"Motherly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... chastening influence upon the young man's somewhat picturesque style of language and exuberance of metaphor. But with Mrs. Dunn he felt quite at ease, for with that gentle, kindly soul, her boys' friends were her friends and without question she took them to her motherly heart. ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
... and with her face fully tamed to me, was a kindly-looking, fat motherly woman, with light-coloured hair, not in the best order. She was hot and scarlet with exercise, being perhaps too stout for the steep steps of the fortress; and in one hand she held a handkerchief, with which from time to time she wiped her brow. In the other hand she held one of the extremities ...
— The Relics of General Chasse • Anthony Trollope
... Winifred and Marion Thorold. I have met their father several times at the Manners' flat, and have likewise—low be it spoken—received two evening calls from him in my own domain. He says it is such a comfort to find a kind, motherly woman with whom to talk over his difficulties! He hesitates to trouble Mrs Manners, who is already overworked. Winifred holds one shoulder a little higher than the other. Does that mean anything wrong with the spine? Ought ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... performed without any inconvenience to any one. It is very right that you should go to town; I would have every young woman of your condition in life acquainted with the manners and amusements of London. You will be under the care of a motherly good sort of woman, of whose kindness to you I can have no doubt. And in all probability you will see your brother, and whatever may be his faults, or the faults of his wife, when I consider whose son he is, I cannot bear to have you so wholly ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... no right ones," he blubbered. Harum-scarum Bob, who was a trump, had him in her motherly arms immediately, and the upshot of it was that a blue suit she had worn when she was Sam Something changed owners. Mrs. Sandys "made it up," and that is how ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... them books of yours," said Mrs. Munday, who took a motherly interest in him, "and you read and you read, and you take no account of time. And now you'll have to eat your dinner half cold, and no time for it to settle proper before you goes off to school. It's ruination to a ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... them; but all the world agreed in saying that he was a scamp, that he was one of the wildest young men in London, and that he was ruining his career with both hands. Lady Locke hardly knew why she should mind, and yet she did mind. She found herself thinking often of him, and in a queer sort of motherly way that the slight difference in their ages did not certainly justify. After all, he was nearly twenty-five and she was only twenty-eight, but then he looked twenty, and she felt—well, a considerable age. She had married at seventeen. She had travelled, had seen something of rough life, ...
— The Green Carnation • Robert Smythe Hichens
... midst of all this, Carry Nation was announced, and she stepped upon the stage, unattended by any glare of colored lights or fanfare of music. A quiet, motherly looking woman, plainly dressed, with a Bible in her hand, she commanded almost immediately the respect of that large crowd—from the men in the orchestra stalls to the gallery gods. One half intoxicated fellow began to scoff at her, but was ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation
... tears for one moment. The Duncan girls were her best friends, and she had had lessons with them for many months at a time in the last few years, so they had the strong bond in friendship of having worked as well as played together. But Mrs. Duncan had been very motherly and dear to our friend, and just now seemed nearer and more helpful than ever. The train whistled along and the homesick feeling soon passed, though Betty remembered that Mrs. Duncan had said once that wherever you may put two persons one is always ...
— Betty Leicester - A Story For Girls • Sarah Orne Jewett
... But her loneliness was o'er; Bound her soul a motherly patience Clasped its arms forevermore; From her heart ebbed back the sorrow, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... memory hardly reached farther back than the advent of my uncle at Lake Adieno, and all my early associations were connected with the cottage and its surroundings. I had a glimmering and indistinct idea of something before our coming to Parkville. It seemed to me that I had once known a motherly lady with a sweet and lovely expression on her face; and I had a faint recollection of looking out upon a dreary waste of waters; but I could not fix the idea distinctly in my mind. I supposed that the lady was my mother. I made several vain efforts to induce my uncle to tell ...
— Breaking Away - or The Fortunes of a Student • Oliver Optic
... Shinte's town in canoes: she insisted that they should march by land, and ordered her people to shoulder his baggage in spite of him. "My men succumbed, and left me powerless. I was moving off in high dudgeon to the canoes, when she kindly placed her hand on my shoulder, and with a motherly look said, 'Now, my little man, just do as the rest have done.' My feeling of annoyance of course vanished, and I went out to try for some meat. My men, in admiration of her pedestrian powers, kept remarking, 'Manenko is a soldier,' and we were all ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... rustling sound in the underbrush. "P'raps it's savages," thought Archie, and, half pleased, half frightened at the idea, he gave a loud whoop. Out flew a fat motherly hen, cackling and screaming. What she was doing there in the woods I cannot imagine. Perhaps she had lost her way. Perhaps she had private business there which only hens can understand. Or it may be that she, too, had built a little house and hidden it away so that no one should ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... the ferryboat, beaming smiles of motherly fondness upon her children. She wore a riding-habit of scarlet cloth embroidered with thread of gold, and a snow-white hat, adorned with long plumes of ostrich feather. The rich attire did not blind Plutarch to the ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... spring-time holiday, Rosamond made the acquaintance of her husband's aunt. Susan Jernam was pleased with the bright-eyed, pure-minded, modest girl, and in the few days they were together, learned to regard her with a motherly feeling, which was destined to be of priceless value to Rosy at an unforeseen crisis of the new life that began ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... becomes responsible for its prompt and almost inevitable destruction. [Footnote: The scandals that occasionally arise in connection with that saintly institution, the Foundling Hospital at Naples, are enough to make humanity shudder. Of 856 children living under its motherly care during 1895, 853 "died" in the course of that one year-only three survived; a wholesale massacre. These 853 murdered children were carried forward in the books as still living, and the institution, which has a yearly revenue of over 600,000 francs, ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... hotly muttered something that made me think I must of misunderstood her, because no lady actress would say it, let alone a kind old mother. However, she backs off and for the third time has this medicine dropper worked on her smarting eyes. Once more she comes forward with streaming eyes of motherly love, and I'm darned if this grouch ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... had never seen her child other than deliberate, calm, judicial, in all his movements. In a sudden spasm of motherly love she bent to pick him up, ...
— The Wonder • J. D. Beresford
... have heard of a good woman, that had, as this old man, a bad and ungodly son, and she prayed for him, counselled him, and carried it motherly to him for several years together; but still he remained bad. At last, upon a time, after she had been at prayer, as she was wont, for his conversion, she comes to him, and thus, or to this effect, begins again to admonish him. Son, said she, thou hast been and art a wicked child, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... submitted, and dropped asleep as soon as her head was fairly on the pillow. Motherly Mrs. Sharpe "tucked her in" and kissed her, and then, with the remains of the supper, went down-stairs to partake of her own ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... a sunstroke, poor young man!" exclaimed Mrs. McNabb, bustling about with motherly anxiety. "I'm going to run home and see, and if he isn't any better I'll not come back. Liza, you and Mrs. Johnstone'll have to 'tend to those sandwiches. Dear, dear, isn't it a ...
— Duncan Polite - The Watchman of Glenoro • Marian Keith
... the motherly Esmeralda. She, too, was happy, for was she not returning to her beloved Maryland? Already she could see dimly through the fog of smoke the murky headlight of the oncoming engine. The men began to gather up the hand baggage. Suddenly ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... voice. Lucy took her hand cordially. "I was sure it was you, ma'am," Melissa went on, with pretty confidence, looking up into her face, "because Mrs. Wade told me you'd be as kind to me as a mother; and the moment I saw you I just said to myself, 'That MUST be Mrs. Hancock; she's so sweetly motherly.' How good of you to burden yourself with a stranger like me! I hope, indeed, I ...
— Stories by English Authors: The Sea • Various
... nothing of the rubbish. The yellow wheat is growing there; the good Earth is silent about all the rest,—has silently turned all the rest to some benefit too, and makes no complaint about it! So everywhere in Nature! She is true and not a lie; and yet so great, and just, and motherly in her truth. She requires of a thing only that it be genuine of heart; she will protect it if so; will not, if not so. There is a soul of truth in all the things she ever gave harbor to. Alas, is not this the history of all highest Truth that comes or ever came into the ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... myself; there I obtained that for which I was thirsty. You will learn for yourself all that you have unconsciously been to me, to me a toiler who was misunderstood, overwhelmed for so long under misery, both physical and moral. Ah! I do not forget your motherly goodness, your divine sympathy for those who suffer. . . . Well, then as soon as you wish to come to Paris, you will come without even letting us know. You will come to the Rue Fortunee exactly as to your own house, absolutely as I used to go to Frapesle. I claim this as ...
— Women in the Life of Balzac • Juanita Helm Floyd
... barracks; the sentries paced their measured rounds; from the verandas of the hotel came the ripple of murmured words and soft laughter, and a tinkle of banjo and guitar. At the gate the colonel exchanged good-night greetings with a happy-faced, motherly looking woman whom Bonner had noticed overwhelmed with pride and emotion during the ceremonies in the morning. He did not at first recognize the tall, erect young fellow on whose arm she proudly leaned as she walked home through ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King
... the fact disclosed by the Governor at Walker's, that she had conducted a fence in Chicago and was prone to view precious stones with a covetous eye, bore all the marks of respectability. She entered the dining-room briskly, her motherly face heated from the range, and placed a large platter of fried ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... suggested she be snapped with a little black "Pom," who had found his way into the room and was now an interested spectator, on his vantage ground, a big sofa. So little "Joy" was gathered up and held in affectionate, motherly arms, close against his mistress' face. It was all very human and natural, and gave another side to the singer's character from the side ...
— Vocal Mastery - Talks with Master Singers and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... of her three sons, who had grown into strong lads, had given to the crew of the section house the same motherly care that characterized those days when yet her husband's presence and praises spurred her on to make her best efforts. Every school day she saw her boys ride off to the school house in the early morning upon ...
— The Trail of the Tramp • A-No. 1 (AKA Leon Ray Livingston)
... steep field. At the bottom a bubbling, noisy little brook went tumbling and bustling merrily over the stones, filling the sweet, warm air with a cheery song of its own. A plank served as a bridge across the stream; and as Susie walked steadily over it she noticed a fat, motherly old duck nestling down amongst the ferns and dock-leaves on the bank. Mother Duck uttered a startled and indignant "Quack, quack," as Gypsy jumped over her head and dashed headlong ...
— Golden Moments - Bright Stories for Young Folks • Anonymous
... was surprised to find that the "child" was as tall as his wife, who, with abounding motherly kindness, had received the girl into open arms. Scarcely less demonstrative and affectionate was the greeting of old Mr. Clifford, and the orphan felt, almost from the first, that she had found ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... intimate terms. The most probable explanation seemed to me that she was some elderly lady artist who darned his socks for him, and shed tears in secret over the state of his wardrobe. There was a magnificent uncouthness about Tommy which would appeal irresistibly to a certain type of motherly woman. ...
— A Rogue by Compulsion • Victor Bridges
... of obstacles had attended his intrusion into the castle. A brief interview with a motherly old lady, whom even Albert seemed to treat with respect, and who, it appeared was Mrs. Digby, the house-keeper; followed by an even briefer encounter with Keggs (fussy and irritable with responsibility, and, even while talking to George ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... Unitarianism is at the present day. Whether or not the three-cornered hat was considered as an emblem of Trinitarianism, I am not able to determine. Our hair was worn in a queue, bound with black ribbon, and reached to the small of the back, in the shape of the tail of that motherly animal which furnishes ungrateful bipeds of the human race with milk, butter, and cheese. Where nature had not bestowed a sufficiency of this ornamental appendage, the living and the dead contributed ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... seventy years of age, with snowy hair and gentle face, was deputed by the town authorities to do our cooking. Her relatives live in Juchitan, and why she had chosen to live among these people I do not know. She took a motherly interest in all our party. Nothing was too good for us. She spent her whole time in hunting supplies and cooking and serving food. Not only did she insist on all our purchases being supplied at cheapest rates, but her own charge for help and service was ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr
... glorying in her good sense and in her stout shoes; speaking of things which she called "neat" with a devotional admiration and expressing the extremest height of her disapprobation when she said anything was "very untidy." A motherly woman, a practical woman, a good housekeeper and a good wife, careful of small things because generally only small things came in her way, devotedly attached to her husband, whom she regarded with perfect justice as the best man of her ...
— A Tale of a Lonely Parish • F. Marion Crawford
... at her half-averted face and was suddenly confronted by the realization that this grey, motherly woman must have been young once, like Alix, and pretty. As it is with the young, he could not think of her except as old. He had always thought of his mother as old; it was impossible to think of her as having once been young and gay like the girls he knew. Yes, Mrs. Strong must ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... Empress, which Miss Wolfe had given the Metropolitan Museum at New York; and in reply to my congratulations upon a recent successful public speech of her eldest son, a student at Bonn, she had dwelt, in a motherly way, upon the difficulties which environ a future sovereign at a great university. In more recent days, and especially during the years before her death, she had been, at her table in Berlin and at her castle ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... of our old servant, so tender, so motherly, seemed to heal my sorrow. When I became calmer she told me some of the details of the tragedy. Paula had, dashed in front of the horses just in time to throw the child out of danger but had been unable to escape ...
— Paula the Waldensian • Eva Lecomte
... Hill," said Mrs. Jardine, and turned to the fire. The tutor joined her there. He had for her liking and admiration, and she for him almost a motherly affection. Now she ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston
... the motherly instinct reaching out after its own," was the tender response. "But, about my finding the certificate: You remember you offered to put the rooms in order, if I would sew for ...
— The Masked Bridal • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... whole lot of persons not conspicuous for conversational powers: men who have lived much out-of-doors, with gun or rod; shy country neighbours, cross old scholars, simple motherly little housewives; and, if one get at their reality, peasants and even servants. For we have within ourselves memories and fancies; and it depends on our companion, on a word, a glance, a gesture, that only the sweet and profitable ones, thoughts ...
— Hortus Vitae - Essays on the Gardening of Life • Violet Paget, AKA Vernon Lee
... easy when Amy returned, and the more because she brought with the midwife a good motherly sort of woman, who was to be her assistant, and would be very helpful on occasion; and bespoke a man midwife at Paris too, if there should be any necessity for his help. Having thus made provision for everything, the Count, for ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe
... was arranging a tiny French cap on the back of her head, as she made these motherly demonstrations, and its graceful lightness threw her into a charming state ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... other patrons to hover about their table like a stout, presiding goddess, guiding them gently to the best dishes on the menu, and occasionally putting aside their own selection with a hasty, "Mon-non; you vill not like that one to-day." She patted Cecilia in a motherly fashion at parting, and their bill was only about half ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... was opened by a motherly looking colored woman, and Abe, taking Calhoun once more in his arms, carried him into the house. Aunt Liza, as the wife of Abe was called, seeing Calhoun looking so pale and thin, put her fat, black hand on his forehead, and said, "Po' chile, po' chile, don't yo' worry. Aunt Liza take good ...
— Raiding with Morgan • Byron A. Dunn
... the first place, Wilfred was in no shape to be the party of the second part in a motherly clinch act. It's messy work, loadin' garbage cans, and he's peeled down for it. He was costumed in a pair of overalls that would have stood in the corner all by themselves, and an army undershirt with ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford
... his head, and speaking his name more tenderly than before, she told him not to be afraid, not to grieve any more, and he should go home soon. She made her harsh, commanding voice sound so sweet and motherly that the child turned a little, and clasped that large brown hand, and held it against his lips and his eyes, while he wept and sobbed, till his heavy heart grew lighter. When Grace drew away her hand, and found it all wet with ...
— Stories and Legends of Travel and History, for Children • Grace Greenwood
... not long ere the gentle Sister made her appearance. She was a friendly, motherly-looking woman, on whose gray hair was placed a cap with a pink bow, the badge of the unmarried Sisters. She greeted the visitors with ...
— Sister Carmen • M. Corvus
... by which this decayed citizen, proficient only in the lore of vice and scorned by the whole populace, had gained his end; above all, how it came about that these two never wearied of their infatuation. Had he struck some latent and hideously defective chord in her motherly breast, that began to throb in response to his amorous complexities—was that their ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas
... children, used to be sent by Gordon to me. They used to arrive in an almost perfect state of comfort, with all the necessary papers enabling me to disperse them among their different villages in Egypt. One of the first messages the General sent to me was this, 'Do try and find a motherly European woman to receive these poor women and children, for they have never been in Egypt yet before.' With the regularity of clockwork over 2000 refugees arrived, all the arrangements for their transport from Khartoum to Berber having been made by Gordon.... Two thousand five hundred men, women, ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... young Ptolemy, afterwards called Epiphanes. He began his speech, "Ye men of Macedonia," as this mixed body of Greeks and Jews was always called. He wiped his eyes in well-feigned grief, and showed them the new king, who had been trusted, he said, by his father, to the motherly care of Agathoclea and to their loyalty. He then accused Tlepolemus of aiming at the throne, and brought forward a creature of his own to prove the truth of the charge. But his voice was soon drowned in the ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 10 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... motherly heart, was the first to notice the confusion of the servants when they discovered that the wine vessels had become empty; and leaning towards her Son, whispered, "They have no wine." "My hour is not yet come," He answered ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools
... sweet; when it came to lifting them out of the car after her, the public had to help. One's heart must go with these holiday-makers as they began to leave the train after the last suburban stations, where they could feel themselves fairly in the country, and really enter upon their joy. It was such motherly looking country, and yet young with springtime, and of a breath that came balmily in at the open car-windows; and the trees stood about in the meadows near the hedge-rows as if they knew what a good thing it was to be meadow-trees in England, ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... he took action it was too late. Miss Sherwood naively declared that she had not known her own heart, and that she did not care for Frank any more. She wept a little, and was soothed by motherly Mrs. Armour, who was inwardly glad, though she knew the matter would cause Frank pain; and even General Armour could not help showing slight satisfaction, though he was innocent of any deliberate action to separate the two. Straightway Miss Sherwood despatched a letter to the wilds of Canada, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... to her, for, suddenly, with the new respect for him the knowledge of his trained and ready muscles gave her, arose a new consideration for him, almost motherly. He would be breasting dreadful peril in the passage of the flames—peril to his eyes and face and clinging, tight-clasped hands especially. And round her limbs there was the means of saving him, ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... liked Percival, but a woman never likes a man so well as when he acknowledges his helplessness in her particular line of knowledge, and throws himself on her mercy. Mentally, I at once began to feel motherly towards Percival, and clucked around him like an old hen. He went on to say that men often are not so blind that they cannot see the prejudices and complexities of a woman's nature, but they are not constituted to understand ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... accord. Womanlike, they sought relief from their high tension in light, irrelevant talk and care for the trifling details of their surroundings. Aunt Debby brought water and towels for Rachel's toilet, and fluttered around her, solicitous, helpful and motherly, and Rachel, weary of long companionship with men, delighted in the restfulness of association once more with a ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... done, half his body sinking in the water, and his great eyes looking around to see if any one would help him. I went back to the barge (they had stayed, too, to see the sight), and the woman, a nice, clean, motherly body with two babies clinging to her, was much excited over the ...
— Chateau and Country Life in France • Mary King Waddington
... our suggestions eagerly. The environment of our simple home, the ministrations of motherly hands touched hidden chords. He did not hide his enjoyment, but talked well and entertainingly of everything—except himself. At times he was boyishly gay; then, seemingly without cause, the expectant look of his eyes would fade into one of ...
— The House of the Misty Star - A Romance of Youth and Hope and Love in Old Japan • Fannie Caldwell Macaulay
... the doctor's wife, full of motherly vanity, and desirous to appear genteel. She could read without much spelling, prided herself on her housewifery, especially on her gooseberry wine, and was really proud of ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... marriage faithfully. If she ever felt in her heart any jealousy as she saw Polly growing up a pretty bright little maiden, as different to the usual child product of Varley as could well be, she was wise enough never to express her thoughts, and behaved with motherly kindness to her in the evening hours spent at home. She would perhaps have felt the task a harder one had her own elder children been girls; but three boys came first, and a girl was not born until she had ...
— Through the Fray - A Tale of the Luddite Riots • G. A. Henty
... Robert, shaving his shingle attentively, 'so long as Canadians look back to England as home, and speak of it as home, there's little fear of annexation or revolt. Mother country has only to keep up the motherly relation, and patiently loosen the leading strings, according as her colonies grow ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... with something that thrills me. I saw how this little, red-bearded pedlar was like a cake of yeast in the big, heavy dough of humanity: how he travelled about trying to fulfil in his own way his ideals of beauty. I felt almost motherly toward him: I wanted to tell him that I understood him. And in a way I felt ashamed of having run away from my own homely tasks, my kitchen and my hen yard and dear old, hot-tempered, absent-minded Andrew. I fell into a sober ...
— Parnassus on Wheels • Christopher Morley
... many of them. Some of the professors' wives who had sons and daughters of their own? Well, they might be all well enough for their own sons and daughters, but there wasn't one who seemed likely to want to behave in a very motherly way to a stranger like his waif of a girl. They were nice to the students, polite and kind to the extent of one tea or reception apiece a year, but ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... looking into the fire. The light of the blaze was on her face, appealingly soft and girlishly sweet. Mrs. Chadron laid a hand on her hair in motherly caress, moved by a tenderness quite foreign to the vindictive creed which she had pronounced against the nesters but a little ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden
... "My boys, I feared that you were lost!" exclaims the tearful mother who stands waiting in the door. But the silent father, standing back of her in the glow of the lamplight, sees what the pole is bearing, and in his eye there is a smile. After that, motherly reproach, fatherly inquiry, plenteous bread and milk, many eager explanations and much descriptive narrative simultaneously uttered by two mouths eager both to ...
— The Singing Mouse Stories • Emerson Hough
... not a condition of indenture, but was a kind of usual or customary present to the tradesman's wife to engage her to be kind to the youth, and take a motherly care of him, being supposed to be ...
— The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.) • Daniel Defoe
... Harlow Martha had a queer motherly kind of friendship, and it was really by her advice the ladies had been led to think of a return to Harlow House. For she saw that the elder woman was unhappy for want of some interest in life, and she was sure that the ...
— The Measure of a Man • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... a better place. Mr. and Mrs. Lanham were quiet people, who gave them an excellent room and a fine supper. Mrs. Lanham showed a motherly solicitude, and when she heard that they were going to the Curtis ball on the following night she demanded that their spare and best uniforms ...
— The Shades of the Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... said the woman, whose motherly sympathies were much aroused; "I'm re'lly consarned for ye. Solomon!" she called, from the window, towards a small back building. A man, in leather apron and very dirty ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... she have known how true that prophetic instinct was, would she not have gone counter to all her own inclinations, and disregarded all Jack's wishes and prayers, rather than have run the risk of introducing strife into her peaceful household? As it was, the motherly pity she felt for the baby was stronger at the moment than the foreboding light which had flashed across the distant ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII: No. 356, October 23, 1886. • Various
... of passion; but as soon as she had yielded to it she despised herself. Even in the excitement of pleasure she could not entirely forget and lose herself. The image of mademoiselle always arose before her, with her stern, motherly face. Germinie did not become immodest in the same degree that she abandoned herself to her passions and sank lower and lower in vice. The degrading depths to which she descended did not fortify her against her disgust and horror of herself. Habit did ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... previously, "If a congregation is to have the peaceful, comforting feeling that their souls are well cared for, they should have the example of a peaceful, homely life before their eyes, in the form of a motherly wife at the rectory, and even better still, a ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... Hilmer always dimpled with wholesome pleasure. Well, she did look sweet, in a motherly, bovine way, Fred admitted, when the note of insincerity in his wife's ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... brushed crumbs out of the beds with a whiskbroom and rubbed a few backs with alcohol, and smoothed the counterpanes, and hung over Johnny's unconscious figure for a little while, giving motherly pats to his flat pillow and worrying considerably because there was so little about him to remind her of the Johnny she ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... tightly folded arms, and darkly frowning brows was felt to be dramatic, but impossible for a longer period. The brief interval enabled Polly to collect herself and to look around her in her usual motherly fashion. Suddenly she started and uttered a cry. In the excitement of the descent she had quite overlooked her doll, and was now regarding ...
— The Queen of the Pirate Isle • Bret Harte
... was a great shock to her, my attraction for her had gone—I was just "poor darling Nicholas," and she began to be motherly—Nina motherly!—She would have been furious at the very idea once. Nina is thirty-nine years old, her boy has just gone into the flying corps, she is so glad the ...
— Man and Maid • Elinor Glyn
... was fresh to the city, as four years ago she had been. In those days she had dreamed of such a man as Pendleton—a dream that she was sure she had long since forgotten. Four years was a long while. It gave her rather a motherly feeling as she thought of Pendleton from that distance. And she rather enjoyed that. It left her freer to continue thinking of him. This she did until she was ...
— The Wall Street Girl • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... audience began their noisy business of getting out of their seats. Missy glanced about, suspicious yet alertly inquisitive. Would the women rush up and kiss him? Her eyes rested on prim Mrs. Siddons, on silly Miss Lightner, on fat, motherly Mrs. Allen, Kitty's mother. Poor Kitty, if her mother should so disgrace herself!—Missy felt a moment's thankfulness that her own mother was safely ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... a good time," said another woman with a kind, motherly face. "They will soon grow up, and then they will have to work hard to get ...
— Bertha • Mary Hazelton Wade
... child. This man of the world from the city was but the barefooted six-year-old whom she had borne and loved and fed and guarded in the years that were past. She must care for him now. And so she told him that he must have supper, and that he must let her go; and there was a sweet tinge of motherly authority in her words—unconsciously to her, arbitrary and unconsciously to him, submissive—and she left him to smoke upon the broad porch, and dawdle in the chair he remembered so well, and talk with ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo
... Alicia found a letter written to Robert by his mother. It was an unerudite letter, full of crops and motherly love and farm notes. It chronicled the health of the pig and the recent red calf, and asked concerning Robert's in return. It was a letter direct from the soil, straight from home, full of biographies of bees, tales of turnips, paeans of new-laid eggs, neglected parents ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... arose a sudden clamour and a crying. From each little sparred enclosure rushed forth a woman who snatched a baby here and there and drove a herd of children before her indoors, glancing around and behind her as she did so with the anxious look of a motherly barn-door fowl when the hawk hangs poised in ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... mystic. The enigmatical figure of Kundry is not the impersonation of one woman, she is woman herself. The incarnation of everything female, she embodies the sensuous, seductive and destructive element together with the contempt of the man who falls under her spell, as well as the motherly, and finally the humbly-administrative principle, which so far had not yet become a part of the erotic ideal. She is both positive and negative, a blind tool of the element of evil which prompts man to forget his higher mission (reminiscent of the second mediaeval period), and ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... distracted with the abundance and violence of her requests. It came to pass that in the excitement the old couple quite forgot Marjory. It was not until Mrs. Wainwright, then feeling splendidly, was dressed for dinner, that she thought to open Marjory's door and go to render a usual motherly supervision of the ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... blush with Brother Michel. Our new parents were kind, gentle, well-mannered, and generous in gifts; the wife was a most motherly woman, the husband a man who stood justly high with his employers. Enough has been said to show why Moipu should be deposed; and in Paaaeua the French had found a reputable substitute. He went always ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... afterwards received at the Library with imperial honours and given to understand by kotowing sub-mandarins that she might have the whole red-star library sent home to her house if she so desired. There was no other result. The rest of reading Boston remained under the motherly but autocratic care of ces dames. Those skilled in the artistic records of Boston may remember that the management of the same Library once refused the offered gift of a statue of a woman holding a baby, on the sole ground that the woman ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett
... the place her father won in her affections was somewhat like to Rake's. She made him her servant and tyrannised over him, but at the same time followed and imitated him as if she had been a young spaniel he was training. The life the child led, it would have broken a motherly woman's heart to hear about; but there was no good woman near her, her mother's relatives, and even Sir Jeoffry's own, having cut themselves off early from them—Wildairs Hall and its master being no great credit to those having the misfortune to be connected ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... thou shalt come into thy kingdom.' And Jesus made answer, 'Amen, I say to thee, This day thou shalt be with me in Paradise.' Magdalen, Mary of Cleophas, and John stood near the Cross of our Lord and looked at him, while the Blessed Virgin, filled with intense feelings of motherly love, entreated her Son to permit her to die with him; but he, casting a look of ineffable tenderness upon her, turned to John and said, 'Woman, behold thy son;' then he said to John, 'Behold thy mother.' John looked at his dying Redeemer, and saluted this ...
— The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ • Anna Catherine Emmerich
... your own baby?" said I, struck with the absence of motherly tenderness in spite of the woman's compassionate ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... friends of ours. The cock, who is a brave, spirited bird, wakes us up in the morning by crowing; the hen lays us eggs for breakfast, and when the wee chicks are big enough, they are very good food, as roast chicken. The cock teaches us watchfulness; the hen, motherly love. ...
— The National Nursery Book - With 120 illustrations • Unknown
... feel very meek. Her kiss had been affectionate, her care was motherly; but with all that there was not a turn of her hand nor a tone of her calm voice, that did not imply and express absolute possession, perfect control. That Daisy was a little piece of property belonging to her in sole right, with which she did and would ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... at all objected to crying away some of her sorrow on kind Mrs. Fry's motherly breast; Primrose could have had some really interesting talk which would have done her good with the Misses Price; they were very religious people, and their brother was a clergyman, and they might have said some things which would comfort the sore hearts of ...
— The Palace Beautiful - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... coffee with a motherly tenderness that was perfectly touching. She looked at me with the eyes of Solicitude, and spoke with the lips of culminating Respect; and once, in a burst of confidence, she told me that she had six orphan sons, ...
— Daisy's Necklace - And What Came of It • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... of her heart, she planned that even this sacrifice to her motherly affection might be turned to some account in the way of trade. Accordingly, there appeared in the Nottingham Herald an advertisement, extending across two columns, headed with imposing capitals, by which the public were informed that Mrs ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... and before the boy knew it he was telling the President and his wife all about his precious Encyclopedia, his evening with General Grant, and his efforts to become something more than an office boy. No boy had ever so gracious a listener before; no mother could have been more tenderly motherly than the woman who sat opposite him and seemed so honestly interested in all that he told. Not for a moment during all those two hours was he allowed to remember that his host and hostess were the President of the United States and the ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)
... arms and hurried to the Widow Schmidt's modest little cottage with the green blinds and the neatly scrubbed doorstep. George and Bob, feeling very sick, trailed sadly along after him; they hated to think of the look that would come into the Widow Schmidt's motherly face. Joe was all she had ...
— Sure Pop and the Safety Scouts • Roy Rutherford Bailey
... All the better for us. It makes her wonderfully patient with our troublesome brats. It was only to day, when that horrid little Jacky Smith hurt himself so, that I saw Elizabeth take him into the kitchen, wash his face and hands, and cuddle him up and comfort him, quite motherly. ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... Please don't; it hurts me so—it nearly kills me!" And with the loved pictures of home—the motherly face, with its white cap; the mother's bed, with his own little trundle-bed underneath; the table, with its white cloth folded and laid upon it; the hickory-bound cedar water-bucket, with its crooked handled gourd; the red corner-cupboard, ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... in the inspiring morning light all are so fresh and rosy-looking that they seem new-born; as if, like the quick-growing crimson snow-plants of the California woods, they had just sprung up, hatched by the warm, brooding, motherly weather. ...
— The Grand Canon of the Colorado • John Muir
... ever refused to listen to you, my son?" and a softer and more motherly expression came ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... said du Portail, "that she is an angel,—never the least ill-humor, never a sharp word; sad sometimes, but always caused by a feeling of motherly solicitude. That is what first gave the doctors the idea that if reality could take the place of her constant hallucination she might recover her reason. Well, this is the girl that fool of a Peyrade refuses, with the accompaniment of ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... out his position somewhat to this effect, his landlady appeared to clear away the breakfast things; she was a landlady of the better class, a motherly old soul who prided herself upon making her lodgers comfortable, and had higher views than many of her kind on the subjects of cookery and attendance. She had come to entertain a great respect for Caffyn, although at first, when she had discovered that he was 'one of them play-actors,' ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... I forget to speak of Mrs. Poor. The big, raw-boned woman's hard-favored countenance was lit up with motherly solicitude, as she lifted, rather than assisted, Zadkiel, down the steps of ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... with half-grown grandchildren when their magnificent home was finally broken up, you can imagine the change to Mary of living with newly married people, engaged in their first struggle with the world. But ours was just the problem which appealed to the motherly heart of our spinster Mary, for she yearned over us with an exceeding great yearning, and of her value to us you yourselves shall be ...
— At Home with the Jardines • Lilian Bell
... knew nothing of motherly tears and fatherly anxieties; she lived on peacefully in the room ...
— The Birds' Christmas Carol • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... to have been a certain air of pathos which Mrs. Partington herself cast around him, which affected her the most, and I imagine her feeling to have been largely motherly. There was, however, another element very obviously visible, which, in anyone but Mrs. Partington, I should call reverence.... She told me that she could not imagine why he was traveling with the Major and Gertie, so she at ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... with the Giants, Joe?" asked Mrs. Matson, her motherly instincts taking alarm at anything ...
— Baseball Joe Around the World - Pitching on a Grand Tour • Lester Chadwick
... her arm; her eyes were raised to her nurse's face wonderingly but complacently, and, though quite conscious, Mistress Fiddy involuntarily sighed out "mother." Very motherly was the elder woman's assurance: "Yes, my dear, I'll serve as madam your mother in her absence, till madam herself comes; and she'll laugh at our confusion and clumsiness, ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... through the doorway, an elderly woman, buxom, comely, and of motherly aspect, whom he easily divined to be the tire-woman of whom the Knight had spoken, came forward ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay
... a dear old motherly creature, declared that she knew exactly what Clarence needed; and concocted such delicious broths, made such strengthening gruels, that Clarence could not avoid eating, and in a day or two he declared himself better than he had been for a month, and felt quite equal ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... and motherly about her, that became her, and warmed Lane's cold heart. He remembered that she had always preferred boys to girls, and regretted she had not been the mother of boys. So Lane talked to her, glad to find that the most ordinary news of the service and his comrades interested her very much. ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey
... He hit my father right in the eye, raising a black and blue spot as large as a hen's egg." The painful recollection of this part of the dream so overpowered the witness, that she burst into tears, but was soon quieted by the motherly ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... occasionally glance up from her needlework, though always but for a moment and that, too, furtively, because she did not wish to show how fascinating she considered her own child, although in this feeling of motherly pride she was fully justified. Effi wore a blue and white striped linen dress, a sort of smock-frock, which would have shown no waist line at all but for the bronze-colored leather belt which she drew up tight. Her neck was bare and a broad sailor collar fell over her shoulders ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... the carriage as soon as it drew up. She was a handsome woman of middle age and was richly dressed. She was now in a panic of motherly solicitude. ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... all comes out of your pocket—that, of course, I needn't ask,' said Lucy. But her sarcasm was not bitter, and she had a motherly eye the while to the way in which Sandy was stuffing himself with his bread ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... "A good motherly lady, but as to love, that is a matter of taste. A few years younger, with deference to her prudence and experience, would ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... And then, as the motherly Irish woman, with a quizzical smile on her face, started to the house for the liniment, Mr. ...
— The Moving Picture Girls Snowbound - Or, The Proof on the Film • Laura Lee Hope
... girls bade Tom good-night, and he went back to Mr. Hallam, and they, feeling very cold and sleepy and drenched, were glad enough to be taken care of, and put to bed like babies, after Mrs. Fisher's good, motherly fashion. ...
— Gypsy Breynton • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... had my mother set her table to rights than she, with an air of motherly watchfulness, drew her chair beside the damsels, with whom I was exchanging the gossip of the Cape, and entered cheerfully into ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... very conscientious, very kind-hearted, and the pink of propriety. Her appearance, at once bland and solid, produced a favourable impression upon parents and guardians. Being stout, and between fifty and sixty years old, she was often described as "motherly," though in the timidity, fidgetiness, and primness of her dealing with girls she was ...
— Six to Sixteen - A Story for Girls • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... furnished. Tode looked around admiringly as Dick threw open the door and led the way in. Tode had never been in rooms like these before. Nan—after one quick glance about the place—looked earnestly and longingly into Mrs. Hunt's kind motherly ...
— The Bishop's Shadow • I. T. Thurston
... right motherly body. The meal over, she recommended a nap; and upon our waking much refreshed, she led us to the doorway, and pointed down among the trees; through which we saw the gleam of water. Taking the hint, we repaired ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... other hand, I could soon put you into good humour with me, if I chose. I know well enough what you like, and how to praise it to your better liking. I could talk to you about moonlight, and twilight, and spring flowers, and autumn leaves, and the Madonnas of Raphael—how motherly! and the Sibyls of Michael Angelo—how majestic! and the Saints of Angelico—how pious! and the Cherubs of Correggio—how delicious! Old as I am, I could play you a tune on the harp yet, that you would dance to. But neither you nor I should be a bit the better or ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin |
