"Spitfire" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... "She's a regular spitfire when she gits 'er back up," he mused. "Now I know she likes 'im. It's been three years since she laid eyes on 'im, but she's as daffy now as she was then. It must 'a' been the feller's gallant way. I remember ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... where the children were marching in double file into the building, smiling as he saw Tabitha's long, lean legs keeping step behind the short, plump ones of little Carrie, and mentally hoping that the day would go well with the little spitfire sister. ...
— Tabitha at Ivy Hall • Ruth Alberta Brown
... "Christmas-time, you spitfire. So you ain't married yet? Lord! I don't wonder they fight shy of you; you'd be a handful, my vixen, for any man to tame. ...
— I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... him. How absurd she is! A regular little spitfire; yet what a pretty one. His heart is full of sadness, yet he cannot keep back that laugh. He hardly knows how he has so much mirth left in him, but the laugh sounds through the room and ...
— The Hoyden • Mrs. Hungerford
... (Apropos of the latter gentleman, it is interesting to remember that the Melbourne (Victoria) Club gave a ball at which the adoring women cut off as souvenirs the uniform buttons of the gallant pirate and his officers.) The spitfire Chronicle "claimed" that Captain William Henry Hayes was one of Nature's gentlemen, and "was certainly not the cause of a terrible affliction that had befallen the editor of a certain esteemed morning contemporary." (The wife of the ...
— Concerning "Bully" Hayes - From "The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton and Other - Stories" - 1902 • Louis Becke
... which Eugenia represented, developed by the fact that it was not force but weakness that had vanquished his victorious opponent. Dudley Webb was a gentleman, and only a bully would strike a girl, even if she were a spitfire—the term by which he characterised Eugenia. He remembered suddenly her exultant, "an' you can't hit me back!" and it seemed to him that, even in the righteous cause of his deliverance, she had taken an unfair and feminine advantage of the handsome boy for whom ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... searching the vacant ruin, Beauchamp was comfortably seated on the box of the Spitfire, tooling it halfway home—namely, as far as the house of its owner, the laird above mentioned, who was a relative of his mother, and whom he was then visiting. He had seen Kate and Alec take the way to the castle, and had followed them, and found the door unlocked. Watching them ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... he demanded. "Well, I guess you must or you wouldn't give me a kiss like that. Say, you think a lot of me, now don't you, Little Spitfire? I believe you'd go through hell ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge
... Jim! I might have known how you meant it, and that you wouldn't willingly slander my friends. And, just to show you that I believe in telling the truth, I'll admit that Gwendolyn was a hateful little spitfire when I first entered the school. But finally she grew to know that in the many attributes which contribute to our happiness there were girls in the world just as well off as she. Gradually she came around, until, at the end, she was one of my ...
— Dorothy's Triumph • Evelyn Raymond
... "Now, then, spitfire!" said Tom. "What did you cut it off for, then? I shall go down: I can smell the dinner ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... Miss Spitfire," turning to Inza, "you must feel proud to have a friend in a fellow of his class! Do not forget what I told you about ...
— Frank Merriwell's Chums • Burt L. Standish
... long since she believed herself on the way to be a Royal Duchess, imagining the late Duke of York to be her lover—a gentleman so passionately in love with himself as to leave no room for another. She wore her blacks when he died, like a widow. But, spitfire as Lady Mary is, 't is too true Maria is playing with fire, and there should be nothing between him and her mother's daughter. She is indeed more indiscreet than becomes her. His chaise is eternally at her door; and, as my Lady Mary says, she is lucky that anyone else countenances ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... allay The pain, and put good part of it away. You're bloated by ambition? take advice; Yon book will ease you if you read it thrice. Run through the list of faults; whate'er you be, Coward, pickthank, spitfire, drunkard, debauchee, Submit to culture patiently, you'll find Her charms can humanize the ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... fellow got acquainted in this very car—this very seat, for all I know—and afore they reached Lone Tree Station they was engaged. There happened to be a clergyman going out to San Francisco on the train, and he married 'em afore sunset, he did. When I heerd of that, I said to myself, 'Sally Spitfire, why don't you fix up and travel, too? Who knows what ...
— The Blunders of a Bashful Man • Metta Victoria Fuller Victor
... pretty name for a ship: fairly smiting Fate in the face. But in this matter of christening ships of war, Christian nations are but too apt to be dare-devils. Witness the following: British names all—The Conqueror, the Defiance, the Revenge, the Spitfire, the Dreadnaught, the Thunderer, and the Tremendous; not omitting the Etna, which, in the Roads of Corfu, was struck by lightning, coming nigh being consumed by fire from above. But almost potent as Moses' rod, ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... last week," said he; "a fine turn out—such a field! I got an infernal topper tho'—smashed my best tile; tell you how it was. There was a high paling—put Spitfire to it, and she took it in fine style; but, as luck would have it, the gnarled arm of an old tree came whop against my head, and bonneted me completely! Thought I was brained—but we did it cleverly however—although, if ever I made a leap in ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... "You, my little spitfire!" he said genially. "And it won't be the first time, what? Come now! You're always running away, but you should reflect that you're bound to be caught sooner or later. You didn't think I was going to let you off, ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... and I set out to ride back and join him. After a gallop of half an hour across the prairie, I discovered that I had lost my way. I vainly tried to find some landmark of yesterday's march, but was at last compelled to trust to the sagacity of my horse,—the redoubtable Spitfire, so named by reason of his utter contempt for gunpowder, whether sputtered out of muskets or belched forth by cannon. I gave him his head. He snuffed the air for a moment, deliberately swept the horizon with his eyes, and then turned short around and carried ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... of its domestic life were broken up, and Charlotte's bright face had a constant wrinkle of worry and annoyance. Sophia was careful to point out the fact. "She has no housekeeping ability. Every thing is in a mess. If I only durst take hold of things. But Charlotte is such a spitfire, one does not like to offer help. I would be only too glad to put things right, but I should give offence," etc. "The poison of asps under the tongue," and a very little of it, can paralyze ...
— The Squire of Sandal-Side - A Pastoral Romance • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... this trail," he told Lorraine. "And I'm behind yuh with a gun. Don't forget that, Miss Spitfire. You let Skinner go to suit himself—and if he goes wrong, you pay, because it'll be you reining him ...
— The Quirt • B.M. Bower
... Big Swinton step forward, but he did not. His revenge was not to be gratified by mere insubordination. The man who did at last step forward was an insignificant fellow, who had been nicknamed Spitfire, and whose chief characteristics were self-will and ill-nature. He did not lack courage, however, for he boldly faced the angry ruler and defied him. Every one expected to see Spitfire follow Dick Swan, and in similar fashion, but they were ...
— The Crew of the Water Wagtail • R.M. Ballantyne
... he said, as she stood panting, with her hands fixed in the last little dramatic gesture, "what a little spitfire and brick you are!" ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Carjorac? Do you mean the French Minister of the Interior, the President of the Board of National Defences, Miss Lorne—that enthusiastic old patriot, that rabid old spitfire, whose one dream is the wresting back of Alsace-Lorraine, the driving of the hated Germans into the sea? Do you mean that ripping ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... Turf" (1911) Mr. Mayne turns away from County Down to the Galway bogs, admirably symbolizing the hot land feud between neighbors in his title. There are but five characters in the play, Martin Burke, farmer, and his spitfire of a wife; and his neighbors the Flanagans, father and son, who have won away from the Burkes, by the surveyor's decision, their bank of stone turf that had come to Mary Burke from her father; and an old fellow little better than a beggar. Mary taunts her husband until he shoots ...
— Irish Plays and Playwrights • Cornelius Weygandt
... Todd—the sight of you, Harry, makes me ravenous again, and I could have eaten my boots, when I got home an hour ago, I was so hungry. But the mare"—here he moved to the window—"is she all right? Spitfire, I suppose—you'd kill anything else, you rascal! But you haven't ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... any man can. (He shakes his head sadly and turns to the bookcase, looking along the shelves for a volume. She follows him with intense pepperiness.) You don't believe me? (He turns and faces her. She pounces at him with spitfire energy.) You think I'm jealous. Oh, what a profound knowledge of the human heart you have, Mr. Lexy Mill! How well you know the weaknesses of Woman, don't you? It must be so nice to be a man and have a fine penetrating intellect instead of mere emotions like us, and to know that the reason ...
— Candida • George Bernard Shaw
... the horse walk right on, for the sounds that came from Spitfire's hoofs could hardly be heard, the ground being very ...
— Young Wild West at "Forbidden Pass" - and, How Arietta Paid the Toll • An Old Scout
... stood, not more than three yards off, the pretty, angry little spitfire looking up at her indignant, helpless husband. Coxeter, if disgusted, was amused; there was also the comfort of knowing that they would certainly pretend not to see him, even if by chance they recognized him, intent as they were on their ...
— Studies in love and in terror • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... unlady-like," retorted Nancy; "but her saying it doesn't make it a fact, for you do know me, and you will always have to know me. And if she thinks, old spiteful! that I'm going to put up with her nasty, low, mean, proud ways, she's fine and mistaken. I'm not, and that's flat. So there, old spitfire! I shouldn't mind telling her ...
— Girls of the Forest • L. T. Meade
... won the admiration of Polly Hope, who was something of a spitfire herself. A little jealous of Dick for the chief place he held in Bud's affection, she openly claimed the younger brother as her sweetheart, and attempted to constitute him her knight—though with repeated discouragements, for Bud was a bashful lad, and, though ...
— The Round-up - A Romance of Arizona novelized from Edmund Day's melodrama • John Murray and Marion Mills Miller
... and to recite aloud, with great emphasis if little art, revolutionary poetry. The old professor loved to tease me by abusing my favourite heroes; and when he had at last roused me to a vigorous assertion of revolutionary sentiments, he would turn to my father and say, "There's a little spitfire for you; you will have to keep a look-out or she will be making bombs soon and blowing us all up," at which my ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith
... gasped Langdon, and then, as he sucked his wounded finger, he laughed with Bruce. "He's a sport—a dead game sport," he added. "We'll call him Spitfire, Bruce. By George, I've wanted a cub like that ever since I first came into the mountains. I'm going to take him home with me! Ain't he a ...
— The Grizzly King • James Oliver Curwood
... presents. Nor could the hearts of girls now longer mask as blocks of ice to the prospective conquistadores; Eugene Madrillon's young brother, Jean, after a two years' Beatrice-and-Benedict wooing of Trixie Chenoweth (that notable spitfire) announced his engagement upon the day after his enlistment, and recounted to all who would listen how his termagant fell upon his neck in tears when she heard the news. "And now she cries about me all the time," finished the ...
— The Two Vanrevels • Booth Tarkington
... spitfire you are," he said, firmly grasping her arms, which felt rigid to the touch. "Surely you can understand? Rita amused me, at first. Then, when I found she was going to marry Monte Irvin I didn't bother about her any more. In ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... embodied in the letter; but he drew himself up with a start. Surely there was something very wrong with Mark Bower, the millionaire, when he gloated over such paltry details. Why, his reflections were worthy of that old spitfire, Mrs. ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... Richards,' rejoined Spitfire. 'Not at all, I don't wish it, we needn't stand upon that footing, Miss Floy being a permanency, Master Paul a temporary.' Spitfire made use of none but comma pauses; shooting out whatever she had to say in one sentence, and ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... the only condition being that the combination should be a happy one—I mean all those singularly expressive words formed by a combination of verb and substantive, the former governing the latter; as 'telltale', 'scapegrace', 'turncoat', 'turntail', 'skinflint', 'spendthrift', 'spitfire', 'lickspittle', 'daredevil' (wagehals), 'makebate' (stoerenfried), 'marplot', 'killjoy'. These with a certain number of others, have held their ground, and may be said to be still more or less in use; but what a number more are forgotten; and yet, ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... out now, Leslie Cloud," said Myrtle scornfully. "I suppose you won't dare lord it over me any longer, and I'll take good care that the rest of the town understands what a dangerous little spitfire you are. You ought to be arrested for this night's work! That's all I've ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... used to say to me, 'George'—he always called me George, in just that off-hand way—'George, when we get to New York, you shall have quarters in the Astor House, and pasture your mare Spitfire ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... Kate—an added insult. But, to compensate, there was a whole orange from Aunt Anne, a bag of Chinese nuts from Wong, and from Split and Sissy (a separate donation from each) an undivided half-interest in the white kitten known as Spitfire. ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... Spitfire or a Thunderbolt. You just plow along through the muck and hope the boys will bat down all of the fighters coming ...
— A Yankee Flier Over Berlin • Al Avery
... somewhat stinted in size, but active both in intelligence and in limb, as his black eyes seemed to promise by their vivacity. He was an attendant of Wildrake's choice, who had conferred on him the nom de guerre of Spitfire, and had promised him promotion so soon as his young protege, Breakfast, was fit to succeed him in his present office. It need scarce be said that the manege was maintained entirely at the expense of Colonel Everard, who allowed Wildrake to arrange the household very much according ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... little spitfire!" he exclaimed in pleased astonishment. "I thought the damned spiders had eaten her long before this. Rather changes things, Borgain. I'll just go on up and let my little playmate know I am here. Toss our friend over the edge there, and bring up ...
— Loot of the Void • Edwin K. Sloat
... cinch." The cattleman laughed softly. "But ain't she the little spitfire? I reckon she sure hates ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine
... I got a little breath in me. "Don't be glum," I said. "The little spitfire is an angel. You're ...
— Dwellers in the Hills • Melville Davisson Post
... is this little spitfire? By Jupiter, she is a tempting morsel." And his red eyes took in the flushed beauty of the panting ...
— Pirates of the Gorm • Nat Schachner
... face, with regular features, except that the nose turns up somewhat after the spitfire order, and her mouth is a trifle too wide. Her forehead is not very high—it would not become her style if it were. Her hair is splendid—thick, black and glossy as satin, and her eyes,—there are not ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... on such occasions, what better beverage would you ask? Swiftly and gaily did the slim bark cleave through the glassy sea. Its hue was a dark crimson, with one black stripe—its nom de guerre, the Spitfire. ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... Miss Floy, before you've been in the house a quarter of an hour, you go a-smearing your wet face against the expensive mourning that Mrs. Richards is a-wearing for your ma!" With this remonstrance, young Spitfire, whose real name was Susan Nipper, detached the child from her new friend by a wrench—as if she were a tooth. But she seemed to do it more in the sharp exercise of her official functions, ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... go around once more to the place of the spring, to avoid exciting any suspicion on the part of their comrades, "we've just got to beat Marshall on Saturday. Why, it'd break the hearts of those pretty girls if we failed. I really believe they'd feel it more than any of us would. And that little spitfire Mollie is crazy to rub it into her boastful friend over at Harmony, too. Oh! we've got our job set out before us for a fact, and must sweep ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton
... glow again last night. Don't understand it. Once should have been enough for them. This matter of hoarding tobacco may be a sad error. If Old Spitfire keeps on the way she has to-day I shan't need much more. It would be a raw jest to be burned or swallowed up with a month's supply of unsmoked cigarettes on one. Cave getting shaky. Still, I think ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... Countess Fanny kissed her hand to them and drew up the window, seeming merry, and as they had expected indignation and perhaps resistance, for she could be a spitfire in a temper and had no fear whatever of firearms, they were glad to have her safe on such good terms; and so General Abrane jumped up on the box beside the coachman, Jack Potts jumped up between the footmen, and Sir Upton Tomber and the one-armed lord, as soon as the carriage was ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Little Spitfire, Mr. Clarence Bulbul's boy, the wickedest little varlet that ever hung on to a cab, was "chaffing" Mr. Jeames, holding up to his face a pot of porter almost as big as the young ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Spitfire' is of deep interest to the bounding heart of an enthusiastic boy. The book leaves a good impression on a boy's mind, as it teaches the triumph of noble deeds and true heroism."—Kansas City ...
— Freaks of Fortune - or, Half Round the World • Oliver Optic
... the world, it was of the devil in the race she had mothered. It had thwarted her in their father, but it cowed her in her sons. Most of all, I think, in Richard she feared it, because Richard could be so cold. A flamy devil as in young Henry, or a brimstone devil as in Geoffrey of Brittany, or a spitfire devil as was John's—with these she could cope, her lord had had them all. But in Richard she was shy of the bleak isolation, the self-sufficing, the hard, chill core. She dreaded it, yet it drew her; she was tempted to beat vainly at it for the passion's sake; and so in this case ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... the town, and presently the gray half of it dissolved into its elemental units, all in slow recession. The retaken guns in the embrasures pushed up towering clouds of white smoke; to east and to west along the reoccupied parapet ran a line of misty red till the spitfire crest was without a break from flank to flank. Probably there was some Yankee cheering, as doubtless there had been the "rebel yell," but my memory recalls neither. There are many battles in a war, and many incidents in a battle: one does not recollect ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... began to chuckle with a kind of inward merriment; "I'll never forget the day that child sat down on a wopses' nest an' got all 'er little legs stung;—she was about five 'ear old then, an' she never cried—not she!—the little proud spitfire that she was, she jes' stamped 'er mite of a foot an' she sez, sez she: 'Did God make the wopses?' An' 'er nurse sez to 'er: 'Yes, o' course, lovey, God made 'em.' 'Then I don't think much of Him!' sez she. Lord, Lord! We larfed nigh to split ourselves ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... in badgering her. To set Mistress Clorinda in their midst on a winter's night when they were dull, and to torment her until her little face grew scarlet with the blood which flew up into it, and she ran from one to the other beating them and screaming like a young spitfire, was among them a ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... at something—I don't know what—and bolted. I didn't want to take him out—he's an old spitfire anyhow, and hasn't been driven in a week. But this feller was in a hurry," and he nodded toward the unconscious man, "and I had to bring him out with Rex—the only horse in the stable ...
— The Moving Picture Boys at Panama - Stirring Adventures Along the Great Canal • Victor Appleton
... First of all, carts and caravans were rumbling up all along, day and night. Jackanapes could hear them as he lay in bed, and could hardly sleep for speculating what booths and whirligigs he should find fairly established when he and his dog Spitfire went out after breakfast. As a matter of fact, he seldom had to wait so long for news of the Fair. The Postman knew the window out of which Jackanapes's yellow head would come, and was ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... groping our way along with such currents as run among the islands. Put the last reef in the trysail before you hoist it. I think you had better get the foresail down altogether, and run up the spitfire jib." ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... anger, at her retort. What an audacious spitfire she was! The people aware of this scene were calling out urgently to others in the crowd. The circle round the silver-grey ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... manager whose stiffness would serve as "a good example to a poker?" He acts toward his employees as the father of Frederick the Great did toward his subjects, caning them on the streets, and shouting, "I wish to be loved and not feared." "Growl, Spitfire and Brothers," says Talmage, "wonder why they fail, while ...
— Cheerfulness as a Life Power • Orison Swett Marden
... time a wild, drunken longshoreman, known as Spitfire Bill—a name which his savage temper had earned for him—disappeared from the wharves of Bardon River, and very possibly he was Raper's accomplice. No one could say, for neither man was ever brought to book; but Raper's guilt was certain, ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... leave the navy, 25; his narrow escape at the attack on Fort Sullivan, 28; copy of his acting commission as lieutenant, 29; his activity in the boats of the Bristol, 30; removed to the Chatham, 32; appointed to command the Spitfire, ib.; makes sail for Rhode Island, 33; secret orders of Commodore Griffith to, 34; arduous nature of his undertakings, 36; different engagements of, 37; orders of Commodore John Brisbane to, respecting the war with France, 38; destruction of his vessel, 40; becomes ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez. Vol II • Sir John Ross
... nobody but myself," said Tom; "but dere's a mighty putty young gal dere at Marse Tom's. I wish I could git her away. Dey tells me dey's been sellin' her all ober de kentry; but dat she's a reg'lar spitfire; dey can't lead ...
— Iola Leroy - Shadows Uplifted • Frances E.W. Harper
... that I found Musa bewitching just that evening. 'Yes,' I mused; 'she's a little spitfire—she's a new type.... She's—exquisite. Those hands know how to deal a blow, I dare say.... What ...
— A Desperate Character and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... a spitfire, else I won't tell you," said Tom, thrusting his hand back into his pocket ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... entered the Navy. One, Nathaniel, was lost with his ship, the Thunderer, in a hurricane off Jamaica in 1780. The eldest, James, rose to the rank of Commander, and in January 1794 was appointed to H.M. sloop Spitfire. He was at Poole when he received his orders to join his ship at Portsmouth without delay. Finding an open boat with sailors returning from leave about to start, he joined them. It was blowing rather hard, and nothing was ever heard of the passengers or crew, except that the broken boat ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson
... returned to the ambulance after the next rest—I was careful to get there first—I sat down on the back seat and made myself comfortable, but I must admit that my heart was giving awful thumps, for Mrs. Barker's sharp tongue and spitfire temper are well known. My head was aching because of my having ridden backward, and I was really cross, and this Mrs. Barker may have noticed, for not one word did she say directly to me, but she said much to ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... fleets, and prevent communication between the Tories and the enemy's ships already lying in the harbor. Tupper, as commodore, appears first in the sloop Hester as his flag-ship, and later in the season in the Lady Washington, while among his fleet were to be found the Spitfire, General Putnam, Shark, and Whiting. The gallant commodore's earliest cruises were made within the Narrows, along the Staten Island shore, and as far down as Sandy Hook, where he attempted the feat of destroying the light-house. But he found this ...
— The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn • Henry P. Johnston
... spitfire still!" Pancho laughed. He chucked her under her pretty chin. "So you marry ze man I pick for you, eh? Good! An' zis"—pointing to the baby—"zis ees ...
— The Bad Man • Charles Hanson Towne
... born, had been a more decent man than he was at the time of which I write. If he ever had been, his degeneracy was easily explained; for it would not have been possible for a human being, in daily contact with such a shrewish spitfire as his wife, to exist untainted in the poison which floated in the atmosphere ...
— Down The River - Buck Bradford and His Tyrants • Oliver Optic
... like a little spitfire about it all the same. A most objectionable child, I call her. It was only yesterday I wanted to look at some embroidery on her apron—a rather pretty new stitch—and do you think she'd let me see it? She jerked it away and glared at me as if she would have liked to eat me. I could have boxed ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson
... and Lizabetha Prokofievna—(who has begun to respect you once more, and me through you, goodness knows why!)—we both love you very sincerely, and esteem you, in spite of any appearances to the contrary. But you'll admit what a riddle it must have been for us when that calm, cold, little spitfire, Aglaya—(for she stood up to her mother and answered her questions with inexpressible contempt, and mine still more so, because, like a fool, I thought it my duty to assert myself as head of the family)—when Aglaya stood up of a sudden and informed us that 'that madwoman' (strangely enough, ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... Adieu, small spitfire of a Gulf! The change from the inside to the outside of the Birkat el-Akabah was magical. We at once glided into summer seas, a mosaic of turquoise and amethyst, fanned by the softest of breezes, the ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... spitfire, Melissy Whitin' was: there wa'n't nothin' to her but temper. I'll warrant Ephrum Spencer has got his come-uppance before this time," said the poor-mistress, with satisfaction. "Well, I think it's ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various
... called out; "wait a minute. I saw that spitfire going away, so I came back. Now, look here, Mopsy Maynard, don't you let that ...
— Marjorie at Seacote • Carolyn Wells
... He clapped his hat on smartly and whistled for his horse-holder; and when the man was gone to fetch the mounts for the women, he finished out the sentence. "Listen you, in your turn, Mistress Spitfire. I shall take what I list, and before you see your father's house again, you'll beg me on your knees, as other women have, to marry ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... and delicate disposition, he had dreamed of liaisons, exquisite, ideal and impassioned, and there that little bit of a woman, stupid like all girls, with an exasperating stupidity, not even pretty, thin and a spitfire, had taken him prisoner, possessing him from head to foot, body and soul. He underwent this feminine bewitchery, mysterious and all powerful, this unknown power, this prodigious domination, arising no one knows whence, from the demon of the flesh, which casts the most sensible man ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... are indeed a spitfire,' he replied, sinking back upon the pillow, and drawing the clothes round him, 'a feuerkopf as the Germans call it, or sometimes tollkopf, which in its literal significance meaneth a fool's head. Your father was, as I have heard, a strong and a fierce man when the blood of youth ran in his veins; ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... capture by the Washington of several vessels, among them the Robust, Lord Sandwich, Barrington, and the Spitfire, a British privateer. ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... matter and retaining it. No one, not even Neville, not even Frances Carr, had ever seen behind Pamela's guard where Rosalind was concerned. When Nan abused Rosalind, Pamela would say "Don't be a spitfire, child. What's the use?" and change the subject. For Rosalind was, in Pamela's view, one of the things which were a pity but didn't really matter, so long as she didn't make Gilbert unhappy. And Gilbert, so far, was absurdly pleased and ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay
... The little spitfire in the seat beside her wriggled uneasily as if she, too, were not as comfortable as she would pretend. Bob's silent reception of her discourtesy had infuriated her, and she knew better than Betty where she stood in ...
— Betty Gordon at Boarding School - The Treasure of Indian Chasm • Alice Emerson
... Dierdre O'Farrell who spoke, and we glared into each other's eyes like two Kilkenny cats—or a surprised Kilkenny cat and a spitfire ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... spitfire of a thing you'd be if you did that!" said Irene, her eyes flashing with anger. "You ...
— A Modern Tomboy - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... set matters right by making her laugh. I see him again as I write, leaving the room on these occasions, with his eyes blazing through his spectacles, and his shabby hat cocked sideways on his head. "Soh, you little-spitfire-Feench! If you touch that bandages when I have put him on—Ho-Damn-Damn! I ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... a silly little thing, a vain little thing, and a spitfire to boot, but that did not prevent her suffering an appreciable amount, all that her nature would allow; and if it was not as much as a larger nature would have suffered, neither had she much philosophy or strength to bear it. The burden is fitted to the back as often as the ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... General Taylor took possession of Matamoras, Commodore Conner's fleet had been considerably augmented by the addition of the sloops-of-war "Germantown," "Albany," "Saratoga" and "Decatur"; the steamers "Spitfire," "Vixen," "Alleghany," "Scorpion" and "Scourge"; the brig "Truxton"; the gunboats "Reefer," "Bonita," and "Rebel." A little later, and just before the bombardment of Vera Cruz, the "Ohio," with seventy-four ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... you mean the French Minister of the Interior, the President of the Board of National Defences, Miss Lorne, that enthusiastic old patriot, that rabid old spitfire whose one dream is the wresting back of Alsace-Lorraine, the driving of the hated Germans into the sea? Do you ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... directness of her words made him feel uncomfortable for the moment, but he quickly recovered, changed his tactics, and burying his hands in his pockets, assumed his usually jaunty air, while half a smile, half a sneer, crossed his face as he said lightly: "What a droll, Puritan spitfire we are, aren't we? As if rearranged families were not a thing of daily happening. Don't feel called upon to kick up a rumpus, it isn't necessary; besides, take a tip from me, your mother won't like it! If you are through ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... you, you little spitfire!" cried the irate officer, holding her hands and lifting her into the wagon. "Some of you women put a cloak around her, and be quick ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... have dinner, Emmy; I'm hungry. Yes, it's a good thing she has gone; but I wish it hadn't happened in that way. What a spitfire she is!' ...
— The Paying Guest • George Gissing
... across the street from their rendezvous, and naturally they concluded I was a spy of some sort. Indeed, Carew's exclamation, when they brought me before him, is convincing proof that he did not know whom his men had bagged. 'My word, it is my spitfire, Ruth!' he cried. I acted the spitfire, too, and I am afraid I said some very unladylike things to him. But he only laughed in high glee. I was horribly frightened, though I took care he didn't suspect it. I know he meant to take me to sea ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer |
