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More "Motherly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... father, was as crusty an old curmudgeon as one could find in a county. His wife (the lovely Evelyn Wormgate, a daughter of the Duke of Bognor and Wormgate) had died while the radiant Moll was but a puling infant. Thus it was that, knowing no hand of motherly authority, the child perforce ran wild throughout her ...
— Terribly Intimate Portraits • Noel Coward
... was in the village came forward and released the children, as Nakpa gave a low whinny and stopped. Tenderly Zeezeewin nursed them at her own motherly bosom, assisted by another young ...
— Old Indian Days • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... spirits. Ducks were paddling off to the pond; geese to the meadow; and meek gray guinea-hens tripping away to hunt bugs in the garden. A splendid cock stood on the wall, and crowed so loud and clear that all the neighboring chanticleers replied. The motherly hens clucked and scratched with their busy broods about them, or sat and scolded in the coops because the chicks would gad abroad. Doves cooed on the sunny roof, and smoothed their gleaming feathers. Daisy's donkey nibbled a thistle by the wall, and a stately ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... Etienne," she went on in motherly tones. "We are at this moment old comrades; speak to me as you ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... objecting to everything and everybody on principle. Knowing that I was an orphan he sometimes took me aside and gave me sound fatherly advice which I have since remembered, and am now beginning to appreciate. His wife, too, was a kindly motherly woman who, because being practically homeless I was often compelled to spend my holidays at school, seemed better disposed towards me than to the majority of the ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... was kind and motherly, and Mary felt that it was so: but although there were no actual faults of spelling, it was evidently not the production of a cultured woman, and she thought with some dread of her future mother-in-law. It would ...
— The Four Canadian Highwaymen • Joseph Edmund Collins
... the squirrel, when a tiny thing, had dropped out of its nest and been found by him lying almost dead at the foot of a tree, and how he had carried it home and tried whether pussy would adopt it as one of her own kittens. The cat was kind; the squirrel throve under her motherly care, and became Jack's pet ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... into the wings, surrounded by her little troupe. A motherly colored woman took them, shooed them off, rounded them up like a flock ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... properly engaged to him you may ask him round here on Sunday afternoons, and have tea with him in the kitchen;" for my Euphemia has a motherly conception of her duty towards her maid-servants. And presently the amethystine ring was being worn about the house, even with ostentation, and Jane developed a new way of bringing in the joint so ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... sit up?" said Adela at dinner, suddenly prodding me in the back. Adela is old enough to take a motherly interest in my figure, and young enough to look extremely pretty while ...
— Happy Days • Alan Alexander Milne
... had my mother set her table to rights than she, with an air of motherly watchfulness, drew her chair beside the damsels, with whom I was exchanging the gossip of the Cape, and entered ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... both a pleasant journey. Then Eve, near whom Monseigneur Martha had remained, smiling, in her turn had to say farewell. In this she evinced touching bravery; her determination to remain beautiful and charming until the very end lent her sufficient strength to show herself both gay and motherly. ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... silent about all the rest,—has silently turned all the rest to some benefit too, and makes no complaint about it! So everywhere in Nature! She is true and not a lie; and yet so great, and just, and motherly in her truth. She requires of a thing only that it be genuine of heart; she will protect it if so; will not, if not so. There is a soul of truth in all the things she ever gave harbor to. Alas, is not this the history ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... small Manners, and dispensed various teas to Winifred and Marion Thorold. I have met their father several times at the Manners' flat, and have likewise—low be it spoken—received two evening calls from him in my own domain. He says it is such a comfort to find a kind, motherly woman with whom to talk over his difficulties! He hesitates to trouble Mrs Manners, who is already overworked. Winifred holds one shoulder a little higher than the other. Does that mean anything wrong with the spine? Ought ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... not tell the master, for one reason: it took a long time for so stupendous an idea to penetrate the good lady's brain; and for another: her motherly heart was touched by another story than this Aladdin's lamp of Joel's wherein burned petroleum. She watched from her window until she saw Holmes crossing the icy road: there was a little bitterness, I confess, in the thought ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... and Edie, with wee Dot sleeping placidly on her arm, stood at the door to welcome him back again in wife-like fashion. The flowers in the window bloomed bright and gay in the tiny parlour: and Edie, with her motherly cares for little Dot, seemed more like herself than ever she had done before since poor Harry's death had clouded the morning of her happy lifetime. But to Ernest, even that pretty picture of the young mother and her sleeping baby looked only like one more reminder of the terrible ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... little adventures of childhood days with irritating exactness, and there mingled with it a bitter feeling of regret for the lost opportunities. The kiss blown me from a window in Naples, the extraordinary, more than motherly cares of the hotel chambermaid in Vienna, the roses pressed into my hands on the street by a young Spanish girl somewhere in the south of France, the embrace and the kiss on my cheek which I once suddenly felt in a dark ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... shouldn't have done that. I am wicked. Never you mind, my dear: it's only a motherly kiss. Go and ...
— Mrs. Warren's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... had tried to make friends with the child, but the voice of the nurse had soon cut in. And in the motherly Scotch face Ethel had detected again a feeling of hostility. "What for?" she had asked. And the answer had flashed into her mind. "She's angry because Amy hasn't been in to see Susette." And Ethel had frowned. "It's funny. If I had ...
— His Second Wife • Ernest Poole
... At this he commenced to regain his composure, and by the time he had slipped the ring on Donna's finger and plighted his troth for aye, all of his troubles and worries vanished. The minister and his gardener shook hands with them, and the minister's wife kissed Donna and gave her a motherly hug—primarily because she looked so sweet and again on general feminine principles. Bob, not desiring to appear cheap on this, the greatest day in history, gave the minister a fee of twenty dollars, and five minutes later found himself on the sidewalk ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... wandering Felatahs, from whom they came, who speak the same language and wear the same external characters, it will be seen how Nature has yearned for her children in these unknown regions, and set herself, for their sakes, great stints of work, in that motherly ambition to bring them forward in the world. Yes,—thought the Guinea trader,—these skilful Foulahs are Nature's best gifts ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... Cardiff, wrapped in the arms of the Dowager Lady Le Despenser. And in every sense, from the lightest to the deepest, the words were true. The wanderer had come home. Home to the Castle of Cardiff, which she was never to leave any more; home to the warm motherly arms of Elizabeth Le Despenser, who cast all her worn-out theories to the winds, and took her dead son's hapless darling to her heart of hearts; home to the great heart of God. And the ear of the elder woman was open to a sound unheard by ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt
... her shoulder, cried, not passionately, but with a complete abandonment of all self-restraint. Mrs. Costello did not try to check those natural and restoring tears. She soothed her child by fond motherly touches, kissed her cheek or smoothed her hair, but said not a word until the whole dull weight that had been pressing on her had melted away. There was something strangely forlorn in their circumstances which ...
— A Canadian Heroine - A Novel, Volume 3 (of 3) • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... recognized him. He was now clean, and neatly dressed in an old suit of Mark's which just fitted him, and his hair, which had been long and tangled, was cut short and neatly brushed. Being naturally of a sunny and affectionate disposition, the cheerful home influences, the motherly care of Mrs. Elmer, whose heart was very tender towards the motherless boy, and, above all, the great alteration in his father's manner, had changed the shy, sullen lad, such as he had been, into an honest, happy fellow, anxious to do right, ...
— Wakulla - A Story of Adventure in Florida • Kirk Munroe
... Duncan girls were her best friends, and she had had lessons with them for many months at a time in the last few years, so they had the strong bond in friendship of having worked as well as played together. But Mrs. Duncan had been very motherly and dear to our friend, and just now seemed nearer and more helpful than ever. The train whistled along and the homesick feeling soon passed, though Betty remembered that Mrs. Duncan had said once that wherever you may put two persons one is always ...
— Betty Leicester - A Story For Girls • Sarah Orne Jewett
... to the settee, and arranged her head comfortably on its pillows. Then, giving her a motherly kiss, she said, "Rest, darling, while Tulee and I look ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... Sandwith said, turning to the girls and kissing them with motherly kindness. "Come in, my dears, and welcome home for the sake of my dear boy, and for that of your parents who were so kind to him. Never mind all these wild young people," she added, as the boys and girls pressed round ...
— In the Reign of Terror - The Adventures of a Westminster Boy • G. A. Henty
... boy when he came to them, laughing at the trick he had played his father, full of mockery of the hidebound ways of cities, and had wanted to send him back to Mr. Shandon. She had cried a little over him and kissed him and talked gently with him as was her motherly way. But Wanda's father berated him severely and sternly and Wayne flushed and bit his lip and then went away from them as he had gone away ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory
... regard of men and women belonging to the highest ranks of society. With the Prince and Princess Lichnowsky Beethoven shortly became very intimate, and was invited to stay at the Palace. The Princess looked after his personal comfort with as motherly an affection as Madame Breuning had done. The etiquette of the Palace however, offended Ludwig's love of Bohemianism, especially the dressing for dinner at a certain time. He took to dining at a tavern quite frequently, and finally engaged ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... this composition, the divine feeling not without a touch of motherly sentiment, its delicacy so rare and so pure, the distinction of its coloring, are all past expression, and give it a place unique in the nineteenth century."—Paul ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement
... conductor moved on, she said, "The nasty thing. They have no consideration at all. Look, child." For a moment Plato thought she was going to offer him flight fare from Space Junction to Venusberg, but she was not, he discovered, as motherly as that. "You know what you'll do when you get off? Send a 'gram, collect, to your people in Venusberg. They'll wire you your fare. And you'll reach them in a couple ...
— Runaway • William Morrison
... of his early teaching. At first, the wayward little Indian seemed likely to form no accession to the quiet household, but he soon became its brightest ornament and pride. Everything was in his favor at the pleasant home of Mrs. Trevor. He was treated with motherly kindness and tenderness, yet firmly checked when he went wrong. From the first he had a well-spring of strength, against temptation, in the long letters which every mail brought from his parents; and all his childish affections were entwined round the fancied image of a brother born since he ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... that evening Grandmamma again wiped her eyes—though these tears were of thankfulness and motherly pride in the thought of the sweet and pretty children upstairs, who at that moment were kneeling in their little white nightgowns, one on each side of old Nurse, as they solemnly repeated after her the Lord's Prayer, and after that their own evening petitions that "God would bless dear Grandpapa ...
— "Us" - An Old Fashioned Story • Mary Louisa S. Molesworth
... dismounted, a most touching scene of motherly affection ensued, for, as the old man explained to me, he was her son. The poor shrivelled creature threw her arms around his neck and kissed him fondly, first on one cheek and then upon the other, after which, having affectionately taken his face between her hands, ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... a certain air of pathos which Mrs. Partington herself cast around him, which affected her the most, and I imagine her feeling to have been largely motherly. There was, however, another element very obviously visible, which, in anyone but Mrs. Partington, I should call reverence.... She told me that she could not imagine why he was traveling with the Major and Gertie, so she at least ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... indicate that she followed the course of every event with an anxious and intelligent interest. In 1657, her oldest son had left for England, where he remained until 1661, and she wrote then some verses more to be commended for their motherly feeling than for any charm ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... spoke openly of her "loss"; declared that the old families were dying out; and impressed the wives of a few new arrivals at Red Dog with the belief that her own family was contemporary with the Alvarados, and that her husband's health was far from perfect. She extended a motherly sympathy to the orphaned Don Caesar. Reserved, like his father, in natural disposition, he was still more gravely ceremonious from his loss; and, perhaps from the shyness of an evident partiality for Mamie Mulrady, he rarely availed himself of her mother's sympathizing hospitality. But he carried ...
— A Millionaire of Rough-and-Ready • Bret Harte
... for them in the hall. They went into the library. Mrs. Gallilee enfolded her son in a fervent motherly embrace. ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... moved to profound pity; at first she could not believe her ears, but when she did she invoked the divine wrath on the inhuman monster who had the presumption to call herself a woman, a mother, and an aunt; finally, she folded Angela in a motherly embrace and burst into tears, promising to protect her at the risk of her own life—a promise she would really have kept if the girl ...
— The White Sister • F. Marion Crawford
... motherly, dumpy little woman in a large shawl, a wrapping gown, a clean, trim nightcap, and shod with the ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... not so, seeing that we spent nearly half of every week practically alone together, and that, from the first, Marie, whose nature was as open as the clear noon, never concealed her affection for me. True, it was a very discreet affection, almost sisterly, or even motherly, in its outward and visible aspects, as though she could never forget that extra half-inch of height or month ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard
... Not by supposing some ancient intercourse between remote tribes, but by the uses of water as the originator and supporter, the essential prerequisite of life. Leaving aside the analogy presented by the motherly waters which nourish the unborn child, nor emphasizing how indispensable it is as a beverage, the many offices this element performs in nature lead easily to the supposition that it must have preceded all else. By quenching thirst, it quickens life; as the dew ...
— The Myths of the New World - A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America • Daniel G. Brinton
... you are working too hard, Bensie, and it's quite true," Polly gave him another pat, this time a motherly one; "and so you ...
— Five Little Peppers Grown Up • Margaret Sidney
... his little bare feet, having learned to guard against croup by attending to the damp shoes and socks before going to bed. Boo lay with his round face turned up to hers, stroking her cheek while the sleepy blue eyes blinked lovingly at her as she sang her lullaby with a motherly patience sweet to see. They made a pretty little picture, and Mr. Bemis looked at it with pleasure, having a leisure moment in which to discover, as all parents do sooner or later, that his children were ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... agreeable to Adele; while the mistress of the house—mild, and cheerful, and sunny, diffusing content every evening over the little circle around her hearth—wins Adele to a new cheer. Yet it is a cheer that is tempered by many sad thoughts of her own loneliness, and of her alienation from any motherly smiles and greetings that are ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... I am so happy!" And Norma, who had gotten into Aunt Kate's lap, as the marvellous narrative progressed, dug her face into Aunt Kate's motherly soft shoulder, and tightened her arms about her neck, and cried ...
— The Beloved Woman • Kathleen Norris
... the ladies appear, as trim and unconcerned as if they had never put their foot in a kitchen all their lives, and the circle round the fire widens to admit them. The elder of these ladies is a careworn but pleasant, motherly-looking body, who calls the elder gentleman "sir" when she speaks to him, and invariably addresses one of the two young men—the one with the black eyes—as Mister Johnny. As for the younger lady, whose likeness to Mister Johnny is ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... with her knowing charm, the younger with her freshness, present a dualism more bewildering than any he has ever read about in his philosophy books, and part of the fun consists in seeing him fall in love with the younger in terms of pure reason, and finally, when the motherly young countess has quietly got him a professorship at Konigsberg, present to his delighted Elise ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... began when he was about three years old; that is to say, he was gathered under the wings of one of those good old motherly dames, found in every village, who cluck together the whole callow brood of the neighborhood, to teach them their letters and keep them out of harm's way. Mistress Elizabeth Delap, for that was her name, flourished in this capacity for upward of fifty years, and it ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... cheeriness of her heart, that she was in good truth the youngest person in the house, so that her own daughters were sometimes quite shocked at her levity of behaviour, and treated her with gentle, motherly restraint. She was tall and thin, like her husband, and he, at least, considered her every whit as beautiful as she had been a score of years before. Her hair was dark and curly; she had deep-set grey eyes, and a pretty fresh complexion. When she was well, and rushing ...
— About Peggy Saville • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... looked at his face, which for all its brightness was worn and deep-lined, and her compassionate motherly heart was stirred. ...
— The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land • Ralph Connor
... labourer, of better education and more intelligence than the generality of his class. They had no children of their own, so that Mrs Williams, who was a truly godly woman, was glad to give a home for a time and a motherly care to the two little ones committed to her charge by Amos. The husband was, of course, absent from home during the working hours, so that his wife could not call him to her help when she missed the little boy; indeed, on the day of ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson
... room, Mrs. Haddon locked the door very carefully and quietly. She suspected that he was planning mischief that would lead to further trouble, and hoped that by next morning he would be in a frame of mind to be won over by a little motherly strategy. But she went about her work with a heavy heart. Later she took the impenitent young 'duffer' a tea cunningly designed to appeal to his rebellious heart, and spread it neatly on the big dimity-covered box in his ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... daughter had utterly out-read and out-thought her less educated parent, who was clinging in honest bigotry to the old forms, while Argemone was wandering forth over the chaos of the strange new age,- -a poor homeless Noah's dove, seeking rest for the sole of her foot and finding none. And now all motherly influence and sympathy had vanished, and Mrs. Lavington, in fear and wonder, let her daughter go her own way. She could not have done better, perhaps; for Providence had found for Argemone a better guide than her mother could have done, and her new ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... happened to be a good motherly sort of woman, replied, that she was pleased with her countenance, or she would not have taken her in without enquiring into her character; and as she seemed not to be desirous of an idle life, she would recommend her to those that should find ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... who takes care of her little children has to go through a thousand tiresome actions which would be intolerable if they were meaningless, but which compose a beautiful life if they are held together by the aim which the motherly love sees before it. Whatever work a human being may perform, force on his mind the treacherous suggestion that it is meaningless, that it is slavery, that others seize the profit, and he must hate it and feel it an unbearable hardship. It has often been observed that the most ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg
... flush upon her cheeks telling of her happiness. Her eyes shone, soft in their brightness, and her lips were red with the leaping blood of youth. She had turned to speak with Mrs. Sturgis, the stoutest, jolliest and altogether most motherly woman in the valley, and Mrs. Sturgis, watching her eyes and lips and paying no attention to her words, put out her ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
... Mrs. Garland noticed this growing friendship, and began to despair of her motherly scheme of uniting Anne to the moneyed Festus. Why she could not take prompt steps to check interference with her plans arose partly from her nature, which was the reverse of managing, and partly from a new emotional circumstance with which she found it difficult to reckon. The near neighbourhood ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... was brushed and his bed remade a dozen times a day. Cherry shared her mail, which was always heavy now, with him; she flitted into the sick-room every few minutes with small messages or gifts. With her bare, bright head, her busy white hands, her voice all motherly amusement and sympathy and sweetness, she had never seemed so much a wife. She had the pleasantest laugh in the world, and she often laughed. The sick-room was kept with exquisite simplicity, with such freshness, bareness, and order as made it a place of delight. One day ...
— Sisters • Kathleen Norris
... the young inventor, though the motherly housekeeper had not done this since he was a little chap. She had to stand on a soap box, which Eradicate brought in order to reach Tom's face, and, when she ...
— Tom Swift and his Airship • Victor Appleton
... own little room at The Ship, and Mrs. Peck, with motherly kindness writ large on her comely, plump face, was bending over her with a cup of ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... was chief lieutenant. "Missus desires me to ask," said she, with her grim face and austere voice, "whether you will be pleased to dine at home to-day?" And yet the grim, austere woman could be affectionate and almost motherly in her ministrations to him when things were going well, and had eaten his salt and broken his bread for more than twenty years. All this was very hard! "Because," continued the woman, "missus says she thinks she shall be ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... I was musing so deeply on the intricacies of love that I nearly ran over a nice, motherly old cow that had come to the middle of the road with perfectly good faith in me when she saw me coming. And as I rounded her off well to the left again my thoughts skidded back to Sam and the way ...
— Over Paradise Ridge - A Romance • Maria Thompson Daviess
... put her hand gently on his brow, and caressingly touched the dusty hair and ragged clothes with the almost motherly feeling that longs to comfort and soothe. Meir sat on the bench in the posture of a man deadly tired. He leaned his head against the window-frame, and seemed to draw in the mild evening breeze. The moon reflected herself in the mournful eyes that were raised in question towards the silvery clouds. ...
— An Obscure Apostle - A Dramatic Story • Eliza Orzeszko
... lovely as a queen,' she murmured with motherly pride,' indeed there's no queen like her in ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... shed near the kitchen, in order to please La Teuse he went into ecstasies over the washing; he even had to dip his fingers into it and feel it. This so pleased the old woman that her attentions became quite motherly. She no longer scolded, but ran to fetch a clothes-brush, saying: 'You surely are not going out with yesterday's mud on your cassock! If you had left it out on the banister, it would be clean now—it's still a good one. But do lift it up well when ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... then, as the motherly Irish woman, with a quizzical smile on her face, started to the house for the ...
— The Moving Picture Girls Snowbound - Or, The Proof on the Film • Laura Lee Hope
... through the garden, which was gay with flowers, though much less magnificent than Mr. Harrison's. Emma said, mamma was a great gardener, and accordingly they found her cutting off flowers past their prime. She gave Violet a bouquet of geranium and heliotrope, and conducted her to her room with that motherly kindness and solicitude so comfortable to a lonely guest in ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a truly good woman, and had a sincere motherly love for her son John, yet there wanted not those who endeavoured to create a misunderstanding between them, and they had so far prevailed with him once that he turned her out of doors, to his great sorrow, as he found afterwards, for his ...
— The History of John Bull • John Arbuthnot
... sentries paced their measured rounds; from the verandas of the hotel came the ripple of murmured words and soft laughter, and a tinkle of banjo and guitar. At the gate the colonel exchanged good-night greetings with a happy-faced, motherly looking woman whom Bonner had noticed overwhelmed with pride and emotion during the ceremonies in the morning. He did not at first recognize the tall, erect young fellow on whose arm she proudly leaned as she walked home through ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King
... back to the world he was lying in a very comfortable bed, and all the pain had gone from his head. A comfortable, motherly woman, whom he recognized as Mrs. Simmons, was sitting beside him, and Colonel Leonidas Talbot, looking very tall, very spare and very precise, was standing ...
— The Tree of Appomattox • Joseph A. Altsheler
... tenderly, motherly bringeth Flowers to the bee; Sweeter than autumn, which bounteously, lovingly flingeth Fruits on the tree, Shall be winter, when homeward returning, thy swift vessel wingeth Over ...
— Poems • Denis Florence MacCarthy
... just how it had happened, and talked and kept on talking, until she suddenly discovered that David was looking a little weary—though he insisted that he was not tired. But in her motherly way, that was the delight of the ward, she bade him shut his eyes and "go right to sleep," giving his hand a final caressing pat, and then running away to let him have a ...
— Polly of the Hospital Staff • Emma C. Dowd
... in her motherly way, "there is room enough and to spare in my house for every one of you—room enough and to spare. You shall ...
— A Modern Tomboy - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... May sunny rooms at a pension in the Boulevard Haussmann, where a motherly French woman resided with her two daughters. In beautiful Paris, May Ingram was to live and study, hoping to realize the dreams of her childhood, a first rank in ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton
... somewhat jumbled consideration about "Knowledge of Hebrew—tenor voice—courage and imagination—unworldly," and so forth, when a knock at the door announced Mrs. Mawle who came to inform him that dinner was ready. She stood there, a motherly and pleasant figure in black, and she addressed him in the third person. "If Mr. Spinrobin will please to come down," she said, "Mr. Skale is waiting. Mr. Skale is always quite punctual." She always spoke thus, in the third person; she never used the personal ...
— The Human Chord • Algernon Blackwood
... at her son, as he stood, keen and soldierly, near to her. Her eyes were most wonderfully blue, bluer than forget-me-nots. She seemed to have a certain confidence in Gerald, and to feel a certain motherly ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... smooth, straight dark hair with a few threads of grey, all streaked back flat to her head to please papa; or would she have lovely auburn waves done on a frame, with a curl draped over her forehead? Would her complexion be just as nice, comfortable, motherly sort of complexion, of no particular colour; or would it be pink and white like rose-leaves floating in cream? Would she have the kind of figure to fit the corsets you can pick up at any shop, ready made for fifty-nine and a half cents, ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... supper laid on the kitchen table, waiting for him, for Dick had told his mother of the guest he expected. He decided to say nothing of the circumstances that led to the invitation. He might safely have done so, however, for Mrs. Schmidt was a good, motherly woman, who pitied the boy and understood very well that his position in Mr. Badger's family must be ...
— Robert Coverdale's Struggle - Or, On The Wave Of Success • Horatio, Jr. Alger
... to heart, on personal grounds, I suppose. She drawled along for five minutes, reproaching him with his perfidy and grew quite motherly. 'Now you've got a nice little wife of your own—you have,' she said. 'She's ten times too good for a fat old man like you, and, look he-ere, you never told me a word about her, and I've been thinkin' ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... that moment Sarah appeared. She took Tommy up in her strong, motherly arms, soothing him in practised fashion. "There, there, honey! Yo's goin' have yo' mother pretty soon. What yo' wants now's yo' supper, ain't it, honey? I reckon ain't no one had de sense ter gib yo' chillens a mite ...
— Patricia • Emilia Elliott
... to watch the doll open and shut its eyes, and to try to unbutton and button its coat and dress; and then the railroad track had to be set up and the train started off on its rounds. Ellen Robinson really looked almost motherly while she watched her happy children; and Julia Cloud relaxed, and let the smile come around her lips ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... children, wearisome and uninteresting. On the other hand, the little Morleys were full of life and eagerness. The fault in them was that they wouldn't take petting; and what's the good of a child that won't be petted? They lacked that something which makes a woman feel motherly. ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... upon which Mrs. Gray could expatiate for hours. Mary had a tender, strong pity from the earliest age for the down-at-heel, over-burdened stepmother, which lightened her own load, as did the vicarious, motherly love which came to her for ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan
... relaxing oppressions have lifted the restraints of fear between master and servant, without disturbing the familiarity of their relation. She advised freely with us upon all household matters, and took a motherly interest in whatever concerned us. She could be flattered or caressed into almost any service, but no threat or command could move her. When she erred, she never acknowledged her wrong in words, but handsomely expressed her regrets in a pudding, or sent up her apologies in a favorite ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... the natural interest of a kindly spinster in a bride and bridegroom, especially when the bridegroom was in khaki, and under orders for the front. She promised, at once, to come and see Mrs. Sarratt, and George, beholding in her a possible motherly friend for Nelly when he should be far away, insisted that she should fix a day for her call before his departure. Nelly added her smiles to his. Then, with a pleasant nod, Miss Martin left them, refusing all their offers ...
— Missing • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... horse to bring in the meat. When the Indian woman arrived at the spot, she found the two cubs cuddled up against the dressed meat of their mother, and crying as if their poor hearts would break. Their affectionate behaviour so touched the motherly heart of the old woman that, after loading the meat aboard the travois—a framework of poles stretched out behind the horse—she picked up the sobbing children and, wrapping them in a blanket to keep them from falling off the travois, bestrode her horse, and brought ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... obvious duties which should come first," says the quiet and motherly voice of the third reformer; "infants die by the hundred thousand owing to neglect. There will soon be no babies for you to instruct either in materialism or socialism. The race will die out whilst you talk. Look at the slums ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby
... each other's calves is certainly erroneous. During the catching of elephants many cases occur in which young ones, after losing their mothers by death or separation, are refused assistance by the other females, and are buffeted about as outcasts. I have only known one instance of a very gentle, motherly elephant in captivity, allowing a motherless calf to suck along with her own young one. When a calf is born the mother and the herd usually remain in that place for two days. The calf is then capable of marching. Even at this tender age calves are no ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... Stephens? How absurd! Florence, this is just another of your motherly, oldmaidish ways—dressing dolls for poor children, making bonnets and knitting socks for all the little dirty babies in the region round about. I do believe you have made more calls in those two vile, ill-smelling ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... knowledge of Henderson's accumulating millions, lent an interest and a certain charm to whatever she said and did. The Eschelle house became more attractive than ever before, so much so that Mrs. Eschelle declared that she longed for the quiet of Paris. To her motherly apprehension there was no result in this whirl of gayety, no serious intention discoverable in any of the train that followed Carmen. "You act, child," she said, "as if youth ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... time that it was supposed my father must have perished, and a year later my poor mother died, broken-hearted at the loss of a husband that she positively idolised. Thus, we two—Dora and I—were left orphans at a very early age, and were forthwith taken into the motherly care of Aunt Sophie, who had no children of her own. Poor Aunt Sophie! I am afraid I led her a terrible life; for I was, almost from my birth, a big, strong, high-spirited boy, impatient of control, and resolute ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood
... Morley, who respectively represented the interests of Britain and America, were tremendous friends. Miss Rodgers was fair and rather plump and rosy-faced and calm, with a manner that parents described as "motherly," and a leaning towards mathematics as the basis of a sound education. Miss Morley, on the contrary, was thin and dark and excitable, and taught the English literature and the general knowledge classes, and was rumored—though this no doubt was libel—to ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... du take her physic like a lamb." She prescribed the drive in the carriage or the ride in the chair, and, in a word, ground down the old lady in her convalescence in such a way as only belongs to your proper-managing, motherly moral woman. If ever the patient faintly resisted, and pleaded for a little bit more dinner or a little drop less medicine, the nurse threatened her with instantaneous death, when Miss Crawley instantly gave ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... She went to see him; she told him that great works of art were not to be manufactured like cannon; and that the State—like Louis XIV., Francis I., and Leo X.—ought to be at the beck and call of genius. Poor Hortense, believing she held a Phidias in her embrace, had the sort of motherly cowardice for her Wenceslas that is in every wife who carries her love to the pitch ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... kissed Andy on the cheek in a motherly way. Marco followed the boy outside. He thumped him on the back with the ...
— Andy the Acrobat • Peter T. Harkness
... a telephone and unlimited credit at the stores, an' Mrs. Hammond was a motherly soul of much experience with children, an' I knew that I could ...
— Keeping up with Lizzie • Irving Bacheller
... Lane and the regions of Newgate. Over this little territory, thus bounded and designated, the great dome of St. Paul's, swelling above the intervening houses of Paternoster Row, Amen Corner, and Ave-Maria Lane, looks down with an air of motherly protection. ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... "Nonsense, my dear, partial, motherly judge. Lookers-on see most of the game," said Uncle Richard good-humouredly. "I was looking on from the landing for some time, and from what I saw, I have no hesitation in saying that Master Tom got as good as ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn
... commenced by informing me that at ten years of age she was a scholar of Mrs. Chatterton, his mother, where she was taught plain work, and remained with her until she was near twenty years of age; that she slept with her, and found her kind and motherly, insomuch that there were many things which in moments of affliction Mrs. C. communicated to her, that she would not have wished to have been generally known; and among others, she often repeated how happy she was that her unfortunate ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... She was a pleasant-faced, motherly-looking woman, and she welcomed the boys with open arms. There was no mistaking the warmth and sincerity of her greeting. They felt at home at once and in a few minutes were chatting and laughing as easily ...
— Bert Wilson in the Rockies • J. W. Duffield
... brought wood and water and counted it reward enough if they only received a smile from little Alma. Many a man was glad enough, too, to render such service for a meal or lunch of hot coffee and doughnuts, especially such good, big, motherly ones as Mary made, and there was no lack of men helpers. How the coffee steamed, the hot bread and meats smoked, and the soup odors tantalized the olfactories of hundreds of "tenderfeet" with their lusty Alaska appetites, which were increased ...
— A Woman who went to Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... a motherly-looking woman, coming to the door behind her husband. "Bring them in, every one, and I'll give them some bread and milk. I have cookies, too, for I just ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Grandpa Ford's • Laura Lee Hope
... his two or three themes: the weird one already described; the little one in triple measure imitating the tap of his hammer, and fiercely mocked in the savage laugh of Alberic at his death; and finally the crooning tune in which he details all his motherly kindnesses to the little foundling Siegfried. Besides this there are all manner of little musical blinkings and shamblings and whinings, the least hint of which from the orchestra at any moment ...
— The Perfect Wagnerite - A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring • George Bernard Shaw
... had thrown something black over the young widow's shoulders, of which she seemed unaware. It kept slipping and falling down, revealing her white dress, and Mrs. Greening kept adjusting it with motherly hand. Sitting bent, like an old woman, Ollie twisted and wound her nervous hot fingers in her lap. Now and then she lifted her eyes to Joe's, as if struggling to read what intention lay behind the pale ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... and rain, it became necessary to circumvent a fierce-looking bull, and Mignot and the accomplice told rival tales of the dangers to which pedestrians are exposed from the violence of the cattle on some montagnes, where the bulls are allowed to grow to full size and fierceness. Mignot was quite motherly in his advice and his cautions, recommending as the surest safeguard a pocket-pistol, loaded with powder only, to be flashed in the bull's face as he makes his charge. When informed that in England ...
— Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland • George Forrest Browne
... served at the meal. Motherly Mrs. Bentley laid aside her motoring dust coat and marshaled the girls for the various tasks to which ...
— The High School Boys' Fishing Trip • H. Irving Hancock
... mother of Tom, of whom I had heard so much. She was, in truth, a motherly-looking person, her fleshy face creased with ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... benevolent cat cumbered me the while with consolations—we two were alone in all that was visible of the London Road: two poor waifs who had each tasted sorrow—and she fawned upon the weeper, and gambolled for his entertainment, watching the effect, it seemed, with motherly eyes. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Daisy feel very meek. Her kiss had been affectionate, her care was motherly; but with all that there was not a turn of her hand nor a tone of her calm voice, that did not imply and express absolute possession, perfect control. That Daisy was a little piece of property belonging ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... this kind. Let one pass in absence from childhood to maturity, and who that had not seen him in the mean time could tell that it was he? The trouble arising thence is finely illustrated by Shakspeare in the motherly solicitude of Constance, who, on learning that her young son has been imprisoned by his uncle, King John, and will probably be kept until he pines to death, cries in anguish to ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... hardy pioneers opened roads across the mountains, felled the forests, built forts and houses, subdued the earth, and began rapidly to replenish it, for they married and were given in marriage. The State of North Carolina, several years afterward, with a motherly forgiveness, passed laws to confirm marriages and other deeds of these wayward ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter
... then one afternoon Jimmie was summoned to see a visitor. He could guess who the visitor was, and he went with his heart in his throat, and looked through the dark mesh of wire, and saw Lizzie standing—stout, motherly Lizzie, now very pale, and breathing hard, and with tears running in little streamlets down her cheeks. Poor Lizzie, with her three babies at home, and her plain, ordinary, non-revolutionary psychology, which made going to jail a humiliation instead ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... turned his face toward the west woods and tightly closed his eyes. It was a boyish thing to do, and it caught the hesitating girl in the depths of her heart as the boy element in a man ever appeals to a motherly woman. Before she quite realized what she was doing, the ring slid on her finger. With both arms she caught Philip and drew him to her breast, holding him closely. Her head drooped over his, her lips were on his hair. ...
— A Girl Of The Limberlost • Gene Stratton Porter
... would have smoothed matters far better than any, who, like Ermine, took her weapons from the armoury of good sense; but that person was entirely unconscious how the incumbent regarded her soft eyes, meek pensiveness, motherly sweetness, and, above all, the refined graceful dignity that remained to her from the leading station she had occupied. Her gracious respect towards her clergyman was a contrast as much to the deferential coquetry of his admirers as to the abruptness of his foe, and her indifference ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... not his own zeal been as unreasoningly directed to the forcing of events? And still, through it all, she had held her indulgent arms extended to him, as to all erring mankind. Why not now, like a tired child, weary of futile resistance, yield to her motherly embrace and be at last at peace? Again the temptation which he had stubbornly resisted for a lifetime urged upon him ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... cultivation of the mind interferes with a woman's moral, sentimental, or motherly qualities ...
— Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers • Arthur Brisbane
... abundance and violence of her requests. It came to pass that in the excitement the old couple quite forgot Marjory. It was not until Mrs. Wainwright, then feeling splendidly, was dressed for dinner, that she thought to open Marjory's door and go to render a usual motherly supervision ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... presence of the whole company, so that everything will be properly settled. But were you now, ma, to begin making much of this occurrence, and telling every one, it would, on the contrary, look as if you had, in your motherly partiality and fond love for him, indulged him to stir up a row and provoke people! He has, on this occasion, had unawares to eat humble pie, but will you, ma, put people to all this trouble and inconvenience and make ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... had passed, and bird nesting was nearly at an end. Woods and fields were bubbling over with young bird notes, and the pretty cradles on tree and shrub were empty and deserted. A few motherly souls, it is true, were still occupied with their second broods, but, in general, feathered families were complete, and the parents were busy training their little folk ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... that her mother was being rebuked for want of motherly tenderness, and, as she doubted not, towards Anegay. This mysterious person, then, must have been a sister of whom she had never heard,—probably much older ...
— Earl Hubert's Daughter - The Polishing of the Pearl - A Tale of the 13th Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... down the road with alert and curious eyes and presented himself at the white cottage. He found a grave and kindly welcome from Mrs. Jebb—a stout, middle-aged, motherly person—and from the Rev. Josiah Jebb, D.D., M.A., etc., pastor of the Methodist Church and his principal to be ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... very easy when Amy returned, and the more because she brought with the midwife a good motherly sort of woman, who was to be her assistant, and would be very helpful on occasion; and bespoke a man midwife at Paris too, if there should be any necessity for his help. Having thus made provision for everything, the Count, for ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe
... him she sent for and surprised him with his piano, which had to be carried up the mountain on the backs of mules. In the quiet cloisters she cared for him with motherly tenderness, and there he learned again to awake the slumbering echoes with divine music. Several of his best pieces were composed at Majorca during his convalescence, where the soft semi-tropical breeze laved his cheek, the birds warbled him ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... thousand fertile fields. Patient oxen, with their soft, deep eyes, trod heavily over mines of greater than Indian wealth. Kindly cows stood in the grateful shade of cathedral elms, and gave thanks to God in their dumb, fumbling way. Motherly, sleepy, stupid sheep lay on the plains, little lambs rollicked out their short-lived youth around them, and no premonition floated over from the adjoining pea-patch, nor any misgiving of approaching ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... a much greater object than to win their love. And their love she had, and kept to a far higher degree than seems to be the case with those who court affection by caresses and indulgence. We knew that her approval was of a generous kind, we prized enthusiastically her rare betrayals of her motherly tenderness, and we depended on her in a manner we only realised in the desolation, dreariness, and helplessness that fell upon us, when we knew that she was gone. She had not, nor had any of us, understood that she was dying, and she had uttered only a few words that ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... busy to have lost the natural interest of a kindly spinster in a bride and bridegroom, especially when the bridegroom was in khaki, and under orders for the front. She promised, at once, to come and see Mrs. Sarratt, and George, beholding in her a possible motherly friend for Nelly when he should be far away, insisted that she should fix a day for her call before his departure. Nelly added her smiles to his. Then, with a pleasant nod, Miss Martin left them, refusing all their offers to help her with her ...
— Missing • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... and to ask a blessing. When the servant arose to do this, they all stood up. The soup, with small pieces of meat, was then regularly served; and as soon as dinner was finished, they all rose up spontaneously and thanked the Empress for her motherly kindness. I saw that the kind Empress was deeply moved, and turning to me she said, "Mon Cher, this is one of the happiest days of my life." The next day the number increased at table, and so it continued increasing. After your dear mother's return from Ireland, where she ...
— Elizabeth Fry • Mrs. E. R. Pitman
... speaks in a language, as it were, learned and dead, the tones of which, being unfamiliar, leave the common spectator cold and unimpressed;—and lastly, because it necessarily causes a neglect of thoughts, emotions and images of profounder interest and more exalted dignity, as motherly, sisterly, and brotherly love, piety, devotion, the divine become human,—the Virgin, the Apostle, the Christ. The artist's principle in the statue of a great man should be the illustration of departed merit; and I ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... A motherly-looking woman stood at the door, and gave me a cheery invitation to come in. She looked rather askance at my boy, but finding him properly convoyed by my sober self, she admitted him within the portal. A good many young gentlemen of a similar age were evidently excluded, and were regaling themselves ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... to perceive the deeper, better part of mankind; he had floated on the surface with the scum and froth, and could recall no one whom he could trust. At last, away back in the years of his childhood, he saw a face—that of a young but motherly Irishwoman, who had lived in his father's family as a faithful servant, and had been a fond partisan of his in his ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... Flo', with her industry and skill in 'translating' old boots and shoes, her motherly instincts and efforts to keep her young brother Dick, the crossing-sweeper, honest, because mother had made them promise to be so when she died; the good-natured, agreeable, clever young thief Jenks, the tempter and beguiler of poor Dick; and, above all, the dear dog Scamp, with his knowing ...
— The Girls of St. Olave's • Mabel Mackintosh
... your useless tears! and if you truly love me, offer up for my soul Masses, prayers, alms-deeds, and such like good works." Then he disappeared, and his mother, instead of any longer wasting her strength by foolish grief, began henceforth to give her son proofs of a true Christian and motherly love, by complying with his request. ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier
... oftentimes desperate, of this nervous man whom everything threw into a feverish excitement, this grand man, as they called him at Grenoble, who was for her only a great child whom she adored and kept in check by her girlish devotion combined with her motherly, ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... and astonished the housekeeper, a motherly dame who sat up with him, by his talk on ...
— Dr. Jolliffe's Boys • Lewis Hough
... sleep again in the fifteenth century with the voice of old Agnes Paston sounding in my ears. Dead half a thousand years, yet across the gulf of time I hear the painful scratching of her quill as she sends "Goddis blyssyng" to her son in London, and tells him all her motherly gossip and makes the rough life of far-off Tudor England live for ever. Dear old Agnes! She little thought as she struggled with her spelling and her pen that she was writing something that was immortal. If she had ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... Lumley, to soothe his mortification, turned to Caroline, who had seated herself by his side. Her conversation amused him, and her evident admiration flattered. While Lady Vargrave absented herself, in motherly anxiety, to attend on Evelyn, while Mrs. Leslie was occupied at her frame, and Mrs. Merton looked on, and talked indolently to the old lady of rheumatism and sermons, of children's complaints and servants' misdemeanours,—the conversation between Lord Vargrave ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... was a mild and a motherly woman, just the one fitted to inspire young men with confidence and that home feeling which all men desire to find somewhere. Her house was a free and easy ground, social for most of the young people of her acquaintance, and Harry was a ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... bent over her and drew the things up about her neck in a half-tender, motherly way, looking at the girl's face. Then she hesitated ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... to me. The craft was somewhat bigger than I had at first set her down to be, being of fully four hundred, or maybe four hundred and fifty, tons measurement. Looking for'ard to the swell of her bows, I saw that she must evidently be of a motherly build, which accorded well with the fact that she had lost steerage-way long before such had been the case with the brig. Her decks were in a very dirty and untidy condition, looking as though they had not been washed down, or even swept, for at least a week, and they were lumbered up with quite ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... to the coast of Spain. The tenderness of the sailor towards the child he had picked up—which was no other than the young Count Fabian de Mediana— did not cease for an instant, but seemed rather to increase with time. It was a singular and touching spectacle to witness the care, almost motherly, which this rude nurse lavished upon the child, and the constant ruses to which he had recourse to procure a supplement to his rations for its nourishment. The sailor had to fight for his own living; but he often indulged in dreams that some day a rich prize would be captured, his ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... and so they had gone forth to fight the world together. Her eye was still round, and her cheek red, and her bust full,—there had certainly been no falling off there; nor will I say that her lip had lost its freshness. But the bloom of her charms had passed away, and she was now a solid, stout, motherly woman, not bright in converse, but by no means deficient in mother-wit, recognizing well the duties which she owed to others, but recognizing equally well those which others owed to her. All the charms of her youth—had they not been given ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... Protestant religion it is necessary to distinguish inner inspiration from historical entanglements. Unfortunately, as the whole doctrinal form of this religion is irrelevant to its spirit and imposed from without, being due to the step-motherly nurture it received from the Church, we can reach a conception of its inner spirit only by studying its tendency and laws of change or its incidental expression in literature and custom. Yet these indirect symptoms ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... said Louis, "come in and seal my title for your royal cousin with a motherly kiss, for she has promised to be my ...
— The Harvest of Years • Martha Lewis Beckwith Ewell
... pleasant-faced little woman who appealed to Jasper at once. He felt quite sure that she was just the person to look after David. She appeared so motherly and sympathetic that it was easy for him to talk to her as she showed him the rooms David and Betty ...
— Under Sealed Orders • H. A. Cody
... framing a still fair and youthful face, she looks a typical American woman of refinement and culture. And she is all this, and more; for did she not possess a strong Christian character, wise judgment, and a warm motherly heart, and were she not ever eager to gain that which is noblest and best both for herself and her children from every experience of life, careful Dr. and Mrs. Burnett would never have ...
— Barbara's Heritage - Young Americans Among the Old Italian Masters • Deristhe L. Hoyt
... do you want, Etienne," she went on in motherly tones. "We are at this moment old comrades; speak to me as ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... the kind dumpy motherly Mrs. James, who so often patted my curly head, and presented me with a welcome slice of bread and butter and a drink of milk, invariably repeating in her homely phrase, "a child and a chicken is al'ays ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... gardens, the stately parks, scattered at graceful intervals by the decorous hand of art, the frequent deer, and the peaceful herd of cattle that make picture of the plain, all suggest more of the masterly mind of man, than the prodigal, but careless, motherly love of nature. Especially is this true of the Rock river country. The river flows sometimes through these parks and lawns, then betwixt high bluffs, whose grassy ridges are covered with fine trees, or broken with crumbling stone, ...
— Summer on the Lakes, in 1843 • S.M. Fuller
... Christmas Day before it had been. She never left the room where Rhoda was lying; for Rhoda could not bear her to go out of sight, and only seemed content while she could watch her nursing the baby, in her old-fashioned, motherly manner. As Joan sat on a low rocking-chair, lulling him to sleep with snatches of hymns, and soothing him tenderly if he began to cry, Rhoda's eyes shone with a tender light, though the tears dimmed them at times. It was a peaceful, tranquil day, with ...
— The Christmas Child • Hesba Stretton
... reflected, as Mrs. Ispenlove, with an almost motherly accent, urged me to have another cup of tea, 'if you knew me, if you knew me, what would you say to me? Would your charity be strong enough to overcome your instincts?' And as I had felt older than my aunt, so I felt older than ...
— Sacred And Profane Love • E. Arnold Bennett
... swelling spirit, as yet a Catechumen, and a novice in Thy real love, resting in that villa, with Alypius a Catechumen, my mother cleaving to us, in female garb with masculine faith, with the tranquillity of age, motherly love, Christian piety! Oh, what accents did I utter unto Thee in those Psalms, and how was I by them kindled towards Thee, and on fire to rehearse them, if possible, through the whole world, against the pride of mankind! And yet they ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... home you had left, if not in its elegances, yet in all its substantial comforts. What cosy old parlors in those days! low roofed, glowing with ample fires, and fenced from the blasts of doors by screens, whose foldings were, or seemed to be, infinite. What motherly landladies! won, how readily, to kindness the most lavish, by the mere attractions of simplicity and youthful innocence, and finding so much interest in the bare circumstance of being a traveller at a childish age. Then what blooming young handmaidens! how different ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... resented with all a strong woman's jealousy the introduction of a stranger who was to be permitted to do anything whatever in the home. She had cooked and served her boys, washed their clothes and mended them, made their beds, cleaned their home. Who dare rob her of those motherly privileges! But nevertheless we could not escape the inevitable servant girl. One came, and others followed, and with these came also the destruction of much of that genuine family happiness which flows from ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie
... at her tail. They made a lovely picture as they played, and the wrestling group in the middle seemed the focus of it all at first; but a keener, later look would have rested on the mother, quiet, watchful, not without anxiety, but, above all, with a face full of motherly tenderness. Oh, she was so proud and happy, and she would sit there and watch them and silently love them till it was time to go home, or until some sign of distant danger showed. Then, with a low growl, she gave the signal, and all disappeared ...
— Johnny Bear - And Other Stories From Lives of the Hunted • E. T. Seton
... instruction. Charlotte's deep, thoughtful spirit appears to have felt almost painfully the tender responsibility which rested upon her with reference to her remaining sisters. She was only eighteen months older than Emily; but Emily and Anne were simply companions and playmates, while Charlotte was motherly friend and guardian to both; and this loving assumption of duties beyond her years made her feel considerably older ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume IV (of 6) - Authors and Journalists • Various
... belonged to the class of woman which is generally known as "motherly," and adored her offspring almost to excess. Consequently for those weeks she found plenty to think about without troubling herself over-much as to Morris and his experiments. For these same reasons, ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... hot cheek on her arm, Debby's eye fell on the quaint little cap made by the motherly hands that never were tired of working for her. She touched it tenderly, and love's simple magic swept the gathering shadows from her face, and left it clear again, as her thoughts flew home like birds into ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... Mrs. Maguire removed Alice's shoe and stocking, and the motherly old lady and Ruth bathed the injured foot. It was not as bad as Alice had feared, and when it was bound up again she found she could use it by "favoring" it slightly. She would not have to take part in a scene for nearly an hour, and she took advantage ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Sea - or, A Pictured Shipwreck That Became Real • Laura Lee Hope
... in the house, where he was welcomed by big, genial Cal Smith, and seated at a table in the kitchen, devouring ham and eggs and home-made bread and pie, and drinking hot coffee, provided by good-natured, motherly Mrs. Cal—why, it was almost worth the tramp to meet such a reception at ...
— Injun and Whitey to the Rescue • William S. Hart
... a tiny French cap on the back of her head, as she made these motherly demonstrations, and its graceful lightness threw her into ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... Beckwith"—the sound of his own name was pleasant as the falling voice strayed through it. "He is coming home in a few days, so I want them to look their prettiest for him—for his first sight of them. I take care of this rose garden," she said, and laid a motherly hand on the nearest flower. Then she smiled. "It doesn't seem right hospitable to stop you, but if you will come over to Westerly, to our house, father will be glad to see you, and I will certainly give you all the flowers you want." The sweet and masterful ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... as gold," said the little creature, oh, in such a motherly, womanly way. "And when Emma's tired, he puts her to bed. And when he's tired he goes to bed himself. And when I come home and light the candle, and has a bit of supper, he sits up again and has it ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... very great: "A day of terror," says one who was there; "I will not trust myself to describe the sensation which this news, 'Friedrich in Bohemia again!' produced among all ranks of people." [Cogniazzo, iv. 316, 320, 321; Preuss, iv. 101, &c.] Maria Theresa, with her fine motherly heart, in alarm for her Country, and trembling "for my two Sons [Joseph and Leopold] and dear Son-in-Law [of Sachsen-Teschen], who are in the Army," overcomes all scruples of pride; instantly despatches an Autograph to the King ("Bearer ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... Mrs. Bancroft was a motherly woman, and Mr. Bancroft was a fatherly man. Five children sat round the tea-table, distinguished by the Bancroft nose. Helen and I were seated each side of Mr. Somers. The table reminded me of our table at Surrey, it ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... under-sized, earnest, dark-haired and dark-eyed young man of three-and-twenty Abigail Mitchenor at once felt a motherly interest. Having received him as a temporary member of the family, she considered him entitled to the same watchful care as if he were in reality an invalid son. The ice over an hereditary Quaker nature is but a thin crust, if one knows how to break it; and in Richard Hilton's ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... shingle attentively, 'so long as Canadians look back to England as home, and speak of it as home, there's little fear of annexation or revolt. Mother country has only to keep up the motherly relation, and patiently loosen the leading strings, according as her colonies grow ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... of what he said, I knew that we were joined by others. In a bewildered kind of way I noticed that Sir Thomas and Lady Bolivick were accompanied by a tall, distinguished-looking man about fifty-five years of age, by whose side stood a sweet-faced, motherly-looking woman. ...
— "The Pomp of Yesterday" • Joseph Hocking
... instinct, persistent and fatal. What strange creatures are we! It pleased me to leave them alone before the fire, and to go out on the quay to dream, leaning on the parapet and looking at the water. When they spoke of their life at N———, and when Brigitte, almost cheerful, assumed a motherly air to recall some incident of their childhood days, it seemed to me that I suffered, and yet took pleasure in it. I asked questions; I spoke to Smith of his mother, of his plans and his prospects; I gave him an opportunity to show himself in a favorable light, and forced ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset
... we find exactly opposite conditions. The price of turkeys has risen with the price of chickens and eggs, until one would think that there would be great money in the business, and there is, for the motherly farm wife who has the knack of bringing the little turks through the danger of delicate babyhood. But just as the duck is more domesticated than the chicken, so the turkey, which yet closely resembles its wild ancestor, is less domestic and has as yet failed ...
— The Dollar Hen • Milo M. Hastings
... deep affection and remarkable oneness showed no signs of the end to which obviously it was drifting. That kiss which the girl had given to the boy was pure sisterly, or one might almost say, motherly, and indeed this quality inspired their relationship for much longer than might have been expected. So much was this so that no one connected with them on either side ever had the slightest suspicion that they cared for each other in any way except ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard
... or three young men, at least two of whom seemed to hover near the two girls who were innocently unaware of their beauty; a bustling gentleman who seemed nervous lest some of the party get lost, a motherly-looking woman, with two children who were here, there and everywhere; another man who looked as though all the milk and cream in the world had turned sour, and finally one on whose round German face there was a gladsome smile, which seemed perpetual—and you have ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Oak Farm - or, Queer Happenings While Taking Rural Plays • Laura Lee Hope
... says her hard life and many troubles drove all nonsense thoughts out of her head. Why, grandmamma was ill eight years, you know, and Aunt Charlotte nursed her all that time. I am sure when she used to come to my bedside of a night, and tuck me up with a motherly kiss, I used to think her face looked almost beautiful, it was so full of kindness. Somehow I fancy when I am old," added Bessie pensively, "I shall not care so much about my looks nor my wrinkles, if people will only think I am a comfortable, ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... now and then he tossed a silver coin to some importuning Indian along the road. As he passed the little ranch-house of Dona Briones he waved his hat gaily in answer to her invitation to stop. Benito called her Tia Juana. Large and motherly she was, a woman of untiring energy who, all alone cultivated the ranchito which supplied milk, butter, eggs and vegetables to ships which anchored in the cove of Yerba Buena. She was the friend of all sick and unfortunate beings, the secret ally of deserting sailors whom she ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... that looked worthy of the attention was like that of a parent to a returning prodigal, and whose parting words were almost as good as a marriage benediction; famous for its landlady, ample in person, motherly, seeing to the whole household with her own eyes, mistress of all culinary secrets that Northern kitchens are most proud of; famous also for its ancient servant, as city people would call her,—help, as she ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... who had been born after. So too when, a few years later, Tiberius Claudius Nero died, appointing Augustus their guardian, with equal serenity she took them back and educated them with the most careful motherly solicitude. To the second husband, whom politics had given her, she was a faithful companion. Scandal imputed to her absurd poisonings which she did not commit, and accused her of insatiable ambitions and perfidious intrigues. No one ...
— The Women of the Caesars • Guglielmo Ferrero
... her up with a motherly hug, and "My dear little Thekla!" There was not time for more than a hurried glance and embrace of the three on the steps of the stair, in their sailor hats and blue serge; but when in ten minutes more, the ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... which she can conceive, namely, to be well married; and if in doing that last, she manoeuvres a little, commits a few basenesses, even tells a few untruths, what does all that come to, save this—that in the confused intensity of her motherly self- sacrifice, she will sacrifice for her daughters even her own conscience and her own credit? We may sneer, if we will, at such a poor hard-driven soul when we meet her in society: our duty, both as Christians and ladies and gentlemen, seems to me to be—to ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... noble, motherly-looking woman, who is represented in art as attended by the nymphs and the hours, as well as by Iris. The goose and the cuckoo were as much Juno's birds as the peacock. She was the protectress of young married people and infants, and so was worshipped ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... I have heard of a good woman, that had, as this old man, a bad and ungodly son, and she prayed for him, counselled him, and carried it motherly to him for several years together; but still he remained bad. At last, upon a time, after she had been at prayer, as she was wont, for his conversion, she comes to him, and thus, or to this effect, begins again to admonish ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... very welcome as had ever been her way. She was an eccentric, but embarrassingly straightforward old lady; and if I had heeded her simple motherly counsel in the past all might ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer
... into all our suggestions eagerly. The environment of our simple home, the ministrations of motherly hands touched hidden chords. He did not hide his enjoyment, but talked well and entertainingly of everything—except himself. At times he was boyishly gay; then, seemingly without cause, the expectant look of his ...
— The House of the Misty Star - A Romance of Youth and Hope and Love in Old Japan • Fannie Caldwell Macaulay
... maidenhood, preserved this beautiful cult throughout Roman history from all contamination. Vesta in her aedes, a round dwelling which was never a temple in the technical sense, was represented by no statue, and her title of Mater never suggested to the true Roman worshipper anything but her motherly grace and beneficence.[289] Far more than any other cult, that of Vesta represents the reality and continuity of Roman religious feeling; and the remains of her latest dwelling, and the statues of her priestesses with no statue of herself among ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler
... precious, Daddy was in time," she said, in her old firm motherly voice, with her comforting arms about the small and tearful girl. "Daddy and Mother were both rushing home as fast as they could come, that's what mothers and fathers are for. And now we're all safe and sound together, and you mustn't cry ...
— Undertow • Kathleen Norris
... better threaten him with what you can do in your next letter. I always thought that style of working the oracle would pay best; but perhaps the motherly affectionate dodge was the best to try first. ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... side, the living copy of the great man's appearance and manners, strutted and put himself forward like his father, as a big calf might place itself beside the parent cow. Mr. Copperhead did not look upon his offspring, however, with the cow's motherly complacency. He laughed at him openly, with cynical amusement. He was clever in his way, and Clarence was stupid; and besides he was the proprietor, and Clarence, for all he was porcelain, was his goods and chattels. When he looked at him, a ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... the dean and Mrs. Greystock would think so;—Lady Fawn was very sure of that. Lady Fawn was one of the best women breathing,—unselfish, motherly, affectionate, appreciative, and never happy unless she was doing good to somebody. It was her nature to be soft, and kind, and beneficent. But she knew very well that if she had had a son,—a second son,—situated as was Frank Greystock, she would not wish him to marry ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... reason of her weak intellect that she was drawn towards animals. She was never happy save with them; she understood their language far better than that of mankind, and looked after them with motherly affection. Her reasoning powers were deficient, but in lieu thereof she had an instinct which put her on a footing of intelligence with them. At their very first cry of pain she knew what ailed them; she would choose dainties ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... have been different had Agatha been present, but that ingenious maiden was at school at Brighton. Had her daughter been in the room, Mrs. Ingham-Baker's motherly instinct would have narrowed itself down to her. But in the absence of her own child, Luke's sorry plight appealed to that larger maternal instinct which makes good ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... Muirtown, where she had him at her will for some time, so that she equipped the kitchen (fully), a dining-room (fairly), a spare bedroom (amply), Mr. Saunderson's own bedroom (miserably), and secured a table and two chairs for the study. This success turned her head. Full of motherly forethought, and having a keen remembrance that probationers always retired in the afternoon at Mains to think over the evening's address, and left an impress of the human form on the bed when they came down to tea, Mrs. Pitillo suggested that a sofa ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... was timid and did not dare speak to them. Very often, I ran home and flung myself in my mother's arms with a burst of tears, and asked her if nothing could be done to help the poor animals. With mistaken, motherly kindness, she tried to put the subject out of my thoughts. I was carefully guarded from seeing or hearing of any instances of cruelty. But the animals went on suffering just the same, and when I became a woman, I saw my cowardice. ...
— Beautiful Joe - An Autobiography of a Dog • by Marshall Saunders
... the kitchen, when Mrs. Creddle caught her up and put a motherly arm about her. "Good-bye, my lass. You think nobody's felt like you before about a young ...
— The Privet Hedge • J. E. Buckrose
... request with precision on Ina's nastiest moments, but she always rose, unabashed, and went, motherly and dutiful, to hear devotions, as if that function and the process of living ran ...
— Miss Lulu Bett • Zona Gale
... Mrs. Mayfield replied to Margaret, motherly, though young, "he paid Mr. Reverend ...
— The Starbucks • Opie Percival Read
... offence to Park-place, but the bitterness of the weather makes me wonder how you can find the country tolerable now. This is a May-day for the latitude of Siberia! The milkmaids should be wrapped in @the motherly comforts of a swanskin petticoat. In short, such hard words have passed between me and the north wind to-day, that, according to the language of the times, I was very near abusing it for coming from Scotland, ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... Mrs. Downey's secret trepidation. She gave a half-timid, half-tender look at him and signalled to her ladies to withdraw. She herself remained behind, superintending the removal of the feast; keeping a motherly eye, too, on the poor boy and his claret. Ever since that one dreadful Sunday morning when she had found him asleep in full evening dress upon his bedroom floor, Mrs. Downey was always expecting to see him drop under the table. He ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... fat, fair, motherly-looking lady of about five-and-forty entered the room, greeting her husband with a rebuke, and her nephew ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne
... welcomed Paul, when Count Oreshefski presided over the legation house in London, and Paul had responded to her motherly interest by opening his heart to a greater extent even than to his own mother, the proud Lady Henrietta. For the Countess had known and loved his Queen—a fact which formed an unalterable bond of sympathy ...
— High Noon - A New Sequel to 'Three Weeks' by Elinor Glyn • Anonymous
... gold," said the little creature—Oh, in such a motherly, womanly way! "And when Emma's tired, he puts her to bed. And when he's tired he goes to bed himself. And when I come home and light the candle and has a bit of supper, he sits up again and has it ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... protect you, Roger," Mistress Mercy said, as she folded him in a motherly embrace. "We shall all pray for you, daily and nightly, until you return. Goodbye, Roger! Don't imperil your life needlessly, but be prudent ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty
... boats might be seen putting off for the town just at the time of the commencement of the levee. The party in the piazza consisted chiefly of women. Madame L'Ouverture was there—like, and yet unlike, the Margot of former years—employed, as usual—busy with her needle, and motherly, complacent, tenderly vigilant as of old; but with a matronly grace and dignity which evidently arose from a gratified mind, and not from external state. Her daughters were beside her, both wonderfully improved in beauty, though Genifrede ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... good-night, and he went back to Mr. Hallam, and they, feeling very cold and sleepy and drenched, were glad enough to be taken care of, and put to bed like babies, after Mrs. Fisher's good, motherly fashion. ...
— Gypsy Breynton • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... the apartment was somewhat confined, and the springs seemed to be very bad, for the caravan jolted along in such a manner that he could scarcely help upsetting the cup of bread and milk the motherly hands of Mrs Blewcome had ...
— Wilton School - or, Harry Campbell's Revenge • Fred E. Weatherly
... carries a basket of good things to cheer the inner man? Or, when his wife is confined, perhaps she brings some little delicacies, a breast of pheasant, a bottle of port wine, and strengthens her with motherly counsel in the hour of her travail. Is this so? Hodge's wife could tell you that the cottage door has never been darkened by her presence: that she indeed would not acknowledge her if passed by chance on the road. ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... smile! I thought of it even on the first night, after I picked him up, when I locked him in his room. But I have always regarded him in a sort of motherly way, although only a year older. It seems kind of unnatural for me to love him as a woman loves a man. If he ...
— Tales From Bohemia • Robert Neilson Stephens
... people lifted the broken form and carried it out from the hospital's deadly air, into the golden sunshine and away to a clean little cot in a humble home where a good doctor treated him and a kind motherly nurse hung over him and soothed his feverish brain for many a weary hour. For days it seemed that every breath would be his last and for months his sufferings wrung the hearts of ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... foundation school near by; and altogether the family managed to scrape along. But the advent of Kathleen on the scene was a great relief, for her father paid three guineas a week for Mrs. Tennant's motherly care and for ...
— The Rebel of the School • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... liked Percival, but a woman never likes a man so well as when he acknowledges his helplessness in her particular line of knowledge, and throws himself on her mercy. Mentally, I at once began to feel motherly towards Percival, and clucked around him like an old hen. He went on to say that men often are not so blind that they cannot see the prejudices and complexities of a woman's nature, but they are not ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... lady, and with her face fully tamed to me, was a kindly-looking, fat motherly woman, with light-coloured hair, not in the best order. She was hot and scarlet with exercise, being perhaps too stout for the steep steps of the fortress; and in one hand she held a handkerchief, with which from time to time she wiped her brow. In the other hand she held one of the extremities of ...
— The Relics of General Chasse • Anthony Trollope
... to think so," answered Phoebe gravely. "But it is true that my small abilities were precisely what they needed; and I have a real interest in their welfare,—an odd kind of motherly sentiment,—which I wish you would not laugh at! And let me tell you frankly, Mr. Holgrave, I am sometimes puzzled to know whether you wish ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... old-time courtesy exercised a chastening influence upon the young man's somewhat picturesque style of language and exuberance of metaphor. But with Mrs. Dunn he felt quite at ease, for with that gentle, kindly soul, her boys' friends were her friends and without question she took them to her motherly heart. ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
... they have found for themselves in the ages since they were dropped by the dissolving glaciers. However you handle them, there will be cavities underneath, where the stone does not bear upon the solid ground. The smaller ones you may rub or pound down till every inch of the motherly bosom shall feel their pressure. Upon this first course of—pebbles, if you please, lay larger ones that shall overlap and bind them together, using mortar if you wish entire solidity. As the wall rises, introduce enough of large size to bind the whole ...
— Homes And How To Make Them • Eugene Gardner
... filled the chamber. Dots who were merry children, running on before him, gathering flowers in the fields; coy Dots, half shrinking from, half yielding to, the pleading of his own rough image; newly-married Dots, alighting at the door, and taking wondering possession of the household keys; motherly little Dots, attended by fictitious Slowboys, bearing babies to be christened; matronly Dots, still young and blooming, watching Dots of daughters, as they danced at rustic balls; fat Dots, encircled and beset by troops of rosy grandchildren; withered Dots, who leaned ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... thought passed through the boy's young soul in that space! First, there was a thrill of intense, burning love to his father, scarcely less fondness to his sweet motherly sister; a clinging feeling to every chair and table of that room, which seemed still full of his mother's presence; a numbering over of all the others with ardent attachment, and a flinging from him with horror the notion ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... thing, had dropped out of its nest and been found by him lying almost dead at the foot of a tree, and how he had carried it home and tried whether pussy would adopt it as one of her own kittens. The cat was kind; the squirrel throve under her motherly care, and became Jack's pet ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... Chick's wide open eyes; then smiled, a motherly smile and compassionate. She was dressed in a manner at once becoming and odd, to one unaccustomed, in a gown that draped the entire figure, yet left the right arm and shoulder bare. Chick noticed that arm especially; it was white as marble, moulded full, and laced with fine blue veins. He had ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... with motherly pride as she looked at Philip and her fair daughter, who joined with keen delight in the conversation in which the two friends took the lead—her quick and ready appreciation of the subjects under discussion winning a smile from her brother, who continually referred to her, if ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall
... her immediately, after one more hug to Ellen, and telling her she was so glad she had come. Mrs. Chauncey stayed to see Ellen in bed, and press one kind motherly kiss upon her face, so tenderly that Ellen's eyes were moistened as she withdrew. But in her dreams that night the rosy sweet face, blue eyes, and little plump figure of Ellen Chauncey played ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... crumbs out of the beds with a whiskbroom and rubbed a few backs with alcohol, and smoothed the counterpanes, and hung over Johnny's unconscious figure for a little while, giving motherly pats to his flat pillow and worrying considerably because there was so little about him to remind her of the ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... said the miller's wife appeasingly. It was not her fault that a pig had stopped the marriage. She gave her own candle to Angele, with a motherly look. The girl had a pink and golden prettiness unusual among habitantes. Though all flush was gone out of her skin under the stress of the hour, she retained the innocent clear pallor of an infant. Angele hurried to straighten her disordered ...
— The Chase Of Saint-Castin And Other Stories Of The French In The New World • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... speak the same language and wear the same external characters, it will be seen how Nature has yearned for her children in these unknown regions, and set herself, for their sakes, great stints of work, in that motherly ambition to bring them forward in the world. Yes,—thought the Guinea trader,—these skilful Foulahs are Nature's best gifts ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... on the ground handcuffed, taking breath against the skirting-board and them cool with their coats in strips, and all she says was "Mrs. Lirriper I'm sorry as ever I touched you, for you're a kind motherly old thing," and it made me think that I had often wished I had been a mother indeed and how would my heart have felt if I had been the mother of that girl! Well you know it turned out at the Police-office that she had done it before, and she had ...
— Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings • Charles Dickens
... in the great city. When his story was known by Mrs. Balfour—a quiet, motherly woman—and she was fully informed of her husband's plans concerning him, she received him with a cordiality and tenderness which won his heart and made him entirely at home. The wonders of the shops, the wonders of the streets, the wonders ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... much like to be beautiful, dear child?" said a voice close at her side, and, when Ruth looked up, she saw an old woman whom she never had seen before. She was clothed in a long blue dress, and her face was full of motherly love. Ruth's heart was filled with gladness, for seldom had so affectionate a glance been shed on her; and when the old woman bent down and kissed her, how all remembrance of the indifference of father, mother, ...
— The Angel Children - or, Stories from Cloud-Land • Charlotte M. Higgins
... neglect his child? Phil needed a mother. This dear, thoughtful woman, whom nature had made for motherhood, had seen things about his child, that he, the child's father, had not perceived. To a mind like Colonel French's, this juxtaposition of a motherly heart and a motherless child seemed ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt
... wants; but it is necessary that so much of the time should be spent, that nothing should be neglected which could add to the child's comfort and happiness. And not only is it needful that a woman should show a motherly fondness for her child, so that she should attend to its wants and be solicitous for its welfare; it is also necessary that she should know how those wants are best to be provided for, and how that welfare is best to be consulted: ...
— Trials and Confessions of a Housekeeper • T. S. Arthur
... rectory were much in their old state. Little Fina, madame's child, was there under Mrs. Birkett's motherly care; but as the child was nearly six years old now, the good creature's instinctive love for infants was wearing out, and she was often heard to say how much she wished she could have kept Fina always ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... was surprised to find that the "child" was as tall as his wife, who, with abounding motherly kindness, had received the girl into open arms. Scarcely less demonstrative and affectionate was the greeting of old Mr. Clifford, and the orphan felt, almost from the first, that she had found ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... eager eyes, and well-defined clear-cut features. Her voice was harsh, but with an undertone of great tenderness. She was scrupulously careful in her attire, which was rather above her station. Altogether, she had much the bearing of a gentle-woman. Her devotion to me was quite motherly. Never having had any family of her own, although she had been the wife of one of my father's shepherds, she expended the whole maternity of her nature upon me. She was always my first resource in any perplexity, for I was sure of all the help she could give me. And as she had much influence with ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald
... that acute lady as being caused and occasioned by violent love. But, although she was in no small degree delighted by this discovery, which reflected so much credit on her own quickness of perception, it did not lessen her motherly anxiety in Kate's behalf; and accordingly, with a vast quantity of trepidation, she quitted her own box to hasten into that of Mrs Wititterly. Mrs Wititterly, keenly alive to the glory of having a lord and a baronet among her visiting acquaintance, lost no time ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... older people all had been easy. With the elderly women especially, in their dark gowns and large Sunday collars, she had felt herself at home; again and again she had put herself under their wing, while in their silent way they turned their shrewd motherly eyes upon her, and took stock of her and every detail of her dress. And the old men, with their patriarchal manners and their broad speech—it had been all sweet and pleasant to her. "Noo, Miss, they tell ma ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Fatherly, motherly Feelings had changed: Love, by harsh evidence, Thrown from its eminence; Even God's ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... decrease in tepid aqueous vapour the viviparous habit, then almost universal, was lost, except in the case of this plant. Other plants, however, exhibit the characteristic. Notably one of the handsomest of the local ferns (ASPLENIUM BULBIFERUM) which, with motherly solicitude, detains its offspring until they are not only fully developed but are strong and lusty. As the fronds die they incline earthwards, each weary with the burden of a new and virile generation—some of which float down stream to foreign parts, some create a colony round ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... thought I was foolish to put those two in a room together," she said to Mrs. Farnham, the motherly housekeeper, whom Eleanor had known since, as a little girl, she had ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at Long Lake - Bessie King in Summer Camp • Jane L. Stewart
... that affair, she commenced by informing me that at ten years of age she was a scholar of Mrs. Chatterton, his mother, where she was taught plain work, and remained with her until she was near twenty years of age; that she slept with her, and found her kind and motherly, insomuch that there were many things which in moments of affliction Mrs. C. communicated to her, that she would not have wished to have been generally known; and among others, she often repeated how happy she was that her unfortunate son lay buried in Redcliff, through the kind attention ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... answered Nellie, rather haughtily, while her tormentor continued: "Well, then, it is my son, and I assure you, both myself and husband are well pleased that it should be so. From the moment I first saw Mabel, I felt for her a motherly affection for which I could not account, and if I were now to select my future daughter-in-law, I should prefer ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes
... if Phebe took the child, she should assume the whole responsibility in the matter, and she was resolute in carrying out her share of the compact. Theodora washed her hands of the affair entirely and only viewed it as an immense joke; but Hope, motherly and tender-hearted woman that she was, tried her best to come to the aid of her young sister. It was in vain. The little girl, homesick and forlorn for her wonted ways and plays, appeared to regard Phebe as the sole connecting link between the present gilded captivity ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray
... Kuzminichna stood at the closed gate for some time with moist eyes, pensively swaying her head and feeling an unexpected flow of motherly tenderness and pity for ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... permitted him to overlook the shortcomings of his elder son, and to assume a somnolence which, while it was not real, certainly did conduce to the maintenance of his personal comfort. Mrs. Jarley, therefore, rose up in her wrath. It was merely a motherly wrath, however, and those of us who have had mothers will at once realize what that wrath amounted to. She repaired immediately to the nursery, and without knowing anything of the technical terms of the noble game of football, instinctively realized that Jack and Tommy were having a "scrimmage." ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs
... mingling with the air. She watched it till it vanished,—then with a sense of relief from her former sadness, she went into the house to see Manella. The girl had risen from her bed, and with the assistance of Lady Kingswood, who tended her with motherly care, had been arrayed in a loose white woollen gown, which, carelessly gathered round her, intensified by contrast the striking beauty of her dark eyes and hair, and ivory pale skin. As Morgana entered the room she smiled, her small even ...
— The Secret Power • Marie Corelli
... wrestling group in the middle seemed the focus of it all at first; but a keener, later look would have rested on the mother, quiet, watchful, not without anxiety, but, above all, with a face full of motherly tenderness. Oh, she was so proud and happy, and she would sit there and watch them and silently love them till it was time to go home, or until some sign of distant danger showed. Then, with a low growl, she gave the signal, and all disappeared from sight in a twinkling, ...
— Johnny Bear - And Other Stories From Lives of the Hunted • E. T. Seton
... to give a turn to his thoughts; and it was with unaffected sorrow that he reflected how the lonely woman had been dependent upon the charity, as it seemed, of others. He saw in her now no longer merely the motherly aunt who was to welcome him, but one whom he should care for, and take under his protection. He heard steps in the entry, and easily detected the ponderous tread of Mr. Manlius, who now opened the door, and reappeared in more careful toilet, since he was ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... seemed likely to form no accession to the quiet household, but he soon became its brightest ornament and pride. Everything was in his favor at the pleasant home of Mrs. Trevor. He was treated with motherly kindness and tenderness, yet firmly checked when he went wrong. From the first he had a well-spring of strength, against temptation, in the long letters which every mail brought from his parents; and all his childish affections were entwined round the fancied ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... premises. Mrs Williams was the wife of a respectable farm labourer, of better education and more intelligence than the generality of his class. They had no children of their own, so that Mrs Williams, who was a truly godly woman, was glad to give a home for a time and a motherly care to the two little ones committed to her charge by Amos. The husband was, of course, absent from home during the working hours, so that his wife could not call him to her help when she missed the little boy; indeed, on the day of ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson
... large old-fashioned garden, and, above all, the stream and the glade made a very pleasant setting for the school life of the forty-eight pupils at The Woodlands. The two principals worked together in perfect harmony. Each had her own department. Miss Bowes, who was short, stout, grey-haired, and motherly, looked after the housekeeping, the hygiene, and the business side. She wrote letters to parents, kept the accounts, interviewed tradespeople, superintended the mending, and was the final referee in all matters pertaining to health and general conduct. "Dear Old Rainbow", ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil
... she gets hold of me, I have to stay and tell her all the news I get from the grocer and the butcher's boy, and who goes by and what they has on. Not that I don't admire bein' sociable, and I can't help havin' a motherly feelin' for one old enough to be my mother; but I don't get no chance to redd up nowhere except the dinin'-room and his study. And then you know, I ain't no general housework girl, anyways, I've always cooked before; but here I ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray
... but a woman never likes a man so well as when he acknowledges his helplessness in her particular line of knowledge, and throws himself on her mercy. Mentally, I at once began to feel motherly towards Percival, and clucked around him like an old hen. He went on to say that men often are not so blind that they cannot see the prejudices and complexities of a woman's nature, but they are not constituted to understand ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... down, he now found difficulty in looking up, but gazed steadily at his plate, and into this limited circle of vision came Milla's delicate and rosy fingers, bearing a gift. "There," she said in a motherly little voice. "It's a tomato mayonnaise sandwich and I made it myself. I want ...
— Ramsey Milholland • Booth Tarkington
... times that she must scream at him, then she would be all motherly tenderness. "Lawrence," she would whisper, "do it, my man. ...
— Claire - The Blind Love of a Blind Hero, By a Blind Author • Leslie Burton Blades
... upper servants to sit at the head of it and to ask a blessing. When the servant arose to do this, they all stood up. The soup, with small pieces of meat, was then regularly served; and as soon as dinner was finished, they all rose up spontaneously and thanked the Empress for her motherly kindness. I saw that the kind Empress was deeply moved, and turning to me she said, "Mon Cher, this is one of the happiest days of my life." The next day the number increased at table, and so it continued increasing. After your dear mother's return from ...
— Elizabeth Fry • Mrs. E. R. Pitman
... quite well the year that Jackanapes began to walk, for it was the year that the speckled hen for the first time in all her motherly life got out of patience when she was sitting. She had been rather proud of the eggs—they are unusually large—but she never felt quite comfortable on them; and whether it was because she used to get ...
— Jackanapes, Daddy Darwin's Dovecot and Other Stories • Juliana Horatio Ewing
... of passion; but as soon as she had yielded to it she despised herself. Even in the excitement of pleasure she could not entirely forget and lose herself. The image of mademoiselle always arose before her, with her stern, motherly face. Germinie did not become immodest in the same degree that she abandoned herself to her passions and sank lower and lower in vice. The degrading depths to which she descended did not fortify her against her disgust and horror of herself. Habit did not harden her. Her defiled conscience rejected ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... made me very welcome as had ever been her way. She was an eccentric, but embarrassingly straightforward old lady; and if I had heeded her simple motherly counsel in the past all ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer
... of a whole lot of persons not conspicuous for conversational powers: men who have lived much out-of-doors, with gun or rod; shy country neighbours, cross old scholars, simple motherly little housewives; and, if one get at their reality, peasants and even servants. For we have within ourselves memories and fancies; and it depends on our companion, on a word, a glance, a gesture, that ...
— Hortus Vitae - Essays on the Gardening of Life • Violet Paget, AKA Vernon Lee
... yes," said the miller's wife appeasingly. It was not her fault that a pig had stopped the marriage. She gave her own candle to Angele, with a motherly look. The girl had a pink and golden prettiness unusual among habitantes. Though all flush was gone out of her skin under the stress of the hour, she retained the innocent clear pallor of an infant. Angele hurried to straighten her disordered dress before taking the candle, and then ...
— The Chase Of Saint-Castin And Other Stories Of The French In The New World • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... to call him her Lieber Sohn, and fuss over him as if he were in dire need of her motherly care. He took it just as it was given. The two women lived too quietly to have heard of him. Otto never told them the truth; but outside the house his deference made up for the familiarity at home. It has been ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... Fatherly, | motherly, Feelings had | changed; Love, by harsh |evidence, Thrown from its |eminence Even God's | ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... something in the slender form and the half-frightened expression in the pale, sweet face caused her to forget everything else except that the stranger was alone and ill at ease. Both her arms went out to Rose with a motherly gesture, and, as she drew her within them, she said, "Why, my ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... Could she break into it with her Martha-like cares? Only for one moment did she remember her sense of injury,—her wasted trouble,—and then her whole woman's heart heaving with motherly love and sympathy, she opened her arms, and received Mary into them, as shedding tears of agitated joy, she murmured in ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... temper. He felt it was his duty to brighten her poverty-stricken life with his high spirits. He chatted merrily to her, chaffed her, teased her, to charm her from her unnatural solemnity. And she would smile, in her quiet, motherly fashion, as one smiles at a much-loved child who seeks to drive away our cares—and would then offer to do ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... of it, a German girl's education is carried on at home, by means of lectures or private arrangements. These, of course, are not as inflexible as the rigid rules of a technical school, and admit of easy adjustment to the periodical demands of the female constitution. The second is the traditional motherly supervision and careful regimen of the catamenial week. Evidently the notion that a boy's education and a girl's education should be the same, and that the same means the boy's, has not yet penetrated the German mind. This has not yet evolved the idea of the identical ...
— Sex in Education - or, A Fair Chance for Girls • Edward H. Clarke
... burned itself out, except here and there where glowing coals showed themselves. Only two blackened timbers remained standing. And in this picture of devastation, looking the most lonesome and pathetic figure in the world, wandered the tiniest, most old-fashioned and motherly looking woman the ...
— The Boy Scout Fire Fighters • Irving Crump
... low-spirited sort of way, characteristic of Mrs. Beecot, but with a true motherly heart. After two pages of lamentation over his absence, and a description of how the head of the household managed to bear up against the affliction of his son's absence, Mrs. Beecot proceeded ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume
... little mother," said Louis, "come in and seal my title for your royal cousin with a motherly kiss, for she has promised to be my ...
— The Harvest of Years • Martha Lewis Beckwith Ewell
... my intention. It was kind of you, Luella, to trouble to come and watch me. I wonder if you know Mrs. Agnes Parsons Jopp?" he said, courteously, indicating a kind-looking, motherly woman who had just come ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... the famous sketch by Maclise has a remarkable charm; yet nobody could really say with truth that any one of the three girls was beautiful. Georgina Hogarth, however, was sweet-tempered and of a motherly disposition. It may be that in a fashion she loved Dickens all her life, as she remained with him after he parted from her sister, taking the utmost care of his children, and looking out with unselfish fidelity for ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... lump of blubber, endeavouring to make them eat it. Discovering that they were unable to do so, she endeavoured to raise first one, and then the other; but in vain. She now began to retreat; but her motherly feelings overcoming her, though conscious of the danger she was running, she returned to where they lay, moaning mournfully. Several times did she thus behave, when, seemingly convinced that her young ones were cold ...
— Stories of Animal Sagacity • W.H.G. Kingston
... stairs, and looked in the room, unseen himself. There was the happy mother wrapped in a cashmere, and half-buried in an immense arm-chair, with a sweet motherly look upon her face, watching ...
— The Big Nightcap Letters - Being the Fifth Book of the Series • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... Judy decided almost tenderly. Behind her thought was a caring, generous impulse; the motherly instinct sent her mind to the collection for the clergyman's comfort. But romance stirred too; she wanted to look her best. Her two main tendencies seemed very much alive this Sunday morning. The hat and the sixpence— both ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... absorption in other things led him to neglect his child? Phil needed a mother. This dear, thoughtful woman, whom nature had made for motherhood, had seen things about his child, that he, the child's father, had not perceived. To a mind like Colonel French's, this juxtaposition of a motherly heart and a motherless child ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt
... had lived, ever since she could remember, in close and contented companionship with her father: whom indeed, especially since he had the fever which crippled him three years before, she had fed, clothed, nursed and guarded with a care almost more motherly than filial. ...
— A Loose End and Other Stories • S. Elizabeth Hall
... the road with alert and curious eyes and presented himself at the white cottage. He found a grave and kindly welcome from Mrs. Jebb—a stout, middle-aged, motherly person—and from the Rev. Josiah Jebb, D.D., M.A., etc., pastor of the Methodist Church and his principal to ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... places her age at about eighty years. Her husband, Albert King, who died two years ago, was the first Negro policeman employed on the Toledo police force. Mrs. King, whose hair is whitening with age, is a kind and motherly woman, small in stature, pleasing and quiet in conversation. She lives with her adopted daughter, Mrs. Elizabeth King Kimbrew, who works as an elevator operator at the Lasalle & Koch Co. Mrs. King walks with a limp and moves about with some difficulty. She was the first ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: The Ohio Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... She was a stout, motherly woman. She was dressed up as if it were Sunday. Mr. Davis rose, too. You could never tell because of his beard whether he had ...
— Frank of Freedom Hill • Samuel A. Derieux
... the behavior of other human beings A. Motherly behavior B. Filial behavior C. Responses to presence, approval, and scorn of men 1. Gregariousness. 2. Attention to human beings. 3. Attention-getting. 4. Responses to approval and scorn. 5. Responses by approval and scorn D. Mastering ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... to fly from the house. The more she saw of Mrs Gowler (the woman wore a wedding ring), the less she liked her. To begin with, her appearance had given Mavis much of a shock. Her alert fancy had conjured up a vision of a kindly, motherly woman, with soft eyes and voice, whose mere presence would have spoken of the sympathy and tenderness for which the lonely heart of Mavis ached. Nurse Gowler was short, fat, and puffy, with her head sunk right into her shoulders. Her pasty face, with ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... that I have heard of a good woman, that had, as this old man, a bad and ungodly son, and she prayed for him, counselled him, and carried it motherly to him for several years together; but still he remained bad. At last, upon a time, after she had been at prayer, as she was wont, for his conversion, she comes to him, and thus, or to this effect, begins again to admonish him. Son, said she, thou ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... her half-averted face and was suddenly confronted by the realization that this grey, motherly woman must have been young once, like Alix, and pretty. As it is with the young, he could not think of her except as old. He had always thought of his mother as old; it was impossible to think of her as having ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... at the Library with imperial honours and given to understand by kotowing sub-mandarins that she might have the whole red-star library sent home to her house if she so desired. There was no other result. The rest of reading Boston remained under the motherly but autocratic care of ces dames. Those skilled in the artistic records of Boston may remember that the management of the same Library once refused the offered gift of a statue of a woman holding a baby, on the sole ground that the ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett
... balcony, the whole of which was occupied by a big gray goat. There was not room for the police inquisitor and the goat too, and the former had to wait till the animal had come off his perch. Mrs. Shallock is a widow. A load of anxiety and concern overspread her motherly countenance when she heard ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... rich, for this made them shy of accepting favors which they could not return. But, after a while, they found that he considered them the benefactors, and could not do enough to show how grateful he was for Mrs. March's motherly welcome, their cheerful society, and the comfort he took in that humble home of theirs. So they soon forgot their pride and interchanged kindnesses without stopping to think which was ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... and the young Ptolemy, afterwards called Epiphanes. He began his speech, "Ye men of Macedonia," as this mixed body of Greeks and Jews was always called. He wiped his eyes in well-feigned grief, and showed them the new king, who had been trusted, he said, by his father, to the motherly care of Agathoclea and to their loyalty. He then accused Tlepolemus of aiming at the throne, and brought forward a creature of his own to prove the truth of the charge. But his voice was soon drowned in the loud murmurs ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 10 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... with keeping an eye on Maggie, her idea apparently being that the girl would suddenly dash off to freedom and wickedness and be lost for ever. Maggie had no such intention and developed during these weeks a queer motherly affection for both the aunts, so lost they were and helpless and ignorant of the world! "My dear," said Maggie to herself, "you're a bit of a fool as far as common-sense goes, but you're nothing to what they are, poor dears." She tried to ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... Lanfears was unchanged; but he showed it negatively, by his discretions and abstentions. I have an idea that Mabel was less disposed to deride him, might even have been induced to softer sentiments; but I doubt if Dredge even noticed the change. As for his ex-goddess, he seemed to regard her as a motherly household divinity, the guardian genius of the darning needle; but on Professor Lanfear he looked with a deepening reverence. If the rest of the family had diminished in his eyes, its ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... didn't seem so hard when he met her again at supper. The line of her mouth was softer. In his room he found many little touches of her motherly hand—a clean, sweet bed, and little hand-made things upon the wall, that made him think of his own mother, who had been dead since his sixteenth year. He had never had such a room as this. It appeared to him as something very fine. Its frigid atmosphere and lack of grace and charm did not ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland
... nothing of all these calculations of motherly prudence and fatherly diplomacy: he begged for baptism, so he tells us. This seems very remarkable in so young a child. But he lived in a house where all the service was done by Christians. He heard the talk of Monnica's friends; perhaps, too, of ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... her head nestled into the shepherd's neck, nor did she waken when after a tramp of more than a mile the bleatings of the folded sheep announced that they were nearly arrived, and in the low doorway there shone a light, and in the light stood a motherly form, in a white woollen hood and dark serge dress. Tired as he was, Hal ran on to her, exclaiming 'All ...
— The Herd Boy and His Hermit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... them with pleased motherly interest, which Cowperwood considered did her much credit. He was thinking that it would be too bad if her hopes for her children should not be realized. Yet possibly they might not be. Life was very ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... the team to a post a little farther up the road, and was not present when the introductions took place. Mrs. Brewster summoned a pleasant smile for Barbara, and a motherly pat on the shoulder for Eleanor. Then Sary stepped forward to be introduced, as it was customary for her to be treated as a member ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... much sorrowful intelligence that no one seemed to mind or think about the wounding of, that Polly's heart was sore when she was left alone again. In the simple passage that had taken place between herself and the motherless little girl, her own motherly heart had been touched no less than the child's; and she felt, as the child did, that there was something of confidence and interest ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... rabbits for himself over the dunes, awakened her. Suddenly she became conscious of being grasped in a pair of strong arms, and, awakening with a little scream, looked up into the grinning face of Marianne, who straightway gave her a big, motherly hug until she was quite awake and then kissed her soundly on both cheeks, until ...
— A Village of Vagabonds • F. Berkeley Smith
... her, or when away was still occupied in her affairs. Catherine was evidently on intimate and affectionate terms with the rest of the Maconi family also; but it is not strange if Monna Giovanna developed a little motherly jealousy, as she saw her brilliant son not only absorbed by this new friendship, but borne away to distant lands. Catherine's letter is as applicable to-day as then, to all parents whose misguided tenderness would seek to hinder their children in a ...
— Letters of Catherine Benincasa • Catherine Benincasa
... Junior had to understand at once just how to take a picture; everybody had to watch the doll open and shut its eyes, and to try to unbutton and button its coat and dress; and then the railroad track had to be set up and the train started off on its rounds. Ellen Robinson really looked almost motherly while she watched her happy children; and Julia Cloud relaxed, and let the smile come around ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... far above the caste in which the tyranny of law and custom so absurdly placed her. But it is one of the blessed laws of compensation, that the human soul cannot miss that to which it has never been accustomed. Madame's motherly care, and Alfred's unvarying tenderness, sufficed her cravings for affection; and for amusement, she took refuge in books, flowers, birds, and those changes of natural scenery for which her lover had such quickness of eye. It was a privation to give up her ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... Thornton, seated at the breakfast table in the Ellison home, was eating the best meal she had had in many a day. A motherly-looking woman, setting out a few extra dainties for her, wiped her eyes now and again with ...
— The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith
... chose. I know well enough what you like, and how to praise it to your better liking. I could talk to you about moonlight, and twilight, and spring flowers, and autumn leaves, and the Madonnas of Raphael—how motherly! and the Sibyls of Michael Angelo—how majestic! and the Saints of Angelico—how pious! and the Cherubs of Correggio—how delicious! Old as I am, I could play you a tune on the harp yet, that you would dance to. But neither you nor I should be a bit the better ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... reason more surely than the stuff of our evanescent joys. There was nothing that could be called incompatibility of temper between these two; no one saw more clearly than Sophia the generosity and courage of Mrs. Rexford's heart; no one else sympathised so deeply with her motherly cares, for no one else understood them half so well; and yet it might have been easier for Sophia Rexford to have lived in external peace with a covetous woman, able to appreciate and keep in steady view the relative importance of ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... arms were round his neck. She tried to draw his head down to her shoulder. Her sweet face was all concern and motherly tenderness as she ...
— The Second Honeymoon • Ruby M. Ayres
... land-owner we encounters lives away down in the woods. She's plump and motherly-looking, with gold bows on her spec's. She is out in her front garden picking pansies and potato bugs and other flora and fauna common to the soil. She looks up as the gate-latch clicks, and beholds me ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... any change from the epic Kanva. It was a happy thought to place beside him the staid, motherly Gautami. The small boy in the last act has magically become an individual in Kalidasa's hands. In this act too are the creatures of a higher world, their majesty not rendered ...
— Translations of Shakuntala and Other Works • Kaalidaasa
... fitted up with some thirty neatly-painted tubs, with a clean floor, and water conducted so as to save both labor and slopping. Let them see some thirty or forty merry girls, superintended by a motherly lady, chatting and singing, washing and starching, while every convenience is at hand, and every thing around is clean and comfortable. Two hours, thus employed, enable each young lady to wash the articles she used during the previous week, which is all that is demanded, while thus they ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher
... Mr. Philip Fairfield Beckwith"—the sound of his own name was pleasant as the falling voice strayed through it. "He is coming home in a few days, so I want them to look their prettiest for him—for his first sight of them. I take care of this rose garden," she said, and laid a motherly hand on the nearest flower. Then she smiled. "It doesn't seem right hospitable to stop you, but if you will come over to Westerly, to our house, father will be glad to see you, and I will certainly give you all the flowers you want." The sweet and masterful apparition looked with ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... Mrs. Schuyler's own maid, her name is Tibbetts, is the sort you read about in English novels. A nice, motherly woman, with gray hair and a black silk apron. I liked her, but the maid who looks after the old sisters, ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells
... a stout motherly woman, with two children in hand, was flooded by the current. She sobbed comfortably and companionably. The two children widened their eyes at her a moment, then fell to ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson
... Mrs. Grant. You are so kind and thoughtful." Miss Carson's voice shook a little. The contrast between the day's selfish indifference of Mrs. Lowe, and the evening's motherly consideration of Mrs. Grant, touched her. "I will lie down here for a short time. Perhaps I shall feel better after getting some warm tea. ...
— All's for the Best • T. S. Arthur
... morning Tabitha had fully recovered from her terrible night's experience, but it was days before the old hermit awoke to consciousness to find himself lying in a white bed in the Miners' Hospital of Silver Bow with Dr. Vane bending over him and a motherly woman in white cap and apron moving ...
— Tabitha at Ivy Hall • Ruth Alberta Brown
... plainly that I cannot do with this. I like your company, because I am alone here, and your conversation pleases me more than that of any other person; but if you cannot be content to regard me as a friend—a plain, cold, motherly, or sisterly friend—I must beg you to leave me now, and let me alone hereafter: in fact, we must be strangers for ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... impulses. But mother, father, were words whose meaning she had never been taught; and had Nurse comprehended the unconscious thirst and hunger of the girl's soul,—unconscious, but not therefore harmless,—she might have tried, by dint of affectionate observances and companionship, to represent the motherly office which she had filled in the beginning. But this was not to be. Some hidden agency had forced the two ever farther asunder. Moreover, Gnulemah developed rapidly, while Nurse underwent a process ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... sling, and afterward felt better, so that he sat up and gazed about him. It was the same room he had visited earlier in the evening, but the picture of home comfort was not the same, on account of the absence of the comfortable form and motherly face of Mrs. Bordine, who had retired long ...
— Five Thousand Dollars Reward • Frank Pinkerton
... literature. It is the penetrating spirit of our century, which has been aptly called the Woman's Century. We do not find it in the great literatures of the past. The Greek poets give us types of tragic passions, of heroic virtues, of motherly and wifely devotion, but woman is not recognized as a profound spiritual force. This masculine literature, so perfect in form and plastic beauty, so vigorous, so statuesque, so calm, and withal so cold, shines across the centuries side by side with the feminine ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... to pray for himself, let alone for any other sinner, but there came to his memory a picture of Mrs. Drones, a motherly little woman who had taken him home to a dinner at which seven kinds of preserved fruit were on the table, and where the family laughed around the fireplace—only to see Jock a fugitive the next night, and the terrors of a feud war ...
— The River Prophet • Raymond S. Spears
... was a short thrill of anxiety in her motherly heart as her glance brought up a deeper colour into Anne's cheeks. There was a reserve to bring that glow, for the child knew that if she durst say that Charles called her his little sweetheart and wife, and that the walnut-shell purse would be kept as a token, she ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... boat and the sailing vessels lying in the stream. There were four in all—the steamer, an American whaling barque, a small brig of about two hundred tons flying the Hawaiian Island colours, and a big, sprawling, motherly-looking full-rigged ship, whose huge bow ports denoted her ...
— Edward Barry - South Sea Pearler • Louis Becke
... seldom in a hurry. Time is to them of but very little value. Hospitality was a virtue which cost nothing. Any stranger, with his rifle, could easily pay his way in the procurement of food. They all turned back and entered the cabin together. Mrs. Owen was an excellent, motherly woman, about fifty years of age. Her sympathies were immediately excited for the poor little boy, whose garments were drenched, and who was shivering as if in an ague-fit. She replenished the fire, dried his ...
— David Crockett: His Life and Adventures • John S. C. Abbott
... she had in the front yard, anyhow. I remember looking out and seeing an old green plaid shawl of hers over the verbena bed. There was a fire in my little wood-stove. Mrs. Bird made it, I know. She was a real motherly sort of woman; she always seemed to be the happiest when she was doing something to make other folks happy and comfortable. Mrs. Dennison told me she had always been so. She said she had coddled her husband within an inch of his life. 'It's lucky Abby never had any children,' ...
— The Wind in the Rose-bush and Other Stories of the Supernatural • Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman
... a little man who always wore a large size in moleskins—for some reason best known to himself—or more probably for no reason at all; or because of a habit he'd got into accidentally years ago—or because of the motherly trousers his mother used to build for him when he was a boy. And he always shook himself into his pants after the manner of a woman shaking a pillow into a clean slip; his chin down on his chest and his jaw ...
— The Rising of the Court • Henry Lawson
... as they had not done since their last Thanksgiving Day at home. Such generous cups of coffee, enriched with cream almost too thick to flow from the capacious pitchers, and sweetened not only with snow-white sugar, but also with the smiles of some gracious woman, perhaps motherly in appearance, perhaps so fair and young that hearts beat faster under the ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... hills and scattered benedictions. Plenty smiled up from a thousand fertile fields. Patient oxen, with their soft, deep eyes, trod heavily over mines of greater than Indian wealth. Kindly cows stood in the grateful shade of cathedral elms, and gave thanks to God in their dumb, fumbling way. Motherly, sleepy, stupid sheep lay on the plains, little lambs rollicked out their short-lived youth around them, and no premonition floated over from the adjoining pea-patch, nor any misgiving of approaching mutton ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... limp body in his arms and hurried to the Widow Schmidt's modest little cottage with the green blinds and the neatly scrubbed doorstep. George and Bob, feeling very sick, trailed sadly along after him; they hated to think of the look that would come into the Widow Schmidt's motherly face. Joe was all she had ...
— Sure Pop and the Safety Scouts • Roy Rutherford Bailey
... also been a very pretty woman, and even now she retained a good deal of pleasant middle-aged comeliness. She was somewhat stout, and had grown a little inactive in consequence; but her expression was soft and motherly, and she had the unmistakable air of a gentlewoman. In her husband's eyes she was still handsomer than her daughters; and Dr. Ross flattered himself that he had made the all-important choice of his life ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... kind Sister of Mercy, whose sweet, patient and motherly face was bending over a soldier to speak her words of comfort, "are there any Massachusetts boys ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes
... Hilmer always dimpled with wholesome pleasure. Well, she did look sweet, in a motherly, bovine way, Fred admitted, when the note of insincerity in his ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... describing motherly pride with which Mrs. Prescott introduced her son to Mrs. Davidson, wife ...
— Dick Prescott's Third Year at West Point - Standing Firm for Flag and Honor • H. Irving Hancock
... Giddings residence, to which the students and nearly everybody else went. It was a pleasant greeting between friends and neighbors, and a valued citizen, just home after a half year's absence. Nothing could be more kind and natural than the manner of Mr. Giddings, supported by motherly Mrs. Giddings, and the accomplished Miss Giddings, who had spent the winter with her father at Washington. She was like her father, in mind and person, softened and sweetened and much more gracious by sex; tall, graceful, and with the easy presence and manner of ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... the poor Captain he had driven mad met him in the passage, her motherly eyes full of tears for him, and both hands held out to him like a pitying angel. "Oh, Mr. Hardie," she said in a broken voice, and took him, and led him, wonder-struck, stupefied, shivering with dark fears, to the room where ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... tap at the door. She put the fatal glass away and turned guiltily. A dark little woman was there, and a soft, motherly voice spoke. It must be Mrs. Braywood's. She could not have suspected, for her tone ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... muttered Mr Raydon, beginning to walk up and down the room, while I felt in such a whirl of excitement, as I saw Mrs John's beautiful, motherly eyes fixed lovingly on mine, and felt Mr John snatch my hand and press it, and then give vent to his delight at the clearing up by slapping me heavily on the shoulder, that I could not see Mr Raydon's puckered brow. What I did see was the bear's head ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... mind also a bright motherly matron is quite sufficient. But that is what they demand. And that is why—do you see?—we HAVE to regard your appointment as experimental. Possibly Miss Pembroke will be able to help you. Or I don't know whether if ever—" He ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... they entered the town of Artenay, on the main road from Paris to Orleans, coming down upon it from the north side. Here they entered a quiet inn. The landlord was a jovial, pleasant-faced man of some sixty years of age; and his wife a kind, motherly-looking woman. As usual, the travellers signed the names they had agreed upon in the book kept for the purpose, Patsey retaining her own name, and ...
— No Surrender! - A Tale of the Rising in La Vendee • G. A. Henty
... purity and energy of face, clasping to her side her only child, a son whom she secretly believed to be destined to greatness. She was dressed not with the studied plainness and abnegation of the model in the studio, but out of regard for her true station and her motherly responsibilities. Her utmost wish was that in years to come, when he should look back upon his childhood, he would always remember with pride his evenings with his mother. During the day he must see her drudge, and many a picture of herself on a plane of life ...
— A Cathedral Singer • James Lane Allen
... in his comfortable bedroom after a long look out of his window at the beautiful moonlit harbour, with its shipping bathed in the soft, silvery light, and a feeling of melancholy came over him. He was sorry to leave frank-spoken, motherly Lady O'Hara, and the thought of going right away into the wilds, though fascinating, would inspire him with ...
— First in the Field - A Story of New South Wales • George Manville Fenn
... who drove to the Concho one morning and was welcomed by Corliss to whom she gave the little sack of gold. She told him all that he wished to know in regard to his brother Will, pleading for him with motherly gentleness. Corliss assured her that he felt no anger toward his brother, but rather solicitude, and made her happy by his generous attitude toward the wrongdoer. He had already heard that his brother had driven to Antelope and taken the train for the West. His great regret was that Will ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... go gittin' lost," admonished Ma watts, as she stood in the doorway and surveyed her daughter with approval born of motherly pride. The pink gingham sunbonnet that matched the tight little dress had required only a slight "letting out" to make it "do," and taken in conjunction with the flaming red dress, made a study in color that would have delighted the heart of a Gros Ventre squaw. ...
— The Gold Girl • James B. Hendryx
... priceless value to me. The craft was somewhat bigger than I had at first set her down to be, being of fully four hundred, or maybe four hundred and fifty, tons measurement. Looking for'ard to the swell of her bows, I saw that she must evidently be of a motherly build, which accorded well with the fact that she had lost steerage-way long before such had been the case with the brig. Her decks were in a very dirty and untidy condition, looking as though they had not been washed down, or even ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... as they sometimes proved, my experience on the whole was favorable; and from the motherly old portress of the English church at Honeybourne, who fed me with bread and butter under her cottage-roof, and sent me away laden with garden-flowers and a blessing, to faithful Michel, who held me over the blue ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... care. It is not necessary that her whole time should be spent in attending to its wants; but it is necessary that so much of the time should be spent, that nothing should be neglected which could add to the child's comfort and happiness. And not only is it needful that a woman should show a motherly fondness for her child, so that she should attend to its wants and be solicitous for its welfare; it is also necessary that she should know how those wants are best to be provided for, and how that welfare is best to be consulted: for to the natural feelings which prompt animals to provide for ...
— Trials and Confessions of a Housekeeper • T. S. Arthur
... circle Peggy Paton was a most motherly old maid. She it was who, when she found her niece Eliza would marry Lieutenant Burton, mediated between father and daughter, and arranged matters as well as might be in an affair in which her good sense found much to disapprove, and her heart much to excuse. Not only to her niece ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... rest. "O bed, O bed, delicious bed, that heaven on earth to the weary head," as sang poor Hood, you are a kind old nurse to us fretful boys and girls. Clever and foolish, naughty and good, you take us all in your motherly lap and hush our wayward crying. The strong man full of care—the sick man full of pain—the little maiden sobbing for her faithless lover—like children we lay our aching heads on your white bosom, and you gently soothe us off ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... picket-fence, a yard full of flowers, and a log house the like of which he had not seen in the hills—and a new light came—Juno's work! A torrent of rain swept after him as he stepped upon the porch and knocked on the door. A moment later he was looking at the kindest and most motherly face and into the kindest eyes ...
— In Happy Valley • John Fox
... the advent of my uncle at Lake Adieno, and all my early associations were connected with the cottage and its surroundings. I had a glimmering and indistinct idea of something before our coming to Parkville. It seemed to me that I had once known a motherly lady with a sweet and lovely expression on her face; and I had a faint recollection of looking out upon a dreary waste of waters; but I could not fix the idea distinctly in my mind. I supposed that the lady was my mother. I made several vain efforts to induce my uncle ...
— Breaking Away - or The Fortunes of a Student • Oliver Optic
... longer thought of withdrawing themselves from the licentious looks of the spectators who were crowding at the entrance to the booth. Their eyes brooded with motherly terror upon the two veiled children, while the matron, bound to the post, her eyes glittering and her teeth set in impotent fury, raised her chained arms to heaven as if to call down the punishments of the ...
— The Brass Bell - or, The Chariot of Death • Eugene Sue
... cooked it for them with her own hands. And this is a Cairene lady, and quite a lady too, in manners and appearance. The day I dined there she was dressed in very ragged, old cotton clothes, but spotlessly clean; and she waited on me with a kind, motherly pleasure, that quite took away the awkwardness I felt at sitting down while she stood. In a few days she and her husband are to dine with me, a thing which no Arab couple ever did before (I mean dine out together), and the old lady was immensely amused at the idea. Omar will cook and all ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... me see now, there were ten of them originally. Yes, ten, for I counted them over and over again fifty times a day, and now there are only three. Heigho!" Here she glanced round towards these sleeping beauties in the straw, and her lovely eyes were brimming over with motherly affection ...
— Little Folks (Septemeber 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... was reassuring to children, kept them from feeling strange with parents back. Nana was big, gray-haired, stout, buxom, motherly, to reassure parents. ...
— The Real Hard Sell • William W Stuart
... said Mrs. Kelcey. She took the baby from him with wonted, motherly arms. "The teeny thing!" ...
— The Brown Study • Grace S. Richmond
... we had a baby just like this," sighed Phronsie, giving motherly pats to the stout little legs dangling ...
— Five Little Peppers Abroad • Margaret Sidney
... action, as well as invented the characters of the parties and the detail of the incidents.) Edward, however, though perplexed by her strange detractions from her daughter's good qualities, yet in the innocence of his own heart still mistook[268:2] her increasing fondness for motherly affection; she at length, overcome by her miserable passion, after much abuse of Mary's temper and moral tendencies, exclaimed with violent emotion—"O Edward! indeed, indeed, she is not fit for you—she has not a heart to love you as you deserve. It ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... girl. But these messages tended otherwise than might have been expected. The sadness that had so long been almost second nature to the girl steadily deepened, and Mrs. Osler, ever kind and watchful of her charge, noticed the depression settling on her, and with motherly solicitude—she had no children of her own—insisted on the only remedy she understood—physic. And the girl submitted to the kindly treatment, knowing well enough that there was no physic to help her complaint. She knew that, in spite of his tender messages ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... everybody on principle. Knowing that I was an orphan he sometimes took me aside and gave me sound fatherly advice which I have since remembered, and am now beginning to appreciate. His wife, too, was a kindly motherly woman who, because being practically homeless I was often compelled to spend my holidays at school, seemed better disposed towards me than to the ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... of the good woman struck me as greatly to be desired. With all her simplicity she had the true Wisdom: and her good motherly face went with me long after ...
— Scenes in Switzerland • American Tract Society
... was a great deal to be said regarding Mrs Varden's doubts, and motherly alarms, and shrewd suspicions; and it appeared that from Mrs Varden's penetration and extreme sagacity nothing had ever been hidden. She had known it all along. She had seen it from the first. She had always predicted it. She had been aware of it before the principals. She had said within herself ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... grateful weight of his head upon her bosom. Why had he loved her? Because she was his mother! A forgotten perception returned to illuminate her way—a perception, never before reduced to formal terms, that her virtue, her motherly tenderness, were infinitely more appealing to him than the sum ...
— The Mother • Norman Duncan
... there she was sitting down on the ground handcuffed, taking breath against the skirting-board and them cool with their coats in strips, and all she says was "Mrs. Lirriper I'm sorry as ever I touched you, for you're a kind motherly old thing," and it made me think that I had often wished I had been a mother indeed and how would my heart have felt if I had been the mother of that girl! Well you know it turned out at the Police-office that she had done it before, and she ...
— Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings • Charles Dickens
... off to the pond; geese to the meadow; and meek gray guinea-hens tripping away to hunt bugs in the garden. A splendid cock stood on the wall, and crowed so loud and clear that all the neighboring chanticleers replied. The motherly hens clucked and scratched with their busy broods about them, or sat and scolded in the coops because the chicks would gad abroad. Doves cooed on the sunny roof, and smoothed their gleaming feathers. Daisy's donkey nibbled a thistle by the wall, ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... wrote tartly: "Irishmen on both sides of the line are quite able to decide such matters for themselves, without the motherly interference of London." ...
— The Golden Judge • Nathaniel Gordon
... I beckoned to Mrs. Mullins, a fine motherly woman, who sat right across the aisle. She ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... and derisive finger into Lisa's eyes. And in truth the tears were there. Lisa was in heart and person that which is comprehensively called motherly. She saw perhaps some pathos in the sight of this rugged man—worn by travel, bent with hardship and many wounds, past his work—shouldering his haversack and trudging off ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman
... recognise our once most intimate companions. Cases are not rare of this kind. Let one pass in absence from childhood to maturity, and who that had not seen him in the mean time could tell that it was he? The trouble arising thence is finely illustrated by Shakspeare in the motherly solicitude of Constance, who, on learning that her young son has been imprisoned by his uncle, King John, and will probably be kept until he pines to death, cries in ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... smooths the gray hairs from the wrinkled brow, and calms his troubled spirit. Pansies bloom beneath the latticed windows of her cabin home. Morning-glories twine around it. Swallows twitter their joy, and build their nests beneath the eves. Motherly hens cluck to their broods in the dooryard. The fare upon the table within the cabin is frugal, but there is always a bit of bread or a herring for a wandering exile. When women pine for their old homes, when homesickness becomes a disease, it is Mary Shrimpton who cheers ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... better have tea right away," Prudence said, laying a motherly little hand on her ...
— The Happy Adventurers • Lydia Miller Middleton
... Febrer mansion he would lose forever, according to the arrangement made by his friend Valls; but he would not fail to have a neat little house in the ward of Terreno or somewhere near the sea, and in it the motherly care of Mammy Antonia. No sorrow, no shame would await him there. He would even be rid of the presence of Don Benito Valls and his daughter, from whom he had so discourteously fled, without a word of excuse. The rich Chueta, according to his brother's ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... marriage, as well as the one who had been born after. So too when, a few years later, Tiberius Claudius Nero died, appointing Augustus their guardian, with equal serenity she took them back and educated them with the most careful motherly solicitude. To the second husband, whom politics had given her, she was a faithful companion. Scandal imputed to her absurd poisonings which she did not commit, and accused her of insatiable ambitions and perfidious ...
— The Women of the Caesars • Guglielmo Ferrero
... the neighbours came on an appointed day to help to raise it and put it in position. This was a great day for Mrs. Garfield, who received the congratulations of her neighbours, and listened with motherly pride to the words of praise they bestowed upon the son who had made this provision for his mother. Nailing on the boards next gave James work thoroughly to his mind. Boys are always fond of driving nails, and James was no exception to ...
— The Story of Garfield - Farm-boy, Soldier, and President • William G. Rutherford
... coming to, and smiled down at me, showing a set of very white teeth, and her plump face looked motherly and pleasant as she bent down and laid her hand upon ...
— Patience Wins - War in the Works • George Manville Fenn
... and by great self-denial provided him with the means of pursuing it. While living at Dordrecht, in Holland, she first sent him to Lille to study, and afterwards to Paris; and her letters to him, while absent, were always full of sound motherly advice, and affectionate womanly sympathy. "If you could but see me," she wrote on one occasion, "kissing your picture, then, after a while, taking it up again, and, with a tear in my eye, calling you 'my beloved son,' you would comprehend what it costs me to use sometimes ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... of this girl and the condescending references to my misfortune in never having seen her like, I had for him a certain keen sympathy and hope for his success. I had a certain sympathy for Edith, too, for a man in love, if unrestrained in his praise, will make a plain, sensible, motherly girl look like a frivolous fool. Perhaps in this case Edith was the victim. I suggested this to ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd
... with tears. She is still looking very grave when Denise takes her in the fond, motherly arms. While she is gone upstairs to papa's room, Grandon explains and convinces Denise that the journey is absolutely necessary, and that no one can serve her young mistress ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... family love goes along with them. Soon the boat arrived at the pier, and we all went on board; and as I sat in the cabin, looking up through a broken pane in the skylight, I saw the woman's thin face, with its anxious, motherly aspect; and the youngest child in her arms, shrinking from the chill wind, but yet not impatiently; and the eldest of the girls standing close by with her expression of childish endurance, but yet so bright and intelligent that it would evidently take but a few ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Khartoum, found that he could commence sending refugees to Egypt, I was sent on the 3rd March 1884 to Assouan and Korosko to receive those whom he sent down. As an instance of your brother's thoughtfulness, I may mention that he requested that, if possible, some motherly European woman might also be sent, as many of the refugees whom he had to send had never been out of the Soudan before, and might feel strange on reaching Egypt. A German, Giegler Pasha, who had been in Khartoum ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume II • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... then, as only it is possible? So why not allow certain lower faculties of our nature to delight in what are called the grosser flowers? Why not cultivate their acquaintance, as we would that of motherly, kind, portly, and phlegmatic old ladies, rustling in their silks and satins, with a comfortable complacency, satisfied with their own share of fortune's goods, and benevolently disposed toward their less ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... Taylor, shocked at the poet's appearance, procured for him at once the services of the principal physician in Peterborough. Clare had also an excellent and warm-hearted friend in Mrs. Marsh, wife of the Bishop of Peterborough, who corresponded with him frequently, in a familiar and almost motherly manner, from 1821 to 1837. When Clare complained of indisposition, a messenger would be dispatched from "The Palace," with medicines or plaisters, camphor lozenges, or "a pound of our own tea," with sensible advice as to personal habits and diet. At another time hot-house grapes are sent, or ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry
... conceal a softness for children under her stern exterior why did she keep a stock of so many things dear to the childish heart, from paper soldiers (purchased by the yard) to sleds and shot? Perhaps that fantastic stock of hers was her curious expression of the Eternal Motherly. After she died, every year on the 30th of May the "Vet'rans," as they marched two by two in annually dwindling lines about the cemetery, placed a fresh print flag and a basket of geraniums on her grave, because she had sent a substitute to the War. To ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton
... a great shock to her, my attraction for her had gone—I was just "poor darling Nicholas," and she began to be motherly—Nina motherly!—She would have been furious at the very idea once. Nina is thirty-nine years old, her boy has just gone into the flying corps, she is so glad the war ...
— Man and Maid • Elinor Glyn
... herself with a limp and fishy handshake. She and I were sworn enemies in our school-girl days, and a baleful gleam still lurked in Sally's eye. Mrs. Whalen bestowed on me a motherly hug that enveloped me in an atmosphere of liquid face-wash, strong perfumery and fried lard. Mrs. Whalen is a ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... Noon came, but not Mliss. Questioning Clytie on the subject, it appeared that they had left the school together, but the willful Mliss had taken another road. The afternoon brought her not. In the evening he called on Mrs. Morpher, whose motherly heart was really alarmed. Mr. Morpher had spent all day in search of her, without discovering a trace that might lead to her discovery. Aristides was summoned as a probable accomplice, but that ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... a good-looking, motherly woman, and a large-framed young man of nineteen or twenty who sat beside the fire with a ghastly face, and hands hanging down in dark despondency. He had the aspect of one rising from a terrible illness; in fact, he had just come out of prison ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... Warner of Roca was the only person actively engaged in the last canvass who had been connected with the effort of 1871. As vice-president of her judicial district, she spoke at many places, organizing wherever practicable. Her motherly face, and persuasive but humorous argument, made her a favorite at conventions. Coming to Nebraska in its early days, a widow with a large family, she purchased a large farm and devoted herself to its management, to the care and education of her ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... concerning homoeopathy and allopathy which lasted well through dinner. After this lapse of time, I cannot tell how the affair ended, but I feel sure of the liking with which Mrs. Stowe inspired me. There was something very simple, very motherly in her, and something divinely sincere. She was quite the person to take 'au grand serieux' the monstrous imaginations of Lady Byron's jealousy and to feel it on her conscience to make public report of ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... her husband was fairly off to meet his brother's family, Mrs Hugh Berrington began to realise the fact that they were coming, and actively commenced making preparations for their reception. She was a motherly, active, cheerful little woman, who never, by any chance, lost her temper, even under the most vexatious circumstances, and always saw things on the ...
— The Young Berringtons - The Boy Explorers • W.H.G. Kingston
... very persuasive, Mrs. Fane-Smith's motherly heart was touched; she sat down there and then, and for the first time since the summer day when Luke Raeburn had been turned out of his father's house, she wrote to her brother. Rose in the meantime had taken a piece of paper from her ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... was sitting in her chair beside the fire, knitting, when her son came in. At the sound of his voice she glanced anxiously up at his face, with all her motherly instincts ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the little room where he breathed his last, that bleak day in Eighteen-Hundred Fifty-one. The unlettered but motherly old woman who took care of him in those last days never guessed his greatness; none in the ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... that's unlucky" said the woman, her motherly sympathies aroused; "I'm rilly concerned for ye. Solomon!" she called from the window. "I say Sol, is that ar man going to ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... of the blessed sympathy that welled up from her motherly heart that relaxed his features into a half smile, and moved him to a half glad, half sad emotion; perhaps the memory of as dear a face that once beamed upon him with the same holy tenderness, stirred the long-time quiet depths within his young bosom, and sent forth the ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... rough. I hope, at any rate," he added, "that there is nothing incoherent in this—that I want to go next Sunday to the Carmelite chapel in the Avenue de Messine. You know one of the Catholic ministers—an abbe, is that it?—I have seen him here, you know; that motherly old gentleman with the big waist-band. Please ask him if I need a special leave to go in, and if I do, beg him to ...
— The American • Henry James
... logic, its necessity; the arts by which this decayed citizen, proficient only in the lore of vice and scorned by the whole populace, had gained his end; above all, how it came about that these two never wearied of their infatuation. Had he struck some latent and hideously defective chord in her motherly breast, that began to throb in response to his amorous complexities—was ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas
... mistaken, pride she had avoided all these people hitherto; but there was no need to avoid them any longer; she was their equal in birth, and her newly discovered wealth effectually removed any cause for pride. Lady Bannerdale, a motherly and good-natured woman, came forward to meet her, and took ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... which burn brilliantly for a short season and them go out of their own accord; it usually took a long time to kindle a friendship with her. Sahwah herself could not understand her sudden, fierce, almost motherly love for Veronica. It had not been of gradual growth like her other friendships; it had been born all in an instant that first night of her arrival at Carver House, when Veronica had played and through Sahwah's heart there had gone a strange thrill of sadness, ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey
... over and spoke to her. They took a strong fancy to each other on the spot. Selma preferred a person who would tell you everything about herself and to whom you could tell everything about yourself without preliminaries. People like Mrs. Taylor repressed her, but the motherly loquacity and comprehension of Mrs. Earle drew her out and thawed at once and forever the ice of acquaintanceship. Before she quite realized the extent of this fascination she had promised to recite something, and as in a dream, but with flushing cheeks, she heard the ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... the abundance and violence of her requests. It came to pass that in the excitement the old couple quite forgot Marjory. It was not until Mrs. Wainwright, then feeling splendidly, was dressed for dinner, that she thought to open Marjory's door and go to render a usual motherly supervision of the ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... and unlimited credit at the stores, an' Mrs. Hammond was a motherly soul of much experience with children, an' I knew ...
— Keeping up with Lizzie • Irving Bacheller
... pipe! And the multiplied fragrance of all the pipes! Then came smiling Miss Prettyface to see if their ribbons were all right; and the longing look of all the recruits was quite an affecting sight; and the genial motherly good-natured best wishes of Mrs. Oldtimes were very welcome. All these things were pleasant, and proved Mrs. Oldtimes' philosophy to be correct—if you want to develop the higher virtues ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris
... hands greet me from afar with many friendly nods. Her sleeves would be rolled up to the elbows, and the gold hoop of her wedding ring glittered among the soapsuds. Her voice was pleasant, she had a serene brow, smooth bands of very fair hair, and a good-humoured expression of the eyes. She was motherly and moderately talkative. When this simple matron smiled, youthful dimples broke out on her fresh broad cheeks. Hermann's niece on the other hand, an orphan and very silent, I never saw attempt a smile. This, ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad
... supposed that she was crippled. My admiration for her momentarily increased, the more so since I could see that she was sincerely fond of Val Beverley, whose every movement she followed with looks of almost motherly affection. This was all the more strange as Madame de Staemer whose age, I supposed, lay somewhere on the sunny side of forty, was of a type which expects, and wins, admiration, long after the average woman ...
— Bat Wing • Sax Rohmer
... dust-cloth in her hand, took her seat by the window, with Phemie breathless and sparkling at one side of her, while Clementina, all faultless profile and repose, sat on the other. To Mrs. Harkutt's motherly concern at John Milton's absence, it was pointed out that he was wanted at the store,—was a mere boy anyhow, and could not be trusted. Mr. Harkutt, a little ruddier from weather, excitement, and the unusual fortification of a glass of liquor, ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte
... a big motherly woman, who seemed to radiate comfort and cheer, as a stove does heat. After the first few days, Lloyd would have enjoyed the time spent with her in the cheerful room assigned her had she not been haunted by the thought that she was falling behind ...
— The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation • Annie Fellows Johnston
... at the door. She put the fatal glass away and turned guiltily. A dark little woman was there, and a soft, motherly voice spoke. It must be Mrs. Braywood's. She could not have suspected, for her ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... tears! and if you truly love me, offer up for my soul Masses, prayers, alms-deeds, and such like good works." Then he disappeared, and his mother, instead of any longer wasting her strength by foolish grief, began henceforth to give her son proofs of a true Christian and motherly love, by complying with his request. (L. II. ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier
... of other human beings A. Motherly behavior B. Filial behavior C. Responses to presence, approval, and scorn of men 1. Gregariousness. 2. Attention to human beings. 3. Attention-getting. 4. Responses to approval and scorn. 5. Responses by approval and scorn D. Mastering ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... stretch our tired limbs and sink away so quietly into the silence and rest. "O bed, O bed, delicious bed, that heaven on earth to the weary head," as sang poor Hood, you are a kind old nurse to us fretful boys and girls. Clever and foolish, naughty and good, you take us all in your motherly lap and hush our wayward crying. The strong man full of care—the sick man full of pain—the little maiden sobbing for her faithless lover—like children we lay our aching heads on your white bosom, and you gently ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... in the evening of December 31, 1862—Barty hailed a hansom, and went first to summon his good friend Dr. Knight, in Orchard Street; and then he drove to Brixton, and woke up and brought back with him a very respectable, middle-aged, and motherly woman whose name was Jones; and next morning, which was a very sunny, frosty one, my dear little god-daughter was ushered into this sinful world, a fact which was chronicled the very next day in Leah's diary by ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... poet's appearance, procured for him at once the services of the principal physician in Peterborough. Clare had also an excellent and warm-hearted friend in Mrs. Marsh, wife of the Bishop of Peterborough, who corresponded with him frequently, in a familiar and almost motherly manner, from 1821 to 1837. When Clare complained of indisposition, a messenger would be dispatched from "The Palace," with medicines or plaisters, camphor lozenges, or "a pound of our own tea," with sensible ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry
... woman. Wherever the State touches the personal life of the infant, the child, the youth, or the aged, helpless, defective in mind, body or moral nature, there the State enters "woman's peculiar sphere," her sphere of motherly succor and training, her sphere of sympathetic and self-sacrificing ministration to individual lives. If the service of women is not won to such governmental action (not only through "influence or the shaping of public opinion," but through ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... two days finding her. She had offered her services to Mrs. Hopkins in the Alabama hospital. He sent in his card and she refused to see him. He asked an interview with Mrs. Hopkins and begged her to help. Her motherly heart went out to him in sympathy. His utter misery was so plainly written in ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... to do, for the landlady had twice asked her for the next week's rent. She looked in at the door of a laundry where a German woman was singing as she ironed children's dresses by the light of a flaring gas jet. It looked pleasant and peaceful in there. Perhaps that motherly woman would let her work with her. She would ...
— Little Lost Sister • Virginia Brooks
... honorarium) to give his son private lessons? Could she afford the time? "I shrink from exposing him to influences, so often malign, of a boarding-school. What I should most of all desire for him is a steady, sympathetic home influence, a—may I say it?—a motherly influence." ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... That's repartee, that is. With the accent on the rap, too. Never you mind; I think old 1812 and I will get on all right after this. It doesn't seem to bother him any, so I don't see why it should worry me. Nice motherly ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... affair, she commenced by informing me that at ten years of age she was a scholar of Mrs. Chatterton, his mother, where she was taught plain work, and remained with her until she was near twenty years of age; that she slept with her, and found her kind and motherly, insomuch that there were many things which in moments of affliction Mrs. C. communicated to her, that she would not have wished to have been generally known; and among others, she often repeated how happy she was that her unfortunate son lay buried ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... their bundles of necessaries and relics, in the flight from home, and they instruct their children to keep it burning. They transmit the sentiment of the loathing of Bull, as assuredly they would be incapable of doing, even with the will, were a splendid fire-eyed motherly Britannia the figure sitting in the minds of men for our image—a palpitating figure, alive to change, penetrable to thought, and not a stolid concrete of our traditional old yeoman characteristic. Verily he lives ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... loving encouragement to the waiting girl. But these messages tended otherwise than might have been expected. The sadness that had so long been almost second nature to the girl steadily deepened, and Mrs. Osler, ever kind and watchful of her charge, noticed the depression settling on her, and with motherly solicitude—she had no children of her own—insisted on the only remedy she understood—physic. And the girl submitted to the kindly treatment, knowing well enough that there was no physic to help her complaint. She knew that, in spite of his tender messages and assurances of affection, ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... capable, motherly woman had been obtained, by Mr. Armstrong's efforts and inquiry, who would live with Glory as companion and assistant. There was the dairy work to be carried on, still. This, and the hay crops, made the principal income of the Old Farm. A few fields ...
— Faith Gartney's Girlhood • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... in her chair beside the fire, knitting, when her son came in. At the sound of his voice she glanced anxiously up at his face, with all her motherly instincts on ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... to the end, Tom waved a last adieu with his handkerchief to the five weeping figures on the platform, and then threw himself back in his seat and gave free vent to his own feelings. Two girls sitting beside him sniggered at the sight of the strong-built young fellow giving way to tears, but a motherly-looking woman opposite presently put her ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... She's a woman of sort of practical motherly instinct. Her eyes are blue, and clear, and fine, revealing the wholesome mind behind. She'll be slim, I guess, and her gown's just ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... kid," breathed Pearlie, her pale eyes fixed on him in motherly pity. "You oughtn't to do that. You'll get so thin your ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... of the kiddleywink was a kind and motherly soul, and treated me with much sympathy, for she saw I was in trouble, and when I told her that I should not go to the bedroom with Eli, she prepared a bed for me on the window-seat, and left ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... found a better place. Mr. and Mrs. Lanham were quiet people, who gave them an excellent room and a fine supper. Mrs. Lanham showed a motherly solicitude, and when she heard that they were going to the Curtis ball on the following night she demanded that their spare and best uniforms be turned over ...
— The Shades of the Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... tears. She is still looking very grave when Denise takes her in the fond, motherly arms. While she is gone upstairs to papa's room, Grandon explains and convinces Denise that the journey is absolutely necessary, and that no one can serve her young mistress ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... John!—such a favorite! so gifted, and yet so neglected! in regard to high ideals and purposes in life, so ignorant! and so desirous of that motherly love and interest that were ever denied him! He endeavored to fill his life with other things; but in his day-dreams he often pictured his mother, and wondered: "Was she like my aunt? Would she take me and hold me in her arms while she smoothed my ...
— How John Became a Man • Isabel C. Byrum
... kiss one another like the city ladies; but the motherly grip of Mary Bruce's hand sent a ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren
... woman's heart there is a love for the men of her race, a love motherly and pitiful, that will bring the tears to her eyes at the sight of a passing regiment and cause her to passionately mourn the unknown soldier dead. This sentiment, this instinct, is a thousandfold intensified on the bloody field itself. The pang ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... "Oh, motherly! Has it come to that? I do believe you are more than half gone. The girl is pretty; she has a beautiful figure; but my gracious! her parents are impossible—just impossible. And don't you think she's a little too intellectual for society? I ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... thirty-five—she had now reached that age, nay, passed it—she was not what you would call "old-maidish." Perhaps because the motherly instinct, naturally very strong in her, had developed more and more. She was one of those governesses—the only sort who ought ever to attempt to be governesses—who really love children, ay, despite their naughtinesses and mischievousnesses and worrying ways; who feel that, after ...
— The Laurel Bush • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... hardly miss some benefit. It is true, however, that some of the merriest and most genuine of women are old maids; and that those old maids, and wives who are unhappily married, have often most of the true motherly touch. And this would seem to show, even for women, some narrowing influence in comfortable married life. But the rule is none the less certain: if you wish the pick of men and women, take a good ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... good people lifted the broken form and carried it out from the hospital's deadly air, into the golden sunshine and away to a clean little cot in a humble home where a good doctor treated him and a kind motherly nurse hung over him and soothed his feverish brain for many a weary hour. For days it seemed that every breath would be his last and for months his sufferings wrung the ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... prompted her to the lamentations that scandalised the priests and even Lucas, who broke in with, "Fie, maid, thou mournest as one who hath no hope." But Dr Colet still signed to them to have patience, and Perronel somehow contrived to draw the girl's head on her breast and give her a motherly kiss, such as the poor child had never felt since she, when almost a babe, had been lifted from her dying mother's side in the dark stifling hold of the vessel in the Bay of Biscay. And in sheer surprise and sense of being soothed she ceased her cries, ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... had continued to "wax fat," and now it was about as much as she could do, with many grunts, to get up and down stairs. Since her double bereavement of her "Hebe" and her "Lapwing," her kind, motherly countenance had lost somewhat of its comfortable jollity, and her hearty mellow laugh was seldom heard. Still, good Henrietta was passably happy, as the world goes, for she had the lucky foundation of a happy temper and temperament—she enjoyed the world, her friends ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... part of the city. She was a very pretty girl, of the slender type, rather a business woman than one given much to amusement. She had been ill and was still ill. That was evident from the solicitous way in which the motherly landlady scrutinized ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... have gathered up the component parts of Mrs. Holman's last screaming treble, he would have found a wealth of emotions: injured motherly dignity, wrath, contempt, hatred, and something heavy, which was meant to have a crushing effect, and really did almost make Silla fall on her knees; she stood ...
— One of Life's Slaves • Jonas Lauritz Idemil Lie
... this request with precision on Ina's nastiest moments, but she always rose, unabashed, and went, motherly and dutiful, to hear devotions, as if that function and the process of living ...
— Miss Lulu Bett • Zona Gale
... These motherly words gave Psyche heart, and she reverently took leave of the goddess and set out for the temple of Venus. Most humbly she offered up her prayer, but Venus could not look at her earthly ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... very sorry to think so," answered Phoebe gravely. "But it is true that my small abilities were precisely what they needed; and I have a real interest in their welfare,—an odd kind of motherly sentiment,—which I wish you would not laugh at! And let me tell you frankly, Mr. Holgrave, I am sometimes puzzled to know whether you ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... earnest, dark-haired and dark-eyed young man of three-and-twenty, Abigail Mitchenor at once felt a motherly interest. Having received him as a temporary member of the family, she considered him entitled to the same watchful care as if he were in reality an invalid son. The ice over an hereditary Quaker nature ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor
... so happy!" And Norma, who had gotten into Aunt Kate's lap, as the marvellous narrative progressed, dug her face into Aunt Kate's motherly soft shoulder, and tightened her arms about her neck, and cried a little, ...
— The Beloved Woman • Kathleen Norris
... some of the neighbors, Madge met him at the door and held up a warning finger. The overwrought woman had been soothed into the blessed oblivion of restoring sleep, the first she had for many hours. A motherly-looking woman whispered her intention of remaining with Mrs. Wendall all night. Mr. Wendall took Madge's hand in both his own, and looked at her with eyes dim with tears. Twice he essayed to speak, then turned away, faltering, "When ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... not suffice a very motherly woman. Such a woman was Mrs. Batch. Had she been blest with a dozen children, she must yet have regarded herself as also a mother to whatever two young gentlemen were lodging under her roof. Childless but for Katie and Clarence, she had for her successive ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... Unitarianism is at the present day. Whether or not the three-cornered hat was considered as an emblem of Trinitarianism, I am not able to determine. Our hair was worn in a queue, bound with black ribbon, and reached to the small of the back, in the shape of the tail of that motherly animal which furnishes ungrateful bipeds of the human race with milk, butter, and cheese. Where nature had not bestowed a sufficiency of this ornamental appendage, the living and the dead contributed of their superfluity to supply the deficiency. ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... in the slender form and the half-frightened expression in the pale, sweet face caused her to forget everything else except that the stranger was alone and ill at ease. Both her arms went out to Rose with a motherly gesture, and, as she drew her within them, she said, "Why, my ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... yer know yer wouldn't let ennythin' in shape ev a human creetur go perishin' past aour fire sech weather's this," replied the woman, as she took the baby, which recognized the motherly hand at its first touch, and ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson
... (washing included) for eighteen shillings per week; she generally took the first week in advance. We asked him to have a beer—for the want of somebody else to ask—and after that he said that Mrs Jones was a kind, motherly body, and understood young fellows; and that we'd be even more comfortable than in our own home; that we'd be allowed to do as we liked—she wasn't particular; she wouldn't mind it a bit if we came home late once in a way—she was used to that, in fact; she liked to ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... Percival, but a woman never likes a man so well as when he acknowledges his helplessness in her particular line of knowledge, and throws himself on her mercy. Mentally, I at once began to feel motherly towards Percival, and clucked around him like an old hen. He went on to say that men often are not so blind that they cannot see the prejudices and complexities of a woman's nature, but they are not constituted to understand them by intuition ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... letter found its way to Madeline. She read it, tears in her eyes. It told Madeline much more than its brief story of illness and poverty and wonder why Gene had not written home for so long. It told of motherly love, sisterly love, brotherly love—dear family ties that had not been broken. It spoke of pride in this El Capitan brother who had become famous. It was signed "your loving ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... advised him with motherly directness concerning the proper underwear he must don, looked at her rifle, examined his and, bidding him assume it, led him out to the range in the orchard and made him target his weapon at ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... main charge of his early teaching. At first, the wayward little Indian seemed likely to form no accession to the quiet household, but he soon became its brightest ornament and pride. Everything was in his favor at the pleasant home of Mrs. Trevor. He was treated with motherly kindness and tenderness, yet firmly checked when he went wrong. From the first he had a well-spring of strength, against temptation, in the long letters which every mail brought from his parents; and all his childish ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... and well-defined clear-cut features. Her voice was harsh, but with an undertone of great tenderness. She was scrupulously careful in her attire, which was rather above her station. Altogether, she had much the bearing of a gentle-woman. Her devotion to me was quite motherly. Never having had any family of her own, although she had been the wife of one of my father's shepherds, she expended the whole maternity of her nature upon me. She was always my first resource in any perplexity, ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald
... Phillida's natural reserve were melted away by her friend's effusive sympathy, and the weary heart lightened its burdens, as many another had done before, by confessing them to the all-motherly Mrs. Frankland. Phillida told the story of her lover, of his dislike to the notoriety of her faith-cures. She told of her own struggles and of the grave questions she might soon have to settle. Should she yield, if ever so little, to the demands of one who was to be her husband? Or should ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... and found Payne seated on the bed with Surratt, playing with bowie knives, and surrounded with revolvers and spurs. Miss Honora Fitzpatrick testifies that Weichmann was treated by Mrs. Surratt "more like a son than a friend." Poor return for motherly care! Guilty knowledge and participation in crime or in wild schemes for the capture of the President would be a good excuse for not making all this known to Mrs. Surratt. In speaking of the spurs and pistols, Weichmann knew that there were just eight spurs and two long ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... bottom a bubbling, noisy little brook went tumbling and bustling merrily over the stones, filling the sweet, warm air with a cheery song of its own. A plank served as a bridge across the stream; and as Susie walked steadily over it she noticed a fat, motherly old duck nestling down amongst the ferns and dock-leaves on the bank. Mother Duck uttered a startled and indignant "Quack, quack," as Gypsy jumped over her head and dashed headlong into the cool, ...
— Golden Moments - Bright Stories for Young Folks • Anonymous
... me very welcome as had ever been her way. She was an eccentric, but embarrassingly straightforward old lady; and if I had heeded her simple motherly counsel in the past all might have ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer
... evolution: from Adam to the middle of the last century the world saw nothing even in the least resembling him. No son of Paian he, but a fatherless, full-grown birth from the incessant matrix of Modern Time, so motherly of monstrous litters of "Gorgon and Hydra and Chimaeras dire"; you will understand what I mean when you consider the quite recent date of, say, the introduction of anaesthetics or antiseptics, the discovery of the knee-jerk, bacteriology, ...
— Prince Zaleski • M.P. Shiel
... scarcely more than a year ago, at the semi-centennial celebration of the academy, that Franklin Pierce, the mature and distinguished man, paid a beautiful tribute to the character of Madam Woodbury, in affectionate remembrance of the motherly kindness experienced at her ...
— Sketches and Studies • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... spoken of throughout the whole world. That letter to the Corinthians proves that, by the end of the first century, the Roman Church had already drawn up fixed rules for her own guidance, that she watched with motherly care over outlying communities, and that she then knew how to use language that was at once an expression of duty, love, and authority.[317] As yet she pretends to no legal title of any kind, but she knows the "commandments and ordinances" ([Greek: prostagmata] and [Greek: dokaiomata]) ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 2 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... all, Mr. Little," said Hetty, vehemently. "I think if the baby had lived, it would have strengthened them both. It would have made Sally much happier, at any rate. She is a motherly little thing." ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Anonymous
... help and be helped by her in so many ways in which girls can help each other, as my dear Dora. Now bestir yourself, Mr. Haverley, and make Miriam look at this thing as she ought to. I don't pretend to deny that I have spoken to you very much for Dora's sake, for whom I have an almost motherly feeling; but you should act for your sister's sake. And please don't forget what I have said, young man, and give Miriam ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton
... books of yours," said Mrs. Munday, who took a motherly interest in him, "and you read and you read, and you take no account of time. And now you'll have to eat your dinner half cold, and no time for it to settle proper before you goes off to school. It's ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... her life or that I should break with her, even if my own heart should be broken in the parting. I was not violent, but Mrs. Murreyfield heard me from the passage, and came into the room to remonstrate. She was a kind, motherly person who took a sympathetic interest in our romance, and I remember that on this occasion she reproved me for my jealousy and finally persuaded me that I had been unreasonable, so that we became reconciled once more. Ena was so madly fascinating and I so hopelessly her ...
— Danger! and Other Stories • Arthur Conan Doyle
... shake, and the thing went—where I know not. The what and the where are the knotty points in the whole question! No sooner had it gone than I was seized with repentance not to have examined it more closely; not to have ascertained what the creature was. It might have been an earwig,—a very large, motherly earwig; an earwig far gone in that way in which earwigs wish to be who love their lords. I have a profound horror of earwigs; I firmly believe that they do get into the ear. That is a subject on which it is useless to argue with me upon philosophical ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... and you won't have to mix with the crew," he drawled. "I've got all kinds of room. My boss logger's wife is up from town for a while. She's a fine, motherly old party, and she keeps us all ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... would find her sitting there and laugh at her, till seeing the footman passing she called "Samuel" in a terrified voice, and made him walk before her backwards down the stairs till she safely reached the sitting-room.' For all these younger children Maria seems to have had a most tender and motherly regard, as indeed for all her young brothers and sisters of the different families. Many of them were the heroines of her various stories, and few heroines are more charming than some of Miss Edgeworth's. Rosamund is said by some to have been Maria ...
— A Book of Sibyls - Miss Barbauld, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs Opie, Miss Austen • Anne Thackeray (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie)
... had always warmly welcomed Paul, when Count Oreshefski presided over the legation house in London, and Paul had responded to her motherly interest by opening his heart to a greater extent even than to his own mother, the proud Lady Henrietta. For the Countess had known and loved his Queen—a fact which formed an unalterable bond of ...
— High Noon - A New Sequel to 'Three Weeks' by Elinor Glyn • Anonymous
... and she had had lessons with them for many months at a time in the last few years, so they had the strong bond in friendship of having worked as well as played together. But Mrs. Duncan had been very motherly and dear to our friend, and just now seemed nearer and more helpful than ever. The train whistled along and the homesick feeling soon passed, though Betty remembered that Mrs. Duncan had said once that wherever you may put two persons one is always hostess and the other always guest, ...
— Betty Leicester - A Story For Girls • Sarah Orne Jewett
... miss,' she said, in a motherly sort of tone; 'the mistress may be out some time yet. I hope you didn't find the open trap cold. John, he will have his way sometimes, but I said to him you would have been better with the closed wagonette. I hope John didn't make too free, miss? He has a longer ...
— Dwell Deep - or Hilda Thorn's Life Story • Amy Le Feuvre
... her heart, she planned that even this sacrifice to her motherly affection might be turned to some account in the way of trade. Accordingly, there appeared in the Nottingham Herald an advertisement, extending across two columns, headed with imposing capitals, by which the public were informed that Mrs Hodgett being about ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... Her poor broken-hearted story was told. Being a married woman, unhappily married, too, I was a danger to her beloved son, and she had come to me in her sweet, unmindful, motherly selfishness to ask me ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... ran in here, like as we did, to have some slight repairs done, and Kathy was landed. She seemed to take at once to motherly Mrs. Holbein, who offered to adopt her, and as the captain of the gun-boat had no more notion than the man-in-the-moon who the child belonged to, or what to do with her, he gladly handed her over, so here she has been livin' ever since. Of course attempts ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... not my daughter; I do not even know who she is," the woman replied, as she bent over the beautiful stranger with a tender, motherly face. ...
— His Heart's Queen • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... has lost Him. Opposite this terrible convulsive Magdalen, sobbing, tearing her hair and rolling on the ground, is the other heart-broken woman, the mother; but how different! She remains maternal through her grief, with motherly thoughtfulness for others; for to the real mother (how different in this to the lover!) there will always remain in the world some one to think of. She bridles her sorrow; when John at last hesitatingly suggests that they must not stay all night on Calvary, she turns quietly homeward; ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... a husband for her daughter. No painter! And in vain did Soldevilla put on his brightest ties and show off shocking waistcoats; his rival crushed him and, what was worse, the master's wife, who formerly used to have a sort of motherly concern for him and called him by his first name, for she had known him as a boy, now received him coldly, as if she wished to discourage his ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... believed he was well enough to leave his room; but Mrs. Belding would not permit him to do so. She was kind, soft-handed, motherly, and she was always coming in to minister to his comfort. This attention was sincere, not in the least forced; yet Gale felt that the friendliness so manifest in the others of the household did not extend to her. He was conscious of something that a little thought ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... feet, not knowing who or what I should see, drawing my sword as I did so, but when I caught a glimpse of a nice motherly looking woman and a mild-looking old gentleman standing before me apparently very much alarmed, I hastily stepped forward and made a low bow, begging their pardon for having intruded in this unseemly fashion. I explained my errand, ...
— The Enchanted Island • Fannie Louise Apjohn
... telephone and unlimited credit at the stores, an' Mrs. Hammond was a motherly soul of much experience with children, an' I knew that I ...
— Keeping up with Lizzie • Irving Bacheller
... also rose. "Why do you run off in such a hurry? You can stretch out right here on my sofa...." She paused, and her smile grew more motherly. "Afterwards—if there's been any talk at home, and you want to get away for a while... I have a lady friend in Boston who's looking for a companion... you're the very one to suit her, ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton
... to buy Black Hill," said Mrs. Jardine, and turned to the fire. The tutor joined her there. He had for her liking and admiration, and she for him almost a motherly affection. Now she smiled as ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston
... start and introduced him at his mother's house. The Breunings were in good circumstances, cultivated, good-natured and hospitable. They delighted in having him about, and treated him with the utmost consideration. Madame von Breuning formed a sincere, motherly affection for him; he was soon on a footing in their house almost equal to that of a member of the family. He went with them about this time on a visit to some of their relations in another city. They were instrumental in ...
— Beethoven • George Alexander Fischer
... travail and pain of State affairs; and that since God had blessed her with a fair and hopeful son, she was desirous to ensure to him, even while she yet lived, his succession to the crown, which was his by right of hereditary descent. "Wherefore," the instrument proceeded, "we, of the motherly affection we bear to our said son, have renounced and demitted, and by these our letters of free good-will, renounce and demit, the Crown, government, and guiding of the realm of Scotland, in favour of our said son, that he may succeed to us as native Prince thereof, as much as if we had ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... As she did so, it seemed to her that something knocked against her door from without. Opening it quickly, she was almost certain that the sound of a rustling skirt retreated along the passage. It was very late; perhaps she had disturbed the house by shutting her window. No doubt it was the motherly interest of Mrs. Randolph that impelled her to come softly and look after her; and for once her simple surmises were correct. For not only the inspecting eyes of her hostess, but the amatory glances of the youthful Emile, had been fastened upon her window until the light disappeared, and even the ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte
... this deep affection and remarkable oneness showed no signs of the end to which obviously it was drifting. That kiss which the girl had given to the boy was pure sisterly, or one might almost say, motherly, and indeed this quality inspired their relationship for much longer than might have been expected. So much was this so that no one connected with them on either side ever had the slightest suspicion that they cared for each other in any way ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard
... indeed right or just, but consistent and clear. Helena's native force and rectitude of mind are approved from the first in her just appreciation of Parolles; and her nobility of soul and beauty of character are reflected all along in the honest sagacity of Lafeu and the wise motherly affection of the Countess, who never see or think of her but to turn her advocates and wax eloquent in her behalf. The thoughtful and benevolent King also, on becoming acquainted with her, is even more taken with her moral and intellectual beauty than with her service in restoring ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... With motherly concern Mrs. Brewster followed her husband, and in order to be experienced when that trip east was to be taken, Sary dragged Jeb ...
— Polly and Eleanor • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... Branning had been sent for to act as nurse and temporary house-keeper, and, at the urgent request of the widower, remained for a time after the funeral. Weeks passed, and her house was still tenantless. Mildred had become so much attached to the motherly widow and her son, that she would not allow the servants to do anything for her. So, without any definite agreement, their relations continued. By-and-by the village gossips began to query and surmise. At the sewing- society the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... religion it is necessary to distinguish inner inspiration from historical entanglements. Unfortunately, as the whole doctrinal form of this religion is irrelevant to its spirit and imposed from without, being due to the step-motherly nurture it received from the Church, we can reach a conception of its inner spirit only by studying its tendency and laws of change or its incidental expression in literature and custom. Yet these indirect ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... approve and applaud my design of withdrawing myself from all tumult and business of the world and consecrating the little rest of my time to those studies to which nature had so motherly inclined me, and from which fortune like a step-mother has so long detained me. But nevertheless, you say—which But is aerugo mera, a rust which spoils the good metal it grows upon. But, you say, you would advise me not to precipitate that resolution, but to stay a while longer with patience ...
— Cowley's Essays • Abraham Cowley
... infant, which she seemed to carry with especial care and tenderness. Sometimes, too, in the bleak afternoons, she would be seen wending her way through mud and mire, setting her weary face against the bitter east wind, and patiently singing on; and motherly women, coming from the gay shops and stores, where they had been purchasing Christmas toys for their own children, would often stop to look at the baby's pinched, white features with pity, and would ...
— Stories By English Authors: London • Various
... artificial place; it is so by our choice and for our sins. The subjection of women; the ideal imposed upon them from the cradle, and worn, like a hair-shirt, with so much constancy; their motherly, superior tenderness to man's vanity and self-importance; their managing arts-the arts of a civilised slave among good-natured barbarians-are all painful ingredients and all help to falsify relations. It is not till we get clear of that amusing artificial scene that genuine ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Sellingworth. His mother was dead. He certainly did not think of Lady Sellingworth as what is sometimes called "a second mother." There was nothing maternal about her, and he was fully aware of that. Besides, she did not fascinate him in the motherly way. No; but owing to the great difference in their ages he felt that he could talk to her as he could talk to nobody else. For he was in no intimate relation with any other woman so much older than himself. And to young women somehow one can never ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... made Daisy feel very meek. Her kiss had been affectionate, her care was motherly; but with all that there was not a turn of her hand nor a tone of her calm voice, that did not imply and express absolute possession, perfect control. That Daisy was a little piece of property belonging ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... like to be beautiful, dear child?" said a voice close at her side, and, when Ruth looked up, she saw an old woman whom she never had seen before. She was clothed in a long blue dress, and her face was full of motherly love. Ruth's heart was filled with gladness, for seldom had so affectionate a glance been shed on her; and when the old woman bent down and kissed her, how all remembrance of the indifference of father, mother, friends, ...
— The Angel Children - or, Stories from Cloud-Land • Charlotte M. Higgins
... subsequently filled all Christian lands, turned back to the poor, aged woman of whom he had bought his gingerbread and solicited her advice. The good old soul, not insensible to the charms of the frank and manly looking boy, with motherly tenderness insisted on his going to her own humble home. Gladly he accepted the invitation. The dinner consisted of what is called ox-cheek; Franklin contributed a pot ...
— Benjamin Franklin, A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago - American Pioneers and Patriots Series • John S. C. Abbott
... her own palace of the Tranquil Motherly Virtues, she caused the Lady A-Kuei to be summoned to her presence, who came, habited in a purple robe and with pins of jade and coral in her hair. And the Pearl Empress considered her attentively, recalling the perfect features ...
— The Ninth Vibration And Other Stories • L. Adams Beck
... back of the hand in which he held his hat. She felt as if at that moment she touched a furnace, and she saw him shiver slightly, as over-fatigued men sometimes shiver in daylight. An extraordinary, almost motherly, sensation of pity for him came over her. She did not know why. The intense heat of his hand, the shiver that ran over his body, his attitude as he shrank with a kind of timid, yet ferocious, politeness against the white wall, the expression ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... but could gain there no information whatever. The house had changed owners, and its former occupants had scattered, no one could say whither. But, by a persistent search among the neighboring houses, he did find a bright motherly woman, who, more than fifteen years before, had come, a bride, to live in an opposite house, and who well remembered a tall, dark-complexioned young woman sitting one night on the steps of the shabby boarding-house over the way. Some one had ...
— Donald and Dorothy • Mary Mapes Dodge
... Ulysses reproacheth Thersites, he objecteth not to him his lameness nor his baldness nor his hunched back, but the vicious quality of indiscreet babbling. On the other side, when Juno means to express a dalliance or motherly fondness to her son Vulcan, she courts him with an epithet taken ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... naebody with the tong but women of my ain sect. I wish, Mr. Butler, I kend onything that wad mak ye weel, for they hae mair medicines in this town of York than wad cure a' Scotland, and surely some of them wad be gude for your complaints. If ye had a kindly motherly body to nurse ye, and no to let ye waste yoursell wi' reading—whilk ye read mair than eneugh wi' the bairns in the schule—and to gie ye warm milk in the morning, I wad be mair easy for ye. Dear Mr. Butler, keep a good heart, for we are in the hands of Ane that kens better what is ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... grandmother!" briefly ejaculated Pomona. And then, in grand forgetfulness of everything but her great joy, she folded her arms around her child, and standing like a statue of motherly content, she seemed, in our eyes, to rise to the regions of the caryatides and the ceiling frescos. Not another word she spoke, and amid the confusion of questions and exclamations, and the wild demands of the lady, Euphemia and I contrived to make her understand the true state of the case, ...
— The Rudder Grangers Abroad and Other Stories • Frank R. Stockton
... apparently been so guilty, but it was evident that there were moments when Mrs. Vanderpoel was uneasy and disposed to ask anxious questions. When this occurred he destroyed the letters, and as a result of this precaution on his part her motherly queries seemed to be ignored, and she several times shed tears in the belief that Rosy had grown so patrician that she was capable of snubbing her mother in her resentment at feeling her privacy intruded upon ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... her down with motherly care - Head, shoulders, arm, and foot, To the very hem of the robes that drape her - All expertly And alertly, Till a ...
— Moments of Vision • Thomas Hardy
... companion was a motherly sort of person of the farmer class, who eyed me affectionately—too affectionately to please me—and attempted to condole with me on ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed
... more so; yet happier than ever now as he stepped into the freshly furbished upper chamber which was his own, his very home. All the dear familiar books on the shelves, the snowy bed, the dainty neatness of the place that showed the motherly touch of old Griselda everywhere, even to the bunch of ...
— Dorothy's Travels • Evelyn Raymond
... a most kind, motherly woman," Harry said. "But it isn't the Back Kitchen, neither," he added ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Mrs. Y., who was a much older woman, and more motherly, "don't excite yourself. They brought him here about half an hour ago, and, to tell you the truth, I never looked at him. He is in here. I don't think they troubled to take off even his boots. If you keep cool, we will get ...
— Three Men on the Bummel • Jerome K. Jerome
... were developing, some of the old women of the Hog Mountain Range had begun to manifest a sort of motherly interest in the affairs of Woodward and Sis Poteet. These women, living miles apart on the mountain and its spurs, had a habit of "picking up their work" and spending the day with each other. Upon one occasion it chanced that Mrs. Sue Parmalee and Mrs. Puritha ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... Louise is a motherly child, already eight years old, and always willing and glad to take care of the younger ones; indeed, she calls Gretchen her baby, and the little one ...
— The Seven Little Sisters Who Live on the Round Ball - That Floats in the Air • Jane Andrews
... Please don't; it hurts me so—it nearly kills me!" And with the loved pictures of home—the motherly face, with its white cap; the mother's bed, with his own little trundle-bed underneath; the table, with its white cloth folded and laid upon it; the hickory-bound cedar water-bucket, with its crooked handled gourd; the red corner-cupboard, with its ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... to send her to college and you thought you would come over and let me give her a little motherly counsel while you borrowed the money of Tom Adams to pay her college bills. ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... different had Agatha been present, but that ingenious maiden was at school at Brighton. Had her daughter been in the room, Mrs. Ingham-Baker's motherly instinct would have narrowed itself down to her. But in the absence of her own child, Luke's sorry plight appealed to that larger maternal instinct which makes ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... bright-eyed, motherly little person, with a quick appreciation of a joke, and a wonderful knack at cooking. Incidentally she had a quiet voice and chose soft colors in preference to crude ones. Peter gathered from her manner of speech and from the delicate modeling of her hands that at some time in her life ...
— The Story of Leather • Sara Ware Bassett
... that such a doom should have fallen upon one who so little deserved it. Mrs. Owen met them at the door, and her manner told them that she had heard what had resulted from the meeting. She took Harriet at once in her motherly arms. ...
— Peggy Owen and Liberty • Lucy Foster Madison
... of obstacles had attended his intrusion into the castle. A brief interview with a motherly old lady, whom even Albert seemed to treat with respect, and who, it appeared was Mrs. Digby, the house-keeper; followed by an even briefer encounter with Keggs (fussy and irritable with responsibility, and, even ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... soon as Kitty went out of the room in tears, Dolly, with her motherly, family instincts, had promptly perceived that here a woman's work lay before her, and she prepared to do it. She took off her hat, and, morally speaking, tucked up her sleeves and prepared for action. While her mother was attacking her father, she tried to restrain ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... Mr. Harrison's. Emma said, mamma was a great gardener, and accordingly they found her cutting off flowers past their prime. She gave Violet a bouquet of geranium and heliotrope, and conducted her to her room with that motherly kindness and solicitude so comfortable to a lonely guest in a ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... to the little girl, and when Mrs. Noah looked over at her and said, in a motherly way, "I always wanted a little girl of my own," Marjorie felt ...
— The Cruise of the Noah's Ark • David Cory
... forward, looking into the fire. The light of the blaze was on her face, appealingly soft and girlishly sweet. Mrs. Chadron laid a hand on her hair in motherly caress, moved by a tenderness quite foreign to the vindictive creed which she had pronounced against the nesters but a little ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden
... that Master Herbert's condition caused them no surprise. We carried him to the servants' hall and laid him in an armchair, to rest our arms, while the motherly cook lifted his unconscious head to lay a pillow ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... was different. What a smiling welcome they received, my grandfather standing with his hat off, my grandmother with the tears in her motherly vehement eyes, gathering the two wanderers defiantly to her breast as if daring all the world to come on. Behind a little (but not much) was Aunt Jen, asserting her position and rights in the house. She did not seem to see ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... old Jane "mixing" with those Harpeth Valley farmer folk was one of the things I have put aside to remember for always. They all knew me, of course, and I was a bit teary at their greetings. Big motherly women took me in their arms and younger ones laid their babies in my arms and laughed and cried over me, while every few minutes some rugged old farmer would call out for Colonel Shelby's "little gal" and look searchingly in my face for the likeness to my fire-eating, ...
— The Tinder-Box • Maria Thompson Daviess
... faithfully. If she ever felt in her heart any jealousy as she saw Polly growing up a pretty bright little maiden, as different to the usual child product of Varley as could well be, she was wise enough never to express her thoughts, and behaved with motherly kindness to her in the evening hours spent at home. She would perhaps have felt the task a harder one had her own elder children been girls; but three boys came first, and a girl was not born until she had been married eleven years. Polly, ...
— Through the Fray - A Tale of the Luddite Riots • G. A. Henty
... her agitation. Men of Lord Dreever's type appeal to the motherly instinct of women. As a man, his lordship was a negligible quantity. He did not count. But as a willful child, to be kept out of trouble, he had ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... was stilled by a call from an opening door, sounded good to him. And when he was in the house, where he was welcomed by big, genial Cal Smith, and seated at a table in the kitchen, devouring ham and eggs and home-made bread and pie, and drinking hot coffee, provided by good-natured, motherly Mrs. Cal—why, it was almost worth the tramp to meet such a reception at the ...
— Injun and Whitey to the Rescue • William S. Hart
... del Borne. Back to Majorca, then! He would not live in a palace; the Febrer mansion he would lose forever, according to the arrangement made by his friend Valls; but he would not fail to have a neat little house in the ward of Terreno or somewhere near the sea, and in it the motherly care of Mammy Antonia. No sorrow, no shame would await him there. He would even be rid of the presence of Don Benito Valls and his daughter, from whom he had so discourteously fled, without a word of excuse. The rich Chueta, according to his brother's letter, now lived in ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... Raydon, beginning to walk up and down the room, while I felt in such a whirl of excitement, as I saw Mrs John's beautiful, motherly eyes fixed lovingly on mine, and felt Mr John snatch my hand and press it, and then give vent to his delight at the clearing up by slapping me heavily on the shoulder, that I could not see Mr Raydon's puckered brow. What I did see was the bear's head looking ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... his mate was out of his sight did not, however, compare with her unrest in his absence, for her affection seemed to be of the motherly or protecting sort. Before they became familiar with the room, and learned that, though unseen, the partner was not lost, the moment he disappeared from view she began running around the cage excitedly, ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller
... age, with snowy hair and gentle face, was deputed by the town authorities to do our cooking. Her relatives live in Juchitan, and why she had chosen to live among these people I do not know. She took a motherly interest in all our party. Nothing was too good for us. She spent her whole time in hunting supplies and cooking and serving food. Not only did she insist on all our purchases being supplied at cheapest rates, but her own charge for help and service was ridiculously small. From early morning ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr
... mother, which led that worthy person to become responsible for the young officer's recovery, no one ever knew except the two women themselves, but in addition to being a motherly-hearted woman, Mrs. Allenthorne was a soldier's daughter as well as a soldier's wife, so perhaps it was not necessary to explain so many things to her as it would have been to ...
— Anting-Anting Stories - And other Strange Tales of the Filipinos • Sargent Kayme
... good as gold," said the little creature, oh, in such a motherly, womanly way. "And when Emma's tired, he puts her to bed. And when he's tired he goes to bed himself. And when I come home and light the candle, and has a bit of supper, he sits up again and has it with ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... was conjectured that the baby, pending the arrival of a step-mother, would be handed over to the cook, a rotund motherly person who was fond of asserting that she had buried thirteen children and ...
— An Australian Lassie • Lilian Turner
... think you are officious or meddling or anything of the sort, I think you are one of the best and kindest-hearted women in the world. But—bless your motherly soul, Polly! the thing is utterly preposterous. Of course, Patricia is young, and likes attention, and it pleases her to have men admire her. That, Polly, is perfectly natural. Why, you wouldn't expect her to sit around ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... Lobkins heaved a long sigh, as her eyes turned from Paul to the tranquil countenance of Dummie Dunnaker, and now, re-settling herself in her chair, as a motherly anxiety gathered over ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... so sorry you are going," she said, with a would-be motherly smile. "Of course I will send it anywhere you wish—but why not leave it here in my care?" And then she could not resist asking one question: "Are you going to Minerva Downs, ...
— Chinkie's Flat and Other Stories - 1904 • Louis Becke
... some time before she would unloose him from her motherly embrace, and when she did the skeleton grasped him by the hand and said, in the most ...
— Toby Tyler • James Otis
... in mouth, at the mail boat and the sailing vessels lying in the stream. There were four in all—the steamer, an American whaling barque, a small brig of about two hundred tons flying the Hawaiian Island colours, and a big, sprawling, motherly-looking full-rigged ship, whose huge bow ports denoted her ...
— Edward Barry - South Sea Pearler • Louis Becke
... to the terrace of the hotel is a little public park called the Kleine Schanze—haunt of well-behaved Bernese children, of motherly Bernese housewives supplied with knitting and the gossip of the town, of Bernese patriarchs in search of gentle exercise and sunshine. This little park possesses a music-pavilion, a duck-pond, a monument ...
— The Letter of the Contract • Basil King
... provisionally, while with comfortable, motherly, half-suppressed chest-sounds, and a round eye cocked for finds among the dirt, remarkably altogether the appearance of a pensive white hen, she made believe to scratch up the earth with her feet. A rather sympathetic performance, ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... coom at last, David!" the woman cried, as the boy entered; and, bending, greeted him with a tender, motherly salutation, which he returned as affectionately. "I welly thowt yo'd forgot us this mornin'. Noo sit you' doon beside oor Maggie." And soon he, too, was engaged in a ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... Mrs. Ispenlove, with an almost motherly accent, urged me to have another cup of tea, 'if you knew me, if you knew me, what would you say to me? Would your charity be strong enough to overcome your instincts?' And as I had felt older than my aunt, so I felt ...
— Sacred And Profane Love • E. Arnold Bennett
... for a moment, then he bent over, with an expression of almost motherly softness in his big, rugged face. He got Eileen's hand in his left hand and Phil's ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... for her boy stronger than pride or anger. She went; and there came into one of the dusk drawing-rooms of the Royals, a little white vision, with fair, floating hair, and pathetic blue eyes—a little creature, so like a child, that the tender, motherly heart of the great lady went out to ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... hurried off and tapped lightly on Mrs. Littell's door. That lady hurriedly admitted them, her motherly mind ...
— Betty Gordon at Boarding School - The Treasure of Indian Chasm • Alice Emerson
... tease her!" Mary Wright, the eldest, stupidest, and most motherly girl in the school, exclaimed. "How can you drink without putting your ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... back-yard, when there's no linen; but when there's linen to keep the neighbours' eyes off, he'll sit there, hours. Hours he will. Says he feels as if it was groves!' Mrs Chivery shook her head again, put her apron in a motherly way to her eyes, and reconducted her visitor into the regions of ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
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