"Mantel" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... easily watch their sheep, which are often scattered over a wide surface. In the morning the shepherd, in order to get on his stilts, mounts by a ladder or seats himself upon the sill of a window, or else climbs upon the mantel of a large chimney. Even in a flat country, being seated upon the ground, and having fixed his stilts, he easily rises with the aid of his staff. To persons accustomed to walking on foot, it is evident that locomotion upon stilts would be ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 821, Sep. 26, 1891 • Various
... her husband did safely trust in her. But when I saw them, that evening, sitting, in erect propriety, in their respective corners each side of the great, stately fireplace, with its tall, glistening brass andirons, its mantel adorned at either end with plated candlesticks, with the snuffer-tray in the middle,—she so collectedly measuring her words, talking in all those well-worn grooves of correct conversation which are designed, as the phrase ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... and he spilled a good deal on the floor, and he had to scratch two or three matches on his pants before he could get one that wouldn't break off, or go out. Finally he got the pipe lighted, and he puffed a long time, and looked at himself in the big mirror over the mantel, to see if he was looking his best, and ...
— Peck's Uncle Ike and The Red Headed Boy - 1899 • George W. Peck
... a subject she did not choose to discuss with him, and dropped her lashes before the plainly spoken admiration in his eyes. So a silence fell between them, broken only by the ticking of the agate clock on the mantel and the music of sleigh-bells in a distant street. Presently the sleigh-bells died away, and it seemed to Cynthia that the sound of her own heartbeats must be louder than the ticking of the clock. Her tact had suddenly deserted her; without reason, and she did not dare to glance again ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... large set of drawers with several shelves on top stood between the windows, and a wooden settle was ranged along the wall. A table with a great Bible and two or three religious books, and a high mantel with two enormous pitchers that glittered in a brilliant color which was called British luster, with a brass snuffers and tray and candlesticks, were the only concession to the spirit ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... attention to the speech, either. He's got sight of all them animals with their heads bobbin', and a silly grin spreads over his face. First he sidles over to the mantel and touches up one that was about stopped. Then he sees another, and starts that off again, and by the time Hooker is through the Dummy is as busy and contented as you please, keepin' them tigers ...
— Odd Numbers - Being Further Chronicles of Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... my room. If I put it out in the yard, it forthwith organized a search for me in which the entire neighborhood was compelled to take part, willy-nilly. Its manner of doing it boomed the local trade in hair-brushes and mantel bric-a-brac, but brought on complications with the landlord in the morning that usually resulted in the departure of Bob and myself for other pastures. Part with him I could not; for Bob loved me. Once I tried, when it seemed that there was no choice. I had been put out for perhaps the ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... with bric-a-brac; the etchings and prints on the walls, which the elder Mavering went up to look at with a mystifying air of understanding such things; the foils crossed over the chimney, and the mantel with its pipes, and its photographs of theatrical celebrities tilted about over it—spoke of conditions mostly foreign to Mrs. Pasmer's memories of Harvard. The photographed celebrities seemed to be chosen chiefly for their beauty, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... the same rich fabric that composed the curtains, together with a Turkey carpet, over the shaggy surface of which all the colors of the rainbow were scattered in bright confusion, united to relieve the gloomy splendor of the enormous mantel, deep heavy cornices, and the complicated carvings of the massive woodwork which cumbered the walls. A brisk fire of wood was burning on the hearth, in compliment to the willful prejudice of Miss Plowden, ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... out with a day of effort, they had come near tears in a verbal battle over the best place for the sole article remaining unplaced. Gloria wanted it in the hallway; Mrs. Gaynor pleaded for it over the mantel in the living-room. Finally it was Gloria who cried with ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... incidentally affords one more means of communication with the house. Another exit is provided on the opposite side of the stage [left], where a couple of lofty French windows lead out into the garden. Above the drawing-room door is a fine old Jacobean mantel-piece: a fire burns brightly in the grate. To the left of the main door at the back is a long, low, mullioned window, through which one may see a blue sky, a thatched top or two of cottages, and the gray old tower of the church. Through the French windows are seen a gravel-walk, ...
— The Servant in the House • Charles Rann Kennedy
... strayed in, with her rather rigid attendant behind her, suddenly the laughing ceased and everybody involuntarily drew a half startled breath—everybody but the tall thin man, who quietly turned and set his coffee cup down on the mantel ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... saying the right thing, I shall never get that if I live to be a hundred;" and then he stood up, and putting a hand on the mantel-piece looked at the photographs of my people, but he did not say what ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... the most brilliant, if not in all respects the most trustworthy, record of his marvellous youth. Thomas Jefferson Hogg was unlike Shelley in temperament and tastes. His feet were always planted on the earth, while Shelley flew aloft to heaven with singing robes around him, or the mantel of the prophet on his shoulders. (He told Trelawny that he had been attracted to Shelley simply by his "rare talents as a scholar;" and Trelawny has recorded his opinion that Hogg's portrait of ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... took a quart glass fruit jar, and bought a cork to fit it for a few cents. He could not get a solid bar of zinc, but had a piece of zinc folded which answered the purpose. Then following the rest of the directions, he placed the jar on the mantel-piece. The next day; the formations ...
— Harper's Young People, September 28, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... a kitchen, for one entire side of it was occupied by a hearth full of recesses, each one of which contained a furnace fitted up with iron utensils for cooking. On the mantel, which corresponded to this immense hearth, were ranged pipkins and other vessels of different sizes, interspersed with rows of phials and flasks containing liquids of every imaginable color. On a massive oaken table, in the centre of the apartment, ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... show that Beulah had modified at least her environment. An upright piano and a music-rack were the most conspicuous. Upon the piano was a padded-covered gift copy of "Aurora Leigh." A similar one of "In Memoriam" lay on the mantel next to a photograph of the girl's dead mother framed in small shells. These were mementoes of Beulah's childhood. A good copy of Del Sarto's John the Baptist hanging from the wall and two or ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine
... pinned to the threshold, hypnotized: all the furniture had resumed its usual place! The little table was standing between the two windows, the chairs were on their legs and the clock in the middle of the mantel-piece. The shivers of ...
— The Blonde Lady - Being a Record of the Duel of Wits between Arsne Lupin and the English Detective • Maurice Leblanc
... to look down into the room. The pictures here will make you understand the effect (Figs. 48 and 49). Beneath each of these openings or lunettes is a half-circular picture of some mythological story or personage. Upon the wall of the parlor, above the mantel, there is a picture of Diana, the goddess of the moon and the protector of young animals, which ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture - Painting • Clara Erskine Clement
... into the wall stood a large Bible, with a crochet mat over it, and some other books, some vases and ornaments, and a box covered with shells. The only other things to see were the grandfather's clock in the corner, some well-polished bright things on the mantel-piece, a pair of brass candlesticks, a couple of tea-caddies, and a pair of ...
— Dick and Brownie • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... not these, however, that held the girl's attention so fixedly, but the cut Venetian glass on the inlaid cabinets and the gold ornaments on the carved Florentine mantel. ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice
... sea and died, and I never from that day to this heard any more of him," said she, wiping the corner of her eye with her apron, more from old habit than because there were any tears to dry up, for she certainly was not crying. "Those things on the mantel-piece there were some he brought me home years and years ago, when he was a gay young sailor; and I've kept them ever since, for his sake, though I've been hard pushed at times to find bread to put into my mouth, ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... generous frame of mind, and walked from room to room praising the excellence of everything, including a little gingerbread mantel in the dining-room, in which the fireplace had been set crooked,—from being done in the dark, perhaps,—the concrete backyard, with its clothesline pole, the decorated ceilings, the precipitous park opposite that was presently to shut off each day at ...
— The Van Dwellers - A Strenuous Quest for a Home • Albert Bigelow Paine
... were some portraits of ancestors in military attire, and women with enormous head-dresses; there was one in a Puritan cap, wide collar, and a long-sleeved gown, that quite spoiled the effect of her pretty hands. Over the mantel was a pair of very large deer's antlers. Down at one corner there were two swords crossed and some other firearms. Just under them was a cabinet with glass doors that contained ...
— A Little Girl in Old Boston • Amanda Millie Douglas
... which I had experienced put me in such high spirits at the glorious prospects before me that I could not think of going to bed when eleven o'clock sounded from the mantel-tree. Instead, I believe I actually chuckled, as I slipped my hand into the pocket of my dressing-gown for my tobacco-pouch, and proceeded to fill my pipe again. Method had always been the rule of my life, but that night I put it by for ...
— The Love Story of Abner Stone • Edwin Carlile Litsey
... the department, from whom she received her work, was a man of middle-age, of rather stern and forbidding aspect; and as she approached his desk, he pointed to the clock on the mantel-piece. ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... "constitutions." To these decorous assemblies girls only were invited,—no rough Boston boys. She has left to us more than one clear, perfect picture of these formal little routs in the great low-raftered chamber, softly alight with candles on mantel-tree and in sconces; with Lucinda, the black maid, "shrilly piping;" and rows of demure little girls of Boston Brahmin blood, in high rolls and feathers, discreetly partaking of hot and cold punch, ...
— Diary of Anna Green Winslow - A Boston School Girl of 1771 • Anna Green Winslow
... shelves or scattered across the floor could only be accounted for by some blind ferocity of destruction—a madman, for instance, let loose upon it, and striking at random with a stick. As the match burned low in my fingers I looked around hastily for a candle, scanning the dresser, the mantel-shelf, the hugger-mugger of linen, crockery, wall-ornaments, lying in a trail along the floor. But no candle could I discover; so I lit a second match from the first and turned towards the ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... strips and hung on long poles near the kitchen ceiling to dry, and others had been stored away for the cow's luncheons and the Thanksgiving pies, and the potatoes were safe in the cellar, and the onions hung in long strings above the mantel-shelf, this young farmer covered up the glowing coals in the fire-place with ashes, so they would keep bright and hot for the morning fire, and went to bed feeling quite well prepared for winter, for he had that day "banked" the house clear up ...
— Harper's Young People, April 20, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... elegantly, furnished with a bed, a lounge, a table and several chairs. There were a number of fine pictures on the walls, handsome ornaments on the mantel, besides books, papers ...
— Mona • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... with its mirror-adorned mantel and showy gas fixtures—the pride of Sarah's heart—was in order; and, after that, Sarah made sure each day that three o'clock found her dressed in her best and sitting in solemn state in that same parlor waiting for the calls that ...
— The Tangled Threads • Eleanor H. Porter
... Ah! yes; Macquart's carbine," continued Antoine, after casting a glance at the mantel-shelf, where the fire-arm was usually hung. "I fancy I saw it in his hands. A fine instrument to scour the country with, when one has a girl on ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... furniture that was lacking in the bedrooms where modern taste held sway. Nothing had been taken from or added to the Bucks' guest chamber since Grandmother Knight had reverently placed there her best highboy and her finest mahogany bed and candle stand. On the mantel was the model of a ship that tradition said the Norse sailor had carved, and on the walls steel engravings of Milton and Newton—Milton looking up at the stars seeking the proper rhymes, and Newton with eyes cast down searching out ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... had watched the direction of his steps from a window above. "I've come after some roses, if I can find any. Nothing satisfies Miss Webster but roses on the mantel-shelf of her sitting-room, and it does not matter to her whether they are in season or out. Roses she must have. Are there any ...
— The Village by the River • H. Louisa Bedford
... said, and folding his arms he leaned against the mantel, watching her as she hunted for the ...
— Aikenside • Mary J. Holmes
... square bays. One window faced the fireplace, the other the door. The effect was slightly irregular, but for that very reason all the more charming. The walls of the room were painted light blue; there was a looking-glass over the mantel-piece set in a frame of the palest, most delicate blue. A picture-rail ran round the room about six feet from the ground, and the high frieze above had a scroll of wild roses painted on it ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... started to his feet as he turned to the mantel, and, strange to say, missed, for the first time, the handsome timepiece ...
— Home Scenes, and Home Influence - A Series of Tales and Sketches • T. S. Arthur
... on which rested a card tray with cards. In the course of greeting an elderly woman, he stepped into the parlor. This was a small square apartment carpeted in dark Brussels, and stuffily glorified in the bourgeois manner by a white marble mantel-piece, several pieces of mahogany furniture upholstered in haircloth, a table on which reposed a number of gift books in celluloid and other fancy bindings, an old-fashioned piano with a doily and a bit of china statuary, ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... A bachelor was I, Free as the winds that whirl and blow, Or clouds that sail on high: I smoked my meerschaum blissfully, And tilted back my chair, And on the mantel placed my feet, For who ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... to write down those words for me. I will have them engraved in letters of gold over the mantel-piece ...
— The Miser (L'Avare) • Moliere
... happiness that awaited me, and enchanted with my own idiotic heroism, I went to her in the evening. She received me in the parlour with her mother, and I was delighted to see the pier-glass over the mantel, and the china displayed on a little table. After a hundred words of love and tenderness she asked me to come up to her room, and her mother wished us good night. I was overwhelmed with joy. After a delicate little supper I took ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... after I had got rid of the old woman that I made my first acquaintance with my friend yonder," and he nodded towards the skull that seemed to be grinning down at us in the shadow of the wide mantel-shelf. "I had trekked from dawn till eleven o'clock—a long trek—but I wanted to get on, and had turned the oxen out to graze, sending the voorlooper to look after them, my intention being to inspan again about six o'clock, and trek with the moon till ten. Then I got into the ...
— Long Odds • H. Rider Haggard
... eldest sister, surpassed the rest in beauty and cleverness. Finding an auspicious day, she put on the mantel-shelf of Nabendu's bedroom two pairs of English boots, daubed with vermilion, and arranged flowers, sandal-paste, incense and a couple of burning candles before them in true ceremonial fashion. When Nabendu came in, the two sisters-in-law ...
— The Hungry Stones And Other Stories • Rabindranath Tagore
... pretty pictures on the walls, but they were all hung crookedly; the curtain at the window was unlooped, and you could write your name anywhere in the dust that covered mantel, stove, and furniture. ...
— Gypsy Breynton • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... dictum that theirs is the only true happiness. If a home is happy it cannot fit too close—let the dresser collapse and become a billiard table; let the mantel turn to a rowing machine, the escritoire to a spare bedchamber, the washstand to an upright piano; let the four walls come together, if they will, so you and your Delia are between. But if home be the other kind, let it be wide and long—enter you at the Golden Gate, hang your hat on ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... Ohio and Mississippi valleys, and of the thousands that were homeless. Bertie,—he was six then,—he listened to the account of the children walking the streets, crying because they hadn't a roof over them or anything to eat. He didn't say a word, but he climbed up to the mantel and took ...
— The Story of the Red Cross as told to The Little Colonel • Annie Fellows-Johnston
... ago; had banished himself, for that matter. In his place was a tall, debonair, and rather dangerously handsome man to whom six o'clock spelled evening clothes. The kind of a man who can lean up against a mantel, or propose a toast, or give an order to a man-servant, or whisper a gallant speech in a lady's ear with equal ease. The shabby old house on Calumet Avenue was transformed into a brocaded and chandeliered rendezvous for the brilliance of ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... comes to Washington a month ahead of the date set for the assembling of Congress, because he wants the Capital to get used to him gradually. He hires a couple of rooms in a hotel. His wife puts some flowers on the mantel piece in the sitting-room and wears her best dress all the time while she is waiting for the president's consort and the cabinet ladies to call. They do not call. The Hon. Slote is shocked almost to dumbness to discover that the Capital does not know that he is on earth. Beyond a two-line "personal" ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... had turned cold again, for it was the end of our changeable March, and the fireplace in the common room of the club was heaped high with hickory logs, a cheerful sight, were it not for that odious motto, "Non Possumus," graven over the mantel-shelf where it must inevitably meet every eye. Never could I read it without a tightening at my heartstrings; a potency of blighting evil seemed to lie in ...
— The Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen
... attendant to a large room, whose huge mantel was carven with the red hand and supporting lions of the clan Reilly, and passed over to the bed beside the window. He had requested to see O'Neill alone, and the attendant withdrew silently. Brian approached ...
— Nuala O'Malley • H. Bedford-Jones
... length in the light of the apartment in which it was their custom to sit, Osmonde beheld in my lord's face the freshness and glow he had marked on his arrival, increased tenfold, and now he well understood. In truth, the renewal of his life was a moving thing to see. He stood by the mantel, his arm resting upon it, his forehead in his hand, for a little space in silence and as ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... said my child again, in a rather sleepy tone; "I am so glad you are come, I am so hungry." "That child," said I, "has gone to bed without her supper to-night," fumbling about at the same time upon the mantel-piece for a bit of candle, which I could not find. "Yes," said Mrs. Mason, very gravely, "and without its dinner too, I fear; but where is your wife, James? for I am come to see whether she brought any thing home with her for herself and family; for I could not feel comfortable after I had refused ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... against the mantel with his hands clenched, for he had got a shock. He admitted that the Osborns had some faults, but they were the Tarnside Osborns and had ruled the dale for a very long time. It was something to spring from such a stock, and the wilful girl had disgraced them all. Osborn ...
— The Buccaneer Farmer - Published In England Under The Title "Askew's Victory" • Harold Bindloss
... standing with his hands in his pockets, leaning against the mantel-piece, with his coat-tails over his arms. He said nothing further at once, but continued to fix his eyes on his nephew, who was now walking backwards and forwards from one end of the room to the other with great vehemence. "I think," at last said George, ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... relating ghost stories, when his Lordship having recited the beginning of Christabel, then unpublished, the whole took so strong a hold of Mr. Shelley's mind, that he suddenly started up, and ran out of the room. The physician and Lord Byron followed, and discovered him leaning against a mantel-piece, with cold drops of perspiration trickling down his face. After having given him something to refresh him, upon enquiring into the cause of his alarm, they found that his wild imagination having pictured ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... establishment, the "three-million-dollar palace on a desert," as Mrs. Billy Alden had described it. Montague had read of the famous mantel in its entrance hall, made from Pompeiian marble, and costing seventy-five thousand dollars. And the Wallings were the railroad ...
— The Moneychangers • Upton Sinclair
... fall," cried Polly, and throwing on her bath wrapper, she seized the light from the mantel and ...
— Five Little Peppers Midway • Margaret Sidney
... the comic contributions received by last mail; a still smaller desk, for the nominal writer of subscription-wrappers; files of the Evangelist, Observer and Christian Union hanging along the wall; a dead carpet of churchyard-green on the floor; and a print of Mr. PARKE GODWIN just above the mantel of momumental marble. ...
— Punchinello Vol. 2, No. 28, October 8, 1870 • Various
... match, lighted her candle and tiptoed across the floor, first taking the key from its place on the mantel. For a moment a wild hope came to her that it might be a Christmas tree, a little one, behind that locked door, but that idea faded away for she remembered that Miss Dorothy had said, "I would like to set up a Christmas tree for you, dearie, but ...
— Little Maid Marian • Amy E. Blanchard
... gray shadows without. The room was very nondescript; its furniture was of the spidery fashion which ruled when the "first gentleman" held the reins; thin hard sofas and scanty draperies were supplemented by Persian rugs and showy cushions, while various specimens of doubtful china crowded the mantel-piece and consoles. Mrs. Ormonde was quite innocent of original taste, but was a quick, industrious imitator, while of comfortable chairs she ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... refinement. It has neither now. In the old parlor downstairs a knot of hard-faced men and women sit on benches about a deal table, playing cards. They have a jug between them, from which they drink by turns. On the stump of a mantel-shelf a lamp burns before a rude print of the Mother of God. No one pays any heed to the hand-organ man and his wife as they climb to their attic. There is a colony of them up there—three families ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... went in. The man and his wife were in the sitting-room, trying to put it in order. Much of the furniture was destroyed; the walls were pitted with shrapnel-scars, but the cheap ornaments on the mantel were unbroken. In the ceiling was a big hole, and in the floor a pit in which lay the head and fragments of a German shell. I asked if I might have them. "Certainly," answered the man. "We wish to keep no ...
— Fighting For Peace • Henry Van Dyke
... childish voice, knew it was Dora Deane singing to his child. Another moment and he stood within the room where Ella had died. All traces of sickness and death had been removed, and everything was in perfect order. Vases of flowers adorned the mantel and the stands, seeming little out of place with the rain which beat against the window, and the fire which burned within the grate. In her crib lay Fannie, and sitting near was Dora Deane, her rich auburn hair combed smoothly back, and the great kindness of her ...
— Dora Deane • Mary J. Holmes
... The mantel is that of Woden when he bears the hero over seas; the cock is a bird of sorcery the world over; the black fowl is the proper gift to the Underground powers—a heriot really, for did not the Culture god steal all the useful beasts ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... the what-not, with a landscape containing a cow and other objects no doubt intended as human, propped open the door into the hall. A white marble clock, with a large piece of white coral lying on its top and under a glass case like the wax flowers, ticked away on the high mantel in the dignified and quiet way which befitted a clock belonging to the Redfields. And there were many other pieces of furniture and bits of ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox
... and then came back and waited by the fireplace. He thought it was the most desolate thing that he had ever known—the flapping of the blind against the window, the dry rustling of the leaves on the mantel-piece, only accentuated the sound of her sobbing. He let her cry and then, at last—"I am a brute," he said. "I am sorry—I ...
— The Wooden Horse • Hugh Walpole
... way, politely handed me a chair, and then stood leaning his back against the mantel-piece and stroking his moustache, giving me at the same time a keen glance from under ...
— Dwell Deep - or Hilda Thorn's Life Story • Amy Le Feuvre
... French clock on the mantel-piece at the far end of the room announced the hour as being a quarter to twelve. Emile stooped down to pick up his sombrero which had tumbled off a chair on to the floor, when he remained with outstretched hand, arrested by the sound of a woman's voice which came through the partly ...
— The Hippodrome • Rachel Hayward
... them inward, upward. And all the while the light is getting more and more golden, shimmery, radiant. Under this light, beneath this golden mantel of color, these creatures appear still more terrible. As they bend over, their faces tirelessly held downward on a level with their hands, they seem but gnomes; surely they are huge, undeveloped embryos of women, ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... for his pipe on the mantel-shelf and, when he had found it, lit it with a coal which he picked out of the fire with ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... I mean! You've only to go back to your graduating June, when you were spooning day and night over a society flirt there at the hotel—a married woman at that—and your mantel-shelf was stacked high with unopened, unanswered letters from the poor girl you were engaged to. You were, Willett, in sight of God and man, so don't deny it! And she was telegraphing to me in pity to say was Harold sick—or what. She broke with you, of course, after you ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... in his large, comfortable sitting-room, and noticed there were letters for him on the mantel resting against the clock, whose hands ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... same breed of pup. At this point Mr. Tutt, having carefully committed his guest to an ethical standard as far removed as possible from one based upon self-interest, opened the window a few more inches, sauntered over to the mantel, lit a fresh stogy and spread his long legs in front of the sea-coal fire like an elongated Colossus of Rhodes. He commenced his dastardly countermining of his partner's advice by complimenting Payson on being ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... the windows of the living room of the House of Laughter were hung in rose or yellow, and laughed when Robin chose a scarlet-robed picture of Sir Galahad, because he looked as though he were seeing such a beautiful vision, to hang over the shelf Williams had built as a mantel, she felt a lively interest in the festivities which were to open the House to the Mill people. Robin let her help in planning everything to ...
— Red-Robin • Jane Abbott
... crochet? Do they ever romp and frolic? What books do they read? Do they sketch or paint? Of all these possibilities the mute and muffled room says nothing. A sofa and six chairs, two ottomans fresh from the upholsterer's, a Brussels carpet, a centre-table with four gilt Books of Beauty on it, a mantel-clock from Paris, and two bronze vases,—all those tell you only in frigid tones, 'This is the best room,'—only that, and nothing more,—and soon she trips in in her best clothes, and apologizes for keeping you waiting, asks how your ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... interfere, Bess, Yardsley is managing this show, and if he wants to keep the soubrette waiting on the mantel-piece it's his lookout, ...
— The Bicyclers and Three Other Farces • John Kendrick Bangs
... young man's attention. He looked round him, and saw on the mantel-shelf, just below an enormous crucifix, coarsely painted in fresco on the wall, a rat of enormous size engaged in nibbling a piece of dry bread, but fixing, all the time, an intelligent and inquiring look upon the new occupant of the cell. The king could not resist a sudden impulse of ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... screeched and was gone. She switched on the light for a last look about her pretty, pleasant room. There was a snapshot of the Parish House people upon her mantel, and she nodded to it, gravely, before she once more plunged the room ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... containing, in the midst of it, the miniature portrait of Mrs. Wentworth's nephew. It fell into the hands of one of that lady's friends, who immediately despatched the bundle to her. Mervyn, in his interview with this lady, spied the portrait on the mantel-piece. Led by some freak of fancy, or some web of artifice, he introduced the talk respecting her nephew, by boldly claiming it as his; but, when the mode in which it had been found was mentioned, he was disconcerted ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... among Slugg's gouges and other instruments of torture, and with the other in the spittoon. Then it would rear him up against the chandelier three or four times, and shy across and drive Potts' head through the oil portrait of Slugg's father over the mantel-piece. After bumping him against Slugg's ancestor it would swirl Potts around among the crockery on the wash-stand and dance him up and down in an exciting manner over the stove, until finally the molar "gave," and as Potts landed with his foot through the pier-glass and his elbow on a pink ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... on tip-toe and shading the candle lest it should betray their presence through the shutterless windows, they went first into the big dining-room. There was not a stick of furniture to be seen. Bare walls, ugly mantel-pieces and empty grates stared at them. Everything, they felt, resented their intrusion, watching them, as it were, with veiled eyes; whispers followed them; shadows flitted noiselessly to right and left; something seemed ever at their back, watching, waiting an opportunity ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... lean-faced young man of twenty-three or four stood beside the fireplace, his elbow on the ancient mantel, his shapely legs crossed. There was a moody expression in his handsome face, albeit he smiled in quiet enjoyment of the vivacious conversation that went on around him. Half a dozen girls chatted eagerly, ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... Brimberly alternately beat the tempo with a plump white finger and sipped his master's champagne until, having emptied his glass, he turned to the bottle on the table beside him, found that empty also, crossed to the two bottles on the mantel, found them likewise void and had tried the two upon the piano with no better success, when, the song being ended, Mr. Jenkins ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... of the pages of the novels—if one cared to open them—were stained with chocolate. The steam radiator was a decoration in itself, the fireplace set in the red and yellow tiles that made the hearth. Above the oak mantel, in a gold frame, was a large coloured print of a Magdalen, doubled up in grief, with a glory of loose, Titian hair, chosen by Ditmar himself as expressing the nearest possible artistic representation ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... ancient times, however, seems to have been a hairy, shaggy cloth or woollen stuff, whose close fleecy thread hung sometimes straight, sometimes crimped or waved, in regular rows like flounces one above another. This could be arranged squarely around the neck, like a mantel, but was more often draped crosswise over the left shoulder and brought under the right arm-pit, so as to leave the upper part of the breast and the arm bare on that side. It made a convenient and useful ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 3 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... a dingy hotel on a narrow street leading from what with us might have been Piccadilly Circus. Our rooms were rather a good height with a carved cornice and plaster enrichments, but the furnishings were musty and the general air depressing, notwithstanding the effect of a few good mantel ornaments which I have long made it a rule to carry ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... all right," said Miss Mink in a tone that she did not recognize as her own, "the matches are in that little bisque figure on the parlor mantel. I'll get you to leave the front door open, if you don't mind. It's ...
— Miss Mink's Soldier and Other Stories • Alice Hegan Rice
... quietly took the opportunity of gliding from the room. Sir Henry stretched his legs on an ottoman, and appeared immersed in the study of a print—the Europa of Paul Veronese—which hung over the mantel-piece. ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... Mrs. Marden's to learn from her what the cause of my misfortune might be. So shaken was I that I could hardly lace my boots. Never shall I forget those horrible ten minutes. I had just pulled on my overcoat when the clock upon the mantel-piece ...
— The Parasite • Arthur Conan Doyle
... was high and narrow. Much glistening varnish characterized the front hall. They inspected one after another the various rooms. The house was partly furnished. In the showrooms hung heavy red curtains held back by cords with gilt tassels. Each fireplace was framed by a mantel of white marble. But the glory was the drawing-room. This had been frescoed in pale blue, and all about the wall and even across part of the ceiling had been draped festoon after festoon of fishnet. Only this was not real fishnet, as a closer inspection ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... brown-coloured screen hid the fireplace, above which the mantel-glass and a few engravings of ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo
... Strong in a sense of her advantages she came in stepping softly, and put her hands over her husband's eyes. She thought him pensive; he was standing in his dressing-gown before the fire, his elbow on the mantel and one foot on the fender. She said in his ear, warming it with her breath, and nibbling the tip of it with ...
— Ferragus • Honore de Balzac
... purpose, and he the last individual to whom, perhaps, she would have applied. Was it a dream? The long twilight was dying away, and it dies away in the Albany a little sooner than it does in Park Lane; and so he lit the candles on his mantel-piece, and then again unfolded the document carefully, and read it and re-read it. It was not a dream. He held in his hand firmly, and read with his eyes clearly, the evidence that he was the uncontrolled master of no slight amount of capital, and which, if treated ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... one day smoking, a voice came to me. I did not hear it with my ears, but more as a dream or sort of double think. It said, 'Louisa, lay down smoking.' At once I replied. 'Will you take the desire away?' But it only kept saying: 'Louisa, lay down smoking.' Then I got up, laid my pipe on the mantel-shelf, and never smoked again or had any desire to. The desire was gone as though I had never known it or touched tobacco. The sight of others smoking and the smell of smoke never gave me the least wish to touch it again." The Psychology ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... workman with a large family depending upon him for support, and at other times enraging his more energetic and sanguine neighbour by his want of what the latter called spirit. It was very evident that Higgins was in a passion when Margaret entered. Boucher stood, with both hands on the rather high mantel-piece, swaying himself a little on the support which his arms, thus placed, gave him, and looking wildly into the fire, with a kind of despair that irritated Higgins, even while it went to his heart. Bessy was rocking herself violently backwards and forwards, as was her wont (Margaret ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... Time. By the absolute equalization of this movement—or of such as this—had the cycles of the firmamental orbs themselves been adjusted. By its aid I measured the irregularities of the clock upon the mantel, and of the watches of the attendants. Their tickings came sonorously to my ears. The slightest deviations from the true proportion—and these deviations were omniprevalent—affected me just as violations of abstract truth were wont on earth to affect ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe
... the silence, hammering on my eardrums, burst the loud ticking of the little alarm-clock that I had left on the mantel of the bedroom. I heard that, and it must have been ticking minutes before the sound reached me; perhaps if I waited a little longer I should ...
— Jacqueline of Golden River • H. M. Egbert
... that fell upon the company at these words, the ticking of the clock under its classic pediment on the mantel was painfully audible, and had the effect of intimating that time now had its innings and eternity was altogether out of it. Several minutes seemed to pass before any one had the courage to ask whether ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... Over on the parlor mantel lay some sheets of paper and envelopes. She borrowed a pencil from Barrow and scribbled a brief refusal. The footman departed with her answer. Hazel turned to ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... was still so light when all Paris was becoming dark, produced a supernatural impression upon her, despite the poverty of its scanty furniture, scattered through two rooms, its common chintz coverings, and its mantel adorned with two great bunches of hyacinths, the flowers that are drawn through the streets by cartloads in the morning. What a lovely, brave, dignified life she might have led there with her Andre! And in a moment, with the rapidity of a ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... deck chair, and when he was not tapping refractory bits of coal with them, he kept his feet—on which he wore, after the manner of sandals, the holy relics of a pair of carpet slippers—out of the way upon the mantel-piece, among the glass eyes. And his trousers, by-the-by—though they have nothing to do with his triumphs—were a most horrible yellow plaid, such as they made when our fathers wore side-whiskers and there were crinolines in the land. Further, his hair was black, ...
— The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... near the mantel in the parlor, one deeply scratched by diamond ring with name of Major Molineaux and the date, "June 24th, 1774," ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy
... who was there to welcome me? None but my hounds, and the flying squirrel I had caught and tamed. Groping my way to the corner, I took from my store two torches, lit them, and stuck them into the holes pierced in the mantel shelf; then stood beneath the clear flame, and looked with a sudden sick distaste upon the disorder which the light betrayed. The fire was dead, and ashes and embers were scattered upon the hearth; fragments of my last meal littered the table, ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... of his feet, which had hitherto rested upon the hearth, to a more comfortable and suggestive one upon the mantel, Hugh tried to find a spot ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... him into a gloomy parlor, with stiff, straightbacked chairs, ranged at regular intervals along the sides of the room, and a marble-topped center table, with two or three books lying upon it. There was a framed engraving, representing Washington crossing the Delaware, over the mantel, and two plaster figures and similar ornaments on the mantelpiece. The whole aspect ...
— Making His Way - Frank Courtney's Struggle Upward • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... went over to the mantel-piece. How often he had heard just that remark! He didn't bother to reply to it. Instead, he merely silenced his uncle with a gesture. Uncle Henry didn't like being silenced. He looked around, as peevish as a spoiled child, and picked at the cloth that rested on his knees. ...
— The Bad Man • Charles Hanson Towne
... slowly, went over to the mantel-piece, moved some little porcelain figures, then ...
— The Upas Tree - A Christmas Story for all the Year • Florence L. Barclay
... tiles, and the window-panes were round and small, and set in lead—like the floors and window-panes of all the other rooms. A gaudy fresco, representing some indelicate female deity, adorned the front of the fire-place, which sloped expanding from the ceiling and terminated at the mouth without a mantel-piece. The chimney was deep, and told of the cold winters in the hills, of which, afterward, the landlady of the village ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... this flavor of defunct, but by no means departed, merit. Grim portraits stared coldly from the walls, Copleys that would have looked upon a Stuart as parvenu; the Frostwinch and Canton arms hung over the ends of the mantel; while the very furniture seemed to condescend to visitors. Ashe could not have told why the place affected him as overpowering, but he none the less was conscious of the feeling. The company was apparently nearly all assembled when he came in, and he sank down ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... interested in sports and athletics, and he confided to Frank that he was bound to make a try for both the baseball and football teams. He had brought a set of boxing gloves, foils, and a number of sporting pictures. The foils were crossed above the mantel and the pictures were hung about the walls, but he insisted on putting on the gloves with Frank before hanging them up where they ...
— Frank Merriwell at Yale • Burt L. Standish
... faced the hearth, where a log burned in a bed of hot ashes, softly purring and ticking to itself, and whilst they stood pressing their hands against the warm fronts of their dresses, as the fashion of women is before a fire, the clock on the mantel ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... the face of the black marble clock on the mantel-piece. As he looked the face of the clock was violently shattered, and so, but on a lower level, was a pane of glass in ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris
... to cross her path. Amaury was a drawing-room poet, one of those fanatics in dress coat and grey kid gloves, who between ten o'clock and midnight, go and recite to the world their ecstasies of love, their raptures, their despair, leaning mournfully against the mantel-piece, in the blaze of the lights, while seated around him women, in full evening dress, listen entranced ...
— Artists' Wives • Alphonse Daudet
... of a midwinter's day: inside, a bright grate fire, soft curtains, beautiful rugs and simple but elegant adornings for mantel and wall in this lovely room ...
— The Right Knock - A Story • Helen Van-Anderson
... room. The furniture dark and cumbersome. Down stage R., a door. Up stage, R., C, capacious fireplace, with solid mantel-piece above it. At back R., and L., two substantial casement windows. The windows are in deep recesses, about two steps above the stage level. These recesses are sheltered by heavy draperies. Between the windows, up stage, C., a massive bureau, opened, ...
— The Squire - An Original Comedy in Three Acts • Arthur W. Pinero
... old chair, beheld with astonishment quite as much as she bargained for. 'I felt myself,' said poor Martha, 'on entering the room, all of a twitter. The old woman was seated in her chair of state, and, reaching down from the mantel-piece a pack of cards, began, after muttering a few words in a language I could not understand, to lay them very carefully in her lap; she then foretold that I should get married, but not to the person in our house, as I expected, but to another ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... herself to plead; to look directly up into his perplexed eyes. He leaned an arm on the mantel, staggered. His eyes followed hers in every word she spoke, and when she ceased he stared blankly ...
— The Daughter of a Magnate • Frank H. Spearman
... interested in her carving, cheerful and happy, but watching the clock on the mantel as the time drew near for Mr. Dinsmore's pupils to ...
— The Two Elsies - A Sequel to Elsie at Nantucket, Book 10 • Martha Finley
... mean?" he asked, rising suddenly from his seat as pale as ashes, and clinging to the mantel-shelf for ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... knows. You care for Barry, he's as dear to you as he is to me, can't you do something? The suffering in his face—the tragedy in his eyes—I wake up in the night seeing them! Peter, can't you do something?" She was beside him, clutching at the mantel-shelf, shaking with emotion. The sight of her unnerved, almost incoherent, shocked him. He realised the depth of the impression that had been made upon her—deep indeed to produce such a result. But what she asked ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... was left alone in his room was to don his uniform, his next to take out of his pocket the certified copy of the marriage contract of his parents which had been made for him by the Notary d'Aguilhe. He conned it a minute, standing by the Louis XIV. mantel, which may still be seen in that house, and sought but his mother's name. "Dame Catherine Lanier," it read. He drew out his little inkstand and quill, and, seizing a scrap of paper, tried some marks on it. Finding the ink to his satisfaction, ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall
... Patty, I haven't got no grapevine, but I've got a wandering-jew-vine in a pot, that I want to set on the mantel." ...
— Patty at Home • Carolyn Wells
... portiere cutting off the dining- room. She finally descends upon her husband with a flagon of cologne in one hand, a small decanter of brandy in the other, and a wineglass held in the hollow of her arm against her breast. She contrives to set the glass down on the mantel and fill it from the flagon, then she turns with the decanter in her hand, and while she presses the glass to her husband's lips, begins to pour the brandy on his head. 'Here! this will revive you, and it'll refresh you to have this ...
— The Garotters • William D. Howells
... come down with you!" said Beryl, and, rushing to the mirror over the mantel, began to pat her pretty cendre hair flat to her head, in unconscious imitation of Mrs. ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... heart was too much disturbed. Had anything happened to her father and Dan? It was some relief to know that the lad was along, for two were better than one should an accident occur. Her eyes roamed often to the little clock ticking away on the mantel-piece. Six-seven-eight-nine. The hours dragged slowly by. She tried to read, but the words were meaningless. She picked up her needlework, but soon laid it down again, with no heart to continue. Once more she glanced at the clock. ...
— The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody
... A rumble of wheels over the frozen snow caused her to glance at the clock above the mantel. Not by any possibility could Monsieur Weldon arrive so soon. Who, then, could ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in Society • Edith Van Dyne
... Accordingly, whenever the boy asked paper for drawing, he threw him a bit of wood; so that Gottfried was fain to try also cutting animals in wood, an art in which he speedily attained such dexterity, that, by degrees, his wooden sheep and goats came to ornament all the presses and mantel-pieces in the village. Occasionally, too, he tried drawing likenesses of some peasant boys of Worblaufen, or carving them in wood; and these attempts ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 333 - Vol. 12, Issue 333, September 27, 1828 • Various
... to my room and sat down with my back against the door and my feet on the window-ledge, and I rested one elbow in the washpitcher and put one knee on the mantel and tried to read the newspapers. The first thing I struck was a Christmas poem, a sentimental Christmas poem, full of allusions to the family circle, and the old homestead, and the stockings hanging by the fireplace, and all that ...
— Cobb's Bill-of-Fare • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... "Spring"—the three oil portraits occupying the large spaces; the spindle-legged chairs and tables, the tea service in the corner, the tall bronze lamp by the piano, the neat little grate-hearth, with its mantel of marble; the ormolu clock, all the decorous and decorated gentility which marked the irreproachable correctness of whoever had furnished the apartment. Dark and heavy hangings depended in front of a double door leading into another room beyond. Equally dark and heavy hangings ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... proved compellingly fascinating and, once stretched comfortably in the big Turkish rocker before it, duty had called less and less insistently and there he had remained. For half an hour thereafter he had scarcely stirred; then, without warning, he had risen. On the mantel above the grate was a collection of articles indigenous to a bachelor's den: a box half filled with cigars, a jar of tobacco, a collection of pipes, a cut-glass decanter shaded dull red in the electric light. It was toward the ...
— The Dominant Dollar • Will Lillibridge
... rested on the brilliantly interwoven flowers of the Persian carpet, whose velvety softness echoed not the slightest tread. A fairy chandelier hung suspended from the lofty, corniced ceiling. Rare statuary decorated the mantel. Large mirrors and pictures in broad gilt frames adorned the walls. Marble stands, covered with deep-fringed cloths of gold, on which lay books in superb bindings, graced the several corners, and the carved mahogany bedstead, behind whose ample curtains ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... therefore very spacious and comfortable, possessing three large pantries and an out-house or summer kitchen; besides, moreover, it was dark-raftered, ham-hung, with willow-pattern slates in a neat dresser, and peacock feathers over the high mantel; with, in one corner—the darkest—a covered well, into which I used to see myself the beautiful golden pats of butter lowered twice a week in summer time. One window, a small one, curtained with chintz and muslin drawn on a string, looked out on a small terraced ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison
... wood. These decorations, severe in tone, reflected the light so little that it was difficult to see their designs, even when the sun shone full into that long and wide and lofty chamber. The silver lamp, placed upon the mantel of the vast fireplace, lighted the room so feebly that its quivering gleam could be compared only to the nebulous stars which appear at moments through the dun gray clouds of an autumn night. The fantastic figures crowded on the marble of the fireplace, which was opposite to the bed, were so grotesquely ...
— The Hated Son • Honore de Balzac
... kitchen, with a bed in it, which looked as if it were going to be made, as Ewbert handsomely maintained. There was an old dog stretched on the hearth behind the stove, who whimpered with rheumatic apprehension when his master went to put the lamp on the mantel above him. ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells
... with a huge and imposing Lebkuchen, reposing in a box with frilled border, ornamented with quaint little red-and-green German figures in sugar, and labeled Nurnberg in stout letters, for it had come all the way from that kuchen-famous city. The Lebkuchen I placed on my mantel shelf as befitted so magnificent a work of art. It was quite too elaborate and imposing to be sent the way of ordinary food, although it had a certain tantalizingly spicy scent that tempted one to break off a ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... mantel struck three. She pouted; turned and stared at it. "Well," she told herself, ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.
... in the front room on the second floor, peering through the blinds. It was the "best room." There was a very new rag carpet on the floor. The edges of it had been dyed with alternate stripes of red and green. Upon the wooden mantel there were two little puffy figures in clay—a shepherd and a shepherdess probably. A triangle of pink and white wool hung carefully over the edge of this shelf. Upon the bureau there was nothing at all ...
— The Little Regiment - And Other Episodes of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... Braceway leaned against the mantel, relaxed, swinging his cane slowly in his right hand, a careless, easy grace in his attitude. He addressed himself to Fulton and Greenleaf, an occasional glance including Abrahamson in the circle of those ...
— The Winning Clue • James Hay, Jr.
... of his electric torch showed the pale and dreadful features of a dead man—of a man, the center of whose forehead showed the small round hole where a bullet had entered in; of a man whose still-recognizable features were those of the photograph on the mantel-piece of the room downstairs, the photograph that ...
— The Bittermeads Mystery • E. R. Punshon
... the evidence of restrained emotion in Lillian's face. Bayne had been about to conclude his own call, which concerned a matter of business, the claim of a reward which he considered fraudulent, but he turned at the door, his hat in his hand and came back, leaning against the mantel-piece opposite her. He noted that the tears ...
— The Ordeal - A Mountain Romance of Tennessee • Charles Egbert Craddock
... the mantel, drawn up to her full height, her face whiter than snow, rigid as marble, but the blue ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... ensuing, I glanced half-furtively from one to other of my three guardians; at my uncle Jervas, lounging gracefully in his chair, an exquisite work of art from glossy curls to polished Hessians; at my uncle George, standing broad back to the mantel, a graceful, stalwart figure in tight-fitting riding-coat, buckskins and spurred boots; at my wonderful aunt, her dark and statuesque beauty as she sat, her noble form posed like an offended Juno, dimpled chin on dimpled fist, dark brows bent above long-lashed eyes, ruddy lips ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... also of rose-color, and a fine clock, shaped like a state capitol, on the mantel. There was a silver gong in the clock which made beautiful music. There was a nice reading table with books on it, and a lamp. The lamp had a shade made up of queerly-shaped bits of material like onyx, and a fringe of rose-colored beads. Yet for all this, it did not seem a pleasant room. ...
— Everychild - A Story Which The Old May Interpret to the Young and Which the Young May Interpret to the Old • Louis Dodge
... persuade her to marry out of hand, that I may see her happy before I die. Now my heart's at ease; I can meet Mr. Salisbury with a safe conscience. One kiss, my little Grace. If any body can persuade you, I'm sure it's that man that's now leaning against the mantel-piece. It's Colambre will, or your heart's not made like mine—so ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... table, got his pipe from the mantel, filled it and lighted it, and went over and deposited his somewhat ponderous body in a cushioned chair by the window. Pen's mother and aunt pushed the wheel-chair in which Grandma Walker sat, to one side of the room, and began to clear the dishes ...
— The Flag • Homer Greene
... very fast," said Esther, encouragingly, as she completed the pile of sandwiches she was preparing for the young traveller; then, turning to look at the timepiece on the mantel, she exclaimed, "Quarter to seven—how time flies! Mr. Balch will soon be here. You must be all ready, Clarence, so as not to keep ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... providence,' as being nearer to the actual dog of every-day life than is the Skye terrier mentioned by a certain correspondent of Nature, to whose letter Mr. Fiske refers. The terrier is held to have had 'a few fetichistic notions,' because he was found standing up on his hind legs in front of a mantel-piece, upon which lay an india-rubber ball with which he wished to play, but which he could not reach, and which, says the letter-writer, he was evidently beseeching to come down and play with him. We consider it more reasonable to suppose that a dog who ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske
... hid on the top of a mantel-piece in the room, and the dog required to bring it, which he almost immediately did, although in the search he found a number of articles, also belonging to his master, purposely strewed around, all which he passed over, and brought the identical comb which he was required ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... Even that simple appeal—so absolutely heathenising is the influence of the world—appeared to startle my aunt. She said, "I will do what I can, Drusilla, to please you," with a look of surprise, which was at once instructive and terrible to see. Not a moment was to be lost. The clock on the mantel-piece informed me that I had just time to hurry home; to provide myself with a first series of selected readings (say a dozen only); and to return in time to meet the lawyer, and witness Lady Verinder's Will. Promising faithfully to be back by five o'clock, ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... murmured to herself, between wonder and incipient alarm. But she concealed her feelings, good lady; and, having paid for her purchase, carried it home in her muff and stuck it upright against one of the Sevres candlesticks on her boudoir mantel-shelf. ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... pattern about. It hasn't what one could call a restful effect!" said Claire, looking across at an ochre wall bespattered with golden scrawls, a red satin mantel-border painted with lustre roses, a suite of furniture covered in green stamped plush, a collection of inartistic pictures, and unornamental ornaments. Even her spirit quailed before the hopelessness of beautifying ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... to the house where I was born! And there was the selfsame clock that ticked From the close of dusk to the burst of morn, When life-warm hands plucked the golden corn And helped when the apples were picked. And the "chany-dog" on the mantel-shelf, With the gilded collar and yellow eyes, Looked just as at first, when I hugged myself Sound asleep ...
— Pipes O'Pan at Zekesbury • James Whitcomb Riley
... Ein schwarzer Mantel schlaegt die Lenden, 105 Sie schwingen in entfleischten Haenden Der Fackel duesterrote Glut, In ihren Wangen fliesst kein Blut. Und wo die Haare lieblich flattern, Um Menschenstirnen freundlich wehn, 110 Da sieht man Schlangen hier und Nattern Die ...
— A Book Of German Lyrics • Various
... room, so that the young folks might have a dance. Miss Matilda's piano had been moved in, and two fiddlers and a clarionet-player engaged to make music. All kinds of lamps had been put in requisition, and even colored wax-candles figured on the mantel-pieces. The costumes of the family had been tried on the day before: the Colonel's black suit fitted exceedingly well; his lady's velvet dress displayed her contours to advantage; Miss Matilda's flowered silk was considered superb; the eldest son of the family, Mr. T. Jordan Sprowle, called affectionately ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... and enjoyed every word of it, until the little clock on the mantel spoke in silver tones, and said, one, two. ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)
... those who still cling to Exeter Hall as to a Rock of Ages, who are afraid, or ashamed, to love themselves, and to express that love, if need be. Reggie Hastings, at least, was not ashamed. The mantel-piece in his sitting-room bore only photographs of himself, and he explained this fact to inquirers by saying that he worshipped beauty. Reggie was very frank. When he could not be witty, he often ...
— The Green Carnation • Robert Smythe Hichens
... and turned over the little pile of letters, identifying the writers with a glance at the handwriting on each envelope. Only one was unknown to him: that he placed last, and carried them into the after-cabin to read, leaning his shoulder against the mantel of the ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... after day, enumerating such groups as her clothes, the objects on the mantel and her toys. Walt Whitman has given us glorified enumerations of the most astounding vitality. If some one would only pile up equally vigorous ones for children! But it is not easy for an adult to gather mere sense or motor associations ...
— Here and Now Story Book - Two- to seven-year-olds • Lucy Sprague Mitchell
... of the room attracted comment. All looked matter of fact and innocent enough, and the prior was growing something weary with the unavailing search. The usual thumping on the walls was commenced; but even the carved mantel pillars were so solid that no hollow sound was given forth when they were ...
— The Secret Chamber at Chad • Evelyn Everett-Green
... because he would have been glad before this incident to take twenty thousand for his place. "It's just on the borders of Lenox, and it's bound to come up when this blows over." He talked on for a time in an encouraging strain, while Hewson, standing with his back against the mantel, looked absently down upon him. St. John was inwardly struggling through all to say that Hewson might have the property for twenty-eight thousand, but he could not. Possibly he made himself believe that he was letting ...
— Questionable Shapes • William Dean Howells
... the suburbs of the City of Brooklyn to see a member of the Allen Street Church, and, after reading God's Word and prayer, our conversation turned to a beautiful portrait that hung over the mantel-piece. The lady remarked, "That is the picture of my departed sister, who died in New York. She was faithfully visited during her sickness by Mrs. Knowles." She continued, "I like to think of her, because she used to tell ...
— Gathering Jewels - The Secret of a Beautiful Life: In Memoriam of Mr. & Mrs. James Knowles. Selected from Their Diaries. • James Knowles and Matilda Darroch Knowles
... on many objects that he recognized, but as his glance traveled to and fro it occurred to him that much of what he saw conveyed a hint that economy was needful. Part of the rich molding of the Jacobean mantel had fallen away, and patches of the key pattern bordering the panels beneath it had broken off, though he decided that a clever cabinet-maker could have repaired the damage in a day. There were one or ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss
... wait for Agatha," she said, and crossing the room towards the typewriter table stopped to glance at a little framed photograph that stood upon the mantel. It was a portrait of Gregory Hawtrey taken some years ago, and she apostrophied ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... at least know about as much as I can bear.' These remarks were exchanged in Peter's den, and the young man, smoking cigarettes, stood before the fire with his back against the mantel. Something of his bloom seemed really ...
— Victorian Short Stories, - Stories Of Successful Marriages • Elizabeth Gaskell, et al. |
