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More "Maidenly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the first-class passengers, who, to escape for a time the boredom of a long, dull voyage, were eager to make a pet of the interesting and mysterious hero; but Jim's moroseness deepened under the attacks, and at length he escaped with only a glance of almost maidenly coyness whenever circumstances threw him ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... girls, and in the whole tone of their appearance, than in the absolute loveliness of their features or the grace of their figures. There was about them a dignity of demeanour devoid of all stiffness or pride, and a maidenly modesty which gave itself no airs. In them was always apparent that sense of security which women should receive from an unconscious dependence on their own mingled purity and weakness. These two girls were never afraid of men,—never looked as though they were so afraid. And I may say ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... chambers, but you cannot make the true kind of loneliness. In dwelling-houses, there have been family festivals; children have grown in them, girls have bloomed into women in them, courtships and marriages have taken place in them. True chambers never were young, childish, maidenly; never had dolls in them, or rocking-horses, or christenings, or betrothals, or little coffins. Let Gray's Inn identify the child who first touched hands and hearts with Robinson Crusoe, in any one ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... embarrassed by him, saw the life before her as an entrance into a penitentiary. Wild thoughts of running away to be an actress, in spite of Klesmer, came to her with the lure of freedom; but his words still hung heavily on her soul; they had alarmed her pride and even her maidenly dignity: dimly she conceived herself getting amongst vulgar people who would treat her with rude familiarity—odious men, whose grins and smirks would not be seen through the strong grating of polite society. Gwendolen's daring was not in the ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... say yes. The clever, plausible scoundrel dazzled me, and I thought your opposition only maidenly shrinking. Yes, dazzled me, with his wit and cheery manners, knowledge of the world, and such a game, too, as he played at piquet. It was ashore, you see, and he was too much for me. If I'd had him at sea it would have been different. I was to blame ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn
... with a trembling wish to have every thing right and maidenly. "I have seen so much harm from misunderstandings, and they are so simple when it is too late—let me ask you one or two questions, Uncle Sam. You always answer every body. And to you ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... by the strictest code of maidenly ethics, and so artistically developed that the only persons who penetrated their skillful veiling, and detected her as a "designing creature," were two or three maiden friends, whose maneuvers toward the same objective were brought to ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... looked. There was not a person in the room that carried her head so nobly, nor whose pose was so stately and graceful; yet, stately as it was, it had no air of proud self-consciousness, nor of pride at all; it was not that; it was simple, maidenly dignity, not dignity aped. Betty read so much, and rapidly read what else she could see. She saw that the figure she was admiring was dressed but indifferently; the black silk had certainly seen its best days, if it was not ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... embarrassing position. She had come to Switzerland for work, not for love making. Spencer would probably wish to marry her forthwith, and that was not to be thought of while "The Firefly's" commission was only half completed. All of which modest and maidenly reasoning left wholly out of account Spencer's strenuous wooing; it is chronicled here merely to show her state of mind when she kissed ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... was on the march, and was well aware that an enemy might, if he chose, deliver battle, his habit was to lead his troops in compact battle order ready to confront emergencies, with soft, slow step, advancing, as it were, with maidenly demureness, (8) for in such procedure, as he believed, lay the secret of true calm, engendering a dauntless self-assurance, imperturbable, unerring, impervious to treacherous assault. Therefore by such behaviour he was a terror to the enemy, whilst he infused courage and strength in the ...
— Agesilaus • Xenophon
... that I am not deficient in maidenly modesty," said Lady Julia, "when it is not incompatible with what I deem a higher virtue—sincerity. Now and ever, frankness is, and shall be, my only policy. The confidence I am about to repose in you, sir, is the strongest proof of my esteem, and of the gratitude I feel ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... upon anything, and to leave the matter with the "Master" for the present. With this pious resolve she climbed into her maidenly bed; and, before falling asleep, she groaned: "If the rascal had only broken his neck, like the high priest Eli, in ...
— Walter Pieterse - A Story of Holland • Multatuli
... the children under more suitable guardianship; a measure which, it may be, was chiefly hindered by the consideration that, in that case, the cost of supporting them would probably be transferred from the grim Doctor's shoulders to those of the community. Nevertheless, they did what they could. Maidenly ladies, prim and starched, in one or two instances called upon the Doctor—the two children meanwhile being in the graveyard at play—to give him Christian advice as to the management of his charge. But, to confess the truth, the Doctor's reception of these fair missionaries was not extremely courteous. ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... feel much interest in the girl, and had been especially pleased by all absence of the flighty tendencies with which too many girls in public service tempt men to their own destruction. She had seemed to me to bear herself with a maidenly self-respect that spoke of no little grace of breeding. She had two very strong claims on one's regard. She was evidently a woman, in the deep, tragic sense of that word, and a lady in the only true sense of that. ...
— The Book-Bills of Narcissus - An Account Rendered by Richard Le Gallienne • Le Gallienne, Richard
... was waiting for him with that mixture of maidenly feelings of which the discreet novelist only details a selection. It is not customary to dwell upon thoughts of vague regret at the approaching withdrawal of a universal admiration—at the future necessity ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... suddenly, was piteous as he could wish. It fell again for shame at her self-betrayal, for sheer helplessness and dismay, for the sudden realization of what the long days now would be without him, for what life might be if he never came back. With all her pride and strength and maidenly reserve she was struggling hard to fight back the sob that was rising to her throat, the tears that came welling to her eyes, but he would have the tribute of both, ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... I am far away; For never saw I mien or face, In which more plainly I could trace Benignity and home-bred sense Ripening in perfect innocence. Here scattered, like a random seed, Remote from men, thou dost not need The embarrassed look of shy distress, And maidenly shamefacedness: Thou wear'st upon thy forehead clear The freedom of a mountaineer: A face with gladness overspread! Soft smiles, by human kindness bred! And seemliness complete, that sways Thy courtesies, about ...
— Memories • Max Muller
... is like the opening of some lovely flower-bud. As life unfolds, the tender smile and blush of childhood mingle with the grace of maidenly repose; the upturned, radiant eye gathers new depths of thought and emotion; the delicate features, the wavy, pliant form, begin to reveal their wealth of grace ...
— Adele Dubois - A Story of the Lovely Miramichi Valley in New Brunswick • Mrs. William T. Savage
... cheerful, more lovable, more worthy of long life—nay, of immortality. She had not yet completed her fourteenth year, and she had already the prudence of an old woman, the gravity of a matron, and still, with all maidenly modesty, the sweetness of a girl. How she would cling to her father's neck! how affectionately and discreetly she would greet us, her father's friends! how she loved her nurses, her attendants, her teachers,—everyone ...
— A Handbook for Latin Clubs • Various
... from the interest in the safety of her person, which is in constant jeopardy from the jealousy of her half-sister, Elizabeth wins upon the reader by her modest, maidenly bearing, her frankness of manner, and by a playfulness of disposition which readily adapts itself to the restraints which the Queen is ever placing upon her person, and which endears her to the ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... herself brooding over the sin of one who had been her guide, her dearest friend, her hero. From the time when as a child she had learned to look up to him as the paragon of all perfection, until now, as a girl on the verge of womanhood, she had offered up to him a very pure and maidenly worship. There was no one else whom she could love as much; for her dumb and deaf father she loved in quite a different manner—with more of pity and compassion than of admiration. Roland too had sometimes talked with her, especially while she was a child, about God and Christ; ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... course, attended a series of matinees. At these matinees Jane first saw her hero, brave in doublet and hose, and braver still in melody and romance. She and her mates looked and listened and worshiped from afar, as is the habit of maidenly youth under such circumstances. There is no particular danger in such worship provided the worshiper remains always at a safely remote distance from the idol. But in Jane's case this safety-bar was removed by Fate. The wife ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... were hung with ivy greener than emeralds, and enamelled with white bell-flowers; on the ground floor was a fairly spacious apartment, in which the men slept and the family took their meals; on the floor above was Nisida's little maidenly room, full of coolness, shadows, and mystery, and lighted by a single casement that looked over the gulf; above this room was a terrace of the Italian kind, the four pillars of which were wreathed with vine branches, while its vine-clad ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... the drooping lids; the tenderest, loveliest face the sunlight ever kissed, smiled upward at him as he gazed—his heart felt colder than was this dear form he dropped beside and clasped. But the lips—the ripe red lips—the rapturous, maidenly lips, the first touch of which had raised him forever from the coarse earth—the arch lips that had bewitched him with their own seductive smile, and could not shape themselves to harsher act than pouting—a fleeting pout, that captivated ere it vanished—he ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake
... face to the pillow and repeated in low soft tones the simple words she had used from childhood on such occasions. Owen's name was mentioned without faltering, but in the other case, maidenly shyness was too strong even for religion, and that when supported by excellent intentions. At the name of Edward she stammered, and her voice sank to the faintest whisper in ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... I saw nothing of the strange lady. And on the morrow until dinner-time I had but a glimpse of her. This was in the forenoon. She stood, with her hound beside her, in an embrasure of the wall, looking over the sea: to the eye a figure so maidenly and innocent and (in a sense) forlorn that I recalled Gil Perez' tale as the merest frenzy, and wondered how I had come to listen to it with any belief. Her seaward gaze would be passing over the very spot where we had laid him: only a low wall hiding the ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... She did not allow her maidenly reserve to stand in the way of her frank denouncement of the injustice of human and social laws. Very quietly and logically she stated the case while Dalton with arms folded on his breast, listened, ashamed for himself and his sex. Before she had finished, he ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... up from her work once—twice—with no small curiosity; she saw so few strangers, and of men, and young men, almost none, from year's end to year's end. Yet it was a look as frank, as unconscious, as maidenly as might have been Miranda's ...
— A Noble Life • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... botanical excursions of later spring which he had inaugurated, and to which the maidenly modesty of Rose had suggested that Adele should make a party, the young Catesby (who was a native of Eastern Massachusetts) had asked in his naive manner after her family connections. An uncle of his had known a Mr. Maverick, who had ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... upon her head, till her sister forced her to lay off her former soberness, and bear her company in her glittering gayness. And then she so wore it, as every man might see that her body carried that which her heart misliked. I am sure that her maidenly apparel which she used in king Edward's time, made the noblemen's daughters and wives to be ashamed to be dressed and painted like peacocks; being more moved with her most virtuous example than with all that ever Paul or Peter wrote touching that matter. Yea, ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... their young daughters feel when the first suggestion comes that they are not regarded as born for perpetual daughterhood in the father's house? Would she even encumber his plans, if she clung still to her maidenly life? ...
— Faith Gartney's Girlhood • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... occurred to her to inquire. But something in his look, as he stood fronting her, brought the color to her cheeks and caused her eyes to sink. She became suddenly a little afraid of him, and wished herself a thousand miles away. Indeed she made one backward step, as if her maidenly instincts were about to manifest themselves in actual flight. But Maurice saw the movement, and made two steps forward, which brought him so close to her that he could have touched her ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... girl who loves never addresses such a question; but the feminine heart was a book in which he was a very poor speller. He imagined that Reine was only asking him as a matter of form, and that it was from a feeling of maidenly reserve that she adopted this passive method of escaping from openly declaring her wishes. She no doubt desired his friendly aid in the matter, and he felt as if he ought ...
— A Woodland Queen, Complete • Andre Theuriet
... Thomson and with Johnson. He kept pouring out song after song, criticising, rewriting, changing what was foul and impure into songs of the tenderest delicacy. He showed love in every mood, from the rapture of pure passion in the Lea Rig, the maidenly abandon of Whistle and I'll come to you, my Lad, to the humour of Last May a Braw Wooer and Duncan Gray, and the guileless devotion of O wert thou in the Cauld Blast. But he sang of more than love. ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun
... Gookin felt not thus. The pair were now promenading the room; Feathertop with his dainty stride, and no less dainty grimace; the girl with a native maidenly grace, just touched, not spoiled, by a slightly affected manner, which seemed caught from the perfect artifice of her companion. The longer the interview continued, the more charmed was pretty Polly, until, within the first quarter of an hour (as the old magistrate noted by his watch), ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... her that he loved her, and she was strangely anxious for news to that effect. Indeed, she sought confirmation of her hopes as often as maidenly modesty permitted, which was pretty frequent, for maidenly modesty has its diplomacy also; besides, has not a reigning beauty liberty to pay court?—there are plenty of other queens who ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... appeared, with a dark and forbidding aspect. He began to chide, and the stranger, with a glance she could not erase from her recollection, disappeared. It was this glance which subdued her proud spirit to its influence. Her maidenly apprehensions became aroused; she attempted, but in vain, to drive away the intruder: the vision haunted her deeply—too deeply for her repose! Marks of some outward impression were yet visible on her hand, whether from causes less occult than the moving phantasma of the mind, ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... from neck to feet, as if to say she is not spoiled as to her figure, whoever else may be that way. And when the coffee is ready and her guests are drinking, she sews a little to begin with on a white cloth, and then does a little crochet-work with a collar of some sort, and so with all manner of maidenly tasks. Barbro is not put out by their visit, and all the better; they can talk naturally, and Eleseus can be all on the surface again, young and witty ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun
... for her, and, still expressing his regret, accompanied her down-stairs to the door. Miss Hartley, somewhat embarrassed, and a prey to suspicions which maidenly modesty forbade her ...
— Salthaven • W. W. Jacobs
... whose love, gettin' the upper hand of maidenly reeserve, has sent her projectin' 'round in search of me. She's in ...
— Faro Nell and Her Friends - Wolfville Stories • Alfred Henry Lewis
... laid his finger beseechingly on his nose. 'You will not spoil my play, you will get me a maidenly Ophelia? I and you are the only two men in New York who understand how to ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... was quiet for a time in the room, only broken by Diodoros's angry questions and the pacifying exclamations of the freedman. She felt as if she must return to her lover and tell him herself what she had been forced to do in these last days, but maidenly shyness restrained her, till at last Andreas came out. The freedman's honest face expressed the deepest solicitude, and his voice sounded rough and hasty as he exclaimed, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... changed from one white company to the other," quoth Aylward. "But, by these ten finger-bones! it is a passing strange thing to me to think that it was but in the last fall of the leaf that we walked from Lyndhurst together, he so gentle and maidenly, and you, John, like a great red-limbed overgrown moon-calf; and now here you are as sprack a squire and as lusty an archer as ever passed down the highway from Bordeaux, while I am still the same old Samkin ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... One of the most pathetic letters is that in which Pliny writes of the death of the younger daughter of his friend Fundanus, a girl in her fifteenth year, who had already "the prudence of age, the gravity of a matron, and all the maidenly modesty and sweetness of a girl." Pliny tells us how it cut him to the quick to hear her father give directions that the money he had meant to lay out on dresses and pearls and jewels for her betrothal ...
— The Letters of the Younger Pliny - Title: The Letters of Pliny the Younger - - Series 1, Volume 1 • Pliny the Younger
... an angel of innocence and maidenly simplicity. When I say the Prince must declare himself, I mean by that that he must sue for your hand; he must say to you in so many words that ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... so be, my lord," returned Christina with drooping, blushing face; "it would not be maidenly in me. Oh, my lord, you are kind and generous, make it not hard for me to do what other maidens less lonely have friends ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... shrines pure and clean, and the sacred vessels and utensils arranged, as in a well-ordered household. In a word, they were to be, in purity, in industry, in neatness, in order, and in patience and vigilance, the perfect impersonation of maidenly virtue as exhibited in its own proper field of ...
— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... Elizabeth was full of maidenly hesitation. She was too old for him; perhaps he would not think her beautiful, and so on; but she took care to say that there was no one else she could marry, as she would not wed a subject. The Huguenots actively pushed the proposal, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... run, then?" she asked him coolly, standing slim and straight before him, all in white and very maidenly save in her unnatural composure. "I am pressed," she informed him. "So you will forgive me ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... Hypatia; pride forbade her to follow her own maidenly instinct, and to recoil among the crowd behind her; and in another moment the Amal had lifted Pelagia from her mule, and the rival beauties of Alexandria stood, for the first time in ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... cousins were watching her, and this prevented her from ever meeting him in thorough comfort at Mr. Lyddell's; and even when at Lord Marchmont's, her maidenly reserve had been so far awakened as to make her shrink back from the full freedom of their former intercourse. This, however, was more in her feeling than in her manners, which, if they differed at all from what they were formerly, only seemed to be what naturally ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... left Vere House in a fever of unrest; he went everywhere he could think of to distract his thoughts. But the fair face with its sweet, maidenly expression, the tender blue eyes with their rich poetic depths, the sweet, sensitive lips were ever present. Look where he would he saw them. He went to the opera, and they seemed to smile at him from the stage; he walked home in the starlight—they ...
— Wife in Name Only • Charlotte M. Braeme (Bertha M. Clay)
... possessed an imaginative temperament, and one of her favorite and most satisfying habits was to evoke from the realm of the future a proper hero, shining with zeal and virtue like Sir Galahad, in whose arms she would picture herself living happily ever after a sweet courtship, punctuated by due maidenly hesitation. This fondness for letting her fancy run riot and evolve visions splendid with happenings for her own advancement and gladness was not confined to matrimonial day-dreams. On the morning when she entered ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... once to her mother—so she called my cousin—and tell her so. Thus saying, she left me. And I—I did not then understand the struggle and the victory of the poor girl over herself. I did not reflect that no maidenly blush, no charming confusion, announced my happy destiny,—no kiss, no caress, no sign that the heart's citadel had surrendered; but, instead, a calmness, a composure, and a hastening from my presence. No, I thought nothing of this; I only considered that now the time was at hand when ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... hand, awoke regret and perhaps a trifle of girlish gratification. She had been sorry herself to miss that half hour among the roses but she was still too young and too happy to know how few are such hours, how irrevocable such losses. Also, it had seemed good to her maidenly pride that Dr. Callandar should know—well, that he should see—just exactly what he should know and see she did not formulate. But underneath her temporary disappointment she felt as light and glad as ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... quite a dimpled, bright-eyed, rosy, innocent pair, though I think Leonidas was the more maidenly. ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte
... of it all? What was he to her that her friend should talk of "poaching" when regarding her own intercourse with this man? Prudence's face grew hotter. The awakening had come. At that moment she knew that George Iredale was a good deal to her, and she felt a certain maidenly shame at the discovery. He had never uttered a word of love to her—not one, in all the years she had known him, and, unbidden, she had given him her love. In those first moments of realization her heart was filled with something ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... young dimpled face not pale with fear, her exquisite lips moving softly as she repeats the De Profundis of her last appeal to God. Let the axe not fall. Let her stand there for ever in the spotless purity that cost her life on earth and set her name for ever among the high constellated stars of maidenly romance. ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... the world in general; the boy grows up to his manly title, and it is not a special personal matter to give it to him. There is something, even, in the use of it, which delicately marks an attitude—not of distance, but of a certain maidenly and bewitching consciousness—in a girl friend grown into a woman, and ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... moment, but Genevieve was too simple, genuine, and grateful to pause in selfish embarrassment. Had she toyed with Gilbert's affection, she could not have met his father with such maidenly modesty, and sweet sympathy and respect in her blushing cheek and ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... resources, and a joy-compelling temperament that could find virtue in white-fish if it couldn't get trout. He began to talk to Tommy, not without an amused consciousness of Tommy's silent partner on the bank above, nor without an occasional glance up at the maidenly head serenely exalted in the sunlight. Nor did Ruth Mary fail to respond, with her down-bent looks, as simply and unawares as the clouds turning their bright ...
— In Exile and Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... in her best silk dress, with her mother's cameo brooch at her throat, and with the full, maidenly ripeness of twenty-nine years upon her brow, with her hair demurely parted on said brow, where there was the faintest hint of a wrinkle coming—which Miss Morton attributed to a person she called "the dratted Calvin kid,"—the eldest Miss Morton, hair, cameo, silk dress, wrinkle, the dratted ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... was not until they were well on their way along the Trumansburg road that the boy turned to her. How beautiful she looked, her shoulders completely covered with dusky-dark curls and her head bowed in maidenly shyness! All his doubts as to the expediency of his act were set at rest. She was deeply essential to his happiness, to his progress. To know she was his wife, married to him, so that none could separate them, would make his absences from Tessibel ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... thing about your mother, but there was not much to tell. She never mentioned his name after her marriage. There were gay parties given in honor of the wedding, and her delicate, drooping, phantom-like figure hung upon the arm of her handsome, elegant husband. People said that her maidenly shyness was beautiful to behold, and that she clung to her husband like the waving ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... not forget— An orator, the latest of the session, Who had delivered well a very set Smooth speech, his first and maidenly transgression Upon debate: the papers echoed yet With his debut, which made a strong impression, And ranked with what is every day displayed— "The best first speech that ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... cheerfulness and pleasantness, such native good sense and Christian discretion, such sincerity, gentleness, and tenderness, that nothing could be more delightful. The matronly virtues of Christiana, and the maidenly qualities of Mercy, are alike pleasing and appropriate. There is a mixture of timidity and frankness in Mercy, which is as sweet in itself as it is artlessly and unconsciously drawn; and in Christiana we discover the very characteristics that can make the most lovely feminine counterpart, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... practically, in these blessed solitudes? Would they not meet to-morrow, and next day, and the day after? Were not time and opportunity all his own? How kind her looks are even now! Courage! And through that maidenly kindness his own passion shall send ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... resolved. He belonged to Trix—let him talk to Trix, then; she wanted no other girl's lover. If he felt this avoidance, he showed no sign. Perhaps he thought Miss Stuart had dropped some hint—girls, despite their promises, have been known to do such things—and this change was becoming maidenly reserve. Sir Victor liked maidenly reserve—none of your Desdemonas, who meet their Othellos half way, for him. Trixy's unremitting attentions were sisterly, of course. He felt grateful accordingly, and strove to repay her in kind. ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... magnificence of bearing and of garments, and they were taken aback to behold this slim young creature whose clothing in the eyes of some of them was inadequate. Nevertheless, they soon discovered that though she wore no royal purple nor jewels she bore herself with a dignity that was both maidenly and regal. They had hurriedly put on their own best collars and ruffs and to the eyes of the unsophisticated Indian girl they made a brave, though strange, appearance. She listened to their words of welcome and answered them through Smith's interpretation. But all ...
— The Princess Pocahontas • Virginia Watson
... already urged the knight on the point you mention, and I find him as fixed as Cheviot. I am truly sorry my fair cousin should be pressed to give up any of her maidenly rights. Sir Frederick consents, however, to leave the castle with me the instant the ceremony is performed, and we will raise our followers and begin the fray. Thus there is great hope the bridegroom may be knocked on the ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... within her. It was not obstinacy, she know; and that bit of injustice hindered her from seeing that it was really wilful recklessness. She was elated with Ernest's foolish school-boy account of her, which a more maidenly little girl would not have relished; she was strengthened in her notion that she was ill-used, by hearing that the De la Poers pitied her; and because she found that Aunt Barbara was considered to be a little wrong, she did not consider ...
— Countess Kate • Charlotte M. Yonge
... never saw I mien, or face, In which more plainly I could trace 25 Benignity and home-bred sense Ripening in perfect innocence. Here scattered, like a random seed, Remote from men, Thou dost not need The embarrassed look of shy distress, 30 And maidenly shamefacedness: Thou wear'st upon thy forehead clear The freedom of a Mountaineer: A face with gladness overspread! Soft smiles, [6] by human kindness bred! 35 And seemliness complete, that sways Thy courtesies, about thee plays; With no restraint, but such as springs From quick and eager ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... maidens, A beam without haze, No murkiness saddens, No disk-spot bewrays. The swan-down to feeling, The snow of the gaillin,[134] Thy limbs all excelling, Unite to amaze. The queen, I would name thee, Of maidenly muster; Thy stem is so seemly, So rich is its cluster Of members complete, Adroit at each feat, And thy temper so sweet, Without banning or bluster. My grief has press'd on Since the vision of Morag, As the heavy millstone On the cross-tree that bore it. In vain the world over, Seek her match ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... position must have been, take up larger space than the miracle of the birth itself. Probably in all this we have an unconscious disclosure of the source of the evangelist's information. At all events, he speaks as if from Joseph's point of view. Luke, on the other hand, has most to say about Mary's maidenly wonder and meek submission, her swift hurrying to find help from a woman's sympathy, as soon as the Angel of the Annunciation had spoken, and the hymn of exultation which Elisabeth's salutation heartened her to pour forth. Surely that narrative could have come from none ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... of Lady Elizabeth's temper after marriage are not much better founded than those of her maidenly or unmaidenly conduct before it. Dryden's supposed to almost all his contemporaries in belles-lettres. There is no sign in his letters of any conjugal unhappiness, and Malone's "respectable authority" is family gossip a ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... Sir Cuthbert," the girl said frankly, "better than any one else next to my father, and gladly submit myself to his will. My own inclinations indeed, so far as is maidenly, go with his. These are troubled times," she said anxiously, "and our holy mother tells me that you fear ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty
... girls, and one of uncommon loveliness. In the midst of their confusion and blushes, whilst dictating, or rather giving me general instructions, it did not require any great penetration to discover that what they wished was that their letters should be as kind as was consistent with proper maidenly pride. I contrived so to temper my expressions as to reconcile the gratification of both feelings; and they were as much pleased with the way in which I had expressed their thoughts as (in their simplicity) they were astonished at my having so readily discovered them. ...
— Confessions of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas De Quincey
... and wore them for Philip. In her secret heart she thought no shame of this. The years gave her a larger flow of life, and made out of the bewitching girl a splendid woman, brought up to the full estate of maidenly beauty. ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... Consuelo, and even with a faint hope that it might appease Chu Chu. SHE certainly looked beautiful in her glittering accoutrements, set off by her jet-black shining coat. With an air of demure abstraction she permitted me to mount her, and even for a hundred yards or so indulged in a mincing maidenly amble that was not without a touch of coquetry. Encouraged by this, I addressed a few terms of endearment to her, and in the exuberance of my youthful enthusiasm I even confided to her my love for Consuelo, and begged her ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... companionship. The days passed quietly, made sad by the years that had gone by. In Ellen's mind was neither jubilation nor reproach. She was cautious with regard to him—almost as shy as the first time they met; behind all her goodness and care lay the same touch of maidenly reserve as at that time. She received his caresses silently, she herself giving chiefly by being something for him. He noticed how every little homely action she did for him grew out of her like a motherly caress and took him into her heart. He was grateful for it, but it was not that of which ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... for brawling under the Sacred Roof. But he was an understanding man and thought nothing of it; and as to Battle, he had meant to come up that very afternoon, along with his betrothed wife, to see us. And it had been Mary's maidenly idea to let us hear tell about it in church first—to break the news ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts
... be done in this instance!" promptly responded the baroness, proffering, without affectation of maidenly coyness, the ceremonial kiss, and cordially shaking hands with the vice-palatine. Then ...
— The Nameless Castle • Maurus Jokai
... Villenoix was now twenty. Her remarkable beauty and gifts of mind were surer guarantees of happiness than those offered by money. Her features were of the purest type of Jewish beauty; the oval lines, so noble and maidenly, have an indescribable stamp of the ideal, and seem to speak of the joys of the East, its unchangeably blue sky, the glories of its lands, and the fabulous riches of life there. She had fine eyes, shaded by deep eyelids, fringed with thick, curled lashes. Biblical innocence sat on her brow. ...
— Louis Lambert • Honore de Balzac
... few moments, she took up her needles again, and made them fly vigorously, as she appeared transfigured, and guarded on her face the traces of the delight her artist nature had received in listening to all these accounts. Never had she seemed to him more beautiful, so enthusiastic was she, so maidenly and so pure, seated there in the brighter surroundings of so many coloured silks, applying herself with unfailing exactitude to her work, into the slightest details of which she put her whole soul. When he had left off speaking he looked at her earnestly, until roused by the ...
— The Dream • Emile Zola
... thing more,' said the Princess Julia, suddenly rising from her mother's side, but with a forced and trembling courage, 'which remains for me to do. If there appear any want of maidenly reserve in what I say, let the cause, good friends, for which I speak and act, be my excuse. It is well known to you who are familiar with the councils of the state, that not many months past Persia sought ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... opposite, and as he rowed higher, Adam fixed his eyes on Sylvia with a look peculiar to himself, a gaze more keen than soft, which seemed to search one through and through with its rapid discernment. He saw a face full of contradictions,—youthful, maidenly, and intelligent, yet touched with the unconscious melancholy which is born of disappointment and desire. The mouth was sweet and tender as a woman's should be, the brow spirited and thoughtful; but the eyes were by turns eager, absent, or sad, and ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... beloved hero, how poor were my love, did I not let you go! One single care restrains me, fear of the insufficiency of all I could bestow. What I learned from the gods I have given you, a rich treasury of holy runes, but the maidenly staff of my strength the hero took from me, before whom I now bow. Despoiled of wisdom, though filled with desire to serve; rich in love, but devoid of power, oh, despise not the poor lover who can only wish you, not ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... for any sinner who failed to reach the required standard. A terrible atmosphere of gloomy convention pervaded the school. Miss Beasley was anxious for her pupils to appear at their very best before her scholarly brother, whose ideal of maidenly propriety was almost mediaeval, and she kept a keen eye on their behaviour. Nobody dared to speak at meal-times, except a whispered request for such necessary articles as salt and butter; laughter was out of the question, and even a smile was felt to be inappropriate. ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... take a melancholy pleasure in contemplating the sacrifice of herself to the man whom a maidenly sense of propriety compelled her to regard as her only possible husband. She would meet him, and do all that lay in her power to marry him. To guard against a relapse, a note was at once despatched to his father's cottage for Stephen ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... broken off, and that it was necessary that a renewed intimacy under another aspect should take place, to restore us to our former relations. Here it was for me to make the first overtures; not for her, as maidenly reserve would not permit it. Bramble seemed to be most anxious that such should be the case—indeed, considered it as a matter of course: perhaps Bessy thought so too in her own bosom; and the continual raillery ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... secret of his birth during the exile of his parents. Gaveston approaches the spectre and tears off her veil, revealing Anna, his ward. Moved by the zeal and fidelity of his father's protegee, George offers her his hand, which, after some maidenly scruples, she accepts. ...
— The Standard Operas (12th edition) • George P. Upton
... that while in the water the princess was very like other people. And besides this, she was not so forward in her questions or pert in her replies at sea as on shore. Neither did she laugh so much; and when she did laugh, it was more gently. She seemed altogether more modest and maidenly in the water than out of it. But when the prince, who had really fallen in love when he fell in the lake, began to talk to her about love, she always turned her head towards him and laughed. After a while she began ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... comrade of her since she saw him last—how they had handled her fingers and looked into her eyes; how her every thought and fancy had grown common and unclean through much usage; how she had dragged out whatever maidenly feeling she had in the old times, and made capital of it to bring these companions to her who were neither lovers ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... mean time, Elizabeth grew more and more interested in the idea of having the young duke for her husband; and it seemed as if the maidenly resolutions, which had stood their ground so firmly for twenty years, were to be conquered at last. The more, however, she seemed to approach toward a consent to the measure, the more did all the officers of her government, and the nation at large, oppose it. There were, ...
— Queen Elizabeth - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... susurri." In this charming work, amid masses of crimson flowers and green leaves, two lovers are seen seated upon a marble bench, while he whispers tenderly in her ear, and she listens with dreamy eyes and maidenly mien. The noble picture of Elisha and the Shunamite's Son (reproduced at p. 114) was also shown this year, as well as Bianca, a fair-haired girl in a white dress, standing with folded arms, Viola, and two portraits, Mrs. Augustus Ralli, exhibited at the Royal Academy, and ...
— Frederic Lord Leighton - An Illustrated Record of His Life and Work • Ernest Rhys
... what was supposed to be my maidenly modesty cut me like a knife, but I could not permit myself to explain, so my Aunt Bridget ran ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... the old gardener produced no effect—not so much as to make him shut his toothless mouth. Then he remembered that the man was stone deaf. All that time the girl struggled, not with maidenly coyness, but like a pretty, dumb fury, kicking his shins now and then. He continued to hold her as if in a vice, his instinct telling him that were he to let her go she would fly at his eyes. But he was greatly humiliated by his position. At last she gave up. She ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... the army, and had come into contact with all sorts of men, things and ideas. He was himself a man, and had outgrown most boyish fallacies and illusions, but he had not outgrown Hilda. She was there, in the heart of the forest, in the towers of Sigmundskron, away from the world he had seen, and maidenly ignorant of all it contained, waiting for him, the incarnation of all that was lovely, and young, and fair, and spotless. He pitied his fellow-students, who loved vulgarly whatever came into their way. He could not ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... wealth sufficient to make that rank splendid as well as illustrious? But if it were not so, what had the girl meant by saying that it was impossible? That the word should have been used once or twice in maidenly scruple, the Countess could understand; but it had been repeated with a vehemence beyond that which such natural timidity might have produced. And now the girl professed herself to be ill in bed, and when the subject was broached would only ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope
... to Alemena and great Jupiter, After so many conquests won in field, After so many monsters quelled by force, Yielded his valiant heart to Omphale, A fearful woman void of manly strength. She took the club, and wear the lion's skin; He took the wheel, and maidenly gan spin. So martial Locrine, cheered with victory, Falleth in love with Humber's concubine, And so forgetteth peerless Gwendoline. His uncle Corineius storms at this, And forceth Locrine for his grace to sue. Lo here the sum, the process ...
— 2. Mucedorus • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... pretty little story it was, interspersed with sly looks, knowing nods, and rippling bursts of laughter. Listened to with, first, disdainful silence; then, growing interest; last, spasmodic giggles, apropos ejaculations, and much blushing and maidenly confusion. ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... her on the lips, and retires, taking his stand in the expectant circle. The girl, in her turn, throws a favorable regard on some fortunate young man, offers her hand to lead him forth, makes him happy with a maidenly kiss, and withdraws to hide her blushes, if any there be, among the simpering faces in the ring; while the favored swain loses no time in transferring her salute to the prettiest and plumpest among the many mouths that are primming themselves ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... herself back from the chatter around her to remember that something pleasant had happened. Not that there was any foolishness in her thoughts. There was too much dignity and simplicity about the girl, young as she was, to allow her to deal even with her own thoughts in any but a maidenly way, and it was not in the ordinary way of a maid with a man that she thought of this young soldier. He was so far removed from her life in every way, and all the well-drilled formalities, that it never occurred to her to think of him in the same way she thought of ...
— The Search • Grace Livingston Hill
... of the wagon backwards, making a maidenly effort to keep the connection between the hem of her black silk skirt and the top of her calf-skin shoes inviolate, and brushing the dust of the wagon wheel from her dress carefully after her safe arrival in the dog-fennel. Marg'et Ann ...
— The Wizard's Daughter and Other Stories • Margaret Collier Graham
... anything horrid?" Barrie appealed from one to another. "You see, I never dared say anything at all about love before Grandma or Heppie, but it is talked about so much in books, I thought I might mention it in company. I'm sorry if I've not been maidenly, which Miss Hepburn is always ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... persuade me thus; and yet I could not say him nay, and I longed to hear the words spoken that should bind us to each other. But I dare not tell my father! I trow both he and my mother would chide full sternly. In truth, I fear me it were scarce a maidenly act. But, O Cuthbert, love is so strong—so hard a task master. Where he drives, it seems that one needs must go;" and she looked up at him with such arch appeal that he felt those glances would go far to soften ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... commiserating the while the faithful soul who floated beneath me. The stream was swift but noiseless, the water rather rare than cold, yet, despite all the philosophy beaming out of her maidenly eyes across the smooth surface of the tide, Rosinante must have preferred from the bottom of ...
— Henry Brocken - His Travels and Adventures in the Rich, Strange, Scarce-Imaginable Regions of Romance • Walter J. de la Mare
... the summons, and little they spoke, The gear of a lady she placed on his head; She cover'd his limbs with a womanly cloak, And painted his cheeks of a maidenly red. "One kiss, my dear lord, and begone!—and beware! Walk softly—I follow!" Oh guide them, and save, From the open assault, from the intricate snare, Thou, Providence, friend of the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... have been lost, had Sempland been as wise as he was brave. Perhaps he wasn't quite master of himself on account of his experience in war, and his lack of it in women, for he instantly conceived that her hesitation was due to some other cause than maidenly incertitude, and that Harry Lacy, of whom he had grown mightily jealous, was at the bottom ...
— A Little Traitor to the South - A War Time Comedy With a Tragic Interlude • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... from the daze these words had placed upon her, "I did not pass. Oh, I should have fallen at his feet—lost to all maidenly reserve—there before the people. It must have been my sister, who had but lately come from Boston and so would not know him," and she broke ...
— Down the Mother Lode • Vivia Hemphill
... very like other people. And besides this, she was not so forward in her questions or pert in her replies at sea as on shore. Neither did she laugh so much; and when she did laugh, it was more gently. She seemed altogether more modest and maidenly in the water than out of it. But when the prince, who had really fallen in love when he fell in the lake, began to talk to her about love, she always turned her head towards him and laughed. After a while she began to look puzzled, ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... our spirits! My dear, my dearest Froeken,—I fear you do not understand me! Yet it is natural that you should not; you were not prepared for the offer of my—my affections,"—and he beamed all over with benevolence,—"and I can appreciate a maidenly and becoming coyness, even though it assume the form of a repellant and unreasonable anger. But take courage, my—my dear girl!—our Lord forbid that I should wantonly play with the delicate emotions of your heart! Poor ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... feel it to be condescension now," replied Laura, with almost the frank simplicity of a child. "I cannot help feeling sympathy for you, even though you are too proud to receive it." Then she added, with a trace of dignity and maidenly pride, "Perhaps when you have realized your hopes, and have become rich or famous, I may not choose to speak to you. But it is not my nature to turn from any one in misfortune, much less any one whom I have ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... when I thus saw her face to face, her eyes set steadily and imperiously upon mine, I was filled with admiration and astonishment, and thought her even more beautiful than I had looked to find her. Nor could I think enough of one who, acting with so much boldness, yet preserved a maidenly air that was both quaint and engaging; for my wife kept an old-fashioned precision of manner through all her admirable life—an excellent thing in woman, since it sets another ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Etheldrida would be there also, for beside the king was Ecgfrith the atheling; but she was not. They say that she had some maidenly fear of meeting this husband of hers, who was to be, ...
— A King's Comrade - A Story of Old Hereford • Charles Whistler
... school girls, duly chaperoned and faculty-guarded, of course, attended a series of matinees. At these matinees Jane first saw her hero, brave in doublet and hose, and braver still in melody and romance. She and her mates looked and listened and worshiped from afar, as is the habit of maidenly youth under such circumstances. There is no particular danger in such worship provided the worshiper remains always at a safely remote distance from the idol. But in Jane's case this safety-bar was removed by Fate. The wife of a friend of her father's, ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... another however and each knew how it stood with the other. He had again the look which he had revealed once in the morning, a presuming look, confident of victory, such a look as if he would say, 'I know well enough how such a maidenly scorn is to be interpreted.' But her eyes said, 'I am too proud to love you.' She went slowly into the darkness of her room as if she would give him time yet to say something or to long after her. He was however too slow for that and laughed ...
— Sleep Walking and Moon Walking - A Medico-Literary Study • Isidor Isaak Sadger
... self-control she would have attenuated the emotion to nothing by sheer reasoning, and so have killed it off. If she had had a little less pride she might have gone and circumambulated the Yeobrights' premises at Blooms-End at any maidenly sacrifice until she had seen him. But Eustacia did neither of these things. She acted as the most exemplary might have acted, being so influenced; she took an airing twice or thrice a day upon the Egdon hills, and kept ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... own right, besides many perquisites of office, which made his income a really splendid one. Certainly he spared no expense upon his ward. She was taught reading, writing, grammar, music, and embroidery by the best tutors the town could provide, and she grew daily, we are told, in beauty and maidenly charm. ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford
... of himself. The attitude of warding off reveals itself as fastidiousness and as bashfulness. Budaeus hit the mark when he exclaimed jocularly: 'Fastidiosule! You little fastidious person!' Erasmus himself interprets the dominating trait of his being as maidenly coyness. The excessive sensitiveness to the stain attaching to his birth results from it. But his friend Ammonius speaks of his subrustica verecundia, his somewhat rustic gaucherie. There is, indeed, often something ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga
... the household and kept there till he was well again. The night of his arrival, Louison, the sister, stood with a brother on either hand—Octave and Florian—and received him with a courtesy more stately than usual, an expression of the reserve and modesty of her single state. This maidenly dignity was at all times shielded by the five brothers, who treated her with a constant and reverential courtesy. There was something signally suggestive in their homage, and Medallion concluded at last that it was paid not only to the sister, but to something that gave her great importance ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... "Do not ruffle up thy feathers like a pigeon that has got bread-crumbs when he looked for corn! Why, child, 'tis but what all women have to put up with. We all have our calf-loves and bits of maidenly fancies, but who ever thought they were to rule the roast? Sure, Clarice, thou hast more ...
— A Forgotten Hero - Not for Him • Emily Sarah Holt
... shuttle-cock, which they are fond of striking to and fro, to make one another glow in the frosty weather of a single-state; but which, when a man comes in between the pretended inseparables, is given up, like their music and other maidenly amusements; which, nevertheless, may be necessary to keep the pretty rogues out of active mischief. They then, in short, having caught the fish, lay aside ...
— Clarissa, Volume 6 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... Blooming and maidenly, though she dressed in leather and used a rifle like a man, was Marion, grand-daughter of old Abraham, who counted his years as ninety, and who for many of those years had lived with his books in the tidy cabin where the Youghiogheny and Monongahela come together. This ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... uplifted suddenly, was piteous as he could wish. It fell again for shame at her self-betrayal, for sheer helplessness and dismay, for the sudden realization of what the long days now would be without him, for what life might be if he never came back. With all her pride and strength and maidenly reserve she was struggling hard to fight back the sob that was rising to her throat, the tears that came welling to her eyes, but he would have the tribute of both, and ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... of two hours, for we must go by the Black Sail and come back to Wastdale Head, and that's round-about, thou knows." "So you'll take them on Wastdale Head, then, eh?" said Liza, turning her head aside as though in the abundance of her maidenly modesty, but really glancing slyly under the corner of her bonnet in the direction taken by the mourners, and wondering if they ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... own handwriting and in that of the Protector. And some of these cases, as the records we have copied show, were those of perfectly innocent girls, acknowledged to be virgins, until assaulted by these abominable medical officials and robbed of the fresh bloom of maidenly chastity. ...
— Heathen Slaves and Christian Rulers • Elizabeth Wheeler Andrew and Katharine Caroline Bushnell
... feeling that it was expected of her; but the result was hardly proportionate to the effort. Her features were not of that type which lends itself easily to disguises. A simple maidenly soul, if the whole infinite variety of human masks had been at its disposal, would have chosen just such a countenance as this as its complete expression. There was nothing striking in it, unless an entirely faultless combination of softly curving lines and fresh flesh-tints ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... us thoughtfully. She sat, at this time, and all the evening, on the old locker in her old little corner by the fire—Ham beside her, where I used to sit. I could not satisfy myself whether it was in her own little tormenting way, or in a maidenly reserve before us, that she kept quite close to the wall, and away from him; but I observed that she did so, all ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... hasten. Why hasten, when at the end of the way there certainly lies the sweet beginning of all things. Already might she be happy in the possession of certainties? It never occurred to her that Ralph would not be at the trysting-place. That a messenger might fail did not once cross her mind. But maidenly tremours, delicious in their uncertainty, coursed along her limbs and through all her being. Could any one have seen, there was a large and almost exultant happiness in the depths of her eyes. Her lips were parted a little, like a child that waits on tiptoe to ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... things of the moment; but what he was chiefly thinking of was the singular calm and self-possession of this young girl. When she spoke, her dark, soft eyes regarded him without fear. Her manner was simple and natural to the last degree; perhaps with the least touch added of maidenly reserve. He was forced even to admire the simplicity of her dress—cream or canary white it was, with a bit of white fur round the neck and round the tight wrists. The only strong color was that of the scarlet geraniums which she ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... justified in recognizing sincerity and faith in him who is paying you special attention. Better not be engaged until twenty-two. You are then more competent to judge the honesty and falsity of man. Nature has thrown a wall of maidenly modesty around you. Preserve that and not let your affections be trifled with while too young by any youthful flirt who is in search of ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... me, I thought. But soon after these events another friend prevailed upon me to sample with him a most excellent brand of champagne. The blood mounts to my cheeks in "maidenly" shame as I now chronicle the occurrence. This friend said: "You don't know what a feeling of exhilaration and well-being a little good champagne will give you. Try it once; don't associate it with common alcoholic stimulants." Those last words, well-meant but, to ...
— Confessions of a Neurasthenic • William Taylor Marrs
... dimples had vanished. She looked so sweetly grave, and withal so maidenly, sitting there slightly smoothing the lengths of her pink fingers, ...
— The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... ceremony, and during its performance, Undine had shown a modest gentleness and maidenly reserve; but it now seemed as if all the wayward freaks that effervesced within her burst forth with an extravagance only the more bold and unrestrained. She teased her bridegroom, her foster-parents, and even the priest, whom she had just now revered so highly, with all sorts of childish ...
— Undine - I • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... you read her simple nature. Understand me? No, not at first! Her maidenly instinct—perhaps her duty to another—took the alarm. I remember her words. 'But what will Dunn say?' she asked. ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... for work, not for love making. Spencer would probably wish to marry her forthwith, and that was not to be thought of while "The Firefly's" commission was only half completed. All of which modest and maidenly reasoning left wholly out of account Spencer's strenuous wooing; it is chronicled here merely to show her state of mind ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... her father for wishing to lead Mr. Goulden to commit himself, for as far as she could love any one beyond herself she loved him, and she also realized fully that he could continue to her all that her elegant and expensive tastes craved. Notwithstanding her show of maidenly pride and reserve, she was ready enough to do as she had been bidden. Mr. Allen guessed as much. Indeed, as was quite natural, his wife was the type of the average woman to his mind, only he believed that she was a little cleverer in these matters than the majority. The manner ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... or fourteen, to whom I called the attention of the painters, and they went into ecstasies over her. The type was the same as that which Raphael has reproduced in his Sistine Madonna. Her clear, dark blue eyes had a look of maidenly shyness, and of the most exquisite bashfulness, and yet a look of pride. She wore a string of glass beads round her lovely neck. We ordered two bottles of wine to drink her health, and, while we were drinking it, the rotunda was lighted ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... this man who lay bleeding and ghastly before her was dearer to her than her own life. The sudden rush of this consciousness sweeping like a flood over her soul broke down and carried away the barrier of her maidenly reserve. Leaning over him in a passion of self-abandonment, she breathed, "Oh, Jack, dear, dear Jack." As he lay there white and still, into her love there came a maternal tender yearning of pity. She lifted his head in her arm, and murmured brokenly, ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor
... did not think the error in this case was altogether or mainly his, or the persistence in it; for it had seemed to me from the beginning that the love between him and Miss Bentley was fully as much her affair as his, and that quite within the bounds of maidenly modesty she showed herself as passionately true to their plighted troth. But of course this would not do, and I had to be content with the ironical suggestion that he might try offering to ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells
... the uneasy solitude of their own state-rooms. At last only two or three men were left smoking and chatting near the top of the companion ladder; while at the stern of the ship Muriel Ellis looked over toward the retreating island, and talked with a certain timid maidenly frankness ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen
... glass front of the counting-house, and seeing two figures approaching, she cried with infinite relish, 'Papa! Hush, Arthur, for Mercy's sake!' and tottered back to her chair with an amazing imitation of being in danger of swooning, in the dread surprise and maidenly flutter ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... me. I shall not reproach you. You are the master of your own actions. You have one daughter who is twelve years old; in a short time she will be a marriageable girl. I have not come to this house to make a scene, nor do I wish to preach about morality, or religion, or God, or maidenly innocence, subjects which great men and grand gentlemen simply sneer at as the stock-in-trade of hypocrites. I will therefore tell you in a couple of words why I have come. All I ask is that you deliver over to me your youngest daughter. I will engage to bring ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... a few rapid dives in search of it. Had she, or had she not, seen him putting something in his pocket? And why had she behaved so unlike herself? In a few miles Miss Wood entertained sentiments of maidenly resentment toward her rescuer, and of maidenly ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... with great fervour; and appeared to be carrying on a lively suit to the damsel. Now nothing could have been prettier than the picture and the pantomime. Stuart kept his face away from the audience; Wych Hazel was revealed, and in the coy, blushing maidenly dignity and confusion which suited the character and occasion, was a tableau worth looking at. Well looked at, and in deep silence of the company; till suddenly the growling old French father is heard ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... a trying moment, but Genevieve was too simple, genuine, and grateful to pause in selfish embarrassment. Had she toyed with Gilbert's affection, she could not have met his father with such maidenly modesty, and sweet sympathy and respect in her blushing cheek ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... politeness with a cachinnation like that of a Cheshire cheese, which strikes me all of a heap. Her female parent excuses to me such flabbergasting demeanour on the plea that her daughter is afflicted with great shyness and maidenly modesty, but, on perceiving that she can be skittish and genial in the company of other masculines, I am forced to attribute her contumeliousness to the circumstance that I am a native gentleman of ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... character. An old writer thus describes her: 'To look on her was enchantment; her eyes called you to love her; her smile was like heaven; if you heard her speak, you were conquered. Her whole person was a miracle of beauty, and her deportment had a certain maidenly pride, springing from a pure ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 433 - Volume 17, New Series, April 17, 1852 • Various
... and an ancient matron, to whom the occasion had given more agility than might have been expected from their years. A Zamora bagpipe regulated their motions, which being no less sprightly and graceful than their looks were modest and maidenly, more lovely dancers were never seen ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... pleasant, serene, gray eyes. She was dressed very simply in white, with a blue band across her hair, and a blue scarf and sash around throat and waist. Her face, though showing signs of quiet strength, and of a self-confidence which was the flower of maidenly modesty and innocence, was not beautiful according to any recognized standard. Bressant, from his intuitive perception of form and proportion, was aware of this. The forehead was too high, the nose irregular, the mouth lacked the ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... told him: "You," or "according to your merchant fashion," it seemed to Foma that she was pushing him away from her with these words. This at once saddened and offended him. He was silent, looking at her small maidenly figure, which was always somehow particularly well dressed, always sweet-scented like a flower. Sometimes he was seized with a wild, coarse desire to embrace and kiss her. But her beauty and the fragility of her thin, ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky
... swaggered into the tavern, followed by his new men; and the boy took his way homewards, nursing his precious horn, trembling between hope and fear, and blushing with maidenly shame, and a half-sense of wrong-doing at having revealed suddenly to a stranger the darling wish which he had hidden from his father and mother ever since he was ten ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... bathe, give their limbs the delicate oil from the cruse of gold, sit by the stream and eat their meal, and, refreshed, mistress and maidens lay aside their veils and play at ball, and Nausicaa begins a song. Though all were fair, like Diana was this spotless virgin midst her maids. A missed ball and maidenly screams waken Ulysses from his sleep in the thicket. At the apparition of the unclad, shipwrecked sailor the maidens flee right and left. Nausicaa alone keeps her place, secure in her unconscious modesty. ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... and now and then to chat with her old friend and playfellow, Kit Smallbones. Her childish freedom of manner had given way to grave discretion, not to say primness, in her behaviour to her father's guests, and even the apprentices. It was, of course, the unconscious reaction of the maidenly spirit, aware that she had nothing but her own modesty to protect her. She was on a small scale, with no pretensions to beauty, but with a fresh, honest, sensible young face, a clear skin, and dark eyes that could be very merry when she ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Her maidenly modesty seemed first to tell her to banish his image from her heart, and his name from her lips. To accomplish this she threw herself with renewed diligence into the duties incident to her simple yet laborious life, and by her very activities endeavoured ...
— Oowikapun - How the Gospel Reached the Nelson River Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young
... head of Minerva on the bookcase above her did not offer the spectator a face less free from maidenly confusion than Clementina's at that moment. Her father had certainly expected none, but he was not prepared for the ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte
... grew red at the glance of friendly eyes. The knight then proffered his service to Lady Kriemhild. Men bade them take their stand at each other's side within the ring and asked if she would take the stately man. In maidenly modesty she was a deal abashed, yet such was Siegfried's luck and fortune, that she would not refuse him out of hand. The noble king of Netherland vowed to take her, too, to wife. When he and the maid had pledged their troths, Siegfried's arm embraced eftsoon the ...
— The Nibelungenlied • Unknown
... isolated example. One of the most pathetic letters is that in which Pliny writes of the death of the younger daughter of his friend Fundanus, a girl in her fifteenth year, who had already "the prudence of age, the gravity of a matron, and all the maidenly modesty and sweetness of a girl." Pliny tells us how it cut him to the quick to hear her father give directions that the money he had meant to lay out on dresses and pearls and jewels for her betrothal should be spent on incense, unguents, and spices ...
— The Letters of the Younger Pliny - Title: The Letters of Pliny the Younger - - Series 1, Volume 1 • Pliny the Younger
... interest in the safety of her person, which is in constant jeopardy from the jealousy of her half-sister, Elizabeth wins upon the reader by her modest, maidenly bearing, her frankness of manner, and by a playfulness of disposition which readily adapts itself to the restraints which the Queen is ever placing upon her person, and which endears her to the people, who, could the hated Mary be got rid of, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... the longed-for letter did not come. Tillie tried to gather courage to question the doctor as to whether Fairchilds had made any arrangement with him for the delivery of a letter to her. But an instinct of maidenly reserve and pride which, she could not conquer kept her ...
— Tillie: A Mennonite Maid - A Story of the Pennsylvania Dutch • Helen Reimensnyder Martin
... not allow her maidenly reserve to stand in the way of her frank denouncement of the injustice of human and social laws. Very quietly and logically she stated the case while Dalton with arms folded on his breast, listened, ashamed for himself and his sex. Before ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... woman has a thousand ways of preserving her power and her dignity; she has risked so much for love, that she must bid him pass through his myriad transformations, while her too submissive rival gives a sense of too serene security which palls. If the one sacrifices her maidenly pride, the other immolates the honor of a whole family. A girl's coquetry is of the simplest, she thinks that all is said when the veil is laid aside; a woman's coquetry is endless, she shrouds herself ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... sister spoke to her before the maids of the household, and before some of the townspeople, in a way that she could not stand; and that you yourself by your manner to her last night showed how she had lost your respect. She added, with her face of pure maidenly truth, that he had come into such close contact with her only the instant before your sister had entered ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell
... began to take a melancholy pleasure in contemplating the sacrifice of herself to the man whom a maidenly sense of propriety compelled her to regard as her only possible husband. She would meet him, and do all that lay in her power to marry him. To guard against a relapse, a note was at once despatched to his father's cottage for Stephen on his arrival, fixing ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... are firmly traced, and sustained with consistency. The cold and eager hunter Silvio contrasts with tender and romantic Mirtillo. Corisca's meretricious arts and systematized profligacy enhance the pure affection of Amarilli. Dorinda presents another type of love, so impulsive that it conquers maidenly modesty. The Satyr is a creature of rude lust, foiled in its brutal appetite by the courtesan Corisca's wiliness. Carino brings the corruption of towns into comparison with the innocence ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... and laughing, begging to see the manuscript, teasing Theodora about her secretiveness, and congratulating her again and again. It was an attractive group, Theodora in the midst, a tall, handsome girl in the full ripeness of her maidenly beauty, her arm linked in that of her twin brother, while pretty Hope stood facing them, with ...
— Teddy: Her Book - A Story of Sweet Sixteen • Anna Chapin Ray
... pinky petals of lady's-smocks peer maidenly, maidenly; Meadow-sweet, donning her fragrant lace, is daintiest friend of the breeze; Hyacinths wild, blue-misting the woods, hang ladenly, ladenly, And tiniest bird's-eye burns deep blue in thickets of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 25, 1917 • Various
... spared yourself, and me, the misery of this interview. It surprised me very much to meet you here, as I had no desire to cross your path. I shall not enter this house again, and Kingston will soon see the last of me. It would have been better, I think—more maidenly, if you will allow me to say so—to have met me as a perfect stranger ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... is something in that maidenly modesty—retiring from you as you advance, retreating timidly from all bold approaches, fearful and yet joyous—which wins upon the iron hardness of a man's nature like a rising flame. To force of action and ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... key, but gradually the singing turned to talk. The talk, in accordance with the moonlight and flying clouds, was in a sentimental vein; and it ended, naturally, with Rosalie's Great Experience. Between maidenly hesitations and many promptings she retold the story—the new girls had never heard it, and to the old girls ...
— Just Patty • Jean Webster
... so as to leave her hands and arms to the elbow free for her occupations. But most of all I loved her simplicity and her quietness and her discretion. Her father bade her expressly to shew me all the house; or she would not have done it, for she was very maidenly and modest; but as soon as he said that, she did it without affectation. She shewed me the parlour too, with the hangings upon the walls, and the chapel of the Grail, with the Grail itself upon an altar ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... God a helpmeet indeed! For in how many sloughs do many men lie till this daughter of Help gives them her hand, and out of how many more sloughs are they all their days by her delivered and kept! Sweet, maidenly, and most sensible Mercy was a great help to widow Christiana at the slough, and to her and her sons all the way up to the river—a very present help in many a need to her future mother-in-law and her pilgrim sons. Let every young man seek his future wife of God, ...
— Bunyan Characters - First Series • Alexander Whyte
... also a forfeit play, with the difference that the kiss was more certain, being taken of mere choice—though delivered, of course, with due maidenly reluctance and a show of resisting—whenever the girl facing one could be caught over the line. All the young people played it; all the elders deprecated it. At the bottom of Judith's heart lay one reason for making a play-party and bidding Creed Bonbright to it; and now Huldah Spiller ...
— Judith of the Cumberlands • Alice MacGowan
... have been more maidenly had I been tearful and trembling; but, to my shame then, must I admit that I was neither—only curious to know who had been so desperate as to commit an act that would bring the whole of England down upon him. ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott
... and with Johnson. He kept pouring out song after song, criticising, rewriting, changing what was foul and impure into songs of the tenderest delicacy. He showed love in every mood, from the rapture of pure passion in the Lea Rig, the maidenly abandon of Whistle and I'll come to you, my Lad, to the humour of Last May a Braw Wooer and Duncan Gray, and the guileless devotion of O wert thou in the Cauld Blast. But he sang of more than love. Turning from the coldness of the high ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun
... said. "I expect she liked the first young man better than she thought she did. I intend to give her a piece of my mind as soon as I get a chance. This playing hot and cold isn't maidenly, ...
— Tish, The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... filled, too, as it was with the image of Herbert Lyddiard, his attentions were intolerable. The open encouragement he now received from the father, however, emboldened him to persevere, and he professed to look upon her marked disapproval as nothing but maidenly diffidence, and proceeded to address her as though a ...
— Tales for Young and Old • Various
... Israel, even though surrounded by the retarding influences of the ghetto. We have seen how well Recha had been educated and her daughter Kathinka was being brought up in the same way. She was independent in thought as well as in action, but never at the cost of maidenly sentiment. Piety and purity shone in her lustrous eyes. Superior to her position, she possessed the faculty of adapting herself to her surroundings. There was no pride in her breast save that which might arise from the consciousness of doing right. ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith
... She wore the same neat and maidenly attire which she had been accustomed to put on when the household work was over for the day, and her hair was parted from her brow in the simple and modest fashion that became her best of all. If her cheek might otherwise have been pale, yet ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... swelled within her. It was not obstinacy, she know; and that bit of injustice hindered her from seeing that it was really wilful recklessness. She was elated with Ernest's foolish school-boy account of her, which a more maidenly little girl would not have relished; she was strengthened in her notion that she was ill-used, by hearing that the De la Poers pitied her; and because she found that Aunt Barbara was considered to be a little wrong, ...
— Countess Kate • Charlotte M. Yonge
... deliberately insulted her. As it was, she blamed her friend for inexcusable affectation. "I'm not sure," she reflected, "that a girl can be a detective—a regular detective—without spoiling her disposition or losing to some an extent her maidenly modesty. Of course, Josie has been brought up in an atmosphere of mystery and can't be blamed for her peculiarities, but—-I'm glad I'm ...
— Mary Louise and the Liberty Girls • Edith Van Dyne (AKA L. Frank Baum)
... the elders, Sir Gervas Jerome and Mistress Ruth had fallen into conversation at the other side of the table. I have seldom seen, my dear children, so beautiful a face as that of this Puritan damsel; and it was beautiful with that sort of modest and maidenly comeliness where the features derive their sweetness from the sweet soul which shines through them. The perfectly-moulded body appeared to be but the outer expression of the perfect spirit within. Her dark-brown hair swept back from a broad and white forehead, ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... nursed at Moss Brow, Charley,' said Molly; and Sylvia dropped her little maidenly curtsey, and said, 'Good-by;' and went away, wondering how Molly could talk so freely to such a hero; but then, to be sure, he was a cousin, and probably a sweetheart, and that would make a great ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. I • Elizabeth Gaskell
... heaved even before the strings of the breastplate were uncut by his sword. And then she sat up and hailed the sun, and Georgie felt for a moment that he had quite taken the wrong turn in life, when he settled to spend his years in this boyish, maidenly manner with his embroidery and his china-dusting at Riseholme. He ought to have been Siegfried.... He had brought a photograph of her in her cuirass and helmet, and often looked at it when he was not too busy with something ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... loved. She is a very queer woman who would deny that proposition if asked by the right person, and I hope he would have sense enough not to believe her if she did. I do not object to a girl making herself attractive to men in a modest and maidenly way. On the contrary, I heartily approve of it. But I would have her select a man who belonged to no other girl, and to know that nothing but misery can result from the taking of a lover away from ...
— From a Girl's Point of View • Lilian Bell
... It wasna maidenly. If that's what you want to be saying to me, Neal Ward. The other lassie wouldna have done it. Maybe not. But a' the lads I knew well were turning out and going to the fight, and what was to hinder a poor, wild lassie, that nobody cared about, from ...
— The Northern Iron - 1907 • George A. Birmingham
... daughter. I never saw a girl more cheerful, more lovable, more worthy of long life—nay, of immortality. She had not yet completed her fourteenth year, and she had already the prudence of an old woman, the gravity of a matron, and still, with all maidenly modesty, the sweetness of a girl. How she would cling to her father's neck! how affectionately and discreetly she would greet us, her father's friends! how she loved her nurses, her attendants, her teachers,—everyone ...
— A Handbook for Latin Clubs • Various
... hither? What had her fair, unclouded brow, her innocent face, her maidenly bearing in common with the vain, voluptuous, and corrupt women around, who were so lost to shame as not only to do homage to the king's mistresses, but to envy them the infamous distinction of ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... he broke the stem of his tobacco-pipe in three! Never did the sheep turn upon her shearer with a more commanding front. Her voice was calm, her enunciation a little slow, but perfectly distinct, and she stood before him as she spoke, in the simplest and most maidenly attitude. ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and place its date no earlier than the second century B.C. However this may be, the statue is justly one of the most famous in the world. It represents an ideal of purity and sweetness. There is not a trace of coarseness or immodesty in the half-naked woman who stands perfect in the maidenly dignity of her own conquering fairness. Her serious yet smiling face, her graceful form, the delicacy of feeling in attitude and gaze, the tender moulding of breast and limbs, make it a worthy companion of the Hermes or Praxiteles. It seems scarcely possible that it should not ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... mien or face, In which more plainly I could trace Benignity and home-bred sense Ripening in perfect innocence. Here scattered, like a random seed, Remote from men, thou dost not need The embarrassed look of shy distress, And maidenly shamefacedness: Thou wear'st upon thy forehead clear The freedom of a mountaineer: A face with gladness overspread! Soft smiles, by human kindness bred! And seemliness complete, that sways Thy courtesies, about thee plays; With no restraint, ...
— Memories • Max Muller
... Abigail's bedroom opened hastily, and that pink of maidenly propriety stepped out into the hail in her night-gown—the only indecorous thing I ever knew her to do. She held a lighted candle in her hand and looked like a very aged ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... good-humored than Uncle Ben, but none of these things marred his fatuous felicity. It is even probable that in his gratuitous belief that his timid attentions had been too marked and impulsive, he attributed Cressy's flight to a maidenly coyness that pleasurably increased his admiration for her and his confidence in himself. In his abstraction of enjoyment and in the gathering darkness he ran against a fir-tree very much as he had done while walking with her, and he confusedly ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte
... least by my assiduous courtship; but repaid all my affection with disdain and abhorrence; whilst my love for her grew to such an extreme, that I should have deemed my fate most blest if she had killed me by her scorn, provided she did not bestow open, though maidenly, favours on Cornelio. Imagine the anguish of my soul, thus lacerated by her disdain, and tortured by the most cruel jealousy. Leonisa's father and mother winked at her preference for Cornelio, believing, as they well might, that the youth, fascinated by her incomparable beauty, would chose ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... trifle of girlish gratification. She had been sorry herself to miss that half hour among the roses but she was still too young and too happy to know how few are such hours, how irrevocable such losses. Also, it had seemed good to her maidenly pride that Dr. Callandar should know—well, that he should see—just exactly what he should know and see she did not formulate. But underneath her temporary disappointment she felt as light and glad as ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... her was all very pleasant. It gave an instant rose colour to her life. She had achieved such a character down at Exeter for maidenly reserve, and had lived so sternly, that it was hardly in her memory that a man had squeezed her hand before. She did remember one young clergyman who had sinned in this direction, twelve years since, but he was now ...
— Kept in the Dark • Anthony Trollope
... all made plain, arose And curtsey'd to the Spaniard. Ah, methinks I yet behold her, gracious, innocent, And flaxen-haired, and blushing maidenly, When turning she retired, and his black eyes, That hunger'd after her, did follow on; And I bethought me, 'Thou shalt see no more, Thou goodly enemy, my one ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Jean Ingelow
... Ann, whose love, gettin' the upper hand of maidenly reeserve, has sent her projectin' 'round in search of me. She's in ...
— Faro Nell and Her Friends - Wolfville Stories • Alfred Henry Lewis
... of what was supposed to be my maidenly modesty cut me like a knife, but I could not permit myself to explain, so my ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... the maiden is like the opening of some lovely flower-bud. As life unfolds, the tender smile and blush of childhood mingle with the grace of maidenly repose; the upturned, radiant eye gathers new depths of thought and emotion; the delicate features, the wavy, pliant form, begin to reveal their ...
— Adele Dubois - A Story of the Lovely Miramichi Valley in New Brunswick • Mrs. William T. Savage
... so pretty on her wedding day as usual; but Levin did not think so. He looked at her hair done up high, with the long white veil and white flowers and the high, stand-up, scalloped collar, that in such a maidenly fashion hid her long neck at the sides and only showed it in front, her strikingly slender figure, and it seemed to him that she looked better than ever—not because these flowers, this veil, this gown from Paris added anything to her beauty; but because, in spite of the elaborate sumptuousness ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... the exact places between which the new railroad was to run. Then supper was ready; it was always on the table as soon as the clock on the stairs struck eight, and down came Phillis—her face white and set, her dry eyes looking defiance to me, for I am afraid I hurt her maidenly pride by my glance of sympathetic interest as she entered the room. Never a word did she say—never a question did she ask about the absent friend, yet she forced ...
— Cousin Phillis • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... handed over amid the imposing circumstance of arms, Bloemfontein lost something of its charm. The noise and dust and commotion of the army did violence to its pastoral quietness, and the pretty shops put up their shutters at midday as though in maidenly horror at the eagerness of crowds of soldiers running amuck like children with their Saturday pennies. I entered the town early enough to see what its normal condition must be, and there was something rude and unkind in the din of the multitude ...
— The Relief of Mafeking • Filson Young
... as he spoke, and, in the animation of his argument, grasped the willing hand of Mysie, (or Mysinda as he had now christened her.) He gazed too upon full black eyes, fixed upon his own with an expression which, however subdued by maidenly shame, it was impossible to mistake, on cheeks where something like hope began to restore the natural colour, and on two lips which, like double rosebuds, were kept a little apart by expectation, and showed within ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... himself, for as far as she could love any one beyond herself she loved him, and she also realized fully that he could continue to her all that her elegant and expensive tastes craved. Notwithstanding her show of maidenly pride and reserve, she was ready enough to do as she had been bidden. Mr. Allen guessed as much. Indeed, as was quite natural, his wife was the type of the average woman to his mind, only he believed that she was a little ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... fishing. Manufactories there were not as yet; Lawrence and Lowell. Pittsburg, and the great industrial New York towns, were still in the womb of the future. In almost every household throughout the land the old-fashioned spinning- wheel was humming under the pressure of matronly and maidenly feet, by which the homespun garments of the time were made. While the less well- to-do and laboring classes were content with clothing spun and knitted at their own firesides, the wealthier people arrayed themselves with far more ostentation than they do at this day. Silks and satins came hither ...
— The Nation in a Nutshell • George Makepeace Towle
... loves never addresses such a question; but the feminine heart was a book in which he was a very poor speller. He imagined that Reine was only asking him as a matter of form, and that it was from a feeling of maidenly reserve that she adopted this passive method of escaping from openly declaring her wishes. She no doubt desired his friendly aid in the matter, and he felt as if he ought ...
— A Woodland Queen, Complete • Andre Theuriet
... keep the interior of the temple and the shrines pure and clean, and the sacred vessels and utensils arranged, as in a well-ordered household. In a word, they were to be, in purity, in industry, in neatness, in order, and in patience and vigilance, the perfect impersonation of maidenly virtue as exhibited in its own proper field of ...
— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... expression of intimate thought or cherished fancy was for your eyes only; it was my first approach to your maidenly heart, a mystical wooing, which neglected no resource, near or remote, for the enhancement of its charm, and so involved all other mystery in ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... guess, I saw nothing of the strange lady. And on the morrow until dinner-time I had but a glimpse of her. This was in the forenoon. She stood, with her hound beside her, in an embrasure of the wall, looking over the sea: to the eye a figure so maidenly and innocent and (in a sense) forlorn that I recalled Gil Perez' tale as the merest frenzy, and wondered how I had come to listen to it with any belief. Her seaward gaze would be passing over the very spot ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... this all made plain, arose And curtsey'd to the Spaniard. Ah, methinks I yet behold her, gracious, innocent, And flaxen-haired, and blushing maidenly, When turning she retired, and his black eyes, That hunger'd after her, did follow on; And I bethought me, 'Thou shalt see no more, Thou goodly enemy, my one ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Jean Ingelow
... you, Sir Cuthbert," the girl said frankly, "better than any one else next to my father, and gladly submit myself to his will. My own inclinations indeed, so far as is maidenly, go with his. These are troubled times," she said anxiously, "and our holy mother tells me that you fear some danger is ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty
... for her. Money raises between us such an insuperable obstacle, that my love is actually an offence. To hear from her, I am driven to accept accomplices. If I obtain from her a few moments of conversation, I run the risk of compromising her maidenly reputation." ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau
... a time of strangely mixed and contending emotions. She loved Eberhard Ludwig with all that fervour and lavish freshness which we give to our first love; she longed to surrender to his passion, yet she held back with a modesty of maidenly reserve which her many jealous enemies ascribed to calculation, or else entirely denied, alleging that she was a mere adventuress plying her illicit trade according to her habit. Of a truth, there may have been a shade of strategy in her virtuous hesitation, for Madame de Ruth, ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... had said this Enid felt that she had gone quite as far as her self-respect and maidenly pride would permit her to go. As she looked up at him she saw the pallor of his face change almost to grey. His hand was resting lightly on her arm, and she felt it tremble. Then he drew it gently away ...
— The Missionary • George Griffith
... "Maidenly?" she repeated, and broke into such a mockery of laughter that I felt my cheeks indeed burn with a painful effusion and turning abruptly, I walked ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... quality of other-worldliness which was beautiful in Estelle, but which would not have endured repetition in the sister or the cousin. There Harry and I, also, once more agreed. Cecile never allowed herself to reflect a spirit of saintliness, or even of sacrifice, but only of maidenly wisdom ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable
... darker than usual. She sat very quiet as he gathered up the reins, and it was not until they were well on their way along the Trumansburg road that the boy turned to her. How beautiful she looked, her shoulders completely covered with dusky-dark curls and her head bowed in maidenly shyness! All his doubts as to the expediency of his act were set at rest. She was deeply essential to his happiness, to his progress. To know she was his wife, married to him, so that none could separate them, would make his absences from Tessibel much easier to bear. ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... waiting for him with that mixture of maidenly feelings of which the discreet novelist only details a selection. It is not customary to dwell upon thoughts of vague regret at the approaching withdrawal of a universal admiration—at the future necessity for discreet and humdrum behaviour quite devoid of the excitement ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... had been her guide, her dearest friend, her hero. From the time when as a child she had learned to look up to him as the paragon of all perfection, until now, as a girl on the verge of womanhood, she had offered up to him a very pure and maidenly worship. There was no one else whom she could love as much; for her dumb and deaf father she loved in quite a different manner—with more of pity and compassion than of admiration. Roland too had sometimes talked with her, especially ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... Fundanus has lost his youngest daughter. I never saw a girl more cheerful, more lovable, more worthy of long life—nay, of immortality. She had not yet completed her fourteenth year, and she had already the prudence of an old woman, the gravity of a matron, and still, with all maidenly modesty, the sweetness of a girl. How she would cling to her father's neck! how affectionately and discreetly she would greet us, her father's friends! how she loved her nurses, her attendants, her teachers,—everyone according to his service. How earnestly, how intelligently, she used to read! ...
— A Handbook for Latin Clubs • Various
... an actual woman,—beautiful, modest, gentle, with companions only less beautiful than herself,—the most delightful figure in the midst of the picturesque life of Florence. She is seen smiling and weeping, walking with stately maidenly decorum in the street, praying at the church, merry at festivals, mourning at funerals; and her smiles and tears, her gentleness, her reserve, all the sweet qualities of her life, and the peace of her death, are told of with such tenderness and refinement, such pathetic melancholy, such delicate ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... I don't like it at all. I hate you to know the like of such people, such things. I just want you to be again the dear, sweet little girl I first knew, all maidenly modesty and shuddering ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... pretty Norman girl, rather stout, with fair hair of a golden tint, an animated face lighted by intelligent eyes, and distinguished by a finely curved thoroughbred nose, with a maidenly air in spite of a certain swaying Spanish manner of carrying herself, possessed all the points that a young girl born just above the level of the masses is likely to acquire from whatever close companionship a mistress is willing to allow her. ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... more dying than you are. I have been ill, it is true, but that is only because you have fretted me so. The dying was only a little ruse to get your consent. All is fair in love and war, you know; and of course you never really believed in that precious agreement. That was nothing but a bit of maidenly shyness, eh?" ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... Charlie Bryant. And how do you take it? You—a man-hunter? Why, you run like a rabbit from Fyles. Courage? Oh, dear. The mention of his name is enough to send you into convulsions of trepidation and maidenly confusion. And all the time you secretly admire him. As for the other, you have turned yourself into a sort of hospital nurse and temperance reformer. You've taken him up as a sort of hobby, until, in his lucid intervals, he takes ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... of innocence and maidenly simplicity. When I say the Prince must declare himself, I mean by that that he must sue for your hand; he must say to you in so many words that ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... certain affinity, which, given an opportunity, might bridge over greater gaps than that of intellect and learning. How was that opportunity to be gained? She might be willing to sacrifice much to attain it, but there was one thing that could never be thrown on one side—her natural maidenly pride and dignity! Not even for Ron's sake could she bring herself to make advances to a man who, so far from exhibiting any desire for her company, had gone markedly out of ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... No time or chance for any maidenly hesitation or softening aureole of words. Aunt and Mrs. Saxby had almost reached the point where they invariably turned. I had barely time to spell out a plain, blunt "yes" and ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... sooner had she seen them safely advancing up the box avenue than she murmured something about preparing for the meal, and, desiring a dismissal from her father, disappeared into the women's apartments, while the old man smiled at her pretty maidenly modesty. ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge
... always drew back with a timid air of maidenly modesty when Tom approached him, and I quite sympathize with this bashfulness. It has never been my fortune to exchange courtesies with a large and healthy polar bear, so I cannot describe the operation, but I should imagine that Tom's salute would ...
— A Dream of the North Sea • James Runciman
... Euthymia, and explained the matter to her parents and friends. She must go with him on some of his visits. Her mother should go with her, or her sister; but this was a case of life and death, and no maidenly scruples must keep her from doing ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... Tish said. "I expect she liked the first young man better than she thought she did. I intend to give her a piece of my mind as soon as I get a chance. This playing hot and cold isn't maidenly, to ...
— Tish, The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... as fair as could be, With her tempting smiles And maidenly wiles, And he was a trifle past seventy-three: Now what she could see Is a puzzle to me, In ...
— Fifty Bab Ballads • William S. Gilbert
... faculty-guarded, of course, attended a series of matinees. At these matinees Jane first saw her hero, brave in doublet and hose, and braver still in melody and romance. She and her mates looked and listened and worshiped from afar, as is the habit of maidenly youth under such circumstances. There is no particular danger in such worship provided the worshiper remains always at a safely remote distance from the idol. But in Jane's case this safety-bar was removed by Fate. The wife of a friend of her father's, the friend being a Boston merchant named Cole ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... was that of maidenly reserve, and a ladylike dignity, a quiet serenity, approaching—at periods, when any remark calculated to infringe in the slightest degree upon those precincts with which feminine delicacy and form have ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... 3. Portia. The maidenly passion now becoming great, and chiefly divine in its humility, is still held absolutely subordinate to duty; no thought of disobedience to her dead father's intention is entertained for an instant, ...
— Proserpina, Volume 2 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin
... her pose ought to be. Not prim stiffness, not suspicious maidenly dignity, but just smiling civility, a recognition of past slight acquaintance. This would do for the beginning. This must surely show him that the tactics Ena credited him with were ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... wooing conduct of Miss Euphemia which, notwithstanding her beauty and the softness that was its vehicle, filled him with the deepest disgust. He could not trace real affection in her words or manner; and that any woman, instigated by a mere whim, should lay aside the maidenly reserves of her sex, and actually court his regard, surprised whilst it ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... talk were heavy and solid, his poetry and metaphors were ponderous and labored. Yet Mabel listened to him now, neither facing nor avoiding him, looking down at her hands, laid, one above the other, upon the window-sill, the image of maidenly and ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... affection with disdain and abhorrence; whilst my love for her grew to such an extreme, that I should have deemed my fate most blest if she had killed me by her scorn, provided she did not bestow open, though maidenly, favours on Cornelio. Imagine the anguish of my soul, thus lacerated by her disdain, and tortured by the most cruel jealousy. Leonisa's father and mother winked at her preference for Cornelio, believing, as they well might, ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... feet, in the style of a Nautch girl. She was waiting for some one, since to right and left she swung with a delicate hand curved behind her ear. Suddenly she started, as if she heard an approaching footstep, and in maidenly confusion glided to a distance, where she stood with her hands across her bosom, the very picture of a surprised nymph. Mentally, the dance translated itself to Lambert somewhat ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume
... beyond which dwelt Sally, told of in a book of a friend of mine, was of old a house inhabited by three maidens. They left no near kinsfolk, I believe; whether they did or not, I have no ill to speak of them; for they lived and died in all good report and maidenly credit. The house they lived in was of the small, gambrel-roofed cottage pattern, after the shape of Esquires' houses, but after the size of the dwellings of handicraftsmen. The lower story was fitted up as a shop. Specially was it provided with one of those half-doors ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... much neglected, sorely aggrieved mistress. Such a pretty little story it was, interspersed with sly looks, knowing nods, and rippling bursts of laughter. Listened to with, first, disdainful silence; then, growing interest; last, spasmodic giggles, apropos ejaculations, and much blushing and maidenly confusion. ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... the dining-room window, and after some moments of maidenly hesitation rambled out into the garden in a reverse direction to Mr. Fortescue's steps, and encountered him with an air ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... and graceful as no other girl, and still better than that, more maidenly than ever maiden was; a maiden all ignorant of love, who knew not why or what it was; a maiden who wondered why certain people lingered in their beds; a maiden who believed that children were found in parsley beds. Her mother had thus reared her in innocence, without even allowing her to ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac
... constituted that I simply cannot bear to see any creature whatsoever suffer, not even the meanest. (Looking at her critically, but with dignity.) And for you, my child, I am sincerely sorry; I may say that much, after you have so far fought down your maidenly pride as to wait for me here. But please, Miss Coeurne, do take into account the life I have to lead. Just think of the mere question of time! At least two hundred, may be as many as three hundred charmingly attractive young girls of your age saw me on the stage yesterday in the part of Tannhaeuser. ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... Posey," was its answer, in a pleasant tone. The old master knew her light step and the maidenly touch of her ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... and although she threw me over for Pinkie Hill, by whose effulgent aurora borealis she was hypnotized, and took to wearing pantaloons in public despite my protest, she has since repented and given all her maidenly heart to me; hence it will be my duty and my pleasure to manage her campaign. Rebecca may safely consider herself elected and discount her salary whenever the Post gets into a pinch. I am ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... desire to be loved. She is a very queer woman who would deny that proposition if asked by the right person, and I hope he would have sense enough not to believe her if she did. I do not object to a girl making herself attractive to men in a modest and maidenly way. On the contrary, I heartily approve of it. But I would have her select a man who belonged to no other girl, and to know that nothing but misery can result from the taking of a lover ...
— From a Girl's Point of View • Lilian Bell
... there was not much to tell. She never mentioned his name after her marriage. There were gay parties given in honor of the wedding, and her delicate, drooping, phantom-like figure hung upon the arm of her handsome, elegant husband. People said that her maidenly shyness was beautiful to behold, and that she clung to her husband like the ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... that she flops into his arms in the last chapter and hides her maidenly blushes against the pocket where he keeps his sack of Bull Durham ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... around her to remember that something pleasant had happened. Not that there was any foolishness in her thoughts. There was too much dignity and simplicity about the girl, young as she was, to allow her to deal even with her own thoughts in any but a maidenly way, and it was not in the ordinary way of a maid with a man that she thought of this young soldier. He was so far removed from her life in every way, and all the well-drilled formalities, that it never occurred ...
— The Search • Grace Livingston Hill
... of the same in them, but they were very deep blue, and there was in them just that touch of maidenly reserve which best becomes a maiden's eyes, until, to one at all events, she may lay it aside and let her heart ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham
... little about Mr. Wendover from his cousins, stimulated her curiosity about him, and intensified her interest in him. Brian's merits were a subject which the Wendover children always shirked, or passed over so lightly that Ida was no wiser for her questioning; and maidenly reserve forbade ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... joy and pain, leaped strong and full into the open, and she knew that this man who lay bleeding and ghastly before her was dearer to her than her own life. The sudden rush of this consciousness sweeping like a flood over her soul broke down and carried away the barrier of her maidenly reserve. Leaning over him in a passion of self-abandonment, she breathed, "Oh, Jack, dear, dear Jack." As he lay there white and still, into her love there came a maternal tender yearning of pity. She lifted his head in her arm, and murmured brokenly, ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor
... Princess Etheldrida would be there also, for beside the king was Ecgfrith the atheling; but she was not. They say that she had some maidenly fear of meeting this husband of hers, who was to be, ...
— A King's Comrade - A Story of Old Hereford • Charles Whistler
... which, it may be, was chiefly hindered by the consideration that, in that case, the cost of supporting them would probably be transferred from the grim Doctor's shoulders to those of the community. Nevertheless, they did what they could. Maidenly ladies, prim and starched, in one or two instances called upon the Doctor—the two children meanwhile being in the graveyard at play—to give him Christian advice as to the management of his charge. But, ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... up my courage to address her, she receives my laborious politeness with a cachinnation like that of a Cheshire cheese, which strikes me all of a heap. Her female parent excuses to me such flabbergasting demeanour on the plea that her daughter is afflicted with great shyness and maidenly modesty, but, on perceiving that she can be skittish and genial in the company of other masculines, I am forced to attribute her contumeliousness to the circumstance that I am a native gentleman of ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... my fond heart is gushing With thoughts that no language can ever reveal; With the sweetest affection this warm cheek is blushing, And hopes to my maidenly bosom will steal, Of a time when our souls, with united expression, Shall mingle with harmony more than divine; And the priest—be he Greek, or of any profession— Shall bless this poor hand ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... to retrieve the slip. He was in the family enough to be a part of the Graham conspiracy. Poor Graham, distracted by her innocent inability to make up her mind to marry him! He would be all right as soon as her maidenly hesitations should have come to an end, and she'd made him the happiest man in the world with ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... too clear-sighted not to have seen that Bee had fixed her pure maidenly affections upon him, and to see also that Bee's choice was well approved by her parents, who had long loved him as a son. While Ishmael's hands had been busy with the book- packing his thoughts had been busy with Bee and with the problem that ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... Sally's-ah-maidenly dislike, in fact, her quite proper dislike of a loan from-ah-one who aspires—— In fact," he said, boldly breaking away from all attempt to speak bookishly, "from me. She don't want to borrow from me, and it would be the same thing if you borrowed ...
— Kilo - Being the Love Story of Eliph' Hewlitt Book Agent • Ellis Parker Butler
... Magnetism magnetismo. Magnificent belega. Magnify pligrandigi. Magnitude grandeco. Magpie pigo. Mahogany mahagono. Mahomet Mahometo. Mahometan Mahometano. Maid frauxlino. Maiden virgulino. Maidenly virga. Maid-servant servistino. Mail posxto. Mail (armour) masxo. Maim vundegi. Mainly cxefe. Maintain subteni. Maintain (assert) pretendi. Maintenance subtenado. Maize maizo. Majestic majesta. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... still it appeared as if the extreme intimacy of childhood had been broken off, and that it was necessary that a renewed intimacy under another aspect should take place, to restore us to our former relations. Here it was for me to make the first overtures; not for her, as maidenly reserve would not permit it. Bramble seemed to be most anxious that such should be the case—indeed, considered it as a matter of course: perhaps Bessy thought so too in her own bosom; and the continual raillery of Bramble did more harm than good, as it appeared to warrant ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... threw out pictures before him upon which he could not close his eyes. He saw Thomas Payne's face all glowing with triumph, he saw Charlotte's with the old look that she had worn for him. Charlotte's caresses had been few and maidenly; they all came into his mind like stings. He knew just how she would put her tender arm around this other man's neck, how she would lift grave, willing lips to his. He wished that they had never been for him, for all they seemed worth to ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... were clenched at her sides. Her cheeks were crimson, and her dark eyes, peering out from the shade of the close-fitting hood of her black bonnet, smouldered with wrath,—and, if he could have read them better, a very decided trace of maidenly dismay. ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... writer thus describes her: 'To look on her was enchantment; her eyes called you to love her; her smile was like heaven; if you heard her speak, you were conquered. Her whole person was a miracle of beauty, and her deportment had a certain maidenly pride, springing from a pure heart and ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 433 - Volume 17, New Series, April 17, 1852 • Various
... torture for him to part with her, and he retained her until she was thirteen years of age in his mansion-house, where she was instructed in reading and devotion, pickling and preserving (and the distilling of strong waters), sampler work, and such maidenly parts of education, by the housekeeper, and by a governante brought from London,—he had wisdom enough to discern and to admit that his daughter's genius was of a nature that required and demanded much higher culture than could be given ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... fear you do not understand me! Yet it is natural that you should not; you were not prepared for the offer of my—my affections,"—and he beamed all over with benevolence,—"and I can appreciate a maidenly and becoming coyness, even though it assume the form of a repellant and unreasonable anger. But take courage, my—my dear girl!—our Lord forbid that I should wantonly play with the delicate emotions ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... not work, looking over his men's shoulder, checking on every detail of what they are doing, and calling them to account at every furlong post. This maidenly attitude corrodes confidence ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... wondering these last three days? Well, tell me what you think my purpose was in abandoning all maidenly reserve and throwing ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... are pieces, such as the -Trinummus- of Plautus and several of Terence, in which all the characters down to the slaves possess some admixture of virtue; all swarm with honest men who allow deception on their behalf, with maidenly virtue wherever possible, with lovers equally favoured and making love in company; moral commonplaces and well-turned ethical maxims abound. A finale of reconciliation such as that of the -Bacchides-, where ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... Hermia, have we two, sitting on one cushion, both singing one song, with our needles working the same flower, both on the same sampler wrought; growing up together in fashion of a double cherry, scarcely seeming parted? Hermia, it is not friendly in you, it is not maidenly, to join with men in ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... lady, clothed and well conducted, anticipates being kissed or embraced by her lover, she places in the way such difficulties as are in her power; she gets behind tables and chairs, runs from him, compels him to pursue, and expects him to. In her maidenly heart she may want to be kissed, but she cannot help resisting. She obeys the same instinct that impelled this wild girl to spring from the outstretched arms of the boy and go screaming out of the cave and down the beach in simulated terror—an instinct inherited from the prehistoric ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson
... among the daughters of Israel, even though surrounded by the retarding influences of the ghetto. We have seen how well Recha had been educated and her daughter Kathinka was being brought up in the same way. She was independent in thought as well as in action, but never at the cost of maidenly sentiment. Piety and purity shone in her lustrous eyes. Superior to her position, she possessed the faculty of adapting herself to her surroundings. There was no pride in her breast save that which might arise from the consciousness of doing right. The ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith
... "A fair and maidenly resolution," answered De Lacy, who seemed, on his part, rather glad that the conference was abridged, "and, as I trust, not altogether unfavourable to the suit of your humble suppliant, since the good Lady Abbess hath been long my honoured friend." He then turned to Rose, who was about to attend ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... came amongst them in her hunting gear. Her lovely hair hung in two bands across her shoulders, and over her breast hung an ivory quiver filled with arrows. They said that her face with its wide and steady eyes was maidenly for a boy's, and boyish for a maiden's face. Swiftly she moved with her head held high, and there was not one amongst the heroes who did not say, "Oh, happy would that man be whom Atalanta the unwedded ...
— The Golden Fleece and the Heroes who Lived Before Achilles • Padraic Colum
... that he has been living only for her. At the image of his dwelling anywhere but by her side, of his having any interest apart from hers, the universe is, in a moment, shrouded in gloom. Her heart is sick, and there is no rest for it, for her self-respect is gone. She has been reared in a maidenly pride, and an innocent confidence: her confidence is wholly broken-down; her pride is wounded and the agony of the wound is intolerable. We are wont to say, Margaret, that everything is endurable but a sense of guilt. If there be an exception, this is it. This wounding of the spirit ought not perhaps ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... difficult undertaking," said Lady Jane, with a sigh. "The queen is a pure, transparent soul; she has a shrewd head and a clear glance. She is, moreover, guileless in her thoughts, and recoils with true maidenly timidity from ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... honor me forever. She would go at once to her mother—so she called my cousin—and tell her so. Thus saying, she left me. And I—I did not then understand the struggle and the victory of the poor girl over herself. I did not reflect that no maidenly blush, no charming confusion, announced my happy destiny,—no kiss, no caress, no sign that the heart's citadel had surrendered; but, instead, a calmness, a composure, and a hastening from my presence. No, I thought nothing of this; I only considered that now the time was at ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... In which full plainly I can trace Benignity, and home-bred sense, Ripening in perfect innocence. Here scattered, like a random seed, Remote from men, thou dost not need The embarrassed look of shy distress And maidenly shamefacedness. Thou wear'st upon thy forehead clear The freedom of a mountaineer. A face with gladness overspread, Soft smiles, by human kindness bred, And seemliness complete, that sways Thy courtesies, about thee plays. With ...
— Sanitary and Social Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... known to be," said the same critic, "with such self-denial fling off their protection in her resolution to lay hold of the public at all risks. Her performances at times approached offense against maidenly reticence and delicacy. When she played Zerlina, in 'Don Giovanni,' such virtue as there was between the two seemed absolutely on the side of the libertine hero—so much invitation was thrown into the peasant girl's rusticity." ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... Zambinella's continued reserve toward him. She had begun, it is true, by touching his foot with hers and stimulating his passion with the mischievous pleasure of a woman who is free and in love; but she had suddenly enveloped herself in maidenly modesty, after she had heard Sarrasine relate an incident which illustrated the extreme violence of his temper. When the supper became a debauch, the guests began to sing, inspired by the Peralta and the Pedro-Ximenes. There were fascinating duets, Calabrian ...
— Sarrasine • Honore de Balzac
... people. And besides this, she was not so forward in her questions or pert in her replies at sea as on shore. Neither did she laugh so much; and when she did laugh, it was more gently. She seemed altogether more modest and maidenly in the water than out of it. But when the prince, who had really fallen in love when he fell in the lake, began to talk to her about love, she always turned her head towards him and laughed. After a while she began to look puzzled, as ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... Amy had grown into girlhood, and was, in truth, as beautiful as a poet's dream. She was timid, gentle, and silent; no strength of mind was enshrined in that faultless casket; and her transparent, maidenly brow, was never shadowed by the conflict of thought. Her words were few and commonplace, but they were spoken by a voice exquisitely musical, and her surpassing personal loveliness disarmed mental criticism. ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various
... Minerva on the bookcase above her did not offer the spectator a face less free from maidenly confusion than Clementina's at that moment. Her father had certainly expected none, but he was not prepared for the perfect coolness of ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte
... the wagon backwards, making a maidenly effort to keep the connection between the hem of her black silk skirt and the top of her calf-skin shoes inviolate, and brushing the dust of the wagon wheel from her dress carefully after her safe arrival in the dog-fennel. Marg'et Ann ignored the chair which had been ...
— The Wizard's Daughter and Other Stories • Margaret Collier Graham
... three women stayed, together with mamma Leland, and nursed the invalid in couples. And it came to pass that the indiscreet little Thecla won everybody's heart about the place, and that everybody came to be assured that no lack of maidenly honour had made her indiscreet, but only a very natural, unsuspecting, childlike confidence. It came to pass also that when Leland Junior began to get better he saw good and sufficient reasons for setting a term ...
— An Old Meerschaum - From Coals Of Fire And Other Stories, Volume II. (of III.) • David Christie Murray
... deep sensibilities of the woman begin to give a timid dignity to the liveliness of the girl. The open and rather ardent expression of her happy countenance was sweetly repressed and tempered by the pure veil of maidenly modesty; yet her graceful and commanding stature, the fire of her bright blue eye, and her free and stately step and gesture, told that the spirit of her fathers dwelt strong in the bosom of their lovely daughter. The heart of Allan Cameron bounded and fluttered in his breast, as he ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... word she spoke, not loudly, for her voice was low and soft, but with an accent which carried it sharply to his ear and to his brain. And then she rose from her seat as she went on. "Your scorn, uncle, is unjust,—unjust and untrue. I have ever acted maidenly, as has become ...
— The House of Heine Brothers, in Munich • Anthony Trollope
... Now, when he did so, he found to his surprise that she had made herself quite a warm little nest in his memory. Looked back on, she stood out in high relief against her somewhat graceless surroundings. Small doubt she was both maidenly and refined. He also remembered with a sensible pleasure her brisk service, her consideration for others. What a boon it would have been, during the past week, to have a busy, willing little woman at work, ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... pray For thee when I am far away; For never saw I mien or face, In which more plainly I could trace Benignity and home-bred sense Ripening in perfect innocence. Here scattered, like a random seed, Remote from men, thou dost not need The embarrassed look of shy distress, And maidenly shamefacedness: Thou wear'st upon thy forehead clear The freedom of a mountaineer: A face with gladness overspread! Soft smiles, by human kindness bred! And seemliness complete, that sways Thy courtesies, about ...
— Memories • Max Muller
... a maidenly coyness far in excess of the needs of the situation. Then she stepped across, and five seconds later the two matrons, with consternation writ large upon their faces, appeared at their doors again and, exchanging glances across the alley, met in ...
— At Sunwich Port, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... impression made by these girls, and in the whole tone of their appearance, than in the absolute loveliness of their features or the grace of their figures. There was about them a dignity of demeanour devoid of all stiffness or pride, and a maidenly modesty which gave itself no airs. In them was always apparent that sense of security which women should receive from an unconscious dependence on their own mingled purity and weakness. These two girls were never afraid of men,—never ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... intellect apparently burned within her, which—being alternately pushed forward into a conspicuous expression by the irresistible instincts of her temperament, and then immediately checked in obedience to the decorum of her sex and age and her maidenly condition—gave to her whole demeanour, and to her conversation, an air of embarrassment, and even of self-conflict, that was almost distressing to witness. Even her very utterance and enunciation often suffered in point of clearness and steadiness, from the agitation ...
— Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland A.D. 1803 • Dorothy Wordsworth
... and was too generous to use the knowledge, however flattering it might be to him. In a reassuring tone he said, turning away the keen eyes she feared, "I give you my word I never will, charming as it might be to study the white pages of a maidenly heart. I find plenty of others to read, so rest tranquil, ...
— The Abbot's Ghost, Or Maurice Treherne's Temptation • A. M. Barnard
... snarl, "I mistrust that maidenly reserve which men call pride, and I, clever coquetry. The women of Rome have realised, fortunately by now, that they are the slaves of their masters, to be bought and sold as he directs. The wife must learn that she is the slave of her husband, the daughter that she belongs ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... hapless stumble, and the deck was stained with the precious blood from that soldier's reopened wound, shed for her—for her who so revered him—she had longed to hear him say the words that alone could unlock the gates of maidenly reserve and let her tell him—tell him with glad and grateful heart that the love he bore her was answered by her own. Hovering over him only one minute, her lips half parted, her eyes still veiled, her heart throbbing loud and fast, with sudden movement she threw herself upon her knees at the side ...
— Found in the Philippines - The Story of a Woman's Letters • Charles King
... drew back. She had seen the figure of a man crossing the park on the further side of the river, and the maidenly instinct drove her from the window; though the man in question was perhaps a quarter of a mile away, and had he been looking for her, could not possibly have made out more than a pale ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... and distant in his manner, but I knew, that is, I thought—I mean I felt—oh, you know—he looked as if he were glad to see me and I—I, oh, God! I was so glad and happy to see him that I could hardly restrain myself to act at all maidenly. He must have heard my heart beat. I thought he was in trouble. He seemed to have something he wished to say ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major
... a mind, Transcendent grace and beauty, all combin'd Must justify my love and seeming boldness. I ne'er accused you of disdain or coldness. I duly honour maidenly reserve.— Your favour I pretend not to deserve; But who would not risk all, with blindfold eyes,— To win a heaven on earth,—a Paradise? Each day do we not see, for smaller gain, Great captains brave the dangers of the main? For glory's empty ...
— Turandot: The Chinese Sphinx • Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
... self-contamination for me, I thought. But soon after these events another friend prevailed upon me to sample with him a most excellent brand of champagne. The blood mounts to my cheeks in "maidenly" shame as I now chronicle the occurrence. This friend said: "You don't know what a feeling of exhilaration and well-being a little good champagne will give you. Try it once; don't associate it with common alcoholic stimulants." Those last words, well-meant but, to me, misleading, ...
— Confessions of a Neurasthenic • William Taylor Marrs
... Nay, Mertoun, it is some time since you met; and then, not under the auspices of her father's roof. Make some allowances for maidenly reserve. ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... broidering needle, would question him of his doings, and betimes her breast would heave and her dexterous hand tremble and falter to hear of dangers past; or, talking of the future, her gracious head would droop with cheeks that flushed most maidenly, until Beltane, kneeling to her loveliness, would clasp her in his arms, while she, soft-voiced, would bid him beware ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
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