"Primly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... somewhere. It must have been at Heath's. Yes, it was. I put it on the counter while I opened this net thing. Don't you remember? You were taking some money out of your purse." Louis had a very distinct vision of his Rachel's agreeably gloved fingers primly unfastening the purse and choosing a ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... cried Betty wildly, then, meeting his eye, she laughed, a twinkling little laugh. "You shouldn't ask questions like that, not so suddenly, anyway," she said primly. "It isn't fair." ...
— The Outdoor Girls in the Saddle - Or, The Girl Miner of Gold Run • Laura Lee Hope
... dared venture upon "Dear Mrs. May"; it had not even occurred to him that he might), and informed her primly that the bag had arrived. Also it inquired in stiff language whether the writer might be permitted to place it in ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... friend seemed to grow more settled and contented, Eliphalet Hodges waxed more buoyant in the joy of his hale old age, and his wife, all her ambitions satisfied, grew more primly genial ...
— The Uncalled - A Novel • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... out; so I can't ask leave, but I'll only stay a little tiny minute, and tell the little man what is his name, and what he is saying," reasoned the pretty runaway, primly wrapping herself in her mother's breakfast-shawl left lying upon the sofa, and tying her handkerchief over ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin
... geniuses. Her smiles and her tones were irresistible. They were like the wand of some magical princess come to break a sinister thrall. They nearly humanised the gaunt parlourmaid, who stood grimly and primly waiting until these tedious sentimental preliminaries should cease from interfering with her duties in regard ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... gravely shook the hand she held out primly, keeping a certain distance from him lest he should ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... the little old lady said primly. "I do wish you'd give your own Queen credit for some ability. Goodness knows you ...
— That Sweet Little Old Lady • Gordon Randall Garrett (AKA Mark Phillips)
... to make up in the street, either," Louise remarked, primly. "A little powder in the house is all very well"—(Louise had a nose which gave her trouble)—"but I really don't think it ...
— A Prince of Sinners • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... looked anything but pleased, but she dared not refuse. Arabella seemed quieter than ever when she came down the stairway, her wet garments exchanged for dry ones, and her straight hair primly ...
— Dorothy Dainty at Glenmore • Amy Brooks
... he added hastily, "don't be a fool. There are some things one can't bet on. As you ought to have known," he said primly. ...
— A Wodehouse Miscellany - Articles & Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... would like some tea," she said, primly, as Bella appeared. "He has had a long journey." The captain started and eyed her fiercely; Mrs. Kingdom, her good temper quite restored by this little retort, folded her hands in her lap and gazed ...
— At Sunwich Port, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... better wait for you," she said primly. "There are bad places where the trail goes close to the bluff, and the lava rock will be slippery with this snow. And it's getting dark so fast that a stranger ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... bit. But horribly unhappy. I must look a sight." Then, remembering her manners, as the Street had it, she said primly:— ...
— K • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... Martha Pinkerton comes primly on, with Mrs. Stanhope at her side, who turns often with a friendly glance toward a happy-seeming couple that walk apart, as if their chief enjoyment ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... winced primly at the word biological, and appealed to her escort to protect her somehow from the indecencies of life. The elderly youth answered her appeal with a tightening ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht
... children came with Mrs. Featherfew, Wilhelmine and Victorine. They spoke very primly and politely, and seemed to our little folks like grown-up ladies cut down short. But when after dinner they all went out into the grounds to play, Mine and Rine, as they called each other, could play as ...
— Five Happy Weeks • Margaret E. Sangster
... their clothes, and don't like our scrambling walks, and if Ellie does get allured by our wicked ways, she is sure to be torn, or splashed, or something, and we have shrieks and lamentations, and accusations of Jock and Joe, amid floods of tears; and Jessie comes to the rescue, primly shaking her head and coaxing her little sister, while she brings out a needle and thread. I can't help it, Mary. It does aggravate ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... new sights to gaze at, it was difficult to walk primly two and two, and the line proved a straggling one, in spite of Miss Frazer's efforts in the rear. At a pair of great iron gates Miss Russell stopped and turned to ...
— The Manor House School • Angela Brazil
... water, muddy beyond all chance of transparency, came up to their chests. To them, however, this was not enough. The excessive modesty of eight or nine made them keep even the white of their angular little shoulders primly covered. ...
— The Hickory Limb • Parker Fillmore
... in rear is opened and MRS. KEENEY stands in the doorway. She is a slight, sweet-faced little woman primly dressed in black. Her eyes are red from weeping and her face drawn and pale. She takes in the cabin with a frightened glance and stands as if fixed to the spot by some nameless dread, clasping and unclasping her hands nervously. The two men ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various
... comfortable sleigh of the old-fashioned pattern. Although it had once been very handsome, it was now faded and ancient. A man who almost looked as if he had gone into service along with the sleigh and the other belongings of his mistress, sat primly upon the front seat. He expressed as much pleasure at seeing the little Peppers coming, as his stoical countenance would allow, but he didn't move a muscle of face or figure. At any other time Joel would have howled with delight at seeing Miss Parrott's man sitting there before the ...
— The Adventures of Joel Pepper • Margaret Sidney
... model. She was posed in a nun's dress, pensive gray, with virginal white bound primly across her brow. Marietta is a capital model, and her sad face and tender eyes were upturned with exactly the desired expression to the grinning mask in the centre of the ceiling. Silentia kindly consented to pose for the cross to which the nun clung; that is, she wobbled weakly into the place ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... a wordy falling-out between Mrs. Halloran and Mrs. Donohue; there had been words; nay, more, there had been language. Mrs. Halloran had gone to church early in the morning, had fulfilled the duties of her religion, and was returning primly home, when Mrs. Donohue spied her, and, still smouldering with volcanic fire, sent a broadside of lava at Mrs. Halloran. The latter heard, flushed, opened her lips—and then suddenly checked herself. After a moment she spoke: "Mrs. Donohue, ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... hopeful). We mustn't be too sure, but I think that is it. (Primly.) What is it exactly ...
— Dear Brutus • J. M. Barrie
... Bobby slowly. "I've been thinking. Suppose she did find your beautiful locket and—and appropriate it for her own use," finished Bobby rather primly. ...
— Betty Gordon at Mountain Camp • Alice B. Emerson
... nodded primly. "I don't blame you, in the least, Colonel," he said. "I think you have been abominably treated, and your attitude is most generous." He was about to say something else, when the doorbell tinkled and Sergeant Williamson went out into the hall. "Oh, dear; I suppose ...
— Dearest • Henry Beam Piper
... hand, "The doctrine of Election compatible with the infinite goodness of God." It is hard to say which of the two was the better, or which commended itself most to the church full of people who listened. Deacon Tourtelot,—a short, wiry man, with reddish whiskers brushed primly forward,—sitting under the very droppings of the pulpit, with painful erectness, and listening grimly throughout, was inclined to the sermon of the morning. Dame Tourtelot, who overtopped her husband by half a head, and from her ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... sorry," she said, primly, "if I were mistaken in my private estimate of the Princess Ziska's character, but I must believe my own eyes and the evidence of my own senses, and surely no one can condone the extremely fast way in which she behaved with that new man—that French ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... is half of one of the boats of the yacht. On the walls of the kitchen proper are many plate-racks, containing shells; there are rows of these of one size and shape, which mark them off as dinner plates or bowls; others are as obviously tureens. They are arranged primly as in a well-conducted kitchen; indeed, neatness and cleanliness are the note struck everywhere, yet the effect of the ...
— The Admirable Crichton • J. M. Barrie
... I cannot allow you to use this pump!" said a crisp voice primly. "This is not," with capital letters, "a ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... was triumphant. She had been waiting for days with the revelation when he should make that old request. Now she enunciated it with every vowel and consonant correctly and primly uttered; indeed, she repeated it four or five times in proof ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... Falls last week," she told him primly, just grazing him with one of her impersonal glances which nearly drove him to desperation. "Aunt Mary has typhoid fever—there seems to be so much of that this spring and they sent for mamma. She's such a ...
— The Lure of the Dim Trails • by (AKA B. M. Sinclair) B. M. Bower
... Matthews hated the sea, with the hatred of a woman whose ancestors had made their living on the Banks and had been drowned in storms. But she liked the captain. "I am sure you are very kind," she said, primly, "but it will have to be Saturday when there ...
— Glory of Youth • Temple Bailey
... suddenly to his throat. He almost tore away the collar and primly arranged tie. Rochester was by his side in a second, and saved him from falling. His face was white to the lips. A shriek from the women rang through the hall, and came echoing back again ...
— The Moving Finger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... and brilliant, glad of a new and apparently attentive listener. Becky had little to say. She sat with her small feet set primly on the ground. Her hands were folded in her lap. Dalton was used to girls who lounged or who hung fatuously on his words, as if they had set themselves ...
— The Trumpeter Swan • Temple Bailey
... old in years, but, unhappily for himself, too tenacious of youth in its grand discontent and keen susceptibilities to pain, strode noiselessly on, under the gaslights, under the stars; gaslights primly marshalled at equidistance; stars that seem to the naked eye dotted over space without symmetry or method: man's order, near and finite, is so distinct; the Maker's order remote, infinite, is so beyond man's comprehension even of what ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... something we thought you ought to know," Celie began primly, "so Ma and I hurried right over, so as to put you ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... the Album; hand it here! Exactly! page on page of gratitude For breakfast, dinner, supper, and the view! I praise these poets: they leave margin-space; Each stanza seems to gather skirts around, And primly, trimly, keep the foot's confine, Modest and maidlike; lubber prose o'er-sprawls And straddling stops the path from left to right. Since I want space to do my cipher-work, Which poem spares a corner? What comes first? 'Hail, calm acclivity, salubrious spot!' (Open the window, ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... the lawyer primly, "you are thinking of criminal cases; but if a man be unfortunate enough to get into debt, that is quite a different thing:—we are harder to poverty ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, No. - 537, March 10, 1832 • Various
... for your kind of life, thanks," said Andrew primly, "and I repeat that I am not going to have my business—enlivened, if that's how you choose to put it, and my family disgraced, and my reputation lost; and if I let you go on another day as you've been going, it'll be too late to save any of them. ...
— The Prodigal Father • J. Storer Clouston
... glimpse of them, and then one perhaps would come to a window for a few minutes and sit and talk to Miss Adela—one of the elder sisters, I mean; and when I caught sight of them, I used to think that it was no wonder they had taken to dressing so primly and so plain, for they must have given up all hope of getting ...
— Begumbagh - A Tale of the Indian Mutiny • George Manville Fenn
... house when it was empty, and laboured to decipher the mystic hieroglyphics written on its walls, and learn to what uses the departed craftsman put the strange, delicate implements which they found fastened so primly in their places. ...
— Dwellers in the Hills • Melville Davisson Post
... arose a dangerous sedition in Prussia betweene the chiefe cities and the knights of the Order. The citizens demanded libertie, complaining that they were oppressed with diuers molestations. Whereupon they primly made sute vnto Casimir then king of Polonia. The Master of the Order seeing what would come to passe began to expostulate with the king, that he kept not the peace which had bene concluded betweene them to last for euer. Also Frederick the Emperour commaunded the Prussians to returne vnto the obedience ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, v5 - Central and Southern Europe • Richard Hakluyt
... dissimulator, like Mr. Hook. Calmly, almost sanctimoniously, he uttered those neat and telling sayings which the next day passed over England as 'Selwyn's last.' Walpole describes his manner admirably—-his eyes turned up, his mouth set primly, a look almost of melancholy in his whole face. Reynolds, in his Conversation-piece, celebrated when in the Strawberry Collection, and representing Selwyn leaning on a chair, Gilly Williams, crayon in hand, and Dick Edgecumbe by his side, has caught the pseudo-solemn expression ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... people," primly enunciated, "upon first acquaintance. First impressions are rarely to be ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... smug, elderly, sleek, and venerable-looking man, approaching seventy years of age, rather (as novel-writers say) below than above the middle height, somewhat inclined to corpulency, and upright in his carriage withal; with his hair most primly powdered, and nicely curled round his brow and temples: let them imagine such a person habited in sober black, with his feet thrust carelessly into a pair of unlaced half-boots, and his hands into the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 341, Saturday, November 15, 1828. • Various
... ribbon; and most proper glittering window displays appropriate to the season. In front of the grocery stores, stacked up against the edges of the sidewalks, were rows and rows of Christmas trees, their branches tied up primly, awaiting purchasers. The sidewalks were crowded with people, hurrying in and out of the shops, their lips smiling but their eyes preoccupied. Cutters, sleighs, delivery wagons on runners, dashed up and down the street to a continued merry jingling of bells. Slower ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White
... adorn'd with every graceful art To charm the fancy and yet reach the heart— Must we displace her? And instead advance The goddess of the woful countenance— The sentimental Muse!—Her emblems view, The Pilgrim's Progress, and a sprig of rue! View her—too chaste to look like flesh and blood— Primly portray'd on emblematic wood! There, fix'd in usurpation, should she stand, She'll snatch the dagger from her sister's hand: And having made her votaries weep a flood, Good heaven! she'll end her comedies in blood— Bid Harry Woodward break poor Dunstal's crown! ...
— The Rivals - A Comedy • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... those," she answered primly, "who do not know how to behave in a sick room. He foolishly wanted to talk to you of affairs—when you are not well enough. Affairs—to a ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman
... Susan primly. But so irresistible was the well of gaiety bubbling up in her heart that she made ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... face. Then she whispered primly to Fenella. "What wickedness!" And they sailed out at the further door and along a passage that had cabins on either side. Such a very nice stewardess came to meet them. She was dressed all in blue, and her collar and cuffs ...
— The Garden Party • Katherine Mansfield
... front of a piano, striking a chord from time to time, and exercising a voice that does not seem to have lost much of its timbre; while there is an exceedingly pretty, gentle-eyed, rather foreign-looking young lady engaged in putting flowers on the central table, which is neatly and primly laid ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... flourish at that dinner. Everybody ate as fast as possible. Charley and Gus said they had engagements and left the table as soon as they finished their apple pie. Anna sat primly and ate with great elegance. When she spoke at all she spoke to her father, about church matters, and always in a commiserating tone, as if he had met with some misfortune. Mr. Kronborg, quite innocent of her intentions, replied kindly and absent-mindedly. ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... in Torquay, but I soon discovered that the place was impossible for me. Torquay is the chosen home of the proprieties, the respectabilities, and all the conventions. Nothing could dislodge them from its beautiful hills; the very sea, as it beats primly, or with a violence that never forgets to be discreet, on the indented shore, acknowledges their sway. Aphrodite never visits there; the human race is not continued there. People who have always lived within the conventions go there to die within the conventions. The ...
— Sacred And Profane Love • E. Arnold Bennett
... vinegar, struck a shudder through him. The squire was sitting half idiotic and helpless, in his arm-chair. His face lighted up as Lancelot entered, and he tried to hold out his palsied hand. Lancelot did not see him. Mrs. Lavington moved proudly and primly back from the bed, with a face that seemed to say through its tears, 'I at least am responsible for nothing that occurs from this interview.' Lancelot did not see her either: he walked straight up towards the bed as ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... while the water boiled. She shoved her table nearer the fire, so near that I found myself looking down at the writing things that were arranged so primly at one end. There was an ink bottle on a gray blotter, a pewter tray for pens and a queer shaped lump of bronze, a paper weight I supposed. I wouldn't have been human if I could have kept my fingers off that ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke
... sitting primly behind her desk, with a ruler over her shoulder, opened her gray eyes widely ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... in a deep leather chair, and sat primly upright, her feet sticking straight out in front, while she clasped the doll ...
— Just Patty • Jean Webster
... sat up very primly in her best silk, holding a parasol and wearing a pair of lace mits that had appeared on state occasions for the ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd
... herself in the character of "Martha Washington," as painted by Gilbert Stuart. The snowy kerchief folded across her bosom and the big mob cap on her head are precisely like those in the portraits of the colonial lady. The child purses her lips together primly and folds her hands in a demure attitude in her lap, as if to play her part well, but she is far too shy to look us directly in the face, and glances ...
— Sir Joshua Reynolds - A Collection of Fifteen Pictures and a Portrait of the - Painter with Introduction and Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... She sat in her father's study-chair as stiff and stolid as a lay-figure in a shop window, with her lips drawn primly ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann
... of the easternmost rock, Stolz primly opened his sewing-bag and drew forth various torn garments. The garments were for the most part white, but one or ...
— Bruce • Albert Payson Terhune
... them," said Dora, primly. "I submit that the affirmative has not refuted the argument ...
— Ramsey Milholland • Booth Tarkington
... the feeling that the little sad lady would never know whether she returned an answer or not, for her eyes seemed to be looking at something for away. Yet the reply was without hesitation, and primly courteous. ...
— Polly of the Hospital Staff • Emma C. Dowd
... stopped, and duty began. I couldn't even turn and say good night to the chauffeur, as I walked primly into the hotel, ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... with his safe ancestry of two generations of wholesalers and strong probabilities about the respectability of still another generation, was her ideal of a Christian gentleman. She wore a full white muslin gown with a blue sash, her hair primly parted in the middle, her right hand laid flat over her left in her lap. Her vocabulary was choice. For a second, when she referred to winter sports at Lake Placid, she forgot herself and tucked one smooth, silk-clad, ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... pools of green-brown waters, Smooth and framed in snow-white marble, Show between their mirrored statues Gold and silver fishes playing. Slender stems of oleander Cast their prim array of shadows On the primly close-cropped greensward. Overhead, the arching branches Meet and twine to sheltering niches, Where are grouped in loving couples Stiff-limbed heroines and heroes.... Dolphins three pour splashing streamlets In three shell-shaped marble ...
— The Lonely Way—Intermezzo—Countess Mizzie - Three Plays • Arthur Schnitzler
... together for the church. Nana and Pauline walked first, their prayer-books in their hands and holding down their veils on account of the wind; they did not speak but were bursting with delight at seeing people come to their shop-doors, and they smiled primly and devoutly every time they heard anyone say as they passed that they looked very nice. Madame Boche and Madame Lorilleux lagged behind, because they were interchanging their ideas about Clump-clump, a gobble-all, ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... rather slight acquaintance with that young lady I should imagine she would have had some delicacy in telling you otherwise," returned Mr. Dingwall primly. ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... opened before them—a broad valley was disclosed, with a broad, shallow stream dividing its meadows; scattered farmhouses, orderly, prosperous, commanded their shorn acres. A mailbag was detached and left at a crossroad in charge of two little girls, primly important, smothered in identical, starched pink sunbonnets. The Greenstream stage splashed through the shallow, shining ford; the ascent on the far side of ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... said she supposed they'd hear from her when she got settled. A casual observer might have concluded that Anne's going mattered very little to her—unless said observer had happened to get a good look in her eyes. Dora kissed Anne primly and squeezed out two decorous little tears; but Davy, who had been crying on the back porch step ever since they rose from the table, refused to say good-bye at all. When he saw Anne coming towards him he sprang to his feet, bolted up the back stairs, and hid in a clothes closet, ...
— Anne Of The Island • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... yourself into them," sighed Mollie primly, handing over the box with an air of resignation. "Betty, what was it you ...
— The Outdoor Girls in Army Service - Doing Their Bit for the Soldier Boys • Laura Lee Hope
... to enter a protest," Arthur began primly, "against the serving of the papers in the coming Endicott divorce case on ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... her. She broke off with a very faint primly angry smile. She was perhaps the more offended with him because of that flutter at the beginning of the conversation. And in a moment with perfect tact and dignity she got up from her chair and ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... Cohorn's ignorance Had palisado'd in a way you 'd wonder To see in forts of Netherlands or France (Though these to our Gibraltar must knock under)— Right in the middle of the parapet Just named, these palisades were primly set: ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... passions so strange and intense, sentiments so fantastic and preternatural, thoughts so profound and delicate, and imaginations so remote from the recognized limits of the ideal, as find an orderly outlet in the pure English of Hawthorne. He has hardly a word to which Mrs. Trimmer would primly object, hardly a sentence which would call forth the frosty anathema of Blair, Hurd, Kames, or Whately, and yet he contrives to embody in his simple style qualities which would almost excuse the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various
... the black walnut chair, covered with haircloth, stood primly against the wall. Miss Evelina had always hated the chair, and here, after twenty-five years, it confronted her again. She mused, ironically, upon the permanence of things usually considered transient and temporary. Her ...
— A Spinner in the Sun • Myrtle Reed
... no one I'd rather have," said Big Bill, honestly, and so Father Neptune strode majestically to his seat at the head of the table, and at his right sat primly, fluttering Aunt Adelaide, instead of the witching sprite he had ...
— Patty's Butterfly Days • Carolyn Wells
... river with frank interest at the Cot, the Dinky House, the Mascot, and the rest of the tiny shanties. She liked the houseboats, too, with their gaily-striped awnings, their hanging baskets filled with gaudy pink geraniums and bright lobelia. Their primly-curtained little windows amused her; and in the evenings she would lure Owen out on to the terrace to look down the river to where the Chinese lanterns hung on their poles like globes of magic light against ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... he said. "Les fleurs! C'est la vie parfumee." Waiting for the breakfast to be served, he showed us about in his apartment. In the salon, rather primly furnished, stood the grand piano. The bookshelves contained Cherubini's (his master) and his own operas, and his beloved Bach. A table in the middle of the room, covered with photographs and engravings, completed ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... piazza of one of the quaint old-fashioned houses, behind a needless screen of climbing woodbine, two girls are whiling away the afternoon. One of them is lounging in a lassy rocking-chair, while the other sits more primly and is ...
— A Summer Evening's Dream - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... room that he already knew so well Ambrose found all the defenders gathered. The only one strange to him was little Pringle, the missionary, who sat primly on the sofa. It had much the look of an ordinary evening party, but the row of guns by the ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... said that there has been scarce a day without a visitor at Swarthmoor since he first brought you here as its mistress,' she began primly, 'but in all these years, mother, I doubt you have never set eyes on such an one as our guest of to-day. Priest Lampitt ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... when we finally came to a halt. I confess that just at that minute even Sunnyside seemed a cheerful spot. We had paused at the edge of a level cleared place, bordered all around with primly trimmed evergreen trees. Between them I caught a glimpse of starlight shining down on rows of white headstones and an occasional more imposing monument, or towering shaft. In spite of myself, I drew my breath in sharply. We were on the edge of ...
— The Circular Staircase • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... observing the grimly rigid aspect of the silent Queen, Rebecca straightened herself primly and remarked, with her most formal air: "I s'pose you are the Queen, ma'am. You seem to be havin' a little party jest now. I hope I'm not intruding but to tell ye the truth, Mrs. Tudor, I've got into a pretty pickle and I want to ask ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... twentieth, Mrs. Morton and Jane were putting the last touches on the guest room and on Chicken Little's own chamber, which Katy and Gertie were to share with her. The fresh fluted muslin curtains were looped back primly. The guest room had been freshly papered with a dainty floral design, in which corn flowers and wheat ears clustered with faint hued impossible blossoms, known only to designers. Both rooms looked fresh and cool and summery, and the windows ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... her walk primly down the corridor and out of the side entrance. "That infant," she said to Elinor who had been leaving Judith out, "is trembling on the brink of becoming a little prig. We've got to see to it, Norn, that she doesn't ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther
... middle-class people who let children dine late," said Vic, primly, "I shan't come down to dinner ...
— Great Uncle Hoot-Toot • Mrs. Molesworth
... stepped into the apartment in stately fashion, her black silk gown crackling pleasantly as she walked, and seated herself very primly, as befitted her ancestry and bringing-up, in one of the stiff, high-backed chairs. And presently the parson, his garden clothes off and his best coat on, came in hurriedly to know ...
— Five Little Peppers and their Friends • Margaret Sidney
... hot fit of Swinburne, which was of a feverish sort: he had set out to break down without having, or even thinking he had, the rudiments of rebuilding in him; and he effected nothing national even in the way of destruction. The Tennysonians still walked past him as primly as a young ladies' school—the Browningites still inked their eyebrows and minds in looking for the lost syntax of Browning; while Browning himself was away looking for God, rather in the spirit of a truant boy from their school ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton
... said primly, "were completely successful. One must assume that the victimized laboratories also had been regarded ...
— Legacy • James H Schmitz
... aloof, the older and taller ones looking stiffly over the heads of the rollicking maples, and making solemn reverences to the great gray clouds that swept inland from the ocean. The straight little saplings at their feet copied the manners of their elders, and folding their fingers primly, and rustling their stiff little green petticoats decorously, sat up so silent ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... could sweep the pavement, or lie in rich folds at the bottom of a carriage, unadorned by an imposing flounce that almost covered the robe; a little later, the one sober flounce was driven into obscurity by twenty coquettish small ones; and these were displaced by primly puffed bands; which gave way to fanciful "keys" running up the sides of the dress (where they seemed to have no possible right); and those vanished when double skirts commenced their brief reign; to be dethroned by a severe-looking quilted ruffle ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... you may not live to wish those words unsaid, miss," the woman answered primly. "You have as good as sold your birthright, as Esau did, in ...
— Olive in Italy • Moray Dalton
... will strike us, after this love of clouds, is the love of liberty. Whereas the mediaeval was always shutting himself into castles, and behind fosses, and drawing brickwork neatly, and beds of flowers primly, our painters delight in getting to the open fields and moors; abhor all hedges and moats; never paint anything but free-growing trees, and rivers gliding "at their own sweet will"; eschew formality down ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... them all, and as a means to this end their first idea was to dress, act, and talk as correctly and unblamably as boys and girls could. So, by the time the worthy lady was heard descending, they were all in the drawing-room, seated primly on the stiffest chairs they could find, and apparently absorbed in the books they gazed at with serious faces and furrowed brows. To the trained eye the "high-water marks" around faces and wrists were rather more apparent and speaking than their interest in their books. Their heads, too, ...
— Kitty Trenire • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... face in a Quaker bonnet, a white kerchief folded primly over a gown of dove-colored satin, a pure plain dress, looking very distinguished, for all its simplicity, among the gay toilet of the ...
— Holiday Stories for Young People • Various
... from Nottingham. He also averred that it was forbidden to drive visitors within the gates; so we left the fly at the inn, and set out to walk from the entrance to the house. There is no porter's lodge; and the grounds, in this outlying region, had not the appearance of being very primly kept, but were well wooded with evergreens, and much overgrown with ferns, serving for cover for hares, which scampered in and out of their hiding-places. The road went winding gently along, and, at the distance ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... bed-chamber of a dying man. There were always two or three lachrymose women in front of the chilled heating-pan. Beautiful Lisa meantime discharged the duties of chief mourner with silent dignity. Her white apron fell more primly than ever over her black dress. Her hands, scrupulously clean and closely girded at the wrists by long white sleevelets, her face with its becoming air of sadness, plainly told all the neighbourhood, all the inquisitive gossips who streamed into the shop from morning to night, ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... one would care to mention," he protested primly. "He's got quite a large business. The best ship-chandler here, without a doubt. Business is all very well, but there is such a thing as personal character, too, ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... for the first time. Nothing in it save the rickettiness of a faded rep suite arranged primly around the walls, and a few bookshelves stuffed with tattered volumes suggested Paragot. The round centre table, covered with American cloth, and the polished floor were spotless. Cheap print curtains adorned the windows and a cage containing a canary hung ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... chair, and nearly breaking his nose against the edge of a door, poor Uncle Jack finally reached the large room which he had chosen to be the nursery. Puff and Fluff, who had tumbled up behind him, looked eagerly to see if Downy's bed was there. Yes, there it stood, drawing its white curtains primly round it, and looking very amiable. Fluff ...
— Five Mice in a Mouse-trap - by the Man in the Moon. • Laura E. Richards
... well said, Master Carver. I had some such thought myself," said Allerton rather primly, while Hopkins and Billington exchanged an irreverent grin, and ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... very primly, and the masking puritan in her voice quelled him. "If he's a coward—yes," ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... moment writing to Grizel in Thrums. But was it, then, all a dream? he cried, nearly convinced for the first time, and he went into the arbour saying determinedly that it was a dream; and in the arbour, standing primly in a corner, was Grizel's umbrella. He knew that umbrella so well! He remembered once being by while she replaced one of its ribs so deftly that he seemed to be looking on at a surgical operation. The old doctor ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... apertures which framed little pictures of the blue spring sky, slanted across with blooming peach boughs; for there was a large peach orchard on the east side of the house. Lucina watched these little pictures, athwart which occasionally a bird flew and raised them to life. She held her doll primly, and her little work-bag still dangled from her arm. She would not begin her task of knitting until her aunt appeared and her ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... of dark-gray superfine cloth enveloped her form completely. A small bonnet of gray taffeta silk was tied primly with a demure bow under her chin. It left not a wisp of hair visible. A riding mask covered her face so that only a finely turned chin was to be seen. So suddenly did she appear that both Robert and Peggy were guilty of staring. The youth ...
— Peggy Owen and Liberty • Lucy Foster Madison
... me across Bursley with a besom,' said Maud primly. 'But what you say is quite right, you dear old uncle. Men are queer—I mean husbands. You can't argue with them. ...
— The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... said Nita, with an air of vast experience. "I've had the same thing, almost, happen to me. Back at college—in the town, I mean—there was a boy——But perhaps I'd better not say anything about it. He was very bold indeed!" She pursed her lips primly, but her eyes belied ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... who was waiting, rooted and rigid, close by. The reddish eyes of the nurse-maid fairly bulged with importance. Her lips were sealed primly. Her face was so pale that every freckle she had stood forth clearly. How strangely—even direly—the great dining-room affected her—who was so at ease in the nursery! No smile, no wink, no remark, either lively or sensible, ever melted the ice ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates
... "Oh!" said Carmen primly. "That's what mamma doesn't like, to have my muscles all lumpy and developed. She wants to keep me soft ...
— The Campfire Girls at Camp Keewaydin • Hildegard G. Frey
... to see you about a note," she said, primly. "A five thousand dollar demand note you gave my brother four months ago. He endorsed it over to me, and I wanted to see you ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall
... Tom under his breath; but it was only little Una who advanced to meet them across the big, bare room, bowing primly to each of the three in turn, then turning to introduce the English governess who was seated at a table ...
— The Gap in the Fence • Frederica J. Turle |
