"Hearthrug" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... once began to understand Lousteau's indifference to the state of his garret. Etienne was the real king of these festivals; Etienne enjoyed the use of all these fine things. He was standing just now on the hearthrug with his back to the fire, as if he were the master of the house, chatting with the manager, who was ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... up every man she had met had grovelled before her, and she had acquired a mental attitude toward the other sex which was a blend of indifference and contempt. For the cringing specimens who curled up and died all over the hearthrug if she spoke a cold word to them she had nothing but scorn. She dreamed wistfully of those brusque cavemen of whom she read in the novels which she took out of the village circulating library. The female novelist who was at that ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... really began. It started one evening when mother was reading the children the story of the White Cat in front of the nursery fire before they went to bed. Thomas, who had been more than usually frisky all day, was taking a little repose on the hearthrug, and as the story was about a ...
— More Tales in the Land of Nursery Rhyme • Ada M. Marzials
... pondering every sentence and every word, and when he had finished it his hand dropped upon his knee; and when the letter fell upon the hearthrug he did not stoop to pick it up, but sat looking into the fire, convinced that everything was over and done. There was nothing to look forward to; his life would drag on from day to day, from week to week, month to month, year ...
— The Lake • George Moore
... it, he saw before him, standing on the study hearthrug, a Real Robber. There was no mistake about it. Oswald was sure it was a robber, because it had a screwdriver in its hands, and was standing near the cupboard door that H. O. broke the lock off; and there were gimlets and screws and things on ...
— The Story of the Treasure Seekers • E. Nesbit
... coward, the Duke could not cashier him, because he was the best officer remaining to us. Poor Fletcher, who might have made something of our cavalry, was by this time far away at sea. The other officers had shown their incapacity that morning. For my own part, I chose out a snug billet on a hearthrug in the George Inn, where I slept very soundly for several hours. While I slept, the Duke held a melancholy council to debate ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield
... stood upon the hearthrug with his hands behind his back, waiting for news of the young lady whom he had come to visit. At first sight he certainly was a most prepossessing-looking person. His face, if a little hard, was distinguished by a strength which for the ...
— The Box with Broken Seals • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... told him very firmly that it had been a custom in my family from time immemorial to be in bed by ten, and that I was accordingly going there. He looked surprised and wider awake than ever, but nothing shook me, and I walked away, leaving him standing on the hearthrug after the manner of my countrymen, who never dream of opening a ...
— The Solitary Summer • Elizabeth von Arnim
... through the keyhole, and a run to the door, to make sure of there being no interruption there, and then the boy's face assumed a very serious expression. He took the cloth from the little table in the corner, rolled up the hearthrug longwise, and tied it in two places with string, and then treating it as a patient, he laid it on the settee, and drew over it ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn
... his home that night to find it empty. There were no servants. There was no wife. Her cat and dog lay dead upon the hearthrug. Her clothing was cut into strips. Her wedding-dress was a charred heap on the fireplace. Her jewellery lay molten with it. Her portrait had been torn from ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... stood at the other side of the fire-place. Tom Thumb and Hunca Munca went cautiously across the hearthrug. They pushed the ...
— The Great Big Treasury of Beatrix Potter • Beatrix Potter
... crowds of people in the hall, mostly gathered about a round table near the fire. He discerned Mrs Ffolliot in the very act of "dispensing tea" and General Grantly standing on the hearthrug warming his coat tails. Mary, too, he saw give a cup of tea into her grandfather's hands, and he was conscious of the presence of Mrs Grantly seated on an oaken settle at the other side of the fire from Mrs Ffolliot. These four ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker
... them. In about half an hour, when the short twilight was becoming dusk, Mrs. Woodward returned, and found Norman standing alone on the hearthrug before the fireplace. Gertrude was away, and he was leaning against the mantelpiece, with his hands behind his back, staring at vacancy; but oh! with such an aspect of dull, speechless agony ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... have finished my story; my noble deerhound thinks so too. He gets slowly up from the hearthrug, conies towards me, and places his honest head on my arm, but his eyes are fixed ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables
... he had an old age in the workhouse to dread? I have seen a little Yorkshire terrier go the round of the dinner-table, sit up and beg piteously, pretending that 'the smallest trifle is most thankfully received,' look carefully round, and, thinking that no one saw him, bury those trifles under the hearthrug, and return for more. The habit is not so common in cats, but I have known more than one puss do the same thing. One little tabby, found in the snow on my doorstep, would play with a piece of meat as if ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... Primrose, laying down her work, and stooping towards her younger sister, who sat on the hearthrug, "I am keeping the coal to put on until Daisy wakes. You know, Jasmine, we resolved not to run up any bills, and I cannot get in any coal until Mr. Danesfield sends us our next quarter's allowance—wrap my fur cloak ...
— The Palace Beautiful - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... said to Mrs. Dixon, standing on the hearthrug in the sanctuary of the housekeeper's room, one wet afternoon, shortly after the Coppinger return: "I see changes here, better and worse, good and bad, but I didn't think I'd live to see what I seen to-day—the children of this house ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... What he did see was the man's clothes lying on the large chair just as he had placed them there when he undressed for the last time. The black coat and worsted waistcoat which he could take off together were on the seat, and the light trousers hung over the side, the legs on the hearthrug, with the red socks still sticking in them: a man without ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... on his rounds. Certainly there was not much outside show about him, this artist that I so desired to see at work; a dog of doubtful breed, placid and meditative; uncouth, ungroomed, and quite inadmissible to the intimacies of the hearthrug. Talent and ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... nearly as cross as when she went to bed; but she said nothing more about going: and Friskarina took care at breakfast to show her every possible good-natured attention; she gave her by much the largest share of the cream, took the draughty side of the hearthrug herself, and, in short, did everything she could to show that she was anxious to be kind and civil to her; but all her little politenesses ...
— Tales From Catland, for Little Kittens • Tabitha Grimalkin
... uncle, of course. What do you think my uncle's going to say to all this? If I sprang it on him cold, he'd tie himself in knots on the hearthrug." ...
— Death At The Excelsior • P. G. Wodehouse
... cinders in his pipe against the edge of the fender. Major Flint apparently was waiting for this, for he withdrew his handkerchief and closely watched the process. A minute piece of ash fell from Puffin's pipe on to the hearthrug, and he jumped to his feet and removed it very carefully with ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... Maxixe, writing in The Irrational Review, states that he has it on the best authority that when the GERMAN EMPEROR read the Criccieth New Year's interview with Mr. LLOYD GEORGE he exclaimed, "This beats the Tango," and fell heavily on the hearthrug. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 21, 1914 • Various
... limitations of its ridiculous life satisfied it completely. It seemed to reproduce in an absurd, diminished way my grandmother in her white lace cap, with her white face and hands. She sat in her chair all day and looked at the fire. The cat sat on the hearthrug and did the same. The cat seemed to me the animal personification of the human being who kept me chained from all the sports and pleasures I had promised myself for the holidays. When I went near to the cat, and heard it calmly purring at me, I longed ...
— The Return Of The Soul - 1896 • Robert S. Hichens
... the hearthrug, tailor fashion, before the fire, and she gave a little swaying movement backward and forward, to signify the affirmative. He looked at her a moment as if to make sure she was not joking, and then ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... walls, the dim paintings, and the orange-colored curtains. A faint air of innocent coquetry hung about her. After a pause and a smile from Heath, she would move forward with hasty confidence, sometimes reaching the hearthrug with a run. She was made welcome, petted, apparently attended to with a whole mind. But while she delivered her soul of its burden, at great length and with many indrawn breaths and gusts of feeling, Heath was often saying to himself, ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... from her hostess caused Miss Crossman to pause. In fact, they all stared wonderingly at Georgiana. She stood upon the hearthrug, her colour, usually ready to glow in her dusky face, now receding suggestively, her dark eyes sparkling dangerously. "The only trouble with that sort of thing," she answered with suspicious quietness, ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond
... convenience of modern science that thrift, the picking up of potential helps here and there, has almost become unmeaning to him. He comes across it most (as I say) when he is playing some game within four walls; when in charades, a hearthrug will just do for a fur coat, or a tea-cozy just do for a cocked hat; when a toy theater needs timber and cardboard, and the house has just enough firewood and just enough bandboxes. This is the man's occasional glimpse and pleasing parody of thrift. But many ...
— What's Wrong With The World • G.K. Chesterton
... used to these parts," he said, still standing on the hearthrug with his back to the fire, coatless, looking with curious directness at the woman. Her self-possession pleased him and inspired him, set him curiously free. It seemed to him almost brutal to feel so master of ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... palatial, and it was at once the symbol and the scene of his new life. A stranger entering would have beheld a fair-sized room, a narrow bed, two chairs, an old-fashioned table, a new wardrobe, an old dressing-table, a curious carpet and hearthrug, low bookshelves on either side of the fireplace, and a few prints and drawings, not all of them framed, on the distempered walls. A stranger might have said in its praise that it was light and airy. But ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... the little white maiden as she stood on the hearthrug, with the hot blast of the stove striking through her like a pestilence. Once she threw a glance toward the window, and caught a glimpse, through its red curtains, of the snow-covered roofs and the stars glimmering frostily and all the delicious intensity ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... not seem to me that it is worth our time to haggle about the usage of Greek words or to count texts: I ground my position on the general meaning of the Gospels and the sense of things," and Carmichael stood on the hearthrug ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... if Caterham really heard him at all. Round such interpolations Caterham's speech flowed indeed like some swift stream about a rock. There this incredible man stood, on his official hearthrug, talking, talking with enormous power and skill, talking as though a pause in his talk, his explanations, his presentation of standpoints and lights, of considerations and expedients, would permit some antagonistic influence to leap into being—into vocal being, the only being ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells
... was resenting contact with Jim's dog on the hearthrug. There was a hustle among the ...
— The Brownies and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... She had asked him, as he was standing by her tea-table, to put the kettle back on the fire. He took it out of her hands, but, preoccupied by the conversation he was carrying on, deposited it on the hearthrug. It was some time before he could be made to see that this was wrong; and he believed Mrs. Carlyle never ceased to think that he had a mischievous ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... was proceeding spasmodically. Meg's blue eyes were all red and swollen with crying, and she was still sniffing audibly as she poured out the coffee. Pip had his hands in his pockets and stood on the hearthrug, looking gloomily at a certain plate, and refusing breakfast altogether; the General was crashing his own mug and plate joyously together; and Bunty was eating bread and ...
— Seven Little Australians • Ethel Sybil Turner
... one of the sofas half asleep; Miss Amabel standing on the hearthrug with her back to the fire; whilst Miss Sibyl and Miss Hunter were both trying to read books of a religious character, and feeling very dull ...
— Bulbs and Blossoms • Amy Le Feuvre
... all about it; the sight of Eleanor and Amy still reposing on the hearthrug as she replaced the kettle drove out of her mind all thoughts of the possible little ...
— The Rectory Children • Mrs Molesworth
... down. The paper lay on the hearthrug, and I stared at it hatefully. It was unspeakably loathsome, yet I was fascinated by it. I longed to take it up, to read it again. Somehow I did not dare. I was becoming ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... a minute of his entering our door he had got himself upon terms with all of us, and with so easy and graceful a manner that it seemed as if he had known us all for years. I had a good look at him now as he stood upon the hearthrug with my mother upon one side and my father on the other. He was a very large man, with noble shoulders, small waist, broad hips, well-turned legs, and the smallest of hands and feet. His face was pale and handsome, with a prominent chin, a jutting nose, and large blue ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... uneasiness I pushed my chair back. It caught the hearthrug, and in my efforts to disentangle it the screen fell over with a crash and in the flickering light of the fire I saw the face of the creature opposite. With a sharp catch of my breath I left my chair and stood with clenched fists beside it. Man or beast, which was it? The ...
— Lady of the Barge and Others, Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... Wetherell led the way in and sat down. I went across to the hearthrug and stood before him. "Now," I said, "we must think this out from the very beginning, and to do that properly we must consider every detail. Have you any objection to ...
— A Bid for Fortune - or Dr. Nikola's Vendetta • Guy Boothby
... something new," said 'Toinette. "See how he looks at it." Whereupon, of course, there was a chorus of delighted acquiescence, and Aunt Dolly must needs go down upon the hearthrug, too. ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... wits. He had got out of his chair by that time, and had taken up a position on the hearthrug, his back to the fire, his hands in his pockets, his eyes on his visitor. He was thinking—and for the moment he ...
— The Borough Treasurer • Joseph Smith Fletcher
... ushered into a sitting-room—a man's apartment, untidy, reeking of cigarette smoke and stale air. There were photographs and souvenirs of women everywhere. The windows were fast-closed and the curtains half-drawn. The man who stood upon the hearthrug was of medium height, dark, with close-cropped hair and a black, drooping moustache. His first glance at his visitor, as the door opened, was one ...
— The Mischief Maker • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... little way in advance of the group on the hearthrug, fanning herself, with her eye on the door, while she listened languidly to the remarks of a youthful diplomatist, a sprig of a lordly tree, upon the last debut at Her ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... hearthrug, beautifully dressed—too beautifully dressed, it is possible, to sit down. Her maid had a moment earlier confessed that she could do no more, and Etta had come down stairs a vision of luxury, of womanly loveliness. Nevertheless, there appeared ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... even tone, without once removing his eyes from the man who stood upon the hearthrug with bent ...
— The Doctor of Pimlico - Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime • William Le Queux
... leave Mr Tankardew in possession. When he was gone, the old man looked keenly at mother and daughter. Mrs Franklin coloured and sighed. Mary turned very red and then very pale, and took an earnest passing interest in the pattern of the hearthrug. ...
— Nearly Lost but Dearly Won • Theodore P. Wilson
... unaccustomed, and which went to his head like wine. It was evident that only privileged visitors were received there, for apart from the air of intimacy which seemed somehow to pervade the place, there were several articles of apparel, and a pair of slippers lying upon the hearthrug. ...
— The Moving Finger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... four-post bedstead, for the entertainment of such genial company as half-a-dozen pokers, and a hall lamp. A set of window curtains with no windows belonging to them, would be seen gracefully draping a barricade of chests of drawers, loaded with little jars from chemists' shops; while a homeless hearthrug severed from its natural companion the fireside, braved the shrewd east wind in its adversity, and trembled in melancholy accord with the shrill complainings of a cabinet piano, wasting away, a string a day, and faintly resounding to the noises of the street in its ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... more tangible than a padding of soft paws on the stairs, a movement under the dining-table, where he had been accustomed to lie in life, a sound of a dog lying down with a sigh, or getting up from the hearthrug before ...
— Love of Brothers • Katharine Tynan
... man whose manner always seemed to hint that at least half of creation was at his sole disposal. They expressed a consideration on his part that she had been far from anticipating. He waited for an interval of several seconds for her to speak. He was standing up on the hearthrug, his ill-proportioned figure thrown into strong relief by the firelight behind him. At last, as she quite failed to answer him, he drew a pace nearer ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... the couch and the chairs, Easton had bought second-hand and had done up himself. The table, oilcloth, fender, hearthrug, etc, had been obtained on the hire system and were not yet paid for. The windows were draped with white lace curtains and in the bay was a small bamboo table on which reposed a large Holy Bible, ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... foot down at once.' Miss Hannah suited the action to the word, and put down, with emphasis, on the hearthrug a very large, plate-shaped foot cased in ...
— Clara Hopgood • Mark Rutherford
... Colonel Bellairs' study by now, and he sat down heavily in his old leather arm-chair. Magdalen was standing on the hearthrug near him with the letter in her hand. She held it over the fire, he nodded, and ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley
... than due, but it was useless even to consider those to-day. In spite of an oppressive sense of having much to do—perhaps because of it—Hadria felt as if it were a sheer impossibility to rise from that hearthrug. Besides, Martha would not hear of it. A desire to rest, to idle, to float down the stream, instead of trying always to swim against it, became ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... Conyngham's attitude towards Fate was in strong contrast. He held his head up and faced the world without encumbrance, without a settled ambition, without any sense of responsibility at all. The sharp-eyed dog on the hearthrug looked from one to the other. A moment before, the atmosphere of the room had been one of ease and comfortable assurance—an atmosphere that some men, without any warrant or the justification of personal success or distinction, seem to carry with them through life. ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman
... rosewood one, stood, bare of any cloth, upon the hearthrug. The two ladies sat, motionless statues once more, upon the side furthest from the fire, with their hands resting lightly upon the surface. Laurie sat on one side and the medium on the other. Mr. Vincent had received his paper and pencil almost immediately, and now sat resting ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson
... upon the thick Turkey hearthrug with his cigar between his lips, watched me closely. Apparently he was considerably perturbed at my sudden illness, for he expressed regret, hoping that ...
— The Stretton Street Affair • William Le Queux
... On hearthrug in the winter-time We lay and read it over; We read it in the summer's prime, Amidst the hay and clover. The trees, by evening breezes fann'd, ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
... a nice run, Hugh?" asked the girl, clasping her hands behind her head and looking up at him as he stood upon the pale-blue hearthrug. ...
— Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo • William Le Queux
... had been moving restlessly to and fro: she now stood still, on the hearthrug, her hands clasped before her, her face turned attentively towards her brother. Evidently she ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... vestibule and waved an adieu. Then she retraced her steps and made a grand entry into the drawing-room from her own bedroom. She meant to dispose of Musa immediately. A meeting between him and Mr. Gilman on her hearthrug might involve the ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... Addison, Lamb, Hazlitt, Emerson, Lowell—take any one you choose—they all conceive the love of books as a rare and perfect mystery for the few—a thing of the secluded study where they can sit alone at night with a candle, and a cigar, and a glass of port on the table and a spaniel on the hearthrug. What I say is, who has ever gone out into high roads and hedges to bring literature home to the plain man? To bring it home to his business and bosom, as somebody says? The farther into the country you go, the fewer and worse ...
— Parnassus on Wheels • Christopher Morley
... bent down and, picking a used match from the hearthrug, threw it carefully under the grate. ...
— Dialstone Lane, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... ware made at Knype, his whisky, his celebrated prize-winning fox-terrier Titus, the largest collection of books in the Five Towns, and photographs of Marischal College, Aberdeen. Then we fell flat, socially prone. Sitting in his study, with Titus between us on the hearthrug, we knew no more what to say or do. I regretted that Brindley's wife's grandmother should have been born on a fifteenth of February. Brindley was a vivacious talker, he could be trusted to talk. I, too, am ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... this room, which extended from back to front of the little house, preceded by the announcement "Mr. Aesop," it was resonant with a very clatter-bodandigo of noises, from Phyllis playing the Machiche; from the boy Jock on the hearthrug, emitting at short intervals the most piercing notes from an ocarina; from Mrs. Larne on the sofa, talking with her trailing volubility to Bob Pillin; from Bob Pillin muttering: "Ye-es! Qui-ite! Ye-es!" and gazing at Phyllis over his collar. And, on the window-sill, as far as she could ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... a perfect stranger to him—a slim, wiry-figured gentleman, with a frock-coat buttoned closely over his chest, reddish-brown full beard, and glasses, through which a sharp pair of eyes at once went to Paul. Mr. Weevil was standing beside the visitor on the hearthrug. ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting
... of them allowed themselves to be bullied by N.C.O.'s. Some never gave or returned salutes, others went about saluting everybody. Some came into Mess in fancy dress of their own design, and elbowed senior officers off the hearthrug. I used to marvel at the Colonel's patience with them. But many of them are dead now, Bobby, and they nearly all made good. Then the men! After ten years in the regular Army I hated them all—the way they lounged, the way they dressed, the way they sat, the way they spat. I ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... hands with Janet and Tom, they all stood together on the hearthrug waiting, so Radmore supposed, for the parlourmaid to ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes
... hunch of bread, And sugar for your crumb; Here's room upon the hearthrug, If you'll ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... drawers, and a bookcase with glass doors above and a cupboard below, in which Aunt Victoria used to keep her stores of tea, coffee, sugar, and currants in mustard-tins. Beth heard with surprise that the hearthrug was one which Aunt Victoria had worked herself as a present for Prentice when she married. Prentice was now Mrs. Pearce, but Aunt Victoria always called her Prentice. The hearthrug was like a Turkey carpet, only softer, deeper, and richer. Aunt ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... she; then, recollecting herself, she repeated the order in Russian, and swept out of the room without deigning to look at the astonished young man, standing on the hearthrug with his tea-cup in his hand. How it is that Vladimir succeeds in interpreting his mistress's orders to the domestics of the various countries in which she travels is a mystery not fathomed, for in her presence he understands only the Slav ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... Company, beat a hasty retreat up the stairs to the clerk's room, closely pursued by Mr. Whalley. Mr. Gartside being rather portly, was much out of breath, and suddenly pausing and turning round to recover himself on gaining the hearthrug he received Mr. Whalley's fist full in the stomach, which completed his exhaustion. Recovering his breath and as much of his dignity as the circumstances would permit, the disabled Director appealing dramatically to the astonished clerks, exclaimed "Gentlemen, I call on you to witness that ...
— The Story of the Cambrian - A Biography of a Railway • C. P. Gasquoine
... grouped in a neat geometrical figure, Mr. Rickman, on the chair of his choice, forming the apex of a prolonged triangle, having the hearthrug for its base. He was aware that Miss Harden and Miss Palliser were saying something; but he had no idea of what they said. He sat there wondering whether he ought to be seated at all, whether he ought ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... know, it's not the same for a girl. A man may do things a woman maynt. [He stands on the hearthrug with ...
— Fanny's First Play • George Bernard Shaw
... the hearthrug and gesticulate, while Mr. Fotheringay sat with his arm on the table and his head on his arm, looking worried. "I don't see how I'm to ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... ever wanting what we have not, and to be finding, when we have it, that it is not what we wanted. That is the law of life, dear. Do you think as you lie upon the floor with your head upon your arms, that you are the only woman whose tears are soaking into the hearthrug at that moment? My dear Princess, if you could creep unseen about your City, peeping at will through the curtain-shielded windows, you would come to think that all the world was little else than a ...
— The Second Thoughts of An Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... unscathed. I have heard or read of a member of the cloth—a supreme egoist—who was visiting at a house when but the mother and her little girl—a mere child—were at home. As the self-esteemed great man was holding the mother in conversation, he noticed with pride that the child, who reposed on the hearthrug with a school-slate tilted on her knee, was making furtive glances up at his face, and returning her attention regularly to the slate, on which she kept scrawling with a pencil. When at length she stopped ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford
... his hand into his pocket under his hearthrug, and when he rolled his eyes in agonies of sentiment, and said, "Farewell, dear Beauty! Return quickly, for if you remain long absent from your faithful beast he will assuredly perish," he pressed a ring into her hand and added: "This is a magic ring that ...
— The Enchanted Castle • E. Nesbit
... indeed, when she went up the snakes were safe back in the pot. She did not see this, because she was not the kind of girl who sweeps under things every day. That night Hildebrand secretly slept in the boxroom, on a pile of newspapers, with a rag-bag and a hearthrug ...
— Oswald Bastable and Others • Edith Nesbit
... betaken herself to her favourite place, the hearthrug. She was silent until Lucy had reached the middle verse of 'Almost persuaded,' which she sang with due impressiveness. Then a ...
— The Angel Adjutant of "Twice Born Men" • Minnie L. Carpenter
... attributing the changed atmosphere to his own personal attentions instead of to the agreeable sensation following upon digestion. When he left the dining-room Kemper was already humming a little Italian air, and it was not until he was seated, with his cigar, in an easy chair upon his hearthrug, that he suddenly recognised the music as a favourite aria of Madame Alta's. He had heard her sing it a hundred times, and he recalled now that she had a trick of throwing her head back as the notes issued from her round, white throat, until her ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... know not whether it was owing to her loitering on the way one month to an extent flesh and blood could not bear, or because we had exhausted the penny library, but on a day I conceived a glorious idea, or it was put into my head by my mother, then desirous of making progress with her new clouty hearthrug. The notion was nothing short of this, why should I not write the tales myself? I did write them - in the garret - but they by no means helped her to get on with her work, for when I finished a chapter I bounded ...
— Margaret Ogilvy • James M. Barrie
... was shortened, and grew slow and slower, and came quite to a stop before he had got far from the door—a wide stretch of that wide floor still intervening between him and Sir Bale, who stood upon the hearthrug, with his heels together and his back to the fire, cane in hand, like a ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... lit by hanging lamps, scented with brasiers of perfumed wood, she fled, slipping upon chinchilla rug or glaring monstrous hearthrug of Berlin wool, in her desperate haste to quit ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest
... of you, my dear Lady Clonbrony, in defiance of bulls and blunders, to allow us a comfortable English fire-place and plenty of Newcastle coal in China!—And a white marble—no! white velvet hearthrug painted with beautiful flowers—Oh! the ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... floor. Once she stopped by the window, and, drawing the curtains aside, looked out upon the April sunshine and upon the young green leaves which tinted the distant woods. Then coming back to the hearthrug, she stood gazing down upon him with a ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... another series of fantastic emotions and futile endeavours to the sublime climax of murdering a one-eyed cat? Self-abomination and contempt smote me as I thought of poor Polyphemus stretched dead on the hearthrug, and myself standing over him, sane, stupid, and remorseful, with ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... reflected. Then he opened the study door and called "Mollie!" and returned to assume an attitude of authority on the hearthrug, before the blue flames and orange glow of ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... in a low even voice, without tears or visible agitation; and each word, as it dropped from her, fell into his breast like burning lead. He sat bowed over, his head between his hands, staring at the hearthrug, and at the tip of the satin shoe that showed under her dress. Suddenly he knelt down and kissed ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... in the Warden's drawing-room had just struck eight, and already the ducal feet were beautiful on the white bearskin hearthrug. So slim and long were they, of instep so nobly arched, that only with a pair of glazed ox-tongues on a breakfast-table were they comparable. Incomparable quite, the figure and face and vesture of him who ended ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... faded from him in after-life. The room was small compared with his grandmother's rooms, but, oh! so different. There was a tiny fire blazing in the grate, a little black-and-white terrier lay basking on the hearthrug, a lamp in a corner of the room, covered by a rose-coloured shade, shed its light on a pretty pink and white chintz couch underneath it, and upon this couch, leaning back amongst pink cushions, was Bobby's stepmother. True was already ...
— 'Me and Nobbles' • Amy Le Feuvre
... sight, finally he took up a position on the hearthrug and waited. Would she be angry with him for coming? he wondered. Would it recall things she had rather forget? But perhaps she had already forgotten them—it was so long ago. Would she be very much changed? Perhaps he should not know her. Perhaps—but here ...
— Smith and the Pharaohs, and Other Tales • Henry Rider Haggard
... down and placed his head on the hearthrug, his hands on either side in front, and threw his heels in the air, to the great endangerment of ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn
... the great moment. Reist, too restless to sit down, stood upon the hearthrug, the angry fire lingering in his eyes, a spot of dull colour burning still in his cheeks. He had not yet got over the shock of finding one of the men he most hated and despised in life a guest in this house of ...
— The Traitors • E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim
... led the way to a delightful little corner of his library, where before the open grate, recently piled with hissing logs, an easy chair had been drawn. He wheeled himself up to the other side of the hearthrug and leaned back with a little air of exhaustion. The butler, who seemed to have appeared unsummoned from somewhere among the shadows, served coffee and poured some old brandy into large and wonderfully ...
— The Vanished Messenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... but, nevertheless, I think the feeling that it was a strange world she had come to, was rather prominent in Dolly. She suddenly stooped to a great Maltese cat that was lying on the hearthrug, and I am afraid the eyes were glad of an excuse to get out of sight. She touched the cat's fur ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... stood rigidly upon the hearthrug. His long, thin fingers were intertwined, and his head sunk a little forward. His two companions had eyes only for ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... sank into a sleep. She was in a large library, the room was surrounded by book-shelves, the backs of the books glistened in the ruddy firelight. All around spoke of luxury and comfort. She was sitting on the hearthrug, her head against the knee of—whom? A gentleman was stroking her hair, and she heard him say, 'It is the sweetest name on earth to me, my darling.' What name? She was sure he pronounced it, but no sound seemed to come from his lips. Weeping, she entreated, oh, if she ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... less that she was suspected of killing him. Dizziness had swept over her. Things seemed to spin round her, yet she saw them rotating with a kind of dreadful distinctness—the false smiling faces of the women, the furniture, a cat blinking on the hearthrug, an empty coffee cup on a small table. One stout lady, enthroned on a pile of red and blue cushions, sailed round and round on a sofa with the preposterous repetition and tragic reality of a fat woman on a roundabout. Then ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... necessary to make her first announcement standing behind him upon the hearthrug, but now she sat upon the arm of the great armchair as close to him as possible, and spoke in a ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells
... his beard, his legs astraddle on the hearthrug, with something appallingly viceregal in his air, when Mr. and Mrs. Alexander Cargill were announced. The Home Secretary was a joy to behold. He had the face of an elderly and pious bookmaker, and a voice ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... Enid," he replied, "that dearly as I love you, and just because I love you so dearly, because I would give all the world if I had it to have you for my wife, I would not make you the wife of a man who could become the thing that was lying on the hearthrug of the Den four nights ago—a man drunk against his own will, a slave to one of the vilest of habits—no, something much worse than a habit, a disease ...
— The Missionary • George Griffith
... find old Joe Wilkings, and mighty anxious they were about him; and a nice tramp they had up hill and down dale before they discovered him; and when they did, they found him rolled up in a shawl on the policeman's hearthrug, for, of course, Mr. Podder, the policeman, was not going to lock up the likes of an old boy of his age. Joe Wilkings had recovered a bit now, and he was that pugnacious he wanted to fight Mr. Podder and all those that had come to find him; and what should he ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 28, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... to take to glasses before her eyesight became further impaired. Mrs. Mills went back to the shop with a waggish caution against too much love-making. Bulpert, after shifting furniture, took up a position on the white hearthrug, and gave a stirring adventure in the life of a coastguardsman who saved from a wreck his wife and child. At the end, Bulpert mopped face, readjusted collar, ...
— Love at Paddington • W. Pett Ridge
... another taxi, driven by a shaggy grey hearthrug. I told him my difficulties, and he at once offered to drive me anywhere and made no bones about the distance whatever. So it was arranged that he should come for me on the morrow—say Tuesday, at a quarter to eleven, and we would then get through the preliminaries ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 16, 1914 • Various
... found Dr Proudie sitting on the old bishop's chair, looking very nice in his new apron; they found, too, Mr Slope standing on the hearthrug, persuasive and eager, just as the archdeacon used to stand; but on the sofa they also found Mrs Proudie, an innovation for which a precedent might be in vain be sought in all the annals of the ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... once left the table and, without making any remark, stood on his head on the hearthrug. Thus did his joy find vent. Jock, on the other hand, seemed more solemnised ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... piece of paper lay half burned upon the hearthrug; he picked it up, and unfolded it, in order to get a better pipe-light by folding it the other way of the paper. As he did so, absently glancing at the penciled writing upon the fragment of thin paper, a portion of a name caught ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... and give him last Saturday week's Times to read, while I rub the rust off my forceps. There, that will do; take your tray—or, stop; I've some news to tell you." He rose, and stood with his back to the fire and his eyes bent upon the hearthrug, while Mrs. Woolper waited by the table, with the tray packed ready for removal. Her master kept her waiting so for some minutes, and then turned his face half away from her, and contemplated himself absently in the glass ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... is a wise man," remarked Mr. March, with placid satisfaction, from the hearthrug, after the ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... was, did look rather like a dragon—but then it was too small; and it looked rather like a lizard—only then it was too big. It was about as long as a hearthrug. ...
— The Book of Dragons • Edith Nesbit
... the portfolio of du Maurier the epic of the drawing-room. Many of the Victorians, including the Queen, and Alfred Lord Tennyson, seem to have viewed life from the drawing-room window. They gazed straight across the room from the English hearthrug as from undoubtedly the greatest place on earth. They were probably right. But some of this confidence has gone. Actually in these days there are people who won't own up to having a drawing-room at all. ...
— George Du Maurier, the Satirist of the Victorians • T. Martin Wood
... by her manner that it was a new and amusing experience in her life, but that the burden was almost more than her strength could support, and that she required assistance. Percival, who had stood up when she came in and thanked her gravely from his position on the hearthrug, came forward and swept some books and papers out of the way to make room for her load. In so doing their hands touched—his white and beautifully shaped, hers clumsy and coarsely colored. (It was not poor Lydia's fault. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... he said. She was standing on the hearthrug in the bedroom, looking upon the floor, her hands clasped in front of her, her bonnet yet unremoved. For a moment she did not answer; and then she replied ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy |
