"Hem" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Mrs. Bobbsey, "we have ready some blue gingham aprons. You see how they are cut out; two seams, one at each side, then they are to be closed down the back. There will be a pair of strings on each apron, and you may begin by pressing down a narrow hem on these strings. We will not need to baste them, just press them down ...
— The Bobbsey Twins in the Country • Laura Lee Hope
... be supposyd that suche as haue theyr goodes comune & not propre is most acceptable to god/ For ellys wold not thise religious men as monkes freris chanons obseruantes & all other auowe hem & kepe the wilfull pouerte that they ben professid too/ For in trouth I haue my self ben conuersant in a religious hous of white freris at gaunt Which haue all thynge in comyn amonge them/ and not one richer than an other/ in so moche ...
— Game and Playe of the Chesse - A Verbatim Reprint Of The First Edition, 1474 • Caxton
... is so, and we can fix it on him, I merely suggest that we can make the matter highly useful. I don't know," he added, beginning to sit down, "but that it is an action we owe to the community—hem!" ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable
... complexions of Irish women often are, was not of the kind that washes off. Her rough grey skirt, on which rain-drops glistened, came down no further than her knees. On her feet were a pair of rubber boots which reached up to the hem of her skirt, perhaps further. She was comfortably indifferent ...
— Lady Bountiful - 1922 • George A. Birmingham
... three or four inches long, into the hem. You can sew more quickly, and your stitches will not ...
— Things Mother Used To Make • Lydia Maria Gurney
... her chair; while on another occasion their beaux were compelled to draw swords to rescue them from the mob." When, too, they once went to Vauxhall Gardens, they found themselves the centre of a mob of eight thousand spectators, struggling to catch a glimpse of their lovely faces or to touch the "hem of their garments." ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... 'I am—hem!—I am pursuing a task of the utmost consequence to your family interests,' Mr. Cavendish had told him one day. 'In fact, my dear sir, I am engaged in a work of no less moment than that ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne
... all Oriental countries, the contact between prince and beggar, vizier and serf is disconcertingly free and familiar, and one must see the highest court officials kissing the hem of the Sultan's robe, and hear authentic tales of slaves given by one merchant to another at the end of a convivial evening, to be reminded that nothing is as democratic in appearance as a society of which the whole structure hangs on the whim of ...
— In Morocco • Edith Wharton
... the fire, covered with an ironing-cloth; a coarse but clean shirt or two, fresh from the iron, hung on the back of a chair by the fire, and Aunt Chloe had another spread out before her on the table. Carefully she rubbed and ironed every fold and every hem, with the most scrupulous exactness, every now and then raising her hand to her face to wipe off the tears that were ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... one with the earth, one in sin, one in redemption. It is the fringe of the garment of God. "If I may but touch the hem," said ...
— The Roadmender • Michael Fairless
... for every party. Missy sighed, and tilted back the dresser mirror so as to catch the swing of skirt about her shoe-tops. She wished the skirt was long and trailing; there was a cluster of tucks above the hem—maybe mother would allow her to let one out; she'd ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... from her blue eyes, she took no notice. The silence was more embarrassing than ever. He felt that he could give the world just to touch with his lips that hem of her dress where his hand rested. But he was afraid of frightening her. He fought to find something to say, licking his parched lips and vainly attempting ...
— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London
... bridesmaids, looking particularly ugly. The other photograph might have seemed pretty to a less prejudiced eye. It was that of a slight, innocent-looking girl in a white satin gown, "ungirt from throat to hem," and holding a sheaf of lilies in her hand. Her hair was loose upon her shoulders, crowned with a fragile garland and covered with a veil ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... policemen saved Congressman Mallard from being crushed and buffeted down under the caressing hands of those who strove with his bodyguard to touch him, to embrace him, to clasp his hand. Foreign-born women, whose sons were in the draft, sought to kiss the hem of his garments when he passed them by, and as they stooped they were bowled over by the uniformed burlies and some of them were trampled. Disregarding the buffeting blows of the policemen's gloved fists, men, old, young and middle-aged, flung themselves against the escorts, crying out greetings. ...
— The Thunders of Silence • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... a thing to be a good speller, but there are people who can spell any word that ever was, and yet if you should ask them right quick how much is seven times eight, they'd hem and haw and say: "Seven tums eight? Why—ah, lemme see now. Seven tums—what was it you said? Oh, seven tums eight. Why—ah, seven tums eight is sixty-three—fifty-six I mean." There's nothing really to spelling. ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood
... blushing prettily and fingering the hem of her apron in which she was suddenly very ...
— Ungava Bob - A Winter's Tale • Dillon Wallace
... moved from her shining hair to the hem of her elaborate white gown. Then he smiled and ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... better at this time. I saw the hills the war well and san thar Love to you. I war sory to hear that My brother war sol i am glad that i did come away when i did god works all the things for the Best he is young he may get a long in the wole May god Bless hem ef you have any News from Petersburg Va Plas Rite me a word when you anser this Letter and ef any person came form home Letter Me know. Please sen me one of your Paper that had the under grands R wrod give My Love to Mr Careter and his family I am Seving with a barber at this time he have ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... said I. 'Your Highness will not make a fool of me twice in one night.' I sprang forward and, stooping down, caught up the hem of her dress. 'You would have done well to change it after you had ridden so far and so fast,' ...
— The Exploits Of Brigadier Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... saddened, foreboding her words to be ominous, because of suddenly thirsting for a modern cry from him, the silent. She quitted her woman's fit of earnestness, and took to the humour that pleased him. 'Aslauga's knight, at his blind man's buff of devotion, catches the hem of the tapestry and is found by his lady kissing it in a trance of homage five hours long! Sir Hilary of Agincourt, returned from the wars to his castle at midnight, hears that the chitellaine is away ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... stood with the fingers of one hand lightly touching the edge of the door-jamb, the other hand at her breast, while she listened, poised lightly as though for flight. But a playful breeze twitched at the hem of her skirt, flicking it out into the patch of sunlight by the doorsill, and Peter caught the glint of white from the tail of ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs
... heavens!' I said to myself, 'a man who can do this can do anything.' I never saw two people more purely and instantly elevated by the power of love. The manner, also," he continued, "in which he presses the hem of the dress of Lucy in the Bride of Lammermoor is something wonderful. The man has genius in him which ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... writer of tales which even those who cared to read them counted fantastic and Utopian, who was I to weave a single silken thread into the web of her life? How could I bear her one poorest service? Never in this world could I approach her near enough to touch yet once again the hem of her garment. All I could do was to love her. No—I could and did suffer for her. Alas! that suffering was only for myself, and could do nothing, for her! It was indeed some consolation to me that my misery came from her hand; but if she knew it, it ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... see the last bit of hem done when her story ended, she was disappointed; for not a dozen stitches had been taken. Betty was using her crash-towel for a handkerchief, and Bab's lay on the ground as she listened with snapping ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... the advantage of the best positions, but was fortunately cut off from the water. We were resolved to hem them in completely, for we knew that, if no relieving forces arrived, they would be compelled by thirst alone, if ...
— In the Shadow of Death • P. H. Kritzinger and R. D. McDonald
... enters rightly into covenant with God is on the pathway to gladness and honour. He comes into sympathy with Him who from eternity made a covenant with His chosen. He gives joy to Him who loves to see His people even touch the hem of His garments, or eagerly grasp His Omnipotent hand. The Spirit of God on the heart of the believer draws him into the firmest attachment to the Beloved. Under His gracious influence, the bonds of prejudice against covenanting are as green ...
— The Covenants And The Covenanters - Covenants, Sermons, and Documents of the Covenanted Reformation • Various
... had had a mood of impassioned declaration. He had alluded to his "last moments of happiness at Kew." He said he would rather kiss the hem of her garment than be the "lord ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... strength of mind to forego this temptation. However, he reckoned without his window, for in it there was an old object newly displayed which caught his attention as effectually as a half-driven nail arrests the hem of a cloak. On the central shelf of the window stood an hour-glass, its framework of some wood as black as ebony. He stood gazing at it for a moment, then turned to the door and went inside, greeting the ancient shopman, ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... the hem of her petticoat a hand's breadth, and tapped the floor with one little foot—a trifle only. "That ballet figure that we did at Sir Henry's—do you remember?—and the heat of the ballroom, and the French ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... Basket and I have reserved seats, and, now I come to think of it, we had best step down to the theatre before dining, book yours, and arrange it so that we sit in a row. The house will be crowded, if 'tis only for a view of his Royal Highness, who will certainly attend if—hem!—equal to the effort." ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... altar of incense should be holy (Exo 29:37). A woman with a bloody issue touched him, and is whole of her plague (Mark 5:28). Yea, they brought to him many diseased persons, 'and besought him that they might only touch the hem of his garment; and as many as touched were made perfectly ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... white silk bordered with swan's-down exposed the gleaming dimpled shoulders, and from beneath the pretty lace coif the unbound glory of her long hair swept around her like a cataract of gold, touching the hem of her silken gown, where, to complete the witchery, one slippered foot was visible. When her husband entered to bid her adieu, and the final petition for public acknowledgment was once more sternly denied, the long-pent ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... travelled incognito to Tudela, where I was met by the King's mule drivers and waited on by the alcade, who left his wand at my chamber door and at his, entrance knelt and kissed the hem of my garment. From thence I was conducted to Comes by fifty musketeers riding upon asses, who were sent me by the Governor of Navarre. At Saragossa I was taken for the King of England, and a large number of ladies, in over two hundred ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... blankets, and drag the river at suitable places. Farther down on the Rio Fuerte, I once saw them make a large and serviceable net by fastening sixteen blankets together lengthwise with a double row of wooden pins. Along the upper edge of this net they made a hem three inches deep, and through this they passed vines securely joined together by means of the fibres of the maguey to do duty as ropes. The opposite edge of the net had a hem four inches deep and this was filled with sand to sink it as it was dragged in. The boys ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... the care of her governess, and she was allowed to run wild no more in the meadows. Virginia, a pretty prim little girl, already carried her prayer book in her hands when she drove to church, and wore Swiss muslin frocks in the evenings; but Betty when she was made to hem tablecloths on sunny mornings, would weep ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... bit his lips, for the recital was becoming more and more threatening. "My little Naiad," continued Madame, "was cooing over her quaint song in the bed of the rivulet; as I perceived that she accosted me by touching the hem of my dress, I could not think of receiving her advances ungraciously, and more particularly so, since, after all, a divinity, even though she be of a second grade, is always of greater importance than a mortal, though a princess. I thereupon accosted ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... love clings to her heroic protector," said Meekin, mildly poetical. "Remarkable and beautiful. Quite the—hem!—the ivy and the oak, dear leddies. Ah, in our fallen nature, what sweet spots—I think this is ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... straight to each eyeball. Be sure of this: that He who, when the multitude thronged Him and pressed Him, felt the tremulous, timid, scarcely perceptible touch of one woman's wasted finger on the hem of His garment, holds each of us in the grasp of His love, which is universal, because it applies to each. You and I have each the whole radiance of it pouring down on our heads, and none intercepts the beams from any other. So, brethren, let us each feel ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... as we are in temperament, and playing for the long odds, both of us. My failure is, perhaps, too great a passion for sport, aha! Well, 'tis a pity you won't try and live on the benevolent principle. I am indeed kind to them who commiserate my condition. I give them all they want, aha! Hem! Try and not believe in me now, aha! Ho! . . . Can't you? What are eyes? Persuade yourself you're dreaming. You can do anything with a mind like yours, Father Gregory! And consider the luxury of getting me out of the way so easily, as many do. It is my finest suggestion, aha! Generally I myself nudge ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... "Hem!" said the little one, looking with charming astonishment at the other girl; and then she turned to me again, and, lifting a threatening little finger at ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai
... cashmere has worn well— aye, that I am, Prissie. But don't put it on in the morning, my love, for it's a sin to wear through beautiful fine stuff like that. And, even if the color is gone a bit round the hem, the stuff itself isn't worn, and looks don't signify. You'll have to make up your mind to wear the cashmere for best again next term, Prissie, for, though I'm not pinched in any way, I'm not ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... to her cheeks flew the red. It was she who was embarrassed, she who stammered and crumbled the hem of the tablecloth. ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
... thee through the market's throngs, To where the sea with myriad tongues Laps the green fringes of the pier, And the tall ships that eastward steer Curtsy their farewells to the town, O'er the curved distance lessening down;— I follow allwhere for thy sake,— Touch thy robe's hem, but ne'er o'ertake,— Find where, scarce yet unmoving, lies, Warm from thy limbs, their last disguise,— But thou another mask hast donned, And lurest still, just, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... have kissed the hem of Femke's garment, meeting her after such a long separation. For it was ...
— Walter Pieterse - A Story of Holland • Multatuli
... education than he will ever know what to do with, but then, this Dick Lee, and you boys,—well, see what you can do, but no one must be allowed to contribute outside of the Foster and Kinzer families and Frank. As for the rest, hem,—ah, I think I'll say there wont be ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 • Various
... The hem of her long checkered apron then needed close scrutiny and folding for some unknown purpose, and this duty diverted her thoughts from the subject, but she turned to Dolly, who enjoyed this banter in her own quiet little way, which seldom rippled into a loud laugh, for her own quiet ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book I - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... was glad he did so, for he was little in the way of preaching but he's a great scholar, and I should say he hesn't his equal as a teacher in all England. He has the boys and girls of Hatton at a word. Sir, you'll allow that I am no coward, but I wouldn't touch the hem of Lucy Lugur's skirt, if it wasn't in respect and honor, for a goodish bit o' brass. No, ...
— The Measure of a Man • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... defeated the Serasker in several actions, and compelled a Pacha to lay down his arms on the road between Yannina and Souli. It was even proposed by the gallant partisan, Mark Bozzaris, that all should unite to hem in the Serasker; but a wound, received in a skirmish, defeated this plan. In September following, however, the same Mark intercepted and routed Hassan Pacha in a defile on his march to Yannina; and ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... you have dined here many years and always paid, if it would be a convenience during your present work to dine here till it is done—so that you may not be obliged to spend your money here when you may want it—I was going to say that you need be under no apprehension—hem! for a dinner."' This handsome offer was condescendingly accepted, and the good ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... we were starting on the following morning, some aborigines made their appearance, and vented their delight at our appearance here by the emission of several howls, yells, gesticulations, and indecent actions, and, to hem us in with a circle of fire, to frighten us out, or roast us to death, they set fire to the triodia all round. We rode ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... a wan and wasted woman pressing through the crowd. She seems to have a very urgent errand. I can see from her countenance that she has been a great sufferer. She comes close enough to put her finger on the hem of Christ's garment, and the very moment she puts her finger on that garment, Jesus ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... whom he has been separated so long. Not to interfere with family privacy, will you let me assist at the conference?" said Jack Wentworth. "My brother, I understand, is a friend of yours, and your brother—is a—hem—friend of mine," the diplomatist added, scarcely able to avoid making a wry face over the statement. Wodehouse came in behind, looking an inch or two taller for that acknowledgment, and sat down, confronting his sisters, who were standing on the defensive. ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... individual soul. For it is the inert effort of each thought, having formed itself into a circular wave of circumstance,—as for instance an empire, rules of an art, a local usage, a religious rite,—to heap itself on that ridge and to solidify and hem in the life. But if the soul is quick and strong it bursts over that boundary on all sides and expands another orbit on the great deep, which also runs up into a high wave, with attempt again to ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... toen, de zoon van Ecglaf, Die aan die voeten zat des Schyldingvorsten, Het kampgeheim ontkeetnend: (Beowulfs aankomst, Des koenen golfvaart gaf hem grooten aanstoot, Omdat hij geenszins aan een ander gunde Der mannen, meerder roem op aard te rapen, Benen de wolken, dan hem was geworden.) 'Zijt gij die Beowulf, die met Brecca aanbond Den wedstrijd op de wijde zee, in 't zwemmen Met dezen streven ...
— The Translations of Beowulf - A Critical Biography • Chauncey Brewster Tinker
... more than enough for her habit skirt, which should not rest an inch on the ground on the left side when she stands, and should not be more than a quarter of a yard longer in its longest part. Two lengths, with allowance for the hem two inches deep are needed for the skirt, and when very heavy melton is used, the edges are left raw, the perfect riding skirt in modern eyes being that which shows no trace of the needle, an end secured with lighter cloths by pressing all the seams before hemming, ...
— In the Riding-School; Chats With Esmeralda • Theo. Stephenson Browne
... Gaspare's trust and reliance upon him, added now to that feeling of ardor that had risen up in Artois, gave him courage, helped to banish completely that punishing sensation which had condemned him to keep away from Hermione as one unworthy to approach her, to touch even the hem of her grief. ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... scramble under the bed, slip shoes over their bare feet, and be out in front of the cabin without the loss of a single minute. 'Mickey jew'l,' the baby, who is only four, but 'who can handle a stick as bould as a man,' is generally clad in a ragged skirt, slit every few inches from waist to hem, so that it resembles a cotton fringe. The little coateen that tops this costume is sometimes, by way of diversion, transferred to the dog, who runs off with it; but if we appear at this unlucky moment, there is a stylish yoke of pink ribbon and soiled lace which ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... revealed: One from the king had seized their little all, Their goats and sheep, and e'en the child's pet lamb. But when they saw him they had often watched With reverent awe, as if come down from heaven, Prostrate they fell, and kissed his garment's hem, While he so insolent, now stood abashed, And, self accused, he thus excused himself: "The Brahmans make this day a sacrifice, And they demand unblemished goats and lambs. I but obey the king's express command To bring them to the temple ere high noon." But Buddha stooped and raised the ...
— The Dawn and the Day • Henry Thayer Niles
... they were playing against an eleven of the Den. One after another the Grandcourt bowlers collapsed. No sort of ball seemed to find its way past the Templeton bats, and no sort of fielding seemed to hem in their mighty hits. ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... of so many flirtations that, if she had not been very pretty, I should have doubted her having one—were a constant anxiety to her mistress. She was forbidden, by the articles of her engagement, to have "followers"; and though she had answered, innocently enough, doubling up the hem of her apron as she spoke, "Please, ma'am, I never had more than one at a time," Miss Matty prohibited that one. But a vision of a man seemed to haunt the kitchen. Fanny assured me that it was all fancy, or else ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... answering smile. Then as the doctor walked briskly away she slightly knitted her pretty brows, hung her head, patted the ground with her little foot beyond the hem of her gown, and said to herself, "The man ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte
... called the landlady to Fritz, "you cannot go among the stylish people of Frankfort with the hem of your shirt showing. I will mend it as well as I can, and when you get there, your aunt can mend it better. Now see what trouble your dog ...
— Pixy's Holiday Journey • George Lang
... brilliant and near, in the washed air. There were moments when the sky appeared ceiled with phosphor, which a misty cloud had just brushed and set to dazzling. Something in the soil made them talk of girls—and Bedient drew forth for Cairns (to see the hem of her garment)—a certain hushed vision named Adelaide.... At last, the Train made Manila, wreck that it was, after majestic service; and the great gray mantle, a sort of moveless twilight, settled down upon Luzon and the archipelago. Within its folds ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... that reached her faintly said, and they were splashing on again, the water growing shallower all the time until they scrambled out upon the opposite bank. Then, the man checking the horse, stood by her stirrup, pressing the water from the hem of her skirt, rubbing the little open shoe with his handkerchief, which was saturated. Even in that hour ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... have come in search of truth, Trying with uncertain key Door by door of mystery. We are reaching, through His laws, To the garment hem of Cause. As, with fingers of the blind, We are groping here to find What the hieroglyphics mean Of the Unseen in the seen; What the Thought which underlies Nature's masking and disguise; What it is that hides beneath Blight and bloom and birth ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... compromise. Yes, dear, you should allow Charles-Norton part of his wings; oh yes, you should really let him have a bit of these wings. And that bit, Dolly, if you are the wise and capable little girl I think you can be, you should turn to the advantage, to the preservation, to the prosperity—hem—of ...
— The Trimming of Goosie • James Hopper
... beyond the roar of wheels and the tramp of feet. Tall, gloomy, smoke-embrowned buildings, whose uniformity of dulness is not disturbed by windows incrusted with the accumulated dust of a century, hem you in on either side, and oppress your breathing as with the mildewy atmosphere of a vault. The dingy ranks of brick are broken by very narrow alleys; and here and there, peeping under archways, you ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 461 - Volume 18, New Series, October 30, 1852 • Various
... it such beautiful despair that all sense of right or wrong is overwhelmed by it. I said to Addy that one always requires an antidote after reading Byron, and that she and I ought instantly to go and hem pocket-handkerchiefs, or make a pudding—and that is what she has illustrated in the ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... their power from him; hence the king receives his right to rule from God. Who, then, has the right to oppose the king? Upon this theory the court preachers adored him and in some instances deified him. People sought to touch the hem of his garment, or receive from his divine majesty even a touch of the hand, that they might be healed of their infirmities. In literature Louis was praised and deified. The "Grand Monarch" was lauded and worshipped by the courtiers and nobles ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar
... nourished in their bosoms respect for the downfallen hierarchy—casting first a timorous glance around, to see that no one observed them—hastily crossed themselves—bent their knee to Sister Magdalen, by which name they saluted her—kissed her hand, or even the hem of her dalmatique—received with humility the Benedicite with which she repaid their obeisance; and then starting up, and again looking timidly round to see that they had been unobserved, hastily resumed their journey. Even while within sight of ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... Minneconjou, Uncapapa, Teton and Santee, Sans Arc and Black Foot, leagued with their only rivals in plainscraft and horsemanship and strategy, the Cheyennes, thronged to that wild and beautiful land once the home of the Crows. Three columns had striven to hem them in,—three thousand wagon-hampered soldiers to surround six thousand free lances of the plains, and the Indians laughed them to scorn. When the columns pressed too close they swarmed upon the nearest, stung it, sent it staggering back; then watched ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... the outlet was, for no river exists there now. If you could explore the shore lines of this ancient lake, which has been called Bonneville after the noted trapper, you would find two low spots in the mountains which hem the waters in, one upon the south, facing the Colorado River, the other on the north toward the Snake River. The one on the north happened to be a little lower, so that the break occurred there. First as a little, trickling stream, then as a mighty, surging ...
— The Western United States - A Geographical Reader • Harold Wellman Fairbanks
... fire; and soon they brought a youth lying on a bed, wasted by a mysterious illness, so thin that the bones protruding had formed angry sores on the skin. They touched him with the hem of the monk's garment, and ...
— Orientations • William Somerset Maugham
... because the latter were highly laudatory of the good man. And not from interest, at least, as far as he himself knew—not from any mean or selfish motives, did F. B. speak. He called Colonel Newcome his friend, his benefactor: kissed the hem of his garment: he wished fervently that he could have been the Colonel's son: he expressed, repeatedly, a desire that some one would speak ill of the Colonel, so that he, F. B., might have the opportunity of polishing that individual off in about two seconds. He covered ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... wind, and traveled south before the rider of the strong roan. Over a thousand miles of plain and hills it passed, and down into the cattle country of the mountain-desert which the Rockies hem on one side and the ...
— Riders of the Silences • John Frederick
... barge, And in the halle rowen up and doun. Sometime hath semed come a grim leoun, And sometime floures spring as in a mede, Sometime a vine and grapes white and rede, Sometime a castel al of lime and ston, And whan hem liketh voideth it anon: Thus semeth it to ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... rooted in the public spirit of this place, and built to last, I have no more doubt, judging from the spectacle I see before me, and from what I know of its brief history, than I have of the reality of these walls that hem us in, and the pillars that ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... she had often before come on deck while we were paddling about, barelegged, washing decks. And indeed when, shortly afterward, she emerged through the companion way, encased in a thin mackintosh reaching to the hem of her dress, and with a light sou'-wester on her head which in nowise detracted from her good looks, she at once set me at my ease by laughingly complimenting me upon the sensible character of my attire. Then, in a very different tone of voice, she ...
— The First Mate - The Story of a Strange Cruise • Harry Collingwood
... leave of a few old and tried friends. During his absence, Flora and her friend were not idle. The mornings were devoted to making purchases, and the evenings to convert them into articles for domestic use. There were so many towels to hem, sheets to make, and handkerchiefs and stockings to mark, that Flora saw no end to the work, although assisted by kind sisters, and the ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... care!' says he. 'I'm a man no man can monkey with. I'm a man that'll go through. I'm stained with crime. I've waded through seas o' blood. Nothin' in heaven or earth or hell can stop me. A month from now rubes like you'll be glad to crawl at my feet—an' wipe their dirty mugs on the hem o' that there woman's skirt.—Now listen,' says he. 'Get the hell into that there box o' yourn over there and ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... corner of the path there came into view the figure of Morris, keeper of the South Lodge, sweeping the gravel path, his head bent over his task. Cornelia's naughty eyes sent out a flash of delight. She cleared her throat in a deliberate "hem," cleared it again, and coughed in conclusion. Morris leant on his broom, surveyed the landscape o'er, and visibly reeled at the sight of such barefaced trespassing. The broom was hoisted against a tree, while he himself mounted the sloping path, shading his eyes ...
— Flaming June • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... Into the frosty starlight, and there moved, Rejoicing, through the hushed Chorasmian waste, Under the solitary moon;—he flowed Right for the polar star, past Orgunje, Brimming, and bright, and large; then sands begin To hem his watery march, and dam his streams, And split his currents; that for many a league The shorn and parcelled Oxus strains along Through beds of sand and matted rushy isles— Oxus, forgetting the bright speed he ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... overalls here," said Jessie, with pride. "Granny made me two," and she stepped to the old bag and lifted out a dark-blue galateen pinafore which covered her all up to the hem of ...
— The Story of Jessie • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... "He did do all that for you, and such as you,—and He says all that to you. Take hold of but the hem of His garment, so to speak, by faith, and you are saved. As to satisfaction to Divine justice, it is done. You have nothing to do with that, you have but to feel that you are sinful and guilty. You have to repent, which, may God the Holy Spirit help you to do. You ...
— The Cruise of the Mary Rose - Here and There in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston
... settled, Dr. Wilkinson leaned forward over the table, and drew a paper towards him. His preliminary "hem" was the signal for many fidgety motions on the forms in front of him, and every eye was riveted on him as he prefaced his distribution of the prizes by a short statement of his general satisfaction, and a slight notice of those particular points in which he could desire improvement. He ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May
... the murkiness of an average man's life. There was nothing in the review to fill him with a sense of virtue. He lifted the hem of ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... him worse'n ever. So one day I used my stick to um. Next mornin' I was down in my bake hus, makin' my batch ready fur oven, when, oothout a word o' warnin', up comes my two feet behind, down I goes head fust into my flour barrel, and them young—hem! the clergy be present—them youngsters dancin' round me like forty mad ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... (do you mark, sir?), being sick of the plague (do you see, sir?), had a, a, a—hem, hem (this cold troubles me; it makes me cough sometimes extremely)—had a French crown, sir, (you understand me?) lying by him, and (come hither, come hither), and would not bestow twopence (do you hear?) to buy an urinal (do you mark me?) to ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... Sunday, when the Canon with the portentous "Hem," and solemn glance round which invariably preceded the announcement of banns, began: "Be it known unto all here present," it was observed that the corners of his mouth were twitching in a most peculiar manner, and his voice actually ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)
... You have listened well. But tell me now,—what do you think? Or do you wander like a little brook, without any will of your own, between such banks as Fate may hem you in withal?" ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... sixteenth-century receipt for cooking meat, appear some such directions as these: "Y-mynce it, smyte them on gobbets, hew them on gobbets, chop on gobbets, hew small, dyce them, skern them to dyce, kerf it to dyce, grind all to dust, smyte on peces, parcel-hem; hew small on morselyen, hack them small, cut them on culpons." Great amounts of spices were used, even perfumes; and as there was no preservation of meat by ice, perhaps the spices ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle
... looks benign and does not prattle; he respects the lobes of our ears and other vulnerabilia. But for some inscrutable reason we feel strangely ill at ease in his chair. We can't think of anything to think about. Blankly we brood in the hope of catching the hem of some intimation of immortality. But no, there is nothing to do but sit there, useless as an incubator with no eggs in it. The processes of wasting and decay are hurrying us rapidly to a pauperish grave, every instant brings us closer to a notice in the obit column, and yet we sit and sit ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... poem; "gray heads" must be understood with some restriction: many gray heads, not all, abhor —gray heads who went along through their flowery youth as if it had no limit, and without insuring, in Love's true season, the happiness of their lives beyond youth's limit, "life's safe hem", which to cross without such insurance, is often fatal. And these, when they reach old age, shun retracing the path which led to the gulf wherein their ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... the exulting wild deer stray;— The strenuous youth are strong and sound as they; One reverence still the untainted race inspires, God their first thought, and after God their sires;— These last discerned Astraea's flying hem, And Virtue's ...
— Wordsworth • F. W. H. Myers
... "Well, 'hem! of course I can't definitely say. I'm trying to get them to take some new man. But if they should insist on nominating me, I'm afraid I'd have to—h'm, what—what do you think I'd have ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg
... neatly dressed in a home-woven linsey-woolsey gown, with a blue check apron reaching to its hem in front, and a white cloth passed round her neck and crossed over her breast; she had a cap on her iron ...
— The Leatherwood God • William Dean Howells
... of being goddesses. For centuries foolish men have set us up on a pedestal and vowed they were unworthy to touch the hem of our garments. And ...
— The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham
... Fulvia, now thy happy days are done! Instead of marriage pomp, the fatal lights Of funerals must masque about thy bed: Nor shall thy father's arms with kind embrace Hem in thy shoulders, trembling now for fear. I see in Marius' looks such tragedies, As fear my heart; ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... out-reddening every moon-washed rose King Love went thro' earth's garden-close! From that first gate of birth in the golden gloom, I traced Him. Thorns had frayed His garment's hem, Ay, and His flesh! I marked, I followed them Down to that threshold ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... two, a pink slipper made of silk, perchance, with the toe of it just showing beyond the hem ...
— The Star of Gettysburg - A Story of Southern High Tide • Joseph A. Altsheler
... "Hem!" said Mr. George. "You remember, miss, that we passed some conversation on a certain man this morning? Gridley," in a low whisper ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... "Hem. It's not so very far across from one house to the other. If I were to shut myself up whenever I'm tired— But never mind. Let's go to dinner. Mr Crosbie, will you take my niece Lilian." And then, offering his own arm to Bell, he walked ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... are turned back and hemmed by workers who sew tandem, one girl finishing the broader hem and the other the narrower one, their task being 620 sheets a day. The girls at the machines formerly earned $7.50, and now earn with the machine set at the higher rate of speed from $8 to $11. They ...
— Making Both Ends Meet • Sue Ainslie Clark and Edith Wyatt
... being pretty well recovered, when I heard Polly, as I supposed, and as it proved, come into my apartment: and down she sat, and sung a little catch, and cried, "Hem!" twice; and presently I heard two voices. But suspecting nothing, I wrote on, till I heard a kind of rustling and struggling, and Polly's voice crying, "Fie—How can you do ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... whisper; as he pleaded with her, he sank down upon one knee by her side, beseeching by word and gesture and look that she should show him that pity he could see in her eyes, that he knew was in her heart, and to which he made his last appeal; and then, lifting the hem of her dress to his lips with an unconscious movement ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... chamber smacks of treason: it must be purged from this suspicion. This mousing owl will search the crannies even of a woman's wits ere he sate his appetite for discovery. Hast aught plotting in the hem of thy purfle, or in thy holiday ruff and fardingale? Come with us, wench;—the gallant Earl of Tyrone would sport himself bravely in thy bedchamber, ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... Dreux may touch to lift us. History, pleads for the pride of the great discrowned Family giving her illumination there. The pride is reverently postured, the princely mourning-cloak it wears becomingly braided at the hem with fair designs of our mortal humility in the presence of the vanquisher; against whom, acknowledgeing a visible conquest of the dust, it sustains a placid contention in ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... disarmed till strength had returned to her limbs and she could make up her mind what to do. Her fortitude had been shaken by the very facility of success that had come to her. She advanced her foot forward a little from under the hem of her skirt; and he threw himself on it greedily. She was not even aware of him. She had thought of the forest, to which she had been told to run. Yes, the forest—that was the place for her to carry off the terrible spoil, the sting of vanquished death. Ricardo, clasping her ankle, pressed his ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... stranger of commanding figure and something of pride in his voice and bearing entered the council chamber and exclaimed: "Bon Dieu! it is said that you are out of spirits. Hem! if nothing but money is wanting, you may console yourselves, gentlemen. I possess mines of gold and silver, and both can and will most willingly supply you with a ton ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... a pretty picture framed in the doorway. She wore her riding-habit of olive-green—from the hem of which peeped her soft boots. Her hat, broad, picturesque, typical of the Southwest, had slipped backward, forming a background for her pretty face. An amused smile played about the ...
— The Round-up - A Romance of Arizona novelized from Edmund Day's melodrama • John Murray and Marion Mills Miller
... gray of dawn to an upright timber, colored red and hung with scalps, that had been cut from white men's heads at the massacre of Wyoming. The place they still call Painted Post. Without drawing rein he sped along the hills that hem Lake Seneca, then, striking deeper into the wilds, he reached a smaller lake, and almost fell from his saddle before a rude tent near the shore. A new grave had been dug close by, and he shuddered to think that perhaps he had come too late, but a wrinkled Indian stepped forth at that ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... Polly. "I promised to hem those handkerchiefs for Ned, and so I must; but I do think handkerchiefs are the most pokey things in the world to sew. I dare say you think you can sew faster than I can. Just wait a bit, and see what I can do, miss," she ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... engage in battle: nearly twenty thousand barbarians constituted the front of their army, with very large reserves posted behind, out of sight, with the intention that they should steal forward gradually, and hem in our battalions with their vast and unexpected numbers. These were also supported by a great number of auxiliaries of the Jesalenian tribes, whom we have mentioned as having promised reinforcements and supplies ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... rich, Maret?"—"No, General."—"So much the worse: a man should be independent."—"General, I will never be dependent on any one but you." The First Consul then raised his eyes to Maret and said, "Hem! that is not bad!" and when the secretary-general was gone he said to me, "Maret is not deficient in cleverness: he made ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... slowly down the steps, the people crowding about him to kiss his hands. Many knelt down and put the hem of his cassock to their ...
— The Gadfly • E. L. Voynich
... interfering, said: "How can we tell anything by that, unless we know how large the stocking was?" The old lady, with a most bland smile, turned to the Judge as if she were soothing an infant, lifted up the hem of her petticoats, and exhibited a very sturdy ankle and calf, and said, "Just the size I wear, your Honor." There was a roar of laughter in the court-house. The incident was published in the morning paper the next day, much to the Judge's indignation. ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... itself i' the loom o' the fool. The splendent sun no splendour can display, Till on gross things he dash his broken ray, From cloud and tree and flower re-tossed in prismy spray. Did not obstruction's vessel hem it in, Force were not force, would spill itself in vain We know the Titan by his champed chain. Stay is heat's cradle, it is rocked therein, And by check's hand is burnished into light; If hate were none, would love burn lowlier bright? God's ...
— Sister Songs • Francis Thompson
... body but folkes on't. Well Gossip Gretty, as thou art a Miller, and a close thiefe, now let us keepe it as close as we may till we take 'hem, and see them handsomly hanged o'the way: Ha my little Cuffe-divell, thou art a made ...
— Discovery of Witches - The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster • Thomas Potts
... with Madame Lalande. Having failed in this, on account of the crowd, I at length gave up the chase, and bent my steps homeward; consoling myself for my disappointment in not having been able to touch even the hem of her robe, by the reflection that I should be introduced by Talbot, in due form, ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... soo laye halfe in a traunse Twene slepyng & wakyng he bad me aryse. For he sayd I must yeue attendaunce. To the grete Courte of Mynes the Iustyse. Me nought auayled ayene hym to sylogyse. For hit is oft sayd by hem that yet lyues. He must nedes go that the ...
— The Assemble of Goddes • Anonymous
... moment, and with a significant "hem," sought to arouse the attention of the Grenadier; but Cranstoun, insensible to the appeal, and perhaps unwilling to listen to a story that occasioned so much mirth whenever it was repeated continued with his back immovably ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... to mount the winding staircase. A high wind, blowing through the loopholes, went rushing up the shaft, and filled the girl's skirts like a balloon, so that she was ashamed, until he took the hem of her dress and held it down for her. He did it perfectly simply, as he would have picked up her glove. ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... churchmen, for there was no finer material for a fetching robe of state in all the world, and no altar cloth or priestly robe could possess excelling beauty and not owe a debt to Spain. Someone has said that women are compounds of plain-sewing and make-believe, daughters of Sham and Hem, and, without questioning the truth of the statement, the same remark might be applied to both the clergy and the women of this period at least, if "fine-sewing" be substituted for "plain-sewing" in the epigram. Isabella herself, in spite of her well-known serious character, ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... find myself free—and still alive, miraculously saved by the power of her will. How beautiful life seems to me then! How fondly I lick the hand hanging at her side, the hem ...
— Barks and Purrs • Colette Willy, aka Colette
... smooth and shining surface, namely, AB, which is a part of the upper side of the leaf, that by a kind of hem or doubling of the leaf appears on this side. There are multitudes of leaves, which surfaces are like this smooth, and as it were quilted, which look like a curious quilted bagg of green Silk, or like a Bladder, or some such pliable ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... 'Hem!' said Baroni, kneeling down and opening Tancred's rifle-case. The subject was getting a little too deep for him. 'I perceive,' he said to himself, 'that my lord is very restless. There is something at the bottom of his mind which, ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... noble scouts—we are!" mocked Cleo. "Mine be the task! A-hem!" and here a fit of laughter spoiled the ...
— The Girl Scouts at Sea Crest - The Wig Wag Rescue • Lillian Garis
... vestry-room, where he caused himself to be carried in on the bed, and set on the vestry-room floor, not very distant from the clergyman. Here he waited, listening first to one speaker and then another, till the debate had grown very loud, when he gave a great hem; and all were silent, for every one knew that Johnny was ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... with his partner holding on to the hem of his jacket. They had progressed but a dozen feet when, on rounding a high rock, the ...
— Young Auctioneers - The Polishing of a Rolling Stone • Edward Stratemeyer
... asked for such a thing as that? What! you love a woman and let her paddle about in the mud at the risk of breaking her legs? Nobody but a knight of the yardstick likes to see a draggled skirt hem." ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... went up stairs to get the handkerchief out of her drawer she saw her bureau was yet in disorder. "Mamma will be displeased to see this," she thought, "and I shall have time enough to put it in order and hem papa's handkerchief beside." She went eagerly to work, but the bureau took her longer than she anticipated, and when her father came home to dinner she ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... in ioye and in felycite For eche of hem had other lefe and dere." Chaucer, Monks ...
— Lectures on Language - As Particularly Connected with English Grammar. • William S. Balch
... the truth: and whensoe'er The Prophet of that Son of God who died Sinless for sinners, standeth in this place, I, Bacrach, oldest Druid in this Isle, Will rise the first, and kiss his vesture's hem." ...
— The Legends of Saint Patrick • Aubrey de Vere
... Toby, contrary to his invariable way of treating his faithful servant, said nothing good or bad; the truth was, he had not altogether marshaled his ideas; he wished for another conference, and, as the Corporal was mounting up the three steps before the door, he hem'd twice; a portion of my uncle Toby's most modest spirits fled, at each expulsion, toward the Corporal; he stood with the rapper of the door suspended for a full minute in his hand, he scarce knew why. Bridget stood perdue ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... last day break, and the last shadow flee away; until then, she "shall not return." Her hands are laid on her breast—not praying—she has no need to pray now. She wears her dress of every day, clasped at her throat, girdled at her waist, the hem of it drooping over her feet. No disturbance of its folds by pain of sickness, no binding, no shrouding of her sweet form, in death more than in life. As a soft, low wave of summer sea, her breast rises; ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... "White Woman," but little lower than the point where we stood, was very grand, but all other objects looked small. The two great plains of Mexico and Puebla, with their lakes and towns, were laid out like a map; and the ranges of mountains which hem them in made them look like Roman encampments surrounded by earthworks. Even now that the lakes have shrunk to a fraction of their former size, we could see the fitness of the name given in old times to the Valley of Mexico, Anahuac, ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor
... emerald of fair size and of the best water and flawless at that, sewn into the hem of my tunic. Since you are so capable at finding safe shops and baths and ships, perhaps Alopex could guide me to a gem- expert who would like to buy a fine emerald and who would pay a fair price for it and ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... unassailable. We could only conclude that they purposed making a stand. The fatuousness of such a course was clear to us; for with the aid of the Relief Column we would presently be in a position to attack the Boers from many sides; to hem them in; to cut off retreat; and to kill or make prisoners of them all. It was a bold conviction; we still viewed ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... "Hem—really I do think it's scandalous not to let the keeper tell about the beasteses," said the unfortunate matron, with a half turn towards the persecutors, and grasping ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... Indians to the Swedes, and consequently was under the petticoat government of her Swedish majesty, Christina; and woe be to any mortal that wore a breeches who should dare to meddle even with the hem ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... proximity of some large creature. There was a rustling of the bushes, the sound drawing ever nearer and nearer; there was a sniffing noise, frequently increasing to a snort. With my eyes above the upper hem of my blanket I strained my vision in the direction from which the disturbance proceeded. To my agitation I perceived in the greyish gloom a large, slowly shifting black bulk, distant but a few paces from me. ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... fight, only seventy-five thousand of the British—think of it! with two hundred guns against four hundred thousand Germans with six hundred guns. They began the fight on a Saturday. The French on both their flanks gave way. One army on each flank trying to hem them in and an army in front pounding the life out of them. They fought all Saturday. They began the retreat on Saturday night, fought again Sunday, marched Sunday night, they fought Monday and marched Monday night, fought Tuesday, and marched Tuesday night. The letter said ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor
... at heart in reality, and yet I was happy, while we were rattling through the town in the old coupe, past the long lines of lighted windows. I held my mother's hand; I longed to beg her pardon, to kiss the hem of her dress, to tell her again and again that I loved and revered her. She perceived my emotion very plainly; but she attributed it to the affliction that had just befallen me, and she condoled with me. She said, "My Andre," several times. How rare it was for me to have her thus, all ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... and the ease with which it may be defended by one or two forts at a proper distance above its mouth, which would form the key to an interior region eight hundred leagues in extent. "Should foreigners anticipate us," he adds, "they will complete the ruin of New France, which they already hem in by their establishments of Virginia, Pennsylvania, New England, and Hudson's Bay." [Footnote: Memoire du Sr. de la Salle, pour rendre compte a Monseigneur de Seignelay de la decouverte qu'il a faite par l'ordre de ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman
... blond putain grew and increased and soared with every day of her martyrdom till the Machine-Fixer's former classification of les femmes exploded and disappeared entirely—the Machine-Fixer who would have fallen on his little knees to Lena had she given him a chance, and kissed the hem of her striped skirt in an ecstasy of adoration—told me that Lena on being finally released, walked upstairs herself, holding hard to the banister without a look for anyone, "having eyes as big as tea-cups." He added, with ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... encircled with tape which was nailed to the floor behind her chair. Two bands of tape, after being sewn to her cuffs, had been tacked solidly to the chair, three strong tacks were driven down through the hem of her dress, and, finally, Fowler and I were holding the threads which, after encircling the psychic's wrists, passed ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland
... the ocean, From the Orient's uttermost light, To where the last ripple in motion Lips hem of the skirt of the night—, But the Beautiful City evades us— No spire of it glints in the sun— No glad-bannered battlement shades us When all ...
— Afterwhiles • James Whitcomb Riley
... of approved merit, he retired with dignity. As he departed from the inclosure, the natives crowded about him, fearfully, as viewed the Israelites the safety of Daniel emerging from the lions' den. Did I not see the former queen lift the hem of his tapa and bow over it? It was night, the lights sputtered, and I was awed by the success of the incantation. A minute after Papa Ita had gone, I threw a newspaper upon the path he had trod, and ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... with the wan moon in its wake, marched across the Pacific, trailed the thunder-storms like the hem of a robe, and the growing tidal wave that toiled behind it, frothing and eager, poured over island and island and swept them clear of men: until that wave came at last—in a blinding light and with the breath ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... she exclaimed, 'Bless him, gracious God; bless him, and his noble commander! may they ever, with the prince they love, be thine especial care!' I knelt by her as she uttered this; and touching the hem of her garments as some holy thing, hurried ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... back from the door. For a moment she hesitated. Then with a womanly action she began to shake the rain out of her cloak and her skirts as well as she could, wetting her hands to the wrists. As she bent down, shaking the hem of the skirt, the blood rushed to her face again, and the place he had struck burned and smarted. It was quite a different sensation from what she had felt when she had touched it with her cool wet hand. She straightened herself ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... mends men's socks, should he not darn her lisle-thread hosiery, and run a line of machine stitching around the middle of the hem to prevent a disastrous run from a broken stitch? If she presses his ties, why should he not learn to iron her ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... human personality; The world's sad aspirations' one Success; Bright Blush, that sav'st our shame from shamelessness; Chief Stone of stumbling; Sign built in the way To set the foolish everywhere a-bray; Hem of God's robe, which all who touch are heal'd; To which the outside Many honour yield With a reward and grace Unguess'd by the unwash'd boor that hails Him to His face, Spurning the safe, ingratiant courtesy Of suing Him by ...
— The Unknown Eros • Coventry Patmore
... said nothing, but loved on and on, ever more fondly; he hoped against hope; he would not give up, for it seemed like giving up life to give up thought of Mary. He did not dare to look to any end of all this; the present, so that he saw her, touched the hem of her garment, was enough. Surely, in time, such deep ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... hair back with her hands, and gazed at him over her shoulder. He threw himself on his knees, seized the hem of her dress, and pressed it to his lips. It was a gesture of such inexpressible humility that even ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... told him what she would naturally have hidden, like a disgraceful secret. Jeff understood her perfectly. She had met Weedon Moore on philanthropic grounds, an equal so long as they were both avowed philanthropists. But when the little man aspired unduly and ventured to pull at the hem of her maiden gown, Christian tolerance went by the board and she was Addington and he was Weedon Moore. She would never be able to summon Christian virtues to the point of a community of interests with him again. Jeff ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... Howland's chair, but Juno hesitated a moment, looking doubtfully at the cushion. Juno was a very up-to-date young lady as to raiment. How could she flop down as Rosalie had done while wearing a skirt which measured no more than a yard around at the hem, and geared up in an undergarment which defied all laws of anatomy by precluding the possibility of bending at the waist line? She looked at Mrs. Harold and she looked at the cushion. As her boys would have ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... this picturesque throng stalked the two Indians, Tayoga and Tandakora. The Ojibway wore a feather headdress, and a scarlet blanket of richest texture was draped around his body, its hem meeting his finely tanned deerskin leggings, while his feet were encased in beaded moccasins. Nevertheless he looked, in those surroundings, which belonged so thoroughly to an exotic civilization, more gigantic and savage than ever. ...
— The Hunters of the Hills • Joseph Altsheler
... the burgher, who disliked the manner in which his companion had opened the interview, and who thought he saw the commencement of a forced compromise in the turn it was taking;—"Hem—I commend your moderation, Captain Ludlow. Sir, we are flattered in having a native of the Province in so honorable a command on the coast. Be seated, I pray you, young gentleman, that we may converse more at leisure. The Ludlows are an ancient and well-established family in the ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... velvet, and therefore she had her drawing-room redecorated in the most uncompromising blue. It killed the green velvet completely. As for the diamonds, she met that maneuver by wearing not a single gem of any kind. Her dress was an Indian muslin with a broad hem of gold. ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... that formed for the Mulberry Bush or Ring-o'-Roses. And Anthea was only able to take part in it by holding in her teeth the hem of her frock which, thus supported, formed a bag to hold ...
— The Story of the Amulet • E. Nesbit
... nankin bloomers, with pert Susey clinging to the hem of her brief skirt, stalked on with angry stride, vociferating at the top of ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... guess," said Tom resentfully; "and now you are trying to make mother think you are better than me. You wouldn't hem our sails or dig with us. We ...
— Troublesome Comforts - A Story for Children • Geraldine Glasgow
... Cracksman! The Cracksman!" echoed Margot and the rest. Then a pistol barked and spat, the light was swept out, a bullet sang past Cleek's ear, and he realized how foolish he had been. For part of the crowd came surging to the window, part went in one blind rush for the door to head him off and hem him in, and, through the din and hubbub rang viciously the voice of Margot shrilling out: "Kill him! Kill him!" as though nothing but the sight of his ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew |
