"Twinkle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... grayish stuff, neat and clean, though dusty from travel. On her head, she wore a bright Madras handkerchief, arranged as a turban, after the manner of her race. She seemed perfectly self-possessed and at her ease,—in fact, there was almost an unconscious superiority, not unmixed with a solemn twinkle of humor, in the odd, composed manner in which she looked down on me. Her whole air had at times a gloomy sort of drollery ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... of crisp black hair, and plenty of high spirits. If my eyes had been like Elsie's—that liquid blue which looks out upon life with mingled pity and amazement—I might have felt as a girl ought to feel under such conditions; but having large dark eyes, with a bit of a twinkle in them, and being as well able to pilot a bicycle as any girl of my acquaintance, I have inherited or acquired an outlook on the world which distinctly leans rather towards cheeriness than despondency. I croak with difficulty. ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... hold of it. He noted, too, that her heavy yellow-brown hair was full of ripples just where ripples helped, that her arms were plump, that she was short and nothing willowy, and that she had a mischievous twinkle ...
— A Master's Degree • Margaret Hill McCarter
... unhappiness, yet she is surely a woman formed in the great purpose of humanity to be the best influence in the life of a good man. But I did not know her mind as regarded yourself. Your mind I have known for some time," Mr. Cupples went on, with a twinkle in his eye that would have done credit to the worldliest of creatures. "I saw it at once when you were both dining at my house, and you sat listening to Professor Peppmueller and looking at her. Some of us older fellows have our wits about ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley
... order to raise our admiration of heaven, says Tully, that God made man unlike the rest of animals. He stands upright, and lifts up his head, that he may be employed about the things that were above him. Sometimes we see a duskish azure sky, where the purest fires twinkle. Sometimes we behold, in a temperate heaven, the softest colours mixed with such variety as it is not in the power of painting to imitate. Sometimes we see clouds of all shapes and figures, and of all the brightest ...
— The Existence of God • Francois de Salignac de La Mothe- Fenelon
... Miles, and he saw her naturally sallow face go yellow under its too-thick rouge. "I played the hand and made my bid, although Flora and I had gone down 400 on the hand before," Lois continued, with a rueful twinkle of her pleasant grey eyes. "When the score was totted up, I found I'd won a bit after all. Our winnings go to the Forsyte Alumnae Scholarship Fund," ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... sun, broke over the gloomy and rather haggard face of Rudyard Byng, and humour shot up into his eyes. He gave a low, generous laugh, as he said with a twinkle: "And whether he does it at some expense to himself—with his own overcoat, or with some one else's cloak. Is that ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... him indignantly. "Indeed, I didn't! I wouldn't do such a thing. Why, I just love it here!" Then she saw the twinkle in his eye. ...
— The Camerons of Highboro • Beth B. Gilchrist
... senior, who was naturally jocose, made so bold as to ask with a twinkle in his eye: "May I kiss you too?" His son uttered an exclamation and Madeleine offered her cheek to the old peasant; who afterward wiped his lips with the back of his hand. The old woman, in her turn, ...
— Bel Ami • Henri Rene Guy de Maupassant
... was vacant!" exclaimed the little wife, as they reached the sidewalk. But the next moment there came a quick twinkle from her eye, and, waving her husband to go on without her, she said, "You kin paz yondeh; at Madame La Rose I am shoe you be pritty sick." Thereupon she took his arm,—making everybody stare and smile to see a lady and gentleman arm in arm ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... no frowns the world's smooth surface wrinkle, Its mighty space seemed little to my eye; I saw the stars, like sparks, at distance twinkle, And wished myself a bird to soar ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... to a book-maker (I do not use the word in a sporting sense, of course) by the varied characters and histories of our people, and the more than ordinary interest attaching to some, he beamed at me across the dinner-table, a twinkle of humor disclosing itself from behind his glasses, ...
— Up in Ardmuirland • Michael Barrett
... father on the head of his innocent son. Charles I should not be made to suffer for Franz Josef." M. Mantoux rendered the sentence, "It would be unjust to visit the sins of the uncle on the innocent nephew," and M. Clemenceau, with a merry twinkle in his eye, remarked to the ready interpreter, "You will lose your job if you go ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... into her face with an answering humour, and a twinkle in his eyes as alluring as ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... her movements disapprovingly, and resolved to begin operations. The barrel which had helped the girl to gain the roof was naturally the first thing that attracted him. With a mocking twinkle in his dark eyes, he slouched towards it. He was in no hurry, for, being an intelligent bear, he appreciated the pleasures of anticipation. He placed his two fore feet on it, and then, with a quick motion, jerked his cumbersome hind quarters ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie
... its senses. The sun has begun to twinkle on the gilt cross of the Catholic chapel and make itself known to the doves in the stone belfry of the South Church. The patches of cobweb that here and there cling tremulously to the coarse grass of the inundated ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... He had caught the twinkle in his father's eye and knew that it was all clear sailing. ...
— The Cruise of the Dazzler • Jack London
... was a plumper for the Gipsy, and the twinkle of his eye—the smallest star of mirth in the darkest night of gravity I ever beheld in my life—was lovely. I had trumped his card at any rate with as solemn gravity as his own; and the Gorgios thought our reminiscences of ...
— The English Gipsies and Their Language • Charles G. Leland
... me with a twinkle in his eye and replied, "I do b'lieve he'd ha' got 'n, but he'd never move till I ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson
... o'clock that night before the revellers, weary with overmuch cheer, returned. But the extra twinkle in Rubinstein's gay eyes, and the joyous grin on the flushed face of Laroche, disappeared when, lighting a candle to guide them through the darkened antechamber, they entered the living-room to find Ivan supine on the divan, sunk into a heavy slumber, the mottled white and red ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... how I did it. I set some of them to oversee the rest. They thrashed them; I didn't. If they failed in their tasks, I talked to them in this way,' (and he turned his wicked eye on me with a merry twinkle,) 'I called out the overseer, and spoke to him so that the rest could hear me; I said to him: 'Dick,' or 'Jeff,' or whatever his name was, 'how is this? I set you a task this morning that you could ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... of hazel trees, That twinkle to the gusty breeze, Behold him perch'd in ecstasies, Yet seeming still to hover; There, where the flutter of his wings Upon his back and body flings Shadows and sunny glimmerings, ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... wrote the young poet a graceful note of congratulation. Commenting on these parlous times, Riley afterward wrote, "It is strange how little a thing sometimes makes or unmakes a fellow. In these dark days I should have been content with the twinkle of the tiniest star, but even this light was withheld from me. Just then came the letter from McGeechy; and about the same time, arrived my first check, a payment from Hearth and Home for a contribution called A Destiny (now ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... Caylus. The last rays of the sun lingered with us, but the valley below was dark; so dark that even the rock about which our homes clustered would have been invisible save for the half-dozen lights that were beginning to twinkle into being on its summit. A silence fell upon us as we slowly wended our way down the ...
— The House of the Wolf - A Romance • Stanley Weyman
... while before making another attempt, hoping the guard would not expect me to come back. The lights were beginning to twinkle in the distance and it was now almost total darkness. I consulted any watch and realized that in forty minutes Miss Paul and her comrades would again be going through the torture of forcible feeding. ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens
... a 'Merricun, your honor," he answered in a rich brogue that would have branded him as a Paddy in any part of the world. With a twinkle in his eye, Hull sent the Irishman below, and told the sailors to ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... necessary fib) I saw that Brigit and Monny had arrived on the scene. They had been pacing the deck, arm in arm; and now, arrested by Mrs. East's question, they hovered near, awaiting my answer with vague curiosity. A twinkle in Biddy's eyes, which I caught, rattled me completely. I missed all the easiest fibs and could catch hold of nothing but the bare truth. There are moments like that, when, do what you will, you must be truthful or silent; ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... only trying to become a gentleman," meekly replied Tom, though a close observer could see a slight twitching in the corner of his mouth, and a slight twinkle in the corner of his eye. "My honour is in pawn, and will remain so until I pay these bills. Then I shall feel like holding up my head again, and looking ...
— Off-Hand Sketches - a Little Dashed with Humor • T. S. Arthur
... in question looked dark at first sight; but as Villon made a preliminary inspection in search of the handiest point of attack, a little twinkle of light caught his eye from behind ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... define the eye; then show how the twinkling of a star exists really in the eye, and why one star should twinkle more than another, and how the rays of the stars are born in the eye. Say, that if the twinkling of the stars were, as it appears to be, really in the stars, that this {162} twinkling appears to extend in proportion to the body of the star. ...
— Thoughts on Art and Life • Leonardo da Vinci
... Milord Hawkesbury's house, and you can think how often my eyes went up to that window in the hope of seeing the candle twinkle in it. Five minutes passed, and another five. Oh, how slowly they crept along! It was a true October night, raw and cold, with a white fog crawling over the wet, shining cobblestones, and blurring the dim oil-lamps. I ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... holding her by the hand he drew her towards the open window—"Look out there! See how the stars shine! Always the same, no matter what happens to us poor folk down here,—they twinkle as merrily over our graves as over our gardens,—and yet if we're to believe what we're taught nowadays, they're all worlds more or less like our own, full of living creatures that suffer and die like ourselves. It's a queer plan of the Almighty, to keep ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... said Mrs. Futvoye, who was extremelly stately in black, with old lace and steel embroidery—"these are the bachelor lodgings you were so modest about! Really," she added, with a humorous twinkle in her shrewd eyes, "you young men seem to understand how to make yourselves ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... the door, she looked up to say with a merry twinkle in her keen gray eyes, "Give my regards to your father, Miss Wales, and tell him he underrates his daughter's ability to take care ...
— Betty Wales Freshman • Edith K. Dunton
... censure. There is a sketch in charcoal which represents the Bartholdi colossus as the artist has seen it in his mind's eye, standing high above the waters of the beautiful harbor at twilight, when the lights are just beginning to twinkle in the distant cities and when darkness is softly stealing over the service of the busy earth and sea. The mystery of evening enwraps the huge form of the statue, which looms vaster than by day, and takes on an aspect of strange majesty, augmented by the background of hurrying clouds which ...
— The Bay State Monthly - Volume 2, Issue 3, December, 1884 • Various
... what they have not," replied friend Sliver, with a slight twinkle in his bright gray eye. "Can thee respect a ...
— Be Courteous • Mrs. M. H. Maxwell
... a twinkle in his eye, "I had exactly the same notion when I first began, and I remember what a much older hand said to me when I told him I was going down to Cornwall for romantic background. 'Young man,' said he, 'have ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... fast for hers; as at a play between the acts, when Beau Frisk stands upon a bench full in Lindamira's face, and her dear eyes are searching round to avoid that flaring open fool; she meets the watchful glance of her true lover, and sees his heart attentive on her charms, and waiting for a second twinkle of her eye for its next motion." Here the good company sneered; but he goes on. "Nor is this attendance a slavery, when a man meets encouragement, and her eye comes often in his way: for, after an evening so spent, ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... to find that Zack Bunting's eldest son is called Nimrod, familiarized to "Nim,"' said Robert. 'I never saw a more remarkable likeness to a parent, in body and mind, than that youth exhibits; every tuft of ragged beard and every twinkle of the knowing ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... he walked with a slight limp that made him seem old. He looked at Teeny-bits' new friends with a kindly twinkle in his eyes and told them that they were all "lucky boys to go to such a fine school" and advised them to "study hard so as to be smart men." If he had not been Teeny-bits' father, they might have thought he ...
— The Mark of the Knife • Clayton H. Ernst
... I think. I remonstrated with her once ten or fifteen years ago when she had a touch of pleurisy. 'Mrs. Turner,' I said, 'if you persist in smoking, you'll injure your health and die young.' She was then eighty-something. 'Doctor,' said she, with a twinkle in those bright little eyes of hers, 'I'll live to be a hundred, and that's more than you'll do.' And, bless me, I think she will! To-day she sent word for me to 'look in.' That means that she needs gossip and not medicine. Well, I'm glad ...
— The Lilac Girl • Ralph Henry Barbour
... raddlesnakes alretty," put in Hans. "I vos know a fine vay to kill dem," and his mild eyes began to twinkle. ...
— The Rover Boys on the Plains - The Mystery of Red Rock Ranch • Arthur Winfield
... flocks of crows to roost in their garden rookeries at the center of the town. Across the harbor water, now too gloomy to reveal its thousands of jelly-fish, drifted the complaining cries of the loons. Then as the occasional city lamps began to twinkle, making the darkness murkier by their inadequacy, there arose from the twisting ways of Pera, Galata and Stamboul the night howling ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... minute or two, with his hands on the sculls, and looked our way, as if he were gazing at us. Of course we knew we were safely concealed from sight, and that he was only staring past trees and shrubbery at the dark, distant house. From that point of view there wasn't a twinkle of light to be seen through a blind; and if Jack and I hadn't taken the unusual whim into our heads to motor over from home, Patty would have been in bed and perhaps fast asleep ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)
... barbeline absorption to inquire, according to usage, how his comrade had been faring, and did not meet him again till they were in the throat of the lane cottage-wards bound. "Well, old 'un; what luck with the paternoster?" he asked, cheerily. M., with a sly twinkle in the eye, said, yes, he had done somewhat; three pike. It may be premised that the young men had both been trying at intervals for a certain marauding pike reported to them as a ferocious duck destroyer by a gentleman farmer who came down to gossip. He indicated the field and a gravel pit as ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... Joe, with a return of his twinkle, "Well, for a ranch that keeps a baker's dozen ...
— Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party • C. E. Jacobs
... before you had a chance to drop that bag in my brook," said Ellen, a twinkle in her eye. "I'll bet you are. Have you thought that I can have you arrested for ...
— The Wall Between • Sara Ware Bassett
... end of the world. He comes as a convert with a message, and laden with books of prophecy. A year ago he was still a successful man of business, and a gay soul with no inclination towards the holy life. The merry twinkle in his eye has disappeared, and in its place I see the dull glow of an obsessing idea. "What is the good of all your struggle and your agitation?" he says; "everything will come right and the wicked will be punished. Join me ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby
... me! the wretch is certainly intoxicated; how wickedly his eyes begin to twinkle. Why, Scapegrace, I'm ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... twinkle in the gentle sky. The landscape glows. From the distant meadow Mute marching men slowly come closer. Only once a young Lieutenant, a page boy in love, Steps out—and stands lost in thought. The baggage train waddles along ...
— The Verse of Alfred Lichtenstein • Alfred Lichtenstein
... at the gate in silence. The cuirassier raised the bar, touched his helmet, and said, with something like an amused twinkle in his eyes: "Would Monsieur like to borrow my ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... we entered, and I had a sudden sense that I was coming to school again, as indeed I was. Amroth greeted him with a mixture of freedom and respect, as a well-loved pupil might treat an old schoolmaster. The man himself was tall and upright, and serious-looking, but for a twinkle of humour that lurked in his eye; yet I felt he was one who expected to be obeyed. He took Amroth into the embrasure of a window, and talked with him in low tones. Then he came back to me and asked me a few questions ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson
... a twinkle in her eye, "ye can tell Lisbeth Fargus I'll likely be drappin' in on her' aboot Mununday ...
— Auld Licht Idyls • J.M. Barrie
... returned, a mischievous twinkle in his eyes. "Rather have a greenhorn on the Pioneer than some government agent, who'd be butting in and trying to run everything. Think you'll ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science July 1930 • Various
... in one thing, some in another—it is all matter of fancy. I have known them of all sorts, my dear Lawrence Lock-the-door, and sensible men too. There's a great lord—we'll pass his name, Lawrence—he believes in the stars and the moon, the planets and their courses, and so forth, and that they twinkle exclusively for his benefit, when in sober, or rather in drunken truth, Lawrence, they are only shining to keep honest fellows like me out of the kennel. Well, sir, let his humour pass; he is great enough to indulge it. Then, look ye, there is another—a very learned man, ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... about Dick, although it is not easy to say exactly how it made itself felt. It was a certain knightly bearing, perhaps, a haughty contempt for his own suffering, a rollicking but resolute refusal of anything in the shape of pity. Coughing or laughing, there was always a roguish little twinkle in the corner of his eye, a kind of danger signal that kept you on constant guard lest his next sally should ...
— Mushrooms on the Moor • Frank Boreham
... you are," said Mr. Beale, with a twinkle in his grey eyes, "but I am not prepared to explain everything just yet. Thus much I will tell you, that had you used this soap this morning, by the evening you would have been covered from head to foot in a ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace
... transiently as he touched upon object after object while at the same time in an incisive and witty vein he spoke of America and the events of the day. Pausing at last before the great scarabaeus of polished syenite whose huge size required a place in the centre of the corridor, he said with a twinkle, "I must tell you a story about this of which one of your countrymen is the hero. I was walking with him here in the collection and expected from him some expression of awe, but like so many of you Americans, he ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... at a quiet old inn, and had Saracen chained strongly to a ringbolt in the stable; then he set off afoot to see Mr. Jellicorse, and just as he rang the office bell a little fleecy twinkle fell upon one of his eyelashes, and looking sharply up, he saw that a snowy ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... "The present, for example; anything much less festive I fail to imagine." Her lips twitched involuntarily as the thought passed through her mind, and, looking up, she met Jack Melland's eyes fixed full on her, with an answering twinkle in their blue depths. For one agonising moment she trembled upon the brink of laughter, when mercifully the door was thrown open to announce the arrival of the vicar and his wife. Mr Thornton was tall and thin, with a much-lined ...
— The Fortunes of the Farrells • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... the way the Prince assisted in all this, out-commonplacing her friend in commonplaces with the suavest politeness, while his grave face betrayed him not even by a twinkle in the eye. Only when he caught hers; then he laughed a sudden short laugh, ...
— His Hour • Elinor Glyn
... style,"—"fast" writing. It cannot be denied that here and there may be detected slight vestiges of the way of writing of an earlier period of Motley's literary life, with which I have no reason to think the writer just mentioned was acquainted. Now and then I can trace in the turn of a phrase, in the twinkle of an epithet, a faint reminiscence of a certain satirical levity, airiness, jauntiness, if I may hint such a word, which is just enough to remind me of those perilous shallows of his early time through which his richly freighted argosy ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... peasant ownership, as I could have wished; they were tenant farms, but their neatness testified to the prosperity of the tenants, and their frequency cheered our way as the evening waned and the lamps began to twinkle from their windows. At a certain station, I am reminded by my careful mentor, the craggy mountain-tops were softened by the sunset pink, and that then the warm afternoon air began to grow cooler, and the dying day to empurple ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... friends, I felt the knocker looking at me, and when I came out into the great square, framing the heavens like an astronomical chart, the big stars repeated the lesson with thousand-fold iteration. How they seemed to nudge each other and twinkle among themselves at the poor ass down there, who actually took himself and his doings so seriously as to flourish, even ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... the trees; then they would retrace their steps, the sharp air stinging their faces. Those ancient hanging street-lamps, the tragic lanterns of the time of the Terror, were suspended at long intervals in the avenue, mingling their dismal twinkle with the pale gleams of the green ...
— A Romance of Youth, Complete • Francois Coppee
... over the solemn waste, And the two gazing hosts, and that sole pair, And darken'd all; and a cold fog, with night, Crept from the Oxus. Soon a hum arose, 865 As of a great assembly loos'd, and fires Began to twinkle through the fog: for now Both armies mov'd to camp, and took their meal: The Persians took it on the open sands Southward; the Tartars by the river marge: 870 And Rustum and his ...
— Narrative and Lyric Poems (first series) for use in the Lower School • O. J. Stevenson
... a passer-by hands her a penny; Just see her bright glance twinkle over to Benny, The little hunchback sitting there on the curb-stone, Close up to the lamp-post, that he may disturb none. His crutches beside him a sorry tale tell; But see, he's a basket of knick-nacks to sell; ...
— Mother Truth's Melodies - Common Sense For Children • Mrs. E. P. Miller
... Invariably this person possessed an iron will. The stories fluctuated indefinitely. The smoking of a cigarette converted Hoopdriver's hero into something entirely worldly, subtly rakish, with a humorous twinkle in the eye and some gallant sinning in the background. You should have seen Mr. Hoopdriver promenading the brilliant gardens at Earl's Court on an early-closing night. His meaning glances! (I dare not give the meaning.) Such an influence as the eloquence of a revivalist preacher ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... entombed in the urns and sepulchres of mortality!' And, as it was of that ancient day of Crewe and the De Vere so must it be of us and Mr. Croker. He goes; we stay; and so let us drink to all." Here Lemon filled his glass, and the rest having amiably followed his example, offered with a wicked twinkle, ...
— The Onlooker, Volume 1, Part 2 • Various
... that twire meant twinkle) and in Ben Jonson, Sad Shepherd, II. 1, 'Which maids will twire at, 'tween their fingers'. The verb is still in dialectal use: E.D.D. explains it 'to ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 5 - The Englishing of French Words; The Dialectal Words in Blunden's Poems • Society for Pure English
... having her to wife. We say evidently, because Mr. Chirrup is a warm-hearted little fellow; and if you catch his eye when he has been slyly glancing at Mrs. Chirrup in company, there is a certain complacent twinkle in it, accompanied, perhaps, by a half-expressed toss of the head, which as clearly indicates what has been passing in his mind as if he had put it into words, and shouted it out through a speaking-trumpet. Moreover, Mr. Chirrup has a particularly mild and bird-like manner of calling Mrs. Chirrup ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... rifle. The bullet from that rifle neatly clipped a prickly pear over Driscoll's head. The strategist certainly knew his business. There was a familiar shimmer of silver about his high peaked hat. Yes surely, he was Don Tiburcio, the loyal Imperialist of the baleful eye. No doubt the malignant twinkle gleamed in that eye now, even as the blackmailer bit a cartridge for the next shot. A victim who had only pistols, and at rifle range, and with not a pebble for shelter from the flank bombardment—it was assuredly a situation to tickle ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... the portico stood Phormio the fishmonger, behind a table heaped with his scaly wares. He was a thick, florid man with blue eyes lit by a humourous twinkle. His arms were crusted with brine. To his waist he was naked. As the friends edged nearer he held up a turbot, calling for a bid. A clamour answered him. The throng pressed up the steps, elbowing ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... Stikes, of Busybody's, Mr. Jenkins," he said, with a twinkle in his eye. "We thought you might like to contribute to our Christmas issue. We want two sonnets, one on the old Christmas and the other on the new. We can't offer you more than a thousand ...
— R. Holmes & Co. • John Kendrick Bangs
... low and soft, as of one who has lived long in the woods by himself. There was a humorous twinkle in his eye which the boys liked. He was long and lanky and wore khaki trousers and a coarse gray flannel shirt. His arms, which were bare, were very sinewy. Altogether, the impression which he made on the boys was that he was perfectly ...
— Tom Slade at Temple Camp • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... was the name on the sign, which displayed a vegetable wonder of the painter's art meant for a maple tree, for Madame Lajeunesse kept the Maple Inn. That lady, a portly brunette, with a pleasant smile and a merry twinkle in her eye, received the distinguished guests in person. Wilkinson replied to her bow and curtsey with a dignified salutation, but the lawyer shook hands with her, saying: "I hope you're very well, Madame; it's a lovely place you have here." Madame replied that it was ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... then we sever! Ae farewell, and then forever! Deep in heart-wrung tears I'll pledge thee, Warring sighs and groans I'll wage thee. Who shall say that Fortune grieves him, While the star of hope she leaves him? Me, nae cheerfu' twinkle lights me, ...
— The Hundred Best English Poems • Various
... get up that little way," said the doctor, with a queer twinkle of the eye. "Well, we don't seem to see anything likely to hinder our landing to-morrow and having a good time at collecting. We must soon get round to our starting-place. Let's ask the captain how far ...
— Jack at Sea - All Work and no Play made him a Dull Boy • George Manville Fenn
... Presently the well-known twinkle of light shot out, and towards it, with a heart that throbbed more restlessly than my boat, ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed
... coming late, or having my half pint or so on. Not that the Captain was a hard man, miss—far otherwise, and capable of allowance, more than any of the women be. But only the Lord, who doeth all things aright, could 'a made you come, with a score of years atween, and the twinkle in your ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... accomplished, Boos threw himself heavily into his chair, and addressing the master of the ceremonies, said with a humorous twinkle in his eye: ...
— Legends of the Rhine • Wilhelm Ruland
... stand-up fights with life and all its devils. There is a slight touch of satire in his discourse now and then, and an odd way of answering one that makes it hard to guess how much more or less he means than he seems to say. But he is honest, and always has a twinkle in his eye to put you on your guard when he does not mean to be taken quite literally. I think old Ben Franklin had just that look. I know his great-grandson (in pace!) had it, and I don't doubt he took it in the straight line of descent, as ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... Terence saw a twinkle in the doctor's eye, which made him suspect a quiz, and the laughter of Jack, Alick, and some of his other messmates who stood round, confirmed this suspicion. At first he felt that he ought to be very indignant, but his good-humour seldom kept away many seconds together, and he quickly joined ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... eyes; making, I can well fancy, innumerable crooked things straight; reducing more and more that famishing dog-kennel of a Brandenburg into a fruitful arable field. His portraits represent a square-headed, mild-looking, solid gentleman, with a certain twinkle of mirth in the serious eyes of him. Except in those Hussite wars for Kaiser Sigismund and the Reich, in which no man could prosper, he may be defined as constantly prosperous. To Brandenburg he was, very literally, ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... the text?" asked Dr. Bellamy, mischievously, and, with a toss of her golden curls and a merry twinkle of her eyes, Lucy replied, "Simon, Simon, lovest ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes
... one," ejaculated Borland, with a peculiar avaricious twinkle in the corners of his eyes. "His body is scarcely cold and yet you come around proposing to buy out his invention and—and, of all ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... shake any one. Indeed, there's a fine thrill in the flight of ducks—darting dwarfs compared to these standard-breds, whose pinions sweep but once to the triple-beat of the twinkling red-heads and canvas-backs. You can tell the difference by the twinkle, when the distance over water confuses the eye as to size. Mighty twelve-pounders with a five-foot spread of wing, many of these, and with more than a suggestion of the ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort
... The humorous twinkle in Allan's eye, the sly significance in Allan's voice, would have betrayed his secret to a prosperous man. Midwinter was as far from suspecting it as the carpenters who were at work above them on the deck of ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... not think you believe there is such a place,' replied the tortoise, who had seen a twinkle in Urashima's eye. 'Yet I assure you it exists, but a long way off—right down at the bottom of the sea. If you would really like to see Rin Gin, I will take ...
— Edmund Dulac's Fairy-Book - Fairy Tales of the Allied Nations • Edmund Dulac
... had seen her, unmistakably, desire to rise to the occasion and be magnificent—seen her decide that the right way for this would be to prove that the reassurance she had extorted there, under the high, cool lustre of the saloon, a twinkle of crystal and silver, had not only poured oil upon the troubled waters of their question, but had fairly drenched their whole intercourse with that lubricant. She had exceeded the limit of discretion in this insistence on her capacity to repay in proportion a service she acknowledged ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... Kate, unaware of the twinkle in Gerrard's eyes, was indignant. "Indeed, Mrs Tallis was considered a very good business woman, and knew how to manage things as well as Mr Tallis. What are you laughing at, ...
— Tom Gerrard - 1904 • Louis Becke
... beds, reading or staring out of our open door at the twinkle of the station lights, the moving flares of the engines, and the fountains of sparks which rushed from their chimneys; listening to the chains of bumps which denoted a shunting train. We heard another chain of bumps, which rattled rapidly ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... too tired to walk," he said when she protested. "And it will be a new experience for Charlie," he added with a twinkle. ...
— The Phantom Lover • Ruby M. Ayres
... No. 2 General Hospital was, but I had determined to begin the hunt for it in France. I asked him if he would take me across with the Headquarters Staff, so that I might begin my search at the front. He had a twinkle in his eye as he told me that if I could get on board the transport, he would make no objection. I was delighted with the prospect of ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... the imprisonment of La Tour appeared to him almost endless in duration. A small and closely grated window sparingly admitted the light and air of heaven; and, through its narrow openings, he watched the last beams of the moon, and saw the stars twinkle more faintly in the advancing light of morning, before he sought that repose, which entire ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney
... of me!" Bet tried to look innocent. "Was that there all the time? Imagine me not seeing it!" There was remorse in her voice but a merry twinkle in her eyes ...
— The Merriweather Girls in Quest of Treasure • Lizette M. Edholm
... You know turkeys do not settle down like immigrants in one spot, and wait till we inhabitants of the plains come out and shoot them. Was it last week, or only the day before yesterday that you saw them?" There was a very merry twinkle in his eye as he went on with this banter. Marie affected to pout, but ...
— The Story of Louis Riel: The Rebel Chief • Joseph Edmund Collins
... And night came down over the solemn waste, And the two gazing hosts, and that sole pair, And darkened all; and a cold fog, with night, Crept from the Oxus. Soon a hum arose, As of a great assembly loosed, and fires Began to twinkle through the fog; for now Both armies moved to camp, and took their meal; The Persians took it on the open sands Southward, the Tartars by the river marge; And Rustum and his son were left alone. But the majestic river floated on, Out of the mist and hum of that low land, ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... "Twinkle, if there lay nine seeds within a flower-cup and the wind bore five away, how many would the blossom have?" "Four," ...
— Flower Fables • Louisa May Alcott
... enough now to pay off those people in Brandon, and with luck we'll manage to settle with the worst of the rest before the frost comes. It's almost a pity we didn't try the railroad sooner, but"—and here he glanced at me with a twinkle in his eye—"we came out to work our own land, and it's your intention to add acre to acre until Fairmead's one of the biggest farms in the ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... with a humorous twinkle, "Peter the Apostle," pointing to the Family Bible, which was always kept on a little occasional table in a corner of the sitting-room. "And let Peter be a living warning against fibbing, my dears, whether on a small scale or ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... good lesson, Master Doctor Thomas,' said Dr. May, with a twinkle in his eye; 'and turn out as it will, it has done him good—tided him over a dangerous time of life. Well, you must tell me all about it to-morrow; I'm too sleepy to know what ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... looked at me a little cautiously, as though wondering how to take me. I tried to keep grave, but I couldn't quite suppress a twinkle; catching it, he took courage—seemed to feel that he could trust me. Slapping his knee, he let himself go in a rush of that deep, chuckling, gurgling, child-like negro laughter which is one of the most appealing gifts ...
— Pieces of Eight • Richard le Gallienne
... be a grand stalking horse for your first essay in your constituency," Cheiron said with his kindly twinkle of sarcasm. He loved to encourage ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... promises Dad, stooping, too, as they go under the lintel beneath the penthouse roof, out into the frosty night. The stars are beginning to twinkle through the dusk, and the frozen path crunches underfoot. On each side, as they go up the street, the yards about the houses stand bare and gaunt with ...
— A Warwickshire Lad - The Story of the Boyhood of William Shakespeare • George Madden Martin
... and 63 yards respectively. "Then," said the professor, "we can calculate the exact area of the garden." "Impossible," his host replied, "because you can get an infinite number of different shapes with those four sides." "But you forget," Rackbrane said, with a twinkle in his eye, "that you told me once you had planted this tree equidistant from all the four corners of the garden." Can you work ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... see them. Instead his glance fell upon Pierre, who was gazing thoughtfully at the vaulted ceiling and hoping with all his heart that the Abbe would not call upon him. "Pierre!" he said, and any one looking at him very closely might have seen a twinkle in his eye as Pierre withdrew his gaze from the ceiling and struggled reluctantly to his feet. "You ...
— The French Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... did you say," and light now began to dawn upon Mr. Markham's mind. "And how is Miss Arabella?" he asked, while an amused twinkle shone in ...
— Rod of the Lone Patrol • H. A. Cody
... forget to shine, The brightest star to twinkle, The ivy round the oak to twine, The tearful heart to sprinkle The sod that wraps affection's grave, The never silent surging sea The sandy shore to lash and lave— Then ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... twins sat patiently by their holes. It grew darker and darker. The colors faded. The stars began to twinkle, but the twins did not move. Nip and Tup ran races on the ice, and rolled over each ...
— The Eskimo Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... Brown was clean, fat, and wholesome to look at, and I should say forty-five years old. She must have weighed sixteen stone. The width across her arse as I eyed it outside her dress, looked greater than that of Mary the cook; there was a roguish twinkle in her eye, which made her look like a good-tempered monthly nurse, her eyes were blue ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... pitiful thing in the presence of the King. She tried to do her best to please him. The thought of offense to the Monarch beset her with fear. The Princess Palatine wrote of her once: "When the King came to her she was so gay that people remarked it. She would laugh and twinkle and rub her little hands. She had such a love for the King that she tried to catch in his eyes every hint of the things that would give him pleasure. If he ever looked at her kindly, that day was bright." Madame De Caylus tells us that the Queen had such a ...
— The Story of Versailles • Francis Loring Payne
... envelopes the interior of the caravanserai, and the scores of little brushwood fires smoke and glimmer and twinkle fitfully, the scene appeals to an observant Occidental as being decidedly unique, and totally unlike anything to be seen outside of Persia. Around each little fire, from four to a dozen figures are squatting, each group ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... not forgetting the rusty nails and the flower pots—two risks which neither Father nor Mother had ever thought of before—when a sturdy little figure in a Safety Scout uniform paused at the door and listened with a shrewd twinkle ...
— Sure Pop and the Safety Scouts • Roy Rutherford Bailey
... friend; mind, Cherton comes next, then 'twill be your turn to turn out." He wrung her hand, and was out on the platform in a twinkle, loaded like a bee, ...
— The Heiress of Wyvern Court • Emilie Searchfield
... their bidding, are led to wonder what has become of all those who thus disagreed with us! One marked exception occurs to us. A prominent professor in a theological seminary, when the question was put to him ten years ago: "Professor, when did you become an Abolitionist?" replied, with a merry twinkle in his eye: "When it became popular." We have found few, however, who are so frank or ...
— The American Missionary, Volume XLII. No. 10. October 1888 • Various
... doorway and handed Demorest the two rifles. Demorest hesitated. "Hadn't YOU better keep one?" he said, looking in his partner's eyes with his first challenge of curiosity. The sun seemed to put a humorous twinkle into Stacy's glance as he returned, "Not much! And you'd better take my revolver with you, too. I'm feeling a little better now," he said, looking at the saddlebags, "but I'm not fit to be trusted yet with carnal ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte
... stranger, with a face that, saving the faintest twinkle in the corner of his dark eyes, was as immovable as his host's, "but for the purposes of my business I had better say I am Jack Hamlin, a gambler, and am just now dealing faro in the Florida ...
— The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... use my holding back my own decision. I am going to attempt the trip. And since, as you say, I cannot stop you from going," he added with a twinkle, "that makes two ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings
... a naturally shy man who has not studied the habits of society. But his features, in spite of irregularity, and a complexion resembling the tone of 'foxed' paper, attracted observation, and rewarded it; his eye had a pleasant twinkle, oddly in contrast with the lines of painful thought upon his forehead, and the severity of strained muscles in the lower part of his face. He was head-master of a small school of art in a northern county; a post which he had held only ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... suppose you thought I had no soft corner left in my heart that would be a ready victim to a woman's wiles? but I had, you see." There was a mischevious twinkle in the old man's eye as he spoke. This joke on his clever nephew amused him immensely, while poor Guy was feeling the tight clutch of despair upon his heart Of all the horrors conceivable, Guy had never dreamt of such a ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... silence is very well—some kinds of it; but why make such a noise about silence?" he asked with a twinkle in his eyes. ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... little embarrassed, but Edgar, seeing Flora's smile and the twinkle in her father's eyes, hastily ...
— Ranching for Sylvia • Harold Bindloss
... this high wold And on these dews that drench the furze, And all the silvery gossamers That twinkle into green and gold: ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... president—even against the power and the money and the organization of rich men, brutally rich men like John Barclay. Hendricks' thin hair is growing gray in this scene, and his skin is no longer fresh and white; but his eyes have a twinkle in them, and the ardour of his soul glows in a glad countenance. And as he sits alone in his room long after midnight while the bands are roaring and the processions cheering and the great city is ablaze with excitement, Robert Hendricks, turning fifty, ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... white veil is falling fast. Sea, mountain, lake, are vanishing, fading as in a dream. Soon he can see nothing, but the twinkle of a light in Pen-y-gwryd, a thousand feet below; happy children are nestling there in innocent sleep. Jovial voices are chatting round the fire. What has he to do with youth, and health, and joy? Lower, lower, ye clouds!—Shut out that insolent ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... not another word, except "good-bye," smiling half sadly, half with a twinkle of grim humour. Then he went out, with his head high: and just at the door he threw me back one look. It said as plainly as if he had spoken: "Remember, I know ...
— The Powers and Maxine • Charles Norris Williamson
... and deep peace, on this high wold, And on the dews that drench the furze, And on the silvery gossamers, That twinkle ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... and he stopped on seeing her. His brown skin was singularly clean, his eyes were clear and steady, though they often gave a humorous twinkle. If this man had ever been a rake, his reformation must have been drastic and complete, because although she had a very limited acquaintance with people of that sort, it was reasonable to conclude that they must bear ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss
... suggestion which I knew was ironically directed against myself, I did not care. So long as I was to be with my companions and of them, irony did not matter. I caught the twinkle in his eye and laughed. He was as joyous as Narcisse. The gladness of the July morning danced in his veins. He pulled the violin and bow out of the old baize bag and fiddled as we walked. It must have ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... the swamp. The prospect as painted by her was so alluring that by the end of the first verse all the troops were infected with trans-Atlantic yearnings and voiced them in a manner that would have made an emigration agent rub his hands and start chartering transport right away. She had an enticing twinkle which lighted on the Major a few times, so that I wasn't surprised when the second chorus found him roaring out that he too was going to take a long lease of a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 28th, 1920 • Various
... would better not try the patience of her big brother too far," returned the captain with a twinkle of fun in ...
— Elsie's Vacation and After Events • Martha Finley
... ponderous sea-boots, or a farm-labourer homeward plodding his weary way. But though heavy-footed after his day's labour he is never so stolid as an English ploughman is apt to be; invariably when giving us a good-night in passing the man would smile and look at Millicent very directly with a meaning twinkle in his Cornish eye. He might have been congratulating her on having a male companion to pay her all these nice little attentions, and perhaps signalling the hope that ...
— A Traveller in Little Things • W. H. Hudson
... to meet you, sir," Rip returned. He liked the twinkle in the Frenchman's eye. He would have given a lot to know what scheme Galliene ...
— Rip Foster Rides the Gray Planet • Blake Savage
... both. "So you have found the presiding genius of the district! Why did I not have the inspiration of introducing you myself?" He turned to Mrs. Elliot, who had rejoined them. "Two more lions for you, eh, Constance?" he said, with a twinkle which betokened old friendship. ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... twinkling lights of the village less than half a mile ahead, and he glanced over them carefully. There was the saloon. Who could mistake it, with its flamboyant brilliance against the lesser twinkle of the smaller houses? His eyes searched for the lights of Eve's home. He could not see them. Possibly she was in her kitchen, that snug little room, where, up to a year ago, he had many a time taken tea with her. Yes, it would be about her supper-time. ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... hotel. Thurston raised his eyes to the summer heavens. Faint stars were beginning to twinkle; there was one ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various
... aright; and one of the grandmothers, who was my great friend of the party, gave me many a sharp word of judgment on my sketches, my heresy, or even my arguments, and gave them with a wry mouth and a humorous twinkle in her eye that were eminently Scottish. But the rest used me with a certain reverence, as something come from afar and not entirely human. Nothing would put them at their ease but the irresistible gaiety of my native tongue. Between ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... stood looking down at Sir John and his little round stomach and his little round eyes with their obscene twinkle. And for the life of him he couldn't feel the indignation he would like to have felt. As his eyes encountered Sir John's something secret and primitive in Mr. Waddington responded to that obscene twinkle; something reminiscent and anticipating; something mischievous and subtle and delightful, ...
— Mr. Waddington of Wyck • May Sinclair
... calm, mild day, as still such days will come, To call the squirrel and the bee from out their winter home, When the sound of dropping nuts is heard, though all the trees are still, And twinkle in the smoky light the waters of the rill, The south wind searches for the flowers, whose fragrance late he bore, And sighs to find them in the wood and by the ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... upwards, with frequent views across the gulf, and then descends into a land rich with olives—a genuine Riviera landscape, where the mountain-slopes are hoary, and spikelets of innumerable light-flashing leaves twinkle against a blue sea, misty-deep. The walls here are not unfrequently adorned with basreliefs of Carrara marble—saints and madonnas very delicately wrought, as though they were love-labours of sculptors who had passed a summer on this shore. San Terenzio is soon discovered low upon the sands to ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... waking; and she to have bathed, as I supposed, in some warm pool that did be among the bushes upon the island; and she now to slip her foot-gear, that her feet be bare unto me, as I did love, and to stand a moment, and her eyes to twinkle gently. And I lookt at her with love and honour in mine eyes, as you shall know, and she to have dancing of sweet pleasure in her heart, that I so to look upon her with holiness and with natural love, ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson
... the river blaze, You on its glory scarce can gaze; But when the moon's delirious beam, In giddy splendour woos the stream, Its mellow'd light is so refined, 'Tis like a gleam of soul and mind; Its gentle ripple glittering by, Like twinkle of a maiden's eye; While all amazed at Heaven's steepness, You gaze into its liquid deepness, And see some beauties that excel— Visions to dream of, not to tell— A downward soul of living hue, So mild, so modest, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 390, September 19, 1829 • Various
... not," answered Bernardine. "One is not easily missed, you know." There was a twinkle in Bernardine's eye as she added, "He is probably occupied with ...
— Ships That Pass In The Night • Beatrice Harraden
... had she done when the root of a forget-me-not caught the drop of water by her hair and sucked her in, that she might become a floweret, and twinkle brightly as a blue star on the ...
— Peter Schlemihl etc. • Chamisso et. al. |
