"Doorstep" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... goats are driven from house to house to be milked at the doorstep, and occasionally a hill-man may be seen wandering about in the hope of finding a purchaser for the freshly-caught leopard he is leading. What will, perhaps, most strike Europeans are the bullock gharries by which the heavy traffic of the town is carried on. These are carts curiously ...
— Burma - Peeps at Many Lands • R.Talbot Kelly
... doesn't matter to me where he goes as long as I go with him. Imagine therefore my feelings when it gradually leaked out that I was to be left behind. When the truth dawned upon me I was so upset that I lay for a whole day on the doorstep in a dazed condition, whilst several cats who knew me well came and washed themselves carefully right under my nose. I hardly saw them, though of course ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 2, 1914 • Various
... merchants—the war-mill's wasteful refuse and residuum, some as good as the gray army's best, some poor enough—went to their idle counters, desks and sidewalks; the children to the public schools, the beggar to the church doorstep, physicians to their sick, the barkeeper to his mirrors and mint, and the pot-fisher to his catfish lines in ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... and the convalescent Hound went to lie upon the downs which climbed up straight from the back doorstep of the inn. They were accompanied by a rug, a scarf, a sunshade, an overcoat, the blessings of the landlady, and Cousin Gustus's diary. Nobody ever knew what sort of matter filled Cousin Gustus's diary, nobody ever wanted ...
— This Is the End • Stella Benson
... again recalls another, quite in the same line. One day a gentleman walking down a street observed a little boy seated on a doorstep. Going up to him, he said, "Well, my little chap, how is it you are sitting outside on the doorstep, when I see through the window all the other young folks inside playing games and having a good time? Why aren't you inside joining in the fun?" ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford
... cleanest street of Greenwich Village, of New York City, is to "Hell's Kitchen" and the Chinese Quarter. The houses were well swept and cool, the shops were alluring, the streets were of clean shifting white sand, and the sidewalks, of gray cement, were as well kept as a Philadelphia doorstep. The most curious feature of Beira is her private tram-car system. These cars run on tiny tracks which rise out of the sand and extend from one end of the town to the other, with branch lines running into ...
— The Congo and Coasts of Africa • Richard Harding Davis
... to her as if the villagers also thought so when they looked at her as she walked through the streets, and she bore herself very proudly for a while, but at length became so tired and hungry, that she sank down on a doorstep, her head leaning on her hand; and as she watched the passers-by through her drooping lids, she noticed how very nice their shoes and stockings were. Then she saw that her own were much torn and soiled, ...
— The Magician's Show Box and Other Stories • Lydia Maria Child
... written metaphorically upon the door of that old Queen Anne house, while really there was a tarnished brass plate bearing the inscription "Dr Chartley," with blistered panels above and below. Arched over the doorstep was an architect's idea of a gigantic shell, supported by two stout boys, whom a lively imagination might have thought to be suffering from the doctor's prescriptions, as they glared wildly at the red bull's-eye in the centre of the fanlight ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn
... Mrs. Beaumont? It was really Crashaw whom you saw that night standing on the doorstep of ...
— The Great God Pan • Arthur Machen
... as usual, he set out for Church Street, and, wading through the fog, waded to the doorstep of the ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... night that Jim, from his perch on the back fence, saw the checkered trousers and tall hat on his own doorstep. Bob, on the grass below, could not see, so Jim held his breath while the door opened and his father admitted ...
— The Tangled Threads • Eleanor H. Porter
... the Junior Army and Navy! Do you call that a club? Why, they daren't let a woman cross the doorstep! ...
— The Philanderer • George Bernard Shaw
... fixed on the doorstep, following me with their regards, and I believed I saw a tear in the left eye of each. What fidelity! I smiled in a sort of indulgent and baronial manner, but I ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... trip to Cleveland the Republican candidate did not, during the campaign, leave Canton, though from his doorstep he spoke to visiting hordes. His opponent, in the course of the most remarkable campaigning tour ever made by a candidate, preached free coinage to millions. The immense number of his addresses; their effectiveness, notwithstanding the slender preparation possible for most ...
— History of the United States, Volume 5 • E. Benjamin Andrews
... away from him angrily, and went upstairs. And old Jamie waited. He dared not smoke his pipe in the parlor, nor even on the doorstep (which was a pleasant place; there was a little park, with trees, in front), for Mercedes thought it ungenteel. The present incongruity of this regard for appearances never struck Jamie, and he waited there. After eleven o'clock ...
— Pirate Gold • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... provisions for the household consumption, no tradespeople save milkman and baker being allowed to call, and they remarked that they never once found the area gate unlocked. And while these two women, prim and self-contained, went on with the cooking and housework and kept the doorstep clean, the so-called Miss Adela Mimpriss went on with the woolwork flowers at the dining-room window, where she could get most light, and the world outside had no suspicion of anything being wrong in the staid, old-fashioned house opposite Sir John Drinkwater's. Even the neighbours ...
— Begumbagh - A Tale of the Indian Mutiny • George Manville Fenn
... be true for aught I knew, horrible as it was! I had heard similar ones attributing things almost as fiendish to him, times and again; from that poor fellow lying dead on Pavannes' doorstep for one, and from others besides. As the Vidame in his pacing to and fro turned towards us, I gazed at him fascinated by his grim visage and that story. His eye rested on the crowd about us, and I trembled, lest even at that distance he ...
— The House of the Wolf - A Romance • Stanley Weyman
... landlady of the "Golden Sun" stood on the doorstep of her inn, and looked at the heavens to read the signs of the probable weather, and to think over the experiences of the night before. Presently the gardener's boy from Mrs. Menotti's came along. He was both master and servant over the ...
— Rico And Wiseli - Rico And Stineli, And How Wiseli Was Provided For • Johanna Spyri
... figures issued from the house and circled about the clotheslines, inspecting their contents critically. Miss Theodosia saw one of them—it was the child of her doorstep—lay questionable hold (it must be questionable!) upon a delicate garment and examine a portion of it excitedly. She saw the child dart back to the house and again issue forth, dragging the slender young washerwoman. Together they examined. Miss Theodosia caught up ...
— Miss Theodosia's Heartstrings • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... on both sides of which, under the elms and maples, were the community houses, big and substantial, but gauntly plain; their yellow paint, flaking and peeling here and there, shone clean and fresh in the sparkle of morning. Except for a black cat whose fur glistened like jet, dozing on a white doorstep, the settlement, steeped in sunshine, showed no sign of life. There was a strange remoteness from time about the place; a sort of emptiness, and a ...
— The Way to Peace • Margaret Deland
... excitement in Gold City. Groups of men were talking in undertones everywhere. With a promise to try and find his father, Yankee Sam left the boy sitting on the doorstep of the Palace; where, hungry and tired, he fell asleep, while all the street arabs stood at a respectful distance commenting on "the city kid what says he's Teale's boy." No one thought to take the little wanderer ...
— The Transformation of Job - A Tale of the High Sierras • Frederick Vining Fisher
... old bag of bones!" he said—"Not much good to myself or to any one else! You'd better bundle me out on the doorstep!" ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... paint my pootty darter?" sez I. "P'raps I'd better come in," sez he. "P'raps you 'ad, if we're a-comin' to bisniss," sez I; "so jest make a long leg an' step over them dirty-nosed child'n o' Mrs. Mix's, a-settin' on my doorstep, an' I dessay we sha'n't quarrel over a 'undud p'un' or two," sez I. An' then I bust out a-larfin' agin—I shall die a-larfin'.' And then she added suddenly in the same tone of sadness, ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... Monsieur Dupont apologized—"but I entreat a moment. It is three hours only since I arrived, and I have passed one of them on your doorstep." ...
— The Crooked House • Brandon Fleming
... stray crumbs of conversation that fell to her. The milkman and the iceman and the butcher boy used to hold daily conversation with her. They—sociable gentlemen—would stand on her doorstep, one grimy hand resting against the white of her doorpost, exchanging the time of day with Blanche in the doorway—a tea towel in one hand, perhaps, and a plate in the other. Her little house was a miracle of cleanliness. It was no uncommon sight to see her down on her knees on the kitchen ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... Four-walled happiness? Hardly for her, even without the blood of murdered thousands soaking her doorstep. Love, for women like her ... even eternal love ... must be episodical. Life forces the duties of leadership on such women whether they resent them or not. They must take their love where they find it as great men do, subordinated to their ...
— The White Morning • Gertrude Atherton
... the doorbell at the McIntyre residence for the fifth time, and wondered what had become of the faithful Grimes; the butler was usually the soul of promptness, and to keep a caller waiting on the doorstep would, in his category, rank as the height of impropriety. As Kent again raised his hand toward the bell, the door swung open suddenly and Barbara beckoned to ...
— The Red Seal • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... parting from her son on the doorstep, putting back a stray curl from his cheek, smoothing his collar, and whispering, with wet eyes and quivering lips, "My ...
— The Drummer Boy • John Trowbridge
... in order. Junie had been enlightened, and Angele stunned, by the minuteness of Susy's instructions; and the latter, waterproofed and stoutly shod, descended the doorstep, and paused to wave at the pyramid of heads yearning to her from an ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... quietly on the doorstep and allowed a few moments to elapse while he recovered his breath. Then he strolled gently in the opposite direction. He glanced at his watch. It was a little after half-past five. It was rapidly growing ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... of his time would have assuredly shared; unless, indeed, the West-end doorstep has gained wonderfully by the scrubbing of sixty years. On the relations between masters and servants Thackeray was never more severe than in this book; he is irritated by the marching in of the household brigade to family prayers, and he declares that we 'know no more of that race which inhabits ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... on furlough there was a grand dinner given in his honour at Vidalenc's, and when Vidalenc dined at Lemot's, it was assuredly amusing to see the latter's children all togged out in their Sunday best, a tri-colour bouquet in hand, waiting on their doorstep to greet and conduct ...
— With Those Who Wait • Frances Wilson Huard
... doorstep, by Jove!" cried Rattray at once. "I was driving over to Hampstead, and I thought it was ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... Corner, stood the small log cabin of the former slave who had sent for him, and as he approached the narrow path that led, between oyster shells, from the main road to the single flat brown rock before the doorstep, he noticed with pleasure how tranquil and happy the little rustic home appeared under the windy brightness of the ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... these six days he subsisted on one meal a day. This he ate at a restaurant where at night he washed dishes and blacked the head waiter's boots. When Saturday came, and the money was counted out in his hand, he thrust it into his pocket, left the shop, and sat down on a doorstep outside to think. ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... morning he had been moving his mind in slow waves that did not seem like thoughts against the rock of death; but he came away from the tiger-skins and the flickering laughter of Dr. Gurnet's eyes with a comfortable sense of having left all such questions on the doorstep. He thought instead of whether it was worth while to go down to the rink ...
— The Dark Tower • Phyllis Bottome
... day, I know," said little Joan. "I wish Mother had allowed us to sit on the doorstep. We could have taken ...
— Jackanapes, Daddy Darwin's Dovecot and Other Stories • Juliana Horatio Ewing
... was sweeping the doorstep early the next morning, a couple of ponies dashed up to the gate, in whose riders she instantly recognized Elsie Travilla ...
— Elsie's children • Martha Finley
... though the thing had happened far from home. They could learn all about us at the nearest mansions. I referred them to Dr. Theobald; this was a Mr. Maturin, one of his patients, and I was his keeper, and he had never given me the slip before. I heard myself making these explanations on the doorstep, and pointing to the deserted bath-chair as the proof, while the pretty parlor maid ran for the police. It would be a more serious matter for me than for my charge. I should lose my place. No, he had never done such a thing ...
— Raffles - Further Adventures of the Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... Goodwin sat on Keogh's doorstep, and read his telegram. It was from Bob Englehart, an American, who lived in San Mateo, the capital city of Anchuria, eighty miles in the interior. Englehart was a gold miner, an ardent revolutionist and "good people." That he was a man of resource ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... privily wondering what were our chances of smelling blue water within the next quinquennium, we passed in mild and placid abandonment. On Burling Slip, just where in former times there used to hang a sign KIPLING BREW (which always interested us), we saw a great, ragged, burly rogue sitting on a doorstep. He had the beard of a buccaneer, the placid face of one at ease with fortune. He hitched up his shirt and shifted from one ham to another with supreme and sunkissed contentment. And Endymion, who sees all things as the beginnings of heavenly ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... Ralph; I will limp along, as if I had something in my shoe which hurts me. Then I will sit down on a doorstep, close to them, and take off my boot. You can sit down, too, and take some of the bread and cheese which we put in our pockets, because we could not eat it at the last place we went in. I will keep my boot off, to ease my foot; ...
— The Young Franc Tireurs - And Their Adventures in the Franco-Prussian War • G. A. Henty
... were a friend, Frances, a friend, With feeling and regard and capable of woe. Oh, yes, I know you were a dog, but I was just a man. I did not buy you; no, you simply came, Lost, and squatted on my doorstep. The place was strange—you quivered, but stayed on, And I had need of you. No other fellow could make you follow him, For you had chosen me to be your pal. My whistle was your law, You put your paw Upon my palm, And in your calm, deep eyes was writ The promise of long comradeship. When I came home ...
— The Dog's Book of Verse • Various
... here one night when the moon was shining. He sat down on the doorstep. He was just the kind of a lad that's in need of a mother. So I asked him to lie on the sofa. He was tired, you see, and—I once had a son ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... and crescents, examining the exterior of the houses, stopping now and then to look at a garden or a well-kept house, or trying to get a peep into some room. Mr and Mrs Clinton criticised as they went along, comparing the window curtains, blaming a door in want of paint, praising a well-whitened doorstep.... ...
— Orientations • William Somerset Maugham
... his crop-eared pony; young Pringle of Drumanno came up on his bony grey. Hay remained on the hospitable field, and must be carried to bed; Pringle got somehow to his saddle about 3 A.M., and (as Archie stood with the lamp on the upper doorstep) lurched, uttered a senseless view- holloa, and vanished out of the small circle of illumination like a wraith. Yet a minute or two longer the clatter of his break-neck flight was audible, then it was cut off by the intervening ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to identify any bird near your home, you may know its nest and eggs, its song and its young; but begin at the beginning again and watch their wings and their feet and their bills and you will find that there are new and wonderful truths at your very doorstep. Try bringing home from your walk a list of bill-uses or feet-functions. Remember that a familiar object, looked at from a new point of view, will take to itself ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... partisans, the Journal and the Democrat had their friends. The trio stood as ancient landmarks, as recognized and familiar institutions. Here was a double-headed monster which, without saying "by your leave" or "blast your eyes" or any other politeness, had taken possession of each man's doorstep, looking very like it had brought its knitting and was ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... before it opened quietly; a figure appeared for an instant in the light of the hall, and then, as quietly, the door closed again. There was a lull at the moment, but Carrington could hear not a sound. The figure must be standing very still on the doorstep, listening—evidently listening. And then the thickset form of Simon Rattar appeared dimly on the gravel, crossing to the lawn beyond. The pebbles crunched a little, but not very much. He seemed to be walking ...
— Simon • J. Storer Clouston
... the Union members of the House of Representatives organized a serenade to President Fillmore and his Secretary of State, Daniel Webster. The President bowed his acknowledgments from a window of the Executive Mansion, but Mr. Webster came out on the broad doorstep of his home, with a friend on either side of him holding a candle, and, attired in a dressing gown, he commenced a brief speech by saying, "Now is the summer—no! Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this son of York." ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... lashing the air, one hoof pawing savagely, worthy representative of all the horrors it typified, and which she explained with maddening perspicuity. That night, when papa tore himself away from the club room at one o'clock, and met mamma on the doorstep—just coming home from a supper at Delmonico's after an opera party—they were ascending the stairs, when frantic cries drove from her ears the echoes of 'Traviata's' witching strain. Thinking only a conflagration would justify the din, papa threw up the hall sash and shouted 'fire!' ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... the twin fathers had had supper and were settled safely by their candles, which were beacons that led them back into past ages, I sat by myself on the front doorstep in the perfumed darkness that was only faintly lit by stars that seemed so near the earth that they were like flowers of light blossoming on the twigs of the roof elms. In a lovely dream I had just gone into the arms of Pan when I heard out beyond the ...
— The Golden Bird • Maria Thompson Daviess
... had she eyed very closely, standing out on the front doorstep in the rain, and she saw that one end of it seemed to touch the ground at the foot of a pine-tree on the side of the mountain, which was quite conspicuous amongst its fellows, it was so tall. The other end had ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... struck one, dinner time, and a convenient doorstep near, so he took the roll out of the breast of his smock-frock and sat down to eat it. As he had never been used to very luxurious meals it satisfied him pretty well; and then he watched the people passing to and fro, and wondered what he could do to earn some money. The chair-factory ...
— Our Frank - and other stories • Amy Walton
... a brighter world for Jaune d'Antimoine when he gave into Rose's hand the market-basket on her own doorstep, and turned reluctantly away. But there still were clouds in it. Rose had admitted that two things were necessary before getting married could be thought of at all seriously: something must be done by which the nose of the Count Siccatif de Courtray ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... quite late when Mr. Hammond took her home in his buggy, and bade her good-night at the doorstep. As she entered the house she saw several couples promenading on the veranda, and heard Estelle and Clinton Allston singing a duet from "Il Trovatore." Passing the parlor door, one quick glance showed her Mr. Murray and Mr. Leigh standing together under the chandelier—the latter gentleman ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... be," commented the other, turning to his wife, who sat on the doorstep, "I reckoned so when I see that lady ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... of City," said Thompson, as a begging woman rose from a doorstep, and stretched forth a miserable ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... gentlemen," he began,—the poor are staunch sticklers for etiquette: I overheard a small child explaining to her mother one night in Three Colts Street, Limehouse, that she could not get into the house because there was a "lady" on the doorstep, drunk,—"Signorina ...
— John Ingerfield and Other Stories • Jerome K. Jerome
... brazen face to come back when she had shut every other door. My father never made ony sic wark wi' me that bade wi' him respectable a' my days; but hear ye to me, Mistress Colville, I will never darken their doorstep till the day of my death." So ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... there in the yard, breathing hard, his face working, and in front of him crouched several of the men with rifles ready. The road, to Jean's flashing glance, was apparently deserted. Blue sat on the doorstep, lighting a cigarette. Then on the moment Blaisdell strode to the door of the cabin. Jean had never seen him look ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... "Yes, sir!" said moodily, "Relieve the wheel and look-out"; and climbed with heavy feet the poop ladder to windward. Soon after Mr. Creighton came down, whistling softly, and went into the cabin. On the doorstep the steward lounged, in slippers, meditative, and with his shirt-sleeves rolled up ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... felt that she could visit to Tirzah Ann's and Thomas J.'s while I wus gone. She looked dretful pale and sad, I thought; but she seemed glad to see me, and glad to get back. And the boy asked Josiah and Ury and me 47 questions between the wagon and the front doorstep, for I counted 'em. ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... Thomas Haynes Bayly Because Edward Fitzgerald Love and Age Thomas Love Peacock To Helen Winthrop Mackworth Praed At the Church Gate William Makepeace Thackeray Mabel, in New Hampshire James Thomas Fields Toujours Amour Edmund Clarence Stedman The Doorstep Edmund Clarence Stedman The White Flag John Hay A Song of the Four Seasons Austin Dobson The Love-Knot Nora Perry Riding Down Nora Perry "Forgettin'" Moira O'Neill "Across the Fields to Anne" Richard Burton ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... window hath seen, and rushed; He hath reached the step, but the blood hath gushed; He hath crawled to the step of his own house-door, But his head hath dropped: he will crawl no more. Clasp Wife, and kiss, and lift the head, Harrington lies at his doorstep dead. ...
— Poems of American Patriotism • Brander Matthews (Editor)
... which was only just built and not yet weather-boarded. In one of the little windows the shutters were not yet closed, and there was a candle standing on the window-ledge, evidently as a signal to the late guest who was expected that night. Thirty paces away Stavrogin made out on the doorstep the figure of a tall man, evidently the master of the house, who had come out to stare impatiently Up the road. He heard his voice, too, impatient ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... dashed against trees, and her neighbors struck down and scalped before she could plead for them. And little good pleading would have done. An Indian seized Paul. His father and the old servant lay dead across the doorstep. His mother would not let him go. The Indian dragged her on her knees and struck her on the head. Madame Jordan ran out at the risk of being scalped herself, and got the poor girl into her cabin. The Indian ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... you'll find another rent-collector that's worth his salt—in this town," observed Mrs. Grant, on the doorstep. "I can't think what you'll do, ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... met me on your doorstep, and he would not let me go. I have been sitting with him ever since. The Hospital St. Denis, did you say? I hope that no one of our friends has met with ...
— Anna the Adventuress • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... if there is no harm in asking, what was the good of my birth certificate in this business?' I asked, when the little old man and I stood on the doorstep. ...
— Gobseck • Honore de Balzac
... from the doorstep: "It's all right. Don't block the street. Break away, boys, break away." The crowd opened to let them pass, fixing ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland
... felt for my hat, too, Improvised on the crown of the latter a tattoo, In lieu of expressing the feelings which lay Quite too deep for words, as Wordsworth would say; Then, without going through the form of a bow, Found myself in the entry—I hardly know how, On doorstep and sidewalk, past lamp-post and square, At home and upstairs, in my own easy-chair; Poked my feet into slippers, my fire into blaze, And said to myself, as I lit my cigar, "Supposing a man had the wealth of ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various
... Paris. He was determined, absolutely determined, to have his daughter. But he arrived too late. On hearing of her husband's return, the young wife had lost her head. She had but one thought—to conceal her fault, at any cost; and one night, being completely disguised, she left her child on a doorstep in the vicinity of ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... of night." But Fenwick is wrong, for in a moment comes an imperious peal at the bell. A pair of boots, manifestly on a telegraph-boy's cold feet, play a devil's tattoo on the sheltered doorstep. They have been inaudible till now, as the snow is on the ground again at Moira Villas. In three minutes the boots are released, and they and their wearer depart, callously uninterested in the contents of the telegram they have brought. If we were a telegraph-boy, we should always be yearning to ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... out by watching and waiting in vain for Adrien, she again found herself without a home and without shelter; so, crouching on a doorstep, as she had done the previous evening, overcome with ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice
... Regiment Armory. And there, at that moment, a sad-eyed, swarthy Italian,—swinging his hand-organ down on the asphalt pavement in front of the Armory's open doors, was beginning to grind out his melodies. And with the first note, children came running, from doorstep and curb, from sidewalk and gutter, while, at the same moment, in the open door of the Armory appeared a small, chubby-cheeked boy, who had upon his head a soldier cap so much too large for him as to cover the tips of his ...
— The Angel of the Tenement • George Madden Martin
... chap, you quite clearly explained," assented Mr. Gould with extraordinary volubility. "You'd explain an elephant off the doorstep, you would. I ain't a clever chap like you; but I ain't a born natural, Michael Moon, and when there's an elephant on my doorstep I don't listen to no explanations. 'It's got a trunk,' I says.—'My ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton
... morning he would leave the shop in Raoul's care and call on M. Honore Grandissime to advise with him concerning the retention of the born artist as a drug-clerk. To-morrow evening he would pluck courage and force his large but bashful feet up to the doorstep of Number 19 rue Bienville. And the next evening he would go and see what might be the matter with Doctor Keene, who had looked ill on last parting with the evening group that lounged in Frowenfeld's door, some three days before. The intermediate hours were to be devoted, ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... by these words, stop; and he seeing the alley quite empty and deserted, sits down on a doorstep, and I do likewise, both of us ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... the table, and then, leaning with his back against the door, began to gaze with a smiling face at us. We had not had time to finish eating our lunch when the cart was already rattling before the doorstep. We went out. A curly-headed, rosy-cheeked boy of fifteen was sitting in the cart as driver, and with difficulty holding in the well-fed piebald horse. Round the cart stood six young giants, very ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I • Ivan Turgenev
... and not a speck of dirt was to be seen anywhere on little Bridget, the fairies took her gently up and carried her to her mother's house, for they knew very well where she lived. There they laid her down on the doorstep, where it was both warm and shady, and they all scampered away as fast as their funny ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton
... drunk and bareheaded across the street, almost under the feet of the horses, her discolored breast hanging bare, and a puny infant crying feebly in her arms, was another occasion for solicitude. A tiny mite that might have been a dirty boy, coiled up in a ball on a doorstep like a starved cat, was an object of all but irresistible attraction. But she dare not stop for an instant; and, at last, with this certainty, she lay back and shut her eyes very resolutely, and wondered ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... of Ruffluck Croft stood waiting for hours on the doorstep of his hut, with the little ...
— The Emperor of Portugalia • Selma Lagerlof
... with her hand on the door while Mary followed these directions, then, when a couple of hasty movements had removed the surplus water, Mrs. O'Connor drew the bolt and her nephew entered. Mary knew him on the doorstep, and her blood froze in terror and boiled again ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens
... did Aurelle endeavour to find books for the Infant. French novels bored him; only the elder Dumas and Alphonse Daudet found favour in his eyes. Dundas would buy his seventeenth electric lamp, stop a few minutes on the doorstep to play with Germaine's black dog Dick, and then say good-bye, giving her hand a long squeeze and going away perfectly happy in the thought that he had done his duty and gone on the spree in France in ...
— General Bramble • Andre Maurois
... no longer in doubt whether or no he was lying on the manure-heap. Slowly he walked up to the cottage and hesitated on the doorstep; but the rain began to fall more heavily. He stood still in the passage and listened to Magda's snoring; then he cautiously opened the ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... Vaqueros? Ah, yes! many of them, but never such a man as this. This one smiled, yet his face had much of the sadness in it. He had perhaps walked many weary miles in the heat. Would he—with a gesture interpreting her speech—be pleased to rest awhile? Without hesitation, he would. As he sat on the doorstep gazing contentedly at the flowers bordering the path, Anita's mother appeared from some mysterious recess of the 'dobe and questioned Anita with quick low utterance. The girl's answer, interpretable to Sundown only by its intonation, ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... day, a few months after the marriage, Juliet, returning to the consulate after a morning spent in very active exercise upon a tennis court, was met on the doorstep by Dora, the youngest of the Clarency Butchers, who was awaiting her approach in a high state ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce
... his valise on the doorstep, and the impact had caused it to open, thereby liberating a number of toads and lizards which were crawling about the steps. In his hand the scientist held a large magnifying glass, through which he was staring at something on the arm of ...
— The Motor Boys on the Pacific • Clarence Young
... air-ships available for immediate charter, nor big balloons waiting for passengers, with sand-bags ready for instant unloading, nor any underground pneumatic tubes into which he could be pumped and with a puff landed on his own doorstep in Kennedy Square, the impatient lover was obliged to content himself with the back seat of the country stage and a night ride in the train ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... boy," said Sir Godfrey, sternly, "you are safe— your character of messenger makes you so—but if you stay where you are in front of this my doorstep another five minutes, one of the men shall beat you away ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn
... boarded up—nobody could remember a time when it was not. And none knew why it was so closed; certainly not because of the occupant's dislike of light and air, for on those rare occasions when a hunter had passed that lonely spot the recluse had commonly been seen sunning himself on his doorstep if heaven had provided sunshine for his need. I fancy there are few persons living to-day who ever knew the secret of that window, but I am one, as ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... direction. She tolerated his presence and that was all. But wherever she went he shadowed her. He was not obtrusive, but was content to keep at heel, and to be permitted to admire. I have seen him sit for half an hour on a doorstep, a canine monument of patience, waiting for her to come out, and I have seen her travel about the Place in apparently purposeless zigzags and circles for the mere pride and vanity of knowing how closely he would follow her ...
— Schwartz: A History - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... was nothing to prevent her speaking to him. He had, after all, been sitting on the doorstep when she emerged from her room and passed him. Had she foreseen that the good comedian could not contain himself, but would surely let a third person ...
— Look Back on Happiness • Knut Hamsun
... streams, and tasted the coolness of those recesses where the houses stood. The birds sang about us as we descended. All along our path my guide was being hailed by voices: "Mikael—Kaoha, Mikael!" From the doorstep, from the cotton-patch, or out of the deep grove of island-chestnuts, these friendly cries arose, and were cheerily answered as we passed. In a sharp angle of a glen, on a rushing brook and under fathoms of cool foliage, we struck a house upon a well-built paepae, the fire brightly ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the boy indignantly. "Sure and it wasn't; and I wouldn't 'a thought you'd have needed to ask. I found her on a doorstep in Tanner's Court: and first I thought she was asleep, and so I shook her to tell her to go home before the Charley got her; and then, when she wouldn't wake up, I saw she was either fainted or dead; and I fetched her home ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin
... our enthusiasm in a court where the living green combined with age to glorify the buildings. We did not see the dilapidation, we did not smell the dirt, we did not feel the squalor. A woman was lighting a fire in a brazier on her doorstep. She looked hostilely at us. We beamed in counteraction. She looked more hostilely. As the Artist wanted to sketch her house, some words seemed necessary. I detailed our emotions. Was not her lot, cast in this ...
— Riviera Towns • Herbert Adams Gibbons
... habits, and that consequently there would be little sympathy for her or for Bobby in his mysterious disappearance. The wind blew and the rain fell upon these confidences, yet Randolph, walking again under that umbrella of felicity, parted with her at her own doorstep all too soon, although consoled with the permission to come and see her ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... man in two continents. I am bewildered. First, you kidnap a chauffeur and privateer his car, then me. Now you besiege a friend and wish to leave me on his doorstep ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... and thoughtfully returned to his quarters after witnessing the departure of his son, he found sitting on the doorstep, and patiently awaiting his coming, a Canadian woman. Beside her stood her stolid-looking husband, whom the major recognized as a well-to-do farmer of the settlement, to whom he had granted some trifling favors while ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... more words with him, only as we drove up to our doorstep, and he helped me out into a ...
— Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor - Volume I • Various
... "at-home" day, to which he had been invited. At the moment Nekhludoff drove up there was a carriage in front of the door, and a footman in livery, with a cockade in his hat, was helping a lady down the doorstep. She was holding up her train, and showing her thin ankles, black stockings, and slippered feet. Among the carriages was a closed landau, which he knew ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... looking out upon the star-lit night. His eyes wandered to the doorstep, and discerned upon its covering of frost the imprint of a ...
— The Fifth of November - A Romance of the Stuarts • Charles S. Bentley
... the same moment there was a glimmer of a gray dress in the twilight of the hall; and the next moment Honnor Cunyngham appeared on the doorstep, the morning light ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... what he suffers during the winter, short as it is in comparison with our own, that enables us to understand the ecstasy of his joy at the reappearance of the spring. Everybody meets everybody with greetings on the warmth and the sunshine. The mother comes down again to bask herself at every doorstep, and the little street is once more alive with chat and laughter. The very beggars exchange their whine for a more cheerful tone of insidious persuasion. The women sing as they jog down the hill-paths ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... coquetted so successfully with the Austrian Ambassador, that he gave it a double guarantee of good faith by signing it. This impetuous and eccentric female made her way uninterruptedly to Vienna, found her cousin on the doorstep, made a rush for him and seized his hand, then shouted, "Who can prevent my kissing my sovereign's hand?" She also found means to convey letters to him. There is not much said about this Napoleonic dash, but from the records ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... me here for? I say, I want to go! How shall I ever find her When I am locked in so? They lied to me— 'Twas once there in the street, Where I sat on a doorstep To rest my aching feet. They say, 'We'll lead you to her,' And many times said, 'Come,' At last I followed, eager To find my little one. But when I bid them bring her. They answer, 'By and by.' Just turn the key, please, won't you, And ...
— Dainty's Cruel Rivals - The Fatal Birthday • Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller
... get there; I'm most clemmed with hunger and drought." And Tom sank down upon the doorstep, and laid his ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester
... 1700, and he found no less than eight thousand existing entire; and yet these were but a very small proportion of the number that must once have been there. The palaces and modern churches of Rome owe, as I have said, all their ornaments to this passion of the ancients. There is not a doorstep nor a guardstone at the corner of the meanest court in Rome which is not of marble, granite, or porphyry from some ancient building. Almost all the houses, as Raphael said, have been built with lime made of the costly old marbles. The ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan |
