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More "Breathless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... creak not to-night," said Betty to herself as she gently and steadily pulled the handle of the latch and saw the dreaded door open to her hand. Inside stepped Betty, and made breathless pause while she closed it, and the amiable latch fell softly down again into its place. Swift as a flash the girlish figure flitted up the winding narrow stairs, and gasping but triumphant Betty seated herself on the lowest step ...
— An Unwilling Maid • Jeanie Gould Lincoln
... forgetfulness of everything but the hot game they were hunting down. There was not a man in the room, except Tom Cogit, who could have told you the name of the town in which they were living. There they sat, almost breathless, watching every turn with the fell look in their cannibal eyes which showed their total inability to sympathise with their fellow-beings. All forms of society had been long forgotten. There was no snuff-box ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... a private nature could have consoled Roland for parting with his mistress, and for the distresses of his sovereign, he received such comfort some days subsequent to the Queen's leaving Dundrennan. A breathless post—no other than Adam Woodcock—brought despatches from Sir Halbert Glendinning to the Abbot, whom he found with Roland, still residing at Dundrennan, and in vain torturing Boniface with fresh interrogations. The packet bore an earnest ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... voice roused the assembly immediately out of its torpor. The judges, no longer bored and indifferent, followed her words with breathless attention, and when she stopped a low murmur of admiration was wafted ...
— The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt
... putting this together with the scene of the night before, and with much else that I had noticed and suspected, I began to wonder if the poor lady was weary of her life, and had come to the mad resolve of ending it. The idea took such hold on me that I reached the village on a run, and dropped breathless into a chair before the chemist's counter. The good man, who was just taking down his shutters, stared at me so hard that it brought me ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... the road they heard the crackle of a dozen rifle shots. The Southern advance undoubtedly had come into contact with the Union sentinels and skirmishers. After the first shots there was a moment's breathless silence, and then came a scattered and rapid fire, as if at least a hundred rifles were ...
— The Guns of Shiloh • Joseph A. Altsheler
... fallen. I was wrong. The door flung wide. With hasty step Came one in royal robes and all the pride And pomp of majesty, and on his head A helmet with an eagle poised for flight. He stood amazed at sight of him in white, His lips apart in haughty questioning. But no words came. Breathless, he raised his hand And gave salute as to a mightier lord, And doffed his helm, and stood. And in his eyes I saw The reflex glory of his ...
— Bees in Amber - A Little Book Of Thoughtful Verse • John Oxenham
... Their feeble cries in vain assistance crave, And expectation 'points but to the grave.' "But lo, with hasty step a female form Glides through the wind and braves the chilling storm, With eager hand now shakes the tottering door, Now rushes breathless o'er the snow-clad floor. Her tongue soft comfort to the mourner speaks, Her silver voice with soft emotion breaks; Round the drear hovel roves her moistened eye, Her graceful bosom heaves the lengthened ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham
... loud and effusive, and gushing; but it didn't mean much. Tumbu, for instance, despite his display of affection, would leave his post to run after every wild thing he saw; and though he always came back to it, he was so helplessly breathless, with half a yard of red tongue hanging out, that he would have been little use had an enemy turned up and his ...
— The Adventures of Akbar • Flora Annie Steel
... village was yet in repose; Philomel had ceased her song, and the other choristers of the grove were silently awaiting the coming of the god of day. The night breeze, in dying away, had left the trees calm and motionless; and it was in that moment of breathless nature, that the usual solemn invocation to prayer spread itself in sonorous undulations through the silent valley, chanted forth in clear distinct tones from the tapering minaret of the little mosque on the opposite side ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo
... Mervyn came in, flushed and breathless, and Honor kindly made an excuse for leaving him alone with Phoebe. After diligently tossing a book from one hand to the other for some minutes, he observed, sotto voce, 'That's a more decent old fellow than ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... this time, the Navajo was coming up at a regular gallop. As the dialogue ended, he had got within about three hundred yards of the spring, and still pressed forward without slackening his pace. We kept our gaze fixed upon him in breathless silence, eyeing both man ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... round, served of course with carrots and potatoes, remarkable for their excellence. Midday dinner was the only meal recognized at Chaffey's; from twelve to half-past two the press of business kept everyone breathless and perspiring. Before and after these hours little if anything was looked for, and at four o'clock the establishment closed ...
— The Town Traveller • George Gissing
... called out earnestly to those above to make haste, as he could hold on no longer, and that the ground was fast slipping away from under him. Anxiously indeed throbbed every breast during the interval occupied by the miner's descent, and breathless was the suspense with which each awaited the signal to pull away again upon the rope, which had scarcely been given, when a heavy rumbling sound, followed by a whirring noise, and terminating in a ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... scenes of suffering! There seemed to be no end to it; and yet there was always strength for the immediate work in hand. Tending twenty-four sick, after hurrying back from burying two dear lads in one grave, or with a body lying in its white sheet in the chapel; and once, after a breathless watch of two hours, while they all slept the sleep of opium, for we dared almost anything to obtain some rest, stealing at dead of night across the room to the figure wrapped so strangely in its blanket, and finding it cold and stiff, while one dying lay close by. It ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... shape," said Richard Hunt, as the bullets whistled high overhead, "if we were in the tops of these trees instead of behind them." There had been no maneuvering, no command given among the Confederates. Each man fought his own fight. In ten minutes a horse-holder ran up from the rear, breathless, and announced that the Yankees were flanking. Every man withdrew, straightway, after his own fashion, and in his own time. One man was wounded and several were ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... dropped his bowl; and, starting from his seat, stared alternately at me and at the breathless girl. My emotion, made up of joy, and sorrow, and surprise, rendered me for a moment powerless as she. At length he said, "I understand this. I know who thee is, and will tell her thee's come." So saying, he ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... awful to feel that Lady Turnour was hanging over my head like a sword. The thought of how she would look and what she would say if I kept the car waiting was a string tied to my nerves, pulling them all at once, like a jumping-jack's arms and legs, so that I positively ran back to the hotel, more breathless than Cinderella when the hour of midnight began to strike. But there was the magic glass coach, not yet become a pumpkin; there was the chauffeur, not turned into whatever animal a chauffeur does turn into in fairy stories; and there were ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... exerted to the utmost in your cause; and our lawful power is such, that when firmly exerted in your cause, it must finally prevail." This tone it is our interest and our duty to take. The circumstances admit of no delay. Is there one among us who is not looking with breathless anxiety for the next tidings which may arrive from the remote parts of the kingdom? Even while I speak, the moments are passing away, the irrevocable moments pregnant with the destiny of a great people. The country is in danger: it may be saved: we can save ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... at their home I did commend your highness' letters to them, Ere I was risen from the place that show'd My duty kneeling, came there a reeking post, Stew'd in his haste, half breathless, panting forth From Goneril his mistress salutations; Deliver'd letters, spite of intermission, Which presently they read: on whose contents, They summon'd up their meiny, straight took horse; Commanded me to follow and attend The ...
— The Tragedy of King Lear • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... short in breathless dismay, for a few paces away there arose from among these untidy "humpies" some twenty natives—erect, alert, all with poised boomerangs or spears ready to fling. It was a sinister reception for one small boy on a spent horse. Of course ...
— Queensland Cousins • Eleanor Luisa Haverfield
... had halted, and stood in breathless silence watching the result of Shad's shot. Now with an exclamation of pleasure from Mookoomahn the two rushed forward, knives in hand, and in an incredibly short time the carcass of the wolf was quartered, a fire lighted, and some ...
— The Gaunt Gray Wolf - A Tale of Adventure With Ungava Bob • Dillon Wallace
... only changed his position and looked at his father. Mr. Leigh had asked the question suddenly, with the first dawn of a new idea in his mind, but at his son's silent answer he shrank back in his chair breathless with dismay. So after all he had been a traitor! With his mistaken fancies about change and absence, he had been doing all he could to destroy the very scheme that was dearest to him, and which he now saw ...
— A Canadian Heroine - A Novel, Volume 3 (of 3) • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... elderly man in a gray coat, threading his wavering way through the noisy buffet of the streets of the city where Athalia had elected to dwell. He found her in a gaudy hotel, full of the glare of pushing, hurrying life. He sat down at her bedside, a little breathless, and looked at her with ...
— The Way to Peace • Margaret Deland
... these flights she came to a wide river, with trees bending over it. It was like a wide stream of greenness flowing down, and Ditte stood transfixed, in breathless wonder. The green of the river she quickly grasped, for this was the color poured down on all trees—and the river here was the end of the world. Over on the other side the Lord lived; if she looked very hard she could just catch a glimpse of his gray bearded face in a thicket of thorns. But ...
— Ditte: Girl Alive! • Martin Andersen Nexo
... the accumulating emotion of a wild rush on a toboggan. There came a point where the fact grew to be almost too big for the appreciation, just as beyond a certain point speed seems to become unbearable. It left you breathless, wonder-stricken, awed. You could do nothing but look, and look, and look again, tongue-tied by the impossibility of doing justice to what you felt. And in the far distance, finally, your soul, grown big in a moment, came to rest on the great precipices and pines of the greatest mountains of all, ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White
... the figure and countenance of St. John, that the artist has reached all that an artist could reach in a delineation of the same subject. The beloved disciple simply looks upwards—upon the breathless corpse of his crucified master. In that look, the world appears to be for ever forgotten. His arms and hands are locked together, in the agony of his soul. There is the sublimest abstraction from every artificial and frivolous ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... arrived at this conclusion, as the port of our destination hove in sight. It was towards evening that we crept in to our anchorage, through an atmosphere scarcely sufficiently alive to give us motion, and so almost glowing that it seemed to burn us as we passed. The place was wrapped in breathless stillness: no boats came forth to try a market with us, or to gratify their curiosity; and no sounds issued from the shore, which might have been deemed almost ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... have clouded the memory of his glorious days by a succession of pitiful proceedings, now that the deliverer of his country was running for his life, he was once more the victor of Vercellae, and with breathless suspense all Italy listened to the incidents of his marvellous flight. At Ostia he had gone on board a transport with the view of sailing for Africa; but adverse winds and want of provisions compelled him to land at the Circeian ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... event to alarm us; and with the knowledge of what is now the future, and will then be the dead past; seeing that all has been for the best for us in the end; that all has come right in spite of us, we will wonder how we could ever have been foolish enough to await each hour in such breathless anxiety. We will ask ourselves if it was really true that nightly, as we lay down to sleep, we did not dare plan for the morning, feeling that we might be homeless and beggars before the dawn. How unreal it will then seem! We will say it ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... Her voice came back from the forest in strange echoing tones which made her start. At last, after winding and turning for a long time, she found herself again upon the main path, not far from the place where she had entered the wood. She was hot, tired, and breathless; her voice was hoarse with crying and calling. "I'll wait here awhile," she thought. "Perhaps the blessed little dear'll come this way; but, whether he does or not, I'm too tired to move another step till I've had some rest." She found a smooth place under an oak, sat down, and ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... career. You will not fail, because you know the peril and the prize. You will not fail, because you have civilization and law and ordered freedom, the honor of your land and the happiness of a new one, in your care—because you know that, for uncounted peoples, the hopes of future years hang breathless on your fate. And so, gentlemen of ...
— Problems of Expansion - As Considered In Papers and Addresses • Whitelaw Reid
... advertisement in the Morning Post," she said with a kind of breathless violence, "from a man who—who wanted to meet a girl with—a 'view ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... these successes, he continued his experiments with breathless expectancy, and soon made another important discovery, that of "induction," although the real significance of this discovery was not appreciated by him or, for that matter, by any one else for several generations ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... hands entangled; she tore at the cobweb, she bent her body, she slipped away; she beat with her fists, she raged, and only enmeshed herself the more tightly in the horrible skein; finally she lay fast bound. During this last phase of the dance, her artist audience stood there rigid, breathless, suffocating with a sense ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... four VEDAS comprise over 100 extant canonical books. Emerson paid the following tribute in his JOURNAL to Vedic thought: "It is sublime as heat and night and a breathless ocean. It contains every religious sentiment, all the grand ethics which visit in turn each noble poetic mind. . . . It is of no use to put away the book; if I trust myself in the woods or in a boat upon the pond, Nature makes a BRAHMIN of me presently: eternal necessity, eternal ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... cloisters, echoing shadows leered at them. The wall of the V. A green rose dark and sinister. At last breathless among the tombstones by the Abbey they slipped on their boots, turned up coat collars and drew their caps over ...
— The Loom of Youth • Alec Waugh
... glides Into his darker musings with a mild And healing sympathy, that steals away Their sharpness, ere he is aware. When thoughts Of the last bitter hour come like a blight Over thy spirit, and sad images Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall, And breathless darkness, and the narrow house, Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart, Go forth under the open sky, and list To Nature's teachings, while from all around— Earth and her waters, and the depths of air— Comes a still voice:—Yet a few days, and thee The all-beholding ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... breathless figure presented himself at the Beaver kitchen. He had on a clean shirt and his Sunday clothes, and while he wore no collar, a clean handkerchief was neatly pinned ...
— Miss Mink's Soldier and Other Stories • Alice Hegan Rice
... pushed open a door and then paused on the threshold, confronting an interior that appeared black and flat like a curtain. Perhaps some girlish idea of hobgoblins assailed her then, for she called in a little breathless voice, "Daddie!" ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... was now ghastly, and was listening with breathless earnestness to his visitor. Merriman realized what he had always suspected, that the man was weak and a bit of a coward, and he began to believe his ...
— The Pit Prop Syndicate • Freeman Wills Crofts
... The breathless intensity of the spectators had burst. They had begun to click their teeth, to mutter hoarsely, then to shout, to gesticulate, to shake their fists in each other's face, to push and scramble for a ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... thief!' There is a passion FOR hunting something deeply implanted in the human breast. One wretched breathless child, panting with exhaustion; terror in his looks; agony in his eyes; large drops of perspiration streaming down his face; strains every nerve to make head upon his pursuers; and as they follow on his track, ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... alive, you are mine,' she repeated, embracing and stroking his head. He was almost swooning, breathless at such closeness, such ...
— On the Eve • Ivan Turgenev
... up and down stairs! Everybody so breathless! Everybody so happy! Every face wearing a smile! Every tongue rippling with laughter! The big grey mansion which used to seem so chill and cold felt for the first time like a ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... the colonel, Warner and Pennington all together. Then they stood breathless, and Dick uttered ...
— The Tree of Appomattox • Joseph A. Altsheler
... was so dense that she could see nothing. The ground was soft, and she was beyond the sentry's earshot; she ran at full speed across the field, down the gorge, and up the steep knoll. As she reached the top, she was taken in Mikhailof's arms. For a few moments she was too breathless to speak; then ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... Before an order went out to prevent him, he went through the wicket of the sliding-panel and gathered around him the four chiefs named in Cummings' ultimatum. They were more sullen, unhappy, and discouraged than ever. A few words, and he had them breathless with interest ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
... would have been surprised if he had done so. There was another chair at the far end of the room, and she did not trouble to fetch it. Her heart was still further weakened by her illness, and she was breathless after climbing two long flights of stairs. She leant up against the wall, breathing quickly, and thankful for ...
— The Hippodrome • Rachel Hayward
... expedite, put on, precipitate, urge, whip; railroad. Adj. hasty, hurried, brusque; scrambling, cursory, precipitate, headlong, furious, boisterous, impetuous, hotheaded; feverish, fussy; pushing. in haste, in a hurry &c. n.; in hot haste, in all haste; breathless, pressed for time, hard pressed, urgent. Adv. with haste, with all haste, with breathless speed; in haste &c. adj.; apace &c. (swiftly) 274; amain[obs3]; all at once &c. (instantaneously) 113; at short notice &c., immediately &c. (early) 132; posthaste; by cable, by express, by telegraph, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... camera, and hurrying forward was very difficult work, especially as I had to negotiate twisted masses of enemy barbed wire entanglements. But eventually, after much rushing, and being very nearly breathless, I got ahead, and planted my machine on the parapet of an old German trench and filmed the party as they passed. To keep ahead after filming each incident was very hard work. It meant waiting here and there, jumping trenches, scrambling through entanglements, ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins
... the storm, came the striking of midnight by the great chimes in the market place. He stood for a space of time that seemed to him endless still as a statue, and with wide-open, horror-struck eyes, breathless. As the clock struck, so the smile of triumph on the Judge's face intensified, and at the last stroke of midnight he placed the black cap ...
— Dracula's Guest • Bram Stoker
... play-time first, and, while the boys waited inside, they heard the shouts of the girls, the banging of the wood, and the final crash as the well-packed pile went down. Then, as the lassies came in, rosy, breathless, and triumphant, the lads rushed out to man the breach, and labor gallantly till all was as tight as hard blows ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 • Various
... of Caesar the Forum was crowded to every corner with a subdued, dejected, breathless throng. People spoke in whispers—no one felt safe—the air was stifled and poisoned ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... waving his hands. The galleries went wild with noisy excitement. Men threatened each other with violence on the floor of the House, cursing and shaking their fists. Others rushed here and there trying to find some trace of the Clerk. The Speaker, breathless from calling for order and pounding with his gavel, had to sit down ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume III (of 6) - Orators and Reformers • Various
... was withdrawing in high indignation from his vantage-point when something occurred of a startling enough nature to hold him where he was in almost breathless expectation. ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green
... the Lillooet illihae (country) with the glad tidings, and at the close of two days a swarm of smootlatches (women), and keekas (girls), rushed into camp breathless, and began hysterically searching for their respective sweethearts or husbands among the prisoners. The scene was more than poetic; and it was pathetic in the extreme. It was a scene that had not occurred before on the broad surface of the earth—those fifty distracted squaws rushing ...
— Skookum Chuck Fables - Bits of History, Through the Microscope • Skookum Chuck (pseud for R.D. Cumming)
... firemen had continued at their work with cool and undistracted attention. And here the value of organisation was strikingly and beautifully brought out; for, while the crowd swayed to and fro, now breathless with anxiety lest the efforts of the bold conductor of the fire-escape should fail; anon wild with excitement and loud in cheers when he succeeded, each fireman paid devoted and exclusive attention to his own prescribed piece of duty, as ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... friend, one Bertin, came to dine with Derues. Bertin was a short, hustling, credulous, breathless gentleman, always in a hurry, with a great belief in the abilities of M. Derues. He found the little man in excellent spirits. Bertin asked if he could see Mme. de Lamotte. Mme. Derues said that that was impossible, but that her husband had given her some medicine which ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... ram would have been sunk then and there; but as it was her shot were not quite heavy enough to pierce the iron walls. Around and around the two strange combatants hovered, their guns bellowing without cessation, while the men on the frigates and on shore watched the result with breathless interest. Neither the Merrimac nor the Monitor could dispose of its antagonist. The ram's guns could not damage the turret, and the Monitor was able dexterously to avoid the stroke of the formidable prow. On the other hand, the shot of the Monitor could not penetrate ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt
... programme left over from the St. Riquier area. The distance was two and three-quarter miles, and we felt quite pleased to finish 6th out of the 13 Battalions running, our pleasure knowing no bounds at seeing C. B. Johnstone and F. Torrance finish well within the time limit, happy if breathless. ...
— The Sherwood Foresters in the Great War 1914 - 1919 - History of the 1/8th Battalion • W.C.C. Weetman
... hands while they stayed at Olney. It was only a moment they stopped, but to Ethie it seemed an age, and her heart almost stopped its beating when she heard the voice of Terrible Tim just outside the car. He was not coming in, as she found after a moment of breathless waiting; he was only speaking to an acquaintance, who stepped inside and took a seat by the stove, just as the train plunged again into the darkness, leaving behind a fiery track to mark its progress across ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... dictated more by a dogged will to do his utmost than by a hope of doing much. When he was out of sight, the tall and cloaked man, who had watched him, came up to the woman's door, with an appearance of being in breathless haste. ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... said the count, fixing his glaring eyes upon the handsome countenance of the young man, who now awaited, in breathless suspense, a communication thus solemnly prefaced. "This key," continued the nobleman, taking one from beneath his pillow as he spoke, "belongs to the door in yonder corner of ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... knocked, and each time Lennan writhed. It was so cruel! With that seeing-sense of hers she must know he was there; his very silence would be telling her—for his silence had its voice, its pitiful breathless sound. Then, quite distinctly, he heard her sigh, and her footsteps move away; and covering his face with his hands he rushed to and fro in the studio, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... cloud of dust rolled up behind a hedge. It was Thorn's car; she knew its hum and as she watched the dust get nearer her face went white. Then, as the hum became loud and menacing, she clenched her hand and ran in nervous panic up the drive. She was breathless when she reached the house, but pulled herself together and went to a quiet room where ...
— The Buccaneer Farmer - Published In England Under The Title "Askew's Victory" • Harold Bindloss
... and left the hart, stone-dead, With breathless nostrils stretched above the spring. —Soon did the knight perform what he had said, And far and wide ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... seemed to be waiting for something, he continued with greater assurance, "I dare say they have a quality that the older generation missed. It isn't just commonness. The modern spirit means, I suppose, a breathless vitality. We are more intensely alive than our ancestors, perhaps, more restless, more inclined ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... In breathless haste she hurried on, and now quickly opened a last door, through which she entered a room furnished in the most sumptuous ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... rapid succession the music changed from the Double Jig to the Reel of Four, the Duck Dance, the Double Reel of Four, the Reel of Eight, and the Red River Jig, till the old log storehouse shook from its foundation right up to its very rafters. The breathless, perspiring, but happy couples kept at it until exhaustion fairly overtook them, and then dropping out now and then, they sat on the floor around the walls till they had rested; and then, with all their might and main, they went at it again. Among other things I noticed that the natives ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... you mean? What does SHE mean? Where is she?" Feather felt almost breathless before his unperturbed ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... he saw the strong hands reach up and clutch the jutting facets. He even opened his mouth to offer a warning as he saw the heavily-booted feet mount to their first foothold. But he refrained. He realized it might be disconcerting. A few breathless moments passed as Buck mounted foot by foot. Then came the thing the Padre dreaded. The youngster's hold broke, and a rock hurtled by him from under his hand and very nearly dislodged ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... With the money thus procured they buy beer and drink it in little free-booter's groups sitting in the alley. From beginning to end they have the excitement of knowing that they may be seen and caught by the "coppers," and are at times quite breathless with suspense. It is not the least unlike, in motive and execution, the practice of country boys who go forth in squads to set traps for rabbits or ...
— Democracy and Social Ethics • Jane Addams
... been there five or six months, when he came running to this turnkey one forenoon to tell him, breathless and pale, ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... as he clung to his man, breathless, bruised, feeling as if all the world had dissolved in one vast explosion of dynamite, the door opened, banged to, and ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... for everybody, not forgetting themselves, and mounting guard upon their posts, crammed spoons into their mouths, lest they should shriek for goose before their turn came to be helped. At last the dishes were set on, and grace was said. It was succeeded by a breathless pause, as Mrs. Cratchit, looking slowly all along the carving-knife, prepared to plunge it in the breast; but when she did, and when the long-expected gush of stuffing issued forth, one murmur of delight arose all round the board, ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... story of Burk's death and mysterious disappearance, to which Bushnell listened, with breathless interest. When it was ...
— Frank Merriwell Down South • Burt L. Standish
... William had rubbed witch-hazel into the deacon's heel-mark, the deacon in a glorious "prespiration" had gone home with his own breathless wife ditto. William dragged Serina into the bathroom, the only room where dancing was not in progress. He warned her not to forget that she had sworn to be a faithful wife. ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... and after a brisk walk and a breathless climb, they found themselves on the fourth floor of a huge brick building where they had been directed by a meek-looking woman in a dust-cap. A long hall with a great many doors upon each side, all looking ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Investigator • John T. McIntyre
... manager, on the stand for an hour and a half, and the excitement was so breathless that you could have heard a pin drop. ...
— Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town • Stephen Leacock
... morning of 4th September a whale-boat manned by natives dragged us down the green lane of the anchorage and round the spouting promontory. On the shore level it was a hot, breathless, and yet crystal morning; but high overhead the hills of Atuona were all cowled in cloud, and the ocean-river of the trades streamed without pause. As we crawled from under the immediate shelter of the land, we reached at last the limit of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... for a ship was seen driving before the gale close in upon the land, so close that she seemed to have risen there by magic, and appeared to tower almost over the heads of the people. The moments of darkness that succeeded were spent in breathless, intense anxiety. The flashes, which had been fast enough before, seemed to have ceased altogether now; but again the lightning gleamed—bright as full moonlight, and again the ship was seen, nearer than before—close on ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne
... brief doze, glanced indifferently towards the spot indicated; but, in another instant, was on his knees beside the undefined object he there beheld. A keen, breathless scrutiny, a frenzied clutch with both hands, and then he was upon his feet again, holding close to the lantern the thing he ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., Issue 31, October 29, 1870 • Various
... respect to the "figure" that each, in his way, made, one the expansive, the other the contractile effect of the perfect white waistcoat. A scratch company of two innocuous youths and a pacified veteran was therefore what now offered itself to Mrs. Stringham, who rustled in a little breathless and full of the compunction of having had to come alone. Her companion, at the last moment, had been indisposed—positively not well enough, and so had packed her off, insistently, with excuses, with wild regrets. This circumstance of their charming ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... pulsed through Timokles' brain. The man behind suddenly slipped, stumbling over the stones. He fell heavily, and in that instant's time, Timokles darted forward behind one of the rocks, and, creeping underneath it, lay breathless in the darkness. ...
— Out of the Triangle • Mary E. Bamford
... features of the deceased smiled sadly but tenderly; then all appeared to float once more before Edward's eyes—the form was lost in mist, the monument, the fir grove, the moonlight, disappeared: a long, gloomy, breathless pause followed. Edward lay, half sleeping, half benumbed, in a confused manner; portions of the dream returned to him—some images, some sounds—above all, the petition for the restitution of the ring. But an indescribable power bound his limbs, closed his eyelids, and silenced ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... just about to spring on its prey. It now stood, every moment its fury increasing, fancying that another of its species was there to contest the prize it had come to bear away. The major watched it with breathless anxiety; he was about to rush to the crib, at the risk of his life, to carry off the child, when the tiger sprung forward. Alas! It is too late, and the savage beast will destroy it; but no, the tiger expects to join combat with its rival, and with a loud ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... together the largest audience that has ever been assembled, that ever can by possibility be assembled for purely reading purposes, within the walls of St. James's Hall, Piccadilly. Densely packed from floor to ceiling, these audiences were habitually wont to hang in breathless expectation upon every inflection of the author-reader's voice, upon every glance of his eye,—the words he was about to speak being so thoroughly well remembered by the majority before their utterance that, often, the rippling of a smile ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... midday stillness when the blue sky arches over the place like a crystal bell which no winds may penetrate it seems as if the witchery grew. The warmth of the sun is like that of summer though without languor. The world is in a breathless swoon in the midst of which I wonder dreamily how this soft brown grass on which I lie could have been crisp and white with frost six hours ago. The morning waked all the hardier forest creatures who seemed to revel in the crisp exhilarating air. Red and ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... so widely known, and so justly appreciated, that we need not refer to it here. We will only say that he surpassed himself in this charge, which, for more than an hour, held the large assembly in anxious and breathless suspense, and caused all hearts to vibrate with the ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... leaping over the cataract hurrying on through the waters below. The strong man made a desperate effort and reached the land, but the poor boy upon the raft was precipitated over the falls into the gulf below. As the agonized father stood gazing with breathless horror upon the sight, the form of his dear son arose once more, standing erect upon the bounding billows, with his arms widely extended, and his eyes glaring from their sockets. But in, a moment he was hid from view, beneath ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna
... sent a chill through Terry; it contained a breathless horror from which there was no appeal. In the eye of Jack Baldwin, fair-minded man though he was, Black Jack's son was judged and condemned as worthless before ...
— Black Jack • Max Brand
... gracefully moulded hands and arms. The queen's voice was exquisite; nor have I ever heard any spoken words more musical in their gentle distinctness, than the "My Lords and Gentlemen" which broke the breathless silence of the illustrious assembly, whose gaze was riveted upon that fair flower of royalty. The enunciation was as perfect as the intonation was melodious, and I think it is impossible to hear a more excellent utterance than that of the queen's ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... really too bad; she is never less than an hour late," said Mrs. Alcot, seating herself. "Last time she dined with us I asked her for seven-thirty. She thought something very special must be happening, and arrived—breathless—at half-past eight. Then she was furious with me because she was not the last. But one can't do it twice. Well"—addressing herself to Cliffe—"are ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the rocks and sticks was happily oblivious of his unconventionality. The beauteous evening did, in very truth, seem calm and free to him, though the party on the rock was making a little too much noise to have the holy time quiet as a nun, breathless with adoration. His mind turned to the scrap of Wordsworth he had lately memorized, and though he was a trifle annoyed to find that he couldn't, even now, perhaps when he most wanted it, remember all, the phrase "comfort and command" stayed with ...
— Tutors' Lane • Wilmarth Lewis
... my poppet," whispered Ann, all breathless, "and you must keep her always, and not let her work ...
— The Adventures of Ann - Stories of Colonial Times • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... to the ground by a stone. Managing to raise himself from the ground where he lay, he staggered in an opposite direction from the station. In front of the house of Senor Mazzini he was again wounded, falling then senseless and breathless. ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume IX. • Benjamin Harrison
... maiden's bosom quaked a reasonless shame, an unconquerable terror. Surrounded by her whirling cloud of hair, the maiden sprang, untiring, across the wild white world. His strength failing, the youth pantingly followed. Thousands of years passed; the breathless pursuit continued; the maiden's nebulous hair became shot with streaks of golden fire, from her eyes beams of light streamed across the expanses over which she exultantly, fearfully bounded; the tremulous faltering youth's face ...
— The Eternal Maiden • T. Everett Harre
... never has been, never can be surpassed. No such thoughts ever before had been put into words. She spoke on that day for all the women of the world, for the wives of the present and future generations. The audience sat breathless and, at the close of the following peroration, burst ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... he sprang into the ring with the acrobat's conventional bow and gesture. After trying his ropes carefully, he swarmed up to the trapeze; the music of the band slowed down, and became impressive. In almost breathless silence, Derrick and the audience watched the man as he went through his performance. It was an extremely clever and daring one, and he brought it to a close by turning a double somersault as he left one trapeze and caught the other, ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice
... never be remedied." Then her voice sank so low that he could scarcely catch the breathless words. "There has ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Investigator • John T. McIntyre
... come up from the under-world; the wash of waters upon coral-reefs; the shadow of green palms upon lonely isles; strange sea-weeds floating on the deep green wave, and flying-fish hunted by voracious foes; long days and nights spent under glowing skies, without a glimpse of land; the breathless eagerness with which some new shore is sighted—with such incidents as these we English are necessarily familiar, possessing as we do a vast and various literature of the sea. And yet our appetite never ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... sinner," says the girl tremulously. A breathless silence seizes every one present as Anna continues, "Four years ago I had a child, in the forest yonder, and, I, poor ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... all was ready for Really-Is to ascend the throne, and the royal trumpeters had lifted their trumpets ready to proclaim him King of Allthetime, with the vast multitude breathless, ready at the signal of the trumpets to break forth in a great, glad shout, "Long live the king," and the Lord Chief High Chamberlain turned to take the Magic Crown from the hands of the High Priest of Things-That-Ought-To-Be, that even as he turned ...
— The Uncrowned King • Harold Bell Wright
... concourse of people flocked to Athens to hear the two most celebrated orators in the world. A jury of not less than five hundred, chosen from the citizens at large, was impaneled by the archon; and before a dense and breathless ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... in a strict use of the word, in the spirited and compact account of the famous contention between the Percies and the Douglases, of which Sir Philip Sidney said "that I found not my heart moved more than with a Trumpet." It is a breathless, rushing narrative of a swift succession of events, told with the most straight-forward simplicity. In the "Princess Maleine," on the other hand, the narrative is so charged with subjective feeling, the world in which the action takes place is so ...
— The Book of Old English Ballads • George Wharton Edwards
... the curtain which screened the sleeping room of the tent—but who had listened with breathless attention to every word of the foreigners, and who had never taken her eyes off the fair Praxilla—now came forward, emboldened by her agitation, into the midst of the tent, and took the jewel from the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... I lifted the still flexible hand, and kissed the lips which were breathless. Her flowing drapery was discomposed. I restored it to order, and seating myself on the bed, again fixed stedfast eyes upon her countenance. I cannot distinctly recollect the ruminations of that moment. I saw confusedly, but forcibly, that every hope was extinguished with the life of ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown
... little soul. Sometimes he strayed along the big passage and peeped through the green baize door which led down the front stairs. He had a way of asking Jane what 'the House' was doing, 'the House' being his grandmother, and uncle and aunt, and their visitors. Occasionally he would make breathless little excursions of his own into the rooms which seemed so strange and wonderful to him. This was generally in the very early morning, or in the afternoon, when everyone was out of doors. Nurse would soon pursue him and bring him back to his proper sphere; but he would have a delightful time ...
— 'Me and Nobbles' • Amy Le Feuvre
... my Wilhelm!" She had only time for one long gaze, and then the agonizing pain came again. One of the doctors tried to raise her, but she sank back. "Only death can help me;" and as all watched in breathless silence, she leaned her head against the shoulder of a faithful attendant, murmured, "Lord Jesus, shorten it!" and with one deep-drawn breath ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... horses and cattle. This must have meant serious loss to the people living on the river-bottoms above, but the boys counted it all gain. They cheered the objects as they floated by, and they were breathless with the excitement of seeing the men who caught fence-rails and cord-wood, and even saw-logs, with iron prongs at the points of long poles, as they stood on some jutting point of shore and stretched far out over ...
— Boy Life - Stories and Readings Selected From The Works of William Dean Howells • William Dean Howells
... girls sat together, laughing and talking, under the shadow of the ancient yew-trees that guard the eastern corner of Swarthmoor Hall. The interlaced boughs of the gloomy old trees made a cool canopy of shadow above the merry maidens. It was a breathless day of late June, 1652, at the very end of the ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... old Joe slept heavily, from the effects of the drugged whisky. Dick dashed out almost into the arms of Policeman X., who looked suspiciously at the breathless lad, in his stockinged feet. "Oh, please, come quick!" he cried, laying hold of the strong hand as no criminal would have done. "They're burglaring the office and stealing tracings. ...
— Dick Lionheart • Mary Rowles Jarvis
... Breathless with gazing on this lovely wonder, and forgetful for an instant of everything save her presence, I withdrew my eye from the microscope eagerly. Alas! as my gaze fell on the thin slide that lay beneath my instrument, ...
— The Diamond Lens • Fitz-James O'brien
... pressure of her soft, pulsing body against his own sent the blood racing through his veins. He smothered the words with his mouth on hers, kissing her breathless with a headlong passion that defied restraint—slaking his longing for her as a man denied water may at last slake his thirst at some suddenly ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... and stood watching Gurdon with breathless interest while the latter attacked another of the mouldings. They came away quite easily, pointing to the fact that they must have been removed before within a very short period. Once they were all cleared ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White
... night. This is one of my peculiarities, by the bye: a subject seizes me soul and body, which accounts for the rapidity of my execution. My muse resembles a whirlwind: she catches me up, hurries me along, and drops me all breathless at ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Francesca da Rimini • George Henry Boker
... seconds later, the boy was in the drawing-room. Breathless, staggering, he reeled back against the table and blurted out, ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc
... did he take refuge with his wife, she kicked him back again to the hounds, until at length the beggar stopped the hounds, and with a stroke of the wand, panting and breathless, the ...
— Celtic Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)
... the Church of God was at the foot of her insulting enemies;" he would never have ceased to reproach himself, if he had refused to employ the fruits of his studies in her behalf. He saw also that a generation inflamed by the passions of conflict, and looking in breathless suspense for the issue of battles, was not in a mood to attend to poetry. Nor, indeed, was he ready to write, "not having yet (this is in 1642) completed to my mind the full circle ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison
... and you have not read that breathless romance (disguised as a scientific study), Walter Bagehot's "Lombard Street"? Ah, my dear sir, if you had begun with that, and followed it up for ninety minutes every other evening, how enthralling your business would be to you, and how much more clearly ...
— How to Live on 24 Hours a Day • Arnold Bennett
... promise of a bottle of punch. He entered Bjoernson's den, got a long pipe which he filled with tobacco, undressed himself completely—for it was a hot day—flung himself on the bed, and began to read. Bjoernson sat in the sofa, breathless with expectation. Leaf after leaf was turned; not a smile, not a single encouraging word! The young poet had good reason to regard the battle as lost. At last the pipe, the bottle, and the book were finished. Then the merciless ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... the proposal of a mercenary duke with an epic rejoinder: "Pay a man a million dollars to sleep with my daughter! Never!"... Again Saltus demonstrates how completely he is master of the story-telling gift, how surely he possesses the power to compel breathless attention. ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten
... chance!" she said, breathless with speed and eagerness; "Sallie Calkins, there's a chance, and you'd never guess how. Dirk he wants me to go to a show with him this very night! He's got tickets. It is a big show,—where all the grand folks go. It is in the very biggest hall in this city, ...
— Ester Ried Yet Speaking • Isabella Alden
... deliver oration. Carried out this subtle fancy to such extent that, pitching voice on low conversational tone, sometimes difficult to catch full length of sentences. This added to impressiveness of scene. Crowded House sitting breathless; Members opposite leaning forward lest they might miss a phrase. Everyone conscious that at the door also listening were jealous France, the wily Turk, the interested Egyptian, the not entirely disinterested CZAR, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, May 13, 1893 • Various
... cried Anna-Margaret almost breathless as she entered the big kitchen, "tell Edith I laced up my shoes, tell 'er, ...
— The Upward Path - A Reader For Colored Children • Various
... every fawn and satyr flies For willing service; whether to surprise The squatted hare while in half sleeping fit; Or upward ragged precipices flit To save poor lambkins from the eagle's maw; Or by mysterious enticement draw Bewildered shepherds to their path again; Or to tread breathless round the frothy main, 270 And gather up all fancifullest shells For thee to tumble into Naiads' cells, And, being hidden, laugh at their out-peeping; Or to delight thee with fantastic leaping, The while they pelt each other on the crown With silvery oak apples, and fir ...
— Endymion - A Poetic Romance • John Keats
... go in peace, doctor; farewell for the present;" and without waiting for a reply he was walking rapidly away when he was stopped by Beaumarchef, who came up breathless and ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... to be clear. The moon would rise, just beyond the full, a few hours after sunset. It was a warm and breathless night, with less wind than usual. Most of the people crowding the streets and the restaurants were in white linen—themselves suggesting the white and ...
— The White Invaders • Raymond King Cummings
... protection, and bade them look to heaven. He then wiped the tears from his eyes and mounted his horse. His attendants, greatly affected, stood in silent admiration. Lord L—- was now going to speak, when his Majesty, turning to the Gipsies, and pointing to the breathless corpse, and to the weeping girls, said, with strong emotion, 'Who, my lord, who, thinkest ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... heard JOHN SMITH say the same thing in an eating saloon over a month ago, and out of twenty gentlemen present, four were reporters, but they didn't take out their note books in breathless haste and put down the Hon. JOHN SMITH'S opinion, how Mr. SMITH looked when he said it, and if he said it as though he really meant it, and in a ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 26, September 24, 1870 • Various
... priests to fall on the ear. At first Berenger was scarcely able to discern the pale face that looked as if tears were all dried up, and even before his eyes had clearly perceived her in the gloom, she was standing before him with clasped hands, demanding, in a hoarse, breathless whisper, 'Had he said ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... resting his hand on his wife's shoulder to keep her seated, and stood in front of her, hiding her from view, so that the sergeant should not see that tell-tale shadow behind her. Even while he held himself there in breathless silence, taking his first look at the man who had travelled all those miles only to carry him southward to his death, he smiled grimly, amused at the Homeric justice of it—that Spurling should have killed and been killed by a woman in disguise, and that on his head should rest the ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson
... Peter and John come breathless to the tomb. John is in the lead. Either he is younger or swifter of foot. As he comes up he stops at the opening of the tomb, and, with a bit of reverential awe, gazes within. He can see the linen cloths lying; but the body they had encased ...
— Quiet Talks about Jesus • S. D. Gordon
... the last they were breathless both, and stood leaning on their swords. Now fellow, said Sir Turquine, hold thy hand a while, and tell me what I shall ask thee. Say on. Then Turquine said, Thou art the biggest man that ever I met ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume I (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory
... behind him knelt his Jewish physician, who assumed that position, because, although he would not have failed, even at the hazard of his life, to be present, yet he had no strict right to be there; and, moreover, he did not particularly wish to be seen in the business. All were in breathless expectation when the Christian procession entered. The patriarch walked first, with his crosier in his hand; next came Titus, the tutor, bowed down under the huge lectionary, which he bore upon his back, secured by leathern straps over his shoulders; ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 449 - Volume 18, New Series, August 7, 1852 • Various
... chance, his 'History of Calamities' fell into the hands of Heloise at the Paraclete, was devoured with breathless interest, and rekindled the flame that seemed to have smoldered in her bosom for thirteen long years. Overcome with compassion for her husband, for such he really was, she at once wrote to him a letter which reveals the first healthy human heart-beat that had found expression in Christendom for a ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... wig was torn off and the spectacles laid aside. Then Elise threw herself across her bed, laughing until she gasped for breath. Her mirth was so contagious that Mary joined in, laughing also until she was weak and breathless, and could only cling to the ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston
... in the road, white and hot. The asphalt sidewalk baked in the noon sun, the leaves hung motionless from the full trees; only the breathless nasturtiums flickered like flames along the fences, for the other flowers wilted in the glare. Caroline, hatless and happy as a lizard in the relentless heat, spun along on her bicycle, the only bit of movement on all the long stretch of the ...
— While Caroline Was Growing • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... whirling ahead at a rate that would have split the ship from her keel to her top-timbers, had we come upon a sunken rock. The chances were about even; for I regarded the pilotage as a very random sort of an affair. We glanced on in breathless expectation, therefore; not knowing but each instant would ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... Baby grabbed the oats up in great haste, but finally she stood with her nose to the ground quietly eating. Mr. Leatherbee drew away the velvet from the camera, and looked at his watch for some breathless minutes. Then he slipped the velvet on again, ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, January 1878, No. 3 • Various
... scene was so obviously beyond Miss Bretherton's resources that even the enthusiastic house, Kendal fancied, cooled down during the progress of it. There were signs of restlessness, there was even a little talking in some of the back rows, and at no time during the scene was there any of that breathless absorption in what was passing on the stage which the ...
— Miss Bretherton • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... then proceeded to relate to Wingfield the persecution which Nizza Macascree had endured from the profligate knight The farmer listened to his recital with breathless interest, and when it was ended arose, and, taking a hasty turn round the room, halted at the table and struck it ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... of service arrived, Jake Benton and the evangelistic party did not arrive with it. Owing to the lateness of the train, Jake had been unable to get around at the appointed hour. Finally the familiar rattle of Jake's wagon was heard, and now all was breathless expectancy. When the party arrived at the arbor, all eyes were fastened upon the Evangelist. If he had been a ghost moving about in the twilight of that summer evening, he would have been regarded with no more superstition ...
— The Deacon of Dobbinsville - A Story Based on Actual Happenings • John A. Morrison
... Christian ought to do. His mother, his wife, his brothers, and all who were about him kept continually praying for him; his mother, beyond all others, adding to her prayers great austerities." Once he appeared motionless and breathless; and he was supposed to be dead. "One of the dames who were tending him," says Joinville, "would have drawn the sheet over his face, saying that he was dead; but another dame, who was on the other side of the ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... The girl lay breathless in the arms of the man, her heart beating against his, her face buried in his shoulder. She was dazed, half fainting from the reaction of her fear. The next she remembered clearly was being lowered into ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine
... horses, waggons, and ox-teams crowded about the hitching-posts, while excitement ran high at mail-time. The general opinion was that any post might bring the news that Congress was "sitting on" the great De Willoughby claim, and that Washington waited breathless for its decision. That all other national business should be suspended seemed inevitable. That any mail should come and go without bringing some news was not contemplated. The riders of the horses and owners of the waggons sat upon the stone porch ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... the best Texan marksmen whirled and sent their bullets at the pursuing Mexicans with such good aim that a dozen saddles were emptied, and the whole force reeled back. Then all the Texans darted inside, and the great door was closed and barricaded. Many of the men sank down, breathless from their exertions, regardless of the Mexican bullets that were pattering upon the church. Ward leaned against the wall, and wiped ...
— The Texan Scouts - A Story of the Alamo and Goliad • Joseph A. Altsheler
... hour later when Mrs. Keith, who had walked as fast as she was able, met Foster and the others coming back. She stopped, hot and breathless, with keen disappointment, for neither Colonel Challoner nor Mrs. Chudleigh were among them. Then, rousing herself, with an effort, she asked where ...
— Blake's Burden • Harold Bindloss
... Hastening, he, with breathless wonder, Sees the bodies of two women Lying crosswise, and their heads too; Oh, what horror! which to choose! Then his mother's head he seizes,— Does not kiss it, deadly pale 'tis,— On the nearest headless body Puts it quickly, and then blesses With ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... round, as if flying from some unseen peril, the child hastened along the road with breathless speed until she found herself once more at farmer Thompson's gate. "What do you want now?" asked the gruff old fellow, as he saw her ...
— McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... a "career" to think of. She ran through the bush and arrived breathless at that part of her grandfather's fence which ran past their coral islands. At a certain hour every afternoon, John said, his grandfather went to sleep. It was during this sleep time that Betty was to search the ...
— An Australian Lassie • Lilian Turner
... into the breast of the guilty praefect, and Rufinus fell, groaned, and expired, at the feet of the affrighted emperor. If the agonies of a moment could expiate the crimes of a whole life, or if the outrages inflicted on a breathless corpse could be the object of pity, our humanity might perhaps be affected by the horrid circumstances which accompanied the murder of Rufinus. His mangled body was abandoned to the brutal fury of the populace of either sex, who hastened in crowds, from every quarter ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... supplication of the righteous few, And so discredited, to fulfilment throng, Restrain'd no more by faithful prayer or tear, And the dread baptism of blood seems near That brings to the humbled Earth the Time of Grace, Breathless be song, And let Christ's own look through The darkness, suddenly increased, To the gray secret lingering ...
— The Unknown Eros • Coventry Patmore
... why, what 's a' the matter? My heart it gangs pittypat—winna lie still; I 've waited, and waited, an' a' to grow better, Yet, lassie, believe me, I 'm aye growin' ill! My head 's turn'd quite dizzy, an' aft, when I 'm speakin', I sigh, an' am breathless, and fearfu' to speak; I gaze aye for something I fain would be seekin', Yet, lassie, I kenna weel ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... wrong in saying that Lilac had any idea of being Queen. At the school that afternoon, when amidst breathless silence the Mistress had counted up the votes and said: "Lilac White is chosen Queen", it had been such a surprise to her that she had stood as though in a dream. Her companions nudged her on either side. "It's you that's Queen," they whispered; ...
— White Lilac; or the Queen of the May • Amy Walton
... he panted, "let be, nobody's never 'elped me up this 'ere path, an' nobody never shall!" So up we went, the Ancient and I, side by side, and very slowly, until, the summit being reached, he seated himself, spent and breathless, upon a fallen tree, which had doubtless served this purpose many times before, and mopped at his wrinkled brow with ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... police?' Virginia scolded her sister for not being equally restless, and had almost hunted the Captain into going in search of him; when at last, ten minutes before the moment of departure, in he came, white, lame, and breathless, but his eyes dancing with glee, and his lips archly grave, as he dropped ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... said, breathless; and then I counted the bills. "Oh, thank you, Dr. Sandford: but ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... at her side, and in the unevenness of the tones more marked than usual she recognized Bulchester before she turned. "Will you introduce me to Mistress Katie Archdale?" he went on in a breathless undertone ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1 • Various
... cold, except Mrs Kemp. She had for some time been ailing, and expected soon to give birth to another child, Mrs Hale had gone in to have a chat with her, and to help her in some household matters, when Tommy came running in breathless. ...
— Taking Tales - Instructive and Entertaining Reading • W.H.G. Kingston
... histories. The number of "honours" owned by each regiment had been a hotly contested point, and they now sat down and counted them. The Royal Berks had so many—Minden, Waterloo, Salamanca, Vittoria, Sevastopol, etc. In breathless silence those accredited to the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders were counted. There were fewer, and Jock was stunned at first. "Ah, but ye ha' not counted the thun rred line," he shouted. "Ga'rn, what battle's that?" they scoffed. ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... at last he gasped out, 'if you hurry me along like this you will kill me. Do let me rest a moment, or—' but he was so breathless that he could not finish ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various
... to Gramarye to try to forget. In this he was steadily unsuccessful. At the end of a month he had not advanced one inch. His love for Valerie was as breathless, haunting, wistful as it had ever been. The whole of the kingdom of his heart was hers alone, and, so far as he could see, like to remain hers only for the rest of his life. Since, therefore, he could not dispatch Memory, he sought to immure her. Since Valerie's sovereignty was ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... request, in came the porter, dishevelled and breathless. He made straight for the satchel they had been scrutinizing, and opened it without ceremony. Both ladies regarded this proceeding with natural astonishment, and Mrs. Rayner was about to interfere and question his right to search the luggage of passengers, when the man turned ...
— The Deserter • Charles King
... stove wood raised in air, as if to strike. Liquor and passion had made him an utter maniac for the minute. Clasped close in the poor girl's arms was the little baby, its head pressed so tightly against her breast that it could not cry out. Lucy, flying for life, was evidently too spent and breathless to make ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... good expression for emotion, and Lark promptly struck out at a pace that did full credit to her lithe young limbs. Down the street they raced, little tendrils of hair flying about their flushed and shining faces, faster, faster, breathless, panting, their gladness fairly overflowing. And many people turned to look, wondering what in the world possessed the ...
— Prudence Says So • Ethel Hueston
... crept out from the camp, on their hands and feet, feeling for the tall grass, the slight depressions in the ground, the shade of the thickets. They had shoes instead of moccasins. As they crept along foot by foot in breathless silence, the stiff soles of the shoes would sometimes hit a stone or a stick, and make a slight noise. They drew off their shoes and pushed them under their belts. Occasionally they were within a few feet of the sentinels, whom they could ...
— Christopher Carson • John S. C. Abbott
... widely known, and so justly appreciated, that we need not refer to it here. We will only say that he surpassed himself in this charge, which, for more than an hour, held the large assembly in anxious and breathless suspense, and caused all hearts to vibrate with the ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... of the enterprise and its picturesque and original features fascinated the nation, and the advance was watched with breathless interest. The fortunes of the River Column have been graphically described by one who played no small part in their attempt. 'The Campaign of the Cataracts' [By Sir William Butler] is a record of hard and unceasing toil. Day after day the long lines of soldiers hauled on the ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... Baldassare's setting-out for the Mantuan road, La Testolina—at that time much and unhealthily in Fra Battista's hire—came breathless to the Via Stella. Craning her quick head round the door-post, she saw Vanna sitting all in cool white (for the weather was at the top of summer), stooped over her baby, happy and calm as always, and fingering her breast that she might give the little tyrant ease of his drink. That ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... feet long at least, winding along the gully by the roadside. Half fascinated and altogether fearful, you watch her pass by till she disappears bit by bit in an incredibly small fissure in the vineyard wall, leaving you breathless. Or all day long you will lie under the olives waiting for the coolness of evening, listening to the sound of everlasting summer, the piping of a shepherd, the little lovely song of a girl, the lament of ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton
... with breathless admiration. No man had ever tried to follow her. She was safe abroad at any hour of the twenty-four. What bliss it must have been to have had a man follow one and black one's eye ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... flying-board, two sentinels blocked the entrance and laid hands upon her. Maya was too breathless to utter a syllable, and the sentinels threatened to kill her. For a bee to force its way into a strange city without the queen's ...
— The Adventures of Maya the Bee • Waldemar Bonsels
... Tepehuane, the other a Tarahumare, showed no signs of fatigue. By way of comparison, I will add that the best one among some young Mexicans, who raced at the same time, took twelve minutes for the circuit, and all arrived breathless, and would apparently not have been able to continue much longer. I was credibly informed that eight years ago a man who had died but a short time before could make twenty-seven circuits, or more than forty-seven miles, on this race-course. This runner was well known in that ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... the fifth chapter of Matthew, and read it all through. It is a new gold-mine. Then we tuck the Bible under our arm and rushed home. They didn't know it was wicked to take your things again if some one took them, wicked to go to law, wicked to—! We are quite breathless when we get to the house; we tell them we have discovered a chapter they never heard of; we tell them what it says. The old wise people tell us they knew all about it. Our discovery is a mare's-nest to them; but to us it is very real. The ten commandments and the old "Thou shalt" we have heard about ...
— The Story of an African Farm • (AKA Ralph Iron) Olive Schreiner
... Ulster down to the level of playful satire did much to relieve the House from the tension which the wild language of Ulsteria had been calculated to provoke. Finally, there came a beautiful peroration—tender, touching, well sustained—which was listened to with breathless attention by the House, and produced as profound a depth of emotion on the Liberal as even on the Irish Benches. It was a peroration which lifted the great issue to all the heights of solemnity, nobility, and supreme interest which it ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... the notice given, about three o'clock in the afternoon, came flying to the chief a ragged little urchin of the village, too breathless almost to make intelligible his news—that there were men at Mistress Conal's who would not go out of her house, and she and her old black ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... back sune. He has na gane a journey, for he has na ta'en e'en sa mickle as a change o' linnen, or a second collar," she said, as she regained her room, and sank down breathless into a chair. ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... to do?" whispered Nora in breathless excitement. "What is to be the first picture? O Daisy, I wish you would get them to have my ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 2 • Susan Warner
... to one side. In the scramble after it two opposing centres grabbed it at once, and each claimed precedence. The game stopped while Miss Andrews and the line-men came up to hear the evidence. There was a breathless moment of indecision. Then Miss Andrews took the ball and tossed up between the two contestants. But neither of them got it. Instead, T. Reed, slipping in between them, jumped for it again, and quick as a flash ...
— Betty Wales Freshman • Edith K. Dunton
... prompt and so was Enoch. For a long hour the two sat in the breathless heat of the July night while the Mexican answered Enoch's terse questions with a flow of dramatic speech, accentuated by wild gestures. Shortly after eleven-thirty Jonas appeared in the ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow
... never-dying force, the wind Roared till we shouted with it, roared until Its vast vitality of wrath was thinned, Had beat its fury breathless ...
— Georgian Poetry 1913-15 • Edited by E. M. (Sir Edward Howard Marsh)
... ample supply of power, and all that remained for him to do was to assemble the parts which he had built during the long journey from Titan to Ganymede. Therefore, at sunrise of the designated day, he was ready, and, with Nadia hanging breathless over his shoulder, he closed the switch, a toothed wheel engaged a delicate interrupter, and a light sounder began its ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... shining armor or the elaborate uniforms of olden times. The cleverest among them served as guides to their companions, driving them impatiently. They had been there the day before. Go ahead! There was still a lot to see! And they ran toward the inner halls with the breathless curiosity of men who tread on new ground and expect something marvelous to ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... breathlessly. "I've been living in the big city for twenty-five years now but I'm still an Ioway girl. Get back almost every year, too, still perfectly at home there. I'll be sitting out on the veranda next month drinking lemonade and shooing flies like I'd never been away!" She laughed her breathless laugh again. ...
— The Last Straw • William J. Smith
... eloquence of beauty; and she glides Into his darker musings, with a mild And healing sympathy, that steals away Their sharpness, ere he is aware. When thoughts Of the last hitter hour come like a blight Over thy spirit, and sad images Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall, And breathless darkness, and the narrow house, Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart;— Go forth, under the open sky, and list To Nature's teachings, while from all around— Earth and her waters, and the depths of ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... O Ship of State! Sail on, O UNION, strong and great! Humanity with all its fears, With all the hopes of future years, Is hanging breathless on thy fate! We know what Master laid thy keel, What Workmen wrought thy ribs of steel, Who made each mast, and sail, and rope, What anvils rang, what hammers beat, In what a forge and what a heat Were shaped the anchors of thy hope! Fear not ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... interrupted by Lecoq, who rushed into the house breathless. "Here is old Tabaret," he said. "I met him just as he was going out. What a man! He wouldn't wait for the train, but gave I don't know how much to a cabman; and we drove here ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... heathens. The service continued with prayer and songs of praise, and an address full of instruction and exhortation from Mr Bent. It was almost concluded, when a heathen chief, an old friend of the king, I found, rushed breathless into the building, announcing that a large fleet of double canoes was approaching the island,—that it was that of the cannibal chief to whom Alea was betrothed, coming undoubtedly with ...
— The Cruise of the Mary Rose - Here and There in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston
... rapidly through his introduction and into his theme he knew he was holding these thousands of breathless listeners in the hollow of his hand. He could feel their heartstrings quiver as he touched them with tenderness or struck ...
— The One Woman • Thomas Dixon
... us, round the fire, sufficiently breathless, but except the obvious remark that it was gruesome, as, on Christmas Eve in an old house, a strange tale should essentially be, I remember no comment uttered till somebody happened to say that it was the only case he had met in which such a visitation had fallen on a child. The case, I may ...
— The Turn of the Screw • Henry James
... the patrol, by means of smoke telegraphy and track his abductors to their disgrace; how they assist the passengers of a stranded steamer and foil a plot to harm and perhaps kill an aged sea-captain, one must read the book to learn. A swift-moving narrative of convincing interest and breathless incident. ...
— The Boy Scouts on Belgian Battlefields • Lieut. Howard Payson
... insulting!" cried he, half to himself; and then, with a quick motion hastening to open the door for her, "Go, madam," he added, almost breathless with conflicting emotions, "go, and be your happiness unalterable as ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... rabbit from opposite sides at the same instant, like the two wings of a bird, and buried their teeth like talons in his back. The rabbit gave one cry, like a newborn babe, pitifully! The huntsmen ran up; it already lay breathless, and the hounds were tearing the ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... parties had remained for upwards of six months in the Bastille, the trial commenced. The depositions of the witnesses having been heard, Cagliostro, as the principal culprit, was first called upon for his defence. He was listened to with the most breathless attention. He put himself into a theatrical attitude, and thus began:—"I am oppressed!—I am accused!—I am calumniated! Have I deserved this fate? I descend into my conscience, and I there find the peace that men refuse me! I have travelled ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... cried Mrs. Gwynne. "And you, too, my dear son—my brave Harold!" And she turned to him as he stood, leaning breathless ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... Void the Children ran homeward merrily hand in hand, Looking neither to left nor right where the breathless Heavens stood still; And the Guards of the Void resheathed their swords, for they heard the Command. "Shall I that have suffered the children to come to me ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... looked at it before without comprehension. To-night the subtle suggestiveness of those few daring lines, fascinating in their very simplicity, the head thrown back, the half-closed eyes—the inner meaning of the great artist seemed to come to him with a rush. He stood still, almost breathless. A slow anger burned in the man. It was debauching, this—a devilish art which drew such strange allurements from a face and figure almost Madonna-like in their simplicity. Unwillingly he drew a little nearer, and became one of the group of loiterers ...
— Anna the Adventuress • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... coming down the stairs, to go up and engage her in a consultation in regard to domestic arrangements. She had known of the arrival of the telegraph boy, had seen what followed, and now listened with rapt delight to Cicely's almost breathless ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton
... in operation. But it was too late; Easter Island was swamped, uninhabited Ducie went next, and Pitcairn, home of the descendants of the Bounty mutineers followed before even the slightest precautions could be taken. The Grass was jumping gaps of thousands of miles in a breathless steeplechase. ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... Running home breathless, dishevelled and desperate, she had frightened her brother and grandfather into speechless activity by a terrible command to harness a horse! Dragging out a light vehicle herself she speedily completed the arrangements, and whipping the animal pitiless lashes, dashed out of the presence ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair
... noiseless tread toward the gate. As soon as he descried the faint light of the sentinel's lamp near him, Harry stopped, and stooping down gave a faint whistle. For some time no answer was returned. The two friends remained in almost breathless suspense awaiting the signal. At last it was returned, and moving forward, they ...
— The Trials of the Soldier's Wife - A Tale of the Second American Revolution • Alex St. Clair Abrams
... Mission as a shield against the Ajawa, that his invitation was declined. While begging us to drive away the marauders, that he might live in peace, he adopted the stratagem of causing a number of his men to rush into the village, in breathless haste, with the news that the Ajawa were close upon us. And having been reminded that we never fought, unless attacked, as we were the day before, and that we had come among them for the purpose of promoting peace, and of teaching them to ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... with agony. He staggered toward the goal and fell across it while as yet there was a glint of light. But his effort burst his heart. Does the analogy hold on these narrow streets? To a few who sit in an inner office, Mammon has made a promise of wealth and domination. These few run breathless to gain a mountain. But what have the gods whispered to the ten thousand who sit in the outer office, that they bend and blink upon their ledgers? Have the gods whispered to them the promise of great wealth? Alas, before them there lies only the dust and heat of a level road, yet they ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks
... his voice almost breaking in tears. He drew her up to him, and closed her thirsting lips with his own, crushing her body against his own till both lay breathless.... ...
— The Song Of The Blood-Red Flower • Johannes Linnankoski
... John! well done!" cried Carver clapping the young man on the shoulder as, breathless and glowing, he stooped to pick up his matchlock. "The sight of such valor will daunten the Indians more than a ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... night of his Bight from Venice; but since then he had never looked at it. Too many memories and illusions were pressed between its pages; and he knew just at what page he had felt Ellie Vanderlyn bending over him from behind, caught a whiff of her scent, and heard her breathless "I ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... less we reached the foot of it, and, breathless and perspiring though we were, began to search amongst the reeds and bushes growing at the edge of the lake for the canoe of which we had been told by the Kalubi. What if there were none? How could we cross that wide stretch of deep water? Presently Hans, who, following certain indications which ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard
... lip curls with the Godlike contempt that the exceptionally great critic ever feels for everybody in this world, who is not yet dead. Buoyed up by a touching, but totally fallacious, belief that he is performing a public duty, and that the rest of the community is waiting in breathless suspense to learn his opinion of the work in question, before forming any judgment concerning it themselves, he, nevertheless, wearily struggles through about a third of it. Then his long-suffering soul revolts, and he flings it aside with a ...
— Dreams - From a volume entitled "Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow" • Jerome K. Jerome
... solitude of the unfinished building, resounding weirdly with sudden slams and clicks of doors and latches, with rustling scurries of torn papers, and the tremulous sighs that at each gust of wind passed under the high roof. The light of the two candles burning before the perpendicular and breathless immobility of the late Senor Hirsch threw a gleam afar over land and water, like a signal in the night. He remained to startle Nostromo by his presence, and to puzzle Dr. Monygham by the mystery of ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... confidence slipping away from her. The echoes of her breathless, passionate words had scarcely died away, and Mannering, to all appearance, was unmoved. His still, cold face showed no signs of agitation, his dark, beringed eyes were full of nothing but ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... exposed bare ground and broken rock where once had been the ocean's busy floor; while tremendous blasts of incandescent gas raved upward, buffeting even the enormous masses of the two space-ships, poised by their breathless crews so high above the site of the explosion. Then the displaced millions of tons of water rushed back into that newly rived pit, seeming to seek in that mad rush to make even more complete the already total destruction of the city. The ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith
... felt exceeding happiness:" I was in Schmucker's room, sitting by the fire, mostly alone for a good while, "the room that had once been Marquis d'Argens's" (who is now dead, and buried far away, good old soul);—when, at last, about half-past 4, Catt came jumping in, breathless with joy; snatched me up: "His Majesty wants to speak with you this very moment!" Zimmermann's self ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... huntsmen was organized, the dogs prepared, and the train departed. Very soon afterward, a messenger came back from the hunting ground, breathless, and with a countenance of extreme concern and terror, bringing the dreadful tidings that Atys was dead. Adrastus himself had killed him. In the ardor of the chase, while the huntsmen had surrounded the boar, and were each intent ...
— Cyrus the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... usual. We did not know at what hour my father would come from Paris with Paula, and so every moment I said to myself, "Perhaps they have arrived!" Result—my lessons went from bad to worse, but at last at five in the afternoon, I reached the house breathless only to find that Paula had not yet come. "They are not coming!" I cried impatiently, "I knew they wouldn't ...
— Paula the Waldensian • Eva Lecomte
... their enemy had, while seeking a place of refuge from which he might carry on his nefarious career, hit accidentally upon the greatest discovery of gold that had been made; and after decently disposing of his remains, the three adventurers began to examine with something approaching breathless awe the vast treasure that they could claim ...
— To Win or to Die - A Tale of the Klondike Gold Craze • George Manville Fenn
... placed in a condition of great perplexity, and his curiosity becomes breathless. The sequel is melancholy indeed. After a few months' union, the young man, whose plausible eloquence had so moved the widow, tires of his wife, ill-treats her, and breaks her heart. The Psychical Society is avenged, and the ghost's word was worth at ...
— Crabbe, (George) - English Men of Letters Series • Alfred Ainger
... younger may be seen in this preface; it is at its best and simplest in dealing with that charm of personality by which all who knew RUPERT BROOKE will most vividly remember him. Elsewhere it must be confessed that the preface is by no means easy reading, so that one emerges at last a little breathless upon the transparent and sunlit stream of the Letters themselves. Many who recall these from their publication in The Westminster Gazette will be glad to meet them again. Those who knew the writer only as the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 29, 1916 • Various
... a trained runner, Winner of prizes, Into the woodlands Plunged the young chieftain. Once he abruptly Halted, and listened; Then he sped forward Faster and faster Toward the bright water. Breathless he reached it. Why did he crouch then, Stark as a statue? What did he see there Could so appall him? Only a circle Swiftly expanding, Fading before him; But, as he watched it, Up from the centre, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... blameworthy. The really civilized man, therefore, no longer knows that absolute inaction which is the greatest enjoyment to the barbarian, and he fills up his leisure with a variety of easier and lighter work. The positive extreme of Industry is the unreasonable activity which rushes in breathless chase from one action to another, from this to that, straining the person with the immense quantity of his work. Such an activity, going beyond itself and seldom reaching deliberation, is unworthy of a man. It destroys the agreeable quiet which in all industry should penetrate and ...
— Pedagogics as a System • Karl Rosenkranz
... with a kind of breathless vehemence. "Finish your sentence. What right have you to talk of me?" she went on, as he did not reply. "If I am not a lady, what is that to you? Oh!" she persisted, in answer to the swift remonstrance on his face, "I can ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... till night (continued the stranger) supporting the breathless body of my colonel, and vainly hoping he might return to life. At length I perceived that his noble soul was fled for ever. My own wounds grew stiff and painful, and exhausted nature required a supply of food; I therefore arose, and finding ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... two Englishmen had been exploring this elaborate system of underground chambers for nearly three hours, they came upon the object of their search—and stood for awhile breathless and dumb in the presence of apparently ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... The loggerhead was applied, and one of our sixes spoke out in a smart report. A breathless stillness succeeded. The proas did not alter their course, but neared us fast. The captain levelled his night-glass, and I heard him tell Kite, in a low voice, that they were full of men. The word was now passed to clear away all the guns, and to open the arm-chest, to come at the muskets ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... formidable, and at four o'clock Joel reported for football practice with a comforting knowledge of duties performed. An hour and a half of steady practice, consisting of passing, falling, and catching punts, left the inexperienced candidates in a state of breathless collapse when Blair dismissed the field. West did not turn up at the gridiron, but a tiny scarlet speck far off on the golf links proclaimed ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... ornament aside and stood watching Gurdon with breathless interest while the latter attacked another of the mouldings. They came away quite easily, pointing to the fact that they must have been removed before within a very short period. Once they were all cleared away, Gurdon ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White
... fish came out of the deep pool. Then there was another short struggle of quarter of an hour, and the fisher's perseverance and skill were rewarded. The salmon at last turned up its silvery side. Fred drew it slowly to the bank (in breathless anxiety, for many a fish is lost at this point). Hans struck the gaff in neatly, and with a huge effort flung it floundering on the bank, amid the ...
— Chasing the Sun • R.M. Ballantyne
... on at a breathless pace, following the path that in its turn followed the windings of the lake for nearly a mile, when suddenly I heard voices at no great distance ahead of me. I stopped for a moment, my heart beating so fast I could scarce listen. Yes, it was a man's voice and a maiden's, speaking in low tones ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... experienced kindness and consideration. No enterprise however hazardous, no management however complicated, no schemes however vast, ever for a moment induced Villebecque to forget 'La Petite.' If only for one breathless instant, hardly a day elapsed but he saw her; she was his companion in all his rapid movements, and he studied every comfort and convenience that could relieve her delicate frame in some degree from the inconvenience ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... without an appointment, and her heart beat a little harder as, Sheila's hand in hers, they tiptoed up the worn and creaking stairs, through the ill-kept, airless corridors of the dingy structure, till they reached the top, and stood breathless from their impetuous ascent, within a few feet of ...
— Outside Inn • Ethel M. Kelley
... kitchen. Although the precise infantine achievements here cited were unknown to Mrs. Thorpe, there were plenty more, like them, which she had discovered; and the warning remembrance of which now hurried the poor lady up the second flight of stairs in a state of breathless agitation ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... the moment—so awful, yet so desired—when she should see John's face again. After the slow years of self-inflicted exile; after the wavering weeks and months of repentance, doubt, and changing resolution, life had suddenly become breathless—a hurrying rush down some Avernian descent, towards crashing pain and tumult. For how could it end well? She was no silly girl to suppose that such things can be made right again with a few soft words ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Macdonell, excited and eager to participate, reached the foot of the mountain at the head of the supports for which the General had despatched him. These consisted of about thirty of Heward's flank company of militia and thirty of the 49th—almost breathless and much exhausted, having run most of the way. Brock's small force—those actually at his side—were Chisholm's and Cameron's companies of the Toronto and York volunteers—a mere handful of perhaps eighty all told. These, together with Macdonell's men, who were at the foot of the hill on the ...
— The Story of Isaac Brock - Hero, Defender and Saviour of Upper Canada, 1812 • Walter R. Nursey
... you. In Death we have both learned the propensity of man to define the indefinable. I will not say, then, commence with the moment of life's cessation—but commence with that sad, sad instant when, the fever having abandoned you, you sank into a breathless and motionless torpor, and I pressed down your pallid eyelids with the ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe
... good musicians, soon caught the divine afflatus, and the little theater seemed on fire with music; the air, sung with a large rhythm, swelled and rose, and thrilled every breast with amazement and delight; the house hung breathless: by-and-by there were pale cheeks, panting bosoms, and wet eyes, the true, rare triumphs of the sovereigns of song; and when the last note had pealed and ceased to vibrate, the pent-up feelings broke forth in a roar of applause, which shook the dome, followed by a clapping of hands, ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... He was breathless with anxiety as he entered his work-room, and looked about him for something which should tell him where Gloria was gone. Almost instantly his eyes fell upon a sheet of paper lying before his accustomed seat. The ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... increasing weakness, he called out earnestly to those above to make haste, as he could hold on no longer, and that the ground was fast slipping away from under him. Anxiously indeed throbbed every breast during the interval occupied by the miner's descent, and breathless was the suspense with which each awaited the signal to pull away again upon the rope, which had scarcely been given, when a heavy rumbling sound, followed by a whirring noise, and terminating in a tremendous booming crash, whose ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... slowly on, as a rickety train should. At intervals we see the fresh spots of track just laid by our Yankee friends. Near the sixth mile, we began to overtake hot and uncomfortable squads of our fellows. The unseasonable heat of this most breathless day was too much for many of the younger men, unaccustomed to rough work, and weakened by want of sleep and irregular food in our ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various
... Huron, by the banks of the creek that divides the swamp I have mentioned, and which was unusually swollen, I noticed a canoe that had broken loose from its moorings, drifting down the current; a moment afterwards the owner arrived in breathless haste, to endeavour to save it from destruction; his exertions were, however, useless, and, finding there was no alternative, he hailed the bystanders, and offered the reward of a dollar to any one who would swim to and paddle ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... "The blue air, breathless in the STARRY peace, After long silence hushed as heaven, but filled With happy thoughts ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... shook as if struck with a paralytic stroke; trees shrunk aghast, and withered at the sight; rocks burrowed in the ground like rabbits; and even Christina creek turned from its course, and ran up a hill in breathless terror!" ...
— The Quaker Colonies - A Chronicle of the Proprietors of the Delaware, Volume 8 - in The Chronicles Of America Series • Sydney G. Fisher
... hands had been gripping her. Now they were swept aside. Her bag was in a closet but she had forgotten it. Quickly she took off her shoes and holding them in her hands went out into the hall in her stockinged feet. Her father came heavily up the stairs past her as she stood breathless with her body pressed against ...
— Triumph of the Egg and Other Stories • Sherwood Anderson
... descried a silvery arrow of spray lancing the swells, making with deadly speed toward the port bow of the Assyrian. But now both screws were churning full speed astern; the vessel lost headway altogether. Then her engines stopped. For a breathless instant she rested inert, like something paralyzed with fright, bows-on to the torpedo, the telegraph ringing frantically. Then the starboard screw began to turn full ahead, the port remaining idle. The bows swung off still more sharply to port. The torpedo shot in under them, ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... Indeed he never is. How could he be when Pleasure hangs constantly upon his arm! It is those others, overtaking her only after arduous chase, breathless and footsore, who quickly sicken of her company, and fall fainting at her feet. And for me, shod neither with rank nor riches, what folly to join the chase! I began to see how small a thing it were to sacrifice those external 'experiences,' so dear to the heart ...
— The Works of Max Beerbohm • Max Beerbohm
... to smile at the nervous, almost breathless way in which she opened the conversation. He saw that, whatever it was, it seemed to her very important, and he settled comfortably on the table, leaning back against the wall with his legs stretched out before him. She ...
— Calumet "K" • Samuel Merwin and Henry Kitchell Webster
... of her mistress, she wished him good luck, and left him, as the fierce men came downstairs. And being alarmed by their power of language (because they had found no silver), she crept away in a breathless hurry, and afraid how her breath might come back to her. For oftentime she ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... to Clara's room. As he closed the door behind him she rose. His face was mottled; there were tear-stains about his eyes, and he had a wild, breathless look. ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... and inquired of him how matters were going at the front. He replied, "Everything is lost; but all will be right when you get there"; yet notwithstanding this expression of confidence in me, the parson at once resumed his breathless pace to the rear. At Newtown I was obliged to make a circuit to the left, to get round the village. I could not pass through it, the streets were so crowded, but meeting on this detour Major ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... kindly fate that had hitherto guided him suddenly failed him now. When he reached home, panting and breathless, having discovered that it was almost midnight, a drooping little figure in a torn kimona opened the door and ...
— Old Rose and Silver • Myrtle Reed
... Since before daylight he had been toiling hard with his men, in a place where tons of ice and snow had thundered down a mountainside and covered the rails, four or five feet deep. The work had been hurried, breathless, anxious, but finally they had been able to remove the warning signals after clearing the track in time to let the eastbound freight thunder by, with a lowing of cold, starved cattle tightly packed and a squealing of hogs by the legion. A frost-encased man had waived a thickly-mittened hand at ...
— The Peace of Roaring River • George van Schaick
... hours Jefferson Square resembled an ant-hill after a big boy has trod on it. Such rushing around and talking in excited groups; such goings out and comings in; such wagons colliding at front doors leaving bulky parcels; such errand boys breathless with carrying huge bundles! The like ...
— Jerry's Reward • Evelyn Snead Barnett
... went out of sight. They appeared to be leaderless, dashing forward in no particular formation, yet, like the horses, they knew their business. All this turmoil was not without its effect on Roland's following, who edged forward on hands and knees to discover what was going on, everyone breathless with excitement; but they saw their leader cool and motionless, counting on his fingers the number of men who passed out, for he knew exactly how many fighters the ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... original contents of the letter was a decided point, and the immense house was quite breathless when the Tempter and the Tempted stood confronted as he made ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 3 (of 3), 1836-1870 • Charles Dickens
... red runabout containing a girl and a male companion emerging from the trees. A man in the road was holding up his hands in signal for the machine to stop and had barely time to leap aside to avoid being run down. The car roared up to the portico, the breathless man, who was Shad Wells, pursuing. Peter was glad that he had had the good sense not to shoot. He turned to his employer, prepared for either anger or dismay and found that McGuire was merely grinning and chuckling softly as ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs
... John come breathless to the tomb. John is in the lead. Either he is younger or swifter of foot. As he comes up he stops at the opening of the tomb, and, with a bit of reverential awe, gazes within. He can see the linen cloths lying; but the body ...
— Quiet Talks about Jesus • S. D. Gordon
... half breathless with fear, She crept to conceal herself there: That instant the moon o'er a dark cloud shone clear, And she saw in the moon-light two ruffians appear, And between them a corpse ...
— Apparitions; or, The Mystery of Ghosts, Hobgoblins, and Haunted Houses Developed • Joseph Taylor
... the last hundred feet or so on my hands and knees. Our escort (we had volunteer followers from village to village) had camped meantime on a bit of level ground half-way up the slope, and in the still breathless evening the smell of wood-smoke reached our nostrils from below with the penetrating delicacy of some choice scent. Voices also ascended, wonderful in their distinct and immaterial clearness. Jim sat on the trunk of a felled ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
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