"The least bit" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... is; and I have wondered at your courage. But do it all the time if you feel the least bit better." ...
— The Pines of Lory • John Ames Mitchell
... "Not the least bit. Might is right, and that is all there is to it. Weakness is wrong. Which is a very poor way of saying that it is good for oneself to be strong, and evil for oneself to be weak—or better yet, it is pleasurable to be strong, ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... a hornets' nest tied to her back hair?—That's a lie, Mrs. Puttick. He's humbugging you. Scaife told me that his fits were nothing. Yes; he had a slight sun-stroke when he was a kid, you know, and the least bit of excitement ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... kindergarten of the Smiling Pool. They looked considerably alike, did these little cousins, for they were all pollywogs to begin with. Peter Rabbit came over every day to watch them. Always he had thought pollywogs just homely, wriggling things, not the least bit interesting, but since he had discovered how proud of them were Grandfather Frog and Old Mr. Toad, he had begun to wonder about them and ...
— The Adventures of Old Mr. Toad • Thornton W. Burgess
... use brighter flies. You will of course regulate the size according to the breeze, but as a rule, err on the side of small flies. When you raise a fish, strike at once. It is quite possible that by this method you may once in a while strike the least bit too soon, but it is a safe plan to go by. There is always a particle of a moment spent in the tightening of the line; and by the time the angler sees a fish at his flies, he may safely conclude that it has already seized ...
— Scotch Loch-Fishing • AKA Black Palmer, William Senior
... the dying started, it goes right along. And the funny thing is that you are all there all the time. Because your toes are dead don't make you in the least bit dead. By-and-by your legs are dead to the knees, and then to the thighs, and you are just the same as you always were. It is your body that is dropping out of the game a chunk at a time. And you are just you, the same you ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... needs no accounting for; the former was half brought about and maintained by the exquisite manner of Dolly's presentation of herself those days. The delicate, coy grace which invested her, it is difficult to describe it or the effect of it. She was not awkward, she was not even embarrassed, the least bit in the world; she was grave and fair and unapproachable, with the rarest maidenly shyness, which took the form of the rarest womanly dignity. She was grave, at least when Mr. Shubrick saw her; but watching her as he did narrowly ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... was not much to boast of in a rough-and-tumble fight, owing to the weakness before mentioned. General Ames put him among the gunners, and we were quickly made aware of the loss we had sustained, by receiving a frequent artful ball which seemed to light with unerring instinct on any nose that was the least bit exposed. I have known one of Pepper's snow-balls, fired pointblank, to turn a corner and hit a boy who ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... tribute, a tribute positively to power, power the source of which was the last thing Kate treated as a mystery. There were passages, under all their skylights, the succession of their shops being large, in which the latter's easy, yet the least bit dry manner sufficiently gave out that if she had had ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James
... camp was wrapped in silence again, even the contented bear lying down, better satisfied than ever with his new friends. And that wish of Giraffe's could not have borne fruit, for there was nothing heard to indicate that the bear suffered the least bit of indigestion from devouring the whole heavy cake that would have lain like lead in even a boy's ...
— The Boy Scouts' First Camp Fire - or, Scouting with the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... as Chirpy Cricket had expected. Betsy Butterfly arrived at the party with her admirer, Joseph Bumble, buzzing close behind her. Although he had not been invited, he did not feel the least bit shy ...
— The Tale of Betsy Butterfly - Tuck-Me-In Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... began thinking, even while the tiger was carrying him. He made up his mind at once. He must pretend to be dead. So he did not move or make the least bit of sound. Even then he did not see how he could escape, as the tiger would soon start eating him! But still he would ...
— The Wonders of the Jungle, Book Two • Prince Sarath Ghosh
... sanctuary, to survey himself in a glass that had never reflected anything but the discreet arraying of his employer's lady. He looked long and earnestly. The effect was quite all he had hoped. He lowered the front of the broad-brimmed hat the least bit, tightened his belt another notch and moved the holster to a better line. He looked again. From feet to ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... has been reading Ferrers Court, by JOHN STRANGE WINTER, author of Bootle's Baby and a number of other novelettes of like kind. He says that he is getting just the least bit tired of Mignon, and the plain-spoken girls, and the rest of them. By the way, he observes that it seems to be the fashion, judging from the pages of Ferrers Court, in what he may call "Service Suckles," ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, Sept. 27, 1890 • Various
... port-hole of the berth was open, and she stopped ever and anon in the midst of her operations to look out and listen to the variety of shouts and songs that came from the boats, vessels, and barges in the bay. Suddenly she stopped, turned her head the least bit to one side, and ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains - Wandering Will in the Land of the Redskin • R.M. Ballantyne
... reckoned great in letters by her contemporaries. She wrote on her lap with others in the room, refused to take herself seriously and in no respect was like the authoress who is kodaked at the writing-desk and chronicled in her movements by land and sea. She was not the least bit "literary." Fanny Burney, who had talent to Jane Austen's genius, was in a blaze of social recognition, a petted darling of the town, where the other walked in rural ways and unnoted of the world, wrote ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... come forward and stood a little aloof, waiting for the excitement to subside. Margaret, surrounded as she was, did not see him at once, and he watched her quietly. She was the least bit pale and her eyes were very bright indeed. She was smiling rather vaguely, he thought, though she was trying to thank everybody for being so pleased, and Logotheti fancied she was looking for somebody who was not there, probably for the mysterious ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... disfigured. He has searched his steel fences throughout, in order to find their weakest points, and concentrate his attacks upon them. If the sharp-pointed iron spikes three inches long that are set all over his doors are perfectly solid, he respects them, but if one is the least bit loose in its socket, he works at it until he finally breaks ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... wouldn't be any good. I'd know you didn't mean it. She always means it. Besides—she thinks things are funny that you don't. She's 'most as good as a boy—and I don't see how she can be, either," he reflected, "because she isn't the least bit like one." ...
— A Court of Inquiry • Grace S. Richmond
... only by being wicked and greedy himself; and, as it turned out, when he got so rich he got very fat; and at last was so fat that he couldn't move, and one day he got the apoplexy and died, and no one in the world cared the least bit. ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... it happens," explained Hsi Jen, "that mulish-minded and perverse-tempered young master of ours won't allow the least bit of needlework, no matter whether small or large, to be made by those persons employed to do sewing in the household. And as for me, I have no time to turn my ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... his white waistcoat always looked very spick-and-span. Yes! Ferdinand Frog was an elegant person. And being somewhat shallow-brained, he was rather vain of his appearance, and was likely to snicker at other people if their clothes seemed to him the least bit odd. ...
— The Tale of Bobby Bobolink - Tuck-me-In Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... in a quart of water, till about three parts ready. Take off the skin, cut off the white meat when cold, and pound it to a paste in a marble mortar, with a little of the liquor it was boiled in. Season it with a little salt, a grate of nutmeg, and the least bit of lemon peel. Boil it gently for a few minutes till it be tolerably thick, but so it may be drank. The flesh of a chicken thus reduced to a small compass, will ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... everything—everything. If a mole burrows in the ground—I hear even that. And I can smell every scent, even the faintest! When the buckwheat comes into flower in the meadow, or the lime-tree in the garden—I don't need to be told of it, even; I'm the first to know directly. Anyway, if there's the least bit of a wind blowing from that quarter. No, he who stirs God's wrath is far worse off than me. Look at this, again: anyone in health may easily fall into sin; but I'm cut off even from sin. The other day, father Aleksy, the priest, came to give me the sacrament, and he says: "There's ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev
... a measure of her composure almost immediately. Unnerved as she had first been by the disaster, she realized that to give way to her trouble would not do the least bit of good. ...
— Ruth Fielding Down East - Or, The Hermit of Beach Plum Point • Alice B. Emerson
... from her vivacious self as she thought of the coming separation, but Joe was surprised and the least bit hurt to see how lightly ...
— Baseball Joe Around the World - Pitching on a Grand Tour • Lester Chadwick
... meant it, Daniel," she said. "I'm sure she didn't. She's just a little carried away, that's all. All this society—this altered social position of ours—has turned her head the least bit. She didn't mean it. I'll have another talk ...
— Cap'n Dan's Daughter • Joseph C. Lincoln
... crowd heard me the better. Now, you eat this—and don't get the idee you can cover up any meanness of Man Fleetwood's; not from me, anyhow. I know men better'n you do; you couldn't tell me nothing about 'em that would su'prise me the least bit. I'm only thankful he didn't murder you in cold blood. Are you ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower
... Nikky was the least bit nervous. First of all he was teaching the boy deception. "But why don't they treat him like a human being?" he demanded of himself. Naturally there was no answer. Maria Menrad's son had a number of birthdays in his mind, real birthdays with much indulgence ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... meaning to be very friendly to the strange young woman; but it happened to be one of Mrs. Peyton's bad times, and she sent down word that she needed Miss Wolfe, and could not possibly spare her. Margaret left a civil message, and went home disappointed, and yet the least bit relieved: she had rather dreaded a long tete-a-tete with ...
— Fernley House • Laura E. Richards
... had any patience, or courage, or fortitude, for she had not the least bit of either, or any other sort of heroism. But, as I said before, she was such a mere animal that, so long as she was made comfortable in the present, she felt no trouble on the score of the past or ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... intellectual life and no sympathy with her religious nature. But the elegance of her manners satisfied his pride, her domestic habits gave him promise of a peaceful home, and, greatest merit of all, her features suited him. He liked an aquiline nose. A nose that turned up the least bit, his son tells us, would have disgusted him with a Venus. The lady's nose in this instance proving satisfactory, a happy marriage was anticipated, although the bridegroom had buried his heart in the grave of a mistress, and the bride ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... a start, and looked around. It was only a dream, and he gave a sigh of relief. He then remembered what Glen had said to him the night before, and he smiled. He was not the least bit superstitious, and had no belief in such notions. Let Curly or anyone else attempt to lay hands on the girl he loved, and it would not be well for him. He knew that the expelled rascal was capable of any ...
— Glen of the High North • H. A. Cody
... not joined in the shouting of jokes, neither had he moved the least bit. He had remained quietly in his place against the foot of the mast. I had been given to understand long before that he had the rating of a second-class able seaman (matelot leger) in the fleet which sailed from Toulon for the conquest of Algeria in the year ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... Brown. "But they could have kept on playing grocery store. They didn't need to make a high shelf and put the big washboiler up on it to fall down when the door was moved the least bit!" ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue Keeping Store • Laura Lee Hope
... an instant. "It might be better not to say anything about it," he suggested. "Some foremen don't like the least bit of interference, you know. Suppose we just let it go, and if he brings up the subject to me, I'll tell him ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... a man possessed of a shining star, a decoration, an order of some sort, something so ornamental as to make his identity not complete, ideally, without it, yet who, finding no other such object generally worn, should be perpetually, and the least bit ruefully, unpinning it from his breast to transfer it to his pocket. The Prince's shining star may, no doubt, having been nothing more precious than his private subtlety; but whatever the object was he just now fingered it a good deal, out of sight—amounting ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... he said. "I won't be the least bit of a nuisance. I've come to fish, and I'm staying at 'The Green ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker
... about him. I've seen him talking to you two or three times—he danced with 'ee at the rejoicings, and came home with 'ee. Now, now, no blame to you. But just harken: Have you made him any foolish promise? Gone the least bit beyond sniff and ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... tarry wig, if that ar' chap ain't going to give us up without our having the least bit ...
— Frank on the Lower Mississippi • Harry Castlemon
... general mind, mind of the multitude, that the idlest utterance falling on his ear from any merest unit of the common crowd was more to him than all the depths or heights of truth, order, or beauty that learning, training, or the least bit of consecutive reasoning could reveal. Earlier he had not lacked books or tutelage, but no one ever had been able to teach him what they were for. This was Basile Hayle, the overdressed young brother of the twins. Now that his seventeen years had ripened in him the conviction ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... the handwriting in which these records are made. The elegant penmanship all through might easily pass for copper plate engraving—except on one page, dated "Boston, after dinner," where, candor compels me to acknowledge, the "Solid Men" appear to have succeeded in rendering his iron nerves the least bit wabbly. ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... door Margaret MacLean eyed the primroses suspiciously. "I wonder—is your magic working all right to-day? Please—please don't weave any charms against him, little faery people. He is the only other grown-up person who has ever understood the least bit; and I couldn't ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... you—you and Owen. Miss Viner was coming, too, and then she couldn't because she's got such a headache. I'm afraid I gave it to her because I did my division so disgracefully. It's too bad, isn't it? But won't you walk back with me? Nurse won't mind the least bit; she'd so much rather go ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... on the other hand, he was the moth in the candle. Of Mr. Marlboro's devotion Eloise was quite aware,—and whereas, playing with it the least bit in the world, she had at first enjoyed it, it grew to irk her sadly; she used to beg her friends, in all manner of pretty ways, to take him off her hands, and would resort from her own rooms to theirs, assisting at their awful rites, and endeavoring to get them up as charmingly as possible, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... new dances; come home to lunch; drive out to the Park; eat my dinner; go to the theatre; eat my supper, and go straight to bed. Can anybody live more properly? I don't think it possible. Mrs. Sullivan says I'm a model. I don't give her the least bit of trouble, and she wouldn't part with me for anything. You ought to have been here just now, and seen little Vulfi of the "Melodeon." She makes $100 a night, and yet she doesn't dress any more stylishly than Mrs. Sullivan; and she never bought a jewel in her life. She supports a mother, and sends ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... how I suffer! How I do suffer! I cannot stir myself, not the least bit, and even so the pain is as bad as ever. Give me some cold water, Maria; I have ...
— Maria Chapdelaine - A Tale of the Lake St. John Country • Louis Hemon
... think that stories were better than real things, father, but it isn't so in Friendship. At first I was—oh, so lonely; I thought I never could be the least bit happy without you and Cousin Louis; but the magician and the Forest helped me, and since then I have had a beautiful time. I love Friendship. I almost wish we could ...
— Mr. Pat's Little Girl - A Story of the Arden Foresters • Mary F. Leonard
... us to stay at home if it looks the least bit like rain and when we do it usually clears up after it's too late to start. We've all set our hearts on cutting ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... like father." It seemed to Blue Bonnet that Carita smothered a sigh. "Mother and I aren't always sure that everything is for the best. But father never has the least bit of doubt." Then with a quick return of animation—"I know you'll love the camp. Knight has picked out the loveliest spot for your tents. There—look! You can see the Spring, and that gleam of white through ...
— Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party • C. E. Jacobs
... all manner of evil about your coming back," said Tom looking her over critically from head to foot. "I believe mother thought you would never come that the good Christians down at Greyshot having caught you would keep you, and even the chieftain was the least bit ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... you think I am cruel," she said, in the same calm, considerate tone she had used throughout. "But I never gave you any encouragement, Frank—not in the way you wanted or expected. You were the only person I knew who was the least bit cultivated and nice and travelled and out of the commonplace. I can't tell you how much you brightened my life here, or how glad I was when you came or how sorry I was when you went away—but it wasn't love, Frank—not ...
— Love, The Fiddler • Lloyd Osbourne
... Wait, unwillingly. There was a silence. He turned his head just the least bit, and stole a cautious glance. The cook's lips moved without a sound; his face was rapt, his eyes turned up. He seemed to be mentally imploring deck beams, the brass hook of the ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... wondered whether I should be brave, you know, and now I don't think I am. Not the least bit. But Mr. Blake seemed so strong—directly he caught hold of me I felt quite safe, somehow. If you don't mind, I would like to ask ...
— An Outback Marriage • Andrew Barton Paterson
... charmed by Mrs Fyne. I was not delighted with her. What affected me was not what she displayed but something which she could not conceal. And that was emotion— nothing less. The form of her declaration was dry, almost peremptory— but not its ton. Her voice faltered just the least bit, she smiled faintly; and as we were looking straight at each other I observed that her eye's were glistening in a peculiar manner. She was distressed. And indeed that Mrs Fyne should have appealed to me at all was in itself the evidence of her profound distress. "By Jove she's desperate ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... two stories higher than any operer prymer donner that I ever heard, an' I've heard lots of 'em, for I used to go into the top gallery of the operer as often as into the theayter; an' if any operer singer ever heard them high notes of Corinne's,—an' there was times when she'd let 'em out without the least bit of a notice,—it's them that's ...
— The Rudder Grangers Abroad and Other Stories • Frank R. Stockton
... so alarmed at having said this, that had it not been undignified, she would have run quite away, and never stopped till she came to East-hill. Matters were not mended when Philip said authoritatively, and as if he was not in the least bit annoyed (which was the more vexatious), 'What ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Veneris. While the priest plied the rod, he appeared to be experiencing the most delicious sensations. Margaret's bottom was soon as red as a cherry, but she did not appear to mind the flogging which she was receiving the least bit. ...
— The Life and Amours of the Beautiful, Gay and Dashing Kate Percival - The Belle of the Delaware • Kate Percival
... silent. She was trying to decide whether or not she was hurt. Inconvenienced seemed rather a slim verb for what had happened to her. But she didn't go on to say what she had meant to say about candy, and she felt in her secret soul the least bit irritated at Laura. ...
— The Camerons of Highboro • Beth B. Gilchrist
... know, perhaps, that honesty shone in his eyes, that one could not look at him and deny he was a gentleman. And, of course, I didn't enlighten him, for it is well for men, particularly, young men, to feel grateful, and the least bit humble; it keeps ...
— Cupid's Understudy • Edward Salisbury Field
... that, but it was. He may be unreligious, and scoff at churches and all that, but he has the most rigid, cast-iron, inelastic conscience that I ever came across. I wish he would take a rest. You see out here, so far away from you all, I can't help worrying when any of you are the least bit sick. Jack has been on my mind for days. Don't tell him that I asked you to, but won't you get him to go away? He would curl his hair if you ...
— Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... said of Vergil Gunch, "Gee, that fellow can get away with murder! Why, he can pull a Raw One in mixed company and all the ladies 'll laugh their heads off, but me, gosh, if I crack anything that's just the least bit off color I get the razz for fair!" Now Gunch delighted them by crying to Mrs. Eddie Swanson, youngest of the women, "Louetta! I managed to pinch Eddie's doorkey out of his pocket, and what say you and me sneak across the street when the folks aren't looking? Got something," with a gorgeous leer, ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... There's none more fastidious, more whimsical, stronger and at the same time more delicate. It digests the bones of sole, but meat that's the least bit ...
— Barks and Purrs • Colette Willy, aka Colette
... and turned away. If his mother had been the least bit unctuous, like Brother Weldon, he could have told her many enlightening facts. But she was so trusting and childlike, so faithful by nature and so ignorant of life as he knew it, that it was hopeless to argue with her. He could shock her and make her fear the world even more than she did, but ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... was true. Old Futvoye was perhaps the least bit of a bore at times, with his interminable disquisitions on Egyptian art and ancient Oriental character-writing, in which he seemed convinced that Horace must feel a perfervid interest, as, indeed, he thought it politic ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... hens run in and out," muttered Reddy, as he trotted across Farmer Brown's dooryard. Once he stopped, and looking up at the lighted windows of the house, grinned. You see, with Bowser gone, Reddy wasn't the least bit afraid. ...
— Bowser The Hound • Thornton W. Burgess
... the occasional snore that wakes the midnight echoes. She works peacefully on at the black-and-white poster which she is going to submit tomorrow. She does not resent Dickey at all. Neither does she watch his slumbers tenderly nor hover over him in the approved manner. Eleanore is not the least bit sentimental,—few Villagers are. They are merely romantic and kindly, which are different and ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin
... nip and tuck across to the Contra Costa Hills, neither of us seeming to gain or to lose. But by the time we had made the return tack to the Sonoma Hills, we could see that, while we footed it at about equal speed, Demetrios had eaten into the wind the least bit more than we. Yet Charley was sailing our boat as finely and delicately as it was possible to sail it, and getting more out of it than ...
— Tales of the Fish Patrol • Jack London
... warmly, and, moved by that feminine spirit of curiosity which will not be lulled once it is aroused, consented to go and see this unknown widow, of whom she was, in spite of everything, just the least bit jealous. She felt instinctively that to know a danger is to be ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... pretty, handsome, in a way; though she has not the least bit of style; not the least bit! She is rather peculiar; and I suppose with the men that is one ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... hunter I should like to have for these parts. I'd have him half-bred, short in the leg, short in the pastern, short in the back, a good sloping shoulder, broad in the chest and the forehead, long in the belly, and just the least bit over fifteen hands—eh, Mr. Thoms? I don't think beauty's of much consequence when your neck's in question. Let him be as angular and ragged in the hips as you like, so long's his ribs are well up to the hip-bone. Have you seen that black horse ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... were out, the blue sky became overcast and a storm came on, accompanied by vivid lightning. I looked round on every side, so as to lose nothing of the grand sight. A thunderbolt fell in a field close by, and, far from feeling the least bit afraid, I was delighted—it seemed that God was so near. Papa was not so pleased, and put an end to my reverie, for already the tall grass and daisies, taller than I, were sparkling with rain-drops, and we had to cross several fields to reach the road. ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)
... necessity for the least bit of concern," he assured her. But there was a plaintive wrinkle upon her brow as she watched him swing down the walk ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... happened, she stood up and held her face to the air. The wind was off shore. There was not the least bit of use in trying to make the land. A stretch of black waters yawned between shore and ice floe ...
— Triple Spies • Roy J. Snell
... in trouble; she had contracted a bad cold, the cold had resolved into a sharp attack of pleurisy. She was now on the road to recovery, and Florence need not be the least bit anxious about her, but she had run up a heavy doctor's bill, and had not the slightest idea how she was to ...
— A Bunch of Cherries - A Story of Cherry Court School • L. T. Meade
... would matter the least bit, since the Herr Captain alone is responsible for that fund, and since this would practically mean nothing but the transferring of four hundred marks from the public fund in your own keeping to private funds of your own, ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg
... Descazes, and the King of Spain. He did not eat much, but he had such polite and amiable ways that it was impossible to owe him a grudge for that. Oh! I was very fond of him, though he did not say four words to me in a day, and it was impossible to have the least bit of talk with him; if he was spoken to, he did not answer; it is a way, a mania they all have, it ...
— La Grande Breteche • Honore de Balzac
... held the amused maternal note. "It's so easy for an older woman to spoil a boy's life in a case like that if she's despicable enough to do it. But, you see, I was genuinely fond of Dicky, and yet not the least bit in love with him, and I was able, without his guessing it, to keep the management of the affair in my own hands. So when he woke up, as boys always do, to the absurdity of the idea, there was nothing in his recollections of me to ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... "Yes," I returned, the least bit irritated at the implication of that hairbreadth raise. "Steele will be over there and ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells
... the Queen said, with the faintest trace of impatience, "I do not feel the least bit tired, and this is such an exciting day that I just don't want to miss any of it. Besides, I've already told you I don't want a nap. It isn't polite to be insistent to your Queen—no matter how strongly you feel about a matter. I'm sure you'll ...
— Brain Twister • Gordon Randall Garrett
... raindrops began to patter on the round top of the mushroom and "drip-dropped" to the ground without getting Thumbkins' little house the least bit wet. Usually when it rained, the patter of the raindrops upon his mushroom roof lulled Thumbkins right to sleep, but tonight Thumbkins lay wide awake and thought ...
— Friendly Fairies • Johnny Gruelle
... ever forget Abel Mallory and the beer?—or that scene between Hollins and Shelldrake?—or" (here she blushed the least bit) "your own fit of candor?" And she laughed again, more heartily ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... Miss Crosse. Won't you please tell me which of those young ladies Uncle Charles is going to marry. I want so much to know; because Uncle Charles is nice, and I like him. He is the only one here that ever was the least bit kind to me. As for grandpapa and grandmamma, I know they hate me; and Eliza says, that the reason grandpapa can't bear the sight of me, is because I am like papa. Oh, I know that dear mamma would not have been so glad ...
— Isabel Leicester - A Romance • Clotilda Jennings
... if he were going to be chary with his praise," thought Helen, feeling just the least bit uncomfortable. She thought for a moment, and then said, not without truth, "You pique ...
— King Midas • Upton Sinclair
... childlike trust and altruism. For,' says I, 'this money of his is an eyesore to my sense of rectitude and ethics. We can't take it, Andy; you know we can't,' says I, 'for we haven't a shadow of a title to it—not a shadow. If there was the least bit of a way we could put in a claim to it I'd be willing to see him start in for another twenty years and make another $5,000 for himself, but we haven't sold him anything, we haven't been embroiled in a trade or anything commercial. He approached ...
— The Gentle Grafter • O. Henry
... improve you," Sara assured him promptly. "I shouldn't like you to be in the least bit different from what you are. It wouldn't be my Garth, then, ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... and went to meet them; she stopped and had a few words with her husband that I didn't hear and that ended in her taking the child by the hand and returning with him to the house. Her husband joined me in a moment, looking, I thought, the least bit conscious and constrained, and said that if I would come in with him he would show me my room. In looking back upon these first moments of my visit I find it important to avoid the error of appearing to have at all fully measured his situation from the first or made out the signs of things mastered ...
— The Author of Beltraffio • Henry James
... two old men would commit if we chanced to get intoxicated, say at a funeral." "Well," said the other hoary-headed and infirm octogenarian, "I have no idea what you would do, but I am certain of this, that if I ever got the least bit touched, I would go and make love to the lasses at once." Thereupon the two feeble old fellows skirled a wicked laugh, and nearly gasped out their slim residue of ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... little girl, I will have to hurt you the least bit, but no more than I can help, and after it is over you will be all better and you will have no pain and you will be well. Are you going to be a brave little piggie and ...
— Curly and Floppy Twistytail - The Funny Piggie Boys • Howard R. Garis
... this piece of string," said Mrs. Goldy. "I've been hunting everywhere for a piece, and this is the first I've found. It is just what we need to bind our nest fast to the twigs. With this I won't have the least bit of fear that that nest will ever tear loose, no matter ...
— The Burgess Bird Book for Children • Thornton W. Burgess
... don't have to?" says Peter. "I don't believe in working today so that I won't have to work tomorrow, because when tomorrow comes there may be no need of working, and then I would feel that I had wasted all this good time today." No, Peter isn't the least bit thrifty. ...
— Mother West Wind "Where" Stories • Thornton W. Burgess
... they really did exist, she knew they must be witches and sorceresses, and she would have nothing to do with them. If her son had ever allowed himself to be kissed by one of them, he ought to be ashamed of himself. As to its doing him the least bit of good, she did not believe a word of it. He felt better than he used to feel, but that was very common. She had sometimes felt that way herself, and she forbade him ever to mention a Dryad ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... chances. Among the islanders I could pass myself off as a British agent, and some likely falsehood would have to serve me if by ill-luck I fell foul of the British soldiery. The King, who—saving his majesty—had turned the least bit childish in his old age, actually clapped his hands once or twice while his Minister gave me my instructions, which he did with a face as wooden as a grenadier's. I would give something, even at this ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... be too sure of it. I'm going to have a good time, and when the end comes I'm willing to pay. If you are idiotic enough to come after me, I shall be angry with you for the first time in my life, and it wouldn't be the least bit of use. Englehall's an old friend of mine, and he's a good sort. He's wanted me to do this often enough for years, but I never felt quite like it. I believe he'd marry me after, but he's got a wife ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... and went through unintelligible actions with phantom properties; where the actor-manager would pause in the breath of an impassioned utterance and cry out, "Oh, my God! stop that hammering!" where nothing looked the least bit in the world like the lovely ordered picture he had been accustomed to delight in from the shilling gallery—after the first few days he began to focus this strange world and to suffer its fascination. And he was proud of the silent part allotted to ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... mean?' Sibyl returned coldly. 'Shall I feel the least bit of sorrow if she dies? Am I to play the hypocrite just because this woman brought me into the world? We have always hated each other, and whose fault? When I was a child, she left me to dirty-minded, thieving servants; they ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... isn't rich the least bit of a speck," said Dotty, with a sudden joy. "Nobody ever said he was. Not so rich, at any rate, Jennie, but you could put it through a needle. You could put it through a ...
— Dotty Dimple at Her Grandmother's • Sophie May
... happen to have taken it into my head to say to you," Nanda now securely enough replied, "hasn't the least bit to do, I assure you, either with Aggie or with 'old Mitch.' If you don't want to hear it—want some way of getting off—please believe THEY won't help you a bit." It was quite in fact that she felt herself at last to have found the right tone. Nothing less than a conviction ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... dozen or more friends to witness the ascension. Node dissented: "Wait until we get the rear extension to working as perfectly as the side propellers and we'll give an exhibition. If you invite anybody in this town to see me fly and anything goes the least bit wrong, they'll walk off and sneer and say: 'He'll never fly.' That's the way they did when I was working on the perpetual motion machine. I had it just about goin', and I invited two or three who I thought were my friends. They looked at it, praised me to my face and said: 'Node, ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... the whites of one or more eggs. When the pie is baked take from the oven just long enough to spread the meringue over the top, and set back for two or three minutes, leaving the oven doors open just the least bit, so as not to have it brown ...
— The International Jewish Cook Book • Florence Kreisler Greenbaum
... the postmistress, "then you did not see the gentleman who sate on the right? He was a grand gentleman, that I can positively assert! He sate so stately leaning back in the carriage, and so wrapped up in grand furs that one could not see the least bit of his face. Positively he ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... angrily. "You won't let me enjoy the least bit of a delusion. He might marry me if I were famous. But as I am now— He's an inbred snob. He can't help it. He simply couldn't marry a woman in my position. But you're overlooking one thing—that I would not ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... given up wondering where the real Dawson ends and where the disguises begin. The man I met up north wasn't the least bit like the one ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone |
