"Rueful" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was more or less the idea," he confessed, with a rueful grin. "He'll think I stole you away from him; he'll think I gave you the nervous prostration I hinted at. Heaven knows what he won't think! But, of course, the more of a villain I am the less you're to be held responsible. And there's nothing ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... toward her with a smile. "Not at all. Sometimes I used to try when no one heard, and once when I was in the hammock with my brother's little girl, I joined her in the song she was singing. She looked at me in a minute with a rueful countenance, and said, 'Aunt Helen, I can't sing when you are making such a noise!'" Bernice laughed. "I haven't tried much ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... thee, where'er thy pillowed head Rests lonely for the brother who has gone, To fix thy gaze on Freedom's chrysolite, Which rueful fate can neither crack nor mar, And, hand in hand indissolubly bound To thy next fellow, hand and purpose one, Stretch thus, a living wall, from the rock coast Home to our ripe and yellow heart of the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... regarding her with what, in a human, might have been rueful impatience. He said, "You know you enjoyed yourself, as always, Miellyn. Run along and make yourself beautiful again, ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... beat, And wishes to himself he were a lord, That he might lie a-bed.— He rubs his eyes, and stretches out his arms; Heigh ho! heigh ho! he drawls with gaping mouth, Then most unwillingly creeps out of bed, And without looking-glass puts on his clothes. With rueful face he blows the smother'd fire, And lights his candle at the red'ning coal; First sees that all be right amongst his cattle, Then hies him to the barn with heavy tread, Printing his footsteps on the new fall'n snow. From out the heap ...
— Poems, &c. (1790) • Joanna Baillie
... time that the fallen equestrienne was picking herself up, her face rueful, for she realized that the hour of reckoning had come. A moment later Rosetta Muriel had pounced on Annie, and, as an indication of sisterly authority, was boxing ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... very sea-sick. Paul was on the cabin-floor, with one hand holding on by the leg of the table, and a bottle of brandy in the other. His prayer-book he had abandoned during a fright, and it was washing about in the lee-scuppers. Jerry was delighted, but put on a rueful face. ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... black, and of busy mien, crowded the thoroughfare with scrip in hand. Each appeared intensely absorbed in business, and as I gazed on the assemblage, I could discover unmistakable symptoms of great excitement and mental anxiety, the proportion of rueful countenances being much greater than is usually seen in similar places of resort in England; a sudden depression in the market at the time might, however, account for much of this, although it is well known that brokers and speculators on the American continent engage in the pursuit with ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... that if a man of that kind was to fall in love with me, I'd black his boots for him," she said. Then she added, with a whimsically rueful gesture, ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... I may make so bould," said Barney, glancing with a somewhat rueful expression round the hard earthen floor of the hut, "where-abouts may I take ...
— Martin Rattler • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... height and with only a short season the hotel proprietors must do what they can, and prices do not rule low. A departing American was eyeing his bill with a rueful glance as we were leaving. "Milton had it wrong," he said to me (with the freemasonry of the plucked, for I knew him not), "what he meant ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... isn't too busy with politics. He says that he will give them up, if I insist; but my doing so might prevent his being chosen to Congress." There was again rueful pride in her plaint. ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... pity the brute, our nostril's rueful aversion. Else admire not if each ravisher angrily ...
— The Poems and Fragments of Catullus • Catullus
... much to do with it," said another, half laughing, half rueful. "There's some things Abe ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... only her outer garments before lying down; and after washing, and combing out her bright silken hair, she resumed the glittering, bride-like finery of the evening before. Poor Mollie looked at the silver-shining silk, the cobweb lace, the gleaming, milky pearls, with a very rueful face. ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... then on his way to their towns. They were not deceived by the artifice; for although he assumed an air of pleasantness and gaity, calculated to win upon their confidence, yet the woful countenance and rueful expression of poor Petro, convinced them that White's conduct was feigned, that he might lull them into inattention, and they be enabled to effect an escape. They were both tied for the night; and in the morning White being painted red, and Petro black, they were forced to proceed to the ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... amusing—the fish pulling, and the bird screaming with all its might,—the one attempting to fly, and the other to swim, from the invisible enemy—the gander one moment losing and the next regaining his centre of gravity, and casting between whiles many a rueful look at his snow-white fleet of geese and goslings, who cackled out their sympathy for their afflicted commodore. At length Victory declared in favour of the feathered angler, who, bearing away for the nearest shore, landed on the smooth green grass one of the ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... refuse to dance, and the fact that he was "the Boss's" guest, if only a boy, carried weight. Sarah rose, with a rueful glance at her disappointed swain. The two disconsolate faces moved Wally ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... is not finished," Grandpapa replied, with a rueful face; "we had set to work to sweep, and brush, and clean with a will, in order to make the room more worthy of its occupants, ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... the man to whom the dog belonged, and who lived at the cottage opposite to where the dog had lain down. He observed. Vanslyperken, looking very much like a vessel whose sails have been split in a gale, and very rueful at the same time, standing at a certain distance, quite undecided how to act, and he called out to him, "What is it you may ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat
... Rigby, with a rueful glance at the relics of her ill-fated contrivance. "My poor, dear, pretty Feathertop! There are thousands upon thousands of coxcombs and charlatans in the world, made up of just such a jumble of wornout, forgotten, and ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... I was fooled all along," said he, with a rueful sigh. "I had an idea that you'd be tickled to death to marry into the Wintermill family. Position, money, family jewels, and all that sort of thing. Everything desirable except Percy. And then, just when I thought something ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... its sky and its streets assume a sombre hue; the scattered, leafless trees and wind-blown dust and paper but add to the general solemnity of colour. There seems to be something in the chill breezes which scurry through the long, narrow thoroughfares productive of rueful thoughts. Not poets alone, nor artists, nor that superior order of mind which arrogates to itself all refinement, feel this, but dogs and all men. These feel as much as the poet, though they have not the same power of expression. The sparrow upon the wire, the cat in the doorway, the dray ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... her long submersion in the gelid waters of the mountain stream, she cautiously emerged, struggling between light-hearted laughter at the comedy of her escape and rueful worry about the fact that she was not only deeply chilled but had no clothes which were not wet. Her soaked spelling-book, also, gave her much concern. Before she spread her clothing out in the sparse sunlight, she took the dripping volume to the warmest ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... a somewhat rueful grin. "This here Rachel Blythe as has come back to the parish has come to a reconciling with your uncle, as was a by-gone flame of hern; and her tells my mother as it's thee and thy bride as ...
— Aunt Rachel • David Christie Murray
... gravely, "she's in a pretty unnatural state. I think she ought to get married, Baird—" To his friendly and disarming twinkle Baird replied with a rueful smile. ...
— His Family • Ernest Poole
... no longer thought it hard From favorite pursuits debarred, Nor gazed with rueful face; For every object seemed to be Invested with the witchery Of magic ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard
... was, and defend herself from his accusations. But she was too tired to do it; and besides, words seemed so far away, and feelings seemed far away, too. Francis and the work at the cabin and Pennington, with his kind, plump, rueful face, and even the O'Maras and Logan, seemed suddenly unreal and of little account. The only thing that really mattered was a chance to go somewhere and lie down and sleep. Perhaps she could lean back a little in the side-car as he ...
— I've Married Marjorie • Margaret Widdemer
... neck and left cheek, and a bit stiff of shoulder, was rueful but very eager. Frank's gutted gear was out of the blastoff drum, and spread around the shop. Most of it was already fixed. ...
— The Planet Strappers • Raymond Zinke Gallun
... move more than to drop his rejected arms, remained where she had left him, and requited her indignant stare with a broken smile of understanding, a smile at once tender, tolerant, and sympathetic, with a little quirk of rueful ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... adapted herself quickly and calmly to new circumstances. "It is never any use to get in a stew about things," she was wont to say. So now she untied Nap gingerly, with many rueful glances at her geraniums, and led him away to the field behind the house, where she tied him safely to a post with such an abundance of knots that there was small fear ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... statement of that kind Richardson had no answer. He could only acknowledge it with a rueful smile that did not lift the shadow from his eyes. There were no sunbeams caught in Quita's 'bits of sea water' just then; and for a while silence and tobacco-smoke reigned in the room. Richardson, who appeared to be reading the closely written sheet of foolscap ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... door, to bar her husband's ascent; and in due time the gallant, having found his way cautiously enough over the roof, they got them to bed, and there had solace of one another and a good time; and at daybreak the gallant hied him back to his house. Meanwhile the husband, rueful and supperless, half dead with cold, kept his armed watch beside his door, momently expecting the priest, for the best part of the night; but towards daybreak, his powers failing him, he lay down and slept ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... deep, rueful laugh. "In these parts, lad, I'm not called by my proper name. I'm Hodd Savage—The Barbarian. And that was a ...
— The Barbarians • John Sentry
... tough," returned Little Tim, rubbing the back of his head with a rueful look; "an' he's bin bumped about an' tumbled on to that extent that it's a miracle a whole bone is left in his carcass. But lend a hand, lad; we've got ...
— The Prairie Chief • R.M. Ballantyne
... help for it. Lavinia knew her mother's temper when it was roused. Slowly rubbing her eyes she sat up, a rueful and repentant little beauty, but having withal an expression in her eyes which seemed to suggest that she wasn't going to ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... companions, found no acceptance. We were all for our own planet in the morning. It was abundantly clear that revels must be the exception at Artenberg. Victoria was earnestly of this opinion. In the first place, the physical condition of William Adolphus was deplorable; he leered rueful roguishness out of bilious eyes, and Victoria could not endure the sight of him; secondly, she was sure that I had said something—what she did not know, but something—to Elsa; for Elsa had been found crying over her coffee in bed ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... radical of all is the theory according to which Thomas Drant translated the Satires of Horace. That Drant could be faithful even to excess is evident from his preface to The Wailings of Jeremiah included in the same volume with his version of Horace. "That thou mightest have this rueful parcel of Scripture pure and sincere, not swerved or altered, I laid it to the touchstone, the native tongue. I weighed it with the Chaldee Targum and the Septuaginta. I desired to jump so nigh with the Hebrew, that it doth erewhile deform the vein of the English, the proprieties of that language ...
— Early Theories of Translation • Flora Ross Amos
... six years and three months in this rueful solitude, they arrived safe at Archangel on the 25th of September, 1749. But the moment of landing was nearly fatal to the affectionate wife of Alexis Himkof, who happened to be present when the ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... when Leeky saw him fallen forward, but still half alive, he pressed through those who fought in front and hurled a sharp reed at him; but the point of the spear was stayed and did not break his shield. Then noble Rueful, like Ares himself, struck his flawless head-piece made of four pots—he only among the Frogs showed prowess in the throng. But when he saw the other rush at him, he did not stay to meet the stout-hearted hero but dived down to the depths ...
— Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica • Homer and Hesiod
... failed, when I saw him in company with his Liddesdale companions, to mimic with infinite humour the sudden outburst of his old host on hearing the clatter of horses' feet, which he knew to indicate the arrival of the keg, the consternation of the dame, and the rueful despair with which the young ...
— Sir Walter Scott - (English Men of Letters Series) • Richard H. Hutton
... may hold to this, Don Quixote was a gentleman, and is the first gentleman whose portrait is given us in literature. We have laughed at Don Quixote, but we have learned to love him. The "knight of the rueful countenance," as we see him now, is not himself a jest, but one of literature's most noble figures; and we love him because we must. Was it mere chance that in drawing this don, Cervantes clothed him with all nobilities, and shows him—living and dying—good, courageous, pure; ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... Beuve, the privileged circle at Coppet after making an excursion returned from Chambery in two coaches. Those arriving in the first coach had a rueful experience to relate—a terrific thunder-storm, shocking roads, and danger and gloom to the whole company. The party in the second coach heard their story with surprise; of thunder-storm, of steeps, of mud, of danger, they knew nothing; no, they had forgotten earth, and breathed a purer air; such ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... pushed back his sweat-bedewed hair with fingers which left a fearsome streak above his left eyebrow. The girl laughed. But the doctor's decorated face was rueful. ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... silent and alone, pale, with his hands in his pockets, and a rueful nod of the head to Arthur as they met, passed Henry Foker, Esq. Young Henry was trying to ease his mind by moving from place to place, and from excitement to excitement. But he thought about Blanche as he sauntered ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... it, I can't pay it," he said, making a most rueful countenance. "I'm eaten out of house and home, and sharped at cards besides. It's a shame for a Parson to play foul,—I say foul, Mr. Hodge. It's a disgrace to the cloth to bring your wicked card-cheating ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 2 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... several of the others, being roped and tied on ponies, and then his attention was attracted to Dick, who came limping up with a rueful face. ...
— The Boy Ranchers - or Solving the Mystery at Diamond X • Willard F. Baker
... they were rather rueful. One of the horses did not like his business, and wanted to be off, and we were stopped by his gambols continually , and, if I had not been a soldier's wife, I should have been terribly alarmed; but my soldier ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... Bumpus, whose heart had been captivated by the beauties of the island, obeyed the order with a rueful countenance; and Gascoyne bit his lip and turned aside to conceal his anger. In two minutes more the boat was rowed away ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... arm which he had seized with rather a rueful expression. She was a little white, ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... let me move the chimney, we could have had a nice spare sleeping-room instead of this little tucked up hole," Mrs. Lennox said, coming in with her hands covered with flour, and casting a rueful look at the small room kept for company, and ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... son in the place of his birth. She had built high hopes on this expedition; she had thought that the Oxford gentlemen would be prompt to recognise his merit; and for her sake the sharp-featured lawyer went back to the Mitre a rueful man. He had taken a lodging there with intent to dazzle the town, and not because his means were equal to it; and already the bill weighed upon him. By nature as cheerful a gossip as ever wore a scratch wig and lived to be ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... Work!—yet wise and well; Well chosen is the spirit that is here; That Hulk which labours in the deadly swell, This rueful sky, this pageantry ...
— Poems In Two Volumes, Vol. 2 • William Wordsworth
... I distinctly deserved a forfeit; but we were far past our unfriendly days, and I received nothing worse than a stern, "I am surprised at you, Miss Morris," and at my rueful response, "Yes, so am I surprised at Miss Morris," he laughed outright and pushed me toward the open door, bidding me hurry over to the dressmaker's. I had a partial revenge, however, for one of the plates he insisted on having copied ...
— Stage Confidences • Clara Morris
... cheek, and grinning a rueful smile, as the captain told me. We remained long in talk; never had my old friend been wiser or more kindly. He listened to me with patience as I told him—quietly, for he had fairly knocked my rage out of me—how desperately sick I was of my ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... Nan gave a rueful laugh. She more than half-liked to have Ruth leave her no alternative. It somehow made her seem less responsible to herself. If the decision were taken out of her hands she could not be held accountable and—the enjoyment would ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann
... moment, unhurt, except for a knock on the eye against his gun, which he was carrying before him; and after a minute's rueful look, he joined heartily in the shouts of laughter of his father and brother at his expense. 'Ah, Charley, brag is a good dog, but holdfast is a better. I never saw a more literal proof of the saying. There, jump up again, and I need not ...
— Out on the Pampas - The Young Settlers • G. A. Henty
... much, on horseback, Mr. Moseley?" abruptly asked Miss Sarah, turning her back on the young divine, and facing the gentleman she addressed. John, who was now hemmed in between the sisters, replied with a rueful expression that brought a smile into the face of Emily, who was placed opposite ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... asked, and looked rueful. He was one of the many sailors I have known who had not that ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... he said, "I leave that to Jasper—I call him my walking account-book. I'm sorry you fellows were let in though; I can't understand it; although"—with a rueful laugh—"I suppose it was my fault with that tenner. Yet, I must say, I noticed the man as he galloped past, and saw no, signs ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice
... eyes looked frankly and straightly into his. Their clear depths held a rueful smile. "You are conceited enough already," she said, "but if it will make you feel any better, I don't mind admitting that I shall miss you far, far ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... face twisted it into a rueful smile. The three words she dragged out were so faint that perhaps none but Dart's ...
— The Dawn of a To-morrow • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Murray, who got into a mistake and a morass, attacked two bodies that were joined, when he hoped to come up with one of them before the junction, was enclosed, embogged,'and defeated. By the list of officers killed and wounded, I believe there has been a rueful slaughter- -the place, too, I suppose will be retaken. The year 1760 is not the year 1759. Added to the war we have a kind of plague too, an epidemic fever and sore throat: Lady Anson is dead of it; Lord Bute and two of his daughters were in great ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... really one of the best things in the world, and led to endless banter. They were well dressed, and it could be imagined that the ancient bridegroom had come in for the support of the whole good-looking, healthy, light-hearted family. In some degree he looked it, and wore but a rueful countenance for a bridegroom; so that a very young newly married couple, who sat next the jolly sister-and-loverhood could not keep their pitying eyes off his downcast face. "What if he, too, were young at heart!" the kind little wife's ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... quite sure," replied Harold, with a rueful look, "that it is absolutely the worst fix, but it is bad enough. The worst of it is that this Yambo has let these rascals off with all our fire-arms and camp-equipage, so that we are absolutely helpless—might as well be prisoners, for we can't quit this ...
— Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne
... seat again, rueful resignation on her face. "You should be figuring it out on your own ...
— Ultima Thule • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... struck the barrel down with her quirt. He lowered the rifle, turned to her, and smiled. His grin was rueful but friendly. ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine
... see that we can very well do differently," was David's rueful reply. "At least we shall have a chance to find out from Tom just what has ...
— Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower
... John, turning his rueful eyes on Mr Haredale, who had dropped on one knee, and was hastily beginning to untie his bonds. 'Look'ee here, sir! The very Maypole—the old dumb Maypole—stares in at the winder, as if it said, "John Willet, John Willet, let's go and pitch ourselves in the nighest pool ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... lost their brilliancy, her hair fell, and she looked older. When Tusher in his courtly way vowed and protested that my Lady's face was none the worse, the lad broke out and said, "It is worse, and my mistress is not near so handsome as she was." On this poor Lady Castlewood gave a [v]rueful smile and a look into a little mirror she had, which showed her, I suppose, that what the stupid boy said was only too true, for she turned away from the glass and her eyes ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... slaughter not a few of them; till, as the burning ship began to blaze more fiercely, he bade the seamen take thereout all that they might by way of guerdon, which done, he quitted her, having gained but a rueful victory over his adversaries. His next care was to recover from the sea the body of the fair lady, whom long and with many a tear he mourned: and so he returned to Sicily, and gave the body honourable sepulture in Ustica, an islet that faces, as it were, Trapani, ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... know for sure that he's alive and safe!" was Billy's rueful rejoinder. "I've heard all sorts of stories about what rough-necks like those smugglers do to any one that ...
— The Boy Scouts on Picket Duty • Robert Shaler
... men who were eating sandwiches and pie at the counter. With complete and rueful knowledge as to the extent of his resources, he ordered a bowl of bread and milk—"the best you can do for a hungry kiddie for ten ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... doctrines which have been already retailed to them in their own youth. Every generation has to educate another which it has brought upon the stage. People who readily accept the responsibility of parentship, having very different matters in their eye, are apt to feel rueful when their responsibility falls due. What are they to tell the child about life and conduct, subjects on which they have themselves so few and such confused opinions? Indeed, I do not know; the least said, perhaps, the soonest ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Doctor White roared, and Tom looked a little rueful as his bundle produced another wallet as like to Harry's as two peas ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... horses were driven into the corral. The Prairie Cock, a noted beau, came in at the gate with a bevy of young girls, with whom he began to dance in the area, leading them round and round in a circle, while he jerked up from his chest a succession of monotonous sounds, to which they kept time in a rueful chant. Outside the gate boys and young men were idly frolicking; and close by, looking grimly upon them, stood a warrior in his robe, with his face painted jet-black, in token that he had lately taken a Pawnee scalp. Passing these, the ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... with a rueful glance at his boots, but bowing and smiling all the way. I learnt much of the neighbourhood from Mrs Collins, but with the warm colouring she judged amiable. I must except, however, the poor of the parish. There she spoke, with a censure no doubt deserved, ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... sufficient to show him that retreat by way of the beach was already cut off. He recognized the fact with a rueful grimace. The long green waves tumbling along the rocks were rising ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... nerves were knocked to smithereens, and a man can overlook a lot, under the circumstances. She was a mere jelly when the bombardment began——" goes on rueful Captain Bingo. ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... him that as he had finished pasting extracts into his commonplace book he might employ the next two hours in making our room a little more habitable. He could not deny the justice of my request, so with a rather rueful face he went off to his bedroom, from which he returned presently pulling a large tin box behind him. This he placed in the middle of the floor, and squatting down upon a stool in front of it he threw back the lid. I could see that it was already a third full of bundles ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 29, May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... Rosa looked rueful, and almost sullen. She said she had parted with her doctors for him, but she really could not go about without stays. "They are as loose as they can ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... Gill, 'tis like sunshine and clouds. She and the other, I mean. Why, I gave a little pull to a foot I saw in the armchair, thinking it belonged to Val, and out breaks my Lady of the Rueful Countenance, vowing she'll complain that I've insulted her; and as to the other, the whole lot of them tumbled over me together on the stairs, and she did nothing but ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the familiar objects that I had so often buoyantly beheld,—deserted encampments, cross-roads, rills, farm-houses, fields, and at last came to Daker's. I called out to them, and explained my woful circumstances with rueful conciseness. ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... against you, Epicurus, the name of pleasure is an affront to them: they know no other kind of it than that which has flowered and seeded, and of which the withered stems have indeed a rueful look. ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... warm radiance of that afternoon of Spring in England a gentleman of modest and commonly amiable deportment bore a rueful countenance down Piccadilly and into Halfmoon street, where presently he introduced it to one whom he found awaiting him in his lodgings, much at ease in his easiest chair, making free with his whiskey and tobacco, and ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... north the Florida breaks into quick-flashing ecstasy, like quick-winking Gorgon glances; and the north-east catches it in a single boom; and in ten seconds more it is as if Nature, with sudden yell, feels to her womb the birth-hour come and rueful throes: and where ships had been appears in one minute nothing but a ring of stagnant smoke, tugged into rays and out-sticking clouds, flushed ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... briars aside daintily as she stepped, and went slower still till they came to a pleasant place of oak-trees with greensward beneath them; and then she stopped, and turning, faced Ralph, and spoke with another voice than heretofore, whereas there was naught rueful or whining therein, but somewhat both of glee and of mocking as it seemed. "Sir knight," she said, "I have a word or two for thy ears; and this is a pleasant place, and good for us to talk together, whereas it ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... much absorbed in ruminating upon his melancholy situation to give his friend any other answer than a long and deep sigh, could not but most sensibly feel that they were in a still worse plight than the knight of the rueful countenance ever was; for they had run away without having made any fight at all. So ashamed were they of their misadventure, that they would not have mentioned it to any one, had they not been compelled to disclose it to the landlords of the various ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... minutes the officers, who had dragged off the stunned and insensible gladiator, returned with rueful countenances. They feared for his life; he was utterly incapacitated from re-entering ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... heard his exclamation, and laughed at his rueful face. "Oh, that isn't Fairy's expression. She thinks brilliant and clever people are just adorable. It is only I who think them horrible." Even Prudence could see that this did not help matters. "I—I do not mean that," she stammered. "I am sure you are ...
— Prudence of the Parsonage • Ethel Hueston
... toys, and filling of them with quicksilver motion; and brings his child to foolish, remediless catastrophe, in fancying his father's work as good, and strong, and fit to bear sunlight, as if it had been God's work. So, again, they represent the foresight and kindly zeal of men by a most rueful figure of one chained down to a rock by the brute force and bias and methodical hammer-stroke of the merely practical Arts, and by the merciless Necessities or Fates of present time; and so having his very heart torn piece by ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... in driving her in to be milked, and Mr. Kavan lost hours of valuable time in hunting for her without success. To-day he told us triumphantly that he had found her, and he was sent out to milk her. After two hours he returned with a rueful face and a few drops of whitish fluid in the milk pail, saying that that was all he could get. On Mr. K. going out, he found, instead of our "calico" cow, a brindled one that had been dry since the spring! Our cow has gone off to the wild cattle, and we are looking very grim at Lyman, who says ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... expression subdued to one of rueful pride. "When I am beaten by a better man, I have courage enough to get out of his way and take no ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... all," the captain assured her, adding with a rueful smile: "He didn't take you any more by surprise than he did me. I hadn't time to ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine
... yer neck's whole," said Joe, grinning, as Henri rubbed his shoulder with a rueful look. "An' we'll have to send that Injun and his family a knife and some beads to make up for the ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... bread that day since it was the Signora's will, take the money offered and depart, leaving such a mass of flowers behind him that Katy would begin to think that they had paid an unfair price for them and to feel a little rueful, till she observed that the old man was absolutely dancing downstairs with rapture over the good bargain he had made, and that Maria was black with indignation over the ...
— What Katy Did Next • Susan Coolidge
... his life as a connoisseur he spared himself no pains, often trudging miles, when not wanted at the Admiralty Office, in search of his prey. If any mercantile-minded friend ever inquired what anything had cost, he would be answered with a rueful smile, 'Much shoe leather.' He began with old furniture, china, and bric-a-brac, which ere long somewhat inconveniently filled his small rooms. Prices rose, and means in those days were as small as the rooms. No more purchases of Louis Seize and ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... said Sir Pertinax, staring at the Dwarf's rueful visage. "Learned ye aught of the ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... rueful. Twenty yards in any direction he could not see for the overpowering bush, except along the line of road darkened with endless forest. The waggon was being unpacked, for the driver sturdily declared that his ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... fingering a bump on his forehead with a rueful grin, "All's well that ends well, my son, and sure it's a pleasure to serve you. I flatter myself, moreover, that you wouldn't have done the trick on your own. Hoffstein will stand more from me than from any other ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... Oakwood, of the house of Thirlstane, by John Scott of Tushielaw, with whose sister Grizel the murdered man had, in 1616, contracted an irregular marriage, to the offence of her kin. On this showing, it is of the later crop of the ballads. But it is well-nigh impossible to think of rueful Yarrow flowing through her dens to any other measure ...
— The Balladists - Famous Scots Series • John Geddie
... Badger," replied the lad, and then with a rueful face he added: "But it doesn't seem to be doing me much good. I can't get into ...
— Tom Swift and his Giant Cannon - or, The Longest Shots on Record • Victor Appleton
... creature had a singularly disreputable and ferocious appearance. Blake made an attempt to recapture it, but, evading him easily, it ran along the floor with a curious hopping gait and disappeared among the pillars. Then he turned to his friend with a rueful laugh. ...
— Blake's Burden • Harold Bindloss
... goes to the Place where this Play was acted, there were heard most doleful Moans. Faunus lets fly all his Exorcisms. At Length the Ghost appears a good Way off in the Bushes, every now and then shewing the Fire, and making a rueful Groaning. While Faunus was adjuring the Ghost to declare who he was, Polus of a sudden leaps out of the Thicket, dress'd like a Devil, and making a Roaring, answers him, you have nothing to do with this Soul, it is mine; and every now and then runs to the very Edge ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... that had come upon them, the boys could not but laugh at the boy's rueful countenance. Nor did the Professor find it in his heart to ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Ozarks • Frank Gee Patchin
... will insist on putting in somebody with a name—like Ethel Barrymore or Nazimova or Maude Adams. That's going to be the rub, you see. Of course, I shall not give in to them. It is Amy Colgate or no one." He looked very rueful despite ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... face, and staring eye-balls, were approached close to the writhing features of his redoubted principal—as I think I have seen honest Sancho Panza's, in one of Tony Johannot's sketches, to that of the prostrate Knight of the Rueful Countenance. ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... see how good a shot you are, said Dale. Bo slowly withdrew her fascinated gaze from the lion and looked with a rueful smile at Dale. ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... affirmed. "Only," he added, with a vaguely rueful modulation, and always with that amiable abruptness, as a man very much at his ease, while his blue eyes whimsically brightened, "only the blessed public never comes—we're so off the beaten path. And I ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... Tom, with a rueful look on his face. "Those recoil checks didn't work as well in practice as ...
— Tom Swift and his Aerial Warship - or, The Naval Terror of the Seas • Victor Appleton
... the spectators, who stood thickly about the walls, the windows even being filled with faces of black and white servants. My Lord Estes was a handsome dark man, handsomer and older than Sir Humphrey Hyde, who, though dancing with the governor's daughter Cate, had, I could see, a rueful eye of watchfulness toward Mary Cavendish. As he and Cate Culpeper swung past me, Sir Humphrey's eyes fell on my face and he gave a start and blush, and presently, when the dance was over and his partner seated, came up to me with hand extended, as if I had been the ...
— The Heart's Highway - A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeeth Century • Mary E. Wilkins
... pretends that he is all right, and plays checkers with the captain with an air of assumed tranquillity which approaches heroism, but he is observed at irregular intervals to go suddenly and unexpectedly on deck, and to return every time with a more ghastly and rueful countenance. When asked the object of these periodical visits to the quarter-deck, he replies, with a transparent affectation of cheerfulness, that he only goes up "to look at the compass and see how she's heading." I am surprised to find that looking at the compass is attended ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... not to be kept warm, for the weather is fine and hot," said Maikar, with a rueful expression. "Moreover, we need food, and we ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne
... Whiles he had keeping of his grasing steed, And valiant knight become a caytive thrall, 160 When all was past, tooke up his forlorne weed,[*] His mightie armour, missing most at need; His silver shield, now idle maisterlesse; His poynant speare, that many made to bleed, The rueful moniments[*] of heavinesse, 165 And with them all departes, to tell his ...
— Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I • Edmund Spenser
... say. A short time after passing Ramsgate, Serjeant Lankin, who had been exceedingly gay and satirical—(in his calm way; he quotes Horace, my favorite bits as an author, to myself, and has a quiet snigger, and, so to speak, amontillado flavor, exceedingly pleasant)—Lankin, with a rueful and livid countenance, descended into his berth, in the which that six foot of serjeant packed himself I don't ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... part by snorting and roaring lustily. The dog ran at him, but was repulsed,—the courage of the animal, however, increased with every struggle, and at last he seized his biped antagonist by the cheek, who, with rueful countenance, endured it for some time, till at length he was compelled to cry out to his companion to take the dog off; but he, unwilling to damp the courage of his eleve, vociferated, "Woot spoil the pup, ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... morning. Rosa was like freshly-poured champagne, in sweet and sparkle. Alfred, rueful and limp, as if the dripping clouds that verified Mabel's prediction had soaked him all night. He was dry and comfortable—to carry out the figure—within twenty minutes after his beloved fluttered, like a tame canary, into the chair next ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... a squad of malicious spirits hovering in ambush to swoop upon all new-comers, and not only fracture limbs, but scatter to right and left paralysis, epilepsy, and other diseases? From your rueful countenance a stranger might infer that Pandora's box had just been opened at 'Bochim,' and that the very air was ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... Jack, shouting and trusting to the chapter of accidents; but the bowler runs steadily under it, judging every spin, and calling out, "I have it," catches it, and playfully pitches it on to the back of the stalwart Jack, who is departing with a rueful countenance. ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... man!" sighed the Duchessa, with a rueful shake of the head. "His foolish British self-consciousness! His British inability to put himself in another person's place, to see things from another's point of view! Could n't he see, from her point of view, from any point of view but his own, that it was ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... long illness the "glue factory" was completely forgotten, by Alice at least; and her laugh was rueful as well as derisive now, in the kitchen, when she realized that her mother's mind again dwelt upon this abandoned nuisance. "I thought you'd got over all that ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington
... from this delusion—the cruel and the rueful time—was not far off. After some quiet months of married life, as the summer was ending, and the year was getting on toward the month of his birthday, Isaac found his wife altering toward him. She grew sullen and ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins |
