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More "Tiptoe" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... at last was still, and had been put in a deep bed, and the nurse, after smoothing the little pillow, had left her, Alexey Alexandrovitch got up, and walking awkwardly on tiptoe, approached the baby. For a minute he was still, and with the same despondent face gazed at the baby; but all at once a smile, that moved his hair and the skin of his forehead, came out on his face, and he went as softly out of ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... said Letty, annoyed by the question, standing, however, eagerly on tiptoe. "I know her, too, a little; but she never remembers me. She was at the Foreign Office on Saturday, with such a hideous dress ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the throng, slight at first, was rapidly increasing. The building was not large, and from end to end, and on the high window-sills beneath the long green blinds, the people pushed and shoved and stood a-tiptoe. It was yet early morning, and for some unexplained reason the Federalist candidate ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... and changed his clothes, saying, "Keep the purse safely, O Umm Abdallah, for I am going to the wedding." But she said, "Take thy sleep awhile." So he lay down and fell asleep. Presently, Ali rose and going on tiptoe to the purse, took it and went to the house of the wedding and stood there, looking on at the fun. Now meanwhile, Zurayk dreamt that he saw a bird fly away with the purse and awaking in affright, said to his wife, "Rise; look for ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... chance of bringing the matter to an end at the moment when the man's nerve was undoubtedly shaken. Then they looked towards the entrance, and they understood. Creeping towards the little gathering came Li Wen and another of the Prince's suite, a younger and even more active man. The two came on tiptoe, crouching and moving warily, with the gleam of the tiger in their anxious eyes. Maggie caught a warning glance from Nigel ...
— The Great Prince Shan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... peas on tiptoe for a flight: With wings of gentle flush o'er delicate white, And taper fingers catching at all things To bind them all ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... the unfailing youth of the woman that she entered into the play with zest. Attired in a long kimono, with her beautiful white hair in two long silver braids down over her shoulders, she sat in the dark and told the story with the same vivid language; and then she stole on tiptoe first to the sister's bedside, to tuck her in and kiss her softly, and then to the brother's; and at each bedside a young, strong arm reached out and drew her face down, whispering "Good-night" with a kiss and "I love you, Cloudy Jewel," in tender, ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... been caught and brought back in triumph, ran like wild-fire through the hungry community, and expectation was on tiptoe all the morning. On tiptoe it was destined to remain, however, until afternoon; when Squeers, having refreshed himself with his dinner, and further strengthened himself by an extra libation or so, made his appearance (accompanied by his amiable partner) with ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... he wished to talk no more, and to be alone. So Mrs. Goodyer left him, and stole back to Burley's room on tiptoe: ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... a little queer, of course, to stay right there all the time, and to have Muvver staring at them from the bedroom at the other end of the hall, and not to be allowed to do more than tiptoe in once or twice and kiss her without saying a word; but when Ariadne grew confused with trying to think this out, and the little eyes drooped heavily, the new man picked her up and tucked her away in his arms so ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... "Yes," nodding her assent weakly, and she even stood on tiptoe to kiss the lips that seemed to caress her through a cloud of hair, but her expression was sad and her listless movements were like a withered flower's, as if there was no joy on earth that could lift her out of ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... they remained they saw his arms more closely enfold her. They saw her turn at the brink, and, in an utter abandonment of rapturous, passionate love, throw her arms again about his neck and stand on tiptoe to reach his face with her warm lips. They could not fail to hear the caressing tone of her every word, or to mark his receptive but gloomy silence. They could not mistake the voice,—the form, shadowy though it was. The girl was Nina Beaubien, and ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King
... Chris stood on tiptoe, and peered curiously. He reached up with his free hand, and drew forward something that gave back dully the flare of the lamp. She saw a black tin box that looked like a ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... tiptoe, the lawyer and his companion crept along the passage until they came to the door. They listened. There was not a sound. Even the hum of machinery which they had heard in the street, had ceased. Could the inmates have ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow
... whispered, and placed his ear to the ground. The Baron imitated him. True enough the singing was below. They caught other voices now. Lecour pondered a few moments. He followed an irregular rent in the rock and disappeared to one side. Returning on tiptoe, excited for the first time, he beckoned Grancey to accompany him and led the way with the greatest precaution to a long crack in the side of a hill, scarcely discernible without the closest scrutiny, ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall
... rapped, while I watched them through the blind-slats. Presently the fattest one, a real Falstaffian man, came back to the front door and rung a thundering peal. I saw the chance for fun and for putting on their own grandiloquent style. Stealing on tiptoe to the door, I turned the key and bolt noiselessly, and suddenly threw wide back the door, and appeared behind it. He had been leaning on it, and nearly pitched forward with an "Oh! what's this?" Then seeing me as he straightened up, "Ah, madam!" almost stuttering from surprise ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... there for a moment, while I summoned La Font and the servants; whose rage, when, entering a-tiptoe and with some misgiving, they discovered how they had been deceived, and by whom, was scarcely to be restrained even by my presence. However, aided by Philibert's comicalities, I presently secured a truce, and the two strollers vacating in my honour the table by ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... the front door closed upon the tall angular figure of the lady, bearing her market basket, than we shut our books with a snap, ran on tiptoe to the top of the stairs, and, after a moment's breathless listening, cast our young forms on the smooth walnut bannister, and glided gloriously ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche
... Madame Bertin," said Gabriel, as he hitched himself to the door and opened it, revealing a gray-haired woman who came in on tiptoe. ...
— Paula the Waldensian • Eva Lecomte
... said Papias to his pupil in a warning voice. "It is not the man who stands on tiptoe, but he who does his duty diligently, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... and the gods of Pegana do the work of the gods—and all for Dorozhand. But when the end of Dorozhand hath been achieved there will be need no longer of Life upon the Worlds, nor any more a game for the small gods to play. Then will Kib tiptoe gently across Pegana to the resting-place in Highest Pegana of MANA-YOOD-SUSHAI, and touching reverently his hand, the hand that wrought the gods, say: "MANA-YOOD-SUSHAI, ...
— The Gods of Pegana • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... heartily, the dark little creature standing on tiptoe, while Joyce bent her head low, then Dodo claimed attention from "Cammy," and amid bursts of laughter and sometimes a rush of sudden tears, the talk flowed on, as it can only flow when dearest friends meet after long separation, with no estrangement and no doubts to ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... amazement, standing on tiptoe to look out, and staring as if she were weighing me: "her be bigger nor any Doone! Heared as her have bate our Cornish champion awrastling. 'Twadn't fair play nohow: no, no; don't tell me, ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... its coziness began to whir mountingly. The September afternoon was full of drone. The roofs of the city from Hattie's kitchen window, which overlooked Morningside Heights, lay flat as slaps. Tranced, indoor quiet. Presently Hattie began to tiptoe. The seventy-two jars were untopped now, in a row on a board over the built-in washtub. Seventy-two yawning for content. Squnch! Her enormous spoon into the copper kettle and flop, gurgle, gooze, softly ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... in the middle of the room and placed a candle in front of him, so as to throw a shadow on the wall, which I also marked. When he awoke I measured him again in his natural size, both directly and by the shadow, and the results were equal. I can swear that he was not off the ground or standing on tiptoe, as I had full view of his feet, and, moreover, a gentleman present had one of his feet placed over Home's insteps.... I once saw him elongated horizontally on the ground. Lord Adare was present. Home seemed to grow at both ends, and ...
— Historic Ghosts and Ghost Hunters • H. Addington Bruce
... The offer of the Regency I come empowered to make, and will conduct her Safely to Strassburg with her little son, If she shrink not to breech her as a man, And tiptoe from a postern unperceived? ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... referee again. The corporal faced about, and raised his weapon, standing on tiptoe to get more swing. Sachse flinched at the sound of the whip going up, and the other sergeants roared delight. But he was still when it descended, and the crack of the blow drew neither murmur nor movement from him either. ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... transported, as in his childhood, toward that soft refuge which was his mother; he went up, on tiptoe, to see her, even asleep, and to remain there, near ...
— Ramuntcho • Pierre Loti
... the floor of the apartment on which they stood with gold. Those present listened with an incredulous smile; and, as the Inca received no answer, he said, with some emphasis, that "he would not merely cover the floor, but would fill the room with gold as high as he could reach"; and, standing on tiptoe, he stretched out his hand against the wall. All stared with amazement; while they regarded it as the insane boast of a man too eager to procure his liberty to weigh the meaning of his words. Yet Pizarro was sorely perplexed. As he had advanced into the country, ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... The man was certainly very still. Isbister took up the portfolio, opened it, put it down, hesitated, seemed about to speak. "Perhaps," he whispered doubtfully. Presently he glanced at the door and back to the figure. Then he stole on tiptoe out of the room, glancing at his ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... chair, and walking across the room on tiptoe, drew down the shade at the window through which the moonlight was streaming. Then he returned to his seat, and remained gazing with half-closed ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... and growled. This was his private hunting ground—the preserve he kept free of invaders. Dane put the cat down. The Salarik had found what he was seeking. He stood on tiptoe to sniff at a plant, his yellow eyes half closed, his whole stance spelling ecstasy. Dane looked to ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton
... spite of herself, Audrey took Nick into the bedroom, and as soon as Musa had been introduced into the drawing-room she embraced Nick in silence and escorted her on tiptoe through Miss Ingate's bedroom to the vestibule and waved an adieu. Then she retraced her steps and made a grand entry into the drawing-room from her own bedroom. She meant to dispose of Musa immediately. ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... and spent an hour watching and talking to the superintendent of the work, a cultured archaeologist. When he began his descent of the mountain, a train on the funicular railroad was feeling its way cautiously down the steep mountainside, like a child on tiptoe. A little weak, irritable sniff came up from its engine as the toy train paused at one of the three stopping places below La Turbie. It was like a very young girl ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... Sunday lovers, strolling hand in hand up the valley, came to a point where they went tiptoe and peered about for him. He might be described motionless, folded in his white robe, midway between ridge and hollow; or a gleam of him flashed between the trees of the brake would perhaps be all that they would get for an hour of watching. ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... be what he wants me to," she said a little pathetically to Saidie—"It is like standing on tiptoe all the time trying to reach up to his standard. I'm sick of it. If he loved me well enough to marry me, the same love ought to be strong enough to make him contented with me. After all, I'm the same Bella now ...
— If Only etc. • Francis Clement Philips and Augustus Harris
... Court were opened, and the crowd—at least as many as were able to effect an entrance—rushed in. Martin and John Kelly were among those nearest to the door, and, in reward of their long patience, got sufficiently into the body of the Court to be in a position to see, when standing on tiptoe, the noses of three of the four judges, and the wigs of four of the numerous counsel employed. The Court was so filled by those who had a place there by right, or influence enough to assume that they had so, that it was impossible to obtain a more favourable situation. But this of itself ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... excitement, hidden, but not in the least repressed. The White Class, their juniors, who were chiefly employed in preparing for Confirmation, should have been immersed in graver things, but were not. They waited on mental tiptoe for details, and a peep at the delicious document. The Blue Class, as became mere infants ranging from six to ten years old, remained phlegmatically indifferent to the missive, yet avid for samples of the chocolates that had accompanied the declaration, made to eighty ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... him that I liked him; I do, I do; he is a good man. But I told him—" she rose on tiptoe and kissed me—"I told him that I loved you, dear. See! here is the pin you gave me. It is the one thing I could not leave behind when I ran away from Mayberry. I meant to keep ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... himself on tiptoe with arms outstretched after the receding boat. On the instant the ship shook under him as with an earthquake, and drowned his voice in the ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... child, and with a catch, as it were, and a thrill in the voice that astonished him. Her eyes, fixed on his, grew larger and rounder. She came a pace or two towards him on tiptoe, halted, clasped both hands over her dancing-shoes, and exclaimed, with a ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... and entered the room on tiptoe, as Chapeau left it; her face was as pale as marble, and her heart beat so violently that she felt that she would hardly be able to reach the chair at the bed-side. De Lescure was lying on a decent but very humble bed, at the farthest ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... forward gun-port which stood open just beyond and above the bow of the longboat. In a twinkling Bob had straddled through the hole, with Jeremy close after him. It was dark in the 'tween-decks and the two boys made their way forward on tiptoe, waiting breathlessly for the attack they felt sure would come. But apparently all the buccaneers were busy above in the fierce fight that they could hear raging along the rail. They moved on, undeterred, till ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... I was on tiptoe with curiosity to see what would happen, but the meeting took place behind closed doors. Otoya told me afterwards that she had never seen the young man until he entered the room, but they both bowed three times, then she served tea while her mother and father talked to him. "Didn't you talk to ...
— Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... admonition to him, or in pure nervousness, Peterborough blew his nose monstrously: an unlucky note; nothing went well after it. 'A slight cold,' he murmured and resumed the note, and threw himself maniacally into it. The unexpected figure of Captain Bulsted on tiptoe, wearing the ceremonial depressed air of intruders on these occasions, distracted our attention for ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... more and the little girl, standing on tiptoe had reached the windowsill and placed the shoe upon it, and was back again in the house beside ...
— Christmas Stories And Legends • Various
... and stood on tiptoe to make herself look taller. Suddenly she caught the eye of Miriam Nesbit, who was lingering in the doorway, watching the scene with an expression that the circumstances and holiday surroundings hardly ...
— Grace Harlowe's Plebe Year at High School - The Merry Doings of the Oakdale Freshmen Girls • Jessie Graham Flower
... the morning together in the den, with the door shut. Now and then one of them would tiptoe upstairs, ask the nurse how her patient was doing, and creak down again. Just before noon they all went to the roof and examined again the place where he had been found. I know, for I was in the upper hall outside the ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... the ground beside her. I longed to do something to lessen that grief, and help the poor woman a little. She must have come there in a state of destitution: her clothes revealed her poverty. But I durst not disturb either her mourning or their prayers, and I came out quietly on tiptoe. ...
— In the Field (1914-1915) - The Impressions of an Officer of Light Cavalry • Marcel Dupont
... my erubescent admiration. He spoke of, and he was clearly on familiar terms with, the fashionable restaurants and actresses; he stopped at a hairdresser's to have his hair curled. All this was very exciting, and a little bewildering. I was on the tiptoe of expectation to see his apartments; and, not to be utterly outdone, ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... obligation, and had endured very patiently a vast amount of hectoring from Russell, who was then as now a trifle snobbish and unsteady; but had finally been forced (or so we regarded it, at that hot and touchy period) to accept what was practically a challenge, and we were actually on tiptoe for a duel. Feeling ran high about it, and there might have been a very disagreeable scandal had not Tip's clear common sense and persuasive oratory burst out at the last possible minute from this murky thunder-cloud and effectively swept the whole business ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... although she told Miss Monro that nothing was the matter, yet it was impossible for any one who loved her not to perceive that she was far from well. The kind governess placed her pupil on the sofa, covered her feet up warmly, darkened the room, and then stole out on tiptoe, fancying that Ellinor would sleep. Her eyes were, indeed, shut; but try as much as she would to be quiet, she was up in less than five minutes after Miss Monro had left the room, and walking up and down in all the restless agony of body that arises from an overstrained ...
— A Dark Night's Work • Elizabeth Gaskell
... like best, my own,' she answered, laughing with glistening eyes and standing on tiptoe to kiss him, 'if you will only humour me when the fire ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... busy packing in my own room, enlivening my work by humming gay airs, just to make-believe to myself that I was very merry at the prospect of my visit to London. The door opened quickly, and Rachel came in, walking on tiptoe, with her hand to her lips in trepidation. Her face was as pale as snow, and large tears stood ...
— The Late Miss Hollingford • Rosa Mulholland
... He fairly stood on tiptoe to scream the last command. To a disinterested observer the scene might have had some elements of farce comedy. Certainly Phineas, his hat fallen off and under foot, his scanty gray hair tousled and his pugnacious chin beard bristling, was funny to look ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... vast dimensions portraying what even then was coming to be called the Western Front. During the week or so that elapsed before G.H.Q. of the Expeditionary Force proceeded to the theatre of war, its cream thought fit to spend the hours of suspense in creeping on tiptoe in and out of my apartment, clambering on and off a table which fronted this portentous map, discussing strategical problems in blood-curdling whispers, and every now and then expressing an earnest hope that this sort of thing was not a nuisance. ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... exclaimed in a high whisper. "What are you doing here?" He hardly remembers what he said. The doctor straightened up and came on tiptoe to his ...
— The Centaur • Algernon Blackwood
... in the pastoral silence of the place. It associated itself mysteriously with her fears for Arthur; it suggested armed treachery on tiptoe, taking its murderous stand in hiding; the whistling passage of bullets through the air; the piercing cry of a man mortally wounded, and that man, perhaps——? Iris shrank from her own horrid thought. ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... silent solo, this time on the tambourine, which the boy pretended to beat with frantic energy, ending by going on tiptoe to peep through the keyhole, and satisfy himself that the doctor was ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn
... of dead silence within; then, sounds as if several persons were moving about on tiptoe; again, silence. The old man knocked louder. After a short wait, the door was thrown wide. A thick-set man, whose eyes squinted at cross purposes over his flat, turned-up nose, ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
... these professions with a number of benevolent and protecting looks and great fervour of manner, Thomas Codlin stole away on tiptoe, leaving the child in a state of extreme surprise. She was still ruminating upon his curious behaviour, when the floor of the crazy stairs and landing cracked beneath the tread of the other travellers who ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... gave, set ringing by the drops. The heaven was filled with blue windows, and the rain seemed to come from them rather than from the clouds. Into the rain rose the heads of the mountains, each clothed in its surplice of thin mist; they seemed rising on tiptoe heavenward, eager to drink of the high-born comfort; for the rain comes down, not upon the mown grass only, but upon the solitary and desert places also, where grass will never be—"the playgrounds of the young angels," Bob ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... the crevices of the Bandolining Room, that she had Orrors to reveal, if revelations so contemptible could be dignified with the name. Agitation become awakened. Excitement was up in the stirrups. Expectation stood a tiptoe. At length it was put forth that on our slackest evening in the week, and at our slackest time of that evening betwixt trains, Our Missis would give her views of foreign Refreshmenting, in the ...
— Mugby Junction • Charles Dickens
... got cautiously by, on tiptoe, with his eyes all the time on the Count Chateau Blassernare, or the man he mistook for him—his dress was not what he usually wore, but the witness swore that he could not be mistaken as to his identity. He said his face looked grave and stern; but ...
— The Room in the Dragon Volant • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... herself up on tiptoe, and peeped over the edge of the mushroom, and her eyes immediately met those of a large caterpillar, that was sitting on the top with its arms folded, quietly smoking a long hookah, and taking not the smallest notice of her or of ...
— Alice's Adventures in Wonderland • Lewis Carroll
... the little girl, standing on tiptoe, had reached the windowsill and placed the shoe upon it, and was back again in the house beside Granny and ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... Joe; and he hurried home to find his father asleep, while Gwyn, before going in, went on tiptoe to the vinery and crept in, to hear the dog snoring. Satisfied with this, he walked round the house fully prepared to receive a scolding for being so long, and feeling disposed to take refuge in the excuse that he had been ...
— Sappers and Miners - The Flood beneath the Sea • George Manville Fenn
... anything sweeter than this leaking in of Nature through all the cracks in the walls and floors of cities. You heap up a million tons of hewn rocks on a square mile or two of earth which was green once. The trees look down from the hill-sides and ask each other, as they stand on tiptoe,—"What are these people about?" And the small herbs at their feet look up and whisper back,—"We will go and see." So the small herbs pack themselves up in the least possible bundles, and wait until the wind steals to them at night and whispers, "Come with me." Then ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... and meantime he did all he could to help her render it attractive and homelike. If it was not yet all they wished, or all he intended it should be, he knew that they were young, and felt that they could wait; and he said as much to Lilian when he saw her stand on tiptoe before a picture or look longingly at a bit of bronze; conscious the while that there was an artistic and luxurious side to the child's nature that he did not gratify—with which, indeed, he had little ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... she had to peg out the washing for the Frau. A wind had sprung up. Standing on tiptoe in the yard, she almost felt she would be blown away. There was a bad smell coming from the ducks' coop, which was half full of manure water, but away in the meadow she saw the grass blowing like little green ...
— In a German Pension • Katherine Mansfield
... then very softly to show her that he was perfectly satisfied. So soon as the first swallow twittered in the eaves, or the first pale line of light trembled at the casement, he had to fly. But he waited in the rosery till she came tiptoe out; and then the day's alarms and the day's delight began. Eh! It was a ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... a one-man job, as the crew's is more team-work, than any other employment afloat. That is why the relations between submarine officers and men are what they are. They play hourly for each other's lives with Death the Umpire always at their elbow on tiptoe to ...
— Sea Warfare • Rudyard Kipling
... windows of the cars to see if they could catch a glimpse of whom they sought. Suddenly the senator broke into a smile and waved his cane. The action was so unusual for him that it looked grotesque. Margaret stood on tiptoe and waved her hand, and a presentiment came to Aladdin and ...
— Aladdin O'Brien • Gouverneur Morris
... her arms high and stood on tiptoe to meet them. She shook her hair loose from its plait and threw back her head, loving it all—the wind and the dark sky and the tense feeling of readiness for the storm with which everything seemed charged—with an almost pagan joy. She even began a dance, a fantastic sort ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox
... remembered that although some bears climb trees easily, the grizzly bear cannot climb at all. There was a branch on the lower part of the tree which seemed quite beyond the reach of the tallest bear even on tiptoe. ...
— The Prairie Chief • R.M. Ballantyne
... engineer laid himself on a bench in a recess by the fire-place, and I went upstairs to have a look. I hadn't heard any sound from there for a long time. Old Viola, as soon as he saw me come up, lifted his arm for silence. I stole in on tiptoe. By Jove, his wife was lying down and had gone to sleep. The woman had actually dropped off to sleep! 'Senor Doctor,' Viola whispers to me, 'it looks as if her oppression was going to get better.' ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... Samway; and they approached on tiptoe. There was no disbelieving the report any longer. Troy's face was almost close to the pane, and he was looking in. Not only was he looking in, but he appeared to have been arrested by a conversation which was in progress in the ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... out on tiptoe from his oven, and as he was passing the ogre he took one of the bags of gold under his arm, and off he pelters till he came to the beanstalk, and then he threw down the bag of gold which of course fell in to his mother's garden, and then he climbed down and climbed down ...
— English Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)
... and ask my mamma what is best to do?' said Venetia; and she stole away on tiptoe, and whispered to Lady Annabel that Plantagenet wanted her. Her mother came forward and invited Lord Cadurcis to walk on the terrace with her, leaving Venetia to amuse her ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... of a little more than a year at Bath had but one memorable event, in its course, to me. I was looking one evening, at bedtime, over the banisters, from the upper story into the hall below, with tiptoe eagerness that caused me to overbalance myself and turn over the rail, to which I clung on the wrong side, suspended, like Victor Hugo's miserable priest to the gutter of Notre Dame, and then fell four stories down on the stone pavement of the ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... said, "Hsh" and went off on tiptoe through the woods, stalking his hop-toad. He's a mighty nice little fellow, Pee-wee is. And he's a bully little scout. Scout pace and good turns, those are his specialties. He just stalks ...
— Roy Blakeley's Adventures in Camp • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... up and down, as if to see that there was no one nigh, and then, coming close to the Corn Engrosser, he stood on tiptoe and spake in his ear, "Thinkest thou in sooth that I am a beggar, as I seem to be? Look upon me. There is not a grain of dirt upon my hands or my face or my body. Didst thou ever see a beggar so? I tell thee I am as honest a man as thou art. Look, friend." Here he took the purse of money from ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... together they stole on tiptoe to the door; Olof opened it, and Kyllikki stood on the threshold, looking into the little room—it was newly papered, and looked larger ...
— The Song Of The Blood-Red Flower • Johannes Linnankoski
... plunged in and rescued her. Before March could formulate any question in his bewilderment, Burnamy was gone again; the girl offered no explanation for him, and March had not yet decided to ask any when he caught sight of his wife and General Triscoe standing tiptoe in a doorway and craning their necks upward and forward to scan the crowd in search of him and his charge. Then he looked round at her and opened his lips to express the astonishment that filled him, when be was aware ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... low room, warmed by a stove, with a glazed and grated door opening on the street, and guarded by a detachment, Javert opened the door, entered with Fantine, and shut the door behind him, to the great disappointment of the curious, who raised themselves on tiptoe, and craned their necks in front of the thick glass of the station-house, in their effort to see. Curiosity is a sort of gluttony. To see ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... knows what we are to do, Margarita. The farm is mortgaged for its full value, and so far as I can see we are ruined, ruined." Tears began to flow over his cheeks, and Rita, drawing his face down to hers, stood on tiptoe and tried to kiss ...
— A Forest Hearth: A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties • Charles Major
... seeking an explanation. Miss Bonnicastle broke the silence, saying they must have some tea, and calling upon Olga to help her in preparing it. For a minute or two the men were left alone. Florio, approaching Piers on tiptoe, ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... grimace at Roy; but both boys entered the house, and crept into a cool half-darkened drawing-room on tiptoe, with hushed voices and sober demeanor. A stern looking old lady sat upright in her easy chair, knitting busily. She greeted the boys ...
— His Big Opportunity • Amy Le Feuvre
... along the passage to her grandfather's room. She stopped a minute at the door and held her breath to see if she could hear any movement which might tell her he was not asleep. It was all still, and pulling the iron latch with her gentlest hand Fleda went on tiptoe into the room. He was lying on the bed, but awake, for she had made no noise and the blue eyes opened and looked upon her as she ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... all sunshine. It was just as impossible for her to keep still as it would be for a dancing sunbeam to become motionless. Now, as she watched the gull, she suddenly jumped to her feet, and poising on tiptoe, swayed her slender body in rhythm with the flight of ...
— The Merriweather Girls and the Mystery of the Queen's Fan • Lizette M. Edholm
... not alone now, nor did the little girl steal near on tiptoe, fearful of being heard. She was seated by his side, and his arm was round her, and she looked up into his face, and smiled as she whispered: "The first evening of our lives we were ever together was passed here: we will spend the ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... undertaking. The governor-general having proceeded in May from Montreal to Kingston with Sir James Yeo, who had just arrived from England to command the British naval forces on the lakes—the squadron on Lake Ontario now consisting of two ships, a brig, and two schooners—the public was on the tiptoe of expectation for some decisive dash on the enemy's flotilla on that lake. An attack upon Sackett's Harbour, in the absence of their fleet at Niagara, was resolved upon, so as to destroy "the forts, the arsenals, and the dock-yard, ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper
... the waiters paused in their tasks or crept on tiptoe about the place. Men and women stood up at their tables that they might see the singer better; conversation ceased. And all the time the chef d'orchestre drew music from his violin, and mademoiselle, with half-closed eyes, her head thrown back, filled ...
— The Mischief Maker • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... darkness! ye phantoms of the night! if while lingering within my home after the crowing of the cock, you saw me stealing about on tiptoe in the City of Books, you certainly never cried out, as Madame Trepof did at Naples, "That old man has a good-natured round back!" I entered the library; Hannibal, with his tail perpendicularly erected, came to rub himself against ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... scattered over it, and gathered very full about the waist. But, before the swinging mirror of her high bureau, she thought it looked too light and bright for so sad a visit, and so trotted up-stairs to the garret, and, standing on tiptoe by a great chest of drawers, opened one with much care, that the brass rings might not clatter on the oval plates under them, and disturb Miss Deborah. The drawer was sweet with lavender and sweet clover, and, as she lifted from its wrappings of silvered paper a fine black lace shawl, some pale, ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... quite empty. We went to the further end on tiptoe. There were three doors at the bottom in three bays, surmounted by busts. We chose for the right hand and turned the handle. It gave into a narrow passage, lined with bookcases and dimly lighted. "I think this will be the way," Virginia said, ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... crept on tiptoe to the bed, and clasping the pale hand held out to him, whispered some words that no doubt charmed and soothed the ear that heard them, for that pale hand was suddenly drawn from his own and thrown tenderly round his neck. The sound of a gentle kiss was ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... blushed with pleasure, preening herself a little and stretching on tiptoe to try to catch a glimpse in the crowded mirror; there was a movement as a sultana who had been carmining her full lips gave place to a dark beggar maid, and Patricia caught the vision of a slender, airy figure, glittering beneath its ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther
... back behind his glass screen, drove as if the village and the street belonged to him. Dunedin is, in fact, the property of his master, the Earl of Ramelton; so the chauffeur had some right to be stately and arrogant. Every man, woman, and child in Dunedin knew the car, and there was tiptoe excitement. Would the soldiers venture to stop and search this car? The excitement became intense when it was seen that the Earl himself was in the car. He lay back very comfortably smoking a cigar in the covered tonneau of the limousine. ...
— Lady Bountiful - 1922 • George A. Birmingham
... forward, she threw a thick green cord over the lawyer's shoulders, from which depended a browny black japanned tin candle-box. Of course, it was an accident that the cord was short, and that Coristine bent his head just as the fair damsel stood on tiptoe ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... puts the book down, gives a sigh of happiness, and lazily closes her eyes. DELIA comes into the garden, from Paris. She is decidedly a modern girl, pretty and self-possessed. Her hair is half-way up; waiting for her birthday, perhaps. She sees her mother suddenly, stops, and then goes on tiptoe to the head of the hammock. She smiles and kisses her mother on the forehead. BELINDA, looking supremely unconscious, goes on sleeping. DELIA kisses her lightly again. BELINDA wakes up with an extraordinarily natural start, and is just about ...
— First Plays • A. A. Milne
... before coming to bed. Naturally my first thought was of burglars. The corridors at Hurlstone have their walls largely decorated with trophies of old weapons. From one of these I picked a battle-axe, and then, leaving my candle behind me, I crept on tiptoe down the passage and peeped in at the ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... his head warily, right, left; he knelt noiselessly, striving to pierce the thicket with his restless eyes. After a moment he arose on tiptoe, unslung his gun, cocked both barrels, and listened again, pipe tightly clutched ...
— Lorraine - A romance • Robert W. Chambers
... summons, immediately appeared his worthy helpmate. She carried a very beautiful half-blown rose in her hand, which, as soon as she approached her husband, she placed carefully in his button-hole, standing on tiptoe to perform this graceful Sunday ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... lay broiling there in the heat just as though they were becalmed. They seemed to be asleep on their anchor-chains. It reminded me of a big bull-dog lying in the sun with his head on his paws and his eyes shut. You think he's asleep, and you try to tiptoe past him, but when you're in reach of his chain—he's at your throat, what? It seemed so funny to think of our being really at war. I mean the United States, and with such an old-established firm as Spain. It seems so presumptuous in a young ...
— Ranson's Folly • Richard Harding Davis
... marvels," Halfman admitted. "Can you work miracles? With all due reverence, I doubt. But we shall soon see, for here comes Tiffany tiptoe through the trees. I'll wager it is to herald ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... letter with news of Dr. John and his brother. I have been working on the book to-day very hard, after much interruption; it is two-thirds done now. So glad people are on tiptoe. ...
— Hortus Inclusus - Messages from the Wood to the Garden, Sent in Happy Days - to the Sister Ladies of the Thwaite, Coniston • John Ruskin
... obeyed this command to the letter. When the year and a day came she had been able to stand on tiptoe and look at herself for the first time in her life; and she would never forget the gladness of that moment. It had appeared nothing short of a miracle to her that she should actually possess something of which she need not be ashamed—something nice to share with the world. And whenever Margaret ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... on the balcony, she danced up-stairs, and chasseed on tiptoe up to the door of Sophie's room. There ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... dance she wakes The lordly gallery's silent floor, And climbing up on tiptoe, makes The old-world mirror smile ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)
... had clasped her hands behind her back, and stood with one foot forward, "on tiptoe for a flight," her young figure and radiant look expressing the hot will which possessed her. At the mention of Meynell's name she clearly hesitated, a frown crossed her eyes, her lip twitched. Then ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... together, with no disturbing element, no outside cares. No tears now, no joyous outcries. The elder boy, lying in the grass at his mother's side, basked in her eyes like a lover and kissed her feet. Marie, the restless one, gathered flowers for her, and brought them with a subdued look, standing on tiptoe to put a girlish kiss on her lips. And the pale woman, with the great tired eyes and languid movements, never uttered a word of complaint, and smiled upon her children, so full of life and health—it was a sublime picture, lacking no melancholy autumn pomp of yellow leaves ...
— La Grenadiere • Honore de Balzac
... maid to sit near him for half-an-hour," he said. And he held her hand in his own hand, and gave her such looks of perfect love and blessed her so solemnly and sweetly when at length he left her that she began to sob again and to stand on tiptoe that she might throw her arms around his neck and touch his lips ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... Kagig shouted, on tiptoe with anger. Then he calmed himself and glanced about the room for a glimpse of eyes friendly to himself. "Hear me now. Those Turks—truly come to set a governor over Zeitoon. I forgot that the prisoner might understand English. I talked with this friend ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... the less merrily, because I touch a most charming little dimple in her fat cheek, with its light paper end. Glancing up at the many green lattices to assure herself that the mistress is not looking on, the little woman then puts her two little dimple arms a-kimbo, and stands on tiptoe to light her cigarette at mine. 'And now, dear little sir,' says she, puffing out smoke in a most innocent and cherubic manner, 'keep quite straight on, take the first to the right and probably you will see him standing ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... his father's door to listen, and when there, too, he heard no sound, he crept on tiptoe to the room where the dead slept. For the last time he ...
— Dame Care • Hermann Sudermann
... first in its jug," Rob answered, slyly, "and syne I may tell you." This was not the only time Jean had been asked to show the minister's belongings. Snecky Hobart, among others, had tried on Gavin's hat in the manse kitchen, and felt queer for some time afterwards. Women had been introduced on tiptoe to examine the handle of his umbrella. But Rob had not come to admire. He snatched the holly from Jean's hands, and casting it on the ground pounded it with his heavy boots, crying, "Greet as you like, Jean. That's the end o' his ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... birds had not every one bolted, for here sat two of the colony among the broken rocks. These two had not been frightened off. That both of them were greatly alarmed, any one could see from their open beaks, their rolling eyes, their tense bodies on tiptoe for flight. Yet here they sat, their wings out like props, or more like gripping hands, as if they were trying to hold themselves down to the rocks against their wild ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... on tiptoe upstairs to the little room from whose windows, looking one way, we see the fields we know and, looking another, those hilly lands that I sought—almost I feared not to find them. I looked at once toward the mountains of faery; the afterglow of ...
— Tales of Three Hemispheres • Lord Dunsany
... concerning the position of the two sisters as I stood on tiptoe and scratched with my fingers at the crumbling ledge upon which Holman and the Fijian crouched. The predicament of Edith Herndon, and not fears for my own safety, made me scratch madly for a foothold as I swung ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer
... stand it? If only she might have gone to boarding-school. Why had Aunt Caroline and Aunt Virginia agreed to her coming? They did not like her. Nothing she did pleased them. Charlotte looked about for a refuge where she might fling herself down and cry her heart out. She rose and stole on tiptoe into ...
— The Pleasant Street Partnership - A Neighborhood Story • Mary F. Leonard
... the chimney was so small that it was utterly impossible to pass even his head up it, he drew the two blocks of wood over to the window, and was able, by placing one above the other and standing on tiptoe on the highest, to reach the bars which guarded it. Drawing himself up, and fixing one toe in an inequality of the wall, he managed to look out on to the courtyard which they had just quitted. The carriage and De Vivonne were passing out through ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... this, and have no doubt the public will share in our curiosity to know what kind of a defence can be made by a gambler, even so polished as Mr. Freeman, for a vice fitly characterized by Mr. Green as "fifty per cent. worse than stealing." Expectation is on tiptoe. ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green
... embankment, and from far away now is heard the first cry of "Vive l'Empereur!" The noise gets louder and more clear, the cries are repeated again and again till they merge into one great, uproarious clamour. Like the ocean when lashed by the wind, the crowd surges, moves, rises on tiptoe, subsides, falls back to crush forward again and once more to retreat as a heavy coach, surrounded by a thousand or so of mounted men, dashes over the cobbles of the Place du Carrousel, whilst the clamour of ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... the top again she found herself going tiptoe, as if she were on an expedition so secret that her own ears should not hear her footsteps. But she went direct and unhesitating. It had come to her all in a flash where she would put the sapphire. The little buttoned pocket of her bath-robe. There it hung in the bath-room ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... went to this hollow one calm evening and Mother Fox made them lie still in the grass. Presently a faint squeak showed that the game was astir. Vix rose up and went on tiptoe into the grass—not crouching but as high as she could stand, sometimes on her hind legs so as to get a better view. The runs that the mice follow are hidden under the grass tangle, and the only way to know the whereabouts of a mouse is by seeing the slight shaking of the grass, which is the reason ...
— Wild Animals I Have Known • Ernest Thompson Seton
... not say anything further. Elma bent down, touched her parent on her brow with the lightest possible caress, and then stepped on tiptoe ...
— Wild Kitty • L. T. Meade
... clock struck two, when the sound of steps was heard without. The stranger silently seated himself on the farther side of the bed, and its drapery screened him, as he sat, from the eyes of a man who now entered on tiptoe; it was the same person who had passed him on the stairs. The new-comer took up the candle and approached the bed. The old man's face was turned to the pillow; but he lay so still, and his breathing was so inaudible, that his sleep might well, by that hasty, shrinking, guilty glance, ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... gloom that no lanterns illume Stand groups of slim lilies and jonquils in bloom; On tiptoe, unseen 'mid a tangle of green, They offer the midnight their cups ...
— Ponkapog Papers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... we took our guns in our hands to preserve them from a fall, and started in. Two more miracles saved Dinkey at two more places. We spent an hour at one spot, and finally built a new trail around it. Six times a minute we held our breaths and stood on tiptoe with anxiety, powerless to help, while the horse did his best. At the especially bad places we checked them off one after another, congratulating ourselves on so much saved as each came across without accident. ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White
... his sketch. The doctor having gone the round of professional questions with his wonted pomposity, rose to write his prescription; when, as he sat before the table with eyes upturned, and pen suspended over the paper, Salvator approached him on tiptoe, and drawing the pen gently through his fingers, with one of his old Coviello gesticulations in his character of the mountebank, he said, "fermati dottor mio! stop doctor, you must not lay pen to paper till I have leisure to dictate ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner
... beyond that nearer hill. Ah! but nobody spoke of that yellow-haired girl now. Nobody sent flowers or books. Nobody so much as mentioned her name. It was strange—but singularly pleasing. Felicia raised herself triumphantly on tiptoe, as though she would peer over the hill into the cottage; and so see for herself how the Signorina Penfold took this ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... now and then shaking the loose thick hair from his handsome, genial face. Helfen listened to him with a half smile, screwing up his violin and giving him a quiet look now and then. The inspiring noise of tuning up had begun, and I was on the very tiptoe of expectation. ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... they ate everything before them, from flapjacks to the piles of little, crisp trout. And they might have called for more, but there came, on tiptoe, the steward, bowing, presenting a telegram on a tray of silver; and Crawford's heart stopped, and he stared at the bit of paper as though ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... name (the recognised token that no other visitor was present, and that he might enter freely), he would open the door gently, give a smile of satisfaction as he rubbed his hands together, and proceed on tiptoe to young Pokrovski's room. This old fellow was none ...
— Poor Folk • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... keep a diary. It was not an inspiration, though it was rather like one in its suddenness. Of course she had always known that Aunt Olivia kept a diary. When she was very small she had stretched a-tiptoe and with little pointing forefinger counted rows and rows of little black books that Aunt Olivia had "kept." Each little black book had its year-label pasted neatly on the back. Rebecca Mary breathed deep breaths of awe, there were so many of them. There must be so ...
— Rebecca Mary • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... workman of some sort standing tiptoe on a double ladder, and reaching up to unhook a large chandelier from the ceiling. The fellow seemed likely ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... Mariquita?" he cried, and Peggy stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek, and hung on to the lapels of ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey
... And thou to heaven spring, With thine immortal wing, And I, still following, With steps that do not tire, Reach my desire, And to thy worship bring Some worthy offering? Oh! let but these dark days be once gone by, And thou, unwilling captive, that dost strain, With tiptoe longing, vainly, towards the sky, O'er the whole kingdom of my life shalt reign. But, while I'm doomed beneath the yoke to bow, Of sordid toiling in these caverns drear, Oh, look upon me sometimes with thy brow Of shining brightness; sometimes let me hear Thy blessed ...
— Poems • Frances Anne Butler
... pleased: no joy so great as in obeying me. When I should be inclined to love, overwhelm me with it; when to be serious or solitary, if apprehensive of intrusion, retiring at a nod; approaching me only if I smiled encouragement: steal into my presence with silence; out of it, if not noticed, on tiptoe. Be a lady easy to all my pleasures, and valuing those most who most contributed to them; only sighing in private, that it was not herself at the time. Thus of old did the contending wives of the honest patriarchs; each recommending ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... kind of fruit or vegetable which might satisfy their appetites. They were not long in discovering a kind of beach-plum, about as big as watermelons, which grew on a bush so tall, that they had to reach the fruit at arm's length, and on tiptoe. The stalks were covered with very sharp thorns, about a foot long. Some of these thorns they cut off, (they had their knives in their pockets still,) for Little Jacket thought they might be of service to them in ...
— The Last of the Huggermuggers • Christopher Pierce Cranch
... haste? What meant these pearl-bedecked caves, scarcely larger than swallows' nests? these green canopies, overgrown with moss? He pinched himself, and gazed again. Countless flowers nodded to him, and seemed, like himself, on tiptoe with curiosity, he thought. He beckoned one of the busy, ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... visit. For the remainder of the day, Ruth found herself the centre of attraction in Dolittle Cottage. She lay at ease on the couch, with wet compresses on her forehead. The shutters were closed to keep out the sunshine. Every one walked on tiptoe, and spoke in subdued accents. Even the fly-away Dorothy sought the invalid at frequent intervals to murmur, "Poor Rufie! Poor Rufie," and to pat Ruth's arm with a sympathetic little hand. Now that it had gained its point, the ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... the churchyard now, having left the pony within eye-shot, and taken the baskets along with us, and were standing on one of those very lozenges, somewhat grass-grown by this time, and deciphering the inscriptions. On tiptoe we could get a wide view of the marsh, with, the wind sweeping in a lonely limitless way through the tall grasses. Presently hearing Dickens's cheery call, we turned to see what he was doing. He had chosen a good flat gravestone in one corner ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... three ties, a pair of gloves, chocolates, handkerchiefs,—oh, did ever anyone see so many pretty things belonging to one person! I am perfectly crazy with happiness. Here is one weenty package more in the very tiptoe of my stocking—from Chrystobel—a ring with a real ruby in it. If there were another thing to open, I should be bawling in earnest. That is the first ring ...
— Tabitha at Ivy Hall • Ruth Alberta Brown
... way down this close was a small public-house, and the passage-door was ajar, and a man watching. No sooner was Little out of sight than he emerged, and followed him swiftly on tiptoe. ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... never learn to be what he wants me to," she said a little pathetically to Saidie—"It is like standing on tiptoe all the time trying to reach up to his standard. I'm sick of it. If he loved me well enough to marry me, the same love ought to be strong enough to make him contented with me. After all, I'm the same Bella now that ...
— If Only etc. • Francis Clement Philips and Augustus Harris
... Robert Cairn, on tiptoe, entered. Myra Duquesne, pathetically pale but with that dreadful, ominous shadow gone from her face, turned her wistful eyes towards the door; ...
— Brood of the Witch-Queen • Sax Rohmer
... a pleasure in the worst things which the best never afterwards gave them; and where she became as hungry and tired as if it were the Vatican. They had a pride in taking books out of the Public Library, where they walked about on tiptoe with bated breath; and they thought it a divine treat to hear the Great Organ play at noon. As they sat there in the Music Hall, and let the mighty instrument bellow over their strong young nerves, Bartley whispered Marcia the jokes he had heard about ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... the gloom that no lanterns illume Stand groups of slim lilies and jonquils in bloom; On tiptoe, unseen 'mid a tangle of green, They offer the midnight ...
— Ponkapog Papers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... gathered very full about the waist. But, before the swinging mirror of her high bureau, she thought it looked too light and bright for so sad a visit, and so trotted up-stairs to the garret, and, standing on tiptoe by a great chest of drawers, opened one with much care, that the brass rings might not clatter on the oval plates under them, and disturb Miss Deborah. The drawer was sweet with lavender and sweet clover, and, as she lifted from its wrappings of silvered paper a fine ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... Pascherette, contemptuously. "She has thee dazzled, Milo. Say, dost thou not love me?" she demanded, standing tiptoe and thrusting her piquant little face under his gaze. "Look in my eyes, and then tell me ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... false pretence of slumber. A slippered foot was still slightly reached out beyond the bright colors of the long gown, and toward the brazen edge of the hearth-pan, as though the owner had been touching her tiptoe against it to keep the chair in gentle motion. One cheek was on the pillow; down the other curled a few light strands of hair that ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... physical, and to meet those little black, steadfast, all-seeing eyes; to feel those smooth, soft, all-soothing hands; to hear, across one's sleep, that three-footed step—the flat-soled left foot, the tiptoe right, and the padded end of the broomstick; and when one is so wakeful and restless and thought-driven, to have another's story given one. God, depend upon it, grows stories and lives as he does herbs, each with a mission of ...
— Balcony Stories • Grace E. King
... was not alone now, nor did the little girl steal near on tiptoe, fearful of being heard. She was seated by his side, and his arm was round her, and she looked up into his face, and smiled as she whispered: "The first evening of our lives we were ever together was passed here; we will spend the first evening ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 8 - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 19, 1850 • Various
... the right-hand side. Something rushed out at us and my heart sprang into my mouth, but I could have laughed when I realized that it was the cat. A fire was burning in this new room, and again the air was heavy with tobacco smoke. Holmes entered on tiptoe, waited for me to follow, and then very gently closed the door. We were in Milverton's study, and a PORTIERE at the farther side showed the ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... hollers. Then she went through the most blood-curdling pantomime ever was, I reckon. First she comes up to me and taps me on the chest and says, ''Edge.' Then she goes creeping round the room on tiptoe, p'inting out of the winder all the time as much as to say she was pertending to walk through the woods. Then she p'ints to one of the stumps we used for chairs and screeches 'AMMOND!' and fetches the stump an awful bang with the club. ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln
... the door, Tiptoe, holding their breath, And hush the talk that they held before, Lest they should waken Death, That is awake all night There ...
— Poems • William D. Howells
... child's precipitance, yet was well contented now to stoop his gray head to bright lips, and do his best toward believing some of their soft eloquence. The child, on the other hand, was full of pride, and rose on tiptoe, lest anybody might suppose her still too young for anything. Thus between them they looked forward to a pleasant time to come, hoping for the best, and judging ...
— Frida, or, The Lover's Leap, A Legend Of The West Country - From "Slain By The Doones" By R. D. Blackmore • R. D. Blackmore
... feet, I attempted to advance, but found I had fallen so close to the centre of the well that I had to make several steps before my extended fingers touched the cold wall. This I followed slowly, passing exploring hands with utmost care over each inch, from the floor to as high as I could reach on tiptoe, until confident I had made the complete circuit. It was all the same, vast slabs of flat stone, welded together by some rude yet effective masonry, the mortar between impervious to the sharp probing of the knife. Again and again I made that circuit, testing each crack, ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... lark, the herald of the morn, No nightingale: look, love, what envious streaks Do lace the severing clouds in yonder east: Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops. I must be gone and live, ...
— Romeo and Juliet • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... mistrust that the lodger might hear her even there, and repeating "Hush!" went before us on tiptoe as though even the sound of her footsteps might reveal to him ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... table, still giving a lingering look-out, when, through the darkness in the gallery at the further end, she saw a ray of light on the floor, which seemed to come from under the door of a room unoccupied—Mr. Mapletofft's room; he had gone to town with Lord Davenant. Helen went on tiptoe very softly along the gallery, almost to this door, when it suddenly opened, and the page stood before her, the lamp in his hand shining full on his face and on hers. Both started—then both were motionless for one second—but ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... oh! [She bursts into song] Hide me in the meat safe til the cop goes by. Hum the dear old music as his step draws nigh. [She goes out on tiptoe]. ...
— Fanny's First Play • George Bernard Shaw
... in hand, they entered the room on tiptoe—the darkened room where Russell was. What a hush and oppression there seemed to them at first in the dim, silent chamber; what an awfulness in all the appliances which showed how long and deeply their schoolfellow had suffered. But all this vanished directly they caught ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar
... Peppe instinctively drew back into the shadows of the porch, his eyes discerning the suspicious furtiveness of the courtier's movements, and watching them with a grim eagerness. He saw Romeo look carefully about him, and then descend the steps on tiptoe, evidently so that no echo of his footfalls should reach those within the chapel. Then, never suspecting the presence of Peppe, he sped briskly across the yard and vanished through the archway that led to the outer court. And the fool, assured that some knowledge of the courtier's ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... however; and Mrs. Forbes presently appeared with a little armchair, which Mr. Van Brunt with an approving look bestowed in the cart, planting it with its back against the trunk to keep it steady. Mrs. Forbes then, raising herself on tiptoe by the side of the cart, took ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... amongst the Fuegians was evidently much pleased at his height being noticed. When placed back to back with the tallest of the boat's crew, he tried his best to edge on higher ground, and to stand on tiptoe. He opened his mouth to show his teeth, and turned his face for a side view; and all this was done with such alacrity, that I dare say he thought himself the handsomest man in Tierra del Fuego. After our first feeling of grave astonishment was over, nothing could be ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... led on, and Nic followed on tiptoe, thinking of how different he was, and wondering why so strong a feeling of dislike to him had sprung up: why, too, a man of bad character and a convict should be able to speak so well and take so much interest in the things ...
— First in the Field - A Story of New South Wales • George Manville Fenn
... other disenchanting particular of a mistaken ideal. A few paces—perhaps seven or eight—take us from end to end of it. So low it is, that I could easily touch the ceiling, and might have done so without a tiptoe-stretch, had it been a good deal higher; and this humility of the chamber has tempted a vast multitude of people to write their names overhead in pencil. Every inch of the side-walls, even into the obscurest nooks and corners, is covered with a similar record; all the window-panes, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... invalid was calmly slumbering. Having entered the bedroom on tiptoe and heard regular breathing, Sidwell went down and for a few minutes lingered about the hall. A servant came to her for instructions on some domestic matter; when this was dismissed she mentioned that, if anyone called, she would be found in ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... standing just inside the door all this time, on tiptoe for flight. She came slowly over in response to his beckoning hand, and he drew her down to a stool beside him, keeping his arm ...
— The Wishing-Ring Man • Margaret Widdemer
... girls made tiptoe and brigand-like excursions into Miss Blake's room (she is the housekeeper) and got several things. Among others, a sort of undecided thing like part of a wig, which Miss Blake wears on Sundays. Jane, our housemaid, says it is called a "transformation," and ...
— New Treasure Seekers - or, The Bastable Children in Search of a Fortune • E. (Edith) Nesbit
... was cautiously pushed open, and Sir Wynston Berkley issued from it. Marston was almost beside him as he did so, and Sir Wynston made a motion as if about instinctively to draw back again, and at the same time the keen ear of his host distinctly caught the sound of rustling silks and a tiptoe tread hastily withdrawing from the deserted chamber. Sir Wynston looked nearly as much confused as a man of the world can look. Marston stopped short, and scanned his visitor for a moment with a very ...
— The Evil Guest • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... Eustace, "but I will do before the night is very much older," and he hurried up the corkscrew stair. He had just got to the top when the lights went out a second time, and he heard again the scuttling along the floor. Quickly he stole on tiptoe in the dim moonshine in the direction of the noise, feeling as he went for one of the switches. His fingers touched the metal knob at last. He turned on ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... standing directly below the terrified girl, raising herself on tiptoe, and trying to reach her feet with her hands, to guide them to a hold; but ...
— Whosoever Shall Offend • F. Marion Crawford
... as he was about to turn the first page the silence of the room was broken by a faint cackling laugh—an elfin sound which died away instantly. He looked up, startled. His surprise was not lessened at the sight of Mrs. Thalassa watching him from the open doorway. She entered on tiptoe, with a strange air of caution, examining him ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... iron chain And pull away the wooden pin; I'd push the door a little bit And tiptoe very ...
— Under the Tree • Elizabeth Madox Roberts
... shop. Quickly we passed into an inner room, and thence to a room beyond it. This room was lined apparently with bookshelves. Advancing to a corner of it, after carefully locking the door, the cadaverous man, standing on tiptoe, pressed what appeared to be a book in the topmost shelf. At once a door in the bookshelves opened. In silence we followed him through it, and the door shut ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux
... the door, he stopped in front of Sanders, stretched his five feet three inches of stature on tiptoe, and shook a withered fist in the ...
— A Gentleman from Mississippi • Thomas A. Wise
... Sally, going into her hut on tiptoe a few minutes later, with her great eyes dilated in horror, "the white mens is talkin' of ...
— The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne
... public were eager to learn something of the causes which had separated men who had acted so long together in good and in evil report, and which had accomplished an union between parties and individuals whose contest had generally been a war to the death. The public had not to remain long on the tiptoe of expectation, for no sooner had the house met than the strife ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... doctor had gone, whispering to Mr. Rupert that he would come back later. He went out on tiptoe, as from the presence of an angel. His selfishness had dropped away from him. The evening wore on, and in the little back room ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... in his childhood, toward that soft refuge which was his mother; he went up, on tiptoe, to see her, even asleep, and to remain there, near ...
— Ramuntcho • Pierre Loti
... towards the wireless machine, and paused again. Then a glow suffused the further end of the room, a disc of electric light, clearly from a portable lamp. A draped form, in deep shadow, was exposed to Merton's view. He stole forward on tiptoe with noiseless feet; he leaped on the back of the figure, threw his left arm round its neck, caught its right wrist in a grip ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... stole on tiptoe along the gravelled path, knocked and listened. The whole front of the little house was in darkness, but by-and-by even Reuben from his post behind the hedge heard the faint noise made by slippered ...
— Aunt Rachel • David Christie Murray
... pleasant type, thought Longstreet. He was swarthy and squat and had an eye that slunk away from his visitors'. But it appeared that he was kindly and eager to accommodate. He got up and closed the door, and once, after they had begun talking, went on tiptoe to open it again and peered out into the hall as though he suspected that some one was listening. He seemed a broad-minded chap, waving technicalities aside, assuring Longstreet that what he wanted ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... the speech he made, but the picture of him, as he rose on tiptoe and swung his arms like a man fighting bees, and his drawling tones are as familiar as the things ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... imagined that during the next few days I was on tiptoe with expectation. Let it be said at once, that I was quite aware that I was about to commit what might fairly be considered a folly by prudent-minded people. The chances of my goose proving a swan were altogether ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... the morning, opening his eyes with an effort, he saw, by the light of a lamp, his father's pale face bending over him, and told him to go away. The old man begged his pardon, but he quickly came back on tiptoe, and, half hidden by the cupboard door, he gazed persistently at his son. His wife did not go to bed either, and, leaving the study door open a very little, she kept coming up to it to listen "how Enyusha was breathing" and to look at Vassily Ivanovitch. She could see nothing ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... had not every one bolted, for here sat two of the colony among the broken rocks. These two had not been frightened off. That both of them were greatly alarmed, any one could see from their open beaks, their rolling eyes, their tense bodies on tiptoe for flight. Yet here they sat, their wings out like props, or more like gripping hands, as if they were trying to hold themselves down to the rocks against their wild ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... up late that night. Probably not a soldier eye was closed until long after eleven, and half the garrison clustered about the hospital, treading on tiptoe and speaking in whispers, as the little fellows were tenderly lifted from the litter, the weary mules were led away, and, in the arms of Mrs. Archer and Mrs. Stannard, the sleeping boys were borne, without word or sound, to the darkened room where, in the broad white ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... which was a low room, warmed by a stove, with a glazed and grated door opening on the street, and guarded by a detachment, Javert opened the door, entered with Fantine, and shut the door behind him, to the great disappointment of the curious, who raised themselves on tiptoe, and craned their necks in front of the thick glass of the station-house, in their effort to see. Curiosity is a sort of gluttony. ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... I was ostentatiously quiet. His troubles had to do with the expenses of his illness, and he beseeched me not to send for a doctor or a nurse. I tried to set his mind at rest, but I failed; he saw that I thought him very ill, and when I moved round the room on tiptoe he asked me to make as much noise as I liked. I was no use as a sick nurse, and my efforts to make the room look fit to live in, though meant splendidly, seemed to me to make the place more uncomfortable ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... his knees is some robust rosy-cheeked nurse from Aversa or Nettuno; on the other, a handsome peasant woman from Bauci or Procida. On either side of him, between the wheels and the body of the vehicle, stand the husbands of these two ladies. Standing on tiptoe behind the monk is the driver, holding in his left hand the reins, and in his right the long whip with which he keeps his horses at an equal rate of speed. Behind him are two or three lazzaroni, who get up and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... And with this the intrepid Father mounted the buffet with great agility and briskness, stepped across the window, lifting up the bars and framework again from the other side, and only leaving room for Harry Esmond to stand on tiptoe and kiss his hand before the casement closed, the bars fixing as firmly as ever, seemingly, in the stone arch overhead. When Father Holt next arrived at Castlewood, it was by the public gate on horseback; and he never so much as alluded ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... ole en no 'count, hit look lak der 'membunce git slack. Some time hit seem lak I done seed sump'n' n'er mighty nigh de make en color er ole Mammy-Bammy Big-Money, en den ag'in seem lak I aint. W'en dat de case, w'at does I do? Does I stan' tiptoe en tetch de rafters en make lak I done seed dat ole Witch-Rabbit, w'en, goodness knows, I aint seed 'er? Dat I don't. No, bless you! I'd say de same in comp'ny, much less settin' in yer 'long side ...
— Nights With Uncle Remus - Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation • Joel Chandler Harris
... Standing on tiptoe and stretching up their long necks they often seized the food before it had a chance to fall to the ground. By this good management they usually got more than the chickens. Joe accused Betty of being partial to ...
— Dickey Downy - The Autobiography of a Bird • Virginia Sharpe Patterson
... See! am I becoming more fit to be thy queen? And he watched her, stupefied, like one in a dream, and all the while she bathed him with intoxicating side glances shot like arrows from the bow of her arching brows. And at last, she came slowly towards him, walking on tiptoe, and attitudinising, placing herself exactly in the posture in which he had seen her first among the poppies on the wall, with one hand on her hip. And she said, lifting her brow, with a smile that stole his reason: Now, then, the idol is ready for the devotee. And at that moment the door ...
— An Essence Of The Dusk, 5th Edition • F. W. Bain
... Revelations, after describing the magnificence and felicity of Jesus' kingdom upon earth, represents him as saying that he should come quickly: and in the first chapters, that they who had pierced him should see him coming in the clouds. The Apostles, as appears from the epistles, were on tiptoe with expectation, and frequently assured their converts that "the Lord is at hand, the judge stood before the door, &c." And to conclude, Can you not now, sir, conceive, and guess the cause of the gradual disappearance of the Jewish Christians after "that generation had passed away?" The ...
— Letter to the Reverend Mr. Cary • George English
... and the young girl, standing listening against the partition, had assured herself that this last Argus was asleep, she threw over her shoulders a dark cloak to be the less visible in the night, descended on tiptoe, and light as a shadow, the marble stairs of the paternal palace, unbarred the gate, and crossed the street. On the threshold of the opposite door, her lover was standing to receive her; and the two together, with stifled breath and silent caresses, ascended the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... half-an-hour," he said. And he held her hand in his own hand, and gave her such looks of perfect love and blessed her so solemnly and sweetly when at length he left her that she began to sob again and to stand on tiptoe that she might throw her arms around his neck and touch his lips ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... his Father's neck, and promised him; and then, putting away his medal, he went softly, on tiptoe, up to his play-room, and shutting the door, began to work at a ship that he was rigging. He did not get on very fast, for he could not help thinking of his dear Mother, and wishing he could see her. She had hemmed all the sails of the ship for him, and he was going ...
— The Apple Dumpling and Other Stories for Young Boys and Girls • Unknown
... a little child beneath the stars Talk as he ran along To some sweet riddle in his mind that seemed A-tiptoe into song. ...
— Collected Poems 1901-1918 in Two Volumes - Volume I. • Walter de la Mare
... was asleep, or hoping her to be so, bent over Pepita, imprinted a kiss softly and slowly on her white forehead, smoothed oat the folds of her dress, arranged the windows so as to leave the room in semi-obscurity, and went out on tiptoe, closing the door behind her ...
— Pepita Ximenez • Juan Valera
... he had turned and was nearly through the entrance, walking softly on tiptoe, and then I ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... she might possibly be lingering in the kitchen, perhaps with some new lover. She had a right to do so, but the very thought filled him with a fury of jealousy. It would be an easy matter, he reflected, to tiptoe down the driveway behind the trees, to gain the shadow of the house, and to peep into one of the kitchen windows. Of course they were dark, but he wished to be assured of it. Let him once discover that the house was closed for the night, and ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... tried to put in words what he had seen, what a poor piece of ornamental gardening the thing was! There were trees and birds and grass, to be sure; but there was nothing of that meaning look which they had worn, that look of being tiptoe with revelation which is one of the most fascinating tricks of the visible world, and which even a harsh town full of chimneys can sometimes take on when seen in given moments and lights. And it was astonishing to see ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne
... she, shutting the door with great precaution, and then coming on tiptoe close to my bedside; "for the love of God, speak softly, and make no stir to awake them that's asleep near and too near you. It's unknown to all that I come up; for may be, when them people are awake and about, I might not get the opportunity to speak, ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... this entrenchment and the camp, and was kept clear. Within the entrenchment Felix could see a number of gentlemen, and several horses caparisoned, but from the absence of noise and the fact that every one appeared to walk daintily and on tiptoe, he concluded that the king was still sleeping. The stream ran beside the entrenchment, and between it and the city; the king's quarters were at that corner of the camp highest up the brook, so that the water might not be fouled before ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies
... and goes to the door leading into his room, and knocks lightly; no answer. She knocks again, more impatiently this time, and as still only silence follows her attempt, she opens the door and steps on tiptoe into the room. ...
— The Hoyden • Mrs. Hungerford
... he said, reassuringly; and went on tiptoe out of the darkened, cologne-scented room. But as he passed along the hall, and saw his father in his little cabin of a room, smoking placidly, and polishing his sextant with loving hands, Cyrus's heart ...
— An Encore • Margaret Deland
... enough to see his own face in the glass, but the glimpse he caught made him stand instantly on tiptoe to see more. For his round little countenance, flushed as it was beneath its fringe of disordered feathery hair, was literally—transfigured. A glory, similar to the glory he had seen that same evening upon the face of the housekeeper, ...
— The Human Chord • Algernon Blackwood
... that he was about to get me to promise him, in the presence of our mutual friends, that I would accomplish something of importance; as he knew if I once gave my word, that nothing would deter me from endeavouring to carry my promise into effect. Expectation was upon the tiptoe, every one seeming anxious to know what was the object of such a serious and almost solemn request. "Well," said he, "promise me then that you will never wear white breeches again!" Every one appeared thunder-struck, that the mountain had brought forth such a mouse. I had on a clean pair ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt
... the monarch stalks; Spur-clad his nervous feet, and firm his tread; A crest of purple tops the warrior's head. [36] 150 Bright sparks his black and rolling [37] eye-ball hurls Afar, his tail he closes and unfurls; [38] On tiptoe reared, he strains [39] his clarion throat, Threatened by faintly-answering farms remote: Again with his shrill voice the mountain rings, 155 While, flapped with conscious pride, resound his ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight
... my intention had been engrossed with the contents of the note, and I had no thought of looking outward. I raised myself on tiptoe, stretching my neck as far as ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid
... in her fat cheek, with its light paper end. Glancing up at the many green lattices to assure herself that the mistress is not looking on, the little woman then puts her two little dimple arms a-kimbo, and stands on tiptoe to light her cigarette at mine. 'And now, dear little sir,' says she, puffing out smoke in a most innocent and cherubic manner, 'keep quite straight on, take the first to the right and probably you will see ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... stooped down and felt the grass. There was dew upon it. He put his finger into his mouth; and then he said, "This is a holy place. The dew tastes sweet." They all tried it that were there, and believed it. This filled them with wonder, and some of them walked about on tiptoe, as if they had no business ...
— Gudrid the Fair - A Tale of the Discovery of America • Maurice Hewlett
... that lay upon the glistening window panes. If we had needed inspiration from external things at this moment, how easily we could have received it. But there was not a fibre within us that was not already awake to such soul-stirring influences. We went on tiptoe towards the altar-rail, and knelt upon the topmost step. To tell what followed would be to intrude upon the sacredness of the soul's privacy. Suffice it to say that for some solemn moments we knelt and prayed together, each knowing well what to ask from Him who has promised that they who "ask ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... Waterford; 'you may think it's all right to come here on tiptoe at midnight with a false key, and steal, but other people may differ from you, that's all! Besides, you're telling a lie; the letter you've got in your ...
— Reginald Cruden - A Tale of City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... by his emotion or by some other stronger sentiment lying deep at the bottom of her heart, "by and by I may perhaps bore you to death by the violence of my devotion. Meantime"—standing on tiptoe, and blushing just enough to make her even more adorable than before, and placing two white hands on his shoulders—"you shall have one small, wee kiss to carry ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... Going on tiptoe, in stockinged feet, across my field of vision, passed Kegan Van Roon! He was in his shirt-sleeves and held a lighted candle in one hand whilst with the other he shaded it against the draught from the window. He was a cripple no longer, and the smoked glasses were discarded; most ...
— The Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... stature of intelligence all day long would make one's head ache; standing on tiptoe and stretching up would do the same; one needs a contemporary ...
— Tenterhooks • Ada Leverson
... dipper, I sat down on the top step of the porch, and, without saying a word to the man, placed my bag beside me and began to open it. The shy girl paused, dipper in hand, the children stood on tiptoe, and even the man showed signs of curiosity. With studied deliberation I took out two books I had with me and put them on the porch; then I proceeded to rummage for a long time in the bottom of the bag as though I could ...
— The Friendly Road - New Adventures in Contentment • (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker
... themselves around and seemed to have felt amazement rather than anxiety or alarm. Liputin stood foremost, close to the corpse. Virginsky stood behind him, peeping over his shoulder with a peculiar, as it were unconcerned, curiosity; he even stood on tiptoe to get a better view. Lyamshin hid behind Virginsky. He took an apprehensive peep from time to time and slipped behind him again at once. When the stones had been tied on and Pyotr Stepanovitch had risen to his feet, Virginsky began faintly ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... singly or in twos and threes, paused to listen to the crackle of electricity which came from the little wireless-house. The door was closed, but by standing on tiptoe they could see over the screen at the window, and catch a glimpse of a blond young man, with a receiver clamped over both ears, bending above his key, from which came a series of vicious-looking sparks. The sound was vaguely ...
— The Destroyer - A Tale of International Intrigue • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... her 'andkerchief, and while she was busy with it Bill Flurry got up and went out on tiptoe. Young Alf got up a second or two arterwards to see where he'd gone; and the last Joe Morgan and his missis see of the happy couple they was sitting on one chair, and George Hatchard was making desprit and 'artrending attempts ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... from the room, and returned with his nightly glass and jug of water. There could be nothing else that he would want during the night. It was all he ever had, and he would sleep so until morning. She approached the bed upon tiptoe. ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... finishing, surged with volcanic excitement, hidden, but not in the least repressed. The White Class, their juniors, who were chiefly employed in preparing for Confirmation, should have been immersed in graver things, but were not. They waited on mental tiptoe for details, and a peep at the delicious document. The Blue Class, as became mere infants ranging from six to ten years old, remained phlegmatically indifferent to the missive, yet avid for samples of the chocolates that had accompanied the declaration, made to eighty girls ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... brown and red with sunshine; O the dark translucence of the deep-eyed cool! Spying from the farm, herself she fetch'd a pitcher Full of milk, and tilted for each in turn the beak. Then a little fellow, mouth up and on tiptoe, Said, 'I will kiss you': she laugh'd and lean'd her cheek. . . . Doves of the fir-wood walling high our red roof Through the long noon coo, crooning through the coo. Loose droop the leaves, and down the sleepy roadway Sometimes pipes a chaffinch; loose droops the blue. Cows ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... the surprising sight of—Beauty!—the very identical devil himself! There stood the unhangable, undrownable, hurricane-creating beast, looking as serene as a newly-born black cherub, washing his fiendish face! I approached on tiptoe, breathlessly, with the basket behind my back and the half chicken extended as a peaceable card of introduction. He scented it instantly—my aunt always keeping Beauty's tit-bits until sufficiently gamey to suit his highly ...
— The Idler, Volume III., Issue XIII., February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly. Edited By Jerome K. Jerome & Robert Barr • Various
... so she passed in, but pausing just inside, she glanced back through the window. The next instant she left the shop and gazed down the street again. But Keith had turned a corner, and so Alice Lancaster did not see him, though she stood on tiptoe to try and distinguish him again ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... the old fellow, peering on tiptoe into the upper room. "And fast asleep on the floor! That wretch of a witch has not even given her a bed." Then, clapping his great hands against the side of the tower, he cried,—"Wake up, sweet Princess!" in a voice so loud that the poor young lady thought it was thunder, and sprang to her feet ...
— Ting-a-ling • Frank Richard Stockton
... my right from an open door, and another gale blowing on my left down some steps, and nasty smells blowing from every point of the compass, I stood at a dirty little hole in a dirty wooden wall and took our tickets. I had to stand on tiptoe to make ...
— A Great Emergency and Other Tales - A Great Emergency; A Very Ill-Tempered Family; Our Field; Madam Liberality • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... on as though never would the frenzied shouters cease, the grim, panting Yates players lined up back of their goal line, on tiptoe, ready at the first touch of the ball to the earth to spring forward and, leaping upward, strive to arrest the speeding oval. Prone upon the ground, the ball in his hands, lay Story. A yard or two distant Blair directed the pointing ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... words, Ideas, of which they are the sign, Than any other life-design. Who buy of me must simply pay Their whole existence quite away: Their strength, their manhood, and their prime, Their hours from morning till the time When evening comes on tiptoe feet, And losing life, think it complete; Must miss what other men count being, To gain the gift of deeper seeing; Must spurn all ease, all hindering love, All which could hold or bind; must prove The farthest boundaries of thought, And shun no end which these have brought; Then ...
— Sword Blades and Poppy Seed • Amy Lowell
... laughed, and tried to touch his head; but being too little, laughed again, and stood on tiptoe to embrace him. Then she began to drag him, in her childish eagerness, towards the door; and he, nothing ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... dumb-bell whirled down the valley across the evening blue, roaring and twisting and twisting and roaring all alone by itself. A West Indian hurricane could not have been quicker on its feet than our little cyclone, and when the house rose a-tiptoe, like a cockerel in act to crow, and a sixty-foot elm went by the board, and that which had been a dusty road became a roaring torrent all in three minutes, we felt that the New England summer had creole blood in her veins. She ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... were opened, and the crowd—at least as many as were able to effect an entrance—rushed in. Martin and John Kelly were among those nearest to the door, and, in reward of their long patience, got sufficiently into the body of the Court to be in a position to see, when standing on tiptoe, the noses of three of the four judges, and the wigs of four of the numerous counsel employed. The Court was so filled by those who had a place there by right, or influence enough to assume that they had so, that it was impossible to obtain a more favourable ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... oppressive than ever before. In the faces and expressions of the awed witnesses of death's swift hand there was horror, and a growing fear. No one spoke, except in whispers. When anybody moved it was on tiptoe, cautiously. Millard's creation, "The Black Terror," could have inspired no dread ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve
... remembered when the French landed at Killala in '98; or perhaps but through the natural breaking of a younger child of the house from the conservatism of her elders. So when we were taken sometimes as a treat the five mile drive to our market town, Loughrea, I would, on tiptoe at the counter, hold up the six pence earned by saying without a mistake my Bible lesson on the Sunday, and the old stationer, looking down through his spectacles would give me what I wanted saying that I was his best customer ...
— The Kiltartan Poetry Book • Lady Gregory
... was pushed against the walls, except a writing-desk with gilded legs, which stood in the embrasure of the big window, and to this the girl ran softly, on tiptoe, across the bare parquet floor. It was covered with sheeting, which she turned carefully back that nothing might be disturbed and, in falling, make a noise. Almost she had reached the limit of her strength and had no breath even to whisper the "Thank heaven!" ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... he is So tall and strong that when I try, Standing on tiptoe for a kiss I could not reach, except for this, He ...
— Lundy's Lane and Other Poems • Duncan Campbell Scott
... uneasy suspicions, Silas opened his bedroom door and peered into the passage. It was dimly illuminated by a single jet of gas; and some distance off he perceived a man sleeping on the floor in the costume of an hotel under-servant. Silas drew near the man on tiptoe. He lay partly on his back, partly on his side, and his right forearm concealed his face from recognition. Suddenly, while the American was still bending over him, the sleeper removed his arm and opened his eyes, and Silas found ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... usual rule of selection in the gallery might have been modified. It was with no small annoyance, therefore, that, after the Litany was over, and the tuning finished, she heard the clerk give out that they would praise God by singing part of the ninety-first Psalm. Mary, who was on the tiptoe of expectation as to what was coming, saw the curate give a slight shrug with his shoulders and lift of his eyebrows as he left the reading-desk, and in another minute it became a painful effort for her to keep from laughing as she slyly watched her cousin's ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... and winter, and the late homecomings from the banquet and the lights and laughter through the deserted streets—a desolation which would not remind you now, as for a generation it did, that your friends are sleeping and you must creep in a-tiptoe and not disturb them, but would only remind you that you need not tiptoe, you can never disturb them more—if you shrink at the thought of these things you need only reply, "Your invitation honors me and ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... repeat recite reply refer repair replace recall renew regret release retain rejoice return reduce report regard refresh restore remain coachman huntsman seaman postman salesman workman footman hackman railroad birthday foreman boatman inkstand daylight fireplace teacup seaside seaweed sunbeam tiptoe stairway necktie rainbow railway seashore ...
— The Beacon Second Reader • James H. Fassett
... we make the better," he breathed, stepping out of the boat on tiptoe and signing to the others to do the same. With scarcely a sound, they landed and stood at length on the grassy carpet sloping down ...
— The Border Boys Across the Frontier • Fremont B. Deering
... street cleared. Whatever it was that had called forth that incredible mass, was scheduled to proceed uptown from far downtown, and that very soon. Heads were turned that way. Fanny, wedged in the crowd, stood a-tiptoe, but she could see nothing. It brought to her mind the Circus Day of her Winnebago childhood, with Elm street packed with townspeople and farmers, all straining their eyes up toward Cherry street, the first turn in the line of march. Then, far away, the ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... eyes and pretended to be asleep. Tanaroff tried to persuade himself that this was the case, while yet perfectly well aware that each was watching the other; and so, in an awkward, stooping posture, he crept out of the room on tiptoe, feeling like a ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... head with an air suggesting meditated flight. Even Grace cowered back instinctively. Swift as a shadow, Fran darted on tiptoe to the typewriter, and began pounding ...
— Fran • John Breckenridge Ellis
... sound, the notes becoming harsher and more distinct as I approached. At the top of the steps I found myself before a little stone doorway, through which a very faint dusky glimmer emerged. I passed in, treading on tiptoe, and came along a narrow stone passage, down which the sound of the drumming made a dismal echo. At the further end of the passage the way was closed by a thick curtain made of a substance that felt like ...
— Athelstane Ford • Allen Upward
... and blowing into them, thrice imitated the owl's cry so well that it was impossible to believe that a human voice was uttering the sounds; then, picking up the casket and the keys, he kept on his way on tiptoe and with an attentive ear. On getting near the wall, they again stopped, and after a moment's anxious waiting they heard a groan, then something like the sound of a falling body. Some seconds later the owl's cry was—answered by ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Rob answered, slyly, "and syne I may tell you." This was not the only time Jean had been asked to show the minister's belongings. Snecky Hobart, among others, had tried on Gavin's hat in the manse kitchen, and felt queer for some time afterwards. Women had been introduced on tiptoe to examine the handle of his umbrella. But Rob had not come to admire. He snatched the holly from Jean's hands, and casting it on the ground pounded it with his heavy boots, crying, "Greet as you like, Jean. That's the end o' his flowers, and if ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... had set over him; but what Alma Marston did overwhelmed him with such stupefaction that he stood there as rigid and motionless as a belaying-pin in a rack. She put up her arms, pressed her two hands on his shoulders, stood on tiptoe, and kissed him on ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... margin of night was thick with their petulant complaints; behind her was the monstrous shadow of the Chateau d'Arnaye, and past that was a sullen red, the red of contused flesh, to herald dawn. Infinity waited a-tiptoe, tense for the coming miracle, and against this vast repression, her grief dwindled into irrelevancy: the leaves whispered comfort; each tree-bole hid chuckling fauns. Matthiette laughed. Content had flooded the universe all through and through now that yonder, unseen as yet, the scarlet-faced ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... tide. You have all seen such days. Nature had laid out a wonderful entertainment, to begin with; and put no hindrances in the way; and it appeared that every creature came with spirits and hopes on tiptoe. Dresses were something captivating, so much attention and invention had been exercised upon them. And the facilities for flirtations which the scene and the sport afforded, were most picturesque. The parties in the trees could ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner
... command to the letter. When the year and a day came she had been able to stand on tiptoe and look at herself for the first time in her life; and she would never forget the gladness of that moment. It had appeared nothing short of a miracle to her that she should actually possess something of which she need not be ashamed—something nice to share ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... was closed during the two days while the body lay in the little parlor, and callers came and went on tiptoe, and spoke only in whispers. A steady stream of roughly dressed people, river-men and their friends, struggled over the four miles of snowy road to pay their last respects to the dead, and some brought flowers bundled awkwardly in ...
— Nancy McVeigh of the Monk Road • R. Henry Mainer
... like best," she answered, standing on tiptoe to kiss him. "Only say 'I love you' ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives
... and towards the hundred golden lights that swarm before the high altar. Seeing a woman; a priest, and a soldier kneel to kiss the toe of the brazen St. Peter, who protrudes it beyond his pedestal for the purpose, polished bright with former salutations, while a child stood on tiptoe to do the same, the glory of the church was darkened before Hilda's eyes. But again she went onward into remoter regions. She turned into the right transept, and thence found her way to a shrine, in the extreme corner of the edifice, which is adorned with a mosaic copy of Guido's beautiful Archangel, ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Advancing on tiptoe she soon discovered a seat, when what was her surprise to find Alizon asleep within it. She was sure it was Alizon—for she had touched her hair and face, and she felt surprised that the contact had not awakened her. Still more surprised did she feel that ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... was coming through the woods we happened to stop a minute. Then we see this Frenchy sneaking through the woods. We wondered what was up. Then he vanished. We looked about, some quiet-like, and on tiptoe, and then we saw this shipmate o' your'n pry apart some bushes and head in this way. It looked ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Spies - Dodging the Sharks of the Deep • Victor G. Durham
... modest American poet might creep up from under them, out from under the great believing, dumb Derricks standing on tiptoe of faith against the sky, and write a book and call it "Beliefs American Poets Would Like to ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... Michael stood on tiptoe in the air to get their first sight of the island. Strange to say, they all recognised it at once, and until fear fell upon them they hailed it, not as something long dreamt of and seen at last, but as a familiar friend to whom they were returning home ...
— Peter and Wendy • James Matthew Barrie
... boys. The three lads were on tiptoe with excitement at the thought of an actual encounter ...
— Billie Bradley and Her Inheritance - The Queer Homestead at Cherry Corners • Janet D. Wheeler
... Pierrette being, like all country children, accustomed to get up early, was awake two hours before the cook. She dressed herself, stepping on tiptoe about her room, looked out at the little square, started to go downstairs and was struck with amazement by the beauties of the staircase. She stopped to examine all its details: the painted walls, the brasses, the various ornamentations, the window ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... remains of the meal, the old knight, leaning back in his chair, encouraged pleasanter visions than had of late passed through his imagination, until by degrees he was surprised by actual slumber; while his daughter, not venturing to move but on tiptoe, took some needle-work, and bringing it close by the old man's side, employed her fingers on this task, bending her eyes from time to time on her parent, with the affectionate zeal, if not the effective ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... longer awes the multitude—his sceptre is broken—his crown is trampled in the dust—the sentence of death is pronounced upon him. All nations, ranks, and classes have, in turn, questioned and repudiated his authority; and now, that the monster is chained and caged, timid woman, on tiptoe, comes to look him in the face, and to demand of her brave sires and sons, who have struck stout blows for liberty, if, in this change of dynasty, she, too, shall find relief. Yes, gentlemen, in republican America, in the nineteenth ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... of research, is of young pioneerhood alone. It is a youth who dares be radical, who dares, in splendid largess, build mistake upon mistake, bleeding his life out in service. And it is a youth, standing tiptoe upon the earth, now waiting in unperturbed ease, now searching with unbridled zeal, who is lover and mystic. "The best is yet to be," says Rabbi Ben Ezra, "the last of life, for which the first is made." Yes, the last of life will be good, but only if it is like youth, beating with ...
— The Kempton-Wace Letters • Jack London
... reasonable, her brother secured the Yale lock so that its tongue was engaged, and, quietly closing the door, followed his wife and sister a-tiptoe through the hall and past the baize door which led ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... whatsoever of Italy, and above all in the Duomo of Pisa, in S. Marco at Venice, and in other places as well; and so, too, they kept making many pictures in that manner, with eyes staring, hands outstretched, and standing on tiptoe, as may still be seen in S. Miniato without Florence, between the door that leads into the sacristy and that which leads into the convent; and in S. Spirito in the said city, the whole side of the cloister opposite the church; and in like manner at Arezzo, in S. Giuliano and S. ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Volume 1, Cimabue to Agnolo Gaddi • Giorgio Vasari
... small window on the ground floor were lit. I crept up on the terrace and tried to peer in, but across each of the library windows the curtains were too closely drawn. There remained the small window at the end of the terrace. I crept on tiptoe towards this, feeling my way through the darkness by the front of the house. Suddenly I came to a full stop. I flattened myself against the stonework and held my breath. Some one else was on the terrace. What I had heard was unmistakable. It was the wind blowing amongst a woman's skirts, and the ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... with a clean plate and a napkin which a courteous negro had handed him, half-an-hour earlier, when he felt a quick jerk at his sleeve. It was Truslow, who had worked his way along the wall and who now, standing on tiptoe, spoke rapidly but cautiously, close to ...
— In the Arena - Stories of Political Life • Booth Tarkington
... succeeded in approaching his unsuspecting victim; observe how proudly he holds himself, as some other buck of less pretensions dares to approach the ladies of the group; see how he advances, as on tiptoe, all the hair of his body standing on end, and with a thundering rush drives headlong away this bold intruder, and then comes swaggering back! But, hark—a twig has broken! Suddenly the buck wheels round, facing the quarter whence the sound proceeded. ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... came at length; the wind blew fairly down the stream, and everyone was on the tiptoe of expectation, listening for the report of two guns, the preconcerted signal of the fleet being about to sail. It was a time of the greatest anxiety, for any moment, if discovered, the twenty-eight pieces of ordnance might have commenced playing ...
— Our Sailors - Gallant Deeds of the British Navy during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston
... go on tiptoe to the door of the other room, where Father and Mother sleep; they open the door ...
— Up the Chimney • Shepherd Knapp
... a high whisper. "What are you doing here?" He hardly remembers what he said. The doctor straightened up and came on tiptoe to his side. ...
— The Centaur • Algernon Blackwood
... art's sake" it is that of the Apollo Belvedere. Much discussion has taken place as to what Apollo is supposed to be doing in this famous statue. "There is only one answer. We do not know." Miss Harrison, however, thinks that as he is poised on tiptoe he may be in the act of taking flight from the earth. Eventually, after discussing the matter at some little length, she appears to come to the audacious conclusion which, in spite of its hardy irreverence, may very probably be true, ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... hill-town, remote from tourists and motor-cars, dreaming its own quiet life under the autumn sun, rose up and cast its spell upon him. Long before he recognised this spell he acted under it. He walked softly, almost on tiptoe, down the winding narrow streets where the gables all but met over his head, and he entered the doorway of the solitary inn with a deprecating and modest demeanour that was in itself an apology for intruding upon the place and ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... crowd came to these impromptu feasts! How much noise they used to make! How they danced and sang until the gray morning light would creep in through the big skylight, when all these good bohemians would tiptoe down the waxed stairs, and slip past the different ateliers for fear of waking those painters who might be asleep—a thought that never occurred to them until broad daylight, and the door had been opened, after hours of ...
— The Real Latin Quarter • F. Berkeley Smith
... cords were fastened; the rat held one of these, and the cat the other. Their eyes were bandaged. The cat was armed with a cudgel and tried to catch the rat, who kept out of the way as much as he could, listening for the cat's approach—thus they kept going around on tiptoe, and exhibiting their cunning ...
— The Conscript - A Story of the French war of 1813 • Emile Erckmann
... The crowd at length finding that a brave man was going to risk his life, raised a cheer as they caught sight of him, and standing on tiptoe, peered over each other's shoulders to get a better view of the work ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... gods provided. His face glowed with almost beatific light as he saw his dream slowly take form. Nothing he had ever done equalled this masterpiece. The project was his first thought at waking, the last before closing his eyes at night. Sometimes, even, when all but the sea slept, he would tiptoe downstairs, candle in hand, just to steal a glance at the child of his fancy. So absorbed was he in its growth and progress that it never crossed his mind to marvel that two men of Howard Snelling's and Robert Morton's ability should sacrifice to the invention the golden ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... thinking she was asleep, or hoping her to be so, bent over Pepita, imprinted a kiss softly and slowly on her white forehead, smoothed oat the folds of her dress, arranged the windows so as to leave the room in semi-obscurity, and went out on tiptoe, closing the door behind her without ...
— Pepita Ximenez • Juan Valera
... burned low. A sense of loneliness crept over me. I arose and undressed, moving on tiptoe about the room, doing stealthily what I had to do, as if I were environed by sleeping enemies whose slumbers it would be fatal to break. I covered up in bed, and lay listening to the rain and wind and the faint creaking of distant shutters, till ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... scratching, get into final form and become poetry. I know of course that a man's reach should exceed his grasp—it's hackneyed enough—but just for once I would like to pull down something when I have been up on tiptoe for ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks
... hesitated to take her to him. She stepped forward, and, stretching out her hand, touched his shoulder. The reflection of her charming face appeared behind his face in the glass. She raised herself on tiptoe, with both hands on him, and said, "The time is coming, my darling, when I may ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... I'd brought my boat," he remarked, standing on tiptoe to see over the edge. "See the motor-boat, Mother? It's just ...
— Sunny Boy in the Big City • Ramy Allison White
... back on tiptoe,—"an' you didn't think you heern any one neither. It's ruther small work fur ter be foolin' an old woman. Hows'ever, I don' cherish grudges; so, ez I wuz gwine ter say, ye knit thirty-six reounds above wheer ye dropped yer thumb, an' then ye toe off ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... gentle-flowing wind, had shimmered in the bright radiance of the harvest moon, when, coming home late at night from the marsh across the hill, she had stayed for a while on the mound by the gate, and tiptoe, with black-fringed ears moving restlessly, had listened to some ominous sound in the farmyard. The prickly stubble felt strange to her feet, so, carefully picking her way by the ditch, she crossed to the nearest gate and ambled down the lane. But the change noticed ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... candles, and, if there was anything which he must do, to go into his landlady's room, and work by her light. When he went into the street, he must walk as lightly as he could, and as cautiously, upon the stones, almost upon tiptoe, in order not to wear his heels down in too short a time. He must give the laundress as little to wash as possible; and, in order not to wear out his clothes, he must take them off as soon as he got home, and wear only his ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... formality, what square observance, Lives in a little room! here public care Gags not the eyes of slumber; here fierce riot Ruffles not proudly in a coat of trust, Whilst, like a pawn at chess, he keeps in rank With kings and mighty fellows; yet indeed Those men that stand on tiptoe smile to see Him ...
— Sir Thomas More • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... shining eyes. In front of the First National Bank she paused, but after a few seconds she passed by. On the opposite corner was another bank. When she reached it, she walked in without pausing, and the massive door swung behind her. Standing on tiptoe, she confronted the cashier with ...
— Prudence of the Parsonage • Ethel Hueston
... no sound in the next room, and when Saidee was weary of her strained position, she crossed the floor on tiptoe again, to shut the door. But she could not resist a temptation to ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... but when the hungry slaves would have lighted a moss fire to cook the meat, the forbidding hand of a chief went up. No fires were to be lighted. The Indians advanced with whispers, dodging from stone to stone like raiders in ambush. Spies went forward on tiptoe. Then far down-stream below the cataracts Hearne descried the domed tent-tops of an Eskimo band sound asleep; for it was midnight, though the sun was at high noon. When Hearne looked back to his companions, ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut
... Unitarians—small and gallant band!—were like persons standing on tiptoe before an opening glory. In their isolated and often mistaken struggle they had felt themselves for generations stricken with chill and barrenness; their blood now began to feel the glow of new kinships, the passion ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... will be Madame Bertin," said Gabriel, as he hitched himself to the door and opened it, revealing a gray-haired woman who came in on tiptoe. ...
— Paula the Waldensian • Eva Lecomte
... out of the window, underneath which was a shed, and so drop down into the garden? The clothes were slipped on hurriedly; her little fingers were so eager that the buttons went in and out of their holes again. Then softly on tiptoe she scrambled out. Her skirts caught, her fingers were scratched, the skin was peeled from a spot on one little knee; but, ah! how delicious this liberty! Her feet no sooner touched the earth than she ran swiftly to the brook, and the shoes and stockings were left ...
— The Princess Idleways - A Fairy Story • Mrs. W. J. Hays
... Bastion'd with rocks that rival Nature's own; Red-furnaced baths, trim gardens planted fair With tree and flower the North ne'er yet had known; Long temple-roofs and statues poised on high With golden wings outstretch'd for tiptoe flight, Quivering in summer sky:— The land had rest, while those stern legions lay By northern ramparts camp'd, and held the Pict ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... said, reassuringly; and went on tiptoe out of the darkened, cologne-scented room. But as he passed along the hall, and saw his father in his little cabin of a room, smoking placidly, and polishing his sextant with loving ...
— An Encore • Margaret Deland
... the earl; and dukes, lords, and barons became as familiar to me as gowns and caps had formerly been in the streets of Oxford. I stood on the very pinnacle of fortune; and, proud of my skill, like a rope-dancer that casts away his balancing pole, I took pleasure in standing on tiptoe. Noticed by the leading men, caressed and courted by their dependants, politics encouraging me on this hand, and theology inviting me on that, the whole world seemed to be smiles and sunshine; and I discovered that none but blockheads had any ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... prisoner, for none of the three doors had keys on my side, and the windows, with their tiny panes of ground glass, were high above the floor. Then, too, the old man had insisted on speaking in a whisper, and walked about on tiptoe. Who were those persons he evidently feared to waken? Persons near by, of course. Probably they carried the missing keys and could enter at any moment. And the other watchman? What if he should come, and, this being the room allotted to himself and companion, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... of the value of his discoveries or detections with his own person. The necessity of repelling unjust contempt, forces the most modest man into a feeling of pride and self-consciousness. How can a tall man help thinking of his size, when dwarfs are constantly on tiptoe beside him?—Paracelsus was a braggart and a quack; so was Cardan; but it was their merits, and not their follies, which drew upon them that torrent of detraction and calumny, which compelled them so frequently to think and write concerning ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... Italian ran upstairs with a footfall as light as that of a cat. On reaching the landing he stopped for a second, glanced around him, with the same feline caution that marked all his movements, and then, creeping forward on tiptoe, went along a corridor leading to a ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats
... any of these. He had no interest for anything apart from his work. At this all his faculties were engaged. His lithe body was seen swaying from side to side about the widespreading branches; he stood on tiptoe to reach the topmost bolls; he got on his knees to work the base-limbs, pressing down and away the long grass with his broad feet, tearing and holding back even with his teeth hindering tendrils of the passion-flower and morning-glory and other creepers which had escaped the devastating ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... left were quite silent and still for a moment after he had gone, till what she had heard of Mr. Pemberton went to Rose's head to such a degree that she rose, whirled round on tiptoe, and caused her spread-out frock to perform the feat which children call ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... and hair that was turning gray. Jeanne was sure she had seen her before, but she had not the least idea whether it was a long time ago or quite recently, and it worried her to find she could not remember. She softly got out of bed, and went on tiptoe to see the sleeping woman nearer. She recognized her as the peasant who had caught her in her arms in the cemetery, and had afterwards put her to bed; but surely she had known her in former times, under other circumstances. And ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... the cream-pan; and there the boys from school, Cricketing below, rushed brown and red with sunshine; O the dark translucence of the deep-eyed cool! Spying from the farm, herself she fetched a pitcher Full of milk, and tilted for each in turn the beak. Then a little fellow, mouth up and on tiptoe, Said, 'I will kiss you': she laughed ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... far from further extinction, warmed to a lovely blush. Henrietta's curiosity craned its naughty neck standing on tiptoe. But, the blush notwithstanding, Damaris looked at her with such sincerity of quickening affection and of sympathy ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... letter. They pressed close together, and one peeped over the shoulder of her companion, another stood on tiptoe, while a third tried to snatch the letter from the hand of her fellow; but all managed to read the words: "Get as many foundation girls as you can to meet me, at whatever place you like to appoint, ...
— The Rebel of the School • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... Tiptoe he stole across the floor and laid a hand lightly on the knob of the door of the captain's private room. It turned easily without any creak, and the door opened a few inches. There sat Henshaw with his back to McTee, leaning ...
— Harrigan • Max Brand
... proportions, extremely architectural; but their function seemed less to offer communication with the world than to defy the world to look in. They were massively cross-barred, and placed at such a height that curiosity, even on tiptoe, expired before it reached them. In an apartment lighted by a row of three of these jealous apertures—one of the several distinct apartments into which the villa was divided and which were mainly occupied by foreigners ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... of Mrs. Chou approaching, she at once waved her hand, bidding her go to the eastern room. Chou Jui's wife understood her meaning, and hastily came on tiptoe to the chamber on the east, where she saw a nurse patting ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... in the chronicle of terrestrial life is a matter of great importance and interest. Even the least scientific of readers stands, so to say, on tiptoe to catch a first glimpse of the earliest known representative of our race, and half a century of discussion of evolution has engendered a very wide interest in the ...
— The Story of Evolution • Joseph McCabe
... the dark Mediterranean sea, dotted with shining islands as the heaven is dotted with stars, spread itself out to the eastward as far as my vision extended, until its entire mass of waters seemed at length to tumble headlong over the abyss of the horizon, and I found myself listening on tiptoe for the echoes of the mighty cataract. Overhead, the sky was of a jetty black, and the stars ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... her feet and began investigating. She went awesomely as one would tiptoe over a haunted house. In the next room she came upon what was an odd treasure trove for an isolated bamboo cabin tucked far away under the Tropic of Cancer. It was a printer's shop, after a fashion. ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... days followed, so beautiful to Grizel that as they passed away she kissed her hand to them. Do you see her standing on tiptoe to see the last of them? They lit a fire in the chamber of her soul which is the home of all pure maids, and the fagots that warmed Grizel were every fond look that had been on her lover's face and every sweet word he had let fall. She counted and fondled them, ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... venture to pronounce them Articulates. I do not mean anything disrespectful to these learned inhabitants of Mars in saying that their figure and movements reminded me of crickets: for I never have watched the black field-crickets in New England, standing on tiptoe to reach a blade of grass, without a feeling of admiration at their gentlemanly figure and the gracefulness of their air. But what is more important, I am told that Articulates breathe through spiracles in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... stands on tiptoe awaiting the final result of the action of this Conference. All sections are ready to make sacrifices, but sacrifices are not required. Let us act, and then go home. A grateful people will bind the wreath ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... All was tiptoe expectation; but the anticipated sport fell through, owing to the ill condition of Shark. He was, from some cause or other, as completely out of order as an animal could well be, and ought properly to have been drawn. His spirited owner was, however, absent in Europe, ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... animal to a pine tree just off the road and tiptoed toward the hollow, the appointed rendezvous. To reach this hollow he was obliged to pass through the Parker yard and, although he went on tiptoe, each footstep sounded, in his ears, like the crack of doom. He tried to think of some explanation to be made to Kenelm in case the latter should hear and hail him, but he could think of nothing more ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln
... August still, with beautiful weather come at last; and the green world seemed to stand on tiptoe to make the extraordinary acquaintance of the sun. Humble plants which had long lain flat stood up with a sense of casting something off; and the damp heavy trunks which had trickled for a twelvemonth, or been only sponged with moss, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... professed to be in charge of the test. "Please draw the chair close up to the wall, climb upon it and, standing on tiptoe, say coo-coo clearly and distinctly and keep on saying it until ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... dared one more look into the girl's amused and sympathetic face and then turned and fled precipitately. At the gate he brushed against some one, muttered an apology, and plunged through. Evelyn Walton, following his course of flight from the doorway, laughed softly. Miss Caroline Mullett, standing on tiptoe in the middle of the path, strove to see over the hedge, and, failing, turned to the girl ...
— The Lilac Girl • Ralph Henry Barbour
... toil of the day begins; continually louder and louder the pattering of geta over the bridge. It is a sound never to be forgotten, this pattering of geta over the Ohashi -rapid, merry, musical, like the sound of an enormous dance; and a dance it veritably is. The whole population is moving on tiptoe, and the multitudinous twinkling of feet over the verge of the sunlit roadway is an astonishment. All those feet are small, symmetrical—light as the feet of figures painted on Greek vases—and the step is always taken toes first; indeed, with geta it could ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... gently opened a door upon the right-hand side. Something rushed out at us and my heart sprang into my mouth, but I could have laughed when I realized that it was the cat. A fire was burning in this new room, and again the air was heavy with tobacco smoke. Holmes entered on tiptoe, waited for me to follow, and then very gently closed the door. We were in Milverton's study, and a PORTIERE at the farther side showed the ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... mutual interest—as though Anton were already one of the same family; and, touching his hair lightly with her hand as she passed him, that he might feel how delighted she was to be able so to touch him, she went back to the door of the bedroom on tiptoe, and, lifting the latch without a sound, put in her head and listened. But the sick man had not stirred. His face was still turned from her, as though he slept, and then, again closing the door, she came back ...
— Nina Balatka • Anthony Trollope
... us every one!" prayed Tiny Tim, Crippled, and dwarfed of body, yet so tall Of soul, we tiptoe earth to look on him, High ...
— Christmas - Its Origin, Celebration and Significance as Related in Prose and Verse • Various
... hour had passed when, stealthily on tiptoe, the girl crept into the room, and there found her father seated by the fireplace, ...
— Hushed Up - A Mystery of London • William Le Queux
... go down-stairs and get the pickles," said the mistress of the house, and Tomkins vanished like a mouse on tiptoe. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... hearing that he was to pass two turnings, and then to take a third, Selifan remarked, "We shall get there all right, sir," and Chichikov departed amid a profound salvo of salutations and wavings of handkerchiefs on the part of his host and hostess, who raised themselves on tiptoe in ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... old-fashioned lawn with small bunches of purple flowers scattered over it, and gathered very full about the waist. But, before the swinging mirror of her high bureau, she thought it looked too light and bright for so sad a visit, and so trotted up-stairs to the garret, and, standing on tiptoe by a great chest of drawers, opened one with much care, that the brass rings might not clatter on the oval plates under them, and disturb Miss Deborah. The drawer was sweet with lavender and sweet clover, and, as she lifted from its wrappings of silvered paper a fine black lace shawl, some pale, ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... forms. Certain main features, she knew, had been carefully prearranged, yet as the actor stood silent about to ask the Vicksburger to lead in prayer she tingled with all the exhilaration a ruder soul might have felt in hunting ferocious game or in fighting fire. Her soul rose a-tiptoe for the moment when the Presbyterians, who also had not sung, should stand up to pray, while the few Episcopalians, kneeling forward, and the many Baptists and Methodists, kneeling to the rear, should find themselves face to face—nose to nose, anxiously thought ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... different to me. She still is silent, because that's her nature, and she still stares; but now she stares in a sort of surprise, with a question in her eyes. And wherever she may be in the house or garden, if she hears me beginning to play she creeps near on tiptoe and listens. ...
— Christine • Alice Cholmondeley
... they were occasionally compelled to pass through tracts covered with a species of jungle-grass, called "Dab-grass," which not only reached above the heads of the tallest of the party, but would have done so had they been giants! Goliath or the Cyclops might have, either of them, stood on tiptoe in a field of this grass, without being able ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid
... not? Listen to what Romeo answers: [Reading] "It was the lark, the herald of the morn, No nightingale: look, love, what envious streaks Do lace the severing clouds in yonder east. Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops: ...
— The Romancers - A Comedy in Three Acts • Edmond Rostand
... than I bargained for to reach that mysterious rock, how exciting I should have found it to wander up to unknown ruins, to knock at the closed doors of an enchanted castle, ascend unknown stairs and engage in devious unknown passages—all the while on the tiptoe of expectation! ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... as funereal as possible. Besides the little boy there were two sisters in the family, and the elder took her meals in her own room, as did the mother. The others went about the darkened house on tiptoe, or peeped out at the ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... know that in order to touch the better feelings of our fellow-creatures we must be able to reach up to them, or by reason of our low stature we may succeed only in appealing to the lowest in them, in spite of our tiptoe good intentions. Is that why such appeals too often meet with bitter ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... same." And then, creeping on tiptoe, as men do in such houses, to the infinite annoyance of the invalids whom they wish to spare, he went upstairs, and stood by ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... other suggested a stream flowing out in that direction through a wooded valley, but stream there was none. That way I looked between and over the near green hills to some distant and higher ones in the horizon, tinged with blue. Indeed, by standing on tiptoe I could catch a glimpse of some of the peaks of the still bluer and more distant mountain ranges in the northwest, those true-blue coins from heaven's own mint, and also of some portion of the village. But in other directions, even from this point, I could not see over or beyond ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... his first volume of poems, including 'Sleep and Poetry' and the well-known lines 'I stood tiptoe upon a little hill'. With much that is of the highest poetic value, many memorable lines and touches of his unique insight into nature, the volume yet showed considerable immaturity. It contained indeed, if we except one perfect sonnet, rather a series of experiments than any complete ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats
... shaft. Lord, to see how the miners laughed! White in the collar and stiff in the hat, With his patent boots and his silk cravat, Picking his way, Dainty and fine, Stepping on tiptoe to Pennarby mine. ...
— Songs of Action • Arthur Conan Doyle
... to control myself, I thrust my arm forward by a movement almost independent of my will, and my hand, too audacious, was on the point of lifting the hateful veil, but she prevented me by raising herself quickly on tiptoe, upbraiding me at the same time for my perfidious boldness, with a voice as commanding ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... ringing. The house seemed strangely quiet. The French cook was evidently down in the basement, and we had probably all the upper part to ourselves, unless Summertrees was in his study, which I doubted. Podgers led me directly upstairs to the clerk's room on the third floor, walking on tiptoe, with an elephantine air of silence and secrecy combined, which struck ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... the last chapter when he heard steps in the hallway. Hurriedly he restored the manuscript to its place, closed the drawer and left the room on tiptoe. ...
— The House of the Vampire • George Sylvester Viereck
... right and to the left, and then, by standing on tiptoe, catching sight of a hat round a pillar: "Then it's Mr. Roberts, of course. I'll just go right over to him. Thank you ever so much. Don't disturb yourself!" She picks her way round the area of damp left by the mop, and approaches the hat from behind. "It is you, Edward! What a horrid ...
— The Albany Depot - A Farce • W. D. Howells
... Papal interdicts, the tragedies caused or suffered by the House of Anjou, by the Emperor—these were full of a more permanent significance; but since then the colossal figure of feudalism was seen standing as it were on tiptoe at Crecy for flight from earth: that was a revolution unparalleled; yet that was a trifle by comparison with the more fearful revolutions that were mining below the Church. By her own internal schisms, by the abominable ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... the foot of the high, grass-covered bank and search for signs of danger. It looked firm and solid enough, with its thick, green sod, its fringe of willows along the top, but with the whispering haste of the river sounding plainly against its outer wall. Standing on tiptoe, they could catch sight of the swift, sliding water, risen so high that it touched the very top of the bank. The roar of the swollen current could be heard all across the valley, but it was not so ominous, somehow, as the smaller voices of the ripples sucking and gurgling ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs
... cannot help believing they had this sort of death also in their eye. For surely, at whatever age it overtake the man, this is to die young. Death has not been suffered to take so much as an illusion from his heart. In the hot-fit of life, a-tiptoe on the highest point of being, he passes at a bound on to the other side. The noise of the mallet and chisel is scarcely quenched, the trumpets are hardly done blowing, when, trailing with him clouds of glory, this happy-starred, full-blooded ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... a minute, then he rose erect and retreated from the chamber on tiptoe and closed the ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... with its light paper end. Glancing up at the many green lattices to assure herself that the mistress is not looking on, the little woman then puts her two little dimple arms a-kimbo, and stands on tiptoe to light her cigarette at mine. 'And now, dear little sir,' says she, puffing out smoke in a most innocent and cherubic manner, 'keep quite straight on, take the first to the right and probably you will see him ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... paused again. Then a glow suffused the further end of the room, a disc of electric light, clearly from a portable lamp. A draped form, in deep shadow, was exposed to Merton's view. He stole forward on tiptoe with noiseless feet; he leaped on the back of the figure, threw his left arm round its neck, caught its right wrist in a ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... eyesight, but he could make out nothing but a smudge where Wrington pointed—a smudge emphasised by a tiny point of twinkling light. The two motor-boats slowed down and approached, as it were, on tiptoe one on either side of the vessel. As they came nearer a barge took shape at the head ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... themselves without the elder's liberty. If any are unwell or tired, it is but a little matter to rap at the elder's door, or ask a companion to do it, where any one may receive liberty to retire to rest if it is expedient. All pass the stairs and corridors, and enter the hall, two abreast, upon tiptoe, bowing once as they enter, and pass directly to their ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... of white paper, and with a swift movement twirl it round into a cornucopia. This was, of course, empty, and shaking it about to prove its emptiness, he then held it upright, and invited Dolly to look into it. But he held it so high, that she had to stand on tiptoe to peep in. However, she caught a glimpse, and it seemed to her there were ...
— Two Little Women • Carolyn Wells
... it is so," said Nora; and now she put one of her soft arms round his neck, and raised herself on tiptoe and kissed his cheek. "Believe that it is so, for this morning I went round to the people, and in every cabin there was a bit of bacon, and a half-sack of potatoes, and fagots, and a pile of turf; and in every cabin they were ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade
... the whole month of October. And now the eventful day had come, and the whole community was on tiptoe with expectation. ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... toward it, but the young man held her back, went into the veranda himself, and, without touching it, standing on tiptoe, he examined the pin. He sank back on his heels and turned toward Matrena. She caught a glimpse of fleeting emotion on the ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux
... for six months after she came to the office, Miss Larrabee devoted herself to the accumulation of professional pride. This pride was as much a part of her life as her pompadour, which at that time was so high that she had to tiptoe to reach it. However she managed to keep it up was the wonder of the office. Finally, we all agreed that she must use chicken-fence. She denied this, but was inclined to be good-natured about it, and, as an office-joke, the boys used to leave a step-ladder by her desk so that she ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White
... nor Pascal had noticed M. de Coralth, who in the meantime had stolen into the room on tiptoe, and had been listening to their conversation, concealed behind the folds of a heavy curtain. He now suddenly revealed his presence. "Ah! my dear friend," he exclaimed, in a winning tone. "While I honor your scruples, ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... thought better of it and lay back again with eyes closed, while Markham moved on tiptoe around the room putting things to rights, all the while swearing silently. What in the name of all that was unpleasant did this philandering little idiot mean by trying to destroy herself on the front lawn of his holiday house? Surely the world was ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... you two have grown! You big things how dare you get head of me in this way!" she said, standing on tiptoe to pat the curly pates before her, for Will and Geordie had shot up like weeds, and now grinned cheerfully down upon her as she surveyed ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... any service. She kept her eye to it, however, and, seeing that her mistress did not return to her chamber, she concluded that the latter had continued on into the garden. Again gently opening her door, she stole forth, and, on tiptoe approaching the avenue, peeped into it. It was no longer dark. The gate was open, and the moon shining in lit up the whole passage. It was evident, therefore, that the Senorita had gone through, and was now in ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... more than the moral consciousness of a little Boston woman whose view of life was serious and whose imagination was subject to alarms. He held it to be a temple of delicacy, where one should walk on tiptoe, and he wished to exhibit to Mrs. Vivian the possible lightness of his own step. She herself was incapable of being rude or ungracious, and now that she was fairly confronted with the plausible object of her mistrust, she composed herself to her usual attitude of refined ...
— Confidence • Henry James
... had removed her dripping hat, hung it on the fender to dry, and stretched herself on tiptoe in front of the round eagle-crowned mirror, above the mantel vases of dyed immortelles, while she ran her fingers comb-wise through her hair. The gesture had acted on Darrow's numb feelings as the glow of the fire acted on his ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... by this speech, as was another, the Arcadian, rough Arcas. Arcas dashed forward, holding in his hands a two-headed axe. "Heroes and huntsmen," he cried, "you shall see how a man's strokes surpass a girl's." He faced the boar, standing on tiptoe with his axe raised for the stroke. Meleagrus's uncles shouted to encourage him. But the boar's tusks tore him before Arcas's axe fell, and the Arcadian was trampled upon ...
— The Golden Fleece and the Heroes who Lived Before Achilles • Padraic Colum
... the stage with his wreath upon her graceful head. She took away his breath. She spoke the epilogue, and, as the curtain fell, she lifted her eyes, he thought, to his box, and made him a distinct, queen-like courtesy; his heart fluttered to his mouth, and he walked home on wings and tiptoe. In short— ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... sunshine. It was just as impossible for her to keep still as it would be for a dancing sunbeam to become motionless. Now, as she watched the gull, she suddenly jumped to her feet, and poising on tiptoe, swayed her slender body in rhythm with the flight ...
— The Merriweather Girls and the Mystery of the Queen's Fan • Lizette M. Edholm
... morning she came for the stick of chocolate. She was in a complete state of negligee, and came in on tiptoe, though if she chose to look towards the bed she might have seen ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... two-handed tool and a five-pound sack of sugar was a burden. Doorknobs and latches were a problem in manipulation. The negotiation of a swinging door was a feat of muscular engineering. Electric light switches were placed at a tiptoe reach because, naturally, everything in the adult world is designed by the adults for the convenience of adults. This makes it difficult for the child who has no adult to do ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... for a moment, while I summoned La Font and the servants; whose rage, when, entering a-tiptoe and with some misgiving, they discovered how they had been deceived, and by whom, was scarcely to be restrained even by my presence. However, aided by Philibert's comicalities, I presently secured a truce, and the two ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... excuse, the local doctor had ordered her to bed forthwith. Valerie had obeyed dumbly. She knew that she had come to the end of her tether, and so to that of her wit; and since, to deal at all hopefully with Anthony's return to consciousness, her understanding must be on tiptoe, she knew that she was better away. If the change was to come before she was fit for duty, it could not be helped. In her present condition she was, ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... that clothes with laughing flowers Life's martyr-crown of thorns, and raises up The heart to hold communion with its God, 'Tis thine, this day, with golden clasp, to bind The volume of a life, where sterling worth And beauty go to make the story up. A maiden, one, who, when on tiptoe, sees Her history running through a line of Kings: In fame how excellent; in life how pure; As though the virtues of her ancestry Had found new utterance in her virtuous self. As rain-drops, trickling through the hills of Time, Commingling gather, ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning
... persons, and other assistants, tarring them on, as the rabble does when dogs fight: frightful men, or rather frightful wild animals, clad in jupes of coarse woollen, with large girdles of leather studded with copper nails; of gigantic stature, heightened by high wooden-clogs (sabots); rising on tiptoe to see the fight; tramping time to it; rubbing their sides with their elbows: their faces haggard (figures haves), and covered with their long greasy hair; the upper part of the visage waxing pale, the lower distorting ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... poet might creep up from under them, out from under the great believing, dumb Derricks standing on tiptoe of faith against the sky, and write a book and call it "Beliefs American Poets Would Like to Believe ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... the Rising Sun-a figure of irresistible appeal. The morning of day and the morning of life, the freshness of the dawn and the aspiration of youth— these things are remarkably suggested in the figure. With head up and winged arms outstretched, the youth is poised on tiptoe, the weight thrown forward, as if just on ...
— An Art-Lovers guide to the Exposition • Shelden Cheney
... said Waterford; 'you may think it's all right to come here on tiptoe at midnight with a false key, and steal, but other people may differ from you, that's all! Besides, you're telling a lie; the letter you've got in your ...
— Reginald Cruden - A Tale of City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... with the expenses of his illness, and he beseeched me not to send for a doctor or a nurse. I tried to set his mind at rest, but I failed; he saw that I thought him very ill, and when I moved round the room on tiptoe he asked me to make as much noise as I liked. I was no use as a sick nurse, and my efforts to make the room look fit to live in, though meant splendidly, seemed to me to make the place more uncomfortable and cheerless ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... interest. At the farthest end from her there were some stout shelves nailed against the wall, and on these rested a row of flat tin pans; between the pans were pushed one or two books, and she recognised amongst them his Greek testament. She rose and strolled over to the shelf, and standing on tiptoe looked into the pans. As she thought, they contained thin layers of gold dust. She was standing there looking into them when Stephen returned and came ...
— A Girl of the Klondike • Victoria Cross
... liquor, 'e was so lifelike. Many a drunken man would ha' been proud to ha' done it 'arf so well, and it made 'im pleased to think that Sam was a pal of 'is. Him and Ginger turned and crept up behind the old man on tiptoe, and then all of a sudden he tilted Sam's cap over 'is eyes and flung his arms round 'im, while Ginger felt in 'is coat-pockets and took out a leather purse chock full ...
— Sailor's Knots (Entire Collection) • W.W. Jacobs
... the hall, but almost at once Ford, whose ears were alert for any sound, heard him returning, approaching stealthily on tiptoe. If by this maneuver the Jew had hoped to discover his patient in some indiscretion, he was unsuccessful, for he found Ford standing just where he had left him, with his back turned to the door, and gazing with apparent interest at a picture on the wall. The significance of the incident ...
— The Lost House • Richard Harding Davis
... William stood on tiptoe to peer under the untidy hair at the small apertures that in his strange new friend took the place of ears. Admiration shone in ...
— More William • Richmal Crompton
... as it were in a dream. No food was cooked; even the tables in breakfast-room and dining-hall were laid on Saturday; no horse left the stables, the servants dressed in their sombrest and best, moved about on tiptoe, and talked in whispers. We children were taught to consider it sinful even to think our own thoughts on this holy day. If we boys ever forgot ourselves so far as to speak of things secular, there was Flora to lift a warning finger and with terrible ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables
... the neck and sleeves were edged with tiny white ruffles. It had been Rebecca's best dress for several summers, until she outgrew it, and it was made over for the younger girl, but Anna was very proud of it, and stood on tiptoe to see herself reflected in the narrow mirror between the windows of the sitting-room. Her mother had made a sunbonnet of the same material as the dress, and Anna put this on with satisfaction. Always before this she had despised ...
— A Little Maid of Old Maine • Alice Turner Curtis
... feeling that they have done a very fair afternoon's work, dance a farandole in sabots, after which Ladies and Cavaliers arrive and prepare to dance too; the Cavaliers select their partners by chasing them on tiptoe, the Ladies run backwards, and coyly slap their favourites' faces with bouquets. Here, according to Argument, "refreshments are served by Pages." Don't see any; these particular Pages seem to have been cut. Dance follows: the Vicomte Raoul de Bragelonne arrives, but stands ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, June 25, 1892 • Various
... great curiosity. The orator bustled up to him, and, drawing him partly aside, inquired "on which side he voted?" Rip stared in vacant stupidity. Another short but busy little fellow pulled him by the arm, and, rising on tiptoe, inquired in his ear, "Whether he was Federal or Democrat?" Rip was equally at a loss to comprehend the question; when a knowing, self-important old gentleman, in a sharp cocked hat, made his way through the crowd, putting them ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... called out and huge preparations were made for sighting and taking aim. We scuttled round with field glasses, and finally stood on tiptoe behind branches on a mound by the side of the gun. There were many soldiers fussing in the dug-out, and at last they ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... mother knew the kitchen wouldn't awe me. But"—and she chuckled—"I'm gittin' kind of used even to him, and I'm gittin' so independent there ain't no livin' with me. I even show it the way I walk. When I was ordered around by everybody, I used to sort of tiptoe around so's not to call attention to myself. Now I come down so hard on my heels I have to wear rubber ones so's not to jar my spine. But"—she looked keenly at the pale face beside her and the eyes that showed signs of recent tears—"what's the matter, dear? Have ...
— Drusilla with a Million • Elizabeth Cooper
... my window, In the blue Midsummer weather, Stealing slow, on a hushed tiptoe, I catch them all together:— Bell with her bonnet of satin sheen, And Maud with her mantle of silver-green, And Kate with her ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... mark of Ida's eloquence that she started more hares than she followed, and she gave but a glance in the direction of this one; going on to say that the very proof of her treating her husband like an angel was that he had just stolen off not to be fairly shamed. She spoke as if he had retired on tiptoe, as he might have withdrawn from a place of worship in which he was not fit to be present. "You'll never know what I've been through about you—never, never, never. I spare you everything, as I always have; though I dare say you know things that, if I did (I mean if I knew them) would make me—well, ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James
... and every now and then shaking the loose thick hair from his handsome, genial face. Helfen listened to him with a half smile, screwing up his violin and giving him a quiet look now and then. The inspiring noise of tuning up had begun, and I was on the very tiptoe of expectation. ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... while our elders slept, We knelt and said our prayers, And dress'd us and on tiptoe ...
— The Vigil of Venus and Other Poems by "Q" • Q
... face quickly, with a look of expectation—the door never opened in those sad days without her heart beating faster with the hope of possible tidings—but it as quickly faded again. Dymock had just the same melancholy expression; he still walked on tiptoe, and spoke in a muffled voice, as if he were entering a sick-room. This was his way of showing his sympathy, which really was most deep and sincere But somehow it provoked Grandmamma, who was, it must be confessed, rather a quick-tempered old lady at all times, and at present her nerves were ...
— "Us" - An Old Fashioned Story • Mary Louisa S. Molesworth
... darting to and fro, half seen and half concealed amid the twilight of the clustering leaves. She had an undulating, but, oftentimes, a sharp and irregular movement. It indicated the restless vivacity of her spirit, which to-day was doubly indefatigable in its tiptoe dance, because it was played upon and vibrated with her mother's disquietude. Whenever Pearl saw anything to excite her ever-active and wandering curiosity, she flew thitherward and, as we might say, seized upon that man or thing as her own property, so far as she desired it; ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... joyous outcries. The elder boy, lying in the grass at his mother's side, basked in her eyes like a lover and kissed her feet. Marie, the restless one, gathered flowers for her, and brought them with a subdued look, standing on tiptoe to put a girlish kiss on her lips. And the pale woman, with the great tired eyes and languid movements, never uttered a word of complaint, and smiled upon her children, so full of life and health—it was a sublime picture, lacking no melancholy autumn pomp of yellow leaves ...
— La Grenadiere • Honore de Balzac
... Seventeen-Hundred- and-Ninety-One. It had put out of sight every trace of British rule and occupancy, all its homes had been restored and re-furnished, and its sacred places re-consecrated and adorned. Like a young giant ready to run a race, it stood on tiptoe, eager for adventure and discovery— sending ships to the ends of the world, and round the world, on messages of commerce and friendship, and encouraging with applause and rewards that wonderful spirit of scientific ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... wasn't awake when Felicia came in from her long day in the garden. And the little girl always knew if her mother's door were closed that she must tiptoe softly so as not to disturb her. There was a reward for being quiet. In the niche of the stairway Felice would find a good-night gift—sometimes a cooky in a small basket or an apple or a flower,—something to make a little girl smile even if her mother was too tired or too ill to ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke
... out, and a few moments later the two boys were standing in the dark and deserted playground. Jack made a circuit of the buildings on tiptoe, and then returned ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery
... winter day, 620 That matrons to the church mistook their way, And thought they heard the merry organ play. And he, to raise his voice, with artful care, (What will not beaux attempt to please the fair?) On tiptoe stood to sing with greater strength, And stretch'd his comely neck at all the length: And while he strain'd his voice to pierce the skies, As saints in raptures use, would shut his eyes, That the sound striving through ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... acquaintance with new bird friends! There is not a very marked difference between the avifauna of eastern Kansas and Ohio, and yet there are some birds found in the former state that are not met with in the latter—enough to keep the observer on the tiptoe of ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... the shadows, nudged Cap'n Sproul beside him, and wagged his head toward the open door. They went out on tiptoe. ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... He moved on tiptoe, as though afraid of disturbing the rest of his old employer, and once or twice he looked back. Then at last he closed the door and retraced his steps through the corridor till he gained the library. ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... of the carriage like a parched pea, scorning equally the step and Frank's hand extended to help me. I feel to-day as if I need only stand on tiptoe, and stretch out my arms in order to be ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... ring. He did not stop at the door at all. On tiptoe he skirted the veranda to the old-fashioned bay windows at the south side of the living room; windows with catches as old-fashioned and as simple ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune
... understand. I don't know what he meant." "Oh, no!" one of the crowd would say, "that can't be. It's for something else—something mysterious. Mark my words, you'll see all about it in the newspapers some of these days." A curious little fellow came running up the street, joined the crowd, stood on tiptoe to get sight of the wonder, quickly made up his mind, and shouted in crisp, confident, cock-crowing style, "I know what that contraption's for. It's a machine for taking the bones out ...
— The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir
... When in the woods, Tom's attitude and gait would at times resemble the movements of a cock pheasant: now stealing along for a few yards, listening for the slightest sound of any animal stirring in the underwood; now standing on tiptoe for a time, with bated breath. Did a blackbird—that dusky sentinel of the woods—utter her characteristic note of warning, he would whisper, "Hark!" Then, after due deliberation, he would add, "'Tis a fox!" or, "There's a fox in the grove," and then he would steal gently up to try to get ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... leave off your play and dive in the water, come, O come to my lake. Let your blue mantle lie on the shore; the blue water will cover you and hide you. The waves will stand a-tiptoe to kiss your neck and whisper in your ears. Come, O come to my lake, if you would dive in ...
— The Gardener • Rabindranath Tagore
... Roy; but both boys entered the house, and crept into a cool half-darkened drawing-room on tiptoe, with hushed voices and sober demeanor. A stern looking old lady sat upright in her easy chair, knitting busily. She greeted the boys ...
— His Big Opportunity • Amy Le Feuvre
... collar of his pink-striped nightshirt, so that he would be in proper shape to receive any of the sisters. Then he lay very still, his eyes closed, as they came tiptoeing in and out. Their tongues were on gentle tiptoe too, although not so gentle but that he could hear them advising: one, a "good, stiff mustard plaster"; one, an "onion poultice"; another, a "Spanish blister"; while Aunt Nancy stopped short of nothing less than "old-fashioned bleeding." Abe lay very still and ...
— Old Lady Number 31 • Louise Forsslund
... a stove, with a glazed and grated door opening on the street, and guarded by a detachment, Javert opened the door, entered with Fantine, and shut the door behind him, to the great disappointment of the curious, who raised themselves on tiptoe, and craned their necks in front of the thick glass of the station-house, in their effort to see. Curiosity is a sort of gluttony. To see is ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... 'andkerchief, and while she was busy with it Bill Flurry got up and went out on tiptoe. Young Alf got up a second or two arterwards to see where he'd gone; and the last Joe Morgan and his missis see of the happy couple they was sitting on one chair, and George Hatchard was making desprit and 'artrending attempts ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... from further extinction, warmed to a lovely blush. Henrietta's curiosity craned its naughty neck standing on tiptoe. But, the blush notwithstanding, Damaris looked at her with such sincerity of quickening affection and of sympathy that she again ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... misunderstood. Hunters came in with game; but when the hungry slaves would have lighted a moss fire to cook the meat, the forbidding hand of a chief went up. No fires were to be lighted. The Indians advanced with whispers, dodging from stone to stone like raiders in ambush. Spies went forward on tiptoe. Then far down-stream below the cataracts Hearne descried the domed tent-tops of an Eskimo band sound asleep; for it was midnight, though the sun was at high noon. When Hearne looked back to his companions, he found himself deserted. The Indians were already wading the river for the west ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut
... merry lot went to this hollow one calm evening and Mother Fox made them lie still in the grass. Presently a faint squeak showed that the game was astir. Vix rose up and went on tiptoe into the grass—not crouching but as high as she could stand, sometimes on her hind legs so as to get a better view. The runs that the mice follow are hidden under the grass tangle, and the only way to know the whereabouts of a mouse is by seeing ...
— Wild Animals I Have Known • Ernest Thompson Seton
... silence!" and at the sound there was another flutter of excitement among the guests. The hands of the clock pointed to four minutes to twelve, and it was evident that the last item in the charming programme was about to take place. Ladies moved about on tiptoe, mounting the first steps of the staircase, or standing on stools to ensure a better view. Men moved politely to the rear. There was a minute's preoccupation, and when the general gaze was once more turned ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... gliding like a lover On tiptoe to a maiden true; Ellide! fly the deep gulf over, Roll on, roll on, ye billows blue. Yon sacred grove a temple hideth, Good Balder's temple, doubly dear, For there love's goddess safe abideth, Unto the gods our course ...
— Fridthjof's Saga • Esaias Tegner
... metal; but the structural importance of incision, as the means of effect, never lost sight of. Finally, here are two actual examples of the work in marble of the two great schools of the world; one, a little Fortune, standing tiptoe on the globe of the Earth, its surface traced with lines in hexagons; not chaotic under Fortune's feet; Greek, this, and by a trained workman;—dug up in the temple of Neptune at Corfu;—and here, a Florentine portrait-marble, found in the recent alterations, face downwards, under the ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... cotton-stalks. But Alston took no part in any of these. He had no interest for anything apart from his work. At this all his faculties were engaged. His lithe body was seen swaying from side to side about the widespreading branches; he stood on tiptoe to reach the topmost bolls; he got on his knees to work the base-limbs, pressing down and away the long grass with his broad feet, tearing and holding back even with his teeth hindering tendrils of the passion-flower and morning-glory and other ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... would happen if he didn't report at his English class? What would happen to him for coming into his English class late? These questions staggered his mind. He was afraid to stay in the French class. Cautiously he got up and began to tiptoe ...
— The Plastic Age • Percy Marks
... men think of nothing but their dress; they use perfumes freely, and see that there are no creases in their leather shoes. Their curling hair shows traces of the tongs; their fingers glisten with rings; they walk on tiptoe across a damp road, not to splash their feet. When you see men acting that way, think of them rather as bridegrooms than as clergymen. If he sees a pillow that takes his fancy, or an elegant table-cover, or, indeed, any article of furniture, he praises it, ...
— A Short History of Monks and Monasteries • Alfred Wesley Wishart
... read. I came across a copy of it. I found in it a guide to what I was in search for. Faithfully I took up physical culture. Fanatically I kept all the windows open, wore as little clothing as possible ... adopted a certain walk on tiptoe, like a person walking on egg-shells, to develop the calves of my legs from their thinness to a more proportionate shape. And, as I walked, I filled and emptied my lungs like a bellows. I kept a small statue of Apollo ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... very pretty—at least James Markham thought so—when she stood up on tiptoe to tie his cravat in a better-looking bow than he had done. Since the night when Richard first told her of Ethelyn, it had more than once occurred to Melinda that possibly she might yet bear the name of Markham, for her woman nature was quick ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... where we have stood tiptoe and reached our tiny hands a little higher to catch the gorgeous butterfly that floated through summer air on silken wings, and then clapped them with joyous glee at our own disappointment, as it sailed higher up into ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna
... not remember his common gait; he always entered a room in that style of affected delicacy which fashion had then made almost natural; chapeau bras between his hands as if he wished to compress it, or under his arm; knees bent, and feet on tiptoe, as if afraid of a wet floor. His dress in visiting was most usually, in summer, when I most saw him, a lavender suit, the waistcoat embroidered with a little silver, or of white silk worked in the tambour, partridge silk stockings, and gold buckles, ruffles and frill generally lace. ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... dishes. I've done it many a time for Aunt Hannah," he said, while Jack proffered his assistance so earnestly that the two were soon habited in long kitchen aprons, that of Grey's having a bib, which Bessie herself pinned upon his shoulders, standing on tiptoe to do it, her bright hair almost touching his moustache, and her fingers, as they moved upon his coat, sending strange little thrills through ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... every one bolted, for here sat two of the colony among the broken rocks. These two had not been frightened off. That both of them were greatly alarmed, any one could see from their open beaks, their rolling eyes, their tense bodies on tiptoe for flight. Yet here they sat, their wings out like props, or more like gripping hands, as if they were trying to hold themselves down to the rocks against their ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... scarcely higher than Becky's barrel waist, with a rolling sea gait and twinkling blue eyes, bounced into the room and strained up on tiptoe toward Miss Boozer's blushing cheek. Chris, behind the opened door, had not yet ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson
... wildest solitude, From glen to glen, the marmozet pursued; 110 And thought the light of parting day too short, That called them, lingering, from their daily sport. In that fair season of awakening life, When dawning youth and childhood are at strife; When on the verge of thought gay boyhood stands Tiptoe, with glistening eye and outspread hands; With airy look, and form and footsteps light, And glossy locks, and features berry-bright, And eye like the young eaglet's, to the ray Of noon unblenching as he sails away; 120 A brede of sea-shells on his bosom strung, ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles
... him, then she stood on tiptoe and kissed his brow. Her vehemence had died down in her sorrow ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn
... it was even nine o'clock before I could get up courage to go to the barn and feed the stock. I think I was in a greater state of terror than on the night after the battle with the wolves. I walked the floor, back and forth, on tiptoe and listened; and the less there was to hear, the more I heard. At last I, after a fashion, put down my fright, and ventured out to the barn; but even then I could not whistle; I tried, but my ...
— Track's End • Hayden Carruth
... effect. Amos Parr guessed that the curtain would be certain sure to get jammed at the first haul, and several of the others were convinced that O'Riley would stick his part in one way or another. However, an end was put to all remarks, and expectation raised on tiptoe by the ringing of a small hand-bell, and immediately thereafter a violent pulling at the curtain which concealed the stage; but the curtain remained immovable (they always do on such occasions), and a loud whispering was heard ...
— The World of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... began to laugh. He laughed long and loudly. But Lord Sannox did not laugh now. Something like fear sharpened and hardened his features. He walked from the room, and he walked on tiptoe. The old woman was ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle
... water; if you do not watch for God coming to help you, God's watching to be gracious will be of no good at all to you. His waiting is not a substitute for ours, but because He watches therefore we should watch. We say, we expect Him to comfort and help us—well, are we standing, as it were, on tiptoe, with empty hands upraised to bring them a little nearer the gifts we look for? Are our 'eyes ever towards the Lord'? Do we pore over His gifts, scrutinising them as eagerly as a gold-seeker does the quartz in his pan, to detect every shining ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... the room and opened her door quietly. The passage without was dark save for a blur of light at the end where the top of the staircase was. Walking on tiptoe, she went toward this light. She would at least make an effort to discover ...
— The Light That Lures • Percy Brebner
... space and bound, Allowed to truth made visible in man. And, like that youth ye praise so, all I saw, Over the canvas could my hand have flung, Each face obedient to its passion's law, Each passion clear proclaimed without a tongue; Whether Hope rose at once in all the blood, A-tiptoe for the blessing of embrace, Or Rapture drooped the eyes, as when her brood Pull down the nesting dove's heart to its place; 20 Or Confidence lit swift the forehead up, And locked the mouth fast, like a castle ...
— Men and Women • Robert Browning
... in the world are, certainly, the drivers of post- office vans. Swinging down Lamb's Conduit Street, the scarlet van rounded the corner by the pillar box in such a way as to graze the kerb and make the little girl who was standing on tiptoe to post a letter look up, half frightened, half curious. She paused with her hand in the mouth of the box; then dropped her letter and ran away. It is seldom only that we see a child on tiptoe with pity—more often a dim discomfort, a grain of sand in the shoe which it's scarcely worth while ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... her arms about his neck, rising on tiptoe while she kissed his mouth. "I love you—and yet in my heart I don't really believe in love," she answered. "I shouldn't be surprised to wake up any morning and find that I had ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... his tiptoe dance and led a straight right. Instantly his massive enemy ducked, leaped in under his guard, and there came the dull thud of in-fighting; Greer's black head jammed up against Caradoc's chin, his great muscular ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling
... Thanksgiving. Only a few of the pupils,—those who had come from Mexico, Texas, Oregon, San Francisco, and other distant places,—but had all their plans made for spending the festival at home; and these, with one exception, were invited away. The school was on the tiptoe of expectation, when, one morning after prayers, Miss Ashton sent for Susan Downer to come to ...
— Miss Ashton's New Pupil - A School Girl's Story • Mrs. S. S. Robbins
... cry as I feel sure any girl has a right to do; only I never have learned how to do it. Crying with only a governess to listen to and reprove a person is no good at all; only mothers can make crying any comfort, and mine is too feeble to let me do anything but tiptoe in and hold her hand while the nurse watches me and the clock to send me out. Fathers just stiffen girls' backbones instead of encouraging wet eyelashes—at least that is ...
— Phyllis • Maria Thompson Daviess
... at him compassionately, and then went out on tiptoe, to return after an interval to thrust in his head, which he gave a mournful shake, ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn
... to the window overlooking the garden. He saw the water carrier enter through the bamboo gate, heard the water slosh about jerkily as the bheestee emptied his goatskin. He watched the man curiously; saw him drop the skin and tiptoe toward the house, glance to right and left alertly. Then he disappeared. Presently at the head of the stairs Bruce heard ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath
... have sent off to the C. for orders. To-morrow the decision ought to arrive, and then something will be done. Returned—dined—read—went out—talked over matters. Made a purchase of some arms for the new enrolled Americani, who are all on tiptoe to march. Gave order for some harness and portmanteaus necessary for ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... Judas, with long and stealthy steps, sprang forward, looking from side to side as he came, until he stopped immediately behind Jesus; then standing on tiptoe he reached over the shoulder of Jesus and kissed him, ...
— King of the Jews - A story of Christ's last days on Earth • William T. Stead
... necessity, that everybody was on the tiptoe of suspense, and that the interest hanging upon the issue of this night's events swallowed up all other anxieties, of whatsoever nature. Even the battle which was now daily expected between the imperial and Swedish armies ceased to occupy the hearts and conversation ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... mighty mass of brick and smoke and shipping, Dirty and dusky, but as wide as eye Can reach; with here and there a sail just skipping In sight, then lost amidst the forestry Of masts; a wilderness of steeples peeping On tiptoe through their sea-coal canopy; A huge dun cupola, like a fool's-cap crown On a fool's head,—and there is ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... little above the water in the basin, and this I was induced to do; for, as I was searching for Martha, I thought I heard a voice in the arbour, and I hurried on to tell her what I had done to old Morgan. I stept steadily on tiptoe along the coping-stone—for I wished to surprise her—but on getting to the opening of the arbour, a sight met my eyes that made me lose my balance all of a sudden; and with a start of rage and indignation, I stept backward into ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... reached a front chamber in the third story. The door was ajar. I entered it on tiptoe. Sitting on a low chair by the fire, I beheld a female figure, dressed in a negligent but not indecent manner. Her face, in the posture in which she sat, was only half seen. Its hues were sickly and pale, and in mournful unison with a feeble and emaciated form. Her eyes ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... the house," she said. And standing on tiptoe, she kissed him on the cheek. Still holding both her hands, he looked down ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... and advanced on tiptoe to the door, where she saw the parrot picking at some buttons on the sofa, which she had often been forbidden to touch. Much amused at the sight, she listened to an imitation of ...
— Minnie's Pet Parrot • Madeline Leslie
... time to time, four or five unopened circulars and foolscap missives, whose appearance told what they were; and armed with these he opened his doors softly and passed out, drawing the outer door to, and then stole on tiptoe downstairs and out into the ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn
... crawled into a corner and was soon fast asleep, resuming in his dreams some of his old avocations. He woke at daylight, and immediately rose to examine his prison. The door he sniffed at, but passed by; the window was at so great a height from the floor that he could not reach it upon tiptoe, but he remarked that a very delicious puff of fresh air came down an aperture originally used as a chimney. He moved hastily towards it, and many feet above observed the blue sky, and the large branch of a tree waving over the aperture. Had Messieurs ...
— The Adventures of a Bear - And a Great Bear too • Alfred Elwes
... experiment as a dangerous one, for if Scott caught him in his quarters with his coat off he would punish him. The officer said he would risk it—that the general was asleep, and he would make no noise. He opened the door softly and went on tiptoe to the water pitcher. He had no time to drink before he heard the tinkle of the bell, and the sentinel outside the door entered. 'Take this man to the guardhouse,' was the brief order, and the coatless captain spent the night on a hard plank under guard."[E] ...
— General Scott • General Marcus J. Wright
... be broken quite, And thou to heaven spring, With thine immortal wing, And I, still following, With steps that do not tire, Reach my desire, And to thy worship bring Some worthy offering? Oh! let but these dark days be once gone by, And thou, unwilling captive, that dost strain, With tiptoe longing, vainly, towards the sky, O'er the whole kingdom of my life shalt reign. But, while I'm doomed beneath the yoke to bow, Of sordid toiling in these caverns drear, Oh, look upon me sometimes with thy brow Of shining brightness; sometimes let me hear Thy blessed voice, singing ...
— Poems • Frances Anne Butler
... was standing directly below the terrified girl, raising herself on tiptoe, and trying to reach her feet with her hands, to guide them to a hold; ...
— Whosoever Shall Offend • F. Marion Crawford
... swiftly from the room, and returned with his nightly glass and jug of water. There could be nothing else that he would want during the night. It was all he ever had, and he would sleep so until morning. She approached the bed upon tiptoe. ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... to hide her hair. In every bedroom at St. Chad's there were a candle and a box of matches, in case the electric light should suddenly fail; Flossie groped for these and found them, and, taking them in her hand, left the room on tiptoe. ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... long while burning on the landing," said Sir Charles. They walked on tiptoe down the passage to the door beneath which one bright bar of light stretched across the floor. Jerkley opened the door and looked through; Sir Charles who was the taller man looked over Jerkley's head and never were two men more surprised. In the embrasure of that door to the ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... moved, so as to stand firmly across the little path that ran from Helena's seat to the inn. She began to fidget—to drop one foot, that had been twisted under her, to the ground, as though "on tiptoe for a flight." ...
— Helena • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... inside to the very picture that Mrs. Lavender had herself drawn of her death! Sheila could remember all the ghastly details that the old woman seemed to have a malicious delight in describing; and here they were—the shutters drawn down, the servants walking about on tiptoe, the strange silence in one particular room. The little shriveled old body lay quite still and calm now; and yet as Sheila went to the bedside, she could hardly believe that within that forehead there was not some consciousness of the scene around. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... belonged to him by mentioning several articles it contained and producing the key. In the mean time the accused, earnestly watching the entrance, started and turned pale and red by turns as a beautiful girl, in the dress of a prosperous grisette, pushed her way into the crowd, stood on tiptoe, and exchanged glances with the prisoner. The latter, when asked his name, replied, 'I have brought disgrace enough upon it already,' and, seizing the penknife, thrust it into his heart, and fell dead. He was the descendant ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... landlady that she was a ministering angel. Yet I lay on that sofa plotting how to get her out of the room. The plan that seemed the simplest was to pretend sleep, but it was not easily carried out. Not getting any answer from me, she would approach on tiptoe and lean over the sofa, listening to hear me breathe. Convinced that I was still living, she and Sarah Ann began a conversation in whispers, of which I or the deceased husband was the subject. The husband had slept a good deal, too, and ...
— The Speaker, No. 5: Volume II, Issue 1 - December, 1906. • Various
... after dusk, was tempted to tiptoe lightly across the palace front, so pervasive was its air of mystery. No more fitting place could be found for plots of deposed monarchies and uncrowned kings. The last S. Croix, impoverished in the mutations of generations, reluctantly, ...
— Trusia - A Princess of Krovitch • Davis Brinton
... and with a catch, as it were, and a thrill in the voice that astonished him. Her eyes, fixed on his, grew larger and rounder. She came a pace or two towards him on tiptoe, halted, clasped both hands over her dancing-shoes, and exclaimed, with ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... stretching; what was definite to him about Julia Bride being merely, being entirely—which was indeed thereby quite enough—that she might end by scaling her worldly height. They would push, they would shove, they would "boost," they would arch both their straight backs as pedestals for her tiptoe; and at the same time, by some sweet prodigy of mechanics, she would pull them up ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... in that way; you know I never could bear it. Oh, there's a ring at the front door! That's Ted." She stood on tiptoe, bending forward, and held her ear to the half-open door. "No, it isn't; it's some wretched visitor. Don't keep me, Cousin Bella, or I shall ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair
... She stood on tiptoe to kiss him, and then was only tall enough to reach his white beard. She told him, laughing, that she had always been a silly, frightened creature—frightened of dogs, frightened of cattle, frightened of a thunderstorm, frightened of a rough sea. "Frightened of everything and everybody ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... orders to his men. Some were to creep to the front door, some to the back. Some were to watch the east, and some the west. He and the sergeant stole on tiptoe to ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... your hair," begged Phronsie, standing on tiptoe; "do bend down just a very little, please. There, that's it," patting Charlotte's head with both hands; "now you look very nice; you really do—doesn't ...
— Five Little Peppers Grown Up • Margaret Sidney
... decent fellow, after all," he said. "One needn't slink on tiptoe in front of you!" He took a key out of a secret compartment in his writing-table. "Now the danger's a thing of the past, but one still has to be careful. That's a vestige of the times when things ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... spoke between his teeth, and rather to himself than any of his companions, the Mitylenian emerged from under the archway, treading on tiptoe, yet swiftly, with an admirable mixture of silence and celerity. His poniard, drawn as he descended, gleamed in his hand, which was held a little behind the rest of his person, so as to conceal it. The assassin hovered less than an instant over the sleeper, as ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... we look like now? Give you three guesses," retorted Nueces. "And how'd we look rushin' that empty cave if it didn't happen to be empty? Excuse me! I'd druther get three grand heehaws and a tiger for bein' ridiculous than to have folks tiptoe by a-whisperin': 'How natural he looks!' I been a pretty tough old bird in my day—but goin' up a tunnel after Kitty Foy ain't ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... happiness, and lazily closes her eyes. DELIA comes into the garden, from Paris. She is decidedly a modern girl, pretty and self-possessed. Her hair is half-way up; waiting for her birthday, perhaps. She sees her mother suddenly, stops, and then goes on tiptoe to the head of the hammock. She smiles and kisses her mother on the forehead. BELINDA, looking supremely unconscious, goes on sleeping. DELIA kisses her lightly again. BELINDA wakes up with an extraordinarily natural start, and is just about to say, "Oh, Mr. Devenish—you mustn't!"—when ...
— First Plays • A. A. Milne
... next chamber, and the young girl, standing listening against the partition, had assured herself that this last Argus was asleep, she threw over her shoulders a dark cloak to be the less visible in the night, descended on tiptoe, and light as a shadow, the marble stairs of the paternal palace, unbarred the gate, and crossed the street. On the threshold of the opposite door, her lover was standing to receive her; and the two together, with stifled breath and silent caresses, ascended the stairs that led to the little ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... Tuscarora instantly caught a sight of the smoke; and for full a minute he stood, slightly raised on tiptoe, with distended nostrils, like the buck that scents a taint in the air, and a gaze as riveted as that of the trained pointer while he waits his master's aim. Then, falling back on his feet, a low exclamation, in the soft tones that form so ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... boy was saying, and pointed toward the forward gun-port which stood open just beyond and above the bow of the longboat. In a twinkling Bob had straddled through the hole, with Jeremy close after him. It was dark in the 'tween-decks and the two boys made their way forward on tiptoe, waiting breathlessly for the attack they felt sure would come. But apparently all the buccaneers were busy above in the fierce fight that they could hear raging along the rail. They moved on, undeterred, till they reached the foot of the fo'c's'le ladder, where Jeremy feeling ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... made him so angry that, three or four days afterwards, he contrived to obtain leave from my grandmother to enter my chamber early in the morning, before I was awake, and, approaching my bed on tiptoe with a sharp pair of scissors, he cut off unmercifully all my front hair, from one ear to the other. My brother Francois was in the adjoining room and saw him, but he did not interfere as he was delighted at my misfortune. He wore a wig, and was very ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... her very soul, filling it with pure and reverent awe; but Christ became for her something near, well-known, almost familiar. Agafya taught her to pray also. Sometimes she wakened Lisa early at daybreak, dressed her hurriedly, and took her in secret to matins. Lisa followed her on tiptoe, almost holding her breath. The cold and twilight of the early morning, the freshness and emptiness of the church, the very secrecy of these unexpected expeditions, the cautious return home and to her little bed, all these mingled impressions of the forbidden, strange, ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... grass near my door, and, on approaching, discovered the spectacle of a cow-bird, almost full-fledged, being fed by its foster-mother, a chippy not more than half its size, and which was obliged to stand on tiptoe to cram the gullet of ...
— My Studio Neighbors • William Hamilton Gibson
... indeed not knowing) what is the matter, has found it a ticklish task to offer appropriate observations and consequently has supplied their place with distracting smoothings of the bed-linen, elaborate locomotion on tiptoe, vigilant peeping at her kinsman's eyes, and one exasperating whisper to herself of, "He is asleep." In disproof of which superfluous remark Sir Leicester has indignantly written on the slate, "I ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... the present," replied the count, walking upon tiptoe towards the library door, and smiling with an expression so sad and paternal that the young girl's heart was filled with gratitude. Before closing the door he turned around once more, and said, "Not a movement—not a word; let them think you asleep, or perhaps you may be killed before I have ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... lean cheeks, a bristling, clipped moustache, and a slight stoop to his shoulders. She was small, piquant, almost child-like, with a dainty up-turned nose, a large and lustrous eye, a constant, bird-like animation of manner—the Folly of artists, the adorable, lovable, harmless Folly standing tiptoe on ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... that Smike had been caught and brought back in triumph, ran like wild-fire through the hungry community, and expectation was on tiptoe all the morning. On tiptoe it was destined to remain, however, until afternoon; when Squeers called the school together, and dragged Smike by the collar to the front of ...
— Ten Boys from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... o' day to bake his fourses cake!" the woman outside commented, reaching on tiptoe, the better to look in ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann
... his old friend, and left his study, the door of which he double-locked. On reaching the landing, he paused. He listened intently as though the sound of Madame Gerdy's moans could reach him where he stood. Hearing nothing, he descended the stairs on tiptoe. A minute later, he was in ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... 4th came at length; the wind blew fairly down the stream, and everyone was on the tiptoe of expectation, listening for the report of two guns, the preconcerted signal of the fleet being about to sail. It was a time of the greatest anxiety, for any moment, if discovered, the twenty-eight pieces of ordnance might have commenced playing on them, ...
— Our Sailors - Gallant Deeds of the British Navy during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston
... 'and there was Tim Tankins and his five journeymen carpenters, standen on tiptoe and peepen in at the chancel winders. There was Dairyman Dodman waiten in his new spring-cart to see 'em come out—whip in hand—that 'a was. Then up comes two master tailors. Then there was Christopher Runt wi' his pickaxe and shovel. There was wimmen-folk ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... the draw the old hunter motioned me behind him and cautiously raised his head. Then a little farther. Another step and a long look. He stood on tiptoe, and, settling back, quietly motioned me ...
— Across Mongolian Plains - A Naturalist's Account of China's 'Great Northwest' • Roy Chapman Andrews
... to a long, low stone building that used to be a theater, but was now a dance-hall upstairs and a warehouse below. There were lights upstairs and sounds of music. The stairway was dark, but we felt our way up, and on tiptoe advanced to the big double door, from under ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... standin' on tiptoe to kiss her Cossack as he bends from his saddle—A rough rider out on the ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley
... was in charge of Mr. Hale Wortham, in whose absence for a few minutes some mischievous boys ran up the flag signal, which set the Church bells ringing, and placed the whole concourse of people on the tiptoe of expectation and excitement long before the Queen's arrival, with a corresponding tax upon their patience. A tremendous gale was blowing, which played havoc with the linen and devices on the arches and tore down the flag-staff and pinnacle to which it was attached on the tower ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston
... pretended to be asleep. Tanaroff tried to persuade himself that this was the case, while yet perfectly well aware that each was watching the other; and so, in an awkward, stooping posture, he crept out of the room on tiptoe, feeling like a ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... business with the key, at once began with the bludgeon. The bludgeon was produced, and was handed up to the bench, and inspected by the Chief Justice. The instrument excited great interest. Men rose on tiptoe to look at it even from a distance, and the Prime Minister was envied because for a moment it was placed in his hands. As the large-eyed little boy who had found it was not yet six years old, there was a difficulty in perfecting the thread of the evidence. It was not held to be proper to administer ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... same; they are stout, warm clo'es, and they're big enough to fit any of us boys,—Mother looked out for that when she made 'em. When we go down-stairs we find the girls there, all bundled up nice an' warm,—Mary an' Helen an' Cousin Irene. They're goin' with us, an' we all start out tiptoe and quiet-like so's not to wake up the ol' folks. The ground is frozen hard; we stub our toes on the frozen ruts in the road. When we come to the minister's house, Laura is standin' on the front stoop, a-waitin' for us. Laura is the minister's daughter. She's a friend o' Sister Helen's—pretty as ...
— A Little Book of Profitable Tales • Eugene Field
... and embraced the old lady. She made the sign of the Cross over him, looked round the room once more, and went out on tiptoe. Just as he was going to lie down again there was another tap on the ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov
... Erik's room—ancient torture chamber. Something still clinging to its walls and furniture. Ah, nights of agony still in the air she breathed. Her words formed themselves quietly. They came to peer into her heart—polite visitors standing on tiptoe before a closed cell that ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht
... heart and many sighs he took the key from the big bunch. When he had opened the door he stepped in first, and thought to cover the likeness so that the King might not perceive it; but it was hopeless: the King stood on tiptoe and looked over his shoulder. And when he saw the picture of the maid, so beautiful and glittering with gold and precious stones, he fell swooning to the ground. Trusty John lifted him up, carried him to bed, and thought sorrowfully: ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... me, in journey dark O'er moor and mountain, midnight theft to hatch; To charm the surly house-dog's faithful bark, Or hang on tiptoe at the lifted latch; The gloomy lantern, and the dim blue match, The black disguise, the warning whistle shrill, And ear still busy on its nightly watch, Were not for me, brought up in nothing ill; Besides, on griefs so fresh ...
— Lyrical Ballads, With Other Poems, 1800, Vol. I. • William Wordsworth
... "Hsh" and went off on tiptoe through the woods, stalking his hop-toad. He's a mighty nice little fellow, Pee-wee is. And he's a bully little scout. Scout pace and good turns, those are his specialties. He just stalks hop-toads on ...
— Roy Blakeley's Adventures in Camp • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... sentries were on the alert. Many suspicious noises came to their ears, and imaginary murderous-looking "niggers" were seen lurking in the grass, behind rice-dykes, and lying crouching on the ground. If "Tim" discovered something that he was certain was a death-dealing boloman, he would tiptoe over to Jones and hold a council of war. That worthy—the old "vet"—would dispense nerve-soothing whispers in his ears, and he would return to his ...
— Bamboo Tales • Ira L. Reeves
... what he thought of England; whether he found much alteration from fifteen years ago? "No," he said, "not at all: why, there is my Lord Bath, I don't see the least alteration in him; he is just what he was: and then I found Lord Grantham (735) walking on tiptoe, as if he was still afraid ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... comrades, when his quick eye noted that Robin Turgis had fallen asleep on his bench. Villon skipped lightly toward him, dexterously unhooked his bunch of keys from his girdle, and, with a triumphant gesture, made on tiptoe for the cellar door, which he unlocked and through which he disappeared. Louis looked after him with an acid smile. Tristan leaned forward and plucked at the kind's sleeve. "Shall I hang him to-morrow?" he asked, hoarsely. The king turned, musing, to his ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... 'cause mother knew the kitchen wouldn't awe me. But"—and she chuckled—"I'm gittin' kind of used even to him, and I'm gittin' so independent there ain't no livin' with me. I even show it the way I walk. When I was ordered around by everybody, I used to sort of tiptoe around so's not to call attention to myself. Now I come down so hard on my heels I have to wear rubber ones so's not to jar my spine. But"—she looked keenly at the pale face beside her and the eyes that showed signs of recent tears—"what's the ...
— Drusilla with a Million • Elizabeth Cooper
... might have spoken of his beer (when herself, in the work-house, deprived of it), might not have induced him to take a little more than usual in going down so deep for her. But he answered, "No; it was nothing of the sort. Deep he had gone, to the tiptoe of his fling; not from any feeling of a wish to keep her down, but just because the parish paid, and the parish would have measurement. And when that was on, he never brought down more than the quart tin from the public; and never had none down afterward. Otherwise ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... the Atlantic, rouses the interfering propensity of friends and acquaintances, and produces such a torrent of queries and remonstrances, as will require a considerable share of moral courage to listen to and resist. All are on the tiptoe of expectation, to hear what the inducements can possibly be for travelling in America. America!! every one exclaims—what can you possibly see there? A country like America—little better than a mere forest—the inhabitants notoriously ...
— A Ramble of Six Thousand Miles through the United States of America • S. A. Ferrall
... low. A sense of loneliness crept over me. I arose and undressed, moving on tiptoe about the room, doing stealthily what I had to do, as if I were environed by sleeping enemies whose slumbers it would be fatal to break. I covered up in bed, and lay listening to the rain and wind and the faint creaking of distant ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... empty, for both I and my charge were with La Marmotte, and the Italian ran upstairs with a footfall as light as that of a cat. On reaching the landing he stopped for a second, glanced around him, with the same feline caution that marked all his movements, and then, creeping forward on tiptoe, went along a corridor leading to ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats
... up in Heath. After all that had happened that night he felt as if he could not go to bed without accomplishing some decisive action. Powers were on tiptoe within him surely ready for the ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... sick-room, and I am afraid I was ostentatiously quiet. His troubles had to do with the expenses of his illness, and he beseeched me not to send for a doctor or a nurse. I tried to set his mind at rest, but I failed; he saw that I thought him very ill, and when I moved round the room on tiptoe he asked me to make as much noise as I liked. I was no use as a sick nurse, and my efforts to make the room look fit to live in, though meant splendidly, seemed to me to make the place more uncomfortable and ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... late that night. Probably not a soldier eye was closed until long after eleven, and half the garrison clustered about the hospital, treading on tiptoe and speaking in whispers, as the little fellows were tenderly lifted from the litter, the weary mules were led away, and, in the arms of Mrs. Archer and Mrs. Stannard, the sleeping boys were borne, without ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... end of one of the cross galleries we could already see a flickering glimmer of torches. There, evidently, was held the council. We stole on tiptoe in that direction, and ensconced ourselves behind a long file of empty bottle-shelves, worn out after long service and leaning against ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... he said, while Jack proffered his assistance so earnestly that the two were soon habited in long kitchen aprons, that of Grey's having a bib, which Bessie herself pinned upon his shoulders, standing on tiptoe to do it, her bright hair almost touching his moustache, and her fingers, as they moved upon his coat, sending strange little thrills through every nerve in ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... and back again; looked down into her violet eyes, deep with wonder and with love, more beautiful than any jewel in all her gorgeous costume. Unheeding the presence of the others, she put her dainty hands upon his mighty shoulders and stood on tiptoe. ...
— The Skylark of Space • Edward Elmer Smith and Lee Hawkins Garby
... the Crusades, the destruction of the Templars, the Papal interdicts, the tragedies caused or suffered by the house of Anjou, and by the Emperor—these were full of a more permanent significance. But, since then, the colossal figure of feudalism was seen standing, as it were on tiptoe, at Crecy, for flight from earth: that was a revolution unparalleled; yet that was a trifle by comparison with the more fearful revolutions that were mining below the Church. By her own internal schisms, by the abominable spectacle of a double Pope—so that no man, except through ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... of us, spreading her arms out, then slowly backwards, and so motioning us to halt under the shadow of the wall. Obeying, we saw her tiptoe forwards, till, coming to the door which had just been closed, she crept close and tapped on it softly, yet in a way that struck me as being deliberate. Afterwards, thinking it over, I felt pretty sure that the ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... left the passage another knock was given at Eleanor's door, and Mrs Grantly's very demure own maid, entering on tiptoe, wanted to know would Mrs Bold be so kind as to speak to the archdeacon for two minutes in the archdeacon's study, if not disagreeable. The archdeacon's compliments, and he wouldn't detain her ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... noise as possible, walking on tiptoe as if in the presence of the dead. She blew out the candles, doubtless wishing no more light than the rosy glow of ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... clasped his hands, looked upwards, and said, "O God, I thank thee—he will live. Hush, hush, my sweet one, thou must not prate;" and he retired on tiptoe, and I heard him mutter triumphantly, as he walked away, "He ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... his lamp on a fresh footprint in the soft soil at the side of the path. The mark of the toe was deep and firm. The impression of the heel was very light. Paredes, it was clear, had walked from the house on tiptoe. ...
— The Abandoned Room • Wadsworth Camp
... have met her, o'er and o'er, As I strolled alone apart, By a lonely carrefour In the forest's tangled heart, Safe as any stag that bore Imprint of the Emperor; In the copse that round her grew Tiptoe the straight saplings stood, Peeped the wild boar's satyr brood, Like an arrow clove the wood The glad ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend
... congratulatory friends of his, who passed and shook hands. And, when soon after they had entered Lady Tancred arrived with Cyril and the girls, she had even smiled sweetly for one moment, when that gallant youth had stood on tiptoe and given her a hearty kiss! He was very small for his age, and full of ...
— The Reason Why • Elinor Glyn
... brick, and smoke, and shipping, Dirty and dusky, but as wide as eye Could reach, with here and there a sail just skipping In sight, then lost amidst the forestry Of masts; a wilderness of steeples peeping On tiptoe through their sea-coal canopy; A huge, dun cupola, like a foolscap crown On a fool's head—and there is ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry
... a little; happiness has brought me sleep. Don't go away. I shall not be asleep long.' She looked at him, and dozed, and then fell asleep. Hubert waited till her breathing grew deeper; then he laid the hand he held in his by her side, and stole on tiptoe from the room. ...
— Vain Fortune • George Moore
... kiss, to keep him happy all day. So this day when he was getting ready I bent my head over a big bowl of flowers and pretended not to notice. I think John must have been hurt, as I heard him steal out on tiptoe. ...
— Winsome Winnie and other New Nonsense Novels • Stephen Leacock
... seeming reasonable, her brother secured the Yale lock so that its tongue was engaged, and, quietly closing the door, followed his wife and sister a-tiptoe through the hall and past the baize door which led to the ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... a-tiptoe to the door, peeped out, shut it carefully, came back again, clapped his tarnished gold-laced hat on one side of his head, took his glass in one hand, and touching the hilt of his hanger with the other, named, "The King ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... what will be, in his judgment, the most important novel he has written. But I must not say anything about that yet. Let me say something, rather, about his new book which you who read this have a more immediate prospect of enjoying. On Tiptoe: A Romance of the Redwoods is Stewart Edward White in a somewhat unusual but entirely taking role. Here we have Mr. White writing what is essentially a comedy; and yet there is an element of fantasy in the story which, in the light of a few opening and closing paragraphs, ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... that even on tiptoe Georgina could not look over the rim. All she could see was the ceiling directly overhead. The surprise of such a novel punishment made her hold her breath to find what was going to happen next, and in the stillness she heard her ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... the hinder extremities, while they browse on the herbage. In this attitude they hop gently along, the tail being pressed to the ground. On the least alarm they rise on the hind limbs, and bound to a distance with great rapidity. Sometimes, when excited, the old male of the great kangaroo stands on tiptoe and on his tail, and is then of prodigious height. It readily takes to the water, and swims well, often resorting to this mode of escape from its enemies, among which is the dingo, ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... had betaken herself to the next chamber, and the young girl, standing listening against the partition, had assured herself that this last Argus was asleep, she threw over her shoulders a dark cloak to be the less visible in the night, descended on tiptoe, and light as a shadow, the marble stairs of the paternal palace, unbarred the gate, and crossed the street. On the threshold of the opposite door, her lover was standing to receive her; and the two together, with ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... is a-tiptoe in the packed ballroom, or crowding the broad piazzas of the hotel, this will be an opportune moment in which to drop a word ...
— Peggy Stewart: Navy Girl at Home • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... comrade does not move, he slowly pushes the coverlet from off him and creeps on all fours into the inner room; there he lies down flat on his stomach and peeps through a crevice in the rafters. Then he arises, creeps on tiptoe to the chimney and knocks at the partition wall three times, then he climbs down from his loft by means of a ladder, withdraws the ladder from the opening, and whistles to the watch-dog to come forth. ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai
... manner—all that could be desired. But your eyes still suggest that you're standing on tiptoe, with your face lighted by the dawn," Craig answered contentedly. "Heaven forbid you ever lose that look! It's what gives the ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond
... last chapter when he heard steps in the hallway. Hurriedly he restored the manuscript to its place, closed the drawer and left the room on tiptoe. ...
— The House of the Vampire • George Sylvester Viereck
... following, With steps that do not tire, Reach my desire, And to thy worship bring Some worthy offering? Oh! let but these dark days be once gone by, And thou, unwilling captive, that dost strain, With tiptoe longing, vainly, towards the sky, O'er the whole kingdom of my life shalt reign. But, while I'm doomed beneath the yoke to bow, Of sordid toiling in these caverns drear, Oh, look upon me sometimes with thy brow Of shining brightness; ...
— Poems • Frances Anne Butler
... I stole on tiptoe upstairs to the little room from whose windows, looking one way, we see the fields we know and, looking another, those hilly lands that I sought—almost I feared not to find them. I looked at once toward the mountains of ...
— Tales of Three Hemispheres • Lord Dunsany
... began to lighten. She looked over her shoulder and saw the first faint rays of dawn showing through a small aperture near the roof and at the opposite end of the room. She rose and moved quickly toward it. By standing on tiptoe and pulling herself up a trifle with her hands upon the sill she was able to raise her eyes above the bottom of the ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... of absolute self-satisfaction and certainty that everything was right, had developed a keenness of curiosity and censure which betrayed her conviction that something had gone wrong. These three were all, as it were, on tiptoe, on the boundary line, the thinnest edge which divided the known from the unknown; conscious that at any moment something might happen which would disperse them and shatter all the ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... He stood on tiptoe to read the more easily the time-blurred characters, his baggage at his feet, his fingers pressed against the door. Some of the words he could not decipher nor comprehend, but the first ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... just back from the Berlin Congress, bringing "Peace with Honor." The Continent has stood a-tiptoe to see the wonderful English Earl pass and repass. He has been the lion of a congress that included Bismarck. The laurels and the Oriental palm placed by his landlord on the hotel-balcony have but faintly typified the feeling of Europe. ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... with pleasure, preening herself a little and stretching on tiptoe to try to catch a glimpse in the crowded mirror; there was a movement as a sultana who had been carmining her full lips gave place to a dark beggar maid, and Patricia caught the vision of a slender, airy figure, glittering beneath its gauzy draperies with the sparkle of bright ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther
... not strong, illuminated the legless man's face. Barbara and her friends sat in half-darkness. Kid Shannon went out of the room on tiptoe, closing the door softly behind him. Of Rose, crouched under the key-board of the grand piano, her hands on the pedals, nothing could be seen, owing to a grouping of small palms and flowers in pots. The stump ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris
... from the first landing at a bound. Then she turned and waited for me, who came very deliberately, feeling the unsure contact of sole and wax. As soon as I reached her, she said, in a half-whisper, reaching up towards me on tiptoe— ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... to be as quiet as a mouse," you say, guiding me round on tiptoe. "Mr. Humphrey says that he has a store of acrid fluid that stinks like rotten eggs, and if he's disturbed he lets you know it. It's weeks and months before any place is ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton
... at the chamber door; and as the occupants of the humble room stood listening to the King's heavy breathing, for he had fallen into a deep sleep, they heard the tramp of footsteps outside, sounds which made Leoni glide on tiptoe to the window and cautiously ...
— The King's Esquires - The Jewel of France • George Manville Fenn
... to doubt the honesty of Grimes. The suggestion was now more anxious than before; but it was too late. Presently she heard the sound of a key in her chamber-door, and the rustic made his appearance. She started, and cried, "Are we discovered? did not I hear you speak?" Grimes advanced on tiptoe with his finger to his lip. "No, no," replied he, "all is safe!" He took her by the hand, led her in silence out of the house, and then across the garden. Emily examined with her eye the doors and passages as they proceeded, and looked ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... Here she is. [To the lady.] May I offer you a chair, lady? [He places a chair at the writing-table opposite Augustus, and steals out on tiptoe.] ...
— Augustus Does His Bit • George Bernard Shaw
... is not vain, perhaps, to try clumsily to tell how this delicious uneasiness first captured the spirit of one who, if not a poet, is at least a lover of poetry. Thus he first looked beyond the sunset; stood, if not on Parnassus, tiptoe upon a little hill. And overhead a great wind ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... [JAMES returns on tiptoe as if the burglars were beneath the table. He signs to every one to breathe no more, and then ...
— What Every Woman Knows • James M. Barrie
... text? I've got one for him," said Molly Wood, joining us. She stood on tiptoe and spoke it comically in our ears. "'I said in my haste, All men are liars.'" This made us merry as we stood among the chairs in the ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... all agog. The latter had come out of his pen and was standing behind the boy, on tiptoe, where they could get a good view of the scene. The room was ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... panting, then threw back her haughty head, rose on tiptoe, and, shaking her hand in prophetic wrath and deathless defiance, almost hissed into the ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... safely enough. There, her instructions were to wait until the house was quiet for the night, and then to steal up to her own room. While she was waiting, the girl fell asleep. She only awoke at two in the morning, or later. It didn't much matter, as she thought. She stole out on tiptoe, and closed the door behind her. Before she was at the end of the corridor, she fancied she heard something. She waited until she was safe on the upper story, and then she looked over the banisters. There was Dexter—so like him!—hopping about on his ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... home to our common humanity. But there is no gift more dangerous to the humility and sincerity of a minister. While his spirit ought to be on its knees before the throne of grace, it is too apt to be on tiptoe, following with admiring look the flight of its own rhetoric. The essentially intellectual character of an extemporaneous composition spoken to the Creator with the consciousness that many of his creatures are listening to criticise or to admire, is the great argument for set ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... the dark little creature standing on tiptoe, while Joyce bent her head low, then Dodo claimed attention from "Cammy," and amid bursts of laughter and sometimes a rush of sudden tears, the talk flowed on, as it can only flow when dearest friends meet after long separation, with no estrangement ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... the head of the crocodile sank slowly beneath the water, when, unaware that help was at hand, Peter waited a minute or two, and then once more stole gently and on tiptoe ...
— Off to the Wilds - Being the Adventures of Two Brothers • George Manville Fenn
... quickly, and advanced on tiptoe to the door, where she saw the parrot picking at some buttons on the sofa, which she had often been forbidden to touch. Much amused at the sight, she listened to an imitation of her own voice, ...
— Minnie's Pet Parrot • Madeline Leslie
... The kid walked on tiptoe through the hall, and he kept whispering to me, "This is just like—it's just like burglary. Girls are reckless. We'd better look out. Do you hear a footstep upstairs? I hear a bell ringing. I bet he's calling up ...
— Roy Blakeley's Bee-line Hike • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... looking submissively down at her husband, whose head, when he stood on tiptoe, barely reached ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... entered into his soul. At the lengthened evening, Read he in an audible voice to his listening family Grave books of History, or elaborate Theology, Taxing thought and memory, but not setting fancy on tiptoe Teaching reverence for wise men, and for God, the Giver of Wisdom. Not then had the era arrived, when of making books there is no end. Painfully the laboring press, brought forth like the kingly whale One cub at a time, guiding it carefully over the billows, ...
— Man of Uz, and Other Poems • Lydia Howard Sigourney
... violent an assumption. We might as well surrender to the spiritists at once. What evidence have we that Clarke did not rise and tiptoe about the room ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... the Crusades, the destruction of the Templars, the Papal interdicts, the tragedies caused or suffered by the House of Anjou, by the Emperor—these were full of a more permanent significance; but since then the colossal figure of feudalism was seen standing as it were on tiptoe at Crecy for flight from earth: that was a revolution unparalleled; yet that was a trifle by comparison with the more fearful revolutions that were mining below the Church. By her own internal schisms, by the abominable spectacle of a double Pope—so ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... day would stand tiptoe on something or other; Greenwich Village would awaken and bestir itself. Discovery would come, and forth he would be drawn like a shy, unwilling periwinkle from its shell, once more to play his abased and bashful role of free ...
— The Life of the Party • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... slope of the bank. At the corner nearest him the house was sunk into the ground in such a way that it looked as though one might climb into the upper story window. As Dacres looked he made up his mind to attempt it. By standing here on tiptoe he could catch the upper window-ledge with his hands. He was strong. He was tall. His enemy was in the house. The hour was at hand. ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... presently discerned the outline of a dark wooden beam passing from pillar to pillar; and as the pair got nearer, walking now on tiptoe, one by one dark snake-like cords came out in the moonlight, each pendent from the beam to a dead man, ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... immediately. Everybody present was on the tiptoe of expectation. What would his reply be? They had not long to wait. Turning directly to Peter Newby, he asked him ...
— Around Old Bethany • Robert Lee Berry
... the invitation at once, and behind him, stepping softly, some of them entering with their hats in their hands and on tiptoe, came a score of the inhabitants of Brownsville. They lined the bar up and down its length; not a word was spoken; but every head turned as at a given signal towards the quiet man at the end of ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... Lida Kennard instead of the table girl at Brophy's tavern, you're foolish," she whispered, standing on tiptoe. "I gave you my promise. But perhaps you think it isn't binding because there was no seal, such as I put on that lawyer's paper down at the ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... and this same comes in on tiptoe, for fear of waking the baby. This Shylock fils Sarah proceeds to describe as equally beautiful with Abel and Moses, which seems to give Shylock pere great comfort,—though I am bound to admit the lowly whispered doubt ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... dealer stood almost on tiptoe, looking over the top of his gold spectacles, and nodding his head with every mark of disbelief. Markheim returned his gaze with one of infinite pity, and ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... promenade deck the Atlantic wave is a little enough thing, so far down beneath you that you can scarcely even sniff its salty tang. But when the elevator-boy—always waiting for me—had lowered me through five floors, I stood on tiptoe and gazed through the thick glass of a porthole there; and the flying Atlantic wave, theatrically moonlit now, was very near. Suddenly something jumped up and hit the glass of the port-hole a fearful, crashing ...
— Your United States - Impressions of a first visit • Arnold Bennett
... snapped out something, a sergeant snapped it back to him, the gun crew jumped aside, balancing themselves on tiptoe with their mouths all agape, and the gun-firer either pulled a lever out or else pushed one home, I couldn't tell which. Then everything—sky and woods and field and all—fused and ran together in a great spatter of red flame and white smoke, and the earth ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... later, everybody being tired, all was perfectly still. The prisoner then rose softly, and felt about on tiptoe on the chimneypiece, on the furniture, and even in his clothes, for the key which he hoped to find. He could not find it. He could not be mistaken, nevertheless, in the tender interest of the young girl, and he could not believe that she was deceiving him. The marquis's room had a ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE COUNTESS DE SAINT-GERAN—1639 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... paper bags from Tom's hands and stood on tiptoe to kiss him, smiling sweetly at his rather ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... across the threshold, an inward voice warned him to return, and told him that he must be treading the path of unrighteousness, for that he was stealing in on tiptoe like a thief; but the excuse was ready at once. "That is for fear of waking her, if she ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... blackey-brown Sancho moved on in a gentle trot, and Willie and Helen and Richard went into the house, where Curlypate had already gone, and where they found her on tiptoe, with her short little fingers in the sugar-bowl, trying in vain to find a lump that would not go to pieces in the vigorous squeeze that she gave in her desire to make sure ...
— Queer Stories for Boys and Girls • Edward Eggleston
... into the churchyard on tiptoe as if they were trespassers. Then, unable to find the door in the dark, they walked softly round the building, trying to see what was going on inside through the stained-glass windows. Their suspicious movements attracted the ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... eyes thrilled him. In the distance, on a wooded eminence, sat a huge grizzly bear. The size of Victor's eyes when he looked back at his comrades was eloquently suggestive, even if he had not drawn back and descended the slope toward them on tiptoe and with preternatural caution. ...
— The Red Man's Revenge - A Tale of The Red River Flood • R.M. Ballantyne
... her bed, she heard the handle of the door turn, and a person whom she distinctly saw—for it was a light night, and the window-shutters unclosed—but whom she had never seen before, stepped in on tiptoe, and with an appearance of great caution. He was a rather small man, with a very red face; he wore an oddly cut frock coat, the collar of which stood up, and trousers, rough and wide, like those of a sailor, turned up at the ankles, and either short boots or clumsy ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 2 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... placed a candle in front of him, so as to throw a shadow on the wall, which I also marked. When he awoke I measured him again in his natural size, both directly and by the shadow, and the results were equal. I can swear that he was not off the ground or standing on tiptoe, as I had full view of his feet, and, moreover, a gentleman present had one of his feet placed over Home's insteps.... I once saw him elongated horizontally on the ground. Lord Adare was present. Home seemed to grow at both ends, and pushed myself ...
— Historic Ghosts and Ghost Hunters • H. Addington Bruce
... the soaps and the bottles of perfume, and the apothecary rose on tiptoe to scrutinize the wound. The razor had got home on the edge of the jaw with a scraping cut that ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... room. Sara pulled down her veil—a foolish action, which she regretted a moment later. Orange thanked the man for the letters and threw them on the table. The landlord, with a studied air of discretion, which was the more insulting for its very slyness, went, half on tiptoe, out. ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... cried, and Peggy stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek, and hung on to the lapels of his ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey
... out of the ring for the second time they found Old Ben, the skeleton, the fat lady, and Mr. Job Lord waiting to welcome them; but before anyone could say a word Ella had stood on tiptoe again and given Toby just such another kiss as she did when he told her that he would surely stay long enough to appear in the ring with ...
— Toby Tyler • James Otis
... you would leave off your play and dive in the water, come, O come to my lake. Let your blue mantle lie on the shore; the blue water will cover you and hide you. The waves will stand a-tiptoe to kiss your neck and whisper in your ears. Come, O come to my lake, if you would dive in ...
— The Gardener • Rabindranath Tagore
... to accompany her to Mrs. Owen's door, but before he could move she was gone, running along the path, a white, ghost-like figure faintly discernible through the trees. He walked on tiptoe to the end of the veranda to catch the last glimpse of her, and waited till he caught across the quiet night the faint click of Mrs. Owen's gate. And he was inexpressibly lonely, now that she ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... one except the firm of Goody and Fripp. But in spite of this announcement, young Frank never made his appearance—the walks continued overgrown with grass—the wounded Atlas looked proudly to heaven from his deathbed of fame-and the young ladies remained on the tiptoe of expectation. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... beside the cradle of Vassar College; for when Dr. Jewett resigned the presidency in 1864, my father named the successor who was appointed, Dr. John H. Raymond, his life-long friend. Dr. Raymond came to Rochester to discuss a plan of work, and, knowing my father's interest, I was on tiptoe to hear about the new college. At my earnest solicitation, he and Dr. Raymond and Prest. Anderson permitted me to be present at their discussions. I learned to comprehend the value of womanliness to the world by the estimate that those noble educators put upon ...
— Woman and the Republic • Helen Kendrick Johnson
... and hand in hand, they entered the room on tiptoe—the darkened room where Russell was. What a hush and oppression there seemed to them at first in the dim, silent chamber; what an awfulness in all the appliances which showed how long and deeply their schoolfellow had suffered. But all this vanished ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar
... and his sympathy with them made it possible for him to hear rare tales when another would probably have found only silence. Sometimes, while waiting for a train, he would saunter up to a group of negroes and start to tell a story himself and soon have them on tiptoe to tell him one that he did not already know. In many ways he became the possessor of a large part of the negro folklore. He loved a story and he early commenced to write down these fables, making of them such delightful ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... man was certainly very still. Isbister took up the portfolio, opened it, put it down, hesitated, seemed about to speak. "Perhaps," he whispered doubtfully. Presently he glanced at the door and back to the figure. Then he stole on tiptoe out of the room, glancing at his companion ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... leans over them, watches them for a moment as they sleep and beckons to DADDY TYL, who thrusts his head through the half-open door. MUMMY TYL lays a finger on her lips, to impose silence upon him, and then goes out to the right, on tiptoe, after first putting out the lamp. The scene remains in darkness for a moment. Then a light, gradually increasing in intensity, filters in through the shutters. The lamp on the table lights again of itself, but its light is of a different ...
— The Blue Bird: A Fairy Play in Six Acts • Maurice Maeterlinck
... crisply dried by the fire and curling blithely from its recent bath, herself sweet with the soap-and-water and clean-clothes freshness which is the only fragrance worth cultivating, Sally stole on tiptoe to the top of the stairs and peeped down. She beheld Jarvis pacing up and down the hall, and as she looked saw him take his watch out and scan its face as if he had an appointment to keep. She stood still, her pulses beating ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond
... close together, their hands locked under his overcoat, the world bumping and jolting, and jogging about their feet, as though indeed public houses and lamp-posts and cinemas and town halls and sweet-shops were always jumping up tiptoe to see whether they couldn't catch a glimpse of the lovers, Martin and Maggie felt that they were really divine creatures, quite modestly divine, but nevertheless safe from all human ravages and earthly failings, wicked and cowardly ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... parents, neither congee nor water entered my mouth for seven days." Tsze-sze answered, "In ordering their rules of propriety, it was the design of the ancient kings that those who would go beyond them should stoop and keep by them, and that those who could hardly reach them should stand on tiptoe to do so. Thus it is that the superior man, in mourning for his parents, when he has been three days without water or congee, takes a staff to enable himself to rise [2]."' While he thus condemned the severe discipline of Tsang, Tsze-sze appears, in various incidents ...
— THE CHINESE CLASSICS (PROLEGOMENA) Unicode Version • James Legge
... gallant or fair thus to take advantage of a sleeping beauty. Staring at her was bad enough, but to awake her would be still worse; so he turned slowly about, as a cat turns when afraid of being pounced on by a glaring adversary. He would retire on tiptoe as softly as possible, so as not to disturb her. In carrying out this considerate intention, he swept a flower-pot off its stand, which fell with a mighty crash upon the ...
— The Eagle Cliff • R.M. Ballantyne
... on the lower floor had been stripped of all signs of habitation. His footsteps resounded throughout the house. Boards creaked under his tread. Without actually realizing what he was doing, he began to tiptoe toward the stairway that led to the upper floor. He laughed at himself for this precaution, and yet could not rid himself of the feeling that some one was listening, that the stealth of the midnight burglar was necessary. The stairs ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... when so suddenly called away. The moment his eyes fell upon the open desk, a thought flashed into his mind that set every nerve tingling. As though the old desk exerted some strange and subtle fascination, he drew near it; slowly, hesitatingly, almost on tiptoe, yet steadily. His heart beat like a trip-hammer, and his ears were straining to catch the slightest sound of any one's approach. The house was wonderfully quiet. He seemed to be quite alone in it; and presently he ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley
... Childe, who had entered the closet and was standing a-tiptoe before a mirror to adjust a patch beneath ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... for an egg a day, is a handsome feather in any bird's coat. Once, however, this trumpet of victory deceived me, though by no fault of the hen's. I heard it sounding lustily, and I ransacked the barn on tiptoe to discover the new-made nest and the exultant mater-familias. But instead of a white old hen with yellow legs, who had laid her master many eggs, there, on a barrel, stood brave Chanticleer, cackling away for dear life,—Hercules ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... in, not on tiptoe as was his custom, but noisily on his heels, and only too well did he succeed in his intent! The professor stared at him, knitted his brows, and shook his head, as though to say, "Ah, little ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... act laid stress upon the word or moment that next day served as captions for the significant review. The printed thought of the leading statesman, the outlook of the financier, the decision of the commanding soldier, or the vision of the poet found kinship in his sympathy, not because he strove tiptoe to apprehend its elevation, but because his spirit was native to ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... Verne," said Philip, going on tiptoe towards the couch, and gazing wistfully upon the emaciated ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... ten minutes before she was composed enough to enter the cottage. Betty and her mother were tiptoe with excitement. The old woman was too feeble to walk as far as the concert room, but her daughter had gone and listened outside, and as it was a hot night and the windows were open, she heard Lavinia's ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... noticed a workman of some sort standing tiptoe on a double ladder, and reaching up to unhook a large chandelier from the ceiling. The fellow seemed likely to break ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... second person plural. On hearing that he was to pass two turnings, and then to take a third, Selifan remarked, "We shall get there all right, sir," and Chichikov departed amid a profound salvo of salutations and wavings of handkerchiefs on the part of his host and hostess, who raised themselves on tiptoe in their enthusiasm. ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... lack of references or even of experience that conspired against her every effort at employment. It was the lack of luster to the eye, an absolutely new tendency to tiptoe, a furtive lookout over her shoulder, a halting tongue, that, upon the slightest questioning, would stutter for words. Where there were application-blanks to be filled in she would pore inkily over them and, after a while, slyly ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst
... his head in his hands upon the pillow, and dead on his knees. But here is a great lion-tamer, living under the dash of the light, and his hair disheveled of the breeze, praying. The fact is, that a man can see further on his knees than standing on tiptoe. Jerusalem was about five hundred and fifty statute miles from Babylon, and the vast Arabian Desert shifted its sands between them. Yet through that open window Daniel saw Jerusalem, saw all between it, saw beyond, saw time, ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... winter's breeze. His single lock of hair streamed upwards from his bald and shaven head, as if some genie upheld him by it; and indeed it seemed as if supernatural art were necessary to the execution of the wild, whirling dance, in which scarce the tiptoe of the performer was seen to touch the ground. Amid the vagaries of his performance he flew here and there, from one spot to another, still approaching, however, though almost imperceptibly, to the entrance of the ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... himself to be gently drawn beyond the hearing of Mr. Pickwick; and after a short conversation conducted in whispers, walked softly down a little dark passage, and disappeared into the legal luminary's sanctum, whence he shortly returned on tiptoe, and informed Mr. Perker and Mr. Pickwick that the Serjeant had been prevailed upon, in violation of all established rules and customs, to admit them ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... all at once rhetorical hyperbole. I might suspect his thermometer (as indeed I did, for we Harvard men are apt to think ill of any graduation but our own); but it was a poor consolation. The fact remained that his herald Mercury, standing a tiptoe, could look down on mine. I seem to glimpse something of this familiar weakness in Mr. White. He, too, has shared in these mercurial triumphs and defeats. Nor do I doubt that he had a true country-gentleman's interest in the weather-cock; that his first question ...
— My Garden Acquaintance • James Russell Lowell
... ate some chocolate, swallowed a mouthful of brandy, and smoked a cigarette before the cold should have time to disable my fingers. And by the time I had got all this done, and had made my pack and bound it on the pack-saddle, the day was tiptoe on the threshold of the east. We had not gone many steps along the lane, before the sun, still invisible to me, sent a glow of gold over some cloud mountains that lay ranged along ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... admired him much as one admires the work of a master magician—without any hope of emulation. As he read the note he could seem to see the old gentleman standing there with his hands behind him, ready to stretch on tiptoe and drop to his heels with a thump as he reached a climax, his spectacles shoved up on his forehead, his strong, wrinkled face stern from the cheek-bones down, but twinkling from that line upward, the twinkle, which had ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester
... blue, and yellow, in their saddles. They draw lots to see which shall have the inside, then go down the track a little distance. The horses understand what they are to do just as well as we who stake our money. They sniff the air, step lightly, then break into a run, and everybody is on tiptoe. In a moment they are down to the first turn, and come in full view. There are four, perhaps, neck and neck. You have staked, say, on yellow. He loses half a length, and your heart goes down: but he gains a little, is up even once more—half ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... nudges DUNNING and hurries to the vestibule door. DUNNING follows him into the vestibule on tiptoe. Slowly and deliberately PHILIP moves to the middle of the room and stands there with his hands clenched, glaring into space. SIR RANDLE, his jaw falling, sits in the chair ...
— The Big Drum - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero
... breath, she shook her head, as she waited on table. In short, she seemed in so precarious a state, like a petard three times charged with hysteria, that I did not dare to address her; and stole out of the house on tiptoe, and actually ran downstairs, in the fear that she might call me back. It was plain that this degree of tension could not ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Keats published his first volume of poems, including 'Sleep and Poetry' and the well-known lines 'I stood tiptoe upon a little hill'. With much that is of the highest poetic value, many memorable lines and touches of his unique insight into nature, the volume yet showed considerable immaturity. It contained indeed, if we except one perfect ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats
... he said, pointing to the sacristan. Then running behind, him he stood on tiptoe and screamed in ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... them about next Monday and canvas. They seemed surprised. Strange how the military authorities decline to take men into their confidence merely because they are privates. Let them upstairs. They went (for first and last time) on tiptoe. ...
— Deep Waters, The Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... Delaware boy was saying, and pointed toward the forward gun-port which stood open just beyond and above the bow of the longboat. In a twinkling Bob had straddled through the hole, with Jeremy close after him. It was dark in the 'tween-decks and the two boys made their way forward on tiptoe, waiting breathlessly for the attack they felt sure would come. But apparently all the buccaneers were busy above in the fierce fight that they could hear raging along the rail. They moved on, undeterred, till they reached the foot of the fo'c's'le ladder, where Jeremy feeling ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... there," he said, reassuringly; and went on tiptoe out of the darkened, cologne-scented room. But as he passed along the hall, and saw his father in his little cabin of a room, smoking placidly, and polishing his sextant with loving ...
— An Encore • Margaret Deland
... in the room, as though every one was on the tiptoe of expectation, as, indeed, we all were; and when Naomi's father rose to speak we all held our breath. He spoke very quietly and very collectedly, yet I saw he had difficulty in restraining himself. I saw then, too, how great was his resemblance ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... Meantime approached, on tiptoe, jackals and hyenas, but dared not come too near. Slate-colored vultures settled at a little distance, but not a soul dared interfere with the cubs; they saw the lion was acting sentinel, and they knew ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... down the oak staircase, clearing the portion from the first landing at a bound. Then she turned and waited for me, who came very deliberately, feeling the unsure contact of sole and wax. As soon as I reached her, she said, in a half-whisper, reaching up towards me on tiptoe— ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... pupils,—those who had come from Mexico, Texas, Oregon, San Francisco, and other distant places,—but had all their plans made for spending the festival at home; and these, with one exception, were invited away. The school was on the tiptoe of expectation, when, one morning after prayers, Miss Ashton sent for Susan Downer to come to ...
— Miss Ashton's New Pupil - A School Girl's Story • Mrs. S. S. Robbins
... couple of broken matches, the antennae feel the cocoon with their tips alone. The terminal joint is the home of this strange sense which discerns from afar what no eye sees, no scent distinguishes and no ear hears. If the point explored be found suitable, the insect hoists itself on tiptoe so as to give full scope to the play of its mechanism; it brings the tip of the belly a little forward; and the entire ovipositor—inoculating-needle and scabbard—stands perpendicular to the cocoon, in the center of the quadrilateral described by the four hind legs, an eminently ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... her brother secured the Yale lock so that its tongue was engaged, and, quietly closing the door, followed his wife and sister a-tiptoe through the hall and past the baize door which led ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... it off any longer: Ivan was obliged to obey, and he did not attempt to find any new pretext for delay. He drew back two paces, and with a spring he returned to his place, and standing on tiptoe, he whirled the knout above his head, and then letting it suddenly fall, he struck Gregory with such dexterity that the lash wrapped itself thrice round his victim's body, encircling him like a serpent, but the tip of the thong struck the plank upon which Gregory was lying. Nevertheless, in ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - VANINKA • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... the other because of Christ 155 (Whose sad face on the cross sees only this After the passion of a thousand years) Till some poor girl, her apron o'er her head, (Which the intense eyes looked through) came at eve On tiptoe, said a word, dropped in a loaf, 160 Her pair of earrings and a bunch of flowers (The brute took growling), prayed, and so was gone. I painted all, then cried, "'Tis ask and have; Choose, for more's ready!"—laid the ladder flat, And showed ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... eying him from head to foot with great curiosity. The orator bustled up to him, and, drawing him partly aside, inquired "on which side he voted?" Rip stared in vacant stupidity. Another short but busy little fellow pulled him by the arm, and, rising on tiptoe, inquired in his ear, "Whether he was Federal or Democrat?" Rip was equally at a loss to comprehend the question; when a knowing, self-important old gentleman, in a sharp cocked hat, made his way through the crowd, putting them to the right and left with his elbows as he passed, ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... again, while Georgie went to get refreshment for his conqueror, and they were all introduced. She allowed herself to be taken with the utmost docility—how unlike Somebody—into the tent with the thrones: she confessed to having stood on tiptoe and looked into Mrs Quantock's garden and wanted to see it so much from the other side of the wall. And this garden, too—might she go and wander all over this garden when she had finished the most delicious peach that the world held? She was ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... back her hair and bathed her face; then, yielding to her impatience, she again softly opened the door of her chamber and ventured to cross the vast workroom, noiselessly and on tiptoe. The shutters were still closed, but she could see clearly enough not to stumble against the furniture. When she was at the other end before the door of the doctor's room, she bent forward, holding her breath. ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola
... smooth your hair," begged Phronsie, standing on tiptoe; "do bend down just a very little, please. There, that's it," patting Charlotte's head with both hands; "now you look very nice; you really do—doesn't ...
— Five Little Peppers Grown Up • Margaret Sidney
... flashed with joy like two little greenish flames. Standing on tiptoe, she placed both her hands on Stas' shoulders and, tilting her head backward, asked, gazing ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... chateau everybody went on tiptoe, as usual when Diodora had her nervous attacks, but I did not heed that. My step was as firm as ever; the reverberation of the physician's step is soothing to the patient, and fills him with hope ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai
... could not rub away the vision. When she opened her eyes the Angel still stood tiptoe on the mantel-shelf, smiling at her and ...
— The Christmas Angel • Abbie Farwell Brown
... was early August still, with beautiful weather come at last; and the green world seemed to stand on tiptoe to make the extraordinary acquaintance of the sun. Humble plants which had long lain flat stood up with a sense of casting something off; and the damp heavy trunks which had trickled for a twelvemonth, or been only sponged with moss, were hailing the fresher light with ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... at the foot of the stairs and Mary stood at the turn. She had one hand on the rail of the banister, the other pressed hard against the wall. She leaned forward on tiptoe, measuring her distance. When she looked at the stairs they fell from under her in a grey dizziness, so that Mark ...
— Mary Olivier: A Life • May Sinclair
... of the battle with the deadly foe of the mountain poor-whites, that Marcia Lowe heard a knock upon her cabin door. So alone and absorbed had she been for the past few days that a demand from the outer world startled and annoyed her. Martin was sleeping—he lay in the lean-to chamber—so on tiptoe the little doctor went ...
— A Son of the Hills • Harriet T. Comstock
... who would now and then tiptoe quickly to the hearth, add a fresh log to the embers, and as quickly move back to his position behind the child's crib. The rising and falling of the blaze, keeping rhythm, as it were, to the hopes and fears of the group, lighted up in turn each figure in the room. First the ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... always conveyed. Now, as he spoke to Ruth, who, although a tall girl, was some inches shorter than he, he maintained a strict perpendicular from the crown of his head to his heels, only looking down with his eyes. Short women resented this trick of his, protesting that it made them stand on tiptoe to speak ...
— Other Things Being Equal • Emma Wolf
... quiet. His troubles had to do with the expenses of his illness, and he beseeched me not to send for a doctor or a nurse. I tried to set his mind at rest, but I failed; he saw that I thought him very ill, and when I moved round the room on tiptoe he asked me to make as much noise as I liked. I was no use as a sick nurse, and my efforts to make the room look fit to live in, though meant splendidly, seemed to me to make the place more uncomfortable ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... big, O?" And she stood up, tiptoe, by the window, as if that would make any comparative difference between her height and that of Hotel Devereux, across the square; or as if she could reach up farther with her eyes after the great flashes that ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... hunch we won't even have to tiptoe over the hill to find adventures with him around! He's their regular ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... bridge, and looked into the water. There were some skippers and some whirlabouts upon the water. The skippers were long-legged insects, shaped somewhat like a cricket; and they stood tiptoe upon the surface of the water. Rollo wondered how they could keep up. Their feet did not sink into the water at all, and every now and then they would give a sort of leap, and away they would shoot over the surface, as if it had been ice. Rollo reached ...
— Rollo's Museum • Jacob Abbott
... please; the images are magnified by affectation; the language is laboured into harshness. The mind of the writer seems to work with unnatural violence. "Double, double, toil and trouble." He has a kind of strutting dignity, and is tall by walking on tiptoe. His art and his struggle are too visible, and there is too little appearance of ease and nature. To say that he has no beauties would be unjust; a man like him, of great learning and great industry, could not but produce something valuable. When he pleases least, it can only be said that a ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson
... friends were all on tiptoe and craning their necks with expectation. It was assumed among them that Wilkinson would propose to her the following summer, when the first year of his widowhood should be ended. When summer came there was nothing between them that anybody could see. But it by no means followed that there ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... wife, whom he had loved with all the power of his strong heart. The doctor stumbled upstairs by the fire-light, and met the awe-struck look of the neighbour, which at once told him the state of things. The room was still, as he, with habitual tiptoe step, approached the poor frail body, that nothing now could more disturb. Her daughter knelt by the bedside, her face buried in the clothes, which were almost crammed into her mouth, to keep down the choking sobs. ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... her and she moved ever so little to her own side of the fire; how he, sensitive to her every emotion, rose at once to build the fire, telling her for the first time then of his wonderful discovery, which he had clean forgot; how together on tiptoe they examined, with heads in close proximity and voices lowered to a whisper, the black seam that ran down a side of the cave; how they discussed the possible value of it and what it might mean to Kalman; and then how they fell silent again till Kalman commanded ...
— The Foreigner • Ralph Connor
... at all, do we, sister?" said Beth, stretching up on tiptoe to get her "bawheady" from the bureau. "We'd just as lief give it away as not, 'cause we've always ...
— What Two Children Did • Charlotte E. Chittenden
... you asleep there? Come, we are going now. After keeping us on tiptoe for hours, the summons has come at last. Indeed, there is hardly time for you to dress. Shall ...
— The Bride of Fort Edward • Delia Bacon
... of the strange carriage. One of them was seated in a chair by the counter, another was reading a list which Mr Elsworthy had just presented to her, and the third, who was not so tall as her sister, was pressing up to it on tiptoe, trying to read it too. "That is Miss Dora Wentworth," said Lucy, "and the other, I suppose, is Miss Leonora, who is so very Low-Church. I think I can see the Miss Hemmings coming down George Street. If I were to go in I ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... he said, taking it; "further on, to the bosquet." This choice was prompted by her having immediately confessed that she had seen him leave the house, had feared an accident and had followed him on tiptoe. ...
— Madame de Mauves • Henry James
... cabin and at that very moment was holding a pistol to the wounded man's bosom, trying to nerve himself to do a deed he had been bribed to do! But his courage failed, his hand dropped, and he crept out into the silent night, leaving the wounded man unharmed. While Pocahontas stood on tiptoe outside the stockade, straining her eager eyes for a glimpse of the Captain's cabin, there were footsteps beside her—a hand was laid on her shoulder, ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... returned to Lady Ardagh, now a widow. The party assembled at the castle, but the atmosphere was tainted with death. Grief there was not much, but awe and panic were expressed in every face. The guests talked in whispers, and the servants walked on tiptoe, as if afraid of the very ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume I. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... sexuality, nor afflicted with some stupid ailment or other which prevents them doing this and that. To be in contact with physical health—it would alone suffice to render their society a dear delight, quite apart from the fact that if you are wise and humble you may tiptoe yourself, by inches, into ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... possibilities. If then Imagination carries us beyond the limits of graphic art let us by all means employ it. Upon this phase of art the realist can but look with folded arms. The dwellers in the charmed world of Greek mythological fancy came on tiptoe to the borders only of the daily life ...
— Pictorial Composition and the Critical Judgment of Pictures • Henry Rankin Poore
... Papal interdicts, the tragedies caused or suffered by the house of Anjou, and by the Emperor—these were full of a more permanent significance. But, since then, the colossal figure of feudalism was seen standing, as it were on tiptoe, at Crecy, for flight from earth: that was a revolution unparalleled; yet that was a trifle by comparison with the more fearful revolutions that were mining below the Church. By her own internal schisms, by the abominable spectacle ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... to Mrs. Owen's door, but before he could move she was gone, running along the path, a white, ghost-like figure faintly discernible through the trees. He walked on tiptoe to the end of the veranda to catch the last glimpse of her, and waited till he caught across the quiet night the faint click of Mrs. Owen's gate. And he was inexpressibly lonely, ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... trumpery rings. Cassandra knew everybody, and was determined to make those about her aware of it. "That's young Count Orsetti and his mamma; they give a grand ball to-night." (Cassandra is standing on tiptoe now, the better to observe those who pass.) "There she goes to her carriage. Ahi! how grand! The coachman and the valet with gold-lace and silk stockings. I would fast for a week to ride once in such a carriage. Oh! I would give any thing to splash the mud in people's faces. She's a fine ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... the witch, who was very sleepy; and the girl did as she was bid, and went to bed. Very soon they both might have been heard snoring, and Pinkel knew that his time was come. Slipping off his shoes he stole into the hut on tiptoe, and taking from his pocket some food of which the goat was particularly fond, he laid it under his nose. Then, while the animal was eating it, he stuffed each golden bell with wool which he had also brought with him, stopping every minute to listen, lest the witch should awaken, and he should ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Various
... truly, and she perceived that the figure in white was indeed Lucille—pale, haggard; while with one she held the candlestick, with the other she motioned slowly towards the bed, which she was approaching with breathless caution, upon tiptoe. With an effort Julie succeeded in calling her by name, almost expecting as she did so to see the ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... longitude of his common size, as a snail pushes out his horns, or, as we draw out a perspective. This trifling alteration, not to mention the prodigious saving it would be in the tear and wear of the neck and limb-sinews of many of his majesty's liege subjects, in the way of tossing the head and tiptoe strutting, would evidently turn out a vast advantage, in enabling us at once to adjust the ceremonials in making a bow, or making way to a great man, and that too within a second of the precise spherical angle of reverence, or an inch of the particular ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... away on tiptoe, and looked across the ward. There, rising out of the bedclothes, was a little head, a child's head, crowned with the lightest of hair. Gay and vivid it gleamed in that room of pain. It was hair of ...
— Young Hilda at the Wars • Arthur Gleason
... with a heavy heart and many sighs he took the key from the big bunch. When he had opened the door he stepped in first, and thought to cover the likeness so that the King might not perceive it; but it was hopeless: the King stood on tiptoe and looked over his shoulder. And when he saw the picture of the maid, so beautiful and glittering with gold and precious stones, he fell swooning to the ground. Trusty John lifted him up, carried him to bed, and thought sorrowfully: "The curse has come upon us; gracious ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... his hand on the stair-rail and ascended to the next floor, passing his daughter's room on tiptoe. Above this, a flight of steps that was little more than a ladder led up into the obscurity of the attics. He climbed these steps, and, entering a lumber-room, where he had to duck his head to avoid striking the sloping roof, felt his way to a shuttered window, with the bolt of which ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... him understand that praise, glory, and honours are good, but they do not make for long life, and especially in these times it is better to work quietly without attracting too much attention. It is more safe, for "he who raises himself on tiptoe cannot stand, and he who stretches his legs ...
— My Lady of the Chinese Courtyard • Elizabeth Cooper
... Master Proudfute was in the midst of the crowd, his fingers upon every one's button and his mouth in every man's ear, embracing such as were near to his own stature, that he might more closely and mysteriously utter his sentiments; and standing on tiptoe, and supporting himself by the cloak collars of tall men, that he might dole out to them also the same share of information. He felt himself one of the heroes of the affair, being conscious of the dignity of superior information on the subject as an eyewitness, and much disposed to ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... merrily, because I touch a most charming little dimple in her fat cheek, with its light paper end. Glancing up at the many green lattices to assure herself that the mistress is not looking on, the little woman then puts her two little dimple arms a-kimbo, and stands on tiptoe to light her cigarette at mine. 'And now, dear little sir,' says she, puffing out smoke in a most innocent and cherubic manner, 'keep quite straight on, take the first to the right and probably you will see him standing ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... review. The printed thought of the leading statesman, the outlook of the financier, the decision of the commanding soldier, or the vision of the poet found kinship in his sympathy, not because he strove tiptoe to apprehend its elevation, but because his spirit was native ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... down the hall, but almost at once Ford, whose ears were alert for any sound, heard him returning, approaching stealthily on tiptoe. If by this maneuver the Jew had hoped to discover his patient in some indiscretion, he was unsuccessful, for he found Ford standing just where he had left him, with his back turned to the door, and gazing with ...
— The Lost House • Richard Harding Davis
... a ghost, with big black eyes," was Janet's answer; and, with his curiosity awakened, Henry Warner started for the parlor, Rose following on tiptoe, and listening through the half-closed door to what their ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... was as mutual as could well be conceived. Him, therefore, O'Leary selected as the opponent with whom he meant to grapple. Those to whom he communicated his intention, and who knew his powers, looked forward with expectation "on tiptoe" for a scene of enjoyment that no anticipation could exaggerate. Disappointment was, however, their lot. The meeting passed over quietly, and neither the objectionable matter nor speaker was brought ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... one, for if Scott caught him in his quarters with his coat off he would punish him. The officer said he would risk it—that the general was asleep, and he would make no noise. He opened the door softly and went on tiptoe to the water pitcher. He had no time to drink before he heard the tinkle of the bell, and the sentinel outside the door entered. 'Take this man to the guardhouse,' was the brief order, and the coatless ...
— General Scott • General Marcus J. Wright
... face; till suddenly they raced off in a body to attack a floating feather. Ulrich sat up and watched them, the little rogues, the little foolish, helpless things, that called for so much care. A mother thrush twittered above his head. Ulrich rose and creeping on tiptoe, peeped into the nest. But the mother bird, casting one glance towards him, went on with her work. Whoever was afraid of Ulrich the wheelwright! The tiny murmuring insects buzzed to and fro about his feet. An old man, ...
— The Love of Ulrich Nebendahl • Jerome K. Jerome
... while at his bedside. I did not think he would get to sleep quickly, but soon his breathing became more even and prolonged. I went away on tiptoe, turned into my own room, and lay down on the sofa. For a long while I mused on what Pasinkov had told me, recalled many things, wondered; at ...
— The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... at length, wearied out, I fell, over my chibouque, into a doze filled with puzzling visions, out of which I was awakened with a start. My companion had sprung up, very lightly, to his feet. In his throat was an odd, half-suppressed cry, grewsome to hear. He stood on tiptoe, with eyes fixed, as though looking through the wall, and I distinctly saw his ears point in the ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... Helen rose to tiptoe across the floor, and, softly parting some curtains, she looked into the room where her uncle lay. He was asleep. Sometimes he called out in his slumbers. For weeks now he had been confined to his bed, slowly growing weaker. ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... back from the Berlin Congress, bringing "Peace with Honor." The Continent has stood a-tiptoe to see the wonderful English Earl pass and repass. He has been the lion of a congress that included Bismarck. The laurels and the Oriental palm placed by his landlord on the hotel-balcony have but faintly typified ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... ranks visited the earl; and dukes, lords, and barons became as familiar to me as gowns and caps had formerly been in the streets of Oxford. I stood on the very pinnacle of fortune; and, proud of my skill, like a rope-dancer that casts away his balancing pole, I took pleasure in standing on tiptoe. Noticed by the leading men, caressed and courted by their dependants, politics encouraging me on this hand, and theology inviting me on that, the whole world seemed to be smiles and sunshine; and I discovered that none but blockheads had any ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... islands as the heaven is dotted with stars, spread itself out to the eastward as far as my vision extended, until its entire mass of waters seemed at length to tumble headlong over the abyss of the horizon, and I found myself listening on tiptoe for the echoes of the mighty cataract. Overhead, the sky was of a jetty black, and the ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... creaking board. Absurd! But it was quite a minute before I dared to make another step. I had meant to walk straight across to the other door, passing in my course close by the occupied chair. I did not do so; I kept round by the wall, creeping on tiptoe and my eye never leaving the figure in the chair. I did this in spite of myself, and the manner of my action was the first hint of an ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett
... bares the massive joints and limbs, the great bones and muscles, and stands up huge in the middle of the ground. Then Anchises' lordly seed brought out equal gloves and bound the hands of both in matched arms. Straightway each took his stand on tiptoe, and undauntedly raised his arms high in air. They lift their heads right back and away out of reach of blows, and make hand play through hand, inviting attack; the one nimbler of foot and confident ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... too. Pocket, as usual, saw what he did see so very vividly, in his mind's eye, that he shivered and was asked if he felt cold. The whispered debate that followed was the longest conversation they had that night. The window was not shut as a result of it, but Pocket fetched his overcoat on tiptoe, and it just went over both their shoulders, when the chairs were drawn as near together as they ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung
... inches long. It doesn't give much light, because the door is thick. It's about four inches thick, and is made of oak and sheet-steel, bolted through. The slit runs this way,"—making a horizontal motion in the air,—"and it is four inches above my eyes when I stand on tiptoe. And I can't look out at the factory-wall forty feet away unless I hook my fingers in the ...
— The Ape, the Idiot & Other People • W. C. Morrow
... and Bruno, in shirt-sleeves and slippered feet, came on tiptoe into the room. He brought a letter in a large violet envelope with a monogram on the front of it, and put it down on the desk by Rossi's ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... table, where lay quite a little heap that had been thrust into his letter-box from time to time, four or five unopened circulars and foolscap missives, whose appearance told what they were; and armed with these he opened his doors softly and passed out, drawing the outer door to, and then stole on tiptoe downstairs and out into ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn
... of the cunning cat-like Charles Greville, who crept on tiptoe through the world, observing and recording the littleness of men? His stealthy eye missed nothing; and the men whom he flattered and used little thought that the wizened dandy who pleased them with his ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... the power takeoff for the wheels. Through an opening in the side he could see inset handles and two small colored disks, and above this were three funnel-shaped openings shaped and painted like mouths. By standing on tiptoe Jason looked on top but there was only a flanged, sooty opening that must be for attachment of a smokestack. There was only one more opening, a smallish one in the rear, and no other controls ...
— The Ethical Engineer • Henry Maxwell Dempsey
... the room on tiptoe, as Chapeau left it; her face was as pale as marble, and her heart beat so violently that she felt that she would hardly be able to reach the chair at the bed-side. De Lescure was lying on a decent but very humble bed, at ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... was standing before the picture like one enraptured: he raised himself on tiptoe; he stooped down till he became quite small; then he jumped up with both feet at once, heaved deep sighs, groaned, nipped his eyes so close together that the tears began to trickle down his cheeks, opened them wide again, fixed his gaze immovably upon the charming Magdalene, sighed again, ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... on my back, and mostly thinking about the angels. I do that a lot at night, I have no time in the day; I think of the angels, and Lord Jesus Christ, and heaven, and then father comes in. He opens the door soft, and he treads on tiptoe for fear I'm asleep, as if I could be! And then he kisses me, and I think in the whole of heaven there can never be an angel so good and beautiful as he is, and he says something to me which keeps me strong until the next night, when he ...
— Daddy's Girl • L. T. Meade
... of mystery as an Oxford tractman. He rose on tiptoe from his chair, proceeded to the passage, listened on the stairs, returned as carefully, closed ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... to have just risen from her chair, the Child bends from her arms, and a young and very little angel, standing on tiptoe, holds up to him a flower—other flowers in his ...
— Legends of the Madonna • Mrs. Jameson
... door was a shabby basket-work sofa, where members of the public were entitled to sit. They would tiptoe in, these members of the public, furtively, as though expecting to be shot on sight, the bolder ones perhaps exchanging a whisper, the weaker brethren silent, and trembling if they caught an official ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... dark little creature standing on tiptoe, while Joyce bent her head low, then Dodo claimed attention from "Cammy," and amid bursts of laughter and sometimes a rush of sudden tears, the talk flowed on, as it can only flow when dearest friends meet after long separation, ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... expected that he was about to get me to promise him, in the presence of our mutual friends, that I would accomplish something of importance; as he knew if I once gave my word, that nothing would deter me from endeavouring to carry my promise into effect. Expectation was upon the tiptoe, every one seeming anxious to know what was the object of such a serious and almost solemn request. "Well," said he, "promise me then that you will never wear white breeches again!" Every one appeared thunder-struck, that the mountain had brought forth ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt
... way, whilst his son, Esock, walked timidly behind, straining every nerve lest he should lose his presence of mind when the chief's daughter appeared before him. He entered the wigwam. Curiosity stood on tiptoe. ...
— The Forest King - Wild Hunter of the Adaca • Hervey Keyes
... lifebelt. "The children! That's just the root of the whole intolerable situation. This hasn't been a home for the last three or four years; it's been nothing but a nursery. And about all I've been is a retriever for a creche, a clod-hopper to tiptoe about the sacred circle and see to it there's enough flannel to cover their backs and enough food to put into their stomachs. I'm an accident, of course, an intruder to be faced with fortitude ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... listened with an incredulous smile; and, as the Inca received no answer, he said, with some emphasis, that "he would not merely cover the floor, but would fill the room with gold as high as he could reach"; and, standing on tiptoe, he stretched out his hand against the wall. All stared with amazement; while they regarded it as the insane boast of a man too eager to procure his liberty to weigh the meaning of his words. Yet Pizarro was sorely perplexed. As he had ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... away. The spirit of this silent hill-town, remote from tourists and motor-cars, dreaming its own quiet life under the autumn sun, rose up and cast its spell upon him. Long before he recognised this spell he acted under it. He walked softly, almost on tiptoe, down the winding narrow streets where the gables all but met over his head, and he entered the doorway of the solitary inn with a deprecating and modest demeanour that was in itself an apology for intruding upon the place and disturbing ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... of home right there with her. Her disappointment was forgotten. She lifted out the pine and bitter-sweet to put it in every corner of her room, then another thought seized her. Except for Gyp, practicing in a half-hearted way downstairs, the house was empty. On tiptoe she stole to the different rooms, leaving in each a bit of her pine and a gay ...
— Highacres • Jane Abbott
... but the young man held her back, went into the veranda himself, and, without touching it, standing on tiptoe, he examined the pin. He sank back on his heels and turned toward Matrena. She caught a glimpse of fleeting emotion on the face of her ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux
... shaking hands with a cutthroat; who knows but here I may introduce myself upon visiting terms with his family? 'faith I'll reconnoitre the position before I establish my quarters. This casement is commodiously low. (Steps to the casement on tiptoe.) I protest, a vastly neat, creditable sort of mansion! Yes—it will do! on one side blazes an excellent fire; in the middle stands a table ready covered; that's for supper: then just opposite is a door left ajar; ay, that must lead to a bed. Ha! now the door opens; ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... future, at present this gallery is truly magnificent. Yesterday, Prince Martin, with the palatine and the palatiness, gave me a historical account of each picture; I immediately determined to transfer them to my journal. With this intention I rose before day and visited the gallery on tiptoe while all were still sleeping. I will write down all I have been told, and ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... just on the right hand of the entrance, where the play as a rule runs high. It was clearly running high tonight. For so deep a crowd thronged about the table that Ricardo could only by standing on tiptoe see the faces of the players. Of the banker he could not catch a glimpse. But though the crowd remained, its units were constantly changing, and it was not long before Ricardo found himself standing in the front rank of the spectators, ...
— At the Villa Rose • A. E. W. Mason
... in the doorway as Madeline attempted to pass by on tiptoe. "Oh, he's a deal better now, Miss Madeline, so that you needn't be afeard of disturbing;—ain't you, Mr. Graham?" So she was thus brought into absolute contact with her friend, for the first time since he ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... presently a challenge to Fenwick's sharpening sense; she began, in a wholly new degree, to interest his intelligence. Her own had blossomed; and in spite of grief, she had brought back with her some of the ways of a young and tiptoe world. Soon he was, in secret, hungry for her history—the history he had so far refused to hear. Who was this man who had made love to her?—how far had it gone?—he tossed at nights thinking of it. There came a time when he would gladly have exchanged Carrie's gossip for hers; and through ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the mirror, or at as much as she could see of herself: the image presented was superb. Then she hastily rolled up her old dress, put it in the box, and thrust the latter on a ledge as high as she could reach. Standing on tiptoe, she waved the handkerchief through the upper aperture, and bent to the rift to ...
— The Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid • Thomas Hardy
... the chair, and walking across the room on tiptoe, drew down the shade at the window through which the moonlight was streaming. Then he returned to his seat, and remained gazing with half-closed ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... the lark, the herald of the morn, No nightingale: look, love, what envious streaks Do lace the severing clouds in yonder east: Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops. I must be gone and live, or stay ...
— Romeo and Juliet • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... through the folding doors, and without stopping to look or breathe, rushed forward to the one in question. The lock yielded to her hand, and, luckily, with no sullen sound that could alarm a human being. On tiptoe she entered; the room was before her; but it was some minutes before she could advance another step. She beheld what fixed her to the spot and agitated every feature. She saw a large, well-proportioned apartment, an handsome dimity bed, arranged as unoccupied with an housemaid's care, ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... bag; but while I was dressing a tremendous cackling among my bantams caused me to look out, when I beheld them scurrying right and left at sight of the kangaroo leaping after the three strangers, and my cat on the top of the garden wall on tiptoe, with arched back, bristling tail, and glassy eyes, viewing the beast as the vengeful apotheosis of all the rats and mice she had slaughtered ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... lady had opened her eyes and seen the child; and the child had run towards her; and, standing on tiptoe, the better to hide her face in her embrace, had clung about her with a desperate affection very much ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... family arrived in Berlin three days ago. Society was on tiptoe with expectation. They talked of giving Arthur Nevin's Indian opera, "Poia," in order that the ex-President should have the thrill of seeing his compatriots in a German setting. This idea was abandoned, though Count Huelsen had accepted the opera and at an enormous expense ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone
... said. That was all—"Prithee, silence!" and at the sound there was another flutter of excitement among the guests. The hands of the clock pointed to four minutes to twelve, and it was evident that the last item in the charming programme was about to take place. Ladies moved about on tiptoe, mounting the first steps of the staircase, or standing on stools to ensure a better view. Men moved politely to the rear. There was a minute's preoccupation, and when the general gaze was once more turned to the doorway, ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... winning exhortation of his service. Nothing was heard but the deep though affectionate tones of the reader, as he went slowly through this exordium; until, something unfortunately striking the mind of Richard as incomplete, he left his place and walked on tiptoe from the room. ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... these nimble little beings bustling hither and thither in hot haste? What meant these pearl-bedecked caves, scarcely larger than swallows' nests? these green canopies, overgrown with moss? He pinched himself, and gazed again. Countless flowers nodded to him, and seemed, like himself, on tiptoe with curiosity, he thought. He beckoned one of the busy, ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... forgot all the rest, all that was rude and incongruous, forgot how mean the school-house was, how few protective boards left upon it. Captain Pharo and Captain Shamgar dropped their mallets at the first sound of Vesty's voice, and came in on tiptoe, with ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... through all the cracks in the walls and floors of cities. You heap up a million tons of hewn rocks on a square mile or two of earth which was green once. The trees look down from the hill-sides and ask each other, as they stand on tiptoe,—"What are these people about?" And the small herbs at their feet look up and whisper back,—"We will go and see." So the small herbs pack themselves up in the least possible bundles, and wait until the wind steals to them at night and whispers, "Come with me." Then ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... at Roy; but both boys entered the house, and crept into a cool half-darkened drawing-room on tiptoe, with hushed voices and sober demeanor. A stern looking old lady sat upright in her easy chair, knitting busily. She greeted the boys ...
— His Big Opportunity • Amy Le Feuvre
... the pleasure of the day set in with a flood tide. You have all seen such days. Nature had laid out a wonderful entertainment, to begin with; and put no hindrances in the way; and it appeared that every creature came with spirits and hopes on tiptoe. Dresses were something captivating, so much attention and invention had been exercised upon them. And the facilities for flirtations which the scene and the sport afforded, were most picturesque. The parties in the trees could ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner
... pushed against the walls, except a writing-desk with gilded legs, which stood in the embrasure of the big window, and to this the girl ran softly, on tiptoe, across the bare parquet floor. It was covered with sheeting, which she turned carefully back that nothing might be disturbed and, in falling, make a noise. Almost she had reached the limit of her strength and had no breath even to whisper the "Thank heaven!" ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... be reasonable and prudent, won't you?" cried Mr. Kretschmer, with his clear, penetrating voice, raising himself on tiptoe, and casting his large, light-blue eyes over the crowd. "You will be reasonable, certainly, and in reason you can tell me what you wish, and we can deliberate, and decide whether that ...
— The Merchant of Berlin - An Historical Novel • L. Muhlbach
... end at the moment when the man's nerve was undoubtedly shaken. Then they looked towards the entrance, and they understood. Creeping towards the little gathering came Li Wen and another of the Prince's suite, a younger and even more active man. The two came on tiptoe, crouching and moving warily, with the gleam of the tiger in their anxious eyes. Maggie caught a warning glance from Nigel and ...
— The Great Prince Shan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... was kept clear. Within the entrenchment Felix could see a number of gentlemen, and several horses caparisoned, but from the absence of noise and the fact that every one appeared to walk daintily and on tiptoe, he concluded that the king was still sleeping. The stream ran beside the entrenchment, and between it and the city; the king's quarters were at that corner of the camp highest up the brook, so that the water might not be fouled before it ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies
... himself, but failed. His guffaw must out, and exploded with violent effect. It drove the Marques back to the door, and sent Gil Perez scudding on tiptoe to the window. ...
— The Spanish Jade • Maurice Hewlett
... some dancers passed out of the ball-room, and Mildred was surrounded. It looked as if her card would be filled before Morton could get near her. But she stood on tiptoe and, looking over the surrounding shoulders, cried that she would keep the fourteenth for him. 'Why did you not come before,' she asked smiling, and went out of the room on the arm of ...
— Celibates • George Moore
... long tem.' Nen he smi' hisse'f, an' tole horse-carry-chair-man run wif him quick to fine his de-ah wife. When he allive ne' his house, say to man: 'Goo'-by! I go ressa way on footstep.' Nen go vay quier on his tiptoe, and lock vay ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various
... at the sight of the money. He got up, and, as a man of delicate feeling unwilling to pry into other people's secrets, he went out of the room on tiptoe, swaying his arms. Solomon remained where ...
— The Bishop and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... it was ten years since, instead of to-day; and if I had married Midwinter for love, I might be going to bed now with nothing heavier on my mind than a visit on tiptoe to the nursery, and a last look at night to see if my children were sleeping quietly in their cribs. I wonder whether I should have loved my children if I had ever had any? Perhaps, ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... it suited me, in journey dark O'er moor and mountain, midnight theft to hatch; To charm the surly house-dog's faithful bark. Or hang on tiptoe at the lifted latch; The gloomy lantern, and the dim blue match, The black disguise, the warning whistle shrill, And ear still busy on its nightly watch, Were not for me, brought up in nothing ill; Besides, on griefs so fresh ...
— Lyrical Ballads 1798 • Wordsworth and Coleridge
... his yard, round and round, with inconceivable rapidity and an astounding innocence, as if he imagined himself alone and unobserved, the Emu danced like a bird demented. On tiptoe, absurdly elongated, round and round, ecstatically, deliriously, he danced. He danced till his legs and his neck were as one high perpendicular pole and his body a mere whorl of feathers spinning round it, driven by the flapping ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... be easily imagined that during the next few days I was on tiptoe with expectation. Let it be said at once, that I was quite aware that I was about to commit what might fairly be considered a folly by prudent-minded people. The chances of my goose proving a swan were altogether too slight to justify the extravagance ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... felt his own holiday so successfully large and free that he was full of allowances and charities in respect to those cabined and confined' his instinct toward a spirit so strapped down as Waymarsh's was to walk round it on tiptoe for fear of waking it up to a sense of losses by this time irretrievable. It was all very funny he knew, and but the difference, as he often said to himself, of tweedledum and tweedledee—an emancipation so purely comparative that it was like the ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... o'clock the invalid was calmly slumbering. Having entered the bedroom on tiptoe and heard regular breathing, Sidwell went down and for a few minutes lingered about the hall. A servant came to her for instructions on some domestic matter; when this was dismissed she mentioned that, if anyone called, she would be ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... to the cot. Was Florette missing him as he had missed her? Ah, if she at last had seen that papas were not half so nice as Freddy's, he would not be hard on her. His heart swelled with forgiveness and love. He stole on tiptoe to Florette's bedside. ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... after him, following on tiptoe to prevent our steps from being audible, and at a given signal, threw ourselves upon his ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... more rapid now, the steamer seemed at her last gasp, the stern-wheel flopped languidly, and I caught myself listening on tiptoe for the next beat of the boat, for in sober truth I expected the wretched thing to give up every moment. It was like watching the last flickers of a life. But still we crawled. Sometimes I would pick out a tree a little ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... on my right from an open door, and another gale blowing on my left down some steps, and nasty smells blowing from every point of the compass, I stood at a dirty little hole in a dirty wooden wall and took our tickets. I had to stand on tiptoe to make the young man ...
— A Great Emergency and Other Tales - A Great Emergency; A Very Ill-Tempered Family; Our Field; Madam Liberality • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... twelve hours of utter unconsciousness. On waking the first words of each were to ask for the other. Thurstane put on his scarcely dried uniform and hurried to the girl's room. She received him at the door, for she had heard his step although it was on tiptoe, and she knew his knock although as light as the ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... to make their way on tiptoe toward the back room. One stood with his whisky glass suspended in mid air, and tilted back his head to listen. In the gaming-room Hurley pushed back his chair and leaned to the left, giving him a free sweep for his right hand. ...
— Riders of the Silences • John Frederick
... Nothing? When she knelt before the altar at Tuebingen before the sun had risen, and the Countess of Montfort felt as if she had given shelter to an Angel, was she doing nothing? When she lingered in the oratory of our Blessed Mother long after the sun had set, and the menials passed by on tiptoe lest they should mar the celestial expression of her face, was she doing nothing? There had come a deeper lustre still into the Lady Margaret's eye, and the blush on her cheek mingled not so freely with the ...
— The Truce of God - A Tale of the Eleventh Century • George Henry Miles
... one night that she led me, all the time whispering something so very fast that I could not understand her, into the library, holding a candle in her other hand above her head. We walked on tiptoe, like criminals at the dead of night, and stopped before that old oak cabinet which my father had indicated in so odd a way to me. I felt that we were about some contraband practice. There was a key in the ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... meat is fuel for him; it keeps up the supply of animal heat. None of the birds will eat lean meat; they want the clear fat. The jays alight upon it and peck away with great vigor, almost standing on tiptoe to get the proper sweep. The woodpecker uses his head alone in pecking, but the jay's action involves the whole body. Yet his blows are softer, not so sharp and abrupt as those of the woodpecker. Pecking is not ...
— The Wit of a Duck and Other Papers • John Burroughs
... therefore, to pass unobserved through the shadows. The warm, red light that streamed from an uncurtained French window on the ground floor only deepened the uncertainty of everything. The man stepped warily, closing the gate behind him with stealthy care, and crept forward on tiptoe to lessen the sound of the crunching gravel beneath his heavy shoes. It was an undignified entry for an officer of the law who carried his authorization in his hand; but courage was not this man's strong point. His fear was lest he should ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... off any longer: Ivan was obliged to obey, and he did not attempt to find any new pretext for delay. He drew back two paces, and with a spring he returned to his place, and standing on tiptoe, he whirled the knout above his head, and then letting it suddenly fall, he struck Gregory with such dexterity that the lash wrapped itself thrice round his victim's body, encircling him like a serpent, ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - VANINKA • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... them, and wearies by the manner and not by the matter. It is the commonest fault in the world (as I have constant occasion to observe here), but it is a very great one. Just as you couldn't bear to have an epergne or a candlestick on your table, supported by a light figure always on tiptoe and evidently in an impossible attitude for the sustainment of its weight, so all readers would be more or less oppressed and worried by this presentation of everything in one smart point of view, when they know it ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... Aristide went up, as usual, to his room to see that Jean was alive, painless, and asleep. Finding him awake, he sat by his side and, with the earnestness of a nursery-maid, patted him off to slumber. Then he crept out on tiptoe and went downstairs. Outside the hotel he came upon the two sisters sitting on a bench and drinking coffee. The night was fine, the terraces of the neighbouring cafes were filled with people, and all the life of Aix not at the cafes promenaded up and down the wide ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... his text? I've got one for him," said Molly Wood, joining us. She stood on tiptoe and spoke it comically in our ears. "'I said in my haste, All men are liars.'" This made us merry as we stood among the chairs in ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... guessed that here was the hiding place in which he hoarded his wealth, and while he bent there, his back toward me, I entered the chamber upon tiptoe, and with the utmost stealth essayed to reach the opposite side before he should complete his task and turn again toward ...
— Warlord of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... everybody was on the tiptoe of suspense, and that the interest hanging upon the issue of this night's events swallowed up all other anxieties, of whatsoever nature. Even the battle which was now daily expected between the imperial and Swedish armies ceased to occupy the hearts and conversation of the citizens. ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... awoke. Gently she slipped out of the bed and before dressing lighted the kitchen fire, put on the kettle for the tea and the pot for the porridge. Then she dressed herself and stepping about on tiptoe prepared breakfast, peering in now and then at ...
— The Prospector - A Tale of the Crow's Nest Pass • Ralph Connor
... sides; on the nearer side, the townspeople in varied attire; on the further side, the prisoners, some in white prison clothes, others in their own coloured dresses. The whole length of the net was taken up by the people standing close to it. Some rose on tiptoe to be heard across the heads of others; some sat talking on ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... all his child's precipitance, yet was well contented now to stoop his gray head to bright lips, and do his best toward believing some of their soft eloquence. The child, on the other hand, was full of pride, and rose on tiptoe, lest anybody might suppose her still too young for anything. Thus between them they looked forward to a pleasant time to come, hoping for the best, and judging everyone ...
— Frida, or, The Lover's Leap, A Legend Of The West Country - From "Slain By The Doones" By R. D. Blackmore • R. D. Blackmore
... to tiptoe down again when he heard the words, spoken in the rebellious tones with which he was familiar, modulated now to an odd submissiveness: "I don't know whether I do or not. Isn't there something in the Bible about, 'Lord, I believe, help thou ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... completed the manufacture of the toothpick, planted himself in front of the fire and made good use of it for ten minutes or so: when apparently growing rather dull, he wished Mrs. Corney joy of her job, and took himself off on tiptoe. ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... she is better to-day? I will not make the least noise," whispered Helena, as she went up stairs on tiptoe. ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... woman was watching at his side. Some sense of her presence must have communicated itself to him, for he began to mutter in his sleep, now in English, now in Arabic. She became intensely interested; as her every movement showed. Then rising suddenly she glided across the room on tiptoe to look at me. Seeing her coming I feigned to be asleep, and so ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard
... How friends are raised up!' and with a smile that shone like an April sun through her tears, she stood on tiptoe, and kissed the tall young lady, who—not smiling, but with a pale and very troubled face—bowed down ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... have seen elsewhere. The Sabbath was a day of such solemn rest that one lived as it were in a dream. No food was cooked; even the tables in breakfast-room and dining-hall were laid on Saturday; no horse left the stables, the servants dressed in their sombrest and best, moved about on tiptoe, and talked in whispers. We children were taught to consider it sinful even to think our own thoughts on this holy day. If we boys ever forgot ourselves so far as to speak of things secular, there was Flora to ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables
... you." This was not the only time Jean had been asked to show the minister's belongings. Snecky Hobart, among others, had tried on Gavin's hat in the manse kitchen, and felt queer for some time afterwards. Women had been introduced on tiptoe to examine the handle of his umbrella. But Rob had not come to admire. He snatched the holly from Jean's hands, and casting it on the ground pounded it with his heavy boots, crying, "Greet as you like, Jean. That's the end o' his flowers, and if I had the ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... the 1st of May all London, I may say all England, and almost all the world was on tiptoe. Every man, woman, and child talked of "the Crystal Palace, the great exhibition, ...
— Young Americans Abroad - Vacation in Europe: Travels in England, France, Holland, - Belgium, Prussia and Switzerland • Various
... the pillow, and dead on his knees. But here is a great lion-tamer, living under the dash of the light, and his hair disheveled of the breeze, praying. The fact is, that a man can see further on his knees than standing on tiptoe. Jerusalem was about five hundred and fifty statute miles from Babylon, and the vast Arabian Desert shifted its sands between them. Yet through that open window Daniel saw Jerusalem, saw all between it, saw beyond, saw time, saw eternity, saw earth, and saw heaven. Would you like to ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... passed all too swiftly. Everybody, darkies and all, were on tiptoe about the coming festival of Christmas and New Year's. The six little Bunkers learned that these holidays were celebrated in different style on this Georgia plantation from what ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Mammy June's • Laura Lee Hope
... curiosity and feminine craft more signally displayed than in the slim little form creeping on tiptoe, the astute, piquante little face thrust forth into the dark. Across the landing she stole, and with deft fingers opened ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... over on Long Island, Carroll told his wife all, or nearly all. He did not tell her about the automatic pistol. And together on tiptoe they crept to the nursery and looked down at their sleeping children. When she rose from her knees the mother said, "But how can ...
— The Boy Scout and Other Stories for Boys • Richard Harding Davis
... others, as if seeking an explanation. Miss Bonnicastle broke the silence, saying they must have some tea, and calling upon Olga to help her in preparing it. For a minute or two the men were left alone. Florio, approaching Piers on tiptoe, ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... was on the slope of the bank. At the corner nearest him the house was sunk into the ground in such a way that it looked as though one might climb into the upper story window. As Dacres looked he made up his mind to attempt it. By standing here on tiptoe he could catch the upper window-ledge with his hands. He was strong. He was tall. His enemy was in the house. The hour was at hand. ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... while they browse on the herbage. In this attitude they hop gently along, the tail being pressed to the ground. On the least alarm they rise on the hind limbs, and bound to a distance with great rapidity. Sometimes, when excited, the old male of the great kangaroo stands on tiptoe and on his tail, and is then of prodigious height. It readily takes to the water, and swims well, often resorting to this mode of escape from its enemies, among which is the dingo, ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... hot; it had reached its height when 'Poleon laid a finger upon his lips, commanding silence. On tiptoe he led the two men into his tent. When he had issued instructions and left in search of a boatman the partners seated themselves awkwardly, their caps in their hands. Curiously, apprehensively, they studied the fever-flushed face of the ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... came slamming along into the warehouse I was only a few feet behind the milk maid!" began Jimmie. "I at once crept in on tiptoe, because I reasoned that he would be slugging along, making considerable noise. I didn't know that ...
— Boy Scouts in the North Sea - The Mystery of a Sub • G. Harvey Ralphson
... believe her ears. Cautiously she and her party advanced on tiptoe to the balustrade and looked down. Yes, there the pair of them were, now laughing, now in desperate earnest, practising the fox-trot to the music of ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... went back to the room on tiptoe. He took ten gold pieces from his table and wrapped them in the little letter. Then he went out again, very quietly, and slipped them all into the ...
— Fifty Famous People • James Baldwin
... And he watched her, stupefied, like one in a dream, and all the while she bathed him with intoxicating side glances shot like arrows from the bow of her arching brows. And at last, she came slowly towards him, walking on tiptoe, and attitudinising, placing herself exactly in the posture in which he had seen her first among the poppies on the wall, with one hand on her hip. And she said, lifting her brow, with a smile that stole his reason: Now, then, the idol ...
— An Essence Of The Dusk, 5th Edition • F. W. Bain
... these all awoke in him memories of his earliest years. In the corner of the room, hardly to be distinguished from the wainscot, was the high narrow door communicating with his mother's chamber, through which he had often, how often! seen her come in softly, on tiptoe, to take a look at him. His own children, too, had slept there; and it was here that he had last seen his little son and daughter before fleeing from his home a self-accused criminal. All the happy, prosperous life of Roland Sefton had been ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... sighs he took the key from the big bunch. When he had opened the door he stepped in first, and thought to cover the likeness so that the King might not perceive it; but it was hopeless: the King stood on tiptoe and looked over his shoulder. And when he saw the picture of the maid, so beautiful and glittering with gold and precious stones, he fell swooning to the ground. Trusty John lifted him up, carried him to bed, and thought sorrowfully: "The curse has come upon us; gracious heaven! ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... monastery of the Benedictines, whose little chapel stood open night and day for the prayers of those in trouble or in sadness, habited only by one of the elder brothers, who gave, if it were needed, advice, encouragement, or spiritual comfort. Removing his hat, the Prince entered into the silence on tiptoe, and kneeling before the altar, prayed devoutly for direction, asking the Almighty to turn the thoughts of His servant, Mayence, into channels that flowed towards peace and the relief of ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... lonely dwelling must be. The scud, however, had covered the moon once more, and the darkness was so pitchy black that I felt that I might reconnoitre a little more closely without fear of discovery. Walking on tiptoe I approached the little ...
— Uncle Bernac - A Memory of the Empire • Arthur Conan Doyle
... not even lift his eyes from the plow to watch the pinkness of her passing. But here in the prudish brick-minded city where the Young Spring at her friskiest is nothing more audacious than a sweltering, winter-swathed madcap, who has impishly essayed some fine morning to tiptoe down street in her soft, sloozily, green, silk-stockinged feet, the whole hob-nailed population reels back aghast and agrin before the most innocent flash of the rogue's green-veiled toes. And then, suddenly snatching off its own cumbersome ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... were Lord W——'s praises of his nephew! He called him, the glory of his sex, and of human nature. How the cheeks of the dear Emily glowed at the praises given to her guardian!—She was the taller for them: when she moved, it was on tiptoe; stealing as it were, across the floor, lest she should lose any thing that was said on a subject so delightful ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson
... world are, certainly, the drivers of post- office vans. Swinging down Lamb's Conduit Street, the scarlet van rounded the corner by the pillar box in such a way as to graze the kerb and make the little girl who was standing on tiptoe to post a letter look up, half frightened, half curious. She paused with her hand in the mouth of the box; then dropped her letter and ran away. It is seldom only that we see a child on tiptoe with pity—more often a dim discomfort, a grain of sand in the shoe which it's scarcely ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... little more than a year at Bath had but one memorable event, in its course, to me. I was looking one evening, at bedtime, over the banisters, from the upper story into the hall below, with tiptoe eagerness that caused me to overbalance myself and turn over the rail, to which I clung on the wrong side, suspended, like Victor Hugo's miserable priest to the gutter of Notre Dame, and then fell four stories down on the stone pavement of the hall. I was not killed, or apparently injured, ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... who was wounded. Wounded! she held her breath, listening curiously. The wind shrieking past drowned the rest; only the swelling of the organ murmured above it. She stole up the granite steps just within the entrance. No one was there to see her, and she went on tiptoe to the muffled door, putting her ear to it, her hair falling over her face. It was some plaintive minor air they were hymning, as sad as a dying wail, and as sweet ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... I'll walk on tiptoe; arm my eye with caution, My heart with courage, and my hand with weapon, Like him who ventures on a lion's den. ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... deaf," he said, pointing to the sacristan. Then running behind, him he stood on tiptoe and screamed in ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... daughter of Nisus, however, was driven by Juno to fall in love with Minos, her father's enemy; and, to win his love, she yields to the temptation of betraying her father to Minos. The picture of the girl when she had decided to cut the charmed lock of hair, groping her way in the dark, tiptoe, faltering, rushing, terrified at the fluttering of her own heart, is an interesting attempt ...
— Vergil - A Biography • Tenney Frank
... than another throng came in sight: a most gallant lord with his lady at his side, slowly advancing in state, to whom many men of position doffed, and many were on tiptoe with eagerness to show him obeisance and reverence. "Here is a noble lord," said I, "who is worthy such respect from all these!" "Wert thou to take everything to consideration thou wouldst speak differently. This lord comes from the Street of Pleasure, she is of the Street ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne
... stand on tiptoe would be to lie before the good Lord, and when you come to know me better you will learn that, though I have a dreadful temper and many other sins, I ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard
... nostrils pink as the inside of a shell, ears twitching, rider and mount one in every movement. Grit stood with plumy tail erect and waving gently, ears up, red tongue playing between white teeth, his eyes like jewels; braced on his feet, tiptoe on his pads, watching the parking of the private car with now and then a glance of ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... pew at one side of the pulpit. Eben Craig, who was the Putney singing master and felt himself responsible for the choir, fidgeted uneasily. He tried to catch Frances's eye, but she was absorbed in reading the mission report she had found in the rack, and Eben was finally forced to tiptoe down to the Spenslow pew and whisper, "Miss Spenslow, the minister is waiting for the doxology. Aren't you going to take ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... from the fact that the sturdy pioneer had been his father, had admired him much as one admires the work of a master magician—without any hope of emulation. As he read the note he could seem to see the old gentleman standing there with his hands behind him, ready to stretch on tiptoe and drop to his heels with a thump as he reached a climax, his spectacles shoved up on his forehead, his strong, wrinkled face stern from the cheek-bones down, but twinkling from that line upward, the twinkle, which had its seat about the shrewd eyes, suddenly terminating ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester
... and down, as if to see that there was no one nigh, and then, coming close to the Corn Engrosser, he stood on tiptoe and spake in his ear, "Thinkest thou in sooth that I am a beggar, as I seem to be? Look upon me. There is not a grain of dirt upon my hands or my face or my body. Didst thou ever see a beggar so? I tell thee I am ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... of his raiment from his shoulders, he bares the massive joints and limbs, the great bones and muscles, and stands up huge in the middle of the ground. Then Anchises' lordly seed brought out equal gloves and bound the hands of both in matched arms. Straightway each took his stand on tiptoe, and undauntedly raised his arms high in air. They lift their heads right back and away out of reach of blows, and make hand play through hand, inviting attack; the one nimbler of foot and confident in his youth, the other mighty ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... thing to lie in the wave of air under the punkah. Maybe Stanley had taught him all about this in barracks. At any rate, when the punkah stopped, Garin would first growl and cock his eye at the rope, and if that did not wake the man it nearly always did—he would tiptoe forth and talk in the sleeper's ear. Vixen was a clever little dog, but she could never connect the punkah and the coolie; so Garin gave me grateful hours of cool sleep. But—he was utterly wretched—as miserable ...
— Actions and Reactions • Rudyard Kipling
... inconveniences which at another time might have chafed their temper. Excepting the occasional brawls which we have mentioned among that irritable race the carmen, the mingled sounds which arose from the multitude were those of light-hearted mirth and tiptoe jollity. The musicians preluded on their instruments—the minstrels hummed their songs—the licensed jester whooped betwixt mirth and madness, as he brandished his bauble—the morrice-dancers jangled their bells—the rustics hallooed and whistled-men laughed loud, and maidens giggled shrill; ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... small silver coin, and containing a little compartment lined with crimson satin, wherein two gold dollars dwelt together in state, like a Mongolian king and queen. Then taking her basket on her arm, and thrusting her hands into her little muff, she stole down stairs on tiptoe, and made her escape from the house, unperceived by ...
— Stories of Many Lands • Grace Greenwood
... Nell's pupils flashed with joy like two little greenish flames. Standing on tiptoe, she placed both her hands on Stas' shoulders and, tilting her head backward, asked, gazing into ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... a curious passage in Home's Elements of Criticism, chap iv., in which the emotions excited by great and elevated objects are said to express themselves externally by a special inflating inspiration, and by stretching upward and standing "a-tiptoe'' respectively; also an article on "Recent Aesthetics', by Vernon Lee in the Quarterly Review, 1904, part ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... would have lighted a moss fire to cook the meat, the forbidding hand of a chief went up. No fires were to be lighted. The Indians advanced with whispers, dodging from stone to stone like raiders in ambush. Spies went forward on tiptoe. Then far down-stream below the cataracts Hearne descried the domed tent-tops of an Eskimo band sound asleep; for it was midnight, though the sun was at high noon. When Hearne looked back to his companions, he found himself deserted. The Indians were already wading the river for the west bank, ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut
... the hand and led him on tiptoe to the terrace, making him crouch down close to the open French window. The "Pastorale" was louder here. It never ceased, but returned again and again with the delicious monotony that made it memorable and wove a spell round those ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens
... the south, I should think the average stature of the French men (not women) to be quite an inch and a half below the average stature of America, and possibly two inches. At home, I did not find myself greatly above the medium height, and in a crowd I was always compelled to stand on tiptoe to look over the heads of those around me; whereas, here, I am evidently un grand, and can see across the Champs Elysees without any difficulty. You may remember that I stand as near as may be to five ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... with big black eyes," was Janet's answer; and, with his curiosity awakened, Henry Warner started for the parlor, Rose following on tiptoe, and listening through the half-closed door to what their visitor ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... to agree. As she curled up on the broad sofa her three little cousins came into the room. They came on tiptoe, very quietly, Donald leading the two younger boys. Their mother had told them that Cousin Faith was tired after her long journey, and that they must just kiss her ...
— A Little Maid of Ticonderoga • Alice Turner Curtis
... act in spite of herself, Audrey took Nick into the bedroom, and as soon as Musa had been introduced into the drawing-room she embraced Nick in silence and escorted her on tiptoe through Miss Ingate's bedroom to the vestibule and waved an adieu. Then she retraced her steps and made a grand entry into the drawing-room from her own bedroom. She meant to dispose of Musa immediately. A meeting between him and Mr. ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... Nic followed on tiptoe, thinking of how different he was, and wondering why so strong a feeling of dislike to him had sprung up: why, too, a man of bad character and a convict should be able to speak so well and take so much interest in ...
— First in the Field - A Story of New South Wales • George Manville Fenn
... poignant and polite. There is no woman, where there's no reserve; And 'tis on plenty your poor lovers starve. But with a modern fair, meridian merit Is a fierce thing, they call a nymph of spirit. Mark well the rollings of her flaming eye; And tread on tiptoe, if you dare draw nigh. "Or if you take a lion by the beard,(15) Or dare defy the fell Hyrcanian pard, Or arm'd rhinoceros, or rough Russian bear," First make your will, and then converse with her. This lady glories in profuse expense; And thinks distraction ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... turned somersaults, and the pencil scrawled over the slate. There was such a racket that the canary-bird woke up and began to sing, and that in verses. The only ones that did not stir were the tin soldier and the little dancer. She stood straight on tiptoe and stretched up both arms; he was just as steadfast on his one leg. He did not take his eyes from ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... had his bath, dressed and perfumed himself with the greatest care, and when eleven o'clock arrived he set out on tiptoe for the Suburranian Road. But he had reckoned without his host; or, rather, without his musician. Hardly had he gone four steps when the flute-player, who was attached to his service by night as well as day, darted from a post on which he was seated and went before, playing ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... She was dumb. God had done it and she deserved it. She heard nothing John said to her. All that long, long day she sat by her dead child, until in the darkening twilight some men came into the room on tiptoe. They had a small white coffin in their care, and placed it on a table near the bed. Then Jane stood up and if an unhappy soul had risen from the grave, it could not have shocked them more. She stood erect and looked at them. Her tall form, in its crushed white gown, ...
— The Measure of a Man • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... finished his business with the key, at once began with the bludgeon. The bludgeon was produced, and was handed up to the bench, and inspected by the Chief Justice. The instrument excited great interest. Men rose on tiptoe to look at it even from a distance, and the Prime Minister was envied because for a moment it was placed in his hands. As the large-eyed little boy who had found it was not yet six years old, there was a difficulty in perfecting the thread of the evidence. ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... Alphonso had received all its guests, the Count of La Marche, mounted on his war-horse, with his wife on the crupper behind him, and escorted by his men-at-arms also mounted, cross-bow in hand and in readiness for battle, was seen advancing to the prince's presence. Every one was on the tiptoe of expectation as to what would come next. Then the Count of La Marche addressed himself in a loud voice to the Count of Poitiers, saying, 'I might have thought, in a moment of forgetfulness and weakness, to render thee homage; but now I swear to thee, with ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... about to get me to promise him, in the presence of our mutual friends, that I would accomplish something of importance; as he knew if I once gave my word, that nothing would deter me from endeavouring to carry my promise into effect. Expectation was upon the tiptoe, every one seeming anxious to know what was the object of such a serious and almost solemn request. "Well," said he, "promise me then that you will never wear white breeches again!" Every one appeared thunder-struck, that the mountain had brought forth such a mouse. I had on ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt
... in bed, you know, lying down flat on my back, and mostly thinking about the angels. I do that a lot at night, I have no time in the day; I think of the angels, and Lord Jesus Christ, and heaven, and then father comes in. He opens the door soft, and he treads on tiptoe for fear I'm asleep, as if I could be! And then he kisses me, and I think in the whole of heaven there can never be an angel so good and beautiful as he is, and he says something to me which keeps me strong until the next night, when ...
— Daddy's Girl • L. T. Meade
... the shop on tiptoe. The last-maker gently opened the door and glanced out into the street. Some inhabitants had obeyed the order to light up their windows, and four or five lighted candles here and there flickered in the wind upon the sills of the windows. The street ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... A.M.—I sent off a few lines to you yesterday, to tell you of my very inopportune arrival off this town, at a moment when all the world, functionaries, &c., are on tiptoe expecting a new Captain-General to make his appearance at any hour. However, Castilian hospitality is not to be taken in default, and at 4 P.M. we landed with great ceremony, and after being conducted to the palace, and exchanging a few glances with the ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... Fetherston, as, standing on tiptoe, he examined the window-latch by flashing on the ...
— The Doctor of Pimlico - Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime • William Le Queux
... with laughing flowers Life's martyr-crown of thorns, and raises up The heart to hold communion with its God, 'Tis thine, this day, with golden clasp, to bind The volume of a life, where sterling worth And beauty go to make the story up. A maiden, one, who, when on tiptoe, sees Her history running through a line of Kings: In fame how excellent; in life how pure; As though the virtues of her ancestry Had found new utterance in her virtuous self. As rain-drops, trickling through the hills of Time, Commingling gather, till, in sparkling life, ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning
... crept up on the terrace and tried to peer in, but across each of the library windows the curtains were too closely drawn. There remained the small window at the end of the terrace. I crept on tiptoe towards this, feeling my way through the darkness by the front of the house. Suddenly I came to a full stop. I flattened myself against the stonework and held my breath. Some one else was on the terrace. What I had heard was unmistakable. It was the wind ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... there in the dark whispering, and then Bill couldn't stand it any longer, and 'e went over on tiptoe to the bunk ag'in. He was tremblin' with excitement and I wasn't much better, when all of a sudden the cook sat up in 'is bunk with a dreadful laughing scream and called out that ...
— Lady of the Barge and Others, Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... more bold than the rest ventured to pass the door and to advance on tiptoe. This example was imitated by the rest, until the room filled silently, as if these men had been the humblest, most devoted courtiers. Far beyond the door the heads of those who were not able to enter could be seen, all craning to their utmost ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... there, a very bad tooth in the jaw of a certain King; not to be extracted by the best kinds of forceps and the skilfulest art, for nearly a month to come. Four Armies, Friedrich's, Henri's, Daun's, Zweibruck's, all within sword-stroke of each other,—the universal Gazetteer world is on tiptoe. But except Friedrich's eager shiftings and rubbings upon Stolpen (west side, north, and at length northeast side), all is dead-lock, and ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle
... mountains and lakes, and at last he came to the brink of this world. 'Hold,' cried he, 'my son, you know my power, and that it is impossible to kill me.' What is this but the diurnal combat of light and darkness, carried on from what time 'the jocund morn stands tiptoe on the misty mountain-tops,' across the wide world to the sunset, the struggle that knows no end, for both the opponents ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske
... manager was in entanglements of tactful consideration, and then the nurse came for instructions upon some trivial matter. They had done what usage prescribes and now, in the absence of other direction, they appealed to her wishes. She remarked that everyone was going on tiptoe and speaking ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... the hay-loft. The sound didn't carry far; it was controlled, suppressed; but Bruce had gone up the ladder for something or other, I forget just what, and, thinking Priscilla was in trouble, he kept on. The girl crying, face down in the hay, wasn't Priscilla. Very softly Bruce started to tiptoe away, but the rustling of the hay under ...
— The Camerons of Highboro • Beth B. Gilchrist
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