"Twinkle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... man back from town already," suddenly exclaimed Anna a few minutes later, as her husband drove into the barnyard; then with a mischievous twinkle in her blue eyes, she called, "Hurry up, John, Amy wants her letter." John smiled in his quiet way as he came up to the porch and handed the girl an envelope with the Boyd City postmark. Then the old people both laughed ...
— That Printer of Udell's • Harold Bell Wright
... lid. He sticks his head out first this way and then that, like a turtle, and then all of a sudden he shoots over kind of a quizzin' glance at me. I can't help but give him the grin. At that his mouth corners wrinkle up and the little gray eyes begin to twinkle. ...
— Odd Numbers - Being Further Chronicles of Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... should help us to make and carry a plank which would bridge the chasm, or when we wished to get from them thongs of leather or liana to weave ropes which might help us, we were met by a good-humored, but an invincible, refusal. They would smile, twinkle their eyes, shake their heads, and there was the end of it. Even the old chief met us with the same obstinate denial, and it was only Maretas, the youngster whom we had saved, who looked wistfully at us and told us by his gestures that he was grieved for our thwarted ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle
... off the mouth of the Baler river, April 11, as scheduled. Ensign Stanley went ashore, under a flag of truce, where, to his surprise, he was cordially received by the Filipino officers; but their exceptionally good behavior and the twinkle of their eyes told only too plainly to the ensign that something was wrong. He therefore returned to the Yorktown without having accomplished ...
— The Woman with a Stone Heart - A Romance of the Philippine War • Oscar William Coursey
... yes,' he said, 'you are honest, Mrs. Maitland, but you ain't damn-fool honest.'" She laughed loudly, and her son laughed too, this time in genuine amusement; but Nannie looked prim, at which Mrs. Maitland glanced at Blair, and there was a sympathetic twinkle between them which for the moment put them both really at ease. "I got on to a good thing last week," she said, still trying to amuse him, but now there was ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... turned toward me, was one of anger that I had presumed to intrude so violently upon his thoughts. Then he saw what a narrow escape he had had, and anger gave place to a courtly smile and a slight twinkle in his sunken eyes. ...
— The Mermaid of Druid Lake and Other Stories • Charles Weathers Bump
... French lace at her neck and a flush in her cheeks. Her black hair was twined naturally about her head, which she carried high, so I told myself, as if in defiance of the Black Colonel, while she had to be his partner and prisoner. She glanced at me once or twice with an amused twinkle in her eye, thinking, I suppose, of her bold capture from the host of the evening, my unlucky self. Some women are a blessing, others keep you guessing, somebody will say, and Marget, I judged, even in the whirl of that reel, could be both, if ...
— The Black Colonel • James Milne
... late summer of 1949, Cambridge established Project Twinkle to solve the mystery. The project called for establishing three cinetheodolite stations near White Sands, New Mexico. A cinetheodolite is similar to a 35-mm. movie camera except when you take a photograph of an object ...
— The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects • Edward Ruppelt
... were in conversation by the weather rail. I fancied poor old Harris eyed me with suspicion, and I wished he had better cause. The Portuguese, however, saluted me with his customary courtesy, and I thought there was a grave twinkle ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... mountains, and throw yellow marsh-lilies at their doors to keep off the fairies. Do you remember, Eddy, gathering some last May eve, and sitting out in the playground till sunset, watching the fires begin to twinkle on Cronck-Irey and Barrule for miles away? What a jolly talk we had that evening about the holidays; but my father and mother were here then, you know, and we were all going to Fairholm. But the third sign—the first primrose and violet—was ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... tiptoe, longing to run and investigate. But Mrs. Avory had always objected very strongly to inquisitiveness, and so they stayed where they were and waited expectantly. And then, after a minute or so, Kink came up to the table with a twinkle in his old eye and a letter in his ...
— The Slowcoach • E. V. Lucas
... he saw, in the place of Blaine's leather cap and goggles, a dimly shimmering twinkle of arms and legs flashing above the rim of the open enclosure ...
— Our Pilots in the Air • Captain William B. Perry
... There was even a touch of a twinkle in her eye. "Waitress in a combination bar and restaurant. You needed the sleep, Will. And I guess I still feel as much of a mother to you as I did when you used to get hurt, ...
— Pursuit • Lester del Rey
... look for the boys' visit as one of the most interesting happenings of the day. Everybody in Bardstown knew old Judge Parker. He was as queer as he was kind-hearted, which was saying a great deal, as he was the most benevolent old soul that had ever lived in the little town. There was a kindly twinkle in his blue eyes as he laid down his paper and beckoned the boys to come into his office. He had been making inquiries about them for several days, and one of the queerest of his many queer plans was soon ...
— The Quilt that Jack Built; How He Won the Bicycle • Annie Fellows Johnston
... you gaze upon it, it slips on one side, and five animated red rays appear, waving like automatic flag signals. Though well housed, it is almost as timorous as the coral polyps. Upon the least alarm the rays disappear in a twinkle, and the pink pearl trap-door glows again. Break off the end of the shelly tunnel in an attempt to secure the pearl, and it is as elusive as a sunbeam. It recedes as piece by piece is broken away, until the edge of the cylinder is flush with the surface of the coral in which the shell ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... Beam, that was playing At the door of his golden-wall'd palace on high; And he bade him be off, without any delaying, To a fast-fleeting Cloud on the verge of the sky: "You will give him this letter," said roguish Apollo (While a sly little twinkle contracted his eye), With my royal regards; and be sure that you follow Whatsoever his Highness may ...
— Poems • Denis Florence MacCarthy
... stars twinkle in the gentle sky. The landscape glows. From the distant meadow Mute marching men slowly come closer. Only once a young Lieutenant, a page boy in love, Steps out—and stands lost in thought. The baggage train waddles along ...
— The Verse of Alfred Lichtenstein • Alfred Lichtenstein
... one year had drawn Riley Sinclair more lean and somber, when they rode out on the shoulder of a flat-topped mountain and looked down into the hollow, where the late afternoon sun was already sending broad shadows out from every rise of ground. Sour Creek was a blur and a twinkle ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... going on twelve," said Uncle Jed, with a twinkle in his small eyes, "me an' her grandpa fought side by side in the battle ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... knowing and disapproving look on their faces when she met them. As for the stream of invitations, there was a sudden drought, as of a parched desert, and the muteness of the telephone after its months of perpetual twinkle ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick
... row of weekly illustrated newspapers lying against each other like fallen soldiers. If any one disturbs this row Crichton seems to know of it from afar and appears noiselessly and replaces the wanderer. One thing unexpected in such a room is a great array of tea things. Ernest spots them with a twinkle, and has his epigram at once unsheathed. He dallies, however, ...
— The Admirable Crichton • J. M. Barrie
... I know there are but two things which, can rouse a woodchuck to strenuous activity; when a dog is in pursuit he can make his stumpy feet fairly twinkle as he flies for his burrow, and when a fox or a man is digging him out, he can literally worm his way through the ground, frequently escaping by means of his wonderful digging power. But when September or October days bring the first chill, he ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... picked it up, opened, and read it. Had Jacquelina first paused to reflect, she would never have done so. But when did the elf ever stop to think? As she read, her eyes began to twinkle, and her feet to patter up and down, and her head to sway from side to side, as if she could scarcely keep from singing and dancing ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... officer of the Vernon," said the captain. "Both of these gentlemen are Lieutenant Christopher Passford," he added, with a twinkle of the eye. "Dr. Connelly, you have ...
— Stand By The Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... There was a twinkle in her eyes and I knew it was useless to dissemble. "Tim and I are different. I never hesitate to use strategy to get my chair, even at the expense of a feeble ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd
... be odd in any one but Madge. I do not think there are many girls in this house who would be guilty of such eccentricities—certainly not Miss Wildmere," she added, with a rather malicious twinkle in her eyes. "If I were a man, I wouldn't stand it. I've been on the alert somewhat to-day, for I don't wish to see you made a fool of. That Mr. Arnault has been at her side the livelong time, and he's out driving ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... to twinkle cheerily in the black vault overhead. Then The Kid made out a few points of yellow light on ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens
... he found that he differed from it, it never disturbed his belief in himself. He closed the book, saying, placidly, "But the dictionary is wrong." He considered such a trifle not worth even getting heated about. He dismissed it with a wave of his hand. But there was a twinkle in his eye. A typical man, you see, was my grandfather. And, in consequence, a great many other people ...
— From a Girl's Point of View • Lilian Bell
... innumerable crooked things straight; reducing more and more that famishing dog-kennel of a Brandenburg into a fruitful arable field. His portraits represent a square-headed, mild-looking, solid gentleman, with a certain twinkle of mirth in the serious eyes of him. Except in those Hussite wars for Kaiser Sigismund and the Reich, in which no man could prosper, he may be defined as constantly prosperous. To Brandenburg he was, very literally, the blessing of blessings; ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... lady; I only thought that, as a rule, the best people do feel bound to know these things. But of course—" He paused deferentially, without a twinkle in his eye, though I was pressing my lips tightly together, and trying not to ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... prettiest holly; for the house must look its merriest for the home-coming of its young master, covered with honors! There must be mistletoe, too she told herself, her mouth dimpling and a suspicion of a twinkle flashing out from under her dewy lashes. The fatted calf should be killed, her boy should make merry with ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... right, Dottie," said the boy, with a twinkle in his eye. "And to repay you for my slip in manners, I will aid you in transposing that sentence so that your teacher ...
— The Corner House Girls Growing Up - What Happened First, What Came Next. And How It Ended • Grace Brooks Hill
... shall take half!" exclaimed Mr. Keith. "I have more money now than I'll ever spend. Mary, half of it is yours, and if you don't let Tom Swift have a say in the spending of it— Say, Mary, have you thanked him yet?" he asked with a twinkle of his eyes. "Well, Uncle Barton, ...
— Tom Swift and his Undersea Search - or, The Treasure on the Floor of the Atlantic • Victor Appleton
... "Entrez!" as she did on the Continent; her second, to open the door herself, which she did, disclosing to the view of her astonished visitor, not a fat, red-faced dowager of seventy, but a wonderful vision of girlish loveliness, clad in simple muslin, with a mischievous twinkle in the blue eyes which met hers ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... minutes past eight! Mr. Bowdoin got up hurriedly, and, nodding to the orange-woman, shuffled into his house. But it was too late; Mrs. Bowdoin sat rigid behind the coffee-urn. Harley looked up with a twinkle in his eye. ...
— Pirate Gold • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... the kindly face, he would have seen that the deep set eyes were a-twinkle with suppressed merriment, but he was too conscience-stricken to do anything but slink from the office to the ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... I had the audacity to print an essay on "The Policy of Protection," taking issue with most of my brother members, college men and free-traders. Later, while on a visit to California, he told me, with a twinkle in his eye, "I am using your book at Harvard ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... the twinkle in Dr. Farid's eyes. "Better not make it a pyramid," he said hastily. "His luggage is limited to sixty-six pounds. They might not let him ...
— The Egyptian Cat Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin
... could not help herself, was exceedingly relieved and joined in merrily. But while she was laughing she had to wink a sudden moisture from her eyelashes: this glimpse of the natural self of the man she had married went to her heart. "Is it true?" he said, still with that friendly twinkle in his eyes. "Do I lead you the deuce of a life, ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... said Florence, as if stating an uninteresting fact. But Madeline detected a merry twinkle in her clear eyes. The cowboys heard, and the effect upon them was magical. They fell to shamed confusion and to hurried useless tasks. Madeline found it difficult to see where they had been bold, though evidently ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... garden rookeries at the center of the town. Across the harbor water, now too gloomy to reveal its thousands of jelly-fish, drifted the complaining cries of the loons. Then as the occasional city lamps began to twinkle, making the darkness murkier by their inadequacy, there arose from the twisting ways of Pera, Galata and Stamboul the night howling of ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... chair nearer to her, and sat down, while his manner took on a note of grave, elderly concern, which rather belied the twinkle of ...
— The Man and the Moment • Elinor Glyn
... and resolved to begin operations. The barrel which had helped the girl to gain the roof was naturally the first thing that attracted him. With a mocking twinkle in his dark eyes, he slouched towards it. He was in no hurry, for, being an intelligent bear, he appreciated the pleasures of anticipation. He placed his two fore feet on it, and then, with a quick motion, jerked his cumbersome hind quarters ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie
... your death it should be considered wilful suicide, what then?" Garton asked, while an amused twinkle shone in his eyes. "We won't be able to get any one to read ...
— The Unknown Wrestler • H. A. (Hiram Alfred) Cody
... as that, Pearlie?" Mr. Burrell asked in a shocked voice, which was contradicted by the twinkle in his eye. ...
— The Second Chance • Nellie L. McClung
... answered dryly, and for an instant there was a twinkle in his eyes. Yet he added, "To make a correct diagnosis it is important to know all the ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... I want to do in Burmingham," he announced in leisurely fashion. There was a twinkle of humor beneath the shaggy brows. "Your father, for example, doesn't take the Echo. He has none too cordial feeling toward me personally, and in addition he says my paper is too conservative. Then there are firms that I can't get ...
— Paul and the Printing Press • Sara Ware Bassett
... queer," went on the girl with an answering twinkle. "But it doesn't look any queerer than it feels. Miss Ferney doesn't know what's the matter, and neither do I. Would you mind taking a peep at it up there between the ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... looked for yielding he was disappointed. But he appreciated the twinkle that had crept into the lumberman's stern eyes. The answer he received was a curiously expressive grunt as the man took out his timepiece and consulted it. When he saw him rise abruptly from his chair, Bull felt that if his talk had not had the effect ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... up in a cocked hat and high military boots, with a mowing-scythe in his hand, and astraddle of a rearing donkey heavily coated with feathers instead of hair. The old gentleman's spectacles seemed to twinkle as he ran his eye over the slate; and after making out two or three rather savage-looking s's, as many long-legged p's, a squat h or two, a big bottle-bellied b, three or four gigantic l's, a broken-backed ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady
... story. Mr. Thornton could not keep a twinkle from his eyes as he listened. But he did not laugh; he saw that Drusilla was ...
— Drusilla with a Million • Elizabeth Cooper
... you do," said Morgan, leaning forward with a jolly twinkle in his eyes. "You take me. I'll go without any trouble. The cocoanut business hasn't panned out well this year, and I'd like to make some extra money out ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... with pine knots. Mrs. Zane was arranging the dishes on the table. Old Sam and Annie were hurrying to and fro from the kitchen. Col. Zane had just come up the cellar stairs carrying a mouldy looking cask. From its appearance it might have been a powder keg, but the merry twinkle in the Colonel's eyes showed that the cask contained something as precious, perhaps, as powder, but not quite so dangerous. It was a cask of wine over thirty years old. With Col. Zane's other effects it had stood the test of the long wagon-train journey ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... carefully brushed, and what little hair appeared below its slightly curved brim was of the pepper-and-salt mixture of—say, fifty years. His face, though somewhat wrinkled and weather-beaten, was bright and healthy; and there was a twinkle about his little grey eyes that spoke of quickness and watchful observation. Altogether, he was a very quick-looking little man—a sort of man that would know what you were going to say before you had well broke ground. He wore ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... morning, when the sailors were needed aboard for the handling of the canvas. At last, however, with the early dawn the river broadened out and each bank trended away, leaving a long funnel-shaped estuary between. Ephraim Savage snuffed the air and paced the deck briskly with a twinkle in his keen gray eyes. The wind had fallen away, but there was still enough to drive them slowly upon ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... following case: "Suppose, now, one of these engines to be going along a railroad at the rate of nine or ten miles an hour, and that a cow were to stray upon the line and get in the way of the engine; would not that, think you, be a very awkward circumstance?" "Yes," replied the witness, with a twinkle in his eye, "very awkward-for the cow!" The honorable member did not proceed farther with his cross-examination; to use a railway phrase, he was "shunted." Another asked if animals would not be very much frightened by the engine passing at night, especially by the glare of the red-hot ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... ever been on Wall street," Jimmie began, with a twinkle in his eye, "you'd understand me perfectly when I say that I took a little flier in aeroplanes. The stock went up rapidly, and I felt the bottom drop out of the market. When I landed, my surprise was, to say the ...
— Boy Scouts Mysterious Signal - or Perils of the Black Bear Patrol • G. Harvey Ralphson
... discerned a bit of a twinkle in the corners of those cold gray eyes that told Cuthbert the other was not wholly a man of iron—there was another vein to his character not often seen by his fellows, but which could be played upon by touching the right chord, if one but knew what ...
— Canoe Mates in Canada - Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan • St. George Rathborne
... north-westward as far as Lausitz, the mountains are ablaze with bonfires on Midsummer Eve; and from the valleys and the plains round about Leobschuetz, Neustadt, Zuelz, Oels, and other places answering fires twinkle through the deepening gloom. While they are smouldering and sending forth volumes of smoke across the fields, young men kindle broom-stumps, soaked in pitch, at the bonfires and then, brandishing the ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... sir," she said promptly, with an accompaniment of old-fashioned curtsey which brought the twinkle into Rob's eyes. ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey
... inscrutably alien. Your complexion is exquisite, matte gold over-lying blush pink, textured like ripe fruit. Your nose is flat, the perfect nose of China. Your eyes—your eyes are witchery! The blank curtain of your upper lid droops sharply on the iris, and when you smile the corners twinkle upward. It is your eyes, I think, that move me. They are so bright, so black! They are alert and full of curiosity as the eyes of a squirrel, and like the eyes of a squirrel they have no depth behind them. They are windows opening on a world as small as your bound feet, a ...
— Profiles from China • Eunice Tietjens
... of the young men and the bright dresses of the girls. To the older people, sitting round in their wicker-work garden chairs, the darting, stooping, springing white figures, the sweep of skirts, and twinkle of canvas shoes, the click of the rackets and sharp whiz of the balls, with the continual "fifteen love—fifteen all!" of the marker, made up a merry and exhilarating scene. To see their sons and daughters so flushed ...
— Beyond the City • Arthur Conan Doyle
... A twinkle came into the consul's eyes, looking over at his wife, as one is amused sometimes by ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... running down. "Good news, mesdemoiselles, good news! the wound runs all along; it is not deep, like mine was. He has opened his eyes and shut them again. The dear good doctor stopped the blood in a twinkle. The doctor says he'll be bound to save him. I must run and tell Jacintha. She is taking on ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... tobacco with his pocket-knife; chose a clay; filled, lit it, and smoked. Two glasses of wine had sufficed him, for he was an abstemious man: but, for all his hard life, he could enjoy comfort. He found it here; in the good food, the generous liquor, the twinkle on the glass and decanter, the ill-executed but solid portraits on the walls, the hearthrug soft beneath his sole, the April combination of sunshine slanting through the window and a brisk but not oppressive ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... pointed delicate ears, shook their heads from side to side, snorted and settled into a swift stride. Bobby leaned over to watch the sunlight twinkle on the wheel-spokes. The narrow tires sunk slightly in the yielding shingle fragments. Brittle! Brittle! Brittle! the sound said to Bobby. Above all things he loved to watch the gossamer-like wheels, apparently too ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White
... talk about it. Dickey Snookes had been to sea already for a few months, and of course knew a great deal more than I could—at least he said that he did, and on the strength of it offered to tell me all about everything. I thought I saw a twinkle in his eye, but his eyes always are twinkling, so I did not suspect him of intending mischief. We had some vegetables for dinner—some carrots and turnips—and he asked me if I knew where they grew? I said in some garden, ...
— My First Cruise - and Other stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... and departed, and as he went Barbara noticed an ominous twinkle in the pleasant blue eyes of the Hon. ...
— Smith and the Pharaohs, and Other Tales • Henry Rider Haggard
... wonderful night that was like beautiful music heard at a distance. It left her scarcely conscious of moving. In the sky the stars were becoming clearer; in the houses, candles were beginning to twinkle. It was difficult to tell which were which—as if the sky and the earth ...
— The Triflers • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... Paley that an expedition had been proposed; and Mrs. Paley having grasped the fact, gave the advice of an old traveller that they should take nice canned vegetables, fur cloaks, and insect powder. She leant over to Mrs. Flushing and whispered something which from the twinkle in her eyes probably had reference to bugs. Then Helen was reciting "Toll for the Brave" to St. John Hirst, in order apparently to win a sixpence which lay upon the table; while Mr. Hughling Elliot imposed silence upon his section of the audience by his fascinating ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... President, when he hears of the gallant fight I made, will reward me with something in that line," I answered, with a twinkle in my eye. "By the way, what egotists we are! I did not tell you, and you did not inquire, who had been elected President. We ...
— The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant
... bells, Silver bells! What a world of merriment their melody foretells! How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle, In the icy air of night! 5 While the stars, that oversprinkle All the heavens, seem to twinkle With a crystalline deligit; Keeping time, time, time, In a sort of Runic rhyme, 10 To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells From the bells, bells, bells, bells, Bells, bells, bells— From the jingling and the tinkling of ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill
... We pushed on up the creek, kicking up clouds of alkali dust as we went. A creek of a burnt-out hell it was, to be sure. It seemed almost blasphemous to call this arid gully a creek. Boys swim in creeks, and fishes twinkle over the shallows where the sweet eager waters make a merry sound. Creek, indeed! Did a cynic name this dry ragged gash in the midst of a bleak black world where nothing lived, where never ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt
... imagine in the bag To sleep the sleep of Rip Van Winkle, Removed from sunshine's golden flag And duller daylight's smallest twinkle? Well have you earned your rest; but yet, Although disturbance seem uncivil, Unless your cheeks and chin be wet With oil, your ...
— More Cricket Songs • Norman Gale
... fatal criticism of a boarding-house," observed Mr. Brief, with a twinkle in his eye, "but Mrs. Pedagog could hardly secure ...
— The Idiot • John Kendrick Bangs
... to have a bit of chalk, A wood-coal, or the like? or you should see! Yes, I'm the painter, since you style me so. What, brother Lippo's doings, up and down, 40 You know them and they take you? like enough! I saw the proper twinkle in your eye— 'Tell you, I liked your looks at very first. Let's sit and set things straight now, hip to haunch. Here's spring come, and the nights one makes up bands 45 To roam the town and sing out carnival, And I've been three ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... claimed the true line to be. When he came to that part of the case, he rose mightily in his stirrups. Turning upon Chapman, who was a quiet, mild-mannered old gentleman, he said: "The gentleman's eyes may twinkle like Castor and Pollux, twin stars; but he can't wink out of sight that town line of Blandford. He may place one foot on Orion and the other on Arcturus, and seize the Pleiades by the hair and wring all the water from their dripping urns; but he can't wash out ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... rara-ra! What the devil is in the measure that it makes the blood course like quicksilver through the veins? Was there ever a pair of eyes like Fillide's? Nothing of the cold stars there! Yet how they twinkle and laugh at thee! And that rosy, pursed-up mouth that will answer so sparingly to thy flatteries, as if words were a waste of time, and kisses were their proper language. Oh, pupil of Mejnour! Oh, would-be Rosicrucian, Platonist, Magian, I know ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... I remonstrated with her once ten or fifteen years ago when she had a touch of pleurisy. 'Mrs. Turner,' I said, 'if you persist in smoking, you'll injure your health and die young.' She was then eighty-something. 'Doctor,' said she, with a twinkle in those bright little eyes of hers, 'I'll live to be a hundred, and that's more than you'll do.' And, bless me, I think she will! To-day she sent word for me to 'look in.' That means that she needs gossip and not medicine. Well, I'm glad to go. It always does me good to talk ...
— The Lilac Girl • Ralph Henry Barbour
... found him not very well, and with his feet considerably swollen. He was sitting on a chair, with his feet resting on a table, while a barber was shaving him. Shaking him by the hand, and asking after his health, he answered, with a humorous twinkle of the eye, that he would illustrate his condition by telling me a story. Said he: "Two of my neighbors, on a certain occasion, swapped horses. One of these horses was large, but quite thin. A few days after, on inquiry being made of the man who had the big boney horse, how ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... spoke, and there was a humorous twinkle in her shrewd, kindly eyes, which Lesley did not understand. As a matter of fact, her innocent horror and amaze tickled Miss Brooke immensely. It was evident that this girl, with her foreign, aristocratic, and Catholic training knew nothing ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... the traveler's pennies. I am a peasant, but always remember the blood of the Caesars. Who can say? Besides, I have held a sword for the church. I owe no allegiance to the puny House of Savoy!" There was no twinkle in the black eyes now; there was a ferocious gleam. It died away quickly, however; the squared shoulders drooped, and there was a deprecating shrug. "Pardon, signore; this is far away from the matter of boots. I grow boastful; I am an old man and should know ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... that Zack Bunting's eldest son is called Nimrod, familiarized to "Nim,"' said Robert. 'I never saw a more remarkable likeness to a parent, in body and mind, than that youth exhibits; every tuft of ragged beard and every twinkle of the knowing little eyes are ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... papers from him. Thus for the space of a few seconds the two men looked into one another's face, eyes to eyes—and suddenly Chauvelin felt an icy sweat coursing down his spine. The eyes into which he gazed had a strange, ironical twinkle in them, a kind of good-humoured arrogance, whilst through the firm, clear-cut lips, half hidden by a dirty and ill-kempt beard, there came the sound—oh! a mere echo—of a ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... his eyes sought mine in such a wondering way, as if asking me whether this was the way I went fishing, that I burst out into an uncontrollable roar of laughter, when, to my utter astonishment, the sad black face before me began to expand, the eyes to twinkle, the white teeth to show, and for the first time perhaps for months the boy laughed as ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn
... this brought a twinkle into the Easterner's gray eyes. He took the hat from her outstretched gloved hand, but paused with it half ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet
... pupils," began Mary, determining to present the same front to Judith that she had to Mrs. Yellett. But Judith was not to be put off. She looked into Mary's eyes and did not relax her gaze until she was rewarded with an answering twinkle. Then Mary laughed long and merrily, the first good, hearty laugh since the ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... Alas! she had strong evidence that Ephraim's affection, on which she had staked all earthly hope of happiness, had in some way failed. Now under Smith's eye all courage to hold the unrealised ideal was lost; as the fixed stars twinkle, so her faith went out for the moment of his interrogation. Her head sank in a ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... a twinkle in the doctor's eye, which made him suspect a quiz, and the laughter of Jack, Alick, and some of his other messmates who stood round, confirmed this suspicion. At first he felt that he ought to be very indignant, but his good-humour seldom kept away many seconds together, and he quickly joined ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... find out," replied Jack, with a twinkle in his eye which said that he could tell all about it if he were so inclined. "I was afraid we would have to tow out to the river; but this is a topsail breeze that will take us down there without any trouble at all. Take the valise and get in and I ...
— Marcy The Blockade Runner • Harry Castlemon
... sea-boots, or a farm-labourer homeward plodding his weary way. But though heavy-footed after his day's labour he is never so stolid as an English ploughman is apt to be; invariably when giving us a good-night in passing the man would smile and look at Millicent very directly with a meaning twinkle in his Cornish eye. He might have been congratulating her on having a male companion to pay her all these nice little attentions, and perhaps signalling the hope that something would ...
— A Traveller in Little Things • W. H. Hudson
... resides the Pasha Khan, to whom I have a letter; but the crescent-shaped moon sheds abroad a silvery glimmer that exerts a softening influence upon the mountains outlined against the ever-arching dome, from whence here and there a star begins to twinkle. It is one of those. beautiful, calm autumn evenings when all nature seems hushed in peaceful slumbers; when the stars seem to first peep cautiously from the impenetrable depths of their hiding-place, ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... knew she were!— She speaks, yet she says nothing: what of that? Her eye discourses, I will answer it.— I am too bold, 'tis not to me she speaks: Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven, Having some business, do entreat her eyes To twinkle in their spheres till they return. What if her eyes were there, they in her head? The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars, As daylight doth a lamp; her eyes in heaven Would through the airy region stream so bright That birds would sing and think it were ...
— Romeo and Juliet • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... Reports of mine to put in cipher," and the like. Very slippery ice hereabouts for the adroit man! His reports to Amelot are of sanguine tone; but indicate, to the by-stander, small progress; ice slippery, and a twinkle of the comic. Many of them are lost (or lie hidden in the French Archives, and are not worth disinterring): but here is one, saved by Beaumarchais and published long afterwards, which will sufficiently bring home the old scene to us. In the Palace of Berlin ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... restrict himself to such few expressions in the French language as he thought he had mastered easily; and his attempt at disguise was infinitely amusing. Mr. Esmond whistled "Lillibullero," at which Teague's eyes began to twinkle, and then flung him a dollar, when the poor boy broke out with a "God bless—that is, Dieu benisse votre honor", that would infallibly have sent him to the provost-marshal had he been on our side ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... gatekeeper smiled pleasantly as he stood looking after his master. For many years, whenever the student was to come home, old Greifenstein had gone down that road, in the same way, without a word to any one, but having that same twinkle of happy anticipation in his eyes, which was never seen there at any other time. Very generally, too, the laden carriage came rumbling up to the gate with Greif's belongings, and an hour or two passed before father and son emerged on foot from the ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... the musician's name," he said, with a merry twinkle in his eye, from which every trace of artistic inspiration had faded; "can you guess it now?" Nino seemed tongue-tied still, but he made ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... with dew, while all the threshing-floor is dry. Dew is the symbol of divine grace, of the silently formed moisture which, coming from no apparent source, freshens by night the wilted plants, and hangs in myriad drops, that twinkle into green and gold as the early sunshine strikes them, on the humblest twig. That grace is plainly not a natural product nor to be accounted for by environment. The dew of the Spirit, which God and ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... I'm afraid yuh can't be the real thing unless yuh fan your lungs with cigarette smoke regular." The twinkle belied him, though. "Say, where ...
— The Lure of the Dim Trails • by (AKA B. M. Sinclair) B. M. Bower
... watching with the keenest interest. His purpose was to catch a glimpse of the wretch who had fired the shot. But that seemed about impossible. He could detect something moving now and then, and once or twice there was a twinkle of something red, like the eagle feather in the hair of the warrior, but he could ...
— In the Pecos Country • Edward Sylvester Ellis (AKA Lieutenant R.H. Jayne)
... types, the mischievous boy furnishes the real pleasure for the worker with boys. The fellow whose eyes can twinkle and who will play a practical trick on the friend he most respects is always a delight. It is he that keeps the crowd in good humor, who is generally deepest and most abiding in his affection, and who at the drop of the hat would fight to the last ditch for his friend. To handle him rightly does ...
— The Boy and the Sunday School - A Manual of Principle and Method for the Work of the Sunday - School with Teen Age Boys • John L. Alexander
... came Mike Gaynor. While their blankets were being taken off and saddles adjusted, he came over to Allis. There was a suppressed twinkle of subverted knowledge ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... plotted a murder safely before William. He never presumed to have opinions of his own. When such was my mood he remained silent, and if I announced that something diverting had happened to me he laughed before I told him what it was. He turned the twinkle in his eye off or on at my bidding as readily as if it was the gas. To my "Sure to be wet to-morrow," he would reply, "Yes, sir;" and to Trelawney's "It doesn't look like rain," two minutes afterward, he would reply, "No, sir." It was one member who said Lightning Rod would win the Derby[240-1] ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... was so good to be beside him, to hear his cheery voice, to watch that good-humoured twinkle in his blue eyes, as he stretched out his strong arms, in longing for that foe, and anticipation of his ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... I see," Harry remarked, with a twinkle in his eye. "Melbourne is on the other side of the world from New York, and so they name the streets in the reverse manner. So, then, there is another proof that Australia ...
— The Land of the Kangaroo - Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey through the Great Island Continent • Thomas Wallace Knox
... Opdyke, with a twinkle. "The buffalo are rarely seen now, and only two men were scalped by the Indians outside the walls ...
— In the High Valley - Being the fifth and last volume of the Katy Did series • Susan Coolidge
... whose good working complexion, as she called it, had been turned to lilies and roses, her hair of mortal gold to immortal sunshine, and those sagacious orbs of blue, which made friends for her by their twinkle, into ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... the marvellous gift of woman's eyes to be able to tell the distinction between look and look. Through the prism of jealousy the eye-beam is refracted to its primary colors; and this wonderful optical analysis says: this is the twinkle of curiosity, that the coquettish ogle, this the fire of love, that ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... talked in the old way, vaguely, languidly. Yes, he had had a little success; but it amounted to nothing; his work—rubbish! rubbish! Thereupon the cafe sketches in the illustrated papers were shown to Florio, who poured forth exuberant praise. A twinkle of pleasure ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... car. It pressed down upon Lewis. He felt it, but in his heart he knew that for him the day was a glad day. The train started. He leaned far out of a window. The evening breeze was blowing from the east. To his keen nostrils came a faint breath of the sea. When he drew his head in again, the twinkle he had already learned to watch for was back in ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain
... he could hear a splash in the moat made by fish or water-vole, and once or twice he saw the star-bejewelled surface twinkle and move as if some creature were swimming across; but soon that was all calm again, and the booming, buzzing noise of some great beetle sweeping by on reckless wing sounded ...
— In the King's Name - The Cruise of the "Kestrel" • George Manville Fenn
... in question looked dark at first sight; but as Villon made a preliminary inspection in search of the handiest point of attack, a little twinkle of light caught his eye from behind a ...
— Stories By English Authors: France • Various
... him the plea that, at least, we ran away alone, not in better company. A twinkle would have shone in his eyes, for he eloped with the young lady who became his wife. He got her out of her home at Bath, through a window, and they were happy ever after.' To end a day happily was a maxim with Sir George, since it meant wisdom ...
— The Romance of a Pro-Consul - Being The Personal Life And Memoirs Of The Right Hon. Sir - George Grey, K.C.B. • James Milne
... something good?" asked Nan, for she saw a queer little twinkle in her father's eyes, and she knew that this generally meant a ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at School • Laura Lee Hope
... steps were taken, when the leader paused abruptly, alarmed by an altogether unexpected discovery. The twinkle of a light appeared among the trees in front, so directly in their path that, had they continued straight forward, they would ...
— The Young Ranchers - or Fighting the Sioux • Edward S. Ellis
... the company—Mr. Mildini, who was short and fat, and had a twinkle in his eye, and had been born Murphy; Mrs. Mildini, who was slim and sharp-featured, and whose eyes were bright, without any twinkle in them; and Signor Antolini, who was of medium height and rather thin, and had a nose like a hawk, and had been born on Mulberry Street, in New York City. Two ...
— Injun and Whitey to the Rescue • William S. Hart |
