"Demure" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... like the French, but not so his wife. She suffered the change of her unpronounceable name, being euphonized as "Cesarine," smilingly, but life at home in a demure and tranquil suburb little suited the young meteor who had flashed across Germany. Felix saw with dismay that domestic bliss was not that which she enjoyed. For a while he hoped that she would content herself as his helpmate and the genius of ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... once transports us into the midst of a Germanic Feiertag in spring-time, with its bright sunlight, its throngs of townspeople streaming into the country—happy and merry without vulgar rowdyism; the smugly dressed apprentice and the servant-girl in her Sonntagsputz; the pert student and the demure Buergermaedchen with her new Easter hat and her voluminous-waisted Frau Mama; the sedate school-master or shopkeeper, leading his toddling child; sour-faced officials; grey-locked and spectacled ...
— The Faust-Legend and Goethe's 'Faust' • H. B. Cotterill
... blush-rose from the heat, when she observed coming toward her a young man who, from his garb and bearing, caught her eyes. Pretty Ella knew she attracted a great deal of attention from the opposite sex when she appeared in the street, and she was not such a demure little saint as to let a fine, manly figure pass without her observation, but her observance was quick, furtive, like the motion of a bird's eye that looks you over before you are aware of the bird's presence. No staring fellow ever met her blue eyes in the street. On the present occasion the little ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... what will happen when you come to Morningtown? I will meet you at the station, not as Jessica, but as the demure little home-made daughter of the Methodist minister here; we will greet each other with blighting formality, for there will be the station-master's wife to observe us; we will walk home along the main street, and we will speak of the most trivial or useful subjects, ...
— The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance • Paul Elmer More
... to go,—you know you do. Poor, dear little soul! You have never been anywhere,—you have seen nothing,—you live as close and demure as a church mouse,—while this man-monster, who has nothing in the universe to do, from morning till night, but wait upon you and contribute to your gratification, keeps you at home, like a bird in a cage, just to ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... breath of sound. His very lids refused to wink, as if afraid in that brief proverbial interval to lose a particle of the rich music that floated through the room. For the first time the idea crossed Mary's mind that it was possible the plain little sensible Margaret, so prim and demure, might have power over the heart of the ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... in time that it would not be true to say that she felt "more like herself" to-day, and changed that form of reply into a demure 'Pretty well, I think.' ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner
... me laugh," she said holding up her hand. "I am having my hair done to match that quakery thin pale mousey dress with the tiny poke bonnet—and I want to try my face too. I must look sweet and demure. You mustn't really laugh when you wear a dress and hat like that. ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... compliment with a demure and conscious droop of the eyelids, and gracefully steering her dress among the mingled litter, now with a smile, now with a sigh, reviewed the wonders of the two apartments. She gazed upon the cartoons with sparkling eyes, and a heightened colour, and in a somewhat ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... ascent of the steps, had remained standing at their head, gazing dreamily downward in her own demure manner and evidently considering that she had quite properly ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... nose into the meal-chest, which he had opened. "Billy, what are you doing?" said auntie; and it was fun enough to see him whisk into his stall, and stand there as quiet and demure as a cat that had just been ...
— The Nursery, October 1877, Vol. XXII. No. 4 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... hair had tumbled down into two thick, loose braids. She submitted now to the gown, and wrapped herself carefully in it. Propped high against the pillows, a braid of brown hair falling forward over each shoulder, and her bare arms lying still at her sides, she looked very demure indeed ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain
... forlorn, yet so gentle and kind, You could not but love him I'm sure it you'd try— This dog so demure and so kindly inclined— This dog with the ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... preachers which remain in the air and help to form all the authorized moral conventions. Yes, I was surprised at her remorse. But lowering her glance unexpectedly till her dark eye-lashes seemed to rest against her white cheeks she presented a perfectly demure aspect. It was so attractive that I could not help a faint smile. That Flora de Barral should ever, in any aspect, have the power to evoke a smile was the very last thing I should have believed. She went on after a ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... a demure glance at him, stopping him as he is moving towards her.] Of course I must—I can't stay here—that's not possible. My sister will ...
— Five Little Plays • Alfred Sutro
... gave the key, My riddle's open-sesame; Then added, with a smile demure, Whose downcast lids veiled triumph sure, 'If what I left there give you pain, You—you—can take it off again; 'Twas for my poet, not for ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... we shall not disturb any one." She crossed her feet and rested her elbow on his Gladstone. Though she still wore her gold slippers and stockings, she did not, he thanked Heaven, have on her concert gown, but a very demure black velvet with some sort of pearl trimming about the neck. "Wasn't it funny," she proceeded, "that it happened to be you who picked me up? I wanted a ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... disconsolately, gazing at Redbud. He could not understand. Then his glance questioned Miss Fanny, who sat with a prim and demure affectation of stateliness, on the opposite side of the room. There was ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke
... did whatever was possible to prevent the retreat from becoming a blind panic. When the rout reached the camp, Dunbar, the officer in charge there, destroyed everything, to the value of half a million dollars, and ran with the rest. Reviewing the affair, Franklin remarks with a demure arching of the eyebrow that it "gave us Americans the first suspicion that our exalted ideas of the prowess of British regular troops ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... we civilians will have to take a back seat now, Miss Cullen?" I said; and she answered me with a demure smile worth—well, I'm not going to put a value on ...
— The Great K. & A. Robbery • Paul Liechester Ford
... asked Billie surprised, adding with a demure glance: "Nobody seems to think of asking me about it. And it's ...
— Billie Bradley and Her Inheritance - The Queer Homestead at Cherry Corners • Janet D. Wheeler
... slavering, snarling cur, But only fills his famish'd jaws with fur. Here Baldwin spreads the assassinating cloak, 230 Where lurking rancour gives the secret stroke; While gorged with filth, around this senseless block, A swarm of spider-bards obsequious flock: While his demure Welch goat, with lifted hoof, In Poet's corner hangs each flimsy woof; And frisky grown, attempts, with awkward prance, On wit's gay theatre to bleat and dance. Here, seized with iliac passion, mouthing Leech, Too low, alas! for satire's whip to reach, ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... great flirt, yet she had many excellent and amiable qualities. For the first week after her father had given us the history of his life, his remarks upon her mother appeared to have made a decided impression upon her, and her conduct was much more staid and demure; but as the remembrance wore off, so did her conduct become coquettish and flirting as before; still, it was impossible not to be fond of her, and even with all her caprice there was such a fund of real good feeling and amiableness, which, when called forth, was ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... large red car, with a chauffeur in dark-grey livery with a light-brown fur rug round his knees. Before their astonishment permitted the remark that some one must have stopped at the wrong house, the door opened and the most demure parlour-maid in England ...
— Enter Bridget • Thomas Cobb
... left the passage another knock was given at Eleanor's door, and Mrs Grantly's very demure own maid, entering on tiptoe, wanted to know would Mrs Bold be so kind as to speak to the archdeacon for two minutes in the archdeacon's study, if not disagreeable. The archdeacon's compliments, and he wouldn't ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... she, mighty demure. "Is it well to be so extravagant in praise of your own?" Which last words put me to such ecstasy that I fell dumb forthwith; noting the which, she came a little nearer to slip her cool fingers into mine, "Though, indeed," quoth she, "I am glad to find you so observant! And my hair? ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... swell up under the pencil of the draughtsman of that day, every muscle becomes coarser, fuller, more fleshy, although the draughtsman undoubtedly believed he had reproduced it with mathematical exactitude. The Grecian goddess no longer looks so demure. She has grown to be a coquette; the Virgin has become a wife, because the age lacked the virgin eye, because Rubens' full-bosomed women's figures and Buonarotti's swelling play of the muscles obtruded themselves everywhere, not ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... the men already on board, and to make the best of my way to Halifax. "Stay," said he, "take the master and boy with you, Mr Hurry; we shall not know what to do with them on board—and see that he plays you no trick." I laughed at the idea of having anything to dread from the demure Mr Scuttle, and, putting up a few necessaries, I tumbled into the boat which was to take me on board my new command. I thought I caught a twinkle in friend Jotham's eyes when he found that he was to be sent back to his own vessel—but this was ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... table, and, with colored silks, chenille, etc., she imitated each flower and its leaf very adroitly without a pattern. This was clever, and, indeed, rather a rare talent; but she lowered her head over this work with a demure, beaming complacency embroidery alone never yet excited without external assistance. Accordingly, on a large stool, or little ottoman, at her feet, but at a respectful distance, sat a young man, almost her match in beauty, though ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... Saturn's reign Such mixture was not held a stain. Oft in glimmering bowers and glades He met her, and in secret shades Of woody Ida's inmost grove, Whilst yet there was no fear of Jove. Come, pensive Nun, devout and pure, Sober, steadfast, and demure, All in a robe of darkest grain, Flowing with majestic train, And sable stole of cypress lawn Over thy decent shoulders drawn. Come; but keep thy wonted state, With even step, and musing gait, And looks ...
— L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, Comus, and Lycidas • John Milton
... gaze was certainly not a little amusing. On the top of a log which we sometimes used as a table, sat the black cat, with a very demure expression on its countenance; and in front of it, sitting on the ground, with his legs extended on either side of the log, was Peterkin. At the moment we saw him he was gazing intently into the cat's face, with his nose about four inches from it,—his ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... annoyed by have materialized. Before the gas stove there are nine small individuals dressed in a strange combination of uniform checked aprons and patent leather boots worn out and discarded by the babies of the fortunate. The small feet they encase are crossed, and the freshly washed faces are demure, as the matron with the wig frowns down into a newspaper from which she now and then hisses a command to order. Three miniature members are rocking violently in ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst
... Anne into "deeps of affliction." The fulfillment thereof exalted her to dizzy realms of delight. Marilla had almost begun to despair of ever fashioning this waif of the world into her model little girl of demure manners and prim deportment. Neither would she have believed that she really liked Anne much ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... boy." He turned quickly—Margaret had not gone around the corner: she, too, was coming through the campus and there she stood, grave and demure, though her eyes ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... be smooth on her temples, was coiled in a great knot at the back of her head. Its double tints and strange changefulness, and the smooth creamy cheeks with their moving islets of roses that would come and go at a word, were pretty protests of Nature, I used to think, against the demure tints of her pearl-gray silken gown. She was looking out into the garden, quite heedless of the older dame, who sat as her wont was between the windows, and chirruped now and then, mechanically, "Has thee a four-leaved clover?" As I learned some time after, one of our older ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various
... always seeing that vision of Rosalie in the blue frock among them, rather like Alice, the real Alice, Tenniel's Alice. She was always feeling that Rosalie, thus guised, was held off from their circle, not welcomed, not understood, as certainly they did not care for the demure, quaint ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... so pleased to describe her, it is not for me to protest," was the Baroness's demure reply, followed by suppressed but quite audible giggles from ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... placed the chairs around the table, then drawing out two of them, turned toward the maidens, his face flushing at the necessity of addressing them, his whole manner betokening the diffidence that beset him. With demure looks but twinkling eyes the girls awaited his next words eagerly. "Have ...
— Peggy Owen and Liberty • Lucy Foster Madison
... evening of an April day, he cantered up the road to Patricia's home, and I dare say the heart of the owner of those bright eyes which peeped out upon him from an upper window beat faster when they saw him coming. But it was a very demure little maiden who met him at the great door as he entered, and gave him her hand to kiss. She was all in white, with a sprig of blossoms in her hair, and she must have made a pretty picture standing there, and one to warm ...
— A Soldier of Virginia • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... light-o-love," Phoebe broke in, her bosom heaving with the violence of her exercise. "But prithee, sweet, chide me not. From this on shall I be chaste, demure, and sober as an abbess in a play. But oh!—but oh!" she cried, stretching her arms high over her head, "'twas a goodly frolic, sis! I felt a three-centuries' fasting lust for it, in ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... younger peasants, as they were raising their tankards to their mouths when the Squire's back was turned, making something of a grimace, and giving each other the wink; but the moment they caught my eye they pulled grave faces, and were exceedingly demure. With Master Simon, however, they all seemed more at their ease. His varied occupations and amusements had made him well known throughout the neighbourhood. He was a visitor at every farm-house and ...
— Old Christmas From the Sketch Book of Washington Irving • Washington Irving
... teasing Joseph and, though at heart she was really very fond of him, whenever he attempted to make love to her, she would never listen seriously, but always laugh at him and make fun of his clumsy devotion. This was quite unlike the way a demure Puritan maiden should conduct herself, and at times Elizabeth was obliged to chide her ...
— The Children's Longfellow - Told in Prose • Doris Hayman
... led us north as far as Charlton Street, which the geographers of Greenwich Village claim as the lower outpost of their domain. Certainly it is a pleasing byway, running quietly through the afternoon, and one lays an envious eye upon the demure brick houses, with their old-fashioned doorways, pale blue shutters, and the studio windows on the southern side. At the corner of Varick Street is a large house showing the sign, "Christopher Columbus University of America." Macdougal ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... fates seemed slightly untoward. At the close of one of our joint debates, in the southern part of the district, he was greeted by a demure-looking individual with the ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... expensive clothes for other women, and produces her "effects" for men. She wears scarlet on a cold or raw day, and the eyes of the men light up when they see her. It makes her look cheerful and bright and warm. She wears gray when she wants to look demure. Let a man beware of a woman in silvery gray. She looks so quiet and dove-like and gentle that she has disarmed him before she has spoken one word, and he will snuggle down beside her and let her turn his mind and his pocket-book wrong ...
— From a Girl's Point of View • Lilian Bell
... demure good-morrow, With soft-slow tongue, true mark of modesty, And sorts a sad look to her lady's sorrow, For why her face wore sorrow's livery; But durst not ask of her audaciously Why her two suns were cloud-eclipsed so, Nor why her ...
— The Rape of Lucrece • William Shakespeare [Clark edition]
... very grave and demure, came Flossie, and she, like her friend, carried her gift uncovered. She proffered it with her most becoming air of correctness and propriety. It was a cabinet photograph of herself in her best attitude, her best mood and her best blue blouse. It was framed beautifully and appropriately ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... worsted-work, and said, "Now, Mamita, I'm ready to receive company like a pink of propriety." But the change was so sudden, that her eyes were still laughing when Mr. Green entered an instant after; and he again caught that archly demure expression which seemed to him so fascinating. The earnestness of his salutation was so different from his usual formal politeness, that Mrs. Delano could not fail to observe it. The conversation turned upon incidents of travel after ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... continued Marianita. "It is a priest who rides the mule. Well, a priest is better than nobody—especially if he can play as well on the mandolin as the last one that travelled this way, and stayed two days with us. He! He is coming on a gallop—that's not a bad sign. But no! he has a very grave, demure look. Ah! he sees me; he is waving a salute. Well, I must go down and kiss ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... protruded from the trees in the centre of the group of houses which we were approaching so furiously. The village was all but deserted: everybody seemed to be indoors at their midday meal, but Francis slowed down and ran along the dirty street at a demure pace. The village passed, he jammed down the accelerator and once more the ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... anxiety wrote its sign manual in the knitted brows and the tightly pressed lips. Then she smiled and the dark eyes grew softly radiant. "The dear old saint!" she whispered; "the dear, dear old saint!" And when Broffin came down a few minutes later, she went to open the hall door for him, serenely demure and with honey on her tongue, as befitted the role of "everybody's ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... chair facing him. She looked particularly small and demure this morning. She sat there meekly with downcast eyes whilst Mr. Whittington sorted and rustled amongst his papers. Finally he pushed them away, and leaned over ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... mercy. Here we might leave the subject, but cannot refrain from adding a few concluding words as to the moral characteristics of this truly good man. Though habitually religious, he was neither demure nor morose, but cheerful, gay, and humorous. He took great interest in the pleasures of the young people about him, and exerted himself in all ways to promote their happiness. He was fond of books, pictures, ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... stood waiting to see if they gave me any orders. One came up, "Here, Dorus," said she, "take this fan,[82] and let her have a little air in this fashion, while we are bathing; when we have bathed, if you like, you may bathe too." With a demure air I ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... the origin of St. Mary's Hospital. Mr. Lower says that it was founded in 1229 for a chaplain and thirteen bedesmen. In 1562 a warden and five inmates were the prescribed occupants. Now there are eight sets of rooms, each with its demure tenant, all of whom troop into the little chapel at fixed hours. Mrs. Evans, sacristan, who does the honours, would tell me nothing as to the process of selection by which she and the seven other occupants came to be living there; all that she could say was that ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... copied, or rather, tried to copy, those worn by the cable-ship contingent. They also rode bicycles, looking most incongruous awheel, the long, spade shaped train to their skirts tucked out of the way, their wide camisa sleeves standing out like stiff sails on either side, their demure and modest little kerchiefs swelling with the quick throbbing of their adventurous hearts. We were told that one of these women, after seeing the quartermaster's wife riding a bicycle in her very short ...
— A Woman's Journey through the Philippines - On a Cable Ship that Linked Together the Strange Lands Seen En Route • Florence Kimball Russel
... in in a body. Guizot is not there: he passed by just now in full ministerial costume. Presently little Thiers saunters back: what a clear, broad sharp-eyed face the fellow has, with his gray hair cut down so demure! A servant passes, pushing through the crowd a shabby wheel-chair. It has just brought old Moncey the Governor of the Invalids, the honest old man who defended Paris so stoutly in 1814. He has been very ill, and is worn down almost by infirmities: but in his illness he was ...
— The Second Funeral of Napoleon • William Makepeace Thackeray (AKA "Michael Angelo Titmarch")
... their father with a serious expression of countenance. That of Alexis bespoke sincerity; while Ivan stole forward with the air of one who had been recently engaged in some sly mischief, and who was assuming a demure deportment with the design ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid
... feet and ran lightly up-stairs; but, fast as she fled, thought outran her slender flying feet, and she came at last very leisurely into Celia's room, a subdued, demure opportunist, apparently with nothing on her ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... Frank was thus conscious that he had one ally and sympathiser in the midst of that general union of disfavour that surrounded, watched, and waited on him in the house of Hermiston; but he had little comfort or society from that alliance, and the demure little maid (twelve on her last birthday) preserved her own counsel, and tripped on his service, brisk, dumbly responsive, but inexorably unconversational. For the others, they were beyond hope and beyond endurance. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and found the cause of her sudden "dignity," her demure silence. The unfortunate Colonel Surry had quite disappeared from the ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... dropt upon one knee, by the side of Mrs Tabitha, who, eyeing him askance, and flirting her fan with marks of agitation, thought proper, after some conflict, to hold out her hand for him to kiss, saying, with a demure aspect, 'Brother, you have been very wicked: but I hope you'll live to see the folly of your ways — I am very sorry to say the young man, whom you have this day acknowledged, has more grace and religion, by the gift of God, than you with all your profane learning, and repeated opportunity — I ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... gaze fixed on the lady opposite, while she in her turn never wavered in her gaze upon him. But whereas there was something bold in his homage there was a half-shy way with her. He was facing her squarely, but she looked at him a little sideways, and a little curiously, in demure dubiousness. One could see that she was enormously intrigued, but her interest was not expressed by any movement. In fact neither moved; they remained some twenty yards apart all the time I observed ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, March 14, 1917 • Various
... the window, the dominie still slept. Rebecca, the demure monkey, bent over her lesson book as innocently as ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... source of amusement. They would make their horses caracole on the gravel in front of our window; they would be just starting for their ride as we went for walk or drive, and would salute us with doffed hat and low bow; they would waylay us on our way downstairs with demure "Good morning"; they would go to church and post themselves so that they could survey our pew, and Lord Charles—who possessed the power of moving at will the whole skin of the scalp—would wriggle his hair up and down till we were choking with laughter, to our own imminent ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant
... open cars, where people can see from end to end what every one is doing, are hateful inventions. It is perfectly absurd, when one finds one's self the happiest fellow living, that one is obliged to look as demure and solemn as if ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... demure, prim thing. Sure all the world is hypocrisy Well, I thank my stars, whatsoever sufferings I have, I have none in reputation. I wonder at the men; I could never think her handsome. She has really a good shape and complexion but no mein; and no woman has the use of ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... too permanent to be affected even by the intense cold of the evening. Opposite to this personage sat a solid, short, and square figure. No part of his form was to be discovered through his overdress, but a face that was illuminated by a pair of black eyes that gave the lie to every demure feature in his countenance. A fair, jolly wig furnished a neat and rounded outline to his visage, and he, well as the other two, wore marten-skin caps. The fourth was a meek- looking, long-visaged man, without any other protection from the cold than that which was furnished by a black ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... said the Judge, with a demure smile; "thank you for remembering my church so kindly; but what did my ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... answered, smiling, and quite delighted to find such an unexpected vein of grave pleasantry about the demure-looking church-dignitary; for the Deacon asked his question without moving a muscle, and took no cognizance whatever of the young man's tone and smile. First-class humorists are, as is well known, remarkable for the immovable ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... cuts innumerable; and therefore when you come to be trimed, they will aske you whether you will be cut to looke terrible to your enimie, or amiable to your freend, grime and sterne in countenance, or pleasant and demure (for they have divers kinds of cuts for all these purposes, or else they lie). Then when they have done all their feats, it is a world to consider, how their mowchatowes [i.e., moustaches] must be preserved and laid out, and from one cheke to another, yea, almost from one eare to another, ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... Boeotian patrons. Sometimes a stolid inhabitant of central New York, evidently of Dutch extraction, would regard him with an open stare expressive of a desire to enjoy that which was said if the point of the joke could by any possibility be indicated to him. At other times a demure Pennsylvania Quaker would benignly survey the poor lecturer with a look of benevolent pity; and on one occasion, when my friend was lecturing at Peoria, an elderly lady, accompanied by her two daughters, left the room in the midst of the lecture, exclaiming, as she passed me ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 1 • Charles Farrar Browne
... about this girl. She was as natural as a flower—and just as sweet! There was a softness to her cheek and to the curve of her neck like rich velvet. Her eyes were mild yet sparkling when she became at all animated. And that demure ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... cruel clearness, only to find that Roberts, self-absorbed, did not notice her. He seemed to have lost the vivid interest in the work which aforetime had characterized him, and the happiness of the man was only less tell-tale than the pretty contentment and demure approval of all he said which May scarcely tried to conceal. Wild with fear, blinded by temper, Ida ...
— Elder Conklin and Other Stories • Frank Harris
... set upon a gentle hill that rose above the swaying green of trees. Here my lady paused; she looked up the glade and down the glade, and finally at him. And her eyes were the eyes of a maid, shy, mischievous, demure, challenging. ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... passed the wayfarers, returned their demure salutations with solemn dignity, as became one in high station, and in whose ears was sounding a call to a meeting of the congregation. Thus exchanging greetings, he proceeded to his house, where, entering the room used by ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... a church in Washington because he preferred to stay by the Old Dutch. Well, Dorothy didn't realize he was a parson, or she wouldn't have gone off with him with such a flourish. If she finds it out, you can look to see her begin to be demure. I say, you've certainly got a stunning ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond
... the evening, when she passed cups and glasses, this demure-looking damsel heard much fine discourse, saw many famous beings, and improved her mind with surreptitious studies of the rich and great when on parade. But her best time was after supper, when, through the crack of the door of the ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... Around it were seated six or seven hardy and athletic young men, some drawing coarse tools carefully through the curvatures of ox-bows, others scraping down the helves of axes, or perhaps fashioning sticks of birch into homely but convenient brooms. A demure, side-looking young woman kept her great wheel in motion; while one or two others were passing from room to room, with the notable and stirring industry of handmaidens, busied in the more familiar ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... mounted guards protecting the men, women and children of the Colony who trudged wearily on foot. The Indians were kind to their charge, but the Redman loves a joke, and often indulges in "horse-play." The demure Highlander looked unmoved upon the Indian pranks. The Indians also hold everything they possess on a loose tenure. The Highlander who was forced to surrender the gun, which his father had carried at the battle of Culloden, failed ...
— The Romantic Settlement of Lord Selkirk's Colonists - The Pioneers of Manitoba • George Bryce
... of the evening had fallen to the young English girl who had played the amusing part of the demure governess, Miss Smith—pronounced by the others "Mees Smeeth." Enid was passionately fond of dramatic art, and belonged to an amateur club in London. Among those present were the author of the piece himself, a dark young man with smooth hair parted in the centre and ...
— The Doctor of Pimlico - Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime • William Le Queux
... themselves: the which, though done by stealth, they make as bad as may be: and yet hardly any man, tho he had the eyes of Argolus can attrap them; for if by chance you should perceive any thing, they will find one excuse or another to delude you, and look as demure as a dog in a halter, whereby the good man is easily pacified ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh
... fashionable great-coat and umbrella; thinly clad old women shivering in the cold, and bright-eyed young damsels with their warm cloaks drawn closely round them; old men with long beard, wallet, and pilgrim's staff; and mischievous urchins with faces for the moment preternaturally demure. Each right hand, of old and young alike, held a lighted taper, and these myriads of flickering little flames produced a curious illumination, giving to the surrounding buildings a weird picturesqueness which they do not possess ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... quite a character in his way, and Phil spent a pleasant half-hour with him. His burrow, though only a deep long hole in the sand-bank, was very cosy, and Mrs. Thorny-tail was most intelligent. She had a great deal to say to Phil about a demure Red Locust who showed some inclination, to bite him as he bade her farewell at the entrance to ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... little Italian town, as we have said, is no very grand thing, and as a mere question of fun it is no doubt amusing only to people who are ready to be amused. And yet there is a quaint fascination in it as a whole, in the rows of old women with demure little children in their laps ranged on the stone seats along the bridge, the girls on the pavement, the grotesque figures dancing along the road, the harlequins, the mimic Capuchins, the dominoes with big noses, the carriages rolling along amidst a ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... body. Caleb had never given it a serious thought up to that moment, but now it came back to him with added cumulative force. He recollected that he had often wondered at the child's unconscious adaptation of mood to the clothes she happened to be wearing; he recalled how he had seen her demure and distant in misty, pastel-tinted party frocks or quaintly, infantilely dignified in soberer Sunday morning garb. But that Saturday morning he realized what the woman was to be like, when the hem of the velvet skirt no longer hung ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... that chap out more than once. Not very good company, though. Little to say for himself. Sits quiet and drinks what's given to him, eyes always half closed, speaks sort of demure. . . I've had misfortunes, he says. The truth was they had kicked him out of a big steam-ship company for disgraceful conduct; nothing to affect his certificate, you understand; and he had gone down quite easily. Liked it, I expect. Anything's better than work. Lived on the widow lady who ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... reception room, was amazed at the change in her. Warwick Hall had done its work. Already the little chameleon had taken on the colour of her surroundings. Hawkins, in all his years of London service, had never served a more demure, self-possessed little English maiden, or one who listened with greater deference to the ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston
... more than words. My sweetheart's left me wondering just what she meant. There was amusement in it, but there was, too, a demure suppression to which I had not ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine
... very late," she said easily. "Come back and make yourselves comfortable, and I'll listen to both of you," she said with a demure little devil in her eye. "I haven't seen you for ages, and I don't know when the good moment will come again." She included the two men in a friendly smile, waved a hand toward the waiting chairs, and adjusted a light shawl over the shoulders of ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... Lady Tu, was receiving. As there were no men in the drawing-room, her daughter, Wee Tu, sat among the young girls as quiet and demure as a picture ...
— The Automobile Girls At Washington • Laura Dent Crane
... the towns I love the discreet and tranquil Quaker dwellings, With their demure brick faces and immaculate white-stone doorsteps; And the gabled houses of the Dutch, with their high stoops and iron railings, (I can see their little brass knobs shining in the morning sunlight); And the solid houses of the descendants of the Puritans, ...
— The White Bees • Henry Van Dyke
... o'clock next morning my friend and I were walking up the famous yew avenue of Holdernesse Hall. We were ushered through the magnificent Elizabethan doorway and into his Grace's study. There we found Mr. James Wilder, demure and courtly, but with some trace of that wild terror of the night before still lurking in his furtive eyes and ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... found myself careering in a galop down the room with a large-looking girl—Mlle. Sylphe—whose activity was out of proportion to her figure, though in more harmony with her name. Her build was commanding, she was of dark complexion and hair, in manner demure, alluring with great power by the instrumentality of lustrous eyes, though secretly, I felt, like the tigress itself in cruelty to her victims. She was a magnificent figure, and gave me a merry dance. After it, she set about explaining the meaning of her garland decorations and the language ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair
... very angry at David, heaved the bur-oak outside and passionately demanded his reason for fetching "sic a muckle rail like that instead o' a switch? Do ye ca' that a switch? I have a gude mind to thrash you insteed o' John." David, with demure, downcast eyes, looked preternaturally righteous, but as usual prudently answered ...
— The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir
... book and regarded the visitor wonderingly. Patsy scented fun and drew a chair nearer the group. Beth resumed her embroidery with a demure smile that made Skim decide at once that "he picked ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Millville • Edith Van Dyne
... preachers of the methodist persuasion, who are the chief agents and pioneers of religion in most of the western woods. His plain, unstudied garments all of black, rigid and unfashionable; his pale, demure features, and the general humility of his air and gesture, left our young skeptic little reason to doubt of this; and when the other expressed his satisfaction at meeting with a companion at last, after a long and weary ride without one, the tone of his expressions, ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... and the camel pitching and tossing finally acquired an upright position. Things went well for a score or so of yards, the three animals proceeding at a stately demure pace, until verily the devil ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest
... those poor men who haven't the means to get married," replied his demure little wife kindly, "for I am sure, if they had the means they would ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... the blood fairly spouted out—got her in the leg, and she lost her temper, and began lashing out. Hunt, with great presence of mind, threw a bucket of water over them both. And as soon as they were quiet, dear, good, demure little Tank was put in between ...
— Letters to Helen - Impressions of an Artist on the Western Front • Keith Henderson
... came that one had been found, Mr. Wales had started at once for the city. When he saw the child, he was dismayed. He had expected to see a girl of ten; this one was hardly five, and she had anything but the demure and decorous air which his Puritan mind esteemed becoming and appropriate in a little maiden. Her hair was black and curled tightly, instead of being brown and straight parted in the middle, and combed ...
— The Adventures of Ann - Stories of Colonial Times • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... the young girl, looking at him with demure surprise, "I am perfectly contented and happy. No ambition for triumphs is consuming me. What triumphs? As for pleasure, each day brings all and more than I deserve. Young as one may be, one can scarcely act ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... to say we did more than sing for the demure little bird. We fought for her. We quarrelled fiercely. But at last it was I who won her, and my brother ...
— Stories of Birds • Lenore Elizabeth Mulets
... smile! It beams on me From where the choir makes melody, Behind the parson; maid demure, Her witching eyes my thoughts allure, Although, in church, this should not be. Pale Luna's light, the dimpling sea, Are very taking, I'll agree; But to her smile all else is poor— ...
— Cap and Gown - A Treasury of College Verse • Selected by Frederic Knowles
... Week, people are so demure, especially this last day, that I told Dilly, who called here, that I would dine with him, and so I did, faith; and had a small shoulder of mutton of my own bespeaking. It rained all day. I came home at seven, ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... noticed her presence but in following the lady's loving glance. She sat in a tiny rocking chair, nursing a little white rabbit on her lap. She was not a beautiful child—she was too diminutive and pale, with hazy blue eyes and faded yellow hair; yet her little face was so demure and sweet, so meek and loving, that it would haunt and soften you more than that of a beautiful child could. The child had been orphaned from her birth, and when but a few days old had been received into the ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... to see the mines," answered Cathie, sweetly demure, "and I—I wanted to see Black Creek; your letters were ...
— "Seth" • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... piquant beauty of Pauline enthralled Baskinelli. He had never before seen a woman like her—innocent but astute, daring but demure, brilliant but opalescent. When at last they strolled away together into the conservatory his drawing room obeisances became direct declarations ...
— The Perils of Pauline • Charles Goddard
... was standing in the barn-yard, the very picture of demure innocence. But when he saw little Neddy and his sister, he pricked up his ears, shook his ...
— Wreaths of Friendship - A Gift for the Young • T. S. Arthur and F. C. Woodworth
... of a very prolonged grace before meat, which was delivered by one of the company—who, from his Geneva band and serge doublet, presided, as Julian supposed, over some dissenting congregation—he noticed that this man kept the same demure and severe cast of countenance usually affected by the Puritans, and which rather caricatured the reverence unquestionably due upon such occasions. His eyes were turned upward, and his huge penthouse hat, with a high crown and broad brim, held in both hands before ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... it makes me start when I hear her merry laugh ringing through the house, for the sound carries me far back into the past, when my own children romped and shouted at Le Bocage. You were always a quiet, demure, and rather solemn child; but this Huldah is a gay little sprite. St. Elmo is so astonishingly patient with her, that Estelle accuses him of being in his dotage. Oh, Edna! it would make you glad to see my son and that orphan child sitting together reading the Bible. ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans |
