one of them ...
— The Mule-Bone: - A Comedy of Negro Life in Three Acts • Zora Hurston and Langston Hughes
... Nana and Pauline walked first, their prayer-books in their hands and holding down their veils on account of the wind; they did not speak but were bursting with delight at seeing people come to their shop-doors, and they smiled primly and devoutly every time they heard anyone say as they passed that they looked very nice. Madame Boche and Madame Lorilleux lagged behind, because they were interchanging their ideas about Clump-clump, a gobble-all, whose daughter would never have been confirmed if the relations ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... best appearance to watch our boat go out for New York. The harbour was bright with sunlight and blue water and little white sails, and there wasn't more than the faintest smell of tea. The city sat primly on her little hills, decorous, civilised, European-looking. It is homely after New York. The Boston crowd is curiously English. They have nice eighteenth-century houses there, and ivy grows on the buildings. And they are hospitable. All Americans are hospitable; but they haven't quite ...
— Letters from America • Rupert Brooke
... dog, came and planted himself at the very edge of the bare spot. Without giving her so much as a glance, he sat there primly and looked straight off the end of his nose at the sugar bowl in the middle. Not till this moment had Janet realized what a beautiful, intelligent-looking collie dog Mr. Brown had. His brown-buff coat, of just the right shade, ...
— The Wrong Woman • Charles D. Stewart
... white-painted balustrade was set some fifteen years ago upon its brink, it seemed always to have been there. Long verandas stretched on either side of the mansion; and behind was an old-fashioned garden with beds primly edged with box after a design of the poet's own. Longfellow had a ghost story of this quaint plaisance, which he used to tell with an artful reserve of the catastrophe. He was coming home one winter night, and as he crossed the garden he was startled by a white ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... going, heat turned on from the basement furnace; everywhere that tended, homelike appearance a competent servant gives a place. On the hall table as we passed, I noticed a doctorish top coat, with a primly folded muffler ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan
... the Allardice family gave me my invitation to Tibbie's wedding. I was taking tea and cheese early one wintry afternoon with the smith and his wife, when little Joey Todd in his Sabbath clothes peered in at the passage, and then knocked primly at the door. Andra forgot himself, and called out to him to come in by; but Jess frowned him into silence, and, hastily donning her black mutch, received Willie on the threshold. Both halves of the door were open, ...
— Auld Licht Idyls • J.M. Barrie
... name—Levisa Chafin Hatfield. If you were among the many who attended her funeral you will remember how peaceful she looked in her black burying dress she'd kept so long for the occasion. Again you will see her as she lay in her coffin, hands primly folded on the black frock, the frill of lace on the black bonnet framing the careworn face. You look up suddenly to see a mountain woman in a somber calico frock and slat bonnet. She is putting new paper flowers, to take the place ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas
... T. Barnwell Powell nodded primly. "I don't blame you, in the least, Colonel," he said. "I think you have been abominably treated, and your attitude is most generous." He was about to say something else, when the doorbell tinkled ...
— Dearest • Henry Beam Piper
... the porch screen slam as she went out—which was only fair—and she heard the low whispers change to louder tones, and a slight movement of feet; but she was not, evidently, intruding, for Kitty and Billy were quite primly disposed in the hammock when ...
— The Cheerful Smugglers • Ellis Parker Butler
... under an arched porch in a quiet little square, where there were some brave and pretty trees doing their best to be green, despite London soot and smoke. Innocent stepped out, and seeing a bell-handle pulled it timidly. The summons was answered by a very neat maid-servant, who looked at her in primly polite enquiry. ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... may be only temporary." Nat endeavoured to assume a seraphic expression, and partially succeeded. "I'm devoting much of my time to my studies," he pursued primly; "but nevertheless feel I should be earning ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... primly down the room in the wake of a waiter and with a murmured word or two with the Mariposa, handed her a telegram. The latter, still with an expression of perplexity, requested Mrs. Ames' permission to open it, acquainted herself with its contents, and then turned ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... accepted the invitation, and came primly through the two gates. He walked proudly to the swing and stood, cap in hand, ...
— Miss Minerva and William Green Hill • Frances Boyd Calhoun
... said, pleasantly, with his hat already in his hand, "I'm Harry Home, of San Francisco." As he spoke his eye swept approvingly over the neat inclosure, the primly-tied papers, and well-kept pigeon-holes; the pot of flowers on her desk; her china-silk mantle, and killing little chip hat and ribbons hanging against the wall; thence to her own pink, flushed face, bright blue eyes, tendriled clinging hair, and then—fell ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... people here," he asked after a pause, in which he plucked idly at the red-topped orchard grass through which they were passing. Behind them the six little negroes walked primly in single file, Mary Jo in the lead and a chocolate-coloured atom of two toddling at the tail of the procession. From time to time shrill squeaks went up from the rear when a startled partridge whirred over the pasture or a bare brown foot ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... their best, albeit to one whose ways were not their ways. But Nancy herself was the centre and light of the room,—so frail, so clean, with her plain nightcap and coarse white nightgown, and the small checked shawl folded primly over her shoulders. Thin as she was, she looked scarcely older than when I had seen her, five years ago; yet since then she had walked through a blacker valley than the one ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown |
