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More "Engagement" Quotes from Famous Books



... words saved me this time," he muttered, "but it throws the girl on my hands. Well, I suppose I will have to propose marriage to her now—every one expects it; there would be a terrible rumpus kicked up if I did not. Well, let there be an engagement between us; that doesn't mean that there will be a marriage, by any means. The engagement can drag along three or four years, and then we can break off. By that time I shall be ready to marry the heiress of the Fairfax millions. ...
— Mischievous Maid Faynie • Laura Jean Libbey

... tyranno stop me," bragged the blond-haired cadet. "Tell me who your previous engagement is with and I'll get rid ...
— The Revolt on Venus • Carey Rockwell

... 'There's some mistake. I appointed Mrs. Tackleton to meet me at the church, and I'll swear I passed her on the road, on her way here. Oh! here she is! I beg your pardon, sir; I haven't the pleasure of knowing you; but if you can do me the favour to spare this young lady, she has rather a particular engagement this morning.' ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens

... bona-fide godchildren of Chance was Millard. The circumstances leading to his engagement in the French service as a member of the Franco-American Corps proves this. Millard was a real human being,—he had no grammar, no polish, no razor, safety or otherwise, but likewise no pretense, no "swank." He was persona non grata to a few, but the great majority ...
— High Adventure - A Narrative of Air Fighting in France • James Norman Hall

... prominent rank among the merchants of Baltimore. His manner was frank and engaging, and won him many friends. He was noted for "a judgment quick and cautious, clear and sound, a decided purpose, a firm will, energetic and persevering industry, punctuality and fidelity in every engagement, justice and honor controlling every transaction, and courtesy—that true courtesy which springs from genuine kindness—presiding over the intercourse of life." His business continued to increase, and in 1822 it became necessary ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.

... to a dozen miles over hilly country. Though Tess also meant to leave at the quarter-day, she was one of the few who did not go to the fair, having a vaguely-shaped hope that something would happen to render another outdoor engagement unnecessary. ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy

... had been forced to leave their handsome residence in Washington street, and take up their abode in an humble and cheap tenement. Entirely destitute of means, they were obliged to struggle hard to keep themselves above absolute want. Josephine, being a superb singer, had obtained an engagement to sing in one of the fashionable churches; but as she always appeared closely veiled, the fact of her being so terribly disfigured was unsuspected. The beauty of her voice and the graceful symmetry of her figure had attracted the attention and won the admiration ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn

... they had been in an engagement that day, and had pursued the Indians, the Spaniards were smooth-looking and well-dressed; not a hair seemed to be out of place, so that they presented a remarkable ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn

... of the Regent. The young King, without consulting his powerful uncle, declared his second cousin, Roger Mortimer, Earl of March, heir presumptive of England, and—in obedience to a previous suggestion of the Princess—broke off March's engagement with a lady of the Arundel family, and married him to Richard's own niece, the ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt

... luck." He had it on his little finger the day his father was sentenced. Its potency might fairly have been questioned after that, yet when she took it back he felt as if the act must have a blighting influence upon his destinies, quite apart from the broken engagement which it marked. ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller

... and having married somebody else whom he met abroad. "Now," says the dramatist, "what is the shortest possible space of time I can allow for this? Ahem!—say a month." So he gives him a month. "Then," says he, next, "what is the shortest possible time we can allow for an engagement and a marriage? Say six weeks. Good. Six weeks be it. Only, hang it, this muddle has to last for six weeks! Well, it can't be helped. I can't give any more trouble to the bothering plot; and, as after all, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 14, 1893 • Various

... no good but for to set and talk 'bout old times." Tears rolled down his face as he told of his friend, and the visitor, fearful that he was too much overcome by grief to be able to give a good story, suggested that another engagement be made to record his reminiscences, but he objected. "Lawsy, Missy!" he protested. "Please don't go now, for dem old times is on my mind today and I would so love to talk 'bout 'em now, if you don't mind. If I talks too much, jus' tell me, 'cause ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume IV, Georgia Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration

... I was a soldier in the Southern war for two weeks, and when gentlemen get up to speak of the great deeds our army and navy have recently done, why, it goes all through me and fires up the old war spirit. I had in my first engagement three horses shot under me. The next ones went over my head, the next hit me in the back. Then I ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... him? Andriusha Kolosov! Come, old boy, let's go to him directly. He came back last night from a holiday engagement." "But what sort of fellow is he?" "An exceptional man, my boy, let me assure you!" "An exceptional man," I answered; "then you go alone. I'll stop at home. I know your exceptional men! A half-tipsy rhymester with an everlastingly ecstatic smile!" ... "Oh no! Kolosov's not like that." I was on the ...
— The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev

... make it convenient to lunch with me on Friday at the Mtropole? If you have an engagement for that day can you further oblige me by writing and putting it off? Tell the other fellow you are ill or have broken your leg, or anything, and charge up the fiction to me. I deal in fiction, anyhow. I leave on Saturday for the Continent, not wishing ...
— One Day's Courtship - The Heralds Of Fame • Robert Barr

... the time when this narrative begins his heart was in it. One speaks figuratively here in order likewise to speak literally. A romantic enterprise carried on by Red Hoss Shackleford through a period of months promised now a delectable climax. As between him and one Melissa Grider an engagement to join themselves together in the bonds of ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb

... protected the irresistible advance ranks of his van? Who protected the wings of that warrior who hath made the last painful journey? And who, O Sanjaya, fought with hostile heroes in the general engagement? If he was protected by (our) heroes, and if they were protected by him, why could he not then speedily vanquish in battle the army of the Pandavas, invincible though it be? Indeed, O Sanjaya, how could the Pandavas succeed even ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... post began to be on the qui vive to see how the affair would end, for nobody expects to see the course of true love run smooth. In their case, however, the Fates were kind and in due time the happy engagement was announced. ...
— Vanished Arizona - Recollections of the Army Life by a New England Woman • Martha Summerhayes

... in his report, such as it was, to Colonel Romer, and was praised. Moral: Be called away by some pressing engagement before the captain calls for volunteers. May Gott strafe thoroughly ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson

... of explosive bullets of three different kinds was found in Cronje's laager, and after every engagement with your Honour's troops. ...
— The War in South Africa - Its Cause and Conduct • Arthur Conan Doyle

... of Caudium did not produce the rest which the enthusiasts for peace in Samnium had foolishly expected from it, but only led to war after war with exasperation aggravated on either side by the opportunity forfeited, by the breach of a solemn engagement, by military honour disgraced, and by comrades that had been abandoned. The Roman officers given up were not received by the Samnites, partly because they were too magnanimous to wreak their vengeance on those unfortunates, partly because they would ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... A spirited engagement ensued, attended, however, with no serious loss to the American forces. The regulars were supported by an armed schooner which the enemy were obliged to abandon, having first ...
— Bay State Monthly, Volume I, No. 2, February, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various

... has been acknowledged to be the most trying part of any engagement, from a duel to a battle—the waiting for hostilities to begin. It seemed that an interminable time had elapsed from the moment that they heard the first "dip-dip" of the paddles to the sharp crack of a twig sounded ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton

... were 'a rummy little frump,' and that he would take very good care to have an engagement for to-day as many miles as possible ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... unsuspicious of the fact which had happened beyond the Atlantic, he conceived him to allude to the indecisive naval action fought at the mouth of the Chesapeake early in the preceding month of September between Admiral Graves and Count de Grasse, an engagement which in its results might prove most injurious to Lord Cornwallis. Under this impression, 'My meaning,' said he, 'is, that if I were the Count de Maurepas I should wish to live long enough to behold the final issue of the war in Virginia.' ...
— True to His Home - A Tale of the Boyhood of Franklin • Hezekiah Butterworth

... her away they would continue to say them. He couldn't stop them. He couldn't for instance, go up to Colonel Hankin before leaving, and tell him that he lied, and that Mrs. Tailleur, though appearances might be against her, was as innocent a lady as Mrs. Hankin. He couldn't even announce his engagement to her by way of accounting for their simultaneous departure. They were not accountable to these people. But, if they stayed on as if nothing had happened, he could demonstrate to everybody's satisfaction that he had no other intention with regard to Mrs. Tailleur than to make her his wife and ...
— The Immortal Moment - The Story of Kitty Tailleur • May Sinclair

... hostile Indians have not been removed from the State of Florida, and the withdrawal of the troops therefrom, leaving that object unaccomplished, would be most injurious to the inhabitants and a breach of the positive engagement of the General Government. ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 4) of Volume 5: Franklin Pierce • James D. Richardson

... appears in due time as a poetical affinity, strongest on her side, and which determines her to see him restored to his rightful place. Palma's subsequent marriage with Richard, Count of San Bonifacio, serves to justify the idea of an engagement to him, ratified by her father before his retirement from the world, and which she and Salinguerra conspire to break, the one from love of Sordello, the other in the interests of her House. Eccelino's real assumption of the monastic ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr

... Low Countries, Marlborough gained ground steadily, without any great engagement. In Germany the French arms were successful, and at the end of 1703 a campaign was planned with Vienna for its objective. The advance was intercepted in 1704 by the junction of Eugene and the forces ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII. - Modern History • Arthur Mee

... to come by, more certain assurance, they agreed together that, whichever of them should die first, should, if he might, return to the survivor, and certify him of that which he would fain know; and this agreement they confirmed with an oath. Now, after they had made this engagement, and while they were still constantly together, Tingoccio chanced to become sponsor to one Ambruogio Anselmini, that dwelt in Campo Reggi, who had had a son by his wife, Monna Mita. The lady was exceeding fair, and amorous withal, and Tingoccio being wont sometimes to visit her ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio

... could not be arranged so quickly, said Mikolai, who began to stand up for his rights as master, after he had caught an imploring look from his stepmother. He could not get away from his engagement in that cool way, although they were friends and had always agreed. Was he going to leave him in the lurch just when he had the autumn sowing to do? Mikolai grew furious when he saw all his beautiful plans disappear like bubbles. "It's a confounded ...
— Absolution • Clara Viebig

... said he, throwing Mr. Slope's crumpled note to Mr. Harding. "I am to be told that if I choose I may have the honour of seeing Mr. Slope, and that too after a positive engagement ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope

... day Judge Jarriquez dined with the family on board the giant raft, and when evening came he shook hands with them all. Touching were the adieus, but an engagement was made for them to see him again on their return at Manaos, and later on the ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne

... remembrance of this our engagement we have furnished ourselves with copies of this instrument of writing. Given under our hands in New York ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge

... independent, irregular forces which, co-operating with us, often rendered most efficient service by preying on the scattered Federal camps and piercing their lines of communication. Seldom risking an engagement in the open, their policy was rather to dash down upon some outpost or poorly guarded wagon train, and retreat with a rapidity rendering pursuit hopeless. It was partisan warfare, and appealed to many ill-adapted to abide the stricter ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish

... movable which, in the form of Mantra, letter, or voice, is referable to your dominion. Hence, thou art superior (to the other mind which concerns itself with only the external world). But since, coming of thy own accord, O beautiful one, thou enterest into the engagement (about the fruition of all wishes), therefore, filling myself with breath, I utter thee.[60] The goddess Word used always to dwell between Prana and Apana. But, O blessed one, sinking into Apana, though urged upwards, in consequence of becoming dissociated from Prana, she ran ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... desires afternoon engagement; experienced in the care of children; good needlewoman; or would assist ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 7, 1919. • Various

... bluntly," said Pinto, "would you take on an engagement for twelve months, secure the machine, house it and have it ready for me? I will pay you liberally." He mentioned a sum which satisfied the airman. "It must not be known that the machine is mine. You must buy it and keep ...
— Jack O' Judgment • Edgar Wallace

... till the beginning or middle of October. The last day of August was at hand, and what was my position? Had I advanced a step since the commencement of the past quarter? On the contrary, I had receded one. By renouncing my engagement as English master in Mdlle. Reuter's establishment, I had voluntarily cut off 20l. from my yearly income; I had diminished my 60l. per annum to 40l., and even that sum I now held by a very ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell

... of a ride, and, in an instant, found themselves face to face with five or six armed men, with blackened faces, who, without speaking a word, dashed at them, and the fight began; reinforcements came up on each side, and the engagement became general. ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley

... shortening days must soon end our twilight drives, and the moonlight nights were too chilly to linger long in the rustic arbors or shady nooks outside. With the peculiar charm of this season of the year there is always a touch of sadness in nature, and it seemed doubly so to me, as my engagement was not one of unmixed joy and satisfaction. Among all conservative families there was a strong aversion to abolitionists and the whole anti-slavery movement. Alone with Cousin Gerrit in his library he warned me, in deep, solemn tones, while strongly eulogizing my lover, that ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton

... had withdrawn, a messenger delivered a letter for Lord Loring, in which Father Benwell's interests were directly involved. The letter was from Romayne; it contained his excuses for breaking his engagement, ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins

... respectable City men; I, Sybil Gascoigne, have acted almost as long as I can remember; the little ones, Kate and Dick, are still at school, but when they leave the first thing they do will be to look out for an engagement. ...
— Successful Recitations • Various

... on her first marriage. In Chanda, on the other hand, some Telis do not permit a widow to marry her late husband's younger brother at all, and others only when he is a bachelor or a widower. Here the minimum period for which a widow must remain single after her husband's death is one month. The engagement with a widow is arranged by the suitor's female relatives, and they pay her a rupee as earnest money. On the day fixed she goes with one or two other widows to the bridegroom's house, and from there to the bazar, where she buys two pairs ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell

... drove "down and out", as the soldiers say. Attacked by five others, he damaged two of them and dispersed the remainder. Not content with this, he gave chase to two more, and only broke off the engagement when he had received a wound in the thigh. Then he flew home to make the usual ...
— The Mastery of the Air • William J. Claxton

... Egyptian fleet, under Ibrahim Pasha, lay in the Bay of Navarino, and there was an understanding that it should remain till the affairs of Greece were arranged. As the Turks attempted to violate this agreement a general engagement ensued, and the Turkish and Egyptian fleets were completely destroyed in the course of a few hours. By this impolitic act England and France played into the hands of Russia, who was anxious to weaken ...
— Diaries of Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore, Volume I • Sir Moses Montefiore

... was unavoidably detained by an important engagement. The Chairman then introduced Mr. Schieren, ...
— New York at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis 1904 - Report of the New York State Commission • DeLancey M. Ellis

... An Prefecture. This Li Ya-nei fell in love at first sight with her, and would wed Chin Ko as his wife. He sent go-betweens to ask her in marriage, but, contrary to his expectations, Chin Ko had already received the engagement presents of the son of the ex-Major of the Ch'ang An Prefecture. The Chang family, on the other hand, were afraid that if they withdrew from the match, the Major would not give up his claim, and they therefore replied that ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... affecting religion, was that which reduced the union of marriage, the most sacred engagement which human beings can form, and the permanence of which leads most strongly to the consolidation of society, to the state of a mere civil contract of a transitory character, which any two persons might engage in, and cast loose at pleasure, when ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox

... gained by a gradual retreat, but that would raise the courage of the Boer party, and depress the spirits of the British. Accordingly Sir George White may be expected to take the first opportunity of showing the Boers that his men are fighters, but he will avoid an engagement such as might commit a fraction of his force against the Boer main body. The detachment which was a few days ago near Glencoe may be expected, as the Boer advance continues, to act as a rear guard, of which the business ...
— Lessons of the War • Spenser Wilkinson

... in his tracks. "Her engagement?" he said in a hushed voice. "Her engagement to—to that"—he could not apparently get the word out without a ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor

... to foot. What could I say? Evidently he was not aware of my marriage with his brother. How should I act? Richard might come in at any moment and discover himself. I recollected him to have incidentally mentioned that the following day he had an engagement at the race-course with a friend; I therefore ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn

... exploit furnishes illustrations both of his boldness and his tact. During the voyage the news was brought that the galliot was convoyed by three other vessels. Thereupon the crew were unwilling to hazard an engagement, and insisted that Columbus should return to Marseilles for re-inforcement. Columbus made a feint of acquiescence, but craftily arranged the compass so that it appeared that they were returning, while they ...
— The Life of Columbus • Arthur Helps

... the stranger. "You did the thing beautifully when once you had got hold of the rope. Excuse me—I have an engagement—good-by—glad to hear the lady is not hurt." Wherewith the tourist quickly shook the professor's hand once more, and was gone before the latter could ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford

... special mention. Major Hawthorn, who was in command, and all the European officers, were wounded early in the engagement, thus ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje

... which former venders of indulgences had been accustomed to pay to the Kings and Governors of Sweden. In the war commenced by Christiern the Second against Sweden, he signalized his courage and military talents on many occasions, and was killed in an engagement with Otho Crumpein's army, near ...
— Gustavus Vasa - and other poems • W. S. Walker

... not in want of money: but I'm in want of a daughter-in-law, of grandchildren to sit upon my knee—" He laughed again, as if he were a little ashamed of the touch of sentiment. "Seriously, Staff, is there any reason for waiting? I know that the engagement is a short one; but, well why should you and Maude not be happy? I can make arrangements," he went on, eagerly. "There is Brae Wood. I'll make ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice

... woman, and all the rest of the old fogeys? It was fun enough so long as you had nothing to do with them, but, by Jove, not for Lady Montjoie. Then he rushed upstairs to shower a few rough caresses upon Bice and take his leave of her, for he had an evening engagement formed before he was aware of the change which was coming in his life. He had been about her all the afternoon, and Bice, disturbed in her musings by this onslaught and somewhat impatient of the caresses, beheld his departure with satisfaction. It was the first evening since their arrival in ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant

... engagement of Laura Nesbit and Thomas Van Dorn came when Mrs. Nesbit began tearing out the old floors on the second story of the Nesbit home and replacing them with hardwood floors. Having the carpenters handy she added a round ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White

... the engagement there were twelve soldiers killed and forty-two wounded. Every officer in the command was shot with the exception of Lieutenant Cherry, of the Fifth Cavalry. The Indians killed from one hundred and fifty to two hundred mules belonging to the government. Surgeon Grimes was wounded but was able ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman

... the pictures in a marked manner. Felicity had nothing whatever to do that evening, which she had intended to spend with her husband. Savile, who was staying with her, wouldn't be back from Craig-y-nos till heaven knew when. Oddly enough, Mr. Wilton also had no engagement that evening. "So much so," he said, that he had taken a large box at the Gaiety all by himself, to go and see that new thing. Felicity, oddly enough—it was the first night—had not seen the piece. He advised that she should. Then she would have to dine all alone at home while poor ...
— The Twelfth Hour • Ada Leverson

... readily tell a Yankee. He began to praise America. He said that Uncle Sam was only a child yet, that America was destined to be the greatest country in the world; that her trouble with Spain was only a bickering; that the present engagement was only his maiden warfare, and that he "walked along like ...
— Questionable Amusements and Worthy Substitutes • J. M. Judy

... contracting a joint engagement we might remove the difficulty and prevent Belgium ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various

... advance-guard will march, under our command, with Pothon of Saintrailles as second; the second division will follow at two under the Lieutenant-General. Keep well in the rear of the enemy, and see to it that you avoid an engagement. I will ride under guard to Beaugency and make so quick work there that Ii and the Constable of France will join you before dawn ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... 1647 the Scots again entered into the long series of negotiations with the king. When Charles was a prisoner at Newport, and while he was arranging terms with the English, he entered into a secret agreement with commissioners from Scotland. The "Engagement", as it was called, embodied the conditions which Charles had refused at Newcastle—the recognition of Presbytery in Scotland and its establishment in England for three years, the king being allowed toleration for his own form of worship. ...
— An Outline of the Relations between England and Scotland (500-1707) • Robert S. Rait

... replied Miss Dene. "Meanwhile, Mr. Falconer had had time to fall in love with her in London, just before she took her Russian engagement. It was his sister who told me this—perhaps to prove that there was no use my having Designs, with a capital D. He followed the girl to St. Petersburg; she disappeared. He put the matter into the hands of a detective—an American one, brought ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... Jac Hallen, for certain things. I find them now accomplished. I belong here no longer." He laughed. "I would not force myself into a war prematurely. That would be very unwise. I think—we shall have to avoid this—engagement. I am—slightly outnumbered." ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings

... man Flint, regarding Catherine's breaking of the engagement, was particularly electric. Promptly at the appointed hour, Waldron appeared, shook hands with the older man, sat down and lighted a cigar, then proceeded ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England

... heard of it, she was quite decided against accepting the offer, and for the reasons you mention; exactly as you say, she had made up her mind to close with nothing till Colonel Campbell's return, and nothing should induce her to enter into any engagement at present—and so she told Mrs. Elton over and over again—and I am sure I had no more idea that she would change her mind!—but that good Mrs. Elton, whose judgment never fails her, saw farther than I did. It is not every body that would ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... elapsed between Eton and Oxford were an important period in Shelley's life. At this time a boyish liking for his cousin, Harriet Grove, ripened into real attachment; and though there was perhaps no formal engagement between them, the parents on both sides looked with approval on their love. What it concerns us to know about this early passion, is given in a letter from a brother of Miss Grove. "Bysshe was at that time (just after leaving Eton) more attached to my sister Harriet ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds

... That blame pretty girl at The Lucky Digger kept me, an' wouldn't let me go, though I told her I had a most important engagement." ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace

... inconceivable fury. I have already contradicted the assertion, that it seeks the elephant for the purpose of giving him battle, on which occasion it was said to sharpen its horn against a stone just before the engagement: according to Mr. Gordon Cumming's account, they inhabit the same neighbourhood without exhibiting any particular enmity towards ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee

... reflexion. Was it at all possible for instance to like Paris enough without liking it too much? He luckily however hadn't promised Mrs. Newsome not to like it at all. He was ready to recognise at this stage that such an engagement WOULD have tied his hands. The Luxembourg Gardens were incontestably just so adorable at this hour by reason—in addition to their intrinsic charm—of his not having taken it. The only engagement he had taken, when he looked ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James

... has made our duties impracticable and useless; by forbidding singing, dancing, and amusements of every kind, it renders women sulky, fault-finding, and intolerable at home. There is no religion which imposes such strict duties upon married life, and none in which such a sacred engagement is so often profaned. Such pains has been taken to prevent wives being amiable, that their husbands have become indifferent to them. This should not be, I grant you, but it will be, since husbands are but men. I would have an English maiden cultivate the talents which ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau

... Heaven's sake, now. I was only a little startled; but I am quite well again. Is it anything about marriage? Oh, Stanley, in mercy, tell me was there any other engagement?' ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... pavement, started to whistle a tune and was soon out of sight—for ever. The omnibuses jerked on, and every single person felt relief at being a little nearer to his journey's end, though some cajoled themselves past the immediate engagement by promise of indulgence beyond—steak and kidney pudding, drink or a game of dominoes in the smoky corner of a city restaurant. Oh yes, human life is very tolerable on the top of an omnibus in Holborn, when the policeman holds up his arm and the sun beats on your back, and ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf

... thought you might have heard the report—a true one, I believe—of Mr Donne's engagement to his daughter. He must be glad she jilted him now, I fancy, after this public exposure of her father's conduct." (That was an awkward speech, as Mr Farquhar felt; and he hastened to cover it, by going ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... is. In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred the affections have it their own way, and I must say I don't think the judgment could make a greater mess of it. In fact," she continued, perhaps provoked to the excess by the deprecation she saw in Miss Cotton's eye, "I consider every broken engagement nowadays a blessing ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... this morning that there could be no engagement until after I had talked with you," ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant

... episode that day, which for reasons of state I struck out of my priest's report. You will have noticed that Garry was doing some great fighting in the engagement. When I say Garry I mean Sir Gareth. Garry was my private pet name for him; it suggests that I had a deep affection for him, and that was the case. But it was a private pet name only, and never spoken aloud to any one, much less to him; being a noble, he would not have endured a familiarity like ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... not endure it any longer. I've had enough education; I'm suffocated with it! Besides, I dislike it. I want a dinner-gown and a ball-gown and my hair waved and dressed on top of my head instead of bunched half way! I want to have an engagement pad—I want to have places to go to—people expecting me; I want silk stockings and pretty underclothes! Doesn't that old fool understand what ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers

... bail, to take a course of physic, he being dangerously ill. Many spake against it, but most Sir Henry Vane, who said he would be as instrumental, for aught he knew, to hang them all that sat there, if ever he had opportunity, but if he had liberty for a time, that he might take the engagement before he went out: upon which Cromwell said, 'I never knew that the ENGAGEMENT [Footnote: Cromwell probably meant to pun upon this word.—In Ireland, "engagement" means an ISSUE; "an engagement in the neck," arm, &c., i.e., an issue in those places.] was a medicine for the ...
— Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe • Lady Fanshawe

... sat erect. The rug fell from his person, the visor shot up from his eyes. He turned them blankly toward the shoreless West. This was the moment at which he had instructed his subconscious self to remind him of an engagement to lecture on Cretan inscriptions at the home of Mrs. Philip Harris on the Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, Illinois. He looked again at the shoreless West and tried to grasp it. It may have been his subconscious self that ...
— Mr. Achilles • Jennette Lee

... over-realistic and convincing. Inevitably too the scheme is one of incident rather than character. One has never any very serious doubt that in the long run the hero, Kennedy, will marry the girl of his choice, despite the fact of her engagement to the clearly unworthy Harrington. But as part of the long run was from Crefeld to the Dutch frontier, over every obstacle that you can imagine (and a few more, including an admirable thrill almost on the post), one is left with the comfortable feeling that the prize ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, March 12, 1919 • Various

... behaved like a blackguard to Mrs. Keith- Wessington. My notion is that the work of the Katabundi Settlement ran him off his legs, and that he took to brooding and making much of an ordinary P. & 0. flirtation. He certainly was engaged to Miss Mannering, and she certainly broke off the engagement. Then he took a feverish chill and all that nonsense about ghosts developed. Overwork started his illness, kept it alight, and killed him poor devil. Write him off to the System—one man to take the work of two ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... He and Miss Allardyce had with great craft managed to keep their engagement secret for a fortnight. There were urgent and imperative reasons why Major Allardyce should not know how matters stood for at least another month, and this small marplot had discovered a ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)

... your kind invitation to dine with you Tuesday evening, but a previous business engagement makes it impossible for me to be present. ...
— Reading Made Easy for Foreigners - Third Reader • John L. Huelshof

... it is," said our captain; "we're going to hyste the black flag as soon as we get back, and run out our guns. Come on, my red-nosed old cocky-wax, and we'll have a naval engagement, and ...
— Bunyip Land - A Story of Adventure in New Guinea • George Manville Fenn

... enjoyment of domestic happiness; but he had seen so much misery arise from unfortunate marriages among some of his particular friends, that he had been afraid of forming any attachment, or, at least, engagement. His acquaintance with fashionable life had still further rendered him averse from matrimony; and from love he had defended himself with infinite caution, and escaped, till in an unlucky moment he had ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth

... and there fell a silence. Olga's arms clasped him very tightly. Her cheek pressed his forehead. It was not often that Nick opened his heart to her thus. Only twice before had it ever happened, and on each occasion he had been in trouble—once when the woman he loved had sent back his engagement ring through her, and once again nearly two years later when that same woman—Muriel, his wife—had lain at death's door all through one dreadful night while they two, close pals, had waited huddled together in the passage outside her room. Those two occasions were sacred ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell

... capacity for social duties, she put on her hat with the roses and went to make a call, long deferred and hitherto impossible of accomplishment, on a certain Mrs. Wayne, a bride of a few months, who, as Alice Lee, had been one of the girls of her outer circle. Dosia did not mean to announce her engagement, but she felt that Alice Wayne's state of mind would be more sympathetic, even if unconsciously so, ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various

... so soon as the union becomes distasteful to either. But I am perfectly aware that such theories would revolt a young lady like Mademoiselle Cicogna. I have never even named them to her, and our engagement holds good." ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... he could still feel for his friend. His first words were to tell Edgeworth that Honora was still free, more beautiful than ever; while Virtue and Honour commanded it, he had done all he could to divide them; now he wished to be the first to promote their meeting. The meeting resulted in an engagement, and Mr. Edgeworth and Miss Sneyd were married within four months by the benevolent old canon in the Lady ...
— A Book of Sibyls - Miss Barbauld, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs Opie, Miss Austen • Anne Thackeray (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie)

... vessels off the northeast coast of England, he met the Serapis and the Countess of Scarborough convoying a fleet of merchantmen. At half-past seven in the evening of September 23, he laid his own vessel, the Bon Homme Richard, alongside the Serapis, and a desperate struggle ensued. In the midst of the engagement he ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.

... of the character, however, was in the grandest style of histrionic art. "The sibyls of Michael Angelo are not more grand," exclaimed one critic; "but the vocalization of Pasta and Grisi is wholly foreign to her." During this engagement, Mme. Schroeder-Devrient was often unable to perform, from serious illness. From England she ...
— Great Singers, Second Series - Malibran To Titiens • George T. Ferris

... feathers of the Spaniard," in the phrase of the English seamen, were "plucked one by one." Galleon after galleon was sunk, boarded, driven on shore; and yet Medina Sidonia failed in bringing his pursuers to a close engagement. Now halting, now moving slowly on, the running fight between the two fleets lasted throughout the week, till on Sunday, the twenty-eighth of July, the Armada dropped anchor in Calais roads. The time had come for sharper ...
— History of the English People - Volume 4 (of 8) • John Richard Green

... a young lady of the Amidei family, when a widow of one of the Donati, who had designed her own daughter for him, contrived that he should see her; the consequence of which was, that he broke his engagement, and was assassinated. Historie Fiorentine, ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt

... sees only personal loss and sacrifice as the result. The soldier who trembles, and whose face whitens from constitutional physical fear, and who yet marches steadily into the battle, is braver far than the soldier who without a tremor presses into the engagement. ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller

... I made an engagement to meet him the next morning, when he bethought him of his promise to the old man of the cudgel and ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard

... actions of the campaign Canadian and British troops broke the Drocourt-Quant line on a front of six miles between taing and Cagnicourt. On that day the British army fired 943,857 shells. No single engagement caused greater depression in Germany, but the impression was somewhat fallacious; for behind this sector of the Hindenburg lines were waterways which were even worse obstacles to our tanks, and although the Canadians ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard

... violin, the three standard instruments of the time. The older Haendel died, and before he was nineteen George Frederick made his way to Hamburg, which was then one of the musical centers of Germany. Here he obtained an engagement in the theater orchestra as ripieno violin, a sort of fifth wheel in the orchestral chariot, its duty being that of filling in missing parts. The boy was then rather more than six feet high, heavy and awkward. He was an indifferent violinist, and ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews

... application. She had at any rate discovered that they certainly were at the office in the Ross Markt. So much she had learned from Ziska; and so much, at any rate, she was bound to make known to her lover. And, moreover, since she had seen him she had told all her relatives of her engagement. They all knew now that she loved the Jew, and that she had resolved to marry him; and of this also it was her duty to give him tidings. The result of her communication to her father and her relatives in the Windberg-gasse had been by no means so terrible as she had anticipated. The heavens ...
— Nina Balatka • Anthony Trollope

... breast to warn him of what might be the villainy of others. He believed the cajoling speeches of Edward, who, on the first offense of Baliol, had promised to place my father on the throne. Month after month passed away, and the engagement was unperformed. The disturbance on the Continent seemed to his confiding nature a sufficient excuse for these various delays; and he waited in quiet expectation till your name, my friend, rose glorious in Scotland. My father and myself were ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter

... alluded to might never take place, and the reader must remember, that although Edith and Arthur were, beyond doubt, devotedly attached to each other, the word that would have made them both happy had not yet been spoken; there was no engagement, or in fact, any advance towards one, yet both, in their heart of hearts, realized the great love they felt for each other. But prudential motives had kept Arthur silent. Edith knew this and was content to wait for the developments of the future. ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest

... time, the Federal force had driven the Confederates back from their camps, and threatened their annihilation, but Pillow's arrival stayed the retreat. By ten A.M., Cheatham's brigade of 2500 men, in which was my regiment, were also coming into the engagement. By eleven A.M., both armies were fully employed. In the mean time some of the guns on the fortifications at Columbus were trying their range upon the Federal gunboats, which lay about three miles distant, and replied fiercely to their challenges. But little execution on either side was ...
— Thirteen Months in the Rebel Army • William G. Stevenson

... not for want of solemn oath and engagement to save them that come. "For—because he could swear by no greater, he sware by himself—that by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... and, after she was out of sight, returned to the others. He conscientiously delivered Barbara's farewell, and the praise which Frau Sabina lavished upon her pleased him as much as if nothing had come between them. Finally he made an engagement to see Erasmus Eckhart that evening in his lodgings, and then went to the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... angrily asked the reason of such an abrupt dissolution of the engagement; and then, much to his horror, heard of his eldest son's doings. "You would not have me marry into such a family?" said the ex-bridegroom. And old Cartouche, an honest old citizen, confessed, with a heavy heart, that he would not. What ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray

... wasn't really his rise that called for it. That was only a means to his divorce and marriage. It was his engagement that ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair

... Poughkeepsie. Fresh from a big city near by, he had outshone the country gallants at the party as he had outshone the cowboys that Ruth had seen since coming to the Flying W. His courtship had been gallant, too; he had quite captivated her, and after their engagement—which had been a rather matter-of-fact affair—she had not found it possible to refuse him permission to ...
— The Range Boss • Charles Alden Seltzer

... Grosvenor Square since his return from Carbury, and had seen Madame Melmotte and Marie; but he had seen them together, and not a word had been said about the engagement. He could not make much use of the elder woman. She was as gracious as was usual with her; but then she was never very gracious. She had told him that Miss Longestaffe was coming to her, which was a great bore, as the young lady was 'fatigante.' ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope

... morning I hastened to where my brother was employed and met him coming out of the office with a number of bills that he was to collect. I told him how I had "committed" him and added that if he didn't care to keep the engagement I should be delighted ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce

... with the young man, who gradually yielded to the representations of Marmaduke, and eventually consented to his proposal. It was, however, to be an experiment only; and, if either of the parties thought fit to rescind the engagement, it was left at his option so to do. The remarkable and ill-concealed reluctance of the youth to accept of an offer, which most men in his situation would consider as an unhoped-for elevation, occasioned no ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper

... Napier known to history as the "hero of Saint Jean d'Acre," but better known to sailors in the British navy as "Old Sharpen Your Cutlasses!" This quaint soubriquet he obtained from an order issued by him when he commanded a fleet in the Baltic, anticipating an engagement with the Russians. ...
— The Land of Fire - A Tale of Adventure • Mayne Reid

... the original plan of the voyage. Promise me that you will stick to the ship. Afterwards you can return to Venus and do as you please. Stanley, you know, made his greatest journey into Africa between his engagement and his marriage." ...
— A Trip to Venus • John Munro

... of my preferences—how should he? No, dearest girl—his notion that I must have a moneyed bride is the merest whim of dotage; we must forgive the whims of ninety-five. That great age also augurs for us a short engagement and ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... but even this wooing was not destined to prosper, as Charles VIII, who had just succeeded to the throne of France, suddenly announced that he was the proper person to wed the Duchess Anne and her possessions, and promptly breaking his engagement with Margaret of Austria, set forth upon his war-like wooing. She, poor girl, would probably have preferred any one of her suitors to the boy of nineteen or twenty, misshapen and ignorant, says a chronicler of the ...
— In Chteau Land • Anne Hollingsworth Wharton

... could not but bring upon the Flemings all the forces that Philip was able to muster. The two leading actions of the ensuing war—that at Courtrai, known as the "Battle of the Spurs," on account of the number of gilt spurs captured by the Flemings, and the engagement at Mons-la-Puelle—are described in the course of the narrative which follows. As a result of the battle of Courtrai the French nobility were nearly destroyed, and Philip found it necessary to ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... ambitious. She hates the "stuffy" life of a hausfrau, but marriage makes no appeal, since the breaking of her engagement with Alfred—who is also a man with punctual business habits. She despises conventional men, and is herself compact of conventionality. In her most rebellious moods the leaven of Philistia (or the British equivalent, Suburbia) comes ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker

... not interrupt us in our attempts, nor expose themselves to an engagement, they may, indeed, return without suffering great damages, but I know not how they can leave the shores of America unobserved, or pour an unexpected invasion upon us. If they continue there, sir, they ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 10. - Parlimentary Debates I. • Samuel Johnson

... before this battle of Princeton he and his army were in a critical situation, the British being fully equal in numbers and their troops well disciplined, while about half of Washington's army was composed of raw militia—so that a general engagement the next day would be almost sure to result in defeat ...
— Elsie's Vacation and After Events • Martha Finley

... was less. I attended to others, thinking all the while of poor Noon. His home life was little known, but there was some story about an engagement at Poonah the previous warm weather. Noon was rich, and he cared for the girl; but she did not return the feeling. In fact, there was some one else. It appears that the girl's people were ambitious and poor, and that Noon had promised ...
— Tomaso's Fortune and Other Stories • Henry Seton Merriman

... gave the following account of the way he managed to bring Abe and his stepbrother into the transaction: "He wanted me to go badly but I waited before answering. I hunted up Abe, and I introduced him and John Johnston, his stepbrother, to Offutt. After some talk we at last made an engagement with Offutt at fifty cents a day and sixty dollars to make the trip to New Orleans. Abe and I came down the Sangamon River in a canoe in March, 1831, and landed at what is now called Jamestown, five ...
— The Story of Young Abraham Lincoln • Wayne Whipple

... that the enterprising impresario of one of the royal theatres has made an engagement with the Diva; and, if we have a regret, it is that she should be compelled to sing in the unfortunate language of our rude northern clime, which does not preter itself near so well to the bocca of the cantatrice as do the mellifluous accents of the Lingua Toscana, ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray

... himself engaged with the English under Henry, who had been called on to assist certain of the great barons in revolt, but in 1242 he defeated them in three engagements; under a vow he made during a dangerous illness he became a crusader, and in 1249 landed in Egypt with 40,000 men, but in an engagement was taken prisoner by the Saracens; released in 1250 on payment of a large ransom, though he did not return home for two years after, till on hearing of the death of his mother, who had been regent during his absence; ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... right arm, which rendered me incapable of writing for a long time. This unluckily happening to delay the publication of a work, and my last performance not having sold well, the bookseller declined any further engagement, and aspersed me to his brethren as a careless idle fellow. I had, however, by having half worked and half starved myself to death during the time I was in his service, saved a few guineas, with which I bought a lottery-ticket, resolving to throw myself into Fortune's lap, ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding

... one. I remembered her. An alluring sort of girl, as most of them are. Her name was Venza. She spoke English well. A singer and dancer who had been imported to Great-New York to fill some theatrical engagement. She'd made quite a hit on the Great ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various

... the driver's eye and raised his stick, and turning suddenly to the Baron with a gesture of annoyance, exclaimed, "Forgive my rudeness, Baron, I'm afraid I must leave you. I had clean forgotten an important engagement in ...
— The Lunatic at Large • J. Storer Clouston

... more to say," he went on, "and feel utterly disinclined to work, why, I should be glad to excuse myself, as I have an engagement out." ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green

... them, we plied them alternately with grape and canister from our six-pounder. The engagement continued with great vigour for some time, when their fire slackened; and shortly afterwards two more of the prahus were deserted by their crews, who made for the shore; the fourth made off. The three prahus were taken possession of, ...
— Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat

... to promote the insurrection in Poland, and to assist the Poles as efficiently as possible, so that we should lose these provinces during the cessation of hostilities. His majesty, moreover, is unable to enter into an engagement concerning the withdrawal of the Russian troops, and the last fortresses, therefore, would be sacrificed in vain. But it is just as little in the power of the king to induce the Emperor of Russia to waive his just claims against the Porte, or ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach

... some almost insignificant, but strange gestures, which he could not understand, now assumed an extreme importance for him and established a connivance between them. Everything that had happened since his engagement, surged through his over-excited brain, in his misery, and he obstinately went through his five years of married life, trying to recollect every detail month by month, day by day, and every disquieting circumstance that he remembered ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant

... which gave Claire pause. Lord Dawlish, of course, was one of them. She had not mentioned Lord Dawlish to Mr Pickering, and—doubtless lest the sight of it might pain him—she had abstained from wearing her engagement ring during the voyage. But she had not completely lost sight of the fact that she was engaged to Bill. Another thing that caused her to hesitate was the fact that Dudley Pickering, however wealthy, was a most colossal bore. As far as Claire could ascertain on their ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse

... handsel for your engagement," he said. And that settled, he turned over and betook himself to sleep, leaving me to get out of ...
— Athelstane Ford • Allen Upward

... forth from God. Let the army of the Lord, when it rushes upon his enemies, shout but that one cry, 'Dieu le veult! Dieu le veult!' Let whoever is inclined to devote himself to this holy cause make it a solemn engagement, and bear the cross of the Lord either on his breast or his brow till he set out; and let him who is ready to begin his march place the holy emblem on his shoulders, in memory of that precept of ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay

... and her crew captured and a destroyer damaged in a scouting engagement off the Flanders coast on April 25, 1916. The identity of the vessel was never learned. The E-22, a British submarine, went down April 25, 1916, in another fight. The Germans scored again when they sank an unidentified guard vessel off the Dogger Bank ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)

... his engagement, and before the promised hour, returned in safety to his ship. With the first dawn of day, the vessels were put in readiness to weigh anchor, and sail at a moment's warning. At that crisis, La Tour had the vexation of finding his plans well nigh frustrated by the stubborness of his New-England ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney

... said he, turning to the scholar, "is to drink up the sea. I said nothing of the rivers and streams that are everywhere flowing into it. Stop up these, and I will proceed to fulfill my engagement." ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester

... Bournan, who were watched on one side by Foret and his detachment, and on the other by a portion of M. d'Elbee's army. These men had done some execution, as they covered with their cannon a portion of the road over which the Vendeans had passed, but they had taken no active part whatever in the engagement. What made this the more singular, was that the garrison at Bournan was composed of the very best soldiers of the French republican army. They were under the command of General Coustard, who kept his position during the whole attack, inactive and unmolested; had he attacked M. d'Elbee's army in ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope

... her fondly, and slipped a ring on her finger. "That is our engagement ring," said he. "Now you are mine; you wear my ring; this is the first link of that chain with which I will bind your whole life to mine! You are my prisoner; nothing can release you. But listen! what is that noise? The king has descended to the court; he will be looking ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... inquiring, he found that most of the young men were gone to sit up all night in the "big house". So much being known, any additional information to Donnel was unnecessary. He accordingly relinquished the enterprise; and remembering the engagement with young Henderson at the Grey Stone, met him there, to receive the wages of his iniquity; but with what success, ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton

... as soon as they were seated, 'let me ask you a plain question: Is it your intention to break your engagement with my daughter?' ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... to try the experiment. No. 13 was taken, and Mrs. Kenny engaged for two days' work each week, with such other occasional assistance as Clover might require. She was a widow, it seemed, with one son, who, being employed on the railroad, only came home for the nights. She was glad of a regular engagement, and proved an excellent stand-by and a great help to Clover, to whom she had taken a fancy from the start; and many were the good turns which she did for love rather than hire for "my little ...
— Clover • Susan Coolidge

... "a mystic, a transcendentalist, and a natural philosopher." He made such money as his extremely simple mode of life called for, by building boats or fences, agricultural or garden work, and surveying, anything almost of an outdoor character which did not involve lengthened engagement. In 1837 he began his diaries, records of observation with which in ten years he filled 30 vols. In 1839 he made the excursion the record of which he in 1845 pub. as A Week on the Concord and Merrimac Rivers. Two years later, in 1841, he began a residence in the household of ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin

... the Cross on the roadside up the hill behind the village had been suggested as the rendezvous, and that seven in the evening had seemed a convenient hour to propose for the meeting. For Guillaume had no reason to suppose that a prior engagement would take the Captain to the same ...
— Captain Dieppe • Anthony Hope

... that the command then being short of ammunition, and seized with panic at this event and the great numerical superiority of the Indians, attempted to retreat toward the fort; that the mountaineers and old soldiers, who had learned that a movement from Indians, in an engagement, was equivalent to death, remained in their first position, and were killed there; that immediately upon the commencement of the retreat the Indians charged upon and surrounded the party, who could not now be formed by their officers, and were ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman

... of the wooded ridge, was seen the sudden glint of sunlight on metal. "They're coming!" the message went round and the settlers in ambush crouched more closely behind their screens and even the hearts of old Indian fighters beat faster at the nearing prospect of an engagement. James Breckenridge, Ethan Allen, and several others advanced slowly from the direction of the house to the bridge across which the Yorkers must pass. Sheriff Ten Eyck spurred forward with his personal staff to meet them. With ...
— With Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga • W. Bert Foster

... difficulties, and relied upon the upturning of some means of payment, on the arrival of the distant day. But distant as it looked at first, it crept nearer and nearer, until at the end of two months, when—as he saw no possibility of relieving himself from the engagement—it appeared close upon him, haunting him morning, noon, and night, wheresoever he might be, and sickening him with its terrible and desperate aspect. When there wanted only a week to the fatal day, Michael's hope of meeting the note of hand was slighter ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various

... to," responded Nancy, and Steve, feeling that her agreement was upon the basis of the old family relationship between them, made no excuse, though he did not doubt, with the fatality of anxious lovers, that the engagement had taken place. The two started off with Gyp and the family horse for a three mile canter, and Steve's spirit rose with the exhilaration of ...
— The Boy from Hollow Hut - A Story of the Kentucky Mountains • Isla May Mullins

... you come, then?" asked Ravenel, with sarcastic jocularity, "if you had an engagement at that time. I thought you business men kept better account of your minutes and seconds ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry

... Charlie Walker, the other two young fellows who were looked upon as Jenny's admirers, were terribly shaken in heart and spirit when they heard of her flirtation with the handsome young Englishman; but such a thing as an engagement between them was never for a moment entertained. Bob was too much a man of the world to suppose that Jenny would ever give him up for another; and poor, soft-headed Charlie, why, he was sure the Colonel's ...
— Scottish Football Reminiscences and Sketches • David Drummond Bone

... have got him there to marry him, but Mrs. Bentley seems to have meant nothing more than an engagement at the worst." ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells

... Captain le Harnois; a worthy Christian, and one who admired—patronized—and personally promoted unlimited freedom of trade by every means in his power. The place of rendezvous is Huntingcross, near the sea-side by Aberkilvie; the time nine in the morning. If any other engagement should interfere with your attending at this hour and place, you will be so good as to join us on the road to Griffith ap Gauvon. Finally, dear christian brother, out of affection to the memory of the deceased have the kindness to ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. I. • Thomas De Quincey

... captain has sent you an engagement-ring; but you must not put it on your finger as long as you are a heretic. You must first become a ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai

... good-natured man turned into the hotel again, to conduct Mr. Bruce back to the door from which he had fled in anguish an hour or two ago, and was thus five minutes too late for another professional engagement, which could not be postponed, but went on indeed very well without him, the expectant lady being a person of experience, the wife of a Calais fisherman, and now employed for the thirteenth time in her yearly occupation. But this has nothing ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville

... proceeded. It was probably begun before he entered the cardinal's service; certainly was in progress during the early part of his engagement. This appears from a letter written to Ippolito by his sister the Marchioness of Mantua, to whom he had sent Ariosto at the beginning of the year 1509 to congratulate her on the birth of a child. She gives ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt

... Mr. Tait, the present minister of Kirkliston, farther speaks of the "Catstean (as) supposed to be a corruption of Constantine, and to have been erected to the honour of Constantine, one of the commanders in the same engagement, who ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson

... said Dr. Bates thoughtfully. Back in his mind was the recollection of a broken engagement, or something of the sort. "I see. Naturally. I think, on the whole, my boy, she believes that I told her the truth. You needn't be uneasy on that score. I—I—for a moment I had an idea that you might have said something to her." It ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon

... pleasantly—as pleasantly as usual—so pleasantly as to cause some of her fellow-guests to smile and whisper significantly to one another, suggesting the impossibility of two persons who got on so well together as Mr. Holland and Miss Ayrton being separated by a barrier so paltry as an engagement broken off by the young woman for ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore

... Them as ain't 'ungry never enj'ys their damaged tarts. If I'm 'appy, vere's the odds? as the cat said to the mouse as wanted to be let off the engagement. Why should I work more'n any ...
— Stephen Archer and Other Tales • George MacDonald

... while I was away. You know I believe the reason you sent me trooping to the continent in such haste, was you wanted to ensure your engagement ring being 'made in Germany.' It's had a stormy passage to England, has that ring, I suppose the advantage of buying rings in Germany is that you're certain not to get Paris diamonds in them, they are so intensely ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... understand!" cried Mother Brown. "Just before I sent the children to the store I was doing something in the kitchen. I took off the beautiful diamond engagement ring you gave me, and put it in the pocketbook. I meant to take it out in a moment, but Mrs. Newton came over, and I forgot it. Then I slipped a five-dollar bill in the purse and gave it to the children to go to the store. Oh, dear! ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue at Christmas Tree Cove • Laura Lee Hope

... of telling you that in private, Mr. Hawes. I think, Lepel, we have an engagement with Mr. Jones at nine o'clock." So saying, the new chaplain, with a bow to the governor, took his friend's arm and went to tea with ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade

... present day. My Catholicism was that of Scripture, of the councils, and of the theologians. This Catholicism I loved, and I still respect it; having found it inadmissible, I separated myself from it. This is a straightforward course, but what is not straightforward is to pretend ignorance of the engagement contracted, and to become the apologist of things concerning which one is ignorant. I have never lent myself to a falsehood of this description, and I have looked upon it as disrespectful to the faith to practise ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan

... to this lad will not seriously affect your school; but we will talk further of the matter on some future occasion. I have an engagement this morning. Good-by! Oh, by the way—I had nearly forgotten: Mervin, and Turner, and the other old boys are coming down to my place for an oyster roast on Thursday night. I won't ask you if you will come. I say to you that you must do so; and I will not stop to hear any denial. ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... encounter yet between the hostile ships. The huge distances involved in the engagement must be kept in mind. The gravity rays from the Wandl ships were only a slight disturbing element at such a long distance; Grantline's Zed-rays and Benson curve-lights were defensive only. For offence, Grantline's electronic ...
— Wandl the Invader • Raymond King Cummings

... opposites which people (ignoring the salient fact that love has about as much part in it as it has in the pursuit of a spring chicken by a hawk) speak of with sentiment as "a triumph of love over differences." Even in the first days of their engagement, there could be found no better reason for their marriage than the meeting of Cyrus's stubborn propensity to have his way with the terror of imaginary spinsterhood which had seized Belinda in a temporary lapse of suitors. Having married, they immediately proceeded, ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow

... the war-path, it was their custom to try the new warriors thoroughly before coming to an engagement. For instance, when they were near a hostile camp, they would select the novices to go after the water and make them do all sorts of things to prove their courage. In accordance with this idea, my uncle used to send me off ...
— Indian Child Life • Charles A. Eastman

... second only to Gabrielli, whom she even rivalled in neatness of execution. Mount Edgcumbe found Miss Davies in Florence, unengaged and poor. A concert was arranged at which she appeared with her sister. Later she returned to England ... too old to secure an engagement. "This unfortunate woman is now (in 1834) living in London, in the extreme of old age, disease, and poverty," writes the Earl. He also speaks of a Signora Galli, of large and masculine figure and contralto voice, who frequently ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten

... against the United States because its Government had acted at once instead of waiting while the representatives of a score of other nations were discussing whether any action was permissible. Would not the alternative between breaking the engagement and undertaking a bitter and ruinous war against a powerful and friendly nation put us in an intolerable position? Half a dozen States in the League might for one reason or another wish to resist the claim of the United States for redress. ...
— Rebuilding Britain - A Survey Of Problems Of Reconstruction After The World War • Alfred Hopkinson

... to meet her at Paddington, remembering the meeting when she had come up after their engagement. It was a different Karen, a Karen furred and finished and nearly elegant, who stepped from the train; but she had, as then, her little basket with the knitting and the book; and the girlish face was scarcely altered; there was even a preoccupation on it that recalled still ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick

... to prove how we Bedlamites stand by one another by placing yourself under my orders for a whole hour. You have no duty or engagement, have you?" ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King

... just reached the word "battle," in the second line upon which he was bestowing what he meant to be a shake, when, as if the word suggested it, it seemed the signal for a general engagement. Decanters, glasses, jugs, candlesticks,—aye, and the money-dish, flew right and left—all originally intended, it is ture, for the head of the luckless adjutant, but as they now and then missed their aim, and came in ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 1 • Charles James Lever

... little while! In fact, I do not see how it can go on at all. I will go and see your school madam and tell her you have made another engagement.' ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner

... with fresh breezes and favoring squalls, took us the whole length of the delightful lake, whose waters had seldom been vexed by a keel as long as the Julia's, and brought us to an anchor off Eskimo Island. Here we had one of our regular fights with the mosquitoes, the engagement perhaps being a trifle hotter than usual, for they swarmed down the companion way every time the "mosquito door," of netting on a light frame hinged to the hatch house, was opened, in brigades and divisions and finally by whole army ...
— Bowdoin Boys in Labrador • Jonathan Prince (Jr.) Cilley

... necessary to inquire whether opulence be an adequate compensation for the sacrifice of bodily and mental freedom; for Frances Burney paid for leave to be a prisoner and a menial. It was evidently understood as one of the terms of her engagement, that, while she was a member of the royal household, she was not to appear before the public as an author; and, even had there been no such understanding, her avocations were such as left her no leisure for any considerable intellectual effort. That her place was incompatible ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... You know about that, I take it—Miss Sloane, daughter of A. B. Sloane, Sloanehurst, where she was murdered. They're engaged. At least, that is—was Mildred's information, although the engagement hasn't been announced, formally. Fact is, he has ...
— No Clue - A Mystery Story • James Hay

... Ellen still said nothing. She had made a curious compact for a young girl with her lover. She had stipulated that no engagement was to exist, that she should be perfectly free—when she said that she thought of Maud Hemingway, but she said it without a tremor—and if years hence both were free and of the same mind they ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... fortified and many Turks work every night on trenches, redoubts and entanglements. Not one single living soul has been seen, since the engagement of our Marines at the end of February, although each morning brings forth fresh evidences of nocturnal activity, in patches of freshly turned up soil. All landing places are now commanded by lines of trenches and are ranged by field guns and howitzers, which, thus far, ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton

... resolution to go with me to the Hebrides this year; and I told him that I had received a letter from Dr. Robertson the historian, upon the subject, with which he was much pleased; and now talked in such a manner of his long-intended tour, that I was satisfied he meant to fulfil his engagement. ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... Blessington's was Rachel. It was many years ago, before her star had attained its zenith. "She took tea with her Ladyship, and was accompanied by a female attendant, her mother I think. Rachel had very little to say, and left early, as she had an engagement at the theatre. There was nothing particularly noticeable in her appearance, but she was very ladylike. I ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various

... invite you of course, because I knew you would make yourself disagreeable—forbid the banns, or something, and scare away all the ladies and gentlemen, for you are a most awful fright, with your red hair and freckles, so I thought it best to say nothing about the engagement until the ceremony was over. It was performed by the Rev. Sinister Cornix, and it was a very select affair, I assure you, and the dresses were so lovely. There were six bridesmaids—the Misses Mudlark. The Mudlarks, you know, have a good pedigree, they are come of the younger branch ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale

... the other five children were left behind at the dinner-table, through Flopson's having some private engagement, and their not being anybody else's business. I thus became aware of the mutual relations between them and Mr. Pocket, which were exemplified in the following manner. Mr. Pocket, with the normal perplexity of his face heightened and his hair rumpled, ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens

... eight communications betrayed nothing distinctly, beyond the fact that the child which formed the subject of the whole correspondence, was to be received by Peter Dowse and his wife, and to be retained as their own offspring, for the consideration of a considerable sum, with an additional engagement to pay an annuity. It appeared by these letters also, that the child, which was hypocritically alluded to under the name of the 'pet,' had been actually transferred to the keeping of Jane Dowse, and that several years passed, after this arrangement, before the correspondence ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper

... Sometimes a note of explanation is sent asking that the formality be waived, but it is never disregarded, except in the case of an invitation from an older lady to a young girl. Mrs. Worldly, for instance, who has known Jim Smartlington always, might, instead of calling on Mary Smith, to whom his engagement is announced, write her a note, asking her to lunch or dinner. But in inviting Mrs. Greatlake of Chicago she would leave her card with her invitation at ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post

... you, Surtaine," said Willard pleasantly. "Jinny has never ceased to wonder why she heard nothing from you in reply to her note telling of our engagement." ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... Flemings all the forces that Philip was able to muster. The two leading actions of the ensuing war—that at Courtrai, known as the "Battle of the Spurs," on account of the number of gilt spurs captured by the Flemings, and the engagement at Mons-la-Puelle—are described in the course of the narrative which follows. As a result of the battle of Courtrai the French nobility were nearly destroyed, and Philip found it necessary to recreate his ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... Dresden-Hamburg" is considered sufficient. But the printed intimations sent round on gilt-edged paper or cardboard to the friends of the contracting parties are more communicative. On one side the parents have the honour to announce the engagement of their daughter Anna to Mr. So-and-So, and on the other side Mr. So-and-So announces his engagement to Miss Anna. Here is a reproduction of such a form, with nothing altered except the actual names and addresses. On the left-hand ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick

... some of the arrows of criticism,"—an advertisement which, from the eleventh to the "one hundred and fifth edition," has been promising "to the publick another and a better edition,"—he plainly offers this urgent engagement, as ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... sound of the guns rolled up the Williamsburg road, and in the streets men shouted hoarsely of an engagement with the enemy at Seven Pines. With the noise Virginia thrilled to her first feeling of danger, starting from a repose which, in its unconsciousness, had been as profound as sleep. The horror of war rushed in upon her at the moment, and with ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow

... Hotel de l'Europe, close by, in the Piazza di Spagna. A note from you would put her in the seventh heaven. She is certain to give up any other engagement she ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio

... "Reported engagement of Miss Elizabeth Dalrymple to Prince Boris Strogareff ... the prince has vast estates in Russia and Russia-Asia ... his forbears were prominent in the days when Crakow was building and the Cossacks and the Poles were ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham

... think poor Hunt's promise to pay in a given time is worth very much; but mine is less subject to uncertainty, and I should be happy to be responsible for any engagement he may have proposed to you. I am so much annoyed by this subject that I hardly know what to write, and much less what to say; and I have need of all your indulgence in judging ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... married somebody else whom he met abroad. "Now," says the dramatist, "what is the shortest possible space of time I can allow for this? Ahem!—say a month." So he gives him a month. "Then," says he, next, "what is the shortest possible time we can allow for an engagement and a marriage? Say six weeks. Good. Six weeks be it. Only, hang it, this muddle has to last for six weeks! Well, it can't be helped. I can't give any more trouble to the bothering plot; and, as after all, there's a capital character for Mr. HARE, and not at all a bad ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 14, 1893 • Various

... a treaty: "The apparent determination of the respective States to regulate their own separate interests renders it absolutely necessary, towards forming a permanent system of commerce, that my court should be informed how far the commissioners can be duly authorized to enter into any engagement with Great Britain which it may not be in the power of any one of the States to ...
— Formation of the Union • Albert Bushnell Hart

... to Sandy, who was having his tea, to get ready, and then came back to Dora. She was standing by the fire looking at an engagement tablet filled ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... of true affection. I hope you will receive mine as such, or I would set out for C(astle) H(oward) directly. I have totally laid aside the thoughts of going this year to Matson, or even to Gloucester. I have no engagement, but to be one day at Luggershall, but that with difficulty can be dispensed with. Neither Lord N(orth) or his Parliament, or anything else shall prevent me from going to you ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue

... desire that the name of Joshua Brogden, may be inserted in the next commission of the Peace for Middlesex and Westminster for whose [integrity] and Ability in the Execution of his office. I will engage my credit with your Lordship, an Engagement which appears to me of the most ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden

... entrance of the harbour indicating that a vessel was in sight. In the midst of the excitement that this caused, steam was hastily got up on board the gunboat, and the decks cleared for action ready for an engagement if necessary in Don ...
— Fitz the Filibuster • George Manville Fenn

... simplicity, said that such was his object, but he should like to know what they deemed the clearest course to follow with that object in view. After some farther conversation—"No other plan was proposed by them," says the doctor; and he adds, "they had violated their engagement to hear me for twelve hours, for which I had stipulated." This may, perhaps, satisfy the reader as to the quality of the doctor's understanding; but as the subject, in its bearing, touches Lord Byron's character, I shall proceed a little farther ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt

... prodigality to a state of extreme want, found his existence no longer supportable; and, having been sent by his countrymen on a military expedition, to assist the Florentine against the Aretini, took that opportunity of exposing himself to certain death, in the engagement which took place at Toppo near Arezzo. See G. Villani, ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante

... urged to these labours of love, from the consideration that they possess the most leisure and the best opportunities of doing them. It would prove a wise and pleasurable mode of employing some of the intervals of domestic engagement, and furnish both useful and interesting subjects of reflection to fill up the vacuities of thought. But if the multiplicity of their concerns furnish some plausible excuse for, at least, a less constant and busy attention to the wants of poverty; single ladies, on whom the cares of ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox

... piano. By the time Melanie had sung everybody's favorites, excluding Aleck's, Mr. Chamberlain rose to depart. He was an Englishman, a serious, heavy gentleman, very loyal to old friends and very slow in making new ones. He made an engagement to dine with Aleck on the following evening, and, as he went out, threw back to the remaining gentlemen an offer of seats in ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger

... keep Rufus longer in suspense, gave him a full account of her morning's adventures, including her engagement with Mrs. Colman. ...
— Rufus and Rose - The Fortunes of Rough and Ready • Horatio Alger, Jr

... did with his chief generals before a decisive engagement, Edison would shut himself up with his confidential coworkers. Sometimes he and they would neither eat nor sleep till they had fought out a problem of greater importance to the world than even Napoleon's crossing the Alps or the ...
— Radio Boys Cronies • Wayne Whipple and S. F. Aaron

... want to risk an engagement with the Chinese, and he declared that he would withdraw his Guard, and take them back to his Legation. Young General So drew his sword threateningly, and told him that they must stay and see it through. ...
— Korea's Fight for Freedom • F.A. McKenzie

... yellow-cheeked pippins, where I had once seen only unproductive heath, that scantily covered a barren soil of ferruginous sand, and unwillingly declining an invitation to wait tea,—for a previous engagement interfered,—I took leave of the family, and returned to Dingwall. The following morning was gloomy, and threatened rain; and giving up my intention of exploring Strathpeffer, I took the morning coach for Invergordon, ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller

... maintenance of discipline to have men like Sir John Byng court-martialled and shot after being tried, it is said, by a not entirely impartial court, on the supposition that he had neglected his duty in an engagement with the French off Minorca on the 20th May, 1756, and committed an error of judgment. A rather remarkable method of enforcing discipline, to shoot an admiral for ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman

... that you really can put off the engagement for that poor little Theodore, I will do ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac

... report, such as it was, to Colonel Romer, and was praised. Moral: Be called away by some pressing engagement before the captain calls for volunteers. May Gott ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson

... the meal, and throughout its continuance, Selina, who sat beside her first intended husband, tried frequently to break the news to him of her engagement to the other—now terminated so suddenly, and so happily for her heart, and her sense of womanly virtue. But the talk ran entirely upon the late war; and though fortified by half a horn of the strong ale brought ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy

... but where the Lord alone knew.... Perhaps the reinforcements were lying in wait for the boats at the Garplefoot. That struck him as a likely explanation, and comforted him. Very soon he might hear the sound of an engagement to the south, and the next thing would be Dobson and his crew in flight. He was determined to be in the show somehow and would be very close on their heels. He felt a peculiar dislike to all three, but especially to Leon. The Belgian's small baby features had ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan

... it mean?—to vanish without a sign! an engagement for the evening, and not a line left in explanation or excuse! It was not like her. There must be something wrong, some mystery. He tormented himself with a thousand fancies and fears over what, he confessed, was probably a mere accident; wisely determined to do so no longer,—but did, ...
— What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson

... gone to bed that first night of her engagement to Mr. Gibson, fully anticipating a speedy marriage. She looked to it as a release from the thraldom of keeping school—keeping an unprofitable school, with barely enough of pupils to pay for house-rent and taxes, food, washing, and the requisite masters. She saw no reason ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... that she had been amazed to find how, in spite of a very warm affection for her, her husband, and children, her father hankered after the old name, and grieved that he could not fulfil his old engagement to his cousin Robert. Giles Headley had managed the business excellently during Stephen's absence, had shown himself very capable, and gained good opinions from all. Rubbing about in the world had been very good for ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge

... continued, "that you would come. I have it here in my pocket—and—and the gate key." She determined this time to introduce the key early in the engagement. "But I feared you might not want to come." The cunning, the boldness, and the humility of the serpent was in the girl. "That is, you know, I thought—perhaps—that is, I feared that you might not come. Your father might have been ill, or you might ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major

... Our engagement in the town hall extended through two March evenings and was largely patronized. It would seem that I was a dominant figure on both occasions, for I declaimed a "piece" on the opening night, one of those resounding orations (addressed to the Carthaginians), which ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland

... impromptu "Vamper" (gentleman born) of several years' experience in best London Society, is anxious to meet with bold and speculative Manager who will offer him a first engagement. Can sing—omitting a few high notes—various popular melodies, comprising, "Aunt Sarah's Back-hair," "The Twopenny Toff of 'Ighgate 'Ill," and "Tommy Robinson's Last Cigar," and also play piano if required, with one finger, but prefers to be accompanied by indefatigable friend, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, July 19, 1890 • Various

... very moment, when the tension reached its highest point and the nightmare was about to pass in a ruthless engagement, Hershel Mak, unable to control his strained nerves any longer began to pray plaintively in the tongue of his forefathers. "Shma Isroel! Shma Isroel!" ... His comrades did not understand him and glanced at him in terror, as at a madman, but from the opposite side another frightened and plaintive ...
— The Shield • Various

... so his name was changed to "Edward"; but he confessed that it was a matter he greatly regretted. He told us many stories of his early career as an actor, one of which I remember as a very amusing experience on the part of the elder actor when on his way to Australia. Mr. Booth had an engagement to play in that distant section, and with five members, the nucleus of a company, started from San Francisco. They had occasion to stop at Honolulu en route. The stop there being longer than originally anticipated, and the news of his arrival having ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy

... under an engagement with himself to go and see Mr. Irwine this Friday morning, and he is awake and dressing so early that he determines to go before breakfast, instead of after. The rector, he knows, breakfasts alone at half-past nine, the ladies of the family ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot

... considerable pressure from Fraser, she had consented to marry him in June. The only real reason for choosing that month was, that it was close at hand, though Fraser supplied her with several others to choose from. Their engagement could hardly have been said to have been announced, for with the exception of old Mr. Fraser and the crew of the Swallow, who had gleaned the fact for themselves without any undue strain on their intellects, there ...
— A Master Of Craft • W. W. Jacobs

... infusions into aristocratic veins of vigorous common blood. Cornelia Bowker, born Lard, adored "birth." In fulfilling her third ambition she had herself born again. From the moment of the announcement of her daughter's engagement to Lucius Severence, she ceased to be Lard or Bowker and became Severence, more of a Severence than any of the veritable Severences. Soon after her son-in-law and his father died, she became so much THE Severence that fashionable people forgot her origin, regarded her as the ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips

... returned Edwin, in his cordial manner, "consider! When you were going on so happily with Angela, why should I compromise you with the old gentleman by making you a party to our engagement, and (after he had declined my proposals) to our secret intention? Surely it was better that you should be able honourably to say, 'He never took counsel with me, never told me, never breathed a word of it.' If ...
— The Holly-Tree • Charles Dickens

... when Mr. and Mrs. Joel Mazarine arrived at Askatoon to take possession of Tralee, the ranch which Michael Turley, abandoning because he had an unavoidable engagement in another world, left to his next of kin, with a legacy to another kinsman a little farther off. The next of kin had proved to be Joel Mazarine, from one of those stern English counties on the borders of Quebec, where ancient tribal ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... all over, stared at him, and taking a sudden thought, turned round and trotted off. Bob took the dead dog up and said, "John, we'll bury him after tea." "Yes," said I, and was off after the mastiff. He made up the Cowgate at rapid swing; he had forgotten some engagement. He turned up the Candlemaker Row, and stopt at the ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various

... 7th, 1794, he announces to his friend Mathews, who was employed on the newspapers, his desire and intention of coming to London for the same purpose, and requests him to procure for him a similar engagement. 'You say a newspaper would be glad of me. Do you think you could ensure me employment in that way, on terms similar to your own? I mean, also, in an Opposition paper, for I cannot abet, in the smallest degree, the measures pursued by the present ministry. They are already so deeply ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... is a Catholic, became engaged to a Protestant girl, and spoke of changing his religion. The family and the patient were annoyed at this, and the patient is said to have worried about it, but was otherwise quite natural until seven days before admission. Then, at the engagement dinner of the brother, the psychosis broke out. She refused to sit down to the table, and then suddenly began to sing and dance, cry and laugh and talk in a disconnected manner. Among other things, she said ...
— Benign Stupors - A Study of a New Manic-Depressive Reaction Type • August Hoch

... writing I have to call your attention to without a light. I shall detain you no longer than is necessary. Had you an engagement?" ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King

... the Athenian and Spartan admirals were intent only on securing possession of the islands, and would not venture on any enterprise against the coast of Asia. Perhaps it was because he still feared to risk another engagement on the sea, that the Persian admiral found a pretext for laying up his ships. He declared that they were so foul with weeds and barnacles that, as a prelude to any further operations, they must be beached and cleaned. ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale

... knapsack on one's back, sweating freely for eight or ten hours at a time.... Glad above all to get in touch with the enemy, and rest a little lying down under a bank, while one peppered the boches.... This young Cyrano declared that fighting rested you after a march, and when he described an engagement you would have said that he was at a concert ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain

... When his engagement was announced to Dumbarton's cousin, Lady Ermyntrude Stanley-Dalrymple, elder daughter of Lord Belfast, a social personage and a power in the inner councils of the Conservative Party, it was suggested that there might be some connection between this rather unexpected ...
— War-time Silhouettes • Stephen Hudson

... week from the day of the engagement, a letter came from Cornelia, speaking of her desire to be at home again, and further intimating that she meant to return in a month at farthest. She did not write with as much liveliness and light-heartedness as usual. Sophie read the letter ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne

... friendship with Frau von Stein, at the time of his engagement to Lili Schoenemann, Goethe experienced a spiritual love for a girl he had never seen. He calls Countess Auguste Stolberg "his angel," "his only, only maiden," "his golden child," and says: "I have an intuition that ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka

... up in bundles of fifty. Knots of committee-men of both parties stood chatting in low voices. In an ordinary election both candidates would have chatted together, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred about golf, and would have made an engagement to meet again in milder conflict that day week. But here Paul was the only candidate to appear, and he sat in a cane-bottomed chair apart from the lounging politicians, feeling curiously an interloper in this vast, solemn and scantily-filled hall. He was ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke

... proceed. He explained his singular detention as the act of a whole family of witches whom he had unfortunately offended during a visit down East. It was rumored that the offence consisted in breaking off a matrimonial engagement with the youngest member of the family,—a sorceress, perhaps, in more than one sense of the word, like that "winsome wench and walie" in Tam O'Shanter's witch-dance at Kirk Alloway. His only hope was that he should ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... Frederic, a martial and amorous young Prince, had married a beautiful young lady, of whom he was enamoured, and who had died in childbed of Isabella. Her death affected him so much that he had taken the cross and gone to the Holy Land, where he was wounded in an engagement against the infidels, made prisoner, and reported to be dead. When the news reached Manfred's ears, he bribed the guardians of the Lady Isabella to deliver her up to him as a bride for his son Conrad, by which alliance he had proposed to unite the claims of the two houses. ...
— The Castle of Otranto • Horace Walpole

... time we were all asleep. We rose at dawn, hungry and shivering, to resume our journey. On this day the enemy marched parallel with us, but on the other side of a deep gorge, and General Sucre tried in vain to draw them into an engagement. Their leader was too crafty. Why need he sacrifice ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens

... the direct road to Piketon, and encountered the enemy in ambush on the mountain at Ivy Creek. Pushing forward at once with the force under his immediate command, Nelson attacked the enemy, and after a brisk engagement, lasting over an hour, routed them from their cover and drove them in ...
— The Army of the Cumberland • Henry M. Cist

... condition of the re-establishment of monarchy. Thus, a friendly understanding was at last arrived at; and on 24th December 1799 Grenville empowered Minto to prepare a treaty, adding that on the first opportunity the French Government should be informed of this engagement. ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose

... Medun, defeated the Turks on these slopes in the first engagement of the last war, successfully inaugurating the campaigning which secured to Montenegro all the territory through which we had been riding for so many weeks, including the towns of Podgorica and Niksic, and the great valley now stretched at ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon

... that they were both extremely well dressed. She felt herself shabby and slovenly beside them, and did not know how she should entertain them, nor could she guess why they had come. She had heard nothing of their engagement. But after the first disappointment, she was pleased, for she felt instantly that Katharine was a personality, and, moreover, she need ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf

... occasioned by that clash, loud sounds were heard resembling what occurs at Garuda's swoop. And the rider of those steeds, O king, thus dashing against one another in that battle, began to slay one another fiercely. And during that general engagement which was fierce and terrible, the chargers of both sides (escaping from press of battle) ran wildly away over the field. Weakened by one another's shafts, brave warriors, with their horses killed under them, and themselves worn out with exertion, perished fast ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... is a forgery! the house of Meulaert has never contracted any engagement with William Smith; ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue

... at Rocky Face Ridge. Now, for old Joe's generalship. We have seen him in camp, now we will see him in action. We are marched to meet the enemy; we occupy Turner's Gap at Tunnel Hill. Now, come on, Mr. Yank—we are keen for an engagement. It is like a picnic; the soldiers are ruddy and fat, and strong; whoop! whoop! hurrah! come on, Mr. Yank. We form line of battle on top of Rocky Face Ridge, and here we are face to face with the enemy. Why don't you unbottle your thunderbolts and dash us to pieces? Ha! here it comes; ...
— "Co. Aytch" - Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment - or, A Side Show of the Big Show • Sam R. Watkins

... to co-operate with the Percies, there is every reason to regard as time; that he undertook to be with them at Shrewsbury on that day of battle cannot, it should seem, be true. Probably he never heard of any expectation of such an engagement, (p. 165) and the first news which reached him relating to it may have been tidings of Percy's death, and the discomfiture of his troops. The Welsh historians unsparingly charge him with having deceived ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 1 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler

... the eldest Miss Larkins, one of David Copperfield's early, fleeting loves. He used to wander up and down outside the home of his beloved and watch the officers going in to hear Miss L. play the harp. On hearing of her engagement to one of these he mourned for a very brief period, and then went forth and gloriously defeated his old enemy the butcher boy. What a contrast between this humour and the strange scene in the drawing-room ...
— Charles Dickens and Music • James T. Lightwood

... he knows nothing, suspects nothing of my preferences—how should he? No, dearest girl—his notion that I must have a moneyed bride is the merest whim of dotage; we must forgive the whims of ninety-five. That great age also augurs for us a short engagement and a speedy union!" ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... the rank of major, and received large pecuniary rewards from the king. The brightest event, however, of his life was still to come; and this was the battle of Hohenfriedberg, in 1745. In spite of Frederic's successes, his position before that engagement was extremely critical. Austria had concluded a treaty with England, Holland and Saxony against Prussia. France declined to assist Frederic, Russia threatened to take part against him. On the 19th of April, the ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller

... the wedding of Bazon, whose bride, for her rebellious love, had recently been driven from her mother's home. Bazon, touched by this act of loyalty, cut his engagement with another girl and made the preparations for the wedding feast. I met the little Maraquita at Bazon's reception, and conversed with her through an interpreter. "The senorita says," so the ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert

... the melancholy news of poor Lady Ashburnham's death. The Bishop of Clogher and Dr. Pratt made me dine with them to-day at Lord Mountjoy's, pursuant to an engagement, which I had forgot. Lady Mountjoy told me that Maccartney was got safe out of our clutches, for she had spoke with one who had a letter from him from Holland. Others say the same thing. 'Tis hard such a dog should escape.—As I left Lord Mountjoy's I saw the Duke ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift

... Church had interposed, and refused to permit their union, as they were second cousins. He was now in the south of France, where he beheld the beautiful Isabelle, daughter of the Count of Angouleme, only waiting till her age was sufficient for her to fulfill the engagement made in her infancy, and become the wife of Hugh de Lusignan, called le brun, Count de la Marche, namely, the borders of English and French Poitou. Regardless of their former ties, John at once obtained the damsel from her faithless parents, and made her his queen; ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... Halifax did not long continue. In 1766 he obtained an advantageous engagement as oboist at Bath, and soon after the position of organist at the Octagon Chapel was offered to him and accepted. This was ...
— Sir William Herschel: His Life and Works • Edward Singleton Holden

... which Government should forbid, it is a secret engagement. Engagements should be advertised as marriages are; but unless we happen to be persons of social importance, or considerable notoriety, no such precautions are taken. Of course there are engagement rings; but ...
— Comedies of Courtship • Anthony Hope

... I know who is. Dr. Rylance looks twenty years younger since the engagement. He was beginning to get weighed down by Urania. You remember with what a firm hand he managed her in days gone by! Well, after she took to Huxley and Darwin, and the rest of them, that was all over. She was always tripping ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon

... to himself, by a great many reasonings of the same kind, and all out of season, that in such an engagement it was much better to partake with another than to have nothing at all, he filled his mind with a number of vain regrets and unprofitable remorse, when he received a letter from her who occasioned them, but a letter so exactly adapted to increase them, that, after he had read it, he ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... people of Athens, who, without remission, or once vouchsafing to hear what they had to say for themselves, put to death their brave captains newly returned triumphant from a naval victory they had obtained over the Lacedaemonians near the Arginusian Isles, the most bloody and obstinate engagement that ever the Greeks fought at sea; because (after the victory) they followed up the blow and pursued the advantages presented to them by the rule of war, rather than stay to gather up and bury their dead. And the execution is yet rendered ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... attention was religion. The church of England was established by law, and provision was made for its ministers. To preserve the purity and unity of its doctrines and discipline, those only who had been ordained by some bishop in England, and who should subscribe an engagement to conform to the constitution of the church of England and the laws there established, could be inducted by the governor: and no others were permitted to preach. The day of the execution of Charles I. was ordered to be kept as a fast; and the anniversaries of the birth, ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall

... waiting several days to prevent any suspicious coincidence in the time of our departure, I one night, soon after midnight, crept from my bed and followed him. I overtook him at a village some twenty miles distant, where he was remaining a day or two, and easily procured an engagement with him, since I desired nothing but to serve him and be taught the mechanical details of his art. My father had no clue whatever to my direction, for he had not dreamed of anything unusual in my thoughts or plans. He was now entirely alone. But I knew ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various

... attractive; nor that, following diligently his points of advantage, he progressed from acquaintanceship to intimacy, and intimacy to avowed admiration; and thence (between ourselves) to the resolute measure of engagement. ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... is not my own just now, gentlemen," explained General Waymouth. "I have a luncheon engagement with Mr. and Mrs. Presson. I will see you at some ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day

... lady, mind, being of his own blood and family, related to him as his cousin. I have innocently robbed her of her lover, and destroyed her prospects in life. Innocently, I say—because he told me nothing of his engagement until after I had accepted him. When we next met in England—and when there was danger, no doubt, of the affair coming to my knowledge—he told me the truth. I was naturally indignant. He had his excuse ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins

... an engagement entered into by all the governors and captains of fortresses affiliated to the order." ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... had passed. I was angry with Monsieur de G—for what I considered the unwarrantable liberty he had taken, the greater as he must have known my utter dependence upon Madame D'Albret; and how unlikely it was that I would form any such engagement without her knowledge and sanction. That I had no love for Monsieur de G—was certain, although I was pleased with his company and conversation. I was sorry on reflection that I had given my promise not to mention what had passed, but having made ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat

... conquered by the West India Company's fleet, and after brief service there to one Of their posts on the West African coast. Returning thence, He was, early in 1628, sent out to Manhattan, where he arrived April 7. It is not known just when he returned to Holland, but he appears to have been under engagement for three years. In 1637-1638 we find the classis vainly endeavoring to send him again to New Netherland, but prevented by the Company, which had a veto upon all such appointments ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • Various

... excuse, such as a cold, a headache, or some previous engagement, especially as she had looked steadily into the fire while we had been talking. Instead of this, however, she frankly accepted my escort, and accordingly ...
— Weapons of Mystery • Joseph Hocking

... on their souls, but pour in your fire!" roared the commander, and the volley was given. The prisoners broke from the ranks of the enemy and ran; the firing became general. For five or ten minutes a brisk engagement was kept up, and then the rebels broke and fled in every direction. The Stockbridge and Lenox companies after having followed the rebels through Great Barrington and on toward Sheffield had also turned in after them on the back road, and coming up behind in the nick of time had ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy

... whole time of the skirmish, the parties keep up the war-cry, or the cry of terror, as each of them seem to be victors or vanquished. The Great Sun is brought back to his hut in a triumphant manner; and the old men, women, and children, who were spectators of the engagement, rend the sky with their joyful acclamations. The Great Sun continues in his hut about half an hour, to repose himself after his great fatigues, which are such that an actor of thirty years of age would with difficulty ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz

... as yet met with no response. After he had been a year in England the only steps towards making a fortune were two public performances at charity matinees, one or two pupils in pianoforte playing, and an occasional but rare engagement for stray pupils at a ...
— Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches • Maurice Baring

... embarrassing for a young lady to have to deny a report of her engagement, especially when it is a report she would willingly have true; but what made it particularly distressing for Maud that this report should have got about was her belief that it would be the means of bringing to an ...
— A Love Story Reversed - 1898 • Edward Bellamy

... moment possible. The hope was expressed that Harry might be able to profit by this opportunity; and Harry's prospects were explained to Meta; then the doctor, recollecting something that he wished to say to Mr. Rivers, began to ask about the chance of his coming before the time of an engagement ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge

... a previous engagement. I am not at all sure that they are the sort of people I ought to know," she said. "My parents are so exclusive! They might ...
— About Peggy Saville • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey

... vow we must know what we are doing and be free to act or not to act. If then the object of the vow is matter on which a vow may validly be taken, we are bound in conscience to keep our solemn engagement. What we forbid ourselves to do may be perfectly lawful and innocent, but by that vow we forfeit the right we had to do it, and for us it has become sinful. The peculiar position in which a vow places a man in relation to his fellow-men concerning what is right and ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton

... place of the discussion had been when the news of her engagement had just been brought into the clubhouse of the Penny Green Golf Club. He had flung out into the rain which had caused the pavilion to be crowded. Fools! Was she pretty! Did they mean to say they couldn't see in her face what he saw in her face? And ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson

... to his engagement, and before the promised hour, returned in safety to his ship. With the first dawn of day, the vessels were put in readiness to weigh anchor, and sail at a moment's warning. At that crisis, La Tour had the vexation ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney

... have the supreme cruelty," he said, "to let poor Hickson think that our engagement is ...
— Ladies Must Live • Alice Duer Miller

... exclaimed Harry cynically. "I have heard enough praise of Miss Georgy for one evening. Ted Hutchinson was talking about her." And with a burst of wrath he went on, retailing the gossip of the night: Ted knew nothing of her engagement, and was wild about her—had sent her a bracelet anonymously, and been thrilled with delight when she showed it to him on her white arm, wondering who could have been so kind. Thorpe too had collected various items of news about her. There was old Blake, a widower—who ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various

... Covenanters under Lord Balfour of Burleigh (1644), delivered the city to rapine. He worsted the Covenanters again after a stiff fight on the 2nd of July 1645, at Alford, a village in the beautiful Howe of Alford. Peace was temporarily restored on the "engagement', of the Scots commissioners to assist Charles I. On his return from Holland in 1650 Charles II. was welcomed in Aberdeen, but in little more than a year General Monk entered the city at the head of the Cromwellian regiments. The English garrison remained till 1659, and next year the ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... "for when you went to town last winter, you promised to take a family dinner with us, as soon as you returned. I have not forgot, you see; and I assure you, I was very much disappointed that you did not come back and keep your engagement." ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... the effects of an arrow wound, and all his foes in this engagement were hanged, except the young warrior who had given him his death wound. Doubtless this was ...
— Comic History of England • Bill Nye

... of sunlight on metal. "They're coming!" the message went round and the settlers in ambush crouched more closely behind their screens and even the hearts of old Indian fighters beat faster at the nearing prospect of an engagement. James Breckenridge, Ethan Allen, and several others advanced slowly from the direction of the house to the bridge across which the Yorkers must pass. Sheriff Ten Eyck spurred forward with his personal staff to meet them. With him came the infamous John Munro ...
— With Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga • W. Bert Foster

... letters on my birthday that year. "Dear, sweet Miss Terry, etc., etc. Will you give me a piano?"!! etc., etc. Another: "Dear Ellen. Come to Jesus. Mary." Another, a lovely letter of thanks from a poor woman in the most ghastly distress, and lastly an offer of a two years' engagement in America. There was a simple coming in for one woman acting at ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry

... SUCH an engagement will be infinitely dearer to her vanity than an avowed and authorised attachment; for one of these sentimental lovers will not scruple very seriously to assure a credulous girl, that her unparalleled merit entitles her to the adoration of the whole world, and that the universal homage of mankind ...
— Essays on Various Subjects - Principally Designed for Young Ladies • Hannah More

... about the work, privileges, etc., and upon the production of some written certificates—it is almost impossible to obtain personal references, and if it were possible you could not rely upon them—the engagement is made. The mistress requires a solemn promise that the servant will come on a certain day, and as often as not the day arrives without her. Our young lady has been round to a number of mistresses and 'priced' their places; she will not wilfully put you in a quandary, but if, after having engaged ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny

... neighbors. "Do you suppose I have been twice married and twice a widder not to know courting when I see it? It's 'Boyd this' and 'Polly that,' to be sure, the whole continyal time; but she is engaged to somebody else, because she has been wearing an engagement ring that has come to her since she has been here. She showed it to me, and she showed it to him! And as for him, everybody 'longcoast knows how dead gone on him that millionaire girl is! Now everybody ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day

... on the left of the smoking-table as JOHN closes the big doors.] This festival, my dear Robbie—[glancing over his shoulder to assure himself that the doors are closed] this festival also celebrates my formal engagement to ...
— The Big Drum - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero

... her attention from the more serious or useful business of life, she will act decidedly wrong and had far better never learn it at all. Another thing to be especially guarded against, is, not to devote too much time to this, or any other engagement, at once; the mind and body are both injured, to a serious extent, by dwelling too long on a single object. Let it never for a moment be forgotten, relaxation and exercise are indispensible, if you wish to enjoy good health, or an ...
— The Ladies' Work-Table Book • Anonymous









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