"Ajar" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... bundle, even when she decided to take the white muslin dress, and the coral beads. She heard Captain Enos and Aunt Martha go to their chamber, and then, holding "Martha Stoddard" and the bundle in her arms, crept down the narrow stairway. The outer door stood ajar to admit the cool fragrant air, and in a moment Anne was running along the sandy track that led through the little settlement. It was still early, but there was not a light to be seen in any of the small gray houses. The ...
— A Little Maid of Massachusetts Colony • Alice Turner Curtis
... natives supposed it, occurred. Among the presents offered by the king was ajar of honey; this one of the servants upset without breaking the pot. Had it been broken, the omen would have been unfortunate; as it was, the governor was highly pleased, and ordered the poor to be called in to lick up the honey. They rushed in, squabbling among themselves. ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... of afternoon prayer, and sore was my concern and my chagrin, for I knew that there abode to me of my life but [till] the morrow, when the chief of the police would seek me. When it was the time of sundown, I passed through one of the streets, and beheld a woman at a window. Her door was ajar and she was clapping her hands and casting furtive glances at me, as who should say, "Come up by the door." So I went up, without suspicion, and when I entered, she rose and clasped me to her breast 1 marvelled at her affair and ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... felt my obduracy to be. For years and years, the idea of an interview with Queen Victoria had haunted his poor foolish mind; and now, when he really stood on English ground, and the palace-door was hanging ajar for him, he was expected to turn brick, a penniless and bamboozled simpleton, merely because an iron-hearted consul refused to lend him thirty shillings (so low had his demand ultimately sunk) to buy a second-class ticket on the ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... found themselves before the door. It stood ajar. Inside sat a sergeant at a flat-top desk. He, too, was of the cavalry. There were also two privates ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys in the Ranks - or, Two Recruits in the United States Army • H. Irving Hancock
... went out for half an hour. Again he nodded in silence. He heard her lock from the inside the door which opened from the staircase upon the street, for it was already late. Then she came through the common room again, with her overskirt over her head, went out, and left the door ajar. Dalrymple was alone in the house, unaware that Annetta was lying dead on the ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... of June The gates of memory unbar: The flowers of June Such old-time harmonies retune, I fain would keep the gates ajar,— So full of sweet enchantment are [20] The flowers ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... sample refrigerator was ajar only two or three feet. When Orme was there a few minutes before it had been wide open. He wondered whether the girl had chosen it as her hiding-place. If she had, his plan of action would be simplified, for he would slip the papers in to her, then ...
— The Girl and The Bill - An American Story of Mystery, Romance and Adventure • Bannister Merwin
... back as before and plunged again into his work. This time she found the door ajar and entered noiselessly, as she had learned to move. He was hard at work; she admired his swift movements that seemed premeditated, the ease with which the picture before him was rowing. Surely he had a man's power, now, to ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick
... and the room was consequently dark; yet by and by he knew, though he heard no sound, that his door had opened. He cried out, "Who is that?" but got no answer. By an effort he jumped up and went to the door, which was ajar. His bedroom was on the first floor, and looking up the stairs he could see nothing. He felt a cold sensation at his heart, however, when he looked the other way. Going slowly and without a sound down the stairs, ...
— My Lady Nicotine - A Study in Smoke • J. M. Barrie
... was the worst jolt I ever had. All I could do was to sit there with my mouth ajar and watch him prancin' up and down, handin' me ...
— Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... father's wife, the new mother, it fell to me to take the head of the table. It was truly a stimulating conversation, intellectual, and, like all clerical conversations, vivaciously amusing; and it swept me in, unconsciously. I think this occurred after I had written "The Gates Ajar." ...
— McClure's Magazine, January, 1896, Vol. VI. No. 2 • Various
... if her life depended on it, ran with both arms and legs, until she reached the door; there she placed one leg on the high doorstep, fastened her garter, and then rushed into the house. She reappeared immediately afterwards with two doors ajar behind her and called long before she reached the threshold, that the gentleman would be there in a moment; then she sat down on the doorstep, leaned against the wall, and peered at the strangers from underneath one of ...
— Mogens and Other Stories - Mogens; The Plague At Bergamo; There Should Have Been Roses; Mrs. Fonss • Jens Peter Jacobsen
... singing,' returned Miss Locke, smiling. 'The street door was just ajar, and Kitty crept in and curled herself up on the mat. It sounded so beautiful, you see; for Kitty and I only hear singing at church, and it is not often I can get there, with Phoebe wanting me; so it did us both good, you may be ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... scarcely have appalled him more. Madame Dalibard did not see the involuntary spy; for the recess in which he had crept was on that side of the wall on which the moon's shadow was cast. With a quick step she turned into another room, opposite that which she had quitted, the door of which stood ajar, and vanished noiselessly ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... bumped into the timbers of the bulkhead. Inching himself along, he came to the small door which had been cut into the hold to connect with the main hatch. He had slipped the iron bar behind him during his flight with Jack Cockrell. Pulling the door ajar he wormed through into the storeroom which was also dark as midnight. His fingers touched what seemed to be a tierce of beef but he had no tools to start the head or the hoops. In the same manner he discovered other casks and barrels ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... the door gingerly ajar for half a second, trying to think of a neat and appropriate epigram, but at that particular moment, for the life of him, he couldn't hit on one. So he closed the door after him quietly, and walking out alone into ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... room, which was four doors from mine in the same hall; then I went back and put on my muddy day-laborer disguise, darkened my complexion, and sat down in my room in the gloom, with a gripsack handy, with a change in it, and my door ajar. For I suspected that the bird would take wing now. In half an hour an old woman passed by, carrying a grip: I caught the familiar whiff, and followed with my grip, for it was Fuller. He left the hotel by a side entrance, and at the corner he turned up an unfrequented street and walked three ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... she come at last to the end of the far-reaching garden, Where stood the arbor embowered in woodbine; nor there did she find him, More than she had hitherto in all her search through the garden. But the wicket was standing ajar, which out of the arbor, Once by particular favor, had been through the walls of the city Cut by a grandsire of hers, the worshipful burgomaster. So the now dried-up moat she next crossed over with comfort, Where, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... through that plague-smitten street, burdened with a new fear. Soon we saw a house on the riverside which looked absolutely empty. The shades were up, the windows open, the door stood ajar. I hesitated; plucked up courage; resolved that we must get to the waterside in some way in order to escape from the net of death ...
— The Valley of Vision • Henry Van Dyke
... was evidently in a difficulty what to answer. She hesitated, and looked this way and that, still holding the door ajar, but not inviting Harry into the house. The old man waited a few moments, and then he said, "If you please, ma'am, am I to understand as you don't know nothing about my young master, Mr Amos, and where ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson
... heart beating, hurried home. The house door was still ajar. She pushed it back, slipped inside, caught her breath and listened. Then she closed the door softly behind her, and with that little act of attempted secrecy realised that she was now a rebel, that things could never be, for her, the same again as they had been a quarter ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... numerously paned windows on each side. On top of the porch a sign-board—done by Slivers in the early days, and looking like it—bore the legend 'Slivers, mining agent.' The door did not shut—something was wrong with it, so it always stood ajar in a hospitable sort of manner. Entering this, a stranger would find himself in a dark low-roofed passage, with a door at the end leading to the kitchen, another on the right leading to the bedroom, and ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... cried under his breath, and he shuffled out of the room and crept noiselessly down the stairs to the front door. The door creaked a little in opening, and he left it ajar. The current of cold air that swept up to the companions he had left behind at his room door brought them the noise of his rush down the gravel walk to the gate and a noise there as of fugitive steps ...
— The Daughter of the Storage - And Other Things in Prose and Verse • William Dean Howells
... approached by a long flight of steps, was an impossible means of ingress, but Aura fortunately knew of a smaller door at the side which led into the basement of the building. This door they found slightly ajar. It was open so little, however, that they could not get past, and as they were not strong enough even with their combined efforts, to swing the door open, they were again brought ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings
... the other end of the passage had not been locked, and the door stood ajar. Colwyn entered it, and by the glancing light of the torch looked over the heavy furniture, mouldering linen, and stiffly upended bedpoles and curtain rods which nearly filled the room. The clock of a bygone generation stood on the mantel-piece, and the black winding hole in its white face seemed ...
— The Shrieking Pit • Arthur J. Rees
... warn you?" We had seated ourselves at either side of a small, rough table, I on the edge of the bed, Blaise on a three-legged stool. For a moment I sat returning Blaise's gaze across the table; then noticing that the maid had left the door of our chamber slightly ajar, I arose and walked stealthily to the crack, through which I could see a part of the kitchen below. Blaise remained seated at the ...
— An Enemy To The King • Robert Neilson Stephens
... soberly at each other, and Tom went over to the door of the private office, which stood ajar, ...
— Tom Slade with the Colors • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... securely on, I was left to content me as I could, with the door ajar and my two jailers hobnobbing before it. Having done all I had hoped to do, there was nothing for it now but to wait upon the consequences. So, hitching my chair up to the oaken table, I made a pillow of my fettered wrists and ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... me that I might safely steal up to my sisters' room, as they were now alone, since Miss F. had the previous night removed to the spare bedroom, where she was now fast asleep. So softly opening my door, and leaving it ajar, I crept along the passage, gained my sisters' room, and gently awakening them, jumped in between them, to their great joy and satisfaction. We immediately began with a gamahuche, I taking Mary's ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... the door and looked at Mr. Audley rather suspiciously as she asked him, very much through her nose, what he pleased to want. The door of the little sitting room was ajar, and Robert could hear the clattering of knives and forks and the childish voice of little George prattling gayly. He told the servant that he had come from London, that he wanted to see Master Talboys, and that he would announce himself; and walking past her, without ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... corridors as I musingly looked down from one of the arched openings, quite spellbound by the strangeness and dead silence of the place, broken only by the plash of waves on the sandy beach below. I had found my way down through a wooden door half ajar; and I thought of the possibility of some one's shutting it for the night, and leaving me a prisoner to await the spectres which I have no doubt throng here when it grows dark. Hastening up out of these chambers of the past, I escaped into the upper air, and walked rapidly home through ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... a shock when he came suddenly upon the cabin, in the edge of a small clearing. For a moment he hesitated. Then he took Isobel in his arms and went to the door. It was slightly ajar, and after knocking upon it with his fist he thrust it open ...
— Isobel • James Oliver Curwood
... the house by the door, which they left ajar, and immediately found themselves again on the moorland road that had brought them from Haillar. This time they continued ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... The smith put himself in motion, with a sigh much resembling a groan, and, without appearing exactly connected with the monk's motions, he followed him into a cloister, and through a postern door, which, after looking once behind him, the priest left ajar. Behind them followed Louise, who had hastily assumed her small bundle, and, calling her little four legged companion, had eagerly followed in the path which opened an escape from what had shortly before seemed a ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... noticed that Lawson's door was ajar, and that a light had been left burning. I had the unpardonable curiosity to peep in. The room was empty, and the bed had not been slept in. Now I knew whose were the footsteps outside ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... narrow and odorous corridor, running from front to rear of the basement. One or two doors open or ajar furnished all its light. Trying the first at a venture, P. Sybarite discovered what seemed a servant's bedroom, untenanted. The other introduced him to a kitchen of generous proportions and elaborate appointments—cool, airy, and aglow with glistening ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... it, and, as the waiting-maid had left it slightly ajar, I could see the new-comers. I closed it, and slid the bolt into ...
— The Count's Chauffeur • William Le Queux
... markers, and the transfer of ivory "chips" from card to card of the sweat-cloth, impressed him as the dullest form of vice he had ever found. Treading softly up the stairs, he was attracted by the light of a door partly ajar, and a deep groan, as of a dying person. He peeped through the crack of the door and beheld Joyce Basil leaning over an old man, whose brow she moistened with her handkerchief. "Dear father," he heard her say, and ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... silently, keeping well within the shadow of the wall, he sidled to the door which he had left ajar. Soundlessly he pushed it open, passed in and as soundlessly closed it again. For a moment he stood leaning heavily against its timbers, his breath coming in short panting sobs. Then he steadied himself and turning, ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini
... we were all enjoying a social chat before a blazing grate in the dining-room, and I was sitting near the kitchen door, that was ajar, where were their slaves in hearing. In their presence I had avoided answering some of his questions, but now a question was put within their hearing, which seemed to demand a square reply, ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland
... land, sailing into the sun, Into the crimson portals ajar when life is done? O! dear dead race, my spirit too Would fain sail ...
— Flint and Feather • E. Pauline Johnson
... the door of Miss Verinder's bedroom, standing ajar. She had put out her light. She controlled herself nobly. The dim white outline of her summer dress was all that I could see. Nobody who had not known it beforehand would have suspected that there was a living creature in the room. She ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... just signifies that you should see how magnificently we have settled ourselves for nights, and dressing, and when it does rain," said Sin Saxon, throwing back a door behind her, that stood a little ajar. It opened directly into a small apartment, half parlor and half dressing-room, from which doors showed others, on ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... The safe was ajar, and Holmes standing in front of it was removing dossier after dossier, swiftly examining each, and then packing it neatly in Von Bork's valise. The German lay upon the sofa sleeping stertorously with a strap round his upper arms and another ...
— His Last Bow - An Epilogue of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... obeyed the summons. His employer retreated into the further apartment, leaving the door ajar. ...
— Anna the Adventuress • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the upper story on the side toward the garden. In the smaller one Roswitha was sleeping with Annie and their door was standing ajar. She herself walked to and fro in the larger one, which she occupied. The lower casements of the windows were open and the little white curtains were blown by the draft and slowly fell over the back of the chair, till another puff of wind came and raised them again. It was so light ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... passed Mr. Llewellyn Stanhope, who stood in his path with a hostile stare and got out of it with a deferential bow, and knocked at a door upon which was pasted the name, in large red letters cut from a poster, of Miss Hilda Howe. It was a little ajar, so he entered, when she cried, "Come in!" with the less hesitation. Hilda sat on the single chair the place contained in the dress and make-up of the last scene. A Mohammedan servant, who looked up incuriously, was unlacing her shoes. Various garments hung about on nails driven ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... impressive, and Balder struck the pillar sharply with his palm, merely for the sake of hearing a noise. There was no answering sound, so, after a moment's hesitation, he walked to the door,—which stood ajar,—purposing to call in the aid of bell and knocker. Neither of these civilized appliances was to be found. While debating whether to use his voice or to enter and use his eyes, the note of the hoopoe fell on his ear. An instant after came an answering note, deeper, ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... of a French governor of the Low Archipelago is in the basin, the door ajar, and the spray blinding her to my presence. She is seventeen, cafe au lait—beaucoup de lait, kohl-eyed, meter-tressed, and slim-bodied. She sings the himene of the battle of the limes and coal and potatoes, with ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... been greatly troubled by the conduct of our mediums, and often puzzled by their careful prepared attempts at fraud. Mediums we have met and loved, because they have given us proof after proof of the 'gates ajar' for angel visitors, have been presently detected in frauds that required days of careful preparation. We have cried, 'Down with the frauds!' and insisted that they should return to wash-tub and spade for an ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, July 1887 - Volume 1, Number 6 • Various
... two or three minutes, and just before that approving "good" had responded to the Parson's popular sentiment, a door communicating with an inner room had been gently opened, and stood ajar; but this incident neither party had even noticed. But now the door was thrown boldly open, and the traveler whom the Parson had met at the inn walked up to Mr. Dale, and said, "No! that's not the end of the matter. You say the boy's a 'cute ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... helps to weave the soft quadrille; Ah! leave the parlour door ajar; Those thirsting eyes shall take their fill, And ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)
... smoke, through which Peter dimly made out a table with an oil lamp, beside which were chairs, a sofa, and beyond, a steel safe between the windows. As Peter Nichols entered, a man advanced from a window at the side, the shutter of which was slightly ajar. It was evident that not content to leave his safety in the hands of those he had employed to preserve it, he had ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs
... her a check and went to his own rooms. Bessie faithfully tidied up the studio, set the door ajar for flight, emptied half a bottle of turpentine on a duster, and began to scrub the face of the Melancolia viciously. The paint did not smudge quickly enough. She took a palette-knife and scraped, following each stroke with the wet duster. In five minutes the picture was a formless, ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... great greenhouse and came to its entrance without meeting with anyone at all. A door stood ajar, so Hank went in first, thinking if there was any danger he could back out and warn his companion. But Betsy was close at his heels and the moment she entered was lost in amazement at the ...
— Tik-Tok of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... thus? A man was cleaning it. The bridge is not as big as the Tower Bridge, but it is very big, and the man was cleaning it with a little rag. He was cleaning the under part, the mechanisms and contraptions that can only be got at when the bridge is thus ajar. He cleaned without haste and without exertion, and as I watched him I considered the mightiness of the works of Man contrasted with His Puny Frame. I also asked him when I should ...
— Hills and the Sea • H. Belloc
... while she explained that what in my half-awakened state I had taken for two faces were nothing but two Dutch china vases, standing on the top of a high old-fashioned cabinet in a corner of the room. The door having been left slightly ajar, a ray of light from the lamp on the landing had penetrated into the room, just catching the cabinet, while leaving everything ...
— A Christmas Posy • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth
... as he proposed during the next few minutes, while the girls approached the deserted dwelling, with the hamper. The lower front windows were boarded, and the door closed. But the door giving entrance from the side porch was ajar. ...
— Ruth Fielding and the Gypsies - The Missing Pearl Necklace • Alice B. Emerson
... garden to the door of the house, which stood ajar. She pushed it open, and looked in; then, turning round, she said: "She is not here, sir; but she is close at hand. Wait here till I go and fetch her." She went to a house a little farther up the hill, and I presently saw her returning with another female, of slighter build, lower in stature, and ...
— Romano Lavo-Lil - Title: Romany Dictionary - Title: Gypsy Dictionary • George Borrow
... Frances left her door ajar as Maggie had directed, and stood before the glass to see if anything could be done to make herself more attractive in his eyes. It did not seem so, considering the lack of embellishments. She turned ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden
... bolting the door behind him. No one can now surprise him, no one can fall upon him from behind. But yes, there is also a door on each side, right and left. He listens at the first, he thinks he hears a light breathing; here also he quickly shoves a bolt and passes over to the other door, which stands ajar. Cautiously he pushes it open and looks in. A small, dull lamp is burning there, lighting the lovely face of ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... was ajar. She pushed it softly. It creaked and let her through into the silent street. There were no lights in the hotel, no lights in any of ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... Big stones had been chiseled roughly into shape to build the walls, and the flooring was as dry as the floor of the house. It was, on the whole, a very solid bit of work. A good place to imprison a man, for instance. At this thought Dozier glanced up sharply and saw the other holding the trapdoor ajar. Something about that implacable, bony face made Dozier turn and hurry back up the stairs to the main floor of ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... Miss Pritchard began, when she was interrupted by a knock on the door, which she had left ajar (greatly to Kate's approval), and ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray
... hour had come. Still the doctor did not move. Having been obliged to wait himself, he wished, in revenge, to make the others wait, and it was not until the cafe closed that he again walked up the Rue de Courcelles. Madame Leon had left the gate ajar, and the doctor had no difficulty in making his way into the courtyard. As in the earlier part of the evening, the servants were assembled in the concierge's lodge; but the careless gayety which shone upon their faces a few hours before had given ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... haven't you told me this before?—But, of course, it's a lie! (She goes to the door leading into the church and pushes it ajar.) Look at him, mother—there he is! Can that be an evil spirit speaking out of his mouth? Can that be a hellish flame burning in his eyes? Can lies be told with trembling lips? Does darkness shed light—can't you see the halo about his head? You are wrong! I feel it ...
— Master Olof - A Drama in Five Acts • August Strindberg
... some person or persons when the door was thrust ajar, followed by the scrape of chairs on a stone floor, as if pushed back by their occupiers in rising from a table. The door was closed again, and nothing could now be heard from within, save a lively chatter and ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... fainted," she said, closing the door which she still held slightly ajar, as if that ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... passage and throws them most out of the way when they are open. Seclusion for the inmates is the chief service of chamber doors, and they should be placed and hung so as not to give a direct glimpse across the bed or into the room the moment they are set even slightly ajar. Closet doors are screens simply, and ought to hide the interior of the closet when they are partially open, as well as when they are closed. They may be as light as it is possible to make them. In many houses one-half the doors might wisely be sent to the auction-room and ...
— The House that Jill Built - after Jack's had proved a failure • E. C. Gardner
... though soldier-like leave of his comrade, who, however, lent him his arm down the stairs, which were rather steep; and having with difficulty dissuaded him from walking into the clock, the door of which was ajar, thought it his duty to see the gallant little lieutenant home to his lodgings; and so in the morning good little Puddock's head ached. He had gone to bed with his waistcoat and leggings on—and his watch was missing and despaired of, till discovered, ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... stable—it is not far; The moss grown door is hanging ajar. Look within! There's an empty stall, Where once stood a charger, and ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... grumbling, he flung open the door, which the Breton had left ajar, and stalked in upon us, fuming and blowing out his cheeks for all the world like a bantam cock with its feathers erect. He was a short, pursy man; with a short nose, a wide face, and small eyes. But had he been Caesar ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... and attacked Gates at Bemis Heights, or, as a British wit had it, "gave Gates ajar," near Saratoga. A wavering fight occupied the day, and then both armies turned in and fortified for two weeks. Burgoyne saw that he was running out of food, and so ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye
... the corridor they came upon a large doorway fitted with folding doors, one leaf of which was ajar, and through the aperture the notes of the organ softly played floated out to them. With the tips of his fingers Phil gently pushed the door a trifle wider open, and, peering in, saw that they were indeed ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... the door to; pulled off his over-coat; wrenched off his outer 'kerchief; slammed them on a branch of the clothes-tree; banged his hat on top of them; wheeled about; pushed in the door of his library; strode in, and, leaving the door ajar, threw himself into an easy chair, and sat there in the fire-reddened dusk, with his white brows knit, and his arms tightly locked on his breast. The ghost had followed him, sadly, and now stood motionless in a corner of ...
— The Ghost • William. D. O'Connor
... whimpering muttering as he neared the galley, the door of which was ajar, and he heard the cook ...
— Steve Young • George Manville Fenn
... which leaves Slumberleigh station for London a little after twelve, is not there?" asked Charles, with great distinctness, of the butler as he entered the hall. He had observed as he came in that the dining-room door was ajar. ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... leaves rattled in the verandah. In the midst of this Kokua was aware of another sound; whether of a beast or of a man she could scarce tell, but it was as sad as death, and cut her to the soul. Softly she arose, set the door ajar, and looked forth into the moonlit yard. There, under the bananas, lay Keawe, his mouth in the dust, and ...
— Island Nights' Entertainments • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the maid holding the door ajar and leaning against it, her pale face, framed in a tangle of soft hair, showing traces of the wearing troubles of ...
— The Road to Frontenac • Samuel Merwin
... that he was all anxiety for an interior view, and the same feeling animated Mortimer. As they were about to enter, they were not a little surprised to find that houses which are spoken of so publicly, have in general the appearance of private dwellings, with the exception that the hall-door is left ajar during the hours usually devoted to play, like those of trap-cages, to catch the passing pigeons, and to obviate the delay which might be occasioned by the necessity of knocking—a delay which might expose the customers to the glances of an unsuspecting creditor—a confiding ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... female companion and with great vigilance keeps off all those who wish to approach her. When the laying becomes imminent, the Rhodius, swimming up and down at the bottom of the stream, at length discovers a Unio. The bivalve is asleep with his shell ajar, not suspecting the plot which is being formed against him. It is a question of nothing less than of transforming him into furnished lodgings. The female fish bears underneath her tail a prolongation of the oviduct; she introduces it delicately ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay
... vigil, gossiping affably with such employees as passed. The place seemed deserted; no doubt all the guests were downstairs. Treading lightly on the thick carpet, I went down the hall to Room four hundred and three, and found the door ajar ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... but ajar, and secured by three chains, between which the boy crept; the keeper standing and looking on, with one arm leaning on the middle chain, and his head only ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... in the front room a-pantin' an' a-gaspin' an' a-wond'rin' whether it wuz true. As he wuz thinkin', up comes the girl to get a clean tablecloth out of the clothes-press, an' she left the door ajar as she come in. Bill he gave a sniff, an' his eyes grew more natural-like; he gathered together all the strength he had, an' he raised himself up on one elbow, an' ...
— Second Book of Tales • Eugene Field
... which led to a sort of gallery above. After a little hesitation he ascended; his country manners showing a determination to persevere, until fairly delivered of his errand. A door at the extremity of the gallery stood ajar, and through this he made bold to enter. A Numidian slave, dwarfish and deformed, was sweeping his master's chamber. He stopped short as the barbarian, with a stupid and wondering look, entered the apartment. After surveying the new comer with an air of deliberate scrutiny, the dwarf ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... down which he had noisily twisted his enormous figure, with some amusement, as always, had brought him to the dining room. This was situated between the kitchen and his father's and mother's bedroom. The door of each of these stood ajar, and some of the warmth of the stove on one side and of the grate on the other dried and tempered ...
— The Reign of Law - A Tale of the Kentucky Hemp Fields • James Lane Allen
... very good to me, Nan—pushed the gate of Paradise at least ajar. And if it closes now, I've no earthly right to grumble. . . . After all, I'm only one amongst your many friends." He reclaimed her hands and drew them against his breast. "Good-bye, beloved," he said. His voice sounded rough ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... sand on which, in places, grows the stiff beach grass—struggle; dogged growing against odds. At right of the big sliding door is a drift of sand and the top of buried beach grass is seen on this. There is a door left, and at right of big sliding door is a slanting wall. Door in this is ajar at rise of curtain, and through this door BRADFORD and TONY, life-savers, are seen bending over a man's body, attempting to restore respiration. The captain of the life-savers comes into view outside the big open door, at left; he appears to have ...
— Plays • Susan Glaspell
... practice as a means of discovering guilt, at least as late as the middle of the seventeenth century—that of the Ordeal by Touch. In Young Benjie another test is applied to find the murderer; and at midnight the door of the death-chamber is set ajar, so that the wandering spirit may enter and reanimate for an ...
— The Balladists - Famous Scots Series • John Geddie
... stealthily Lady Constance crept to the postern door. Behind her fell a shadow athwart the floor, a shadow that was not hers but of one that moved as warily. She listened as she held the door ajar, fearing to look back. As she thrust the door wide, a figure from without moved ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... relation of all its citizens to each other. In the country districts, especially, no one of my years can watch what is going on without a thrilling sense, as though, for us who are nearing the last stage of life, the closed door of the future had fallen mysteriously ajar and one caught a glimpse through it of a coming world which no one could have dreamt of before 1914. Here, for instance, is a clumsy, speechless laborer of thirty-five, called up under the Derby scheme two years ago. He was first in France and is now in Mesopotamia. On his first leave ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... duodecimos. Over the central bookcase was a bronze bust of Hippocrates, with which, according to some authorities, Doctor Heidegger was accustomed to hold consultations in all difficult cases of his practice. In the obscurest corner of the room stood a tall and narrow oaken closet, with its door ajar, within which doubtfully appeared a skeleton. Between two of the bookcases hung a looking-glass, presenting its high and dusty plate within a tarnished gilt frame. Among many wonderful stories related of this mirror, it was fabled that the spirits of ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... and took the pail to milk Brindle. What was her surprise to find the barn door open, and when she looked into the building she saw that their young horse, Chester, was missing. He had pushed the barn door ajar and disappeared. She dropped her pail, ran into the house, and told her mother the news. Mrs. Spink thought it best to inform her husband of the occurrence, though he was ...
— The Kentucky Ranger • Edward T. Curnick
... did,' said Victor, and he thought that instantaneously of the thing done. 'Oh, then she spoke to him! She has kept it from me. For now nearly a week—six days—I've seen her spying for something she expected, like a face behind a door three inches ajar. She has not been half alive; she refused explanations;—she was expecting to hear from him, of him:—the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... of great interest to one of them at least. Miss Strange had come in an automobile and had been shown her room; but there was nobody to accompany her down-stairs afterward, and, finding herself alone in the great hall, she naturally moved toward the library, the door of which stood ajar. She had pushed this door half open before she noticed that the room was already occupied. As a consequence, she was made the unexpected observer of a beautiful ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... by and by breakfast was ready, but the Master had not appeared yet, so they waited a bit. After a while the maid slips to His room door and taps lightly, but there's no answer; again a little bolder knock, then pushing the door ajar she finds the room unoccupied. Where's the Master? "Ah!" Peter says; "I think I know. I have noticed before this that He has a way of slipping off early in the morning to some quiet place where He can be alone." ...
— Quiet Talks on Prayer • S. D. (Samuel Dickey) Gordon
... door ajar and Moll pacing the room very white, when I returned. She checked me the moment I essayed ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... sure to inquire the reason; and, besides, his hair was very rough, and there was a suspicious-looking red mark on his left cheekbone. However, he was no sooner inside the house than he ran straight up-stairs to his mother. Her bedroom door was just ajar, and hearing a strange voice proceeding from the room. Harry knew some one was with her; so he sat down on the stairs, hoping that it would not be long before he might go in to see her. His heart was bursting to tell her all. He could keep it a secret no longer. To-morrow ...
— Wilton School - or, Harry Campbell's Revenge • Fred E. Weatherly
... of this conversation, the door of the room, which was ajar, slowly opened. Thyrza looked round and saw in the aperture a tiny white figure. It was the Melrose baby, standing silent, wide-eyed, with its fingers in its mouth, and Anastasia behind it. Anastasia, whose look was still thunderous, explained ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the stairs and soon reached the door, which had been left slightly ajar for air, for the evening was sultry. She pushed it open with her foot, since her hands were so full, and with her eyes fixed on the articles she was carrying so as to drop nothing, she crossed the small room to a table and put them down ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... Pausanias hastily traversed the long passage that communicated with a square peristyle or colonnade, which again led, on the one hand, to the more public parts of the villa, and, on the other, through a small door left ajar, conducted by a back entrance, to the garden and the sea-shore. Pursuing the latter path, the Spartan bounded down the descent and came upon an opening in the foliage, in which Lysander was seated beside the boat that had been drawn partially on ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton
... door, until at last the gaoler stopped, threw back six bolts, inserted a key, unlocked the door, and pushed it ponderously open. The lantern showed it to be built like the door of a safe, but unlike that of a safe it opened inwards. As soon as the door came ajar Lermontoff heard the sound of flowing water, and when the three entered, he noticed a rapid little stream sparkling in the rays of the lantern at the further end of the cell. He saw a shelf of rock and a stone bench before it. The gaoler placed his hands on a black loaf, while the ...
— A Rock in the Baltic • Robert Barr
... directed to go there on an errand, to contrive to be late, and to return with him. She had half an hour to spare and was curious to know what the prayer-meeting was like. She stood close to the inner door, which was slightly ajar, and heard her master praying earnestly. He rose and spoke to the little congregation for five minutes. When he had finished she started for home, and he came up with her before she had passed the last house. It was nearly dark, but he recognised ...
— More Pages from a Journal • Mark Rutherford
... that The Masque was just on the point of entering the seneschal's room. No other door was heard to open; and he felt assured that he had seen the lofty figure of The Masque gliding into that apartment. He again quickened his steps; a light burned within, the door stood ajar; quietly the prince pushed it open, and entered with the fullest assurance that he should here at length overtake the object ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... brushwood, we might expect to find a secret cabin, a wadded cell where the Spider would take refuge in her hours of leisure. The reality is something entirely different. The long funnel-neck gapes at its lower end, where a private door stands always ajar, allowing the animal, when hard-pushed, to escape through the grass and gain ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre
... easily be a reality. When she looked about for her hat and umbrella, she discovered, to her great relief, that she was alone, Oscar having apparently slipped out after his mother, the kitchen door being ajar. Mavis drew on her gloves, stopped her ears with her fingers as she passed along the passage, opened the door and ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... yards of the high fence bounding the ground, and there stopped abruptly and entirely. In the fence, a little to the right of where the tracks stopped, there was a stout door. This Hewitt tried, and found ajar. ...
— Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison
... hearts, but to which, in many cases, the young hero accommodates himself sweetly and courageously. And amid the storms and burdens of middle life there are many times when we would fain push open the door that stands ajar, and behind which there is ease for all our pains, or at least rest, if nothing more. But age, which has gone through both these phases, is apt, out of long custom and habit, to regard the matter from a different ...
— Old Lady Mary - A Story of the Seen and the Unseen • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant
... and the wind filled the spacious building, and forced its way in at the kitchen-door, which stood ajar. And at last there was such a pressure of air that the doors in the other end of the stable also burst open; and now the west wind rushed triumphantly right through the building, swinging the lantern that hung from the roof, whisking the ostler's ...
— Norse Tales and Sketches • Alexander Lange Kielland
... demand, however, of a missionary to whom even the king had shown favor, was not to be denied. D'Aulnay had the gates set ajar; and pushing through their aperture came in Father Jogues with his donne ...
— The Lady of Fort St. John • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... "You are going to make a beginning to-night," he said. "You have been poisoned by that stuff long enough, and I am going to put a stop to it. Now get into bed, and be reasonable! Biddy, you clear out and do the same! You can leave the door ajar if you like. I'll call ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... help setting the door a little ajar, just to peep in, when—Pop! out flew the Moon 64 Then he coaxed her down and took her home 72 "Here are your children; now you shall have them again. I am the Virgin Mary" 80 He too saw the image in the water; but he looked up at once, and became ...
— East of the Sun and West of the Moon - Old Tales from the North • Peter Christen Asbjornsen
... in its proportions and in its colour," I said, and seeing another door ajar I went through it and discovered a bedroom likewise in red with two beds facing each other. The beds were high, it is true, and a phrase from a letter I had written to Doris, "aggressively virtuous," rose up in my mind as I looked upon them. ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... ghostly tables, saints, virgins, angels, and staring daubs of portraits, being exposed for sale beneath, it was very quaint and lively. All this was much set off, too, by the glimpses one caught, through a rusty gate standing ajar, of quiet sleepy court-yards, having stately old houses within, as silent as tombs. It was all very like one of the descriptions in the Arabian Nights. The three one- eyed Calenders might have knocked at any one of ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... at the entrance of the road, and gave up the donkey-cart to her care. Then she went on sorrowfully and silently to find Marie. The door stood ajar, just as she had left it. She went in more quietly than usual, but Marie heard her. The girl sat just where her mother had left her: the loaf of bread lay untouched. It was plain that Marie had gone without breakfast. Her face was very pale, and her eyes ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... kitchen with its stone floor, awaiting the first stroke of the eleventh hour. It struck at last, and then all pale and trembling we hung the garment before the fire which we had piled up with wood, and set the door ajar, for that was an essential point. The door was lofty and opened upon the farmyard, through which there was a kind of thoroughfare, very seldom used, it is true, and at each end of it there was a gate by which wayfarers occasionally passed to shorten the ...
— The Book of Hallowe'en • Ruth Edna Kelley
... door. It was Daddy. He went into the shop, which was empty, stared, with a countenance in which relief and repulsion were oddly mingled, at the boxes of stationery, at the dusty counter with its string and glass cases, when suddenly the inside door, which was standing ajar, was pushed stealthily inwards, and a child stood in the doorway. It was a tottering baby of a year old, holding in one fat hand a crust of bread which it had been sucking. When it saw the stranger it looked at him gravely for a second. Then without a trace of fear or shyness it came forward, ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the stairs, the landlady held a door ajar, and peeped at him, according to a custom of such delicate-minded females as can neither restrain their curiosity nor indulge it openly. Dr. Amboyne beckoned to her, and asked for a private interview. ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... speculation, and at which hypothesis snatches. Conjecture has its compelle intrare. In passing by certain places and before certain objects one cannot help stopping—a prey to dreams into the realms of which the mind enters. In the invisible there are dark portals ajar. No one could have met this ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... the house he found the street door ajar. He pushed it open, went in, and having fastened the latch, threw himself on the floor and gave a ...
— Pinocchio - The Tale of a Puppet • C. Collodi
... sharp knock at the door, which Marion in her excitement had left ajar, and Prentiss threw it wide open with an impressive sweep, as though he were announcing royalty: "Mr. ...
— The Lion and the Unicorn and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... to him about the beautiful gates ajar, and the angel band in heaven that plays around the great white throne, and he can't understand it, but the least hint about the circus tent, with the flap pulled to one side to get in, and the band wagon, and the ...
— Peck's Sunshine - Being a Collection of Articles Written for Peck's Sun, - Milwaukee, Wis. - 1882 • George W. Peck
... shed, huge, but in disrepair. Monster doors were ajar. Bell heaved at them and swung them wide. A small, trim, two-seated plane showed ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... with a light eager step, and hurried up the stairs, intent on finding Zara to tell her how happy I felt, and how satisfied I was with my wonderful experience. I reached the door of her bedroom—it was ajar. I softly pushed it farther open, and looked in. A small but exquisitely modelled statue of an "Eros" ornamented one corner. His uplifted torch served as a light which glimmered faintly through a rose-coloured glass, and shed a tender lustre over the room; ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli
... but he left the door ajar, and remained close to it, ready to reenter the cabinet at the first word of his ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... a familiar courtyard that gave upon the street; Count Caloveglia's place. On an impulse he entered the massive portal which stood invitingly ajar. Two elderly gentlemen sat discoursing in the shade of the fig tree; there was no difficulty in recognizing the stranger as Mr. van Koppen, the American millionaire, a frequent visitor, they said, of ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... lamp was extinguished, I set my door ajar, moved my bed out from the wall to catch whatever breeze might stir, "composed myself for the night," as it used to be written, and lay looking out upon the quiet garden where a thin white haze was rising. If, in taking this coign of vantage, I had any subtler ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... hall. Everything was quiet, not a soul was around. I wandered across the hall and parlour, and there I stood for a few minutes, looking out into the street, when a merry burst of laughter across the hall attracted my attention. The door of the room opposite was slightly ajar, and I saw that it was the library of the house; so crossing the hall, I gently rapped on the panel. A cheery "Come in!" was my answer. I obeyed the summons, threw ...
— The Tory Maid • Herbert Baird Stimpson
... voices a moment later. This sound guided her, and she was soon tapping at a door which was slightly ajar. She heard some one say ...
— Jolly Sally Pendleton - The Wife Who Was Not a Wife • Laura Jean Libbey
... the increased smell of cooking, the talking of women. Presently the talking stopped and the plapping of the bare feet approached the door of the room shutting the two men in. The Squire set it slightly ajar, in spite of Dylks's involuntary, "Oh, don't!" and faced some one close ...
— The Leatherwood God • William Dean Howells
... been waiting for it," she said to herself, observing the scullery door ajar. "Won't I ketch it! It's him for growling and snapping at a body, and it's me for always being before or behind time, bad luck to me. ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... It was ajar like the rest, and, call me coward or call me fool—I have called Hibbard both, you will remember—I found that it cost me an effort to lay my hand on its mahogany panels. Danger, if danger there was, lurked here; and while ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... the quiet of the child's soul being one with the quiet of its home, a place "inclosed" and "sealed." But upon this assured place, upon the child's assured soul which resembled it, there came floating in from the larger world without, as at windows left ajar unknowingly, or over the high garden walls, two streams of impressions, the sentiments of beauty and pain—recognitions of the visible, tangible, audible loveliness of things, as a very real and somewhat tyrannous element in them—and of the sorrow of the world, ...
— Miscellaneous Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... now unlocked the door, and holding it ajar called to Loaysa, who had been listening at the aperture to all that had passed. He was for springing in at a bound; but the duena stopped him, laying her hand on his breast, and said, "Fair and softly, senor; I would have you to know, as God is my judge, we are all of us ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... unobserved and stole cautiously to the door of his dressing-room. She found it slightly ajar, pushed it a little wider open, crept in, gained the closet door, and was in the act of putting the key into the lock, when a deep groan, coming from within the closet, apparently, so startled her that she uttered a faint cry, and dropped the key on the ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley
... might and main. For, of course, as you will easily understand, Hercules had an immense responsibility on his mind, as well as a weight on his head and shoulders. Why, if he did not stand perfectly still, and keep the sky immovable, the sun would perhaps be put ajar! Or, after nightfall, a great many of the stars might be loosened from their places, and shower down, like fiery rain, upon the people's heads! And how ashamed would the hero be, if, owing to his unsteadiness ...
— The Three Golden Apples - (From: "A Wonder-Book For Girls and Boys") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Everything was quiet, and everything stayed quiet, and when he had lain still a short time he heard something that sounded as if a horse were standing chewing just outside the barn door. He stole away to the door, which was ajar, to see what was there, and a horse was standing eating. It was so big, and fat, and fine a horse that Cinderlad had never seen one like it before, and a saddle and bridle lay upon it, and a complete suit of armor for a knight, and everything ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... wasn't, and Violet didn't like the dark. She was afraid of it. So Ranny lit a match. He lit several matches and lighted her all the way up the narrow staircase to the door of her little bedroom at the back. She took the matches from him and went in to look for the candle, leaving the door ajar and Ranny standing ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... together, and we never want any thing in the evenings, you know. The front door always stands ajar, and visitors ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield
... a picture of offended dignity, but carefully left the door ajar for Ruth, who discovered, upon this rude awakening from her reverie, that she ...
— Lavender and Old Lace • Myrtle Reed |
