"Sill" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... But see!" Barker drew aside the curtain, and showed that the long, diamond-paned window was open to its full extent. "And look at this!" He held the lamp down and illuminated a smudge of blood like the mark of a boot-sole upon the wooden sill. "Someone has stood ...
— The Valley of Fear • Arthur Conan Doyle
... abroad on that still night. They sat upon the sill of a shack rather more pretentious than the barnlike buildings all about, for it had been officers' quarters. There were even the rotten remnants of curtains in the windows, necessary no doubt to help defeat the Germans. The neighborhood was very quiet and very dark, save for the sounds ...
— Roy Blakeley in the Haunted Camp • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... suddenly rises and comes blowing out of Stavanger again. The great sea suddenly lifts under his one good leg. And Tobias with his Bibles and his prayer books struggles in the dark of his Grand Avenue bedroom. The devil comes and sits on his window sill, a devil with long locks and bronze wings beside his ears and a ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... to bed yesterday of this baby; and I am such a poor, sickly thing that I shall not be able to get up before two days. As the day was bright, dear John brought me and the baby out here, because it was more cheerful on the door-sill than within. I am a weak, useless ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... market. Before us lay the garden in the splendid fulness of late summer. Concord and Catawba grapes loaded the vines on the rickety old arbor; tomatoes were ripening in reckless plenty, to be given to the neighbors, or to lie in tempting rows on the window-sill of the kitchen and the shelves of the back porch; the second planting of cucumber vines ran in flowery luxuriance over the space allotted to them, and even encroached on the territory of the squashes and melons. Damsons hung purpling over the eaves of the house, and wasps and ...
— Aunt Jane of Kentucky • Eliza Calvert Hall
... Tahoe, which has extended over a period of more than thirty years, were I to ignore the influence the Lake's beauty has had over me, and the urge it has placed within me. Realizing and feeling these emotions I have constantly asked with Edward Rowland Sill: ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... soon the inhabitants began to come into hailing distance and the Chippewas concluded to beat a hasty retreat but not before they had taken Old Jim's scalp. When the Sioux ran into Forbes store, the clerk, thinking his time had come, raised a window and taking hold of the sill, let himself drop down to the river's edge, a ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various
... was sent up, and presently was fast to something above and dangled down a little past the window-sill. ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... subtler sense Hold their breath and hurry thence. Miss Thompson hovers there and gazes: Her housewife's knowing eye appraises Salt and fresh, severely cons Kippers bright as tarnished bronze: Great cods disposed upon the sill, Chilly and wet, with gaping gill, Flat head, glazed eye, and mute, uncouth, Shapeless, wan, old-woman's mouth. Next a row of soles and plaice With querulous and twisted face, And red-eyed bloaters, golden-grey; Smoked ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various
... business." He swung Allison's bed around so that his right arm rested easily on the window sill, requested the nurse to wheel the drug store within easy reach, and rapidly uncorked bottle after bottle ...
— Old Rose and Silver • Myrtle Reed
... at instantly. There was no more time for indecision, and Phil once more flung a lightning glance about the building. The walls of the chancel on either side of the high altar and up to the level of the sill of the glorious east window were draped with rich tapestry, depicting on a background of gold thread, on the one side the Annunciation, and on the other the Apotheosis of the Blessed Virgin; and Phil noticed ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... devoted to his duty. He proved himself to be the best man we could have procured for our purpose. He was well acquainted with Alderman Williams, and strolled along past his office. The Alderman was seated with his feet cocked up on the window-sill, smoking a cigar, and, not having much to do, hailed Franklin as he went by, asking him to come in. Franklin accepted the invitation, and lighting a cigar which the Alderman ...
— The Expressman and the Detective • Allan Pinkerton
... about how they should drive the robbers away. At last they made a plan that they thought would work. The donkey was to stand on his hind legs and place his forefeet on the window-sill. The dog was to stand on his back. The cat was to stand on the dog's shoulders, and the rooster promised to light upon ...
— The Book of Stories for the Storyteller • Fanny E. Coe
... for corners and door posts, or spike two 2 by 4 studs together, stand them up, set them plumb, and with stay laths secure them in position. Set up the intermediate studs, which are 2 by 4 inches, and 16 inches between centres, toe or nail them diagonally to the sill. Then put in the floor joists for first floor, each joist to be placed alongside each stud, and nailed to it and to the sill. Next measure the height to ceiling, and with a chalk line mark it around the entire range of studding; below the ceiling line notch each stud one inch deep ...
— Woodward's Country Homes • George E. Woodward
... Edna sat at the window expecting every moment to hear her aunt's heavy tread upon the stair. Finally, from sheer exhaustion, the little dusky head drooped on the sill, and when the last fading sunbeam stole into the room it found the little girl ...
— A Dear Little Girl • Amy E. Blanchard
... vindictiveness. She sat by the window trying to make some sort of plan, watching the lightning play over the hilltop and the streams of rain chasing each other down the lightning rod. And this was the day that had dawned so joyfully! It had been a red sunrise, and she had leaned on the window sill studying her lesson and thinking what a lovely world it was. And what a golden morning! The changing of the bare, ugly little schoolroom into a bower of beauty; Miss Dearborn's pleasure at her success with the ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... But, however hateful their manners, and however rash their self-confidence, the vices of these younger men had no direct connection with the disasters of 1806. The gallants who sharpened their swords on the window-sill of the French Ambassador received a bitter lesson from the plebeian troopers of Murat; but they showed courage in disaster, and subsequently gave to their country many officers of ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... sold. He takes the only course left him, and in the last GALAXY claims that HE wrote the criticism himself, and published it in THE GALAXY to sell the public. This is ingenious, but unfortunately it is not true. If any of our readers will take the trouble to call at this office we sill show them the original article in the SATURDAY REVIEW of October 8th, which, on comparison, will be found to be identical with the one published in THE GALAXY. The best thing for Mark to do will be to admit that he was sold, and say no more ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the time. I expect she'd taken them out of mother's drawer, for she kept on looking round to see if any one was coming, and the best of it was I was watching all the time, and she never knew it. I saw her put one piece of paper down on the window-sill; she was saying very funny things to herself. 'Meg shouldn't have done it; she wouldn't take my advice. Ah! she'll rue it some day, I well believe,' and all on like that. Of course Meg means mother, ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... prison. Long since had the rope of hide been braided. To secure one end to the remaining bar that he had left for this purpose was the work of but a moment, and while the warriors whispered without, the brown body of the ape-man slipped through the small aperture and disappeared below the sill. ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... with a sun added"; neither dew nor freshness can he feel; nothing is altered with this dawn—the plant he bruised in getting through the lattice last night droops as it did then, and still there shows his elbow's mark on the dusty sill. ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... bursten-bellied, crooked, toothless, bald, blear-eyed, impotent, rotten, old men shall you see flickering still in every place? One gets him a young wife, another a courtesan, and when he can scarce lift his leg over a sill, and hath one foot already in Charon's boat, when he hath the trembling in his joints, the gout in his feet, a perpetual rheum in his head, "a continuate cough," [4740]his sight fails him, thick of hearing, his breath stinks, all his moisture is dried up and gone, may not ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... her arms on the window sill and looked out into the silent night. The stars were shining peacefully enough, looking down on this world of strife and struggle; Erica grew a little calmer as she looked; Nature, with its majesty of calmness, seemed to quiet her troubled ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... repaired cothurns for the Dionysian theatre, which was about to make a last attempt to revive the tragic drama, which had been eclipsed by the farces of Aristophanes. The Roman Lucillus lounged at the window-sill, and, since philosophy had been brought into fashion by Socrates and the Sophists, the shoemaker and the exiled Decemvir philosophised as well as ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg
... step, and leaned his back against the railing; although outwardly he kept up a constant low run of conversation with Mrs. Levice, who swayed to and fro in her rocker, he was intently conscious of Ruth's white figure perched on the window-sill. ...
— Other Things Being Equal • Emma Wolf
... wooden buckets from the tops of copra-trees. A comical old fellow, Pedro Pocpotoc (a name derived from chicken language), used to live here, and on moonlight nights, planting his fat feet on the window-sill, like a droll caricature of Nero, he would sing Visayan songs to the accompaniment of a cheap violin. A talkative old baker lived a short way down the street with his three daughters. They were always busy pounding rice in wooden ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert
... to climb up to the narrow window-sill by a broken chair which stood under it; but when they were there, and Meg had her arm round Robin, to hold him safe, they could see down into Angel Court, and into the street beyond, with its swarms of busy and squalid people. Upon the stone pavement ...
— Little Meg's Children • Hesba Stretton
... the hook in a blaze of temper, hurt and unreasonable, and striding to the rear window flung it up to cool his face. There were bouillon cups upon the sill. Bouillon cups! Bouillon cups! Thunder-and-turf! There were bouillon cups everywhere. Nobody but Brian would have bought so many handles. A future of handles loomed drearily ahead. Brian could talk of disorder ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... this ditch, and struck full length. In its bottom there was about two inches of mud, thick enough to encase me. By the time I had pawed out, I could not, if laid out, have been distinguished from a mud sill; but I was too near gone to speak bad words, and so went on in silence, weighing five pounds more than before my descent. Before long we halted and bivouaced for the night. The next morning, the 27th, our regiment ...
— Personal Recollections of the War of 1861 • Charles Augustus Fuller
... was not without a gravity of expression which made her strangely impressive, like some wax mask of an avenging Fate. With a sensation of relief, Patty's eyes wandered from the haggard face to a calla lily in a pot on the window-sill, and she noticed that it bore a single perfect blossom. While she waited, overcome by a dumbness which seemed to invade her from head to foot, her eyes clung to that calla lily as if it were her one connection with reality. All the rest, the close, dingy room, with the ailantus tree ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... hours, asleep there kneeling on the chair, with your head on the window-sill; and a mercy you hadn't tumbled off and broke your back. Now, look here.—You seems a civil sort of chap; and civil gets as civil gives with me. Only don't you talk no politics. They ain't no good to nobody, except the big 'uns, wot gets their living ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... students once more visit the wretched weaver, and on being informed of his loss, they throw a bit of lead at his feet, saying it's of no use to give such a fool money, and go away in a great huff. The weaver picks up the lead and places it on the window sill. By-and-by a neighbour, who is a fisherman, comes in and asks for a bit of lead or some other heavy thing, for his net, and on receiving the lead thrown down by the students promises to give him in return the first large fish he catches. The weaver does get a fine fish, which he immediately ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... has come for your subscription for the illuminated address he and Dr. O'Donoghue are getting up for the police sergeant. I promised the other day that you'd give something. If you sign a cheque and stick it out on the window-sill, I'll fill up the amount and hand it on to Doyle. I should say that one pound would be a handsome contribution, and I may get you off with ten shillings. It'll all depend on how the money is coming in. He's turning in at the gate now, so you'd ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham
... someone broke into the house last night. At least, one of the kitchen windows and the shutter were found open, and there were footmarks on the window-sill, and about the floor. The strange thing is that nothing has been moved or taken away, but Mrs. Minards is greatly frightened, so are the maids; the foolish girls seem to have lost their ...
— Paul the Courageous • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... has had his bath all right," said Mother, with a laugh. "And I think he is pretty clean. He does not seem to be melting any, but it would be well to let him dry. Here, I'll set him on the window sill and open the window. The breeze will dry him off better than if you wiped him with a towel. Then you will not wipe off any of ...
— The Story of a Candy Rabbit • Laura Lee Hope
... from the valley of Fontenay as far as the fort, assailing his exhausted nostrils, once more shattering his helpless nerves and throwing him into such a prostration that he fell unconscious on the window sill. ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... The other window is always open and looks out on the park. There is a dovecote just opposite the window, and doves promenade up and down upon the roof of it, and fly about, and sometimes whirr down on the sill itself. That pleases Liszt. His writing-table is beautifully fitted up with things that match. Everything is in bronze—inkstand, paper-weight, match-box, etc.—and there is always a lighted candle standing on it by which he and the gentlemen can light their cigars. There is a carpet on the ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... front of the house, with a cinder-path leading up to the door, and an open rain-water butt on one side. A dirty striped curtain, on a very slack string, hung in the window, and a little triangular bit of broken looking-glass rested on the sill inside. I suppose it was meant for the people's use, but their appearance was so wretched, and so miserable, that I'm certain they never could have plucked up courage to look themselves in the face a second time, if they survived the fright of doing so once. There ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... candle which she had left on the window-sill of the empty room. Only then a sort of bewilderment came over her; she extinguished the candle and, gliding quickly along the dark corridor, entered her own room, undressed and went to bed in ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... iron-studded gates locked, as was to have been expected at that hour. He knocked, and presently the postern gaped, and a lantern was advanced. Instantly that lantern was dashed aside and Sir Oliver had leapt over the sill into the courtyard. With a hand gripping the porter's throat to choke all utterance, Sir Oliver heaved him out to his men, ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... hands, as he made a gesture toward Quade, were of womanish whiteness. Casually, on the street or in a Pullman, Aldous would have taken him for a gentleman. Now, as he stared through the narrow slit between the bottom of the curtain and the sill, he knew that he was looking upon one of the most dangerous men in all the West. Quade was a villain. Culver Rann, quiet and cool and suave, was a devil. Behind his depravity worked the brain which Quade lacked, and a nerve which, in spite of that almost ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... room half an hour later. ISABEL is picking up the scattered orange blossom which she ties together and lays on the window sill. LUBIN comes in with a large ...
— Six Plays • Florence Henrietta Darwin
... the lamp from the one chair in the room, placed it upon the window-sill, and sat down, pulling the chair around so that he faced Conniston. "You're goin' to work with me in the mornin'. Now, ...
— Under Handicap - A Novel • Jackson Gregory
... innocently bright like a child with a washed face, fresh like an innocent young girl, suave in welcoming one's respects like—like a Roman prelate. I love such days. They are perfection for remaining indoors. And I enjoyed it temperamentally in a chair, my feet up on the sill of the open window, a book in my hands and the murmured harmonies of wind and sun in my heart making an accompaniment to the rhythms of my author. Then looking up from the page I saw outside a pair of grey eyes thatched by ragged yellowy-white eyebrows gazing at me ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... brilliant glare outside; for the reflected light is very conspicuous on the top and on the shutters on each side; indeed they cast distinct shadows up and down, while some clear daylight from the blue sky is reflected on the window-sill. As to the sink, the table, the wash-tubs, &c., although they seem in strong light and shade they really receive little or no direct light from a single point; but from the strong reflected light re-reflected into them from the wall of the doorway. There are many ...
— The Theory and Practice of Perspective • George Adolphus Storey
... had fallen swiftly. It was incredibly silent. There was no sound in the Master's room, and no light except the flicker of the logs smoldering in the fireplace. The thin line of it appeared faintly along the sill of the door." ...
— The Sleuth of St. James's Square • Melville Davisson Post
... the window- frame was visible; Uncle Felix's big figure blocked against the stars. Judy's head could be seen in silhouette against the other window, but Tim and Maria, being smaller, were merged in the pool of shadow below the level of the sill. A large, spread thing passed flutteringly up and down the room a moment, then came the rest. It settled over everything at once. A rustle was audible as ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... upper windows were long and low, and were glazed with the old lead-framed diamond-shaped panes of dark green glass. The ground-floor was lighted by two ancient shop windows, having heavy wooden sashes glazed with panes about nine inches high by six wide. To the sill of each window, hung upon hinges, were long deal shutters, which were lifted up at night, and fastened with "cotters." There were two or three well-worn steps to the entrance. The door was divided half-way up: the upper portion ...
— Personal Recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham Men • E. Edwards
... thing happened. The higher the young man climbed the higher the birds seemed to be, and when he looked down the earth below appeared no bigger than a star. Sill he tried to go back, but he could not, and though he could not see the birds any longer he felt as if something were ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... youths, slaves likewise from the suburban or rustic farm, were giving samples, to such as wished to buy, of different qualities of wine from several amphora or earthen pitchers, which stood on a stone counter forming the sill ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 2 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... went to the fireside, and drew the few coals together, and lit a lamp. For a moment she stood still, looking at the closed door between her and her child; then she lifted a large book from the window-sill, laid it on the small round table, opened it wide, and sat down before it. It was a homely, workaday-looking book, and she did not read a word of it, though her eyes were upon the page. But it was the Bible. And the Bible is like the sunshine, it comforts and cheers us only to sit down ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... man's monkey, cap in hand, clambered to the sill of the mediocre artist's window. And the mediocre artist tossed into his cap a peanut. The monkey, putting the peanut in his ...
— A Book Without A Title • George Jean Nathan
... Myer," she would say, "the top of the mornin' to ye. It's to market I've just been and the butcher sent ye a posy," and she would put a gay flower or two in the blue glass vase that stood on the sick woman's window-sill. ...
— Jerry's Reward • Evelyn Snead Barnett
... containing a cook-stove, a large bed, and a chest of drawers, there was an attempt to make it tidy. In a dark closet opening out from it was another large bed. As he knocked and opened the door, he saw that Gretchen was not at home. Her father sat in a rocking-chair by an open window, on the sill of which stood a pot of carnations, the Easter gift of St. George's, a wax-faced, hollow-eyed man of gentle manners, who looked round wearily at the priest. The mother was washing clothes in a tub in one corner; in another corner was a half-finished garment from a slop-shop. ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... autumn migrants with all the eagerness of the born naturalist. She offered the children money if they would bring her the first tidings of the arrival of birds in the dale. There was always a halfpenny underneath the geranium pot in the window-sill for the child whose eye caught sight of the first swallow, redstart or sandpiper; or whose ear first recognised the clarion call of the cuckoo, or the evening "bleat" of the nightjar on the bracken-mantled fells at ...
— More Tales of the Ridings • Frederic Moorman
... not tell him that they had been running about already; but, stepping up to the window, I found the rose which the fair girl had laid upon the sill, and, fastening it in the button-hole of my jacket, made ready to follow ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai
... through the pane, He could not help but mark, And only passed her by, To come again at dark. He was a winter wind, Concerned with ice and snow, Dead weeds and unmated birds, And little of love could know. But he sighed upon the sill, He gave the sash a shake, As witness all within Who lay that night awake. Perchance he half prevailed To win her for the flight From the firelit looking-glass And warm stove-window light. But the flower leaned aside And thought of naught to say, ...
— A Boy's Will • Robert Frost
... like cocoanut (though they will come to the window-sill simply for bread crumbs). The cocoanut should be sawn in two, and a hole bored through each half, about an inch from the edge. A strong string is then threaded in and they are hung from the bough of a tree. They should be hung rather high up, on a bough reaching ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... joint, Fig. 264, is made by driving nails diagonally thru the corners of one member into the other. It is used in fastening the studding to the sill in balloon framing. ...
— Handwork in Wood • William Noyes
... made no long job of the horseshoeing. For, as he hammered and filed, he marked the eye of the young Earl restlessly straying this way and that along the green riverside paths, and his fingers nervously tapping the ashen casing of the smithy window-sill. Malise MacKim smiled to himself, for he had not served a Douglas for thirty years without knowing by these signs that there was the swing of a kirtle in the ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... simplicity thinking herself metropolitan, just as those who take their styles from the metropolis feel themselves well dressed. The very Corinthian clerks and grocery boys, lounging behind their counters and in the doorways, the lawyer's understudy with his feet on the window sill, the mechanic's apprentice, the high school youths and the local sporting fraternity—all imitated their city kind and talked smartly about the country "rubes" who came to town; never once dreaming that they themselves, when they "go to town," are as much a mark for ...
— The Calling Of Dan Matthews • Harold Bell Wright
... smell of fresh linen, buoyant perfumes, (camphor, cinnamon, violets, rose) and the hot, sweet odor of newly-mown grass lying under the sun just outside of the windows. The wind pulsed in through the half-swung window, a bee came buzzing wildly along, a butterfly rested an instant on the window sill, and the preacher prayed on in an oratorical way for ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland
... evening very late, though little fatigued. Wednesday afternoon I went with Sill to Bethlehem (Nichols), drank tea, supped, and breakfasted. I am pleased with our friend's choice, of which more next Tuesday evening. I am vexed you were not of my party here—that we did not charter a sloop. I have planned a circuit with you to Long Island, with a number of pleasant &c.s, which ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... then I saw something come up above the sill, and clutch at the broken window-frame. It caught a piece of the woodwork; and, now, I could make out that it was a hand and arm. A moment later, the face of one of the Swine-creatures rose into view. Then, before I could use my ...
— The House on the Borderland • William Hope Hodgson
... in its silver stick; then a mist blinded me, and I fell on my knees in the rank bed into which I had stepped, to give such thanks to the Almighty as this heart has never felt before or since. And I remained kneeling; for now my face was on a level with the sill; and when my eyes could see again, there stood my darling before them ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... was ajar, and outside I saw du Tertre-Jouan, Jolivet, and Berquin, listening and peeping through. Suddenly the window bursts wide open, and du Tertre-Jouan vaults the sill, gets between Boulot and ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... its echoes fade, The fleet foot on the sill of shade, And hold to the low lintel up The ...
— Modern British Poetry • Various
... go to Llanbrynmair. Llanbrynmair was, as we know, the conjuror's place of abode. Thomas, however, did not leave his house, nor did he intend doing so, but that very night the stolen property was returned, and it was found the next morning on the door sill. ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... to make sure it was securely fastened, he put one leg over the window sill, grasped the lariat with both hands, ...
— The Boy from the Ranch - Or Roy Bradner's City Experiences • Frank V. Webster
... she crossed the sill, formed, with the swift keenness of the plainswoman, a new and truer estimate of Lounsbury, he, saluting cordially, failed not to measure her. The dirt-floored shack, partitioned by Navajo blankets and furnished with unplaned ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
... a comfortable chair for the nurse-maid. White muslin curtains with side hangings of washable chintz or linen or some special nursery design in cretonne should hang to the sill. ...
— Furnishing the Home of Good Taste • Lucy Abbot Throop
... when once one's vanity has been tickled. She looked at the window sill and gave a little shudder and wondered if the man were crazy. Then she sat down again and sat a long time wondering what her ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... stiffly, and followed the old negress out. She went directly to her bedroom, but not to sleep. The night was hot, and it had been to her a day full of excitement. She had much to think of. Going to the open window, she sat down in a low chair with her arms across the sill. ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine
... eager signal he ran forward with a light ladder, planted it against the window-sill, and in less than a minute the twain were running toward the beach; but the creak of the ladder had been heard, and grasping their muskets two of the men hurried out. In the track of the moon the pursuers ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... dormer to break the square solidity of the whole. Fourteen windows in all, each chastely shrouded in Nottingham lace curtains, looped back by yellow silk bands, fastened, to a fraction of an inch, at the same height from the sill, while Aspidistra plants, mounted on small tables, were artfully placed so as to fill up the space necessarily left in the centre. They were handsome plants of venerable age, which Mason, the parlourmaid, watered twice a week, sponging their leaves with milk before ...
— Flaming June • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... some documents in his office; a reflective, unlighted cigar in the corner of his mouth; his chair tilted back and his feet on a window-sill. He nodded, upon my statement of the affair that brought me, and, without shifting his position, gave me a look of slow but wholly friendly scrutiny over his shoulder, and bade me sit down. I began at once to put the questions I was told ...
— Beasley's Christmas Party • Booth Tarkington
... must be avoided. In such case, to rectify matters, raise the bottom window a few inches, and have a piece of board made to fit in under it, so as to support the sash and fill in the space between it and the sill. The air freely enters the room between the two sashes, because the top of the lower sash is by this contrivance raised above the lower part of the upper one. Another great advantage is that the ...
— The Art of Living in Australia • Philip E. Muskett (?-1909)
... "No," said he, "I will not go to meet him—he would mock at me, perhaps boast of it." He turned back to Iris chair, and took up the book he had been reading. And now some one tapped gently upon the door, a servant appeared and announced "Monsieur Voltaire," and now a figure stood upon the door- sill. ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... the law to her and how sweetly she had borne with his somewhat dictatorial decrees. He remembered her listening intelligence, her gentle but quick replies, her interest in all that concerned the church, in all that concerned him; and then he struck his riding-whip against the window-sill and declared to himself that it was impossible that Eleanor Bold should ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... she and her sister sat waiting for the fly in which Mrs. Hooper had gone to meet her husband's niece at the station, ran persistently on her own childish recollections of this visit. She sat in the window-sill, with her hand behind her, ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... on the busy street while she called up pleasant memories of her past life. That afternoon she thought she would call up some more memories, so she went over on the counter and from there jumped down on the window-sill, landing with all four feet in the ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... made knots to this end; nor was the climbing more difficult than to scale a branchless beech trunk for a bird's nest, which, like other boys, I had often done. So behold me, at last, with my legs hanging in free air, seated on the sill of the casement. Happily, of the three iron stanchions, though together they bore my weight, one was loose in the lower socket, for lack of lead, and this one I displaced easily enough, and so passed through. Then I put the wooden bar at the rope's end, within ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... I was unlucky in my quotation. But notwithstanding the acuteness of Dr. Johnson's criticism, and the power of his ridicule, The Tragedy of Douglas sill continues to be generally and deservedly admired. BOSWELL. Johnson's scorn was no doubt returned, for Dr. A. Carlyle (Auto. p. 295) says of Home:—'as John all his life had a thorough contempt for such as neglected ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... Grant led the others upstairs to wash. From the bathroom he looked out over a darkening landscape. Doris's dormer window was open. She was leaning on the sill, but he could not tell whether or not her eyes were turned his way. Her attitude was pensive, disconsolate, curiously forlorn for a girl normally high-spirited. He was on the point of signaling to her when he remembered Furneaux's presence. There was something ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy
... window of the bar-room, they might have detected, in the dusk, the face of Dougherty, the Irish ostler of the Unicorn Tavern. It disappeared instantly, but there was a crack nearly half an inch wide between the bottom of the back-door and the sill under it, and to that crack a large, flat ear ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... at about ten o'clock, came his neighbour and friend, Arthur Chester. Standing with arms on the sill outside of the lighted window, clad in summer vestments of white and looking as cool and fresh as the man inside looked hot and dirty, Chester attempted to lure ...
— Red Pepper's Patients - With an Account of Anne Linton's Case in Particular • Grace S. Richmond
... footsteps as they died away into the night; finally she walked over to the piano, and, sitting down, raised her hands as if to strike the keys. Instead, she suddenly put both her arms on the little shelf before the music-rack and buried her head in them. The curtains tip-tapped on the window-sill; the room ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... him, furtively, for an instant, as if instinctively on his guard against an unwelcome eye. Then, presently, he smiled, and going to a window, pushed open the blinds, leaning, with elbows on the sill, gratefully out into the rectangular enclosure, walled in high by houses, where the late afternoon sun glanced with uncertain warmth on ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various
... lingering steps he turned toward the store, but, as he stepped upon the sill, a slender figure darted from the alley-way, and laid a chill and trembling ...
— The Brother Clerks - A Tale of New-Orleans • Xariffa
... half the thickness of the wall—first took a long look all round the interior, and then leaped down, followed by his attendant. Eveena drew back, but was at last persuaded to mount the ladder with my assistance, and rest on the sill till I followed her and lifted her down inside. The Regent had by this time reached the machinery, and was examining it very curiously, with greater apparent appreciation of its purpose than I should have expected. When we joined them, I found little difficulty in explaining the purpose and working ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... feather, and placed it upright against the wall. And, in order to try the experiment, he chose, or chance, perhaps, directed him to choose, the very window of the cabinet where La Valliere was. The ladder just reached the edge of the cornice, that is to say, the sill of the window; so that, by standing upon the last round but one of the ladder, a man of about the middle height, as the king was, for instance, could easily hold a communication with those who might be in the room. Hardly had the ladder ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... tramp until mud and moss are completely intermingled and made of proper consistence, when it is gathered up and made into rails about two feet long. These rolls are laid over the pins, commencing at the bottom or sill of the building, when each roll is bent down at the ends, covering the intervals between the pins, pressed hardly together, and smoothed with the hands, inside and out, forming a wall some five inches in ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... responded the youth, rising from his seat—"Have you got a leg for me, too?" And Colonel F. stuck the shortest of stumps on the window-sill. ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... strong. My hope was that he had taken shelter somewhere; but I could not rest, for I was sure he would try and get home, if only to quiet me. While running in and out in my anxiety—the water having meanwhile risen above the sill of the door, and poured into our little house, where it was already above my paws—I spied a dark figure crawling along the street, and with great difficulty making way against the beating of the storm. I at once rushed out, and swimming rather than running towards ...
— The Adventures of a Dog, and a Good Dog Too • Alfred Elwes
... closed behind her, and Dick was alone in the darkness. There was still a chink of light above the sill, a warm, mild glow behind the window; the roof of the cottage and some of the banks and hazels were defined in denser darkness against the sky; but all else was formless, breathless, and noiseless like the pit. Dick remained as she had left him, standing squarely upon one ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson
... for home-made comforts, the furor for department store marked-down sales, the feeling of superiority to the lady in the third-floor front who wore genuine ostrich tips and had two names over her bell, the mucilaginous hours during which she remained glued to the window sill, the vigilant avoidance of the instalment man, the tireless patronage of the acoustics of the dumb-waiter shaft—all the attributes of the Gotham ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... prints, was a strange introduction to the room in which Henrietta found herself. She had an impression of richness and colour; the carpet was very soft, the hangings were of silk, a fire burned in the grate though the day was warm and before the fire lay the cat. The dog was on the window-sill looking out at the glorious world, full of smells and rabbits which he loved and which he denied himself for the greater part of each day because he loved his mistress more, but he jumped down to greet Rose with a ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... and, one by one they succeeded in gaining this, and vanishing. A few, too faithful or too plucky to retreat before such a foe, persisted in remaining at their posts till the fire, which had at last been communicated to the building, crept unpleasantly near; then, by dropping from sill to sill of the broken windows, or sliding by their hands and feet down the rough pipes and stones, reached the pavement,—but not without injuries and blows, and broken bones, which disabled for a lifetime, if indeed they did not die in the hospitals ...
— What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson
... the elder child was always dressed and waiting for him at the drawing-room window, or on the balcony; and when he appeared, her expectant face lighted up with joy, while the others at the high window, and always on the watch too, clapped their hands, and drummed them on the sill, and called to him. The elder child would come down to the hall, and put her hand in his, and lead him up the stairs; and Florence would see her afterwards sitting by his side, or on his knee, or hanging coaxingly about his neck and talking to him: and though they were always gay together, ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... and took the same general course as Hunt had taken, deflecting, however, to enter a little door made like a window-blind, that failed to reach its own door-sill. ...
— While Caroline Was Growing • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... without the slightest warning there appeared, sitting on our desk, the most absolutely top-hole parrot I ever saw in my life. We sat staring, because, you see, we never saw the beast fly in, and if it flew through the window we must have seen it, because of my arm being on the window-sill. While we were still staring I distinctly heard your voice say, 'Do come here, Dick.' Just those words and then no more. Then the parrot vanished absolutely, tail and everything, though it was the finest parrot's tail I ever saw in my life. I can tell you, Moll, it made ...
— The Happy Adventurers • Lydia Miller Middleton
... anticipated. I have known the following incidents cause grave concern about the future prospects of the young couple:—A clot of soot coming down the chimney and spoiling the breakfast; the bride accidentally breaking a dish; a bird sitting on the window sill chirping for some time; the bird in the cage dying that morning; a dog howling, and the postman forgetting to deliver a letter to the bride until he was a good way off, and had to return. Some of these were defined for good, but most of them were evil omens. The ceremony was generally ...
— Folk Lore - Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland within This Century • James Napier
... her knees by the low window-sill. Her head with its crown of silver hair was bowed upon her arm and they rested upon the bundle of letters which Dinah had seen on the very first night that she had seen Isabel. Old Biddy hovered shadow-like in the background. She made a sign to Dinah as she entered, but Dinah was ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... was a lithe alertness in the woman that puzzled Lenyard. Scheff lounged on the window-sill. "Now, Neshevna, be a good girl! Don't forget Moscow ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... happened that banished everything else temporarily from my mind. The instant he stepped across the front door-sill his eyes sought the upper regions of the house—the balcony or the second story hall. The glance was feverishly eager. He looked away again quickly; but I could not help associating this brief episode with Burke's wistful look ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk
... gold coins were found some years ago in a small hiding-place under the oaken sill of a bedroom window at Gawthorp Hall, Lancashire, placed there, it is supposed, for the use of Prince Charles's army in passing through the ...
— Secret Chambers and Hiding Places • Allan Fea
... away. At last her reveries grew confused. She sat up very straight, and blinked very hard, to make sure that she was quite awake. Just as she had got herself most perfectly reassured on this point, her head sank gently forward upon the window-sill, and she slept deeply, with her cheek against the cold, ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... the bedroom window of the genial physician, whose astonishment at his covering so long a stretch of road at night for news of a boy like Crossjay—gifted with the lives of a cat—became violent and rapped Punch-like blows on the window-sill at Vernon's refusal to take shelter and rest. Vernon's excuse was that he had "no one but that fellow to care for", and he strode off, naming a farm five miles distant. Dr. Corney howled an invitation to early breakfast ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... he saw the open street and the hills beyond the town. Catching his breath, he sprang across the sill, and ran for the free fields at the top of ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... it. If I remember rightly, in the days when Lilian Quiller Couch (then aged seven) did me the honour of playing Juliet to my Romeo, the interest was mainly acrobatic, Romeo descending the gardener's ladder head-foremost, while Juliet tilted her body as far over the nursery window-sill as she could manage without breaking her neck. We "cut" the love speeches. Two years later, indeed, my sister schemed to marry me to our common governess. There was no love on my side; so she turned over the ...
— The Idler, Volume III., Issue XIII., February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly. Edited By Jerome K. Jerome & Robert Barr • Various
... him from the door-sill, "I've asked Mr. Hastings to talk to you about things. He's ...
— No Clue - A Mystery Story • James Hay
... air to make you sneeze for ten minutes. But his own room, which was above the shop, was blithe enough, and it was there I had my lessons. Mr. Davies kept a piping bullfinch in it, and a linnet, and there was a little window garden on the sill, where tulips bloomed in their season, and under a glass case there was a plaster model of the Arch of Titus in Rome, of which he was exceedingly proud, and which I thought very pretty, and at one ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... the roses on the small table, on the desk, on the dresser—where their reflection added to their magnificence. Finally they were left on the broad window-sill, while the two discussed possible givers. It was Miss Sterling, however, who suggested names. Polly clung ...
— Polly and the Princess • Emma C. Dowd
... and shameless Janet, peering above the window sill, saw what she saw. It was enough. She crept away upstairs to her room. She was lying there across the bed when Avery swept in—a splendid, transfigured Avery, flushed triumphant. Janet sat up, pallid, tear-stained, ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... the great gates home apace: White hands were on the sill: But ere the rush of the unseen feet Had reached the turn to the open street, The bars shot down, the guard-drum beat — ...
— Verses 1889-1896 • Rudyard Kipling
... in silent agony, and sank in a crouching position by the open window, with her head lying on the sill. ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... words Ortensia had leaned back against the window-sill in frightened surprise, but when she saw her lover suddenly pinioned and dragged towards the door, she flew at the sbirri like a tigress, and buried her fingers in the throat of the nearest, springing upon him from behind. The fellow ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford |
