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More "Tiptoe" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... common home, your names will derive fresh lustre from the contrast; and when your children shall hear repeated the familiar tale, it will be with glowing cheek and kindling eye; their very souls will stand a-tiptoe as their sires are named, and they will glory in their lineage from men of spirit as generous and of patriotism as high-hearted as ever illustrated ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... for definite precision of outline. There are no vague hints and suggestions, no lurking shadows concealing untold horrors. The quaint dwarfs perched on Vathek's shoulders, the children chasing blue butterflies, Nouronihar and her maidens on tiptoe, with their hair floating in the breeze, stand out in clear relief, as if painted on a fresco. The imagery is so lucid that we are able to follow with effortless pleasure the intricate windings of a plot which ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... Jane hastily slipped off the skirt, presenting rather a funny appearance herself with her habit basque and the blue lawn dress showing beneath. Sherm dismounted, turning Calico over to Ernest to hold. The entire party shouted when Jane reached up on tiptoe to throw the clumsy skirt over his head. Sherm neglected to hold it, and the shot in the hem promptly dropped it to ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... Schwerin played carelessly with the branch of the lilac which she held in her hand. She plucked off the small blossoms, and throwing them in the air, blew them about, as she danced here and there on tiptoe. ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... sunshine. It was just as impossible for her to keep still as it would be for a dancing sunbeam to become motionless. Now, as she watched the gull, she suddenly jumped to her feet, and poising on tiptoe, swayed her slender body in rhythm with the ...
— The Merriweather Girls and the Mystery of the Queen's Fan • Lizette M. Edholm
... that no lanterns illume Stand groups of slim lilies and jonquils in bloom; On tiptoe, unseen 'mid a tangle of green, They offer the ...
— Ponkapog Papers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... at the gate, stole on tiptoe along the gravelled path, knocked and listened. The whole front of the little house was in darkness, but by-and-by even Reuben from his post behind the hedge heard the faint noise made by slippered feet in the oil-clothed hall. "Who's there?" ...
— Aunt Rachel • David Christie Murray
... city: A mighty mass of brick and smoke and shipping, Dirty and dusky, but as wide as eye Could reach, with here and there a sail just skipping In sight, then lost amid the forestry Of masts; a wilderness of steeples peeping On tiptoe through their sea-coal canopy; A huge dun cupola like a foolscap crown On a fool's head—and there ...
— England of My Heart—Spring • Edward Hutton
... still very ill, Biron and his wife made bold to enter his room on tiptoe, and kept behind his curtains, out of sight, as they thought; but he perceived them by means of the glass on the chimney- piece. Lauzun liked Biron tolerably well, but Madame Biron not at all; she was, nevertheless, his niece, and his principal heiress; he thought ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... wall that rose a little above the water in the basin, and this I was induced to do; for, as I was searching for Martha, I thought I heard a voice in the arbour, and I hurried on to tell her what I had done to old Morgan. I stept steadily on tiptoe along the coping-stone—for I wished to surprise her—but on getting to the opening of the arbour, a sight met my eyes that made me lose my balance all of a sudden; and with a start of rage and indignation, I ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... front of us, spreading her arms out, then slowly backwards, and so motioning us to halt under the shadow of the wall. Obeying, we saw her tiptoe forwards, till, coming to the door which had just been closed, she crept close and tapped on it softly, yet in a way that struck me as being deliberate. Afterwards, thinking it over, I felt pretty sure that ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... treatment shocked the man from his stupor. Stepping on tiptoe he darted across the room, through the door communicating with a room beyond, into a narrow passageway at the rear of the house. Here was a second staircase leading ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... world are, certainly, the drivers of post- office vans. Swinging down Lamb's Conduit Street, the scarlet van rounded the corner by the pillar box in such a way as to graze the kerb and make the little girl who was standing on tiptoe to post a letter look up, half frightened, half curious. She paused with her hand in the mouth of the box; then dropped her letter and ran away. It is seldom only that we see a child on tiptoe with pity—more often a dim discomfort, a grain of sand in the shoe which it's scarcely ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... sanctuary, where countless waving, nodding plumes, bent and released by a gentle-flowing wind, had shimmered in the bright radiance of the harvest moon, when, coming home late at night from the marsh across the hill, she had stayed for a while on the mound by the gate, and tiptoe, with black-fringed ears moving restlessly, had listened to some ominous sound in the farmyard. The prickly stubble felt strange to her feet, so, carefully picking her way by the ditch, she crossed ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... high, grass-covered bank and search for signs of danger. It looked firm and solid enough, with its thick, green sod, its fringe of willows along the top, but with the whispering haste of the river sounding plainly against its outer wall. Standing on tiptoe, they could catch sight of the swift, sliding water, risen so high that it touched the very top of the bank. The roar of the swollen current could be heard all across the valley, but it was not so ominous, somehow, as the smaller ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs
... look-out, when, through the darkness in the gallery at the further end, she saw a ray of light on the floor, which seemed to come from under the door of a room unoccupied—Mr. Mapletofft's room; he had gone to town with Lord Davenant. Helen went on tiptoe very softly along the gallery, almost to this door, when it suddenly opened, and the page stood before her, the lamp in his hand shining full on his face and on hers. Both started—then both were motionless for one second—but he, recovering instantly, ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... howbe, might not forbear, But reckless all he pricked his mare In thickest of the brake; Then climbed his saddle-bow amain, And tiptoe 'gan to stretch and strain Some nether bough to take. A nether bough he raught at last; He with his right hand held it fast, And with his left him fed: His sturdy mare abode the shock, And bore, as steadfast as a rock, ...
— Song and Legend From the Middle Ages • William D. McClintock and Porter Lander McClintock
... Felicia came in from her long day in the garden. And the little girl always knew if her mother's door were closed that she must tiptoe softly so as not to disturb her. There was a reward for being quiet. In the niche of the stairway Felice would find a good-night gift—sometimes a cooky in a small basket or an apple or a flower,—something to make a little girl smile even if her mother ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke
... said, "It is all over," and put her softly into the big chair. She covered her face with her hands, and he must have thought she was crying, for he tried to comfort her. But as soon as he was gone she rose, with such a queer face, and went on tiptoe to the bed, and looked intently at her husband, and then she clapped her hands ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... and showed himself publicly; but at night the police—those stalwart county men—paid a tiptoe visit to his bedroom. They had no right to this privilege, but perhaps Harry thought it would be better for his brother if they did so. Why they went on tiptoe was that Harry told them his brother was in so weak ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... assent weakly, and she even stood on tiptoe to kiss the lips that seemed to caress her through a cloud of hair, but her expression was sad and her listless movements were like a withered flower's, as if there was no joy on earth that could lift her out of ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... attendant stole on tiptoe to the strong-room, unlocked the door, and peeped cautiously in. Seeing the dangerous maniac quiet, he entered with a plate of lukewarm beef and potatoes, and told him bluntly to eat. The crushed one said he could not eat. "You must," ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... became all at once rhetorical hyperbole. I might suspect his thermometer (as indeed I did, for we Harvard men are apt to think ill of any graduation but our own); but it was a poor consolation. The fact remained that his herald Mercury, standing a tiptoe, could look down on mine. I seem to glimpse something of this familiar weakness in Mr. White. He, too, has shared in these mercurial triumphs and defeats. Nor do I doubt that he had a true country-gentleman's interest in the weather-cock; ...
— My Garden Acquaintance • James Russell Lowell
... command to the letter. When the year and a day came she had been able to stand on tiptoe and look at herself for the first time in her life; and she would never forget the gladness of that moment. It had appeared nothing short of a miracle to her that she should actually possess something of which she need not be ashamed—something ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... pretty rough sometimes. He tell dem what time to get up en sound de horn for dat time. Had to go to work fore daybreak en if dey didn' be dere on time en work like dey ought to, de overseer sho whip dem. Tie de slaves clear de ground by dey thumbs wid nigger cord en make dem tiptoe en draw it tight as could be. Pull clothes off dem fore dey tie dem up. Dey didn' care nothin bout it. Let everybody look on at it. I know when dey whip my mamma. Great God, in de mornin! Dey sho had whippin posts en whippin houses too in dem days, but didn' have ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... arrested the remonstrance. Stepping on tiptoe to the door she locked it, and approached her young mistress with an ostentatious attempt at treading lightly, shaking her head and pursing up her mouth in token of secrecy, while she fumbled in her bosom for something that seemed hard ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... out his cloak on the rock and is asleep; his javelins in his left hand, just slipping from his grasp, the right arm bent upwards, making a bright frame to the face, and he breathing softly in helpless slumber. Then I come noiselessly down, treading on tiptoe not to wake and startle him—but there, you know all about it; why tell you the rest? I am dying of love, ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... her arms high and stood on tiptoe to meet them. She shook her hair loose from its plait and threw back her head, loving it all—the wind and the dark sky and the tense feeling of readiness for the storm with which everything seemed charged—with an almost ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox
... bag, sweeping out of the darkness, sped across her floor—it was only then that Katharine's heart ceased from pulsing with a flutter. All the while the letters were out of her own hands she moved on tiptoe, as if she were a hunter intent on surprising a coy quarry. Nevertheless, it was impossible for her to believe that this was a dangerous game; it was impossible to believe that the heavy, unsuspicious and benevolent man who tried clumsily to gain his daughter's love with bribes of cakes and ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... in flowery wreaths "And tiptoe Joys their hands combine; "And Love his sweet contagion breathes, 320 "And laughing dances ...
— The Botanic Garden. Part II. - Containing The Loves of the Plants. A Poem. - With Philosophical Notes. • Erasmus Darwin
... heart and many sighs he took the key from the big bunch. When he had opened the door he stepped in first, and thought to cover the likeness so that the King might not perceive it; but it was hopeless: the King stood on tiptoe and looked over his shoulder. And when he saw the picture of the maid, so beautiful and glittering with gold and precious stones, he fell swooning to the ground. Trusty John lifted him up, carried him ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... was very curious to know where I was going, and asked me many questions, which I had some trouble in answering. But at last it was night again, and the old woman went to bed and left me. Then I went on tiptoe to the kitchen, and found a skein of thread and two needles, and set ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... and map-cases, and a thermometer to be kept at not less than 58 and not more than 62, and ventilators which the Inspector is careful to examine. When I stumbled in last week the teacher was drilling the children in Tonic Sol-fa with a little harmonium, and I left on tiptoe. ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren
... own chamber began to lighten. She looked over her shoulder and saw the first faint rays of dawn showing through a small aperture near the roof and at the opposite end of the room. She rose and moved quickly toward it. By standing on tiptoe and pulling herself up a trifle with her hands upon the sill she was able to raise her eyes above the bottom ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Park,—a spacious pile, commenced in the reign of Charles II.; enlarged and altered in the reign of Anne. Brilliant interval in the History of our National Manners, when even the courtier dreaded to be dull, and Sir Fopling raised himself on tiptoe to catch the ear of a wit; when the names of Devonshire and Dorset, Halifax and Carteret, Oxford and Bolingbroke, unite themselves, brotherlike, with those of Hobbes and of Dryden, of Prior and Bentley, of Arbuthnot, Gay, Pope, and Swift; and still, wherever we turn, to recognize ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... gods provided. His face glowed with almost beatific light as he saw his dream slowly take form. Nothing he had ever done equalled this masterpiece. The project was his first thought at waking, the last before closing his eyes at night. Sometimes, even, when all but the sea slept, he would tiptoe downstairs, candle in hand, just to steal a glance at the child of his fancy. So absorbed was he in its growth and progress that it never crossed his mind to marvel that two men of Howard Snelling's and Robert Morton's ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... to see how many brace of little boys he could bag in a morning; so, in passing along the streets, he peeped into all the drawing-rooms, without having occasion to get upon tiptoe, and picked up every young gentleman who was idly looking out of the windows, and even a few occasionally who were playing truant from school; but busy children seemed always somehow quite out of ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... is not vain, perhaps, to try clumsily to tell how this delicious uneasiness first captured the spirit of one who, if not a poet, is at least a lover of poetry. Thus he first looked beyond the sunset; stood, if not on Parnassus, tiptoe upon a little hill. And overhead a great ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... corner, my steps were arrested by the surprising sight of—Beauty!—the very identical devil himself! There stood the unhangable, undrownable, hurricane-creating beast, looking as serene as a newly-born black cherub, washing his fiendish face! I approached on tiptoe, breathlessly, with the basket behind my back and the half chicken extended as a peaceable card of introduction. He scented it instantly—my aunt always keeping Beauty's tit-bits until sufficiently gamey to suit his highly ...
— The Idler, Volume III., Issue XIII., February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly. Edited By Jerome K. Jerome & Robert Barr • Various
... but Letty forgot a tiny window in one of them, which looked also upon the ricks. There was a back stair to the kitchen, and in the kitchen a door to the farm-yard. She stole down the stair, and opened the door with absolute noiselessness. In a moment more she had stolen on tiptoe round the corner, and was creeping like a ghost among the ricks. Not even a rustle betrayed her as she came up to Tom from behind. He still knelt where she had left him, looking up to her window, which gleamed like a dead eye in the ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... behind the stove. "Well, Andy, have you been here ever since?" she asked, and, as he came forward, she suddenly caught him by both arms, stood on tiptoe, and kissed him. "Last time I saw you, you were behind the stove at Lumley's. Nothing's ever too warm for you," she added. "You'd be shivering on the equator. You were always hugging the stove ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... at all, do we, sister?" said Beth, stretching up on tiptoe to get her "bawheady" from the bureau. "We'd just as lief give it away as not, 'cause we've ...
— What Two Children Did • Charlotte E. Chittenden
... dropped his spade, and went leaping down the hill. When he entered the kitchen his mother was sitting at the table and Elmira was taking up the dinner. Elmira was a small, pretty girl, with little, nervous hands and feet, and eager black eyes, like her mother's. She stretched on tiptoe over the fire, and ladled out a steaming mixture from the kettle with an arduous swing of her sharp elbow. Elmira's sleeves were rolled up and her thin, sharply-jointed, ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... does," put in a voice from behind; it was Winnie, who had followed them on tiptoe, unknown to them, all the way. "She's got a funny quirk in her back, 'n' she lies down pretty much. That's her room up there to the top of the house. It's a real nice place, I tell you. They have onions mos' every day. Besides, I saw a little boy here one time when I was comin' 'long with mother, ...
— Gypsy's Cousin Joy • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... is dry thinking; let's to drinking!" As he spoke Villon rose to join his comrades, when his quick eye noted that Robin Turgis had fallen asleep on his bench. Villon skipped lightly toward him, dexterously unhooked his bunch of keys from his girdle, and, with a triumphant gesture, made on tiptoe for the cellar door, which he unlocked and through which he disappeared. Louis looked after him with an acid smile. Tristan leaned forward and plucked at the kind's sleeve. "Shall I hang him to-morrow?" he asked, ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... to stand firmly across the little path that ran from Helena's seat to the inn. She began to fidget—to drop one foot, that had been twisted under her, to the ground, as though "on tiptoe for a flight." ...
— Helena • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... know that in order to touch the better feelings of our fellow-creatures we must be able to reach up to them, or by reason of our low stature we may succeed only in appealing to the lowest in them, in spite of our tiptoe good intentions. Is that why such appeals too often meet ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... of voices and a clash of glasses followed the refrain. Master Pothier's eyes winked and blinked in sympathy. The old notary stood on tiptoe, with outspread palms, as with ore rotundo he threw in a few notes of his own to fill up ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... Euphemia came home, and the trouble about the flattened hat began. I never flattened her hat. It was in the box, and so was I; but as for deliberate flattening——It was just a thing that happened. She should not write such interesting stories if she expects me to go on tiptoe through the world looking about for her hats. To have that story taken away just at that particular moment was horrible. There was fully as much as I had read still to come, so that a lot happened after this duel of Sword v. Fiery Eye. I know from a sheet that came out of place that Margot ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... as little noise as possible, walking on tiptoe as if in the presence of the dead. She blew out the candles, doubtless wishing no more light than the rosy glow of ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... knew that her mind was made up. Then and there I made up my mind that I would watch with her—unless, of course, I should see that she really did not wish it. I said nothing of my intentions for the present. We came in on tiptoe, so silently that the Doctor, who was bending over the bed, did not hear us, and seemed a little startled when suddenly looking up he saw our eyes upon him. I felt that the mystery of the whole thing was getting on his nerves, as it had already got on the nerves of some ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker
... well as a question, for the passer-by had surprised him in a remarkable attitude. He was standing on tiptoe upon the parapet of brick, pulling himself up above the fence by his hands, and his hat had fallen into ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... politicians. They crowded round him, eying him from head to foot with great curiosity. The orator bustled up to him, and, drawing him partly aside, inquired "on which side he voted?" Rip stared in vacant stupidity. Another short but busy little fellow pulled him by the arm, and, rising on tiptoe, inquired in his ear, "Whether he was Federal or Democrat?" Rip was equally at a loss to comprehend the question; when a knowing, self-important old gentleman, in a sharp cocked hat, made his way through the crowd, putting them to the right and left with ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... very patiently a vast amount of hectoring from Russell, who was then as now a trifle snobbish and unsteady; but had finally been forced (or so we regarded it, at that hot and touchy period) to accept what was practically a challenge, and we were actually on tiptoe for a duel. Feeling ran high about it, and there might have been a very disagreeable scandal had not Tip's clear common sense and persuasive oratory burst out at the last possible minute from this murky thunder-cloud and ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... twenty minutes past ten, Mr. Burress told me later, when he detected, by stealing on tiptoe to my chair, and bending above me, that I was sound asleep, and the mantel clock was on the stroke of eleven ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... that he was a little boy—the bonniest little boy that ever was!—my life has been all Bertie. I remember him, with long curls hanging down his back and his gray eyes opened wide, when he stood on tiptoe at the piano and touched the little tunes that he had heard, and looked over his shoulder at me and laughed for pleasure in his music. I can see his little baby-fingers—the little soft fingers I used to kiss—on the keys now.—Oh, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... leaving his companion alone. There was something strange in his entering this room where the corpse lay; it seemed necessary for him to walk on tiptoe: he uncovered his head. A glance round the almost empty room speedily showed him what he wanted; there was a small wooden casket in a dusky corner by the window, and that, he made no doubt, was the box the unhappy Kirski had made to contain Natalie's portrait, and that he had quite recently ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... conciliated with gold, of which that people are most covetous." Having thus gone round through the tribes of Spain and Gaul, the ambassadors return to Rome not long after the consuls had set out for their provinces. They found the whole city on tiptoe in expectation of war, the report being sufficiently confirmed, that the Carthaginians had ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... water; if you do not watch for God coming to help you, God's watching to be gracious will be of no good at all to you. His waiting is not a substitute for ours, but because He watches therefore we should watch. We say, we expect Him to comfort and help us—well, are we standing, as it were, on tiptoe, with empty hands upraised to bring them a little nearer the gifts we look for? Are our 'eyes ever towards the Lord'? Do we pore over His gifts, scrutinising them as eagerly as a gold-seeker does the quartz in his pan, to detect ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... himself on tiptoe, and knocked with his pebble against the pane too softly to break the glass, but ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... act in spite of herself, Audrey took Nick into the bedroom, and as soon as Musa had been introduced into the drawing-room she embraced Nick in silence and escorted her on tiptoe through Miss Ingate's bedroom to the vestibule and waved an adieu. Then she retraced her steps and made a grand entry into the drawing-room from her own bedroom. She meant to dispose of Musa immediately. A meeting between him and Mr. Gilman ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... roof. The heat was more oppressive than ever before. In the faces and expressions of the awed witnesses of death's swift hand there was horror, and a growing fear. No one spoke, except in whispers. When anybody moved it was on tiptoe, cautiously. Millard's creation, "The Black Terror," could have inspired no ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve
... tiptoe, on a joint-stool, placed upon the bench, with his back to the door, and a clasp-knife in his hand, this youngster, instead of executing his appointed task, was occupied in carving his name upon a beam, overhead. Boys, at the time of which we write, ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... soul visible, when Donal put the key in the lock of the front door, opened it, and went in: he had timed his entrance so, desiring to avoid idle curiosity, and bring no gathering feet about the house. Almost on tiptoe he entered the lofty hall, high above the first story. The dust lay thick on a large marble table—but what was that?—a streak across it, brushed sharply through the middle of the dust! It was strange! But he would not wait to speculate on the agent! The room ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... soft rugs almost on tiptoe, and the colonel himself came out into the hall to meet him. 'Come in, my little man, and ...
— Teddy's Button • Amy Le Feuvre
... window, In the blue Midsummer weather, Stealing slow, on a hushed tiptoe, I catch them all together:— Bell with her bonnet of satin sheen, And Maud with her mantle of silver-green, And Kate with her ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... in make-believe, but in dreadful earnest! I mention this aspect merely as a corrective to what I had written. I do not pretend that I am ever conscious, as I enter a court, that I am come to gratify an evil instinct. I am but conscious of being glad to be there, on tiptoe of anticipation, whether it be to hear tried some particular case of whose matter I know already something, or to hear at hazard whatever case happen to be down for hearing. I never tire of the aspect of a court, the ways of a court. Familiarity does but spice them. I love the cold comfort of ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... shining islands as the heaven is dotted with stars, spread itself out to the eastward as far as my vision extended, until its entire mass of waters seemed at length to tumble headlong over the abyss of the horizon, and I found myself listening on tiptoe for the echoes of the mighty cataract. Overhead, the sky was of a jetty black, and the stars were ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... whisper.) Look around a bit and make sure there's nobody spying on us—and please look around every few seconds. (They pause and peer in every direction, perhaps creeping round on tiptoe.) ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • Wilton Wallace Blancke
... the sleepy animal to a pine tree just off the road and tiptoed toward the hollow, the appointed rendezvous. To reach this hollow he was obliged to pass through the Parker yard and, although he went on tiptoe, each footstep sounded, in his ears, like the crack of doom. He tried to think of some explanation to be made to Kenelm in case the latter should hear and hail him, but he could think of nothing more plausible than that he was taking a walk, and ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln
... like best," she answered, standing on tiptoe to kiss him. "Only say 'I love you' as you ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives
... See! am I becoming more fit to be thy queen? And he watched her, stupefied, like one in a dream, and all the while she bathed him with intoxicating side glances shot like arrows from the bow of her arching brows. And at last, she came slowly towards him, walking on tiptoe, and attitudinising, placing herself exactly in the posture in which he had seen her first among the poppies on the wall, with one hand on her hip. And she said, lifting her brow, with a smile that stole his reason: Now, then, the idol is ready for the devotee. ...
— An Essence Of The Dusk, 5th Edition • F. W. Bain
... I observed the glare of a fire reflected on the boughs of the trees ahead of us. We got nearer and nearer to it, when the black stopped behind some thick, low bushes. I saw Paddy stretching himself on tiptoe, and looking over them; and imitating him, I beheld a spectacle which sent a thrill of horror through me. Paddy's teeth were chattering and his limbs shaking, yet he still looked on with a fixed gaze, as if he could not force himself away. Directly ...
— Twice Lost • W.H.G. Kingston
... vague little rudiment of a hint of a ghost of a sunny, funny old French remembrance long forgotten—a brand-new old remembrance—a kind of will-o'-the-wisp. Chut! my soul stalks it on tiptoe, while these earthly legs bear this poor old body of clay, by mere reflex action, straight home to the beautiful Elisabethan house on the hill; through the great warm hall, up the broad oak stairs, into the big cheerful music-room like a ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... on tiptoe towards Owen's room, glancing left and right, the trowel in his hand, and looking like a stage murderer. 'Do you think it's gorn?' he asked in a hoarse whisper when ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... popularised in that century the art of prose; the uses made of it are not unprecedented, but they are far more frequent. This is one more sign that the nation settles and concentrates; does not stand on tiptoe, but sits comfortably. Previous examples are followed; there are schools of prose writers as of poets. Bishop Pecock employs Wyclif's irony to defend what Wyclif had attacked; pilgrimages, friars, the possessions of the clergy, the statues and paintings in churches.[872] His forcible eloquence ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... warily, right, left; he knelt noiselessly, striving to pierce the thicket with his restless eyes. After a moment he arose on tiptoe, unslung his gun, cocked both barrels, and listened again, pipe tightly ...
— Lorraine - A romance • Robert W. Chambers
... leave the room, and ran against Master Pory coming in on tiptoe, with a red and solemn face. He started when he ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... reasonable, her brother secured the Yale lock so that its tongue was engaged, and, quietly closing the door, followed his wife and sister a-tiptoe through the hall and past the baize door which led to the ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... doubt of a presence, or disturbed by the light of the taper on his eyelids. The doctor retired on tiptoe to the door which he noiselessly closed; then he went back to his room, but not ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... PAGE. The Count Alarcos, as I chanced to hear, For tiptoe even would not let me see, And that same Pedro, who has lately come To Court, the Senor of Montilla's son, He is so rough, and says a lady's page Should only be ...
— Count Alarcos - A Tragedy • Benjamin Disraeli
... kinds of forceps and the skilfulest art, for nearly a month to come. Four Armies, Friedrich's, Henri's, Daun's, Zweibruck's, all within sword-stroke of each other,—the universal Gazetteer world is on tiptoe. But except Friedrich's eager shiftings and rubbings upon Stolpen (west side, north, and at length northeast side), all is dead-lock, and ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle
... a little girl who stood in her chemise and a cotton apron tied across her chest, and raised herself on tiptoe to look at the old ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... eye of the Tuscarora instantly caught a sight of the smoke; and for full a minute he stood, slightly raised on tiptoe, with distended nostrils, like the buck that scents a taint in the air, and a gaze as riveted as that of the trained pointer while he waits his master's aim. Then, falling back on his feet, a low exclamation, in the soft tones that form so singular a contrast to its harsher cries in the Indian ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... declare if I don't believe you've got the tiptoe habit. This is the second time you've sneaked into the house and scared me 'most to death. I asked you before if you wa'n't ashamed of yourself and now I ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... up-stream, they were occasionally compelled to pass through tracts covered with a species of jungle-grass, called "Dab-grass," which not only reached above the heads of the tallest of the party, but would have done so had they been giants! Goliath or the Cyclops might have, either of them, stood on tiptoe in a field of this grass, without being able to look ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid
... the vault where Obe Toplady, Timothy's father, lays in a stone box you can see through the grating tiptoe; an' round by the sample cement coffin that sets where the drives meet for advertisin' purposes, an' you go by wonderin' whose it'll be, an' so on over toward the Old Part o' the cemetery, down the slope of the ...
— Friendship Village • Zona Gale
... furniture and a saratoga trunk, with numerous boxes and baskets, would scarcely allow space enough to dress in. However, Mrs. Mason reported that the tenant professed real satisfaction with her quarters; and we all were on tiptoe with curiosity to ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... behind the screen, stealing into the room, her head thrust forward, her lips parted, a peculiar glitter in her eyes. For a moment I stood rigid. The sight of her fascinated me—there was something so wholly animal-like in the stealthy triumph of her tiptoe approach. I recovered myself just in time. One more step, a turn of her head, and she would have seen Grooten. My finger pressed down the catch of the lamp, and a sudden darkness filled ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... cried the young man without noticing, "and I have seen a lot! Fancy! he suspects his daughter, that angel, that orphan, my cousin—he suspects her, and every evening he searches her room, to see if she has a lover hidden in it! He comes here too on tiptoe, creeping softly—oh, so softly—and looks under the sofa—my bed, you know. He is mad with suspicion, and sees a thief in every corner. He runs about all night long; he was up at least seven times last night, to satisfy himself that ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... not move from her position. In the silence that followed, the steady splash of oars could be heard, and again a rousing cheer rang out from those who were left upon the motionless steamer. Edith Longworth raised herself on tiptoe and looked out of the open window. On the crest of a wave, five hundred yards away from the vessel, she saw the boat for a moment appear, showing the white glitter of her six dripping oars; then it vanished down the other side of the wave into the ...
— A Woman Intervenes • Robert Barr
... are many inches of thick white sand, but the streets are gay and busy, with picturesque coolies in their bright cotton draperies and swiftly-passing Cape carts and vehicles of all sorts. We are in D'Urban indeed—D'Urban in unwonted holiday dress and on the tippest tiptoe of expectation and excitement. A Cape cart, with a Chinese coolie driver, and four horses apparently put in harness together for the first time, was waiting for us and our luggage at the post-office. We got into it, and straight-way began to plunge through the sandy streets once more, turning ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... tired and hungry as I am, she ought to be glad to get home." He did not answer, and running up the steps she thought he had fallen asleep. The old woolen hat shaded his face, but when she crept on tiptoe to the chair, stooped, put her arms around him, and kissed his wrinkled cheek, she started back in terror. The eyes stared at the moon, the stiff fingers clutched the pipe from which the ashes had not been shaken, and the face was cold and rigid. Aaron Hunt had indeed fallen ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... somewhat sepulchral appearance which seems to possess a large building at that hour in the morning. As I stood for a moment inside the main doors, four men stepped out of the lift on my right, carrying a long wooden chest. They slunk away into the shadows on tiptoe. ...
— The Lost Ambassador - The Search For The Missing Delora • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... chaplets, and their hair floated in loose locks over their shoulders; but their features were pale, and their cheeks contracted, and they gazed with lips apart and opened eyes on the sea, as if on the point of uttering a cry half-suppressed by fear. They were standing on tiptoe on the very verge of the shore, with their tunics girt up to the knee, and extending their arms towards the bull, as if meditating to rush into the sea in pursuit of him, and yet shrinking from the contact of the waves. The sea ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... astonishment, that Donnegan was stretched upon his bunk wrapped again in the silken dressing gown and with a smile upon his lips. He looked much younger, as he slept, and perhaps it was this that made the girl steal forward upon tiptoe and ...
— Gunman's Reckoning • Max Brand
... I'd brought my boat," he remarked, standing on tiptoe to see over the edge. "See the motor-boat, Mother? ...
— Sunny Boy in the Big City • Ramy Allison White
... sick man's hand and left the room. He went downstairs on tiptoe and quickly reached room No. 24. He listened; all was quiet; it took but an instant to open the door, and, slipping quietly in, he locked it after him. With some difficulty he found the wallet, looked inside and saw five one thousand dollar United States bonds. He put ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... he cried, and Peggy stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek, and hung on to the lapels of his coat, ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey
... commanded my legs to march me to the door—a function which they duly performed, though at one time with too much reluctance, and at another with too much ABANDON (the left leg, in particular, coming to a halt every moment on tiptoe). Some one called out to me, "Where are you going to? They will bring you a cigar-light directly," but I guessed the voice to be Woloda's, and, feeling satisfied, somehow, that I had succeeded in divining ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... of London, that grand repository where are gathered the memorials of England's martial prowess; and when the guide, in the pride of his English heart, pointed to the spoils of war collected through centuries of the past,' said this speaker, lifting himself upon tiptoe that he might reach to his greatest height, 'I said, "You cannot point to one single trophy from my people, or my country, though England engaged in two disastrous wars with her."' Sir, this was ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke
... noise," cautioned Darrin, as he led the way swiftly, though on tiptoe. "We don't want to scare the other people cold until we have them cooped so that they can't get away. But you'd better be ready, in case they're desperate enough ...
— The High School Captain of the Team - Dick & Co. Leading the Athletic Vanguard • H. Irving Hancock
... went on as though never would the frenzied shouters cease, the grim, panting Yates players lined up back of their goal line, on tiptoe, ready at the first touch of the ball to the earth to spring forward and, leaping upward, strive to arrest the speeding oval. Prone upon the ground, the ball in his hands, lay Story. A yard or two distant Blair directed ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... more than a year at Bath had but one memorable event, in its course, to me. I was looking one evening, at bedtime, over the banisters, from the upper story into the hall below, with tiptoe eagerness that caused me to overbalance myself and turn over the rail, to which I clung on the wrong side, suspended, like Victor Hugo's miserable priest to the gutter of Notre Dame, and then fell four stories down on the stone pavement of the hall. I was not killed, or ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... the last chapter when he heard steps in the hallway. Hurriedly he restored the manuscript to its place, closed the drawer and left the room on tiptoe. ...
— The House of the Vampire • George Sylvester Viereck
... the middle of the ice, and standing upon it on tiptoe, she sprang up into the air, and then came down upon it again, as if she were trying its strength. At the same instant she said or sung in a beautiful silvery voice, like a bird, the ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... be led on tiptoe to the nursery door, looked in with immense satisfaction, although there was nothing to see but Bella in a musing state of happiness, seated in a little low chair upon the hearth, with her child in her fair young arms, and her soft eyelashes shading ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... to pass. She looked back down the staircase carefully and with the greatest caution; then she entered and went on tiptoe, noiselessly, down the passage into the sitting-room. There could be no doubt that she was thoroughly enjoying the part of a conspirator and resolved to ...
— Happy Pollyooly - The Rich Little Poor Girl • Edgar Jepson
... psaltery, dulcimer, and all kinds of music; for Frank has put down the old choir band at Aberalva,—another of his mistakes,—and there is but one fiddle and a clarionet now left in all the town. So the said town waits all the day on tiptoe, ready to worship, till out of the soft brown haze the stately Waterwitch comes sliding in, like a white ghost, to fold her wings ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... and felt the grass. There was dew upon it. He put his finger into his mouth; and then he said, "This is a holy place. The dew tastes sweet." They all tried it that were there, and believed it. This filled them with wonder, and some of them walked about on tiptoe, as if they had ...
— Gudrid the Fair - A Tale of the Discovery of America • Maurice Hewlett
... wife, whom he had loved with all the power of his strong heart. The doctor stumbled upstairs by the fire-light, and met the awe-struck look of the neighbour, which at once told him the state of things. The room was still, as he, with habitual tiptoe step, approached the poor frail body, that nothing now could more disturb. Her daughter knelt by the bedside, her face buried in the clothes, which were almost crammed into her mouth, to keep down the choking sobs. The husband stood like one ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... clasped her hands behind her back, and stood with one foot forward, "on tiptoe for a flight," her young figure and radiant look expressing the hot will which possessed her. At the mention of Meynell's name she clearly hesitated, a frown crossed her eyes, her lip twitched. Then she ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... asking her leave, kissed her twenty times in less than a minute, after a fashion that (I say it with reverence) would have tantalized even a deacon. She clapped her hands, she laughed, she danced, she went swaying on tiptoe around the room with a jaunty step, singing and keeping time to a waltz tune; and finally, pausing near the window, she doubled a tiny fist, as white as a snowball, bringing it down into the rosy ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... how she got home. But she went on tiptoe to her room and locked the door. Then she undid the parcel and read that printed column again, sitting on the edge of her bed, her hands and feet icy cold and her face burning. When she had read all there was, she drew a long, ...
— The Railway Children • E. Nesbit
... diminutive joint of mutton simmers above a vast heap of half-browned potatoes. How the young rogues clap their hands, and dance round their father, for very joy at the prospect of the feast: and how anxiously the youngest and chubbiest of the lot, lingers on tiptoe by his side, trying to get a peep into the interior of the dish. They turn up the street, and the chubby- faced boy trots on as fast as his little legs will carry him, to herald the approach of the dinner to 'Mother' who is standing with a baby in her arms on the doorstep, and ...
— Sunday Under Three Heads • Charles Dickens
... arms about his neck, rising on tiptoe while she kissed his mouth. "I love you—and yet in my heart I don't really believe in love," she answered. "I shouldn't be surprised to wake up any morning and find that I ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... hot; it had reached its height when 'Poleon laid a finger upon his lips, commanding silence. On tiptoe he led the two men into his tent. When he had issued instructions and left in search of a boatman the partners seated themselves awkwardly, their caps in their hands. Curiously, apprehensively, they studied the fever-flushed ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... McGregor as the wonderful day of days drew near; and so also it seemed to all the wee McGregors. They were on tiptoe with excitement and could hardly be made to stand still long enough to have their neckties tied or their ...
— Carl and the Cotton Gin • Sara Ware Bassett
... noiselessly across the floor, and Simpkins saw that he wore sandals. His own heavy walking boots rang loudly on the flagged floors and woke the echoes in the vaulted ceiling. He began to tread on tiptoe, as one moves ...
— The False Gods • George Horace Lorimer
... by an unsaddled racer led across the ground, or by men on horseback carrying small flags to stake at the different leaps; sometimes by an English oath, startling the Genius loci or whoever heard it; or more agreeably by a display of voluble young countrywomen, standing tiptoe on their carriage seats, eager to see the first fall, and permitting the young men who swaggered by to scare them into the prettiest attitudes of dismay, by a prophetical announcement of the bones that would be broken before the race was won. Some little ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... have of their invincibility, while they are smart, active fellows themselves, and both ride and move better and quicker; but the guns! the guns! are their dread; and five or six of them will go round a tree, where an Arab has laid down his gun for a minute, stepping on tiptoe, as if afraid of disturbing it, talking to each other in a whisper, as if the gun could understand their exclamations, and, it may be presumed, praying to it not to do them an injury, as fervently as ever man ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... of necessity, that everybody was on the tiptoe of suspense, and that the interest hanging upon the issue of this night's events swallowed up all other anxieties, of whatsoever nature. Even the battle which was now daily expected between the imperial and Swedish armies ceased to occupy the ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... never be drawn properly. Eight inches of black pane showed, and behind that dark transparency something vague and pale. She knew it must be the hand of Louis Fores that had tapped, and she could feel her heart beating. She flew on tiptoe to the front door, and cautiously opened it. At the same moment Louis sprang from the narrow space between the street railings and the bow window on to the steps. He raised his hat with the ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... becoming widely read. I came across a copy of it. I found in it a guide to what I was in search for. Faithfully I took up physical culture. Fanatically I kept all the windows open, wore as little clothing as possible ... adopted a certain walk on tiptoe, like a person walking on egg-shells, to develop the calves of my legs from their thinness to a more proportionate shape. And, as I walked, I filled and emptied my lungs like a bellows. I kept a small statue of Apollo Belvedere on top of my bookcase. ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... leaking in of Nature through all the cracks in the walls and floors of cities. You heap up a million tons of hewn rocks on a square mile or two of earth which was green once. The trees look down from the hill-sides and ask each other, as they stand on tiptoe,—"What are these people about?" And the small herbs at their feet look up and whisper back,—"We will go and see." So the small herbs pack themselves up in the least possible bundles, and wait until the wind steals to them at night and whispers, "Come with me." ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... over the Hanway findings, and the further he read the more his satisfaction stood on tiptoe. Conceive a gallery hung round with paintings that would baffle a Rubens and set a Murillo to biting the nail of envy! Have an orchestra polished to the last touch of execution, discoursing the divinest work of some highest priest of music. Sentinel the scene ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... you and me," says Dora, raising herself on tiptoe, as though to whisper in his ear, and so coming very close to him, "I am afraid my dearest Florence is a little sly! Yes, really; you wouldn't think it, would you? The dear girl has such a sweet ingenuous face—quite the loveliest face on earth, I think, though some pronounce ...
— The Haunted Chamber - A Novel • "The Duchess"
... yard had not been used for years, it was no wonder that the whole party was, so to speak, on tiptoe, longing to run and investigate. But Mrs. Avory had always objected very strongly to inquisitiveness, and so they stayed where they were and waited expectantly. And then, after a minute or so, Kink came up to the table with a twinkle ...
— The Slowcoach • E. V. Lucas
... spread out his cloak on the rock and is asleep; his javelins in his left hand, just slipping from his grasp, the right arm bent upwards, making a bright frame to the face, and he breathing softly in helpless slumber. Then I come noiselessly down, treading on tiptoe not to wake and startle him—but there, you know all about it; why tell you the rest? I am dying of ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... speak,—ceased in the middle of a sentence, in the middle of a prayer. The worshippers opened their eyes, and observed that his head and breast leant heavily on the desk; they approached and found him dead. At the moment when the bridegroom came this watcher was wide awake, standing on tiptoe, and straining forward to catch the first glimpse of the glory that should herald his approach. When the bridegroom came this watcher went out to meet him, and went in with him to the feast: safe and happy he, but not ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... craving for battle. Nearly fifty years of peace followed the defeat of the Persians in Greece, and at the end of that time, just before the Peloponnesian War, which was to bring ruin on the country, Thucydides tells us that all Greece, being ignorant of the realities of war, stood a-tiptoe with excitement. It was the same in England just before our disastrous South African War, when readers of Kipling glutted themselves with imaginary slaughter, and Henley cried to our country that her ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... refined above her former level. Winterborne, being fixed to the spot by his apple-tree, could not advance to meet her; he held out his spare hand with his hat in it, and with some embarrassment beheld her coming on tiptoe through the mud to the middle of ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... dance in which they all joined—that is all the dancers—was one in which they stood on tiptoe, with knees bent and shaking together as if with fear, then giving forth a sort of hissing noise, through fiercely clenched teeth, they quickly advanced in three or four lines and retired trotting ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie
... ventured from her refuge, then swiftly retreated. Courage returning, she stepped out on tiptoe and crept softly toward the intruder. She was rehearsing the Italian ...
— Daphne, An Autumn Pastoral • Margaret Pollock Sherwood
... said, reassuringly; and went on tiptoe out of the darkened, cologne-scented room. But as he passed along the hall, and saw his father in his little cabin of a room, smoking placidly, and polishing his sextant with loving ...
— An Encore • Margaret Deland
... less cursing and driving from the men aft, and less wrangling among ourselves. But it was a strange peace. An air of suspense lay upon the ship; we went around on tiptoe, so to speak. The quiet before the typhoon—aye, Nigger's phrase just about described it. We went around telling each other that the trouble had blown over, and nothing was going to happen, and all the time ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... heavy iron chain And pull away the wooden pin; I'd push the door a little bit And tiptoe very softly in. ...
— Under the Tree • Elizabeth Madox Roberts
... had moved toward the door, and instinctively he had stepped past her to open it. When he turned with his hand on the knob, it brought them again face to face. The smile had left her lips, they were mere delicate lines of color. She raised herself on tiptoe and her face, gray-white, was ...
— The Just and the Unjust • Vaughan Kester
... Universe by the surrounding Colonnade of Stars. The quiet stars look, down upon the activities of men. The semi-conventionalized Star figure, light and firm, repeated about the Colonnade is a highly important factor in the architectural beauty of the Court. She stands a-tiptoe on the globe that forms her pedestal; the circle of her arms about the starry head-dress implies the endlessness of space. The pointed headdress is hung with jewels of the kind that decorate the tower. These carry the jubilant idea of the tower around the Court. They twinkle brilliantly where ...
— The Sculpture and Mural Decorations of the Exposition • Stella G. S. Perry
... Crusades, the destruction of the Templars, the Papal interdicts, the tragedies caused or suffered by the house of Anjou, and by the Emperor—these were full of a more permanent significance. But, since then, the colossal figure of feudalism was seen standing, as it were on tiptoe, at Crecy, for flight from earth: that was a revolution unparalleled; yet that was a trifle by comparison with the more fearful revolutions that were mining below the Church. By her own internal schisms, by the abominable spectacle of a double Pope—so that no man, except through political bias, ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... laborious "march past" the store, but fell out at the first mud puddle and gave it up. A highly nervous but respectable hen, who had ventured upon the veranda evidently against her better instincts, walked painfully on tiptoe to the door, apparently was met by language which no mother of a family could listen to, and retired in strong hysterics. A little later the sun became again obscured, the wind arose, rain fell, and the opportunity for going indoors and doing nothing was ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte
... awe, and hand in hand, they entered the room on tiptoe—the darkened room where Russell was What a hush and oppression there seemed to them at first in the dim, silent chamber; what an awfulness in all the appliances which showed how long and deeply their schoolfellow had ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... dark little creature standing on tiptoe, while Joyce bent her head low, then Dodo claimed attention from "Cammy," and amid bursts of laughter and sometimes a rush of sudden tears, the talk flowed on, as it can only flow when dearest friends meet after long separation, with no estrangement and ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... arrived in Berlin three days ago. Society was on tiptoe with expectation. They talked of giving Arthur Nevin's Indian opera, "Poia," in order that the ex-President should have the thrill of seeing his compatriots in a German setting. This idea was abandoned, though Count Huelsen had accepted the opera and at an enormous expense had ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone
... bringing it forward, she threw a thick green cord over the lawyer's shoulders, from which depended a browny black japanned tin candle-box. Of course, it was an accident that the cord was short, and that Coristine bent his head just as the fair damsel stood on tiptoe to adjust the ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... the apartment was deserted, and discovering no different means of egress, I crossed the room on tiptoe, and peered cautiously out into the hall. It was not a pleasing prospect to one in my predicament. The lower portion, judging from the incessant hum of voices, was filled with people, who were either unable to find place within the crowded ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... headquarters of some desperate smuggler, for such I conjectured that this lonely dwelling must be. The scud, however, had covered the moon once more, and the darkness was so pitchy black that I felt that I might reconnoitre a little more closely without fear of discovery. Walking on tiptoe I approached the little window and ...
— Uncle Bernac - A Memory of the Empire • Arthur Conan Doyle
... in another part, but Letty forgot a tiny window in one of them, which looked also upon the ricks. There was a back stair to the kitchen, and in the kitchen a door to the farm-yard. She stole down the stair, and opened the door with absolute noiselessness. In a moment more she had stolen on tiptoe round the corner, and was creeping like a ghost among the ricks. Not even a rustle betrayed her as she came up to Tom from behind. He still knelt where she had left him, looking up to her window, which gleamed like a dead eye in the moonlight. She stood for a moment, afraid to move, lest she should ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... an hour, until every one was in bed and the house silent, Seppi quitted the room on tiptoe, locked the door on the outside, and crept noiselessly along the passage and down the stairs. Andre had not forgotten to leave the outer door unlocked, and pushing back the bolt with the greatest caution, the ruffian slipped out, and as soon ...
— Harper's Young People, December 9, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... his dirty office, Doctor Parcival looked timidly down the stairway leading to the street. When he returned the fright that had been in his eyes was beginning to be replaced by doubt. Coming on tiptoe across the room he tapped George Willard on the shoulder. "If not now, sometime," he whispered, shaking his head. "In the end I will ...
— Winesburg, Ohio • Sherwood Anderson
... wake him," he retorted, irritated beyond measure at the man's futile opposition. "I'll go up on tiptoe, candle in hand—you shall show me the way to his room—and I'll just ascertain whether the wounded man is my friend or not, then I'll come down again ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... had the front door closed upon the tall angular figure of the lady, bearing her market basket, than we shut our books with a snap, ran on tiptoe to the top of the stairs, and, after a moment's breathless listening, cast our young forms on the smooth walnut bannister, and glided gloriously ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche
... the midst of the crowd, his fingers upon every one's button and his mouth in every man's ear, embracing such as were near to his own stature, that he might more closely and mysteriously utter his sentiments; and standing on tiptoe, and supporting himself by the cloak collars of tall men, that he might dole out to them also the same share of information. He felt himself one of the heroes of the affair, being conscious of the dignity of superior information ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... shearing-pen, and whippoorwills twittered in the long grass. But even these dissonances hardly rippled the clear torrent of the mocking-birds' notes that fell from a dozen neighbouring shrubs and trees. It would not have been preposterous for one to tiptoe and essay to touch the stars, they hung so ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... old-fashioned lawn with small bunches of purple flowers scattered over it, and gathered very full about the waist. But, before the swinging mirror of her high bureau, she thought it looked too light and bright for so sad a visit, and so trotted up-stairs to the garret, and, standing on tiptoe by a great chest of drawers, opened one with much care, that the brass rings might not clatter on the oval plates under them, and disturb Miss Deborah. The drawer was sweet with lavender and sweet clover, and, as she lifted from its wrappings ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... day, and often inquired about his speculation, but got no definite answer. He and Alfred both felt very curious to know what it was; but though expectation was on tiptoe, it was not gratified. Edward assured them, however, that things were nearly ready, and that in a few days he would let them ...
— Oscar - The Boy Who Had His Own Way • Walter Aimwell
... having completed the manufacture of the toothpick, planted himself in front of the fire and made good use of it for ten minutes or so: when apparently growing rather dull, he wished Mrs. Corney joy of her job, and took himself off on tiptoe. ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... upon the thick fold of the curtain, for all was still in his mother's room, and he was mentally going on tiptoe to the door, when there was a loud yawn from the prie dieu chair close to the bed's head, and a voice ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn
... show them to Max and Clement," she said to herself as she stole away on tiptoe, holding her breath. Then there were the bees, Moore's deadly enemies, which lived in a long row of hives under the kitchen-garden wall; they were quite friendly to Iris, and allowed her to watch their comings and goings without any show of anger. She had friends, too, in the pigeons, which soon ...
— A Pair of Clogs • Amy Walton
... up late that night. Probably not a soldier eye was closed until long after eleven, and half the garrison clustered about the hospital, treading on tiptoe and speaking in whispers, as the little fellows were tenderly lifted from the litter, the weary mules were led away, and, in the arms of Mrs. Archer and Mrs. Stannard, the sleeping boys were borne, without word or sound, ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... meant these pearl-bedecked caves, scarcely larger than swallows' nests? these green canopies, overgrown with moss? He pinched himself, and gazed again. Countless flowers nodded to him, and seemed, like himself, on tiptoe with curiosity, he thought. He beckoned one of the busy, ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... Clark sat with his back to the door and she saw that no one else was present, the visitor inserted her whole body and, closing the door softly, with her eyes dancing and her little mouth puckered up in a mischievous way, she came on tiptoe across the floor, stealing towards Clark until she was within a few feet of him, when with a sudden little rush she threw her arms about his head and clapped her hands ...
— Santa Claus's Partner • Thomas Nelson Page
... room, and returned with his nightly glass and jug of water. There could be nothing else that he would want during the night. It was all he ever had, and he would sleep so until morning. She approached the bed upon tiptoe. ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... the memorials of England's martial prowess; and when the guide, in the pride of his English heart, pointed to the spoils of war collected through centuries of the past,' said this speaker, lifting himself upon tiptoe that he might reach to his greatest height, 'I said, "You cannot point to one single trophy from my people, or my country, though England engaged in two disastrous wars with her."' Sir, this was the sentiment. We loved every inch of American soil, and loved every part of that ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke
... standing on tiptoe in an effort to see over the top, "you've certainly behaved very generously toward me—I'll say that much. Midships there appears to be about four or five yards of material I do not actually need in my business, being, as it happens, neither a harem ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... five months old when he was given to me to take care of. I was nine years old and I could reach his back if I stood on tiptoe. He seemed to remain that high for nearly two years. Perhaps we grew together; that is probably why I never found out just how tall he was. He lived in a pavilion, under a thatched roof which rested on thick tree stumps so that it could not fall in when Kari ...
— Kari the Elephant • Dhan Gopal Mukerji
... Delaware boy was saying, and pointed toward the forward gun-port which stood open just beyond and above the bow of the longboat. In a twinkling Bob had straddled through the hole, with Jeremy close after him. It was dark in the 'tween-decks and the two boys made their way forward on tiptoe, waiting breathlessly for the attack they felt sure would come. But apparently all the buccaneers were busy above in the fierce fight that they could hear raging along the rail. They moved on, undeterred, till ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... the 1st of May all London, I may say all England, and almost all the world was on tiptoe. Every man, woman, and child talked of "the Crystal Palace, the great exhibition, the ...
— Young Americans Abroad - Vacation in Europe: Travels in England, France, Holland, - Belgium, Prussia and Switzerland • Various
... him, gently parted the hair from his forehead, and then rising up, somewhat red in the face from the exertion, rubbed his hands one over the other by way of indicating that all was as it should be; stole back to his seat on tiptoe, lest he should awaken him, and forthwith relapsed into his former state of dreamy abstraction. Nothing could arouse him; not even the house-keeper when she dashed into the room with a face at roasting heat, and demanded the key of the wine-cellar. It was handed to her mechanically, ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... cried the old fellow, peering on tiptoe into the upper room. "And fast asleep on the floor! That wretch of a witch has not even given her a bed." Then, clapping his great hands against the side of the tower, he cried,—"Wake up, sweet Princess!" in a voice so loud that the poor young lady thought ...
— Ting-a-ling • Frank Richard Stockton
... brandy bottle and the remains of a cup of milk on the light-stand; noted the handkerchief, still strong of camphor on the counterpane, and the blanket spread carefully over her knees, and then turned approvingly to meet Rod stealing into the room on tiptoe, his eyes big ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... there were some stout shelves nailed against the wall, and on these rested a row of flat tin pans; between the pans were pushed one or two books, and she recognised amongst them his Greek testament. She rose and strolled over to the shelf, and standing on tiptoe looked into the pans. As she thought, they contained thin layers of gold dust. She was standing there looking into them when Stephen returned ...
— A Girl of the Klondike • Victoria Cross
... house was lived without words. After the stir and bustle of the farm, the silence of the house for a long time frightened Clara. Even when she was alone in her own room she walked about on tiptoe. Henderson Woodburn was absorbed in his work, and when he came home in the evening, ate his dinner in silence and then worked again. He brought home account books and papers from the office and spread them out on a table in the living room. His wife Priscilla sat in a large chair under ...
— Poor White • Sherwood Anderson
... time of tyranny and oppression for those who live in Marathon. The birds are upon us like Hindenburg in Belgium. We go about on tiptoe, speaking in whispers, for fear of annoying them. It is all the fault of the Marathon Bird Club, which has offered all sorts of inducements to the fowls of the air to come and live in our suburb, quite forgetting that humble commuters have to live there, too. Birds have moved ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... glad of this, and have no doubt the public will share in our curiosity to know what kind of a defence can be made by a gambler, even so polished as Mr. Freeman, for a vice fitly characterized by Mr. Green as "fifty per cent. worse than stealing." Expectation is on tiptoe. ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green
... short stick; and with it he was reaching up to the window above him—her bedroom window. The window, she remembered, was open at the bottom—an inch or two, no more. The man slipped the end of his stick under the sash and prised it up quietly. Next he raised himself on tiptoe, and thrust the stick a foot or so through the opening; worked it slowly along the window-ledge, and hesitated; then pulled with a light jerk, as an angler strikes a fish. And Hester, holding her breath, saw the stick withdrawn, inch ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... door and smelt at the bottom of it to see if any one were listening outside. Then he came back to the Doctor on tiptoe and whispered, ...
— The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting
... talking of dress. Adelaide showed me her camel's-hair scarfs which Desmond had brought, and her dresses. Ann tried them all on, walking up and down, and standing tiptoe before the glass, while I trimmed a handkerchief with the lace I had purchased. I unfolded my dress after they were gone, with a dubious mind. It was a heavy white silk, with a blue satin stripe. It might be too old-fashioned, ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... heart, Earl William smiled at the girl's sauciness as he went slowly back to his chamber, taking, in spite of his earldom, pains to pass his mother's door on tiptoe. ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... two. I'm going to tiptoe out to post this off now. You'll receive it in the next mail after the other; so you won't have a very long time to think ...
— Daddy-Long-Legs • Jean Webster
... what a clamour! Now the little torment tries, Perched on tiptoe, all the glamour Of her coaxing hands and eyes! May she hold the glass she drinks ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... boiling up in Heath. After all that had happened that night he felt as if he could not go to bed without accomplishing some decisive action. Powers were on tiptoe within him surely ready for ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... hand on the stair-rail and ascended to the next floor, passing his daughter's room on tiptoe. Above this, a flight of steps that was little more than a ladder led up into the obscurity of the attics. He climbed these steps, and, entering a lumber-room, where he had to duck his head to avoid striking the sloping ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... amazement, standing on tiptoe to look out, and staring as if she were weighing me: "her be bigger nor any Doone! Heared as her have bate our Cornish champion awrastling. 'Twadn't fair play nohow: no, no; don't tell ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... the end of a day spent in almost feverish dictation, the third of December 1894, he suddenly fainted, and died without regaining consciousness. "Death had not been suffered to take so much as an illusion from his heart. In the hot-fit of life, a-tiptoe on the highest point of being, he passed at a bound on to the other side. The noise of the mallet and chisel was scarcely quenched, the trumpets were hardly done blowing, when, trailing with him clouds of glory, this happy-starred, full-blooded ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... boots; her hair, bright and burnished as a fox's coat, fell in curls about her shoulders, and mischief gleamed from her tawny eyes, even as mischief parted her red lips over teeth as white as pearl. It almost seemed as though she were about to cross the room on tiptoe, and yet she stopped full in the doorway, sniffing the air with dainty nostrils, before she turned back to meet her father, who followed ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... two later, when the elder Jervase stole in on tiptoe, with a new cup of priceless beef-tea, he saw the two men lying there, with their faces turned to each other, as if they had been lovers, and hand holding hand. He took Polson by the wrist, and shook the ...
— VC — A Chronicle of Castle Barfield and of the Crimea • David Christie Murray
... is nobody to hurt us,' said the witch, who was very sleepy; and the girl did as she was bid, and went to bed. Very soon they both might have been heard snoring, and Pinkel knew that his time was come. Slipping off his shoes he stole into the hut on tiptoe, and taking from his pocket some food of which the goat was particularly fond, he laid it under his nose. Then, while the animal was eating it, he stuffed each golden bell with wool which he had also brought with him, stopping every minute to listen, lest the witch should awaken, ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... with exalted expressions of countenance, and looking greatly in need of food and rest. Even in the early part of the evening nobody talked much, and as the hours dragged on slowly toward midnight, the silence in the castle became oppressive. The servants stole about on tiptoe, and in pairs, being nervous about going into the big empty rooms, and down the long shadowy corridors alone. There was, besides, a general inclination to glance about furtively, as the hush of anxious expectancy settled upon everybody. The twins felt it themselves, but they were everywhere ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... even to me, but the wind had lifted the thatch of my pigsty into the widow's garden a second time. I thought I wouldn't wait to hear what widow had to say about it, so I went across the green to the "Fox and Grapes", and the wind was so strong that I danced along on tiptoe like a girl at the fair. When I got to the inn landlord had to help me shut the door; it seemed as though a dozen goats were pushing against it to come in out of ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton
... put the blankets back The gentle talk would soon begin. And when I'd tiptoe softly out I'd meet the ...
— Under the Tree • Elizabeth Madox Roberts
... loving smile as she flitted by him. Annie Bermon passed quickly through the shaded sitting-room into the cool and matted hall, catching glimpses as she went of the pretty parlour and wide library; but her aunt was in neither of these rooms; so she hurried up stairs, and stealing on tiptoe, with gentle fingers she pushed open the door. Margaret Greylston was sitting by the table, sewing; her face was flushed, and her eyes red and swollen as with weeping. Annie stood still in wonder. But Miss Margaret suddenly looked up, and her niece sprang, with a ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous
... satisfaction to every one except the firm of Goody and Fripp. But in spite of this announcement, young Frank never made his appearance—the walks continued overgrown with grass—the wounded Atlas looked proudly to heaven from his deathbed of fame-and the young ladies remained on the tiptoe of expectation. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... like a mouse," said Pete, and he wiped off his long sea-boots and crept on tiptoe into the room. There she lay with the morning light on her, and a face as white as the quilt that she was plucking ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... with himself, but failed. His guffaw must out, and exploded with violent effect. It drove the Marques back to the door, and sent Gil Perez scudding on tiptoe ...
— The Spanish Jade • Maurice Hewlett
... now, having left the pony within eye-shot, and taken the baskets along with us, and were standing on one of those very lozenges, somewhat grass-grown by this time, and deciphering the inscriptions. On tiptoe we could get a wide view of the marsh, with, the wind sweeping in a lonely limitless way through the tall grasses. Presently hearing Dickens's cheery call, we turned to see what he was doing. He had chosen a ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... six months after she came to the office, Miss Larrabee devoted herself to the accumulation of professional pride. This pride was as much a part of her life as her pompadour, which at that time was so high that she had to tiptoe to reach it. However she managed to keep it up was the wonder of the office. Finally, we all agreed that she must use chicken-fence. She denied this, but was inclined to be good-natured about it, and, as an office-joke, the boys used to leave a step-ladder by her desk so that she could climb up ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White
... for the hundredth time, And for the hundredth time my gladdened sight Blurred with the rapture of my vast delight, And swooned upon the page. I caught the chime Of far off bells, and at each silver note My heart on tiptoe pressed its eager ear Against my breast; it was such joy to hear The tolling of the ...
— Custer, and Other Poems. • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... bee-hive than any other structure. It was filled, as we have stated, with a variety of matters, for which either there was no immediate demand, or that time had rendered useless. Of these, Fleetword piled a quantity one over the other, and standing tiptoe on the topmost parcel, succeeded in peeping through the aperture, but could perceive nothing except the broad sea stretching away in the distance until it was bounded by the horizon. As he was about to descend, one of the packages ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... precipitately. At the gate he brushed against some one, muttered an apology, and plunged through. Evelyn Walton, following his course of flight from the doorway, laughed softly. Miss Caroline Mullett, standing on tiptoe in the middle of the path, strove to see over the hedge, and, failing, turned to ...
— The Lilac Girl • Ralph Henry Barbour
... sufficiently large to enable him to get well out of a bear's reach, for it must be remembered that although some bears climb trees easily, the grizzly bear cannot climb at all. There was a branch on the lower part of the tree which seemed quite beyond the reach of the tallest bear even on tiptoe. ...
— The Prairie Chief • R.M. Ballantyne
... could not see anything that looked like the right thing to eat or drink under the circumstances. There was a large mushroom growing near her, about the same height as herself. She stretched herself up on tiptoe and peeped over the edge and her eyes immediately met those of a large blue caterpillar, that was sitting on the top, with its arms folded, quietly smoking a long hookah and taking not the smallest notice of her ...
— Alice in Wonderland • Lewis Carroll
... held her breath, listening curiously. The wind shrieking past drowned the rest; only the swelling of the organ murmured above it. She stole up the granite steps just within the entrance. No one was there to see her, and she went on tiptoe to the muffled door, putting her ear to it, her hair falling over her face. It was some plaintive minor air they were hymning, as sad as a dying wail, and as ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... the audience stood on tiptoe in their eagerness to see the great animal perform, and were so wild in their applause that the boys begged to be allowed to take it in front of the curtain every time during the evening when there was a long pause while some tableau ...
— Two Little Knights of Kentucky • Annie Fellows Johnston
... . ." said Atchmianov, cautiously opening the door and going into the passage on tiptoe. "Quietly, quietly, I beg you . . . ...
— The Duel and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... of white paper, and with a swift movement twirl it round into a cornucopia. This was, of course, empty, and shaking it about to prove its emptiness, he then held it upright, and invited Dolly to look into it. But he held it so high, that she had to stand on tiptoe to peep in. However, she caught a glimpse, and it seemed to her there ...
— Two Little Women • Carolyn Wells
... as though seeking a breath of cool air between dances. Dick darted forward on tiptoe until he recognized the oncoming one. It was Douglass, president of the ...
— Dick Prescotts's Fourth Year at West Point - Ready to Drop the Gray for Shoulder Straps • H. Irving Hancock
... nurse from Aversa or Nettuno; on the other, a handsome peasant woman from Bauci or Procida. On either side of him, between the wheels and the body of the vehicle, stand the husbands of these two ladies. Standing on tiptoe behind the monk is the driver, holding in his left hand the reins, and in his right the long whip with which he keeps his horses at an equal rate of speed. Behind him are two or three lazzaroni, who get up and down, go away, and are succeeded by others, without any body taking notice ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... exclaimed in a high whisper. "What are you doing here?" He hardly remembers what he said. The doctor straightened up and came on tiptoe to ...
— The Centaur • Algernon Blackwood
... emptied the dipper, I sat down on the top step of the porch, and, without saying a word to the man, placed my bag beside me and began to open it. The shy girl paused, dipper in hand, the children stood on tiptoe, and even the man showed signs of curiosity. With studied deliberation I took out two books I had with me and put them on the porch; then I proceeded to rummage for a long time in the bottom of the bag as though I could not find what I wanted. Every eye was glued upon me, ...
— The Friendly Road - New Adventures in Contentment • (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker
... tiresome walk, but the place was reached at last; and Edna, standing on tiptoe, rang the bell, which was answered by one of the little ...
— A Dear Little Girl • Amy E. Blanchard
... ye phantoms of the night! if while lingering within my home after the crowing of the cock, you saw me stealing about on tiptoe in the City of Books, you certainly never cried out, as Madame Trepof did at Naples, "That old man has a good-natured round back!" I entered the library; Hannibal, with his tail perpendicularly erected, came to rub himself against my legs and purr. ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... was bounded by the ruffled sunbonnet. There was an eagerness of expression, an alert understanding in the deep eyes, a tender fluttering of the long lashes, an ever varying animation in the child face, as though she were standing on tiptoe to catch all the sunshine and glory of the great, ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers
... Sally, breathless and on tiptoe, reaching with a letter. "Suthin' you forgot!" Then, in a hoarse stage whisper, perfectly audible to every one: ...
— Jeff Briggs's Love Story • Bret Harte
... Judge; but the idlers who came for amusement, to saunter about the hall, haggle for books with the second-hand dealers along the south wall, or flirt with the milliners who kept stalls for bands and other legal finery on the opposite side, or to listen on tiptoe, with an ear above the panelled enclosure, to the quips and cranks or fierce rhetoric of a famous advocate—these to-day gravitated with one accord towards the south-west corner of the Hall, where, in ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... minutes longer. Then he arose. He could reach the kitchen by another way which did not lead past the stairs. He went out there, treading on tiptoe. The cat had looked up, stretched, and lazily gotten upon his feet and followed him, tail waving like a pennant. He brushed around Von Rosen out in the kitchen, and mewed a little, delicate, highbred mew. The dog came leaping up the ...
— The Butterfly House • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... reverse to his very last quill; Though he now bristled up at the simple idea, This was often, with him, but a symptom of fear. As he spoke, a poor toad, who had sate quite aloof In a hovel of earth, with a stone for a roof, Now slowly, on tiptoe, crept out of his hole, And into the midst of the company stole; The quadrupeds gazed as the reptile drew nigh, Half afraid of his looks, though they could not tell why. Mouse's hair stood on end, ...
— The Quadrupeds' Pic-Nic • F. B. C.
... Ipswich visitation there was the customary roll-call of the clergy, among whom was a new-comer, a Scotchman, Mr Colquhoun. "Mr—, Mr—," faltered the apparitor, coming unexpectedly on this uncouth name; suddenly he rose a- tiptoe and to ...
— Two Suffolk Friends • Francis Hindes Groome
... (through fear) Anteojos de oro (gold spectacles) De patitas (on shanks' pony) De peor en peor (from bad to worse) De perillas (venir) (quite opportunely, a propos) El picaruelo de Perico (that young rascal Perico) De pies a cabeza (from head to foot) De puntillas (on tiptoe) De repente (suddenly) Del todo (at all) De veras (in truth) Dos a dos (two by two) Esta en casa (he is at home) En estas condiciones (under these conditions) En senal de aprecio (as a mark of ...
— Pitman's Commercial Spanish Grammar (2nd ed.) • C. A. Toledano
... wonderful, because, you see, we have been living in England. But I must hurry on, and I will come to see you another day. There are seven of us, and we are just on the tiptoe of expectation about what Father will say when he sees the lot of us," said Don, with a friendly nod, and then trotted away in pursuit of the wagon, which had passed on while the girl leaned against the fence and ...
— The Adventurous Seven - Their Hazardous Undertaking • Bessie Marchant
... the twilight of the clustering leaves. She had an undulating, but, oftentimes, a sharp and irregular movement. It indicated the restless vivacity of her spirit, which to-day was doubly indefatigable in its tiptoe dance, because it was played upon and vibrated with her mother's disquietude. Whenever Pearl saw anything to excite her ever-active and wandering curiosity, she flew thitherward and, as we might say, seized upon that man or thing as her own property, so ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... we, my dear girl, in the very height of preparation. We begin our journey southward at five tomorrow morning. We shall make a short stay in London, and then proceed to Paris. Expectation is on tiptoe: my busy fancy has pictured to itself Calais, Montreuil, Abbeville, in short every place which the book of post roads enumerates, and some of which the divine Sterne has rendered so famous. I expect to find nothing but mirth, vivacity, fancy, and multitudes of ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... looking splendid. Our oats are not quite so promising, but everything will depend upon the season. The season, in fact, holds our fate and our fortune in its lap. Those ninety days that include June and July and August are the days when the northwest farmer is forever on tiptoe watching the weather. It's his time of trial, his period of crisis, when our triple foes of Drought and Hail and Fire may at any moment creep upon him. It keeps one on the qui vive, making life a gamble, giving the zest of the uncertain to existence, and leaving ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... now half way inside the door and looked about him. A grin spread across his wide, high-cheeked face. He reached down silently to the stout spruce stick, charred at one end, that stood between him and the stove. Grasping it he advanced on tiptoe, silent as a cat, toward the woman. He was convinced that her sight was poor, almost convinced that she did not see at all, because she made no move when he stopped, the stick drawn back. With a swift sweep he struck the barrel of the revolver a blow so forceful that it was cast quite ...
— The Sagebrusher - A Story of the West • Emerson Hough
... thicket between the two clumps of bushes. Well, I had gotten this far when I saw the missing steaks. They rested on a tin pan on the ground in the thicket. It looked as though the thief of our supper had gone away to get water or something. I had just stepped, on tiptoe, of course, past this tree when I heard a soft step behind me. Before I could turn, the noose was dropped over my head, and then down on my neck. It was jerked tight, like a flash, and I was pulled against this tree. The fellow took some kind of hitch around the trunk of the ...
— The High School Boys in Summer Camp • H. Irving Hancock
... you will have occasion to see, a born fighter. He went, indeed, through those years of his life on tiptoe, as it were, for a fight. He had a light and springing carriage of the head, enough to set his forelock nodding; his eye roved like a sea-bird's; his lips often parted company, for his breath was eager. He had a trick of laughing to himself softly as he went about his business; ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... with big black eyes," was Janet's answer; and, with his curiosity awakened, Henry Warner started for the parlor, Rose following on tiptoe, and listening through the half-closed door to what their visitor ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... while at his bedside. I did not think he would get to sleep quickly, but soon his breathing became more even and prolonged. I went away on tiptoe, turned into my own room, and lay down on the sofa. For a long while I mused on what Pasinkov had told me, recalled many things, wondered; at last I too ...
— The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... a circling bowl Had deeply warmed my thirsty soul; As lulled in slumber I was laid, Bright visions o'er my fancy played. With maidens, blooming as the dawn, I seemed to skim the opening lawn; Light, on tiptoe bathed in dew, We flew, and ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... back from the Berlin Congress, bringing "Peace with Honor." The Continent has stood a-tiptoe to see the wonderful English Earl pass and repass. He has been the lion of a congress that included Bismarck. The laurels and the Oriental palm placed by his landlord on the hotel-balcony have but faintly typified the feeling of Europe. His feverous reception in England, ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... always entered a room in that style of affected delicacy which fashion had then made almost natural; chapeau bras between his hands as if he wished to compress it, or under his arm; knees bent, and feet on tiptoe, as if afraid of a wet floor. His dress in visiting was most usually, in summer, when I most saw him, a lavender suit, the waistcoat embroidered with a little silver, or of white silk worked in the tambour, partridge silk stockings, and gold buckles, ruffles ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... do worse! You will become weak. You will have to take to violence, to contortions, to romanticism, in self-defense. This sort of thing is like a man trying to lift himself up by the seat of his trousers. He may stand on tiptoe, but he can't do more. Here you stand on tiptoe, very gracefully, I admit; but you can't fly; there ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... dance she wakes The lordly gallery's silent floor, And climbing up on tiptoe, makes The old-world mirror smile ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)
... two have grown! You big things how dare you get head of me in this way!" she said, standing on tiptoe to pat the curly pates before her, for Will and Geordie had shot up like weeds, and now grinned cheerfully down upon her as she surveyed them in ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... right and to the left, and then, by standing on tiptoe, catching sight of a hat round a pillar: "Then it's Mr. Roberts, of course. I'll just go right over to him. Thank you ever so much. Don't disturb yourself!" She picks her way round the area of damp left by the mop, and approaches the hat ...
— The Albany Depot - A Farce • W. D. Howells
... sleep after a while, and woke suddenly, in alarm. There was somebody approaching her room—evidently on tiptoe. Some one knocking—very gently. She sat ...
— The Coryston Family • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... gone to school years before at the Select Academy for Young Ladies, over in Willimantic, with Elvira Evans long before she became Mrs. Peckham. Kit felt, listening to the four of them go over dear old reminiscences, that it was as though she stood at the curtain of the past, on tiptoe at a peep-hole. ...
— Kit of Greenacre Farm • Izola Forrester
... a clash of glasses followed the refrain. Master Pothier's eyes winked and blinked in sympathy. The old notary stood on tiptoe, with outspread palms, as with ore rotundo he threw in a few notes of his own to ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... and after a moment's pause, let the curtain fall gently, and advanced directly toward Camors, who stood dazzled and immovable. She took both his hands, without speaking, looked at his steadily—throwing a rapid glance at her husband, who still slept—and, standing on tiptoe, offered her lips to ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet
... the doors on tiptoe, and their mother upstairs being, according to Joey's account, in the midst of a nap, Picotee was unwilling to disturb her; so they went down at once to the kitchen, when forward rushed Gwendoline the cook, flourishing her floury ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... listening for a minute, then he rose erect and retreated from the chamber on tiptoe and closed the ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... did not believe altogether that he was in earnest: her immediate discomfort showed him as one who was merely seeking to get her into trouble with her mother in order to gratify an impotent rage. Twice or three times she flamed suddenly, went tiptoe to run from the room. A flash, and she would be gone from the place, down the stairs, into the streets and away anywhere, and she tingled with the very speed of her vision; but she knew that one word from ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens
... Bourg-Saint-Andeol intonation some dramatic lucubration which he cut and slashed remorselessly at the slightest word of criticism from the lady. "Don't disturb yourselves," the good Nabob's wave of the hand would say, as he entered the room on tiptoe. He would listen and nod his head admiringly as he looked at his wife. "She's an astonishing creature," he would say to himself, for he knew nothing of literature, and in that direction at all events he recognized ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... the old fellow, peering on tiptoe into the upper room. "And fast asleep on the floor! That wretch of a witch has not even given her a bed." Then, clapping his great hands against the side of the tower, he cried,—"Wake up, sweet Princess!" in ...
— Ting-a-ling • Frank Richard Stockton
... face! Was it in former days? Was it of late years? She could not tell, and the idea distressed her, upset her nerves. She rose noiselessly to take another look at the sleeping woman, walking over on tiptoe. It was the woman who had lifted her up in the cemetery and then put her to ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... not so well this morning,' said the squire, shaking his head. 'But never fear, my dear one; here's the doctor's daughter, nearly as good as the doctor himself. Have you had your medicine? Your beef-tea?' he continued, going about on heavy tiptoe and peeping into every empty cup and glass. Then he returned to the sofa; looked at her for a minute or two, and then softly kissed her, and told Molly he would leave ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... caught sight of Mrs. Chou approaching, she at once waved her hand, bidding her go to the eastern room. Chou Jui's wife understood her meaning, and hastily came on tiptoe to the chamber on the east, where she saw a nurse patting lady ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... king, who loved a jest, summoned his court to a meadow to witness the race, and to see what the bumptious pygmy could do. Everybody was on tiptoe of expectation, being sure that something amusing ...
— ZigZag Journeys in Northern Lands; - The Rhine to the Arctic • Hezekiah Butterworth
... the lark, the herald of the morn, No nightingale: look, love, what envious streaks Do lace the severing clouds in yonder east: Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops. I must be gone and ...
— Romeo and Juliet • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... the High Priest within the veil in the Most Holy Place. We occasionally heard the pathetic echoes of a trembling voice pleading as if for life, and we learned to slip out and in past that door on tiptoe, not to disturb the holy colloquy. The outside world might not know, but we knew, whence came that happy light as of a new-born smile that always was dawning on my father's face: it was a reflection from the Divine Presence, in the consciousness of which ...
— The Story of John G. Paton - Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals • James Paton
... and the idea they have of their invincibility, while they are smart, active fellows themselves, and both ride and move better and quicker; but the guns! the guns! are their dread; and five or six of them will go round a tree, where an Arab has laid down his gun for a minute, stepping on tiptoe, as if afraid of disturbing it, talking to each other in a whisper, as if the gun could understand their exclamations, and, it may be presumed, praying to it not to do them an injury, as fervently as ever man Friday ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... rising on tiptoe to look over the intervening shoulders, I found myself looking into the white face of my ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout
... and hand in hand, they entered the room on tiptoe—the darkened room where Russell was. What a hush and oppression there seemed to them at first in the dim, silent chamber; what an awfulness in all the appliances which showed how long and deeply their schoolfellow had suffered. ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar
... had been Something. And from that moment began for him the most poignant uncertainty of mind. Gradually he drew back into the garden, holding his breath, listening to every faintest sound, walking upon tiptoe. He reached the fountain, and wetting his hands, passed them across his forehead and eyes. Once more he stood listening. The ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... admitted, he would not permit himself to be announced, but walked tiptoe upstairs and gently opening the drawing-room door, entered the room. Standing by the piano, turning over the leaves of some music, and merrily humming an air, was a young girl of extremely petite and delicate form. Her complexion was strikingly fair; ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... On tiptoe, with noiseless step and suppressed breath, trembling at every rustle of their own apparel, one after another the fair prisoners glided down the winding stair, under the guidance of Roland Graeme, and were received at the wicket-gate by ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... barons became as familiar to me as gowns and caps had formerly been in the streets of Oxford. I stood on the very pinnacle of fortune; and, proud of my skill, like a rope-dancer that casts away his balancing pole, I took pleasure in standing on tiptoe. Noticed by the leading men, caressed and courted by their dependants, politics encouraging me on this hand, and theology inviting me on that, the whole world seemed to be smiles and sunshine; and I discovered that none but blockheads had any cause to ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... your toilet. The sky watches over you when you sleep in your mother's arms, and the morning comes tiptoe to your bed ...
— The Crescent Moon • Rabindranath Tagore (trans.)
... rose quickly, and advanced on tiptoe to the door, where she saw the parrot picking at some buttons on the sofa, which she had often been forbidden to touch. Much amused at the sight, she listened to an imitation of ...
— Minnie's Pet Parrot • Madeline Leslie
... this command to the letter. When the year and a day came she had been able to stand on tiptoe and look at herself for the first time in her life; and she would never forget the gladness of that moment. It had appeared nothing short of a miracle to her that she should actually possess something of which she need not be ashamed—something ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... the invalid was calmly slumbering. Having entered the bedroom on tiptoe and heard regular breathing, Sidwell went down and for a few minutes lingered about the hall. A servant came to her for instructions on some domestic matter; when this was dismissed she mentioned that, if anyone called, she would be found in ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... What meant these pearl-bedecked caves, scarcely larger than swallows' nests? these green canopies, overgrown with moss? He pinched himself, and gazed again. Countless flowers nodded to him, and seemed, like himself, on tiptoe with curiosity, he thought. He beckoned one of the busy, ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... gave the order to march, which the party obeyed by taking off their boots and crawling downstairs on tiptoe to the front door. As silently as possible the great lock was turned and the bolts drawn, and next moment the adventurers, with their boots in one hand and their brown-paper parcels in the other, stood under ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... How friends are raised up!' and with a smile that shone like an April sun through her tears, she stood on tiptoe, and kissed the tall young lady, who—not smiling, but with a pale and very troubled face—bowed down and returned ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... with a flood tide. You have all seen such days. Nature had laid out a wonderful entertainment, to begin with; and put no hindrances in the way; and it appeared that every creature came with spirits and hopes on tiptoe. Dresses were something captivating, so much attention and invention had been exercised upon them. And the facilities for flirtations which the scene and the sport afforded, were most picturesque. The parties in the trees could display ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner
... Walking on tiptoe and as silent as so many cats, the party moved through the hall to the front room. The straining ears heard nothing more from below stairs, though there could be no doubt that their visitors ...
— The Launch Boys' Adventures in Northern Waters • Edward S. Ellis
... the Tuscarora instantly caught a sight of the smoke; and for full a minute he stood, slightly raised on tiptoe, with distended nostrils, like the buck that scents a taint in the air, and a gaze as riveted as that of the trained pointer while he waits his master's aim. Then, falling back on his feet, a low exclamation, in the soft tones that form so singular a contrast to its ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... general attack upon the Tripolitan gunboats, Decatur laid his ship alongside one of the enemy, grappled with her and boarded. Decatur was the first over the side and a desperate hand-to-hand combat followed. The pirate captain, a gigantic fellow, soon met Decatur face to face, and stood on tiptoe to deal him a tremendous blow with his scimitar. Decatur rushed in under the swinging sword, grappled with him, and they fell to the deck together, when another Tripolitan raised his scimitar to deal the American a fatal blow. A young sailor named Reuben James, himself with both ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson
... the causes which had separated men who had acted so long together in good and in evil report, and which had accomplished an union between parties and individuals whose contest had generally been a war to the death. The public had not to remain long on the tiptoe of expectation, for no sooner had the house met than ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... through tracts covered with a species of jungle-grass, called "Dab-grass," which not only reached above the heads of the tallest of the party, but would have done so had they been giants! Goliath or the Cyclops might have, either of them, stood on tiptoe in a field of this grass, without being able to look over ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid
... went to it on tiptoe, quaking at the thought of burglars. "There's nobody in the shop. Not even the cat," turning back reassured. "How did you feel the Presence, Maria? See it, or hear it, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... look and saw in the gloom two evil-looking black figures completely enveloped in charcoal sacks. They were running after him on tiptoe and making great ...
— Pinocchio - The Tale of a Puppet • C. Collodi
... the woman rose, and walking on tiptoe, holding her breath as she walked, pulled the sheet a little further one side. Foolish woman! had she stepped with the thunderer's tread, she could not have disturbed the cold sleeper, covered ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... rapidly the pages of a directory which was on the round table before her. She found the "A's" quickly. Her eye fell upon the name of Ashleigh. She repeated the address to herself and glanced around. The two men were still whispering. For the moment she was forgotten. She stole on tiptoe across the room, ran down the stone steps, ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... intention had been engrossed with the contents of the note, and I had no thought of looking outward. I raised myself on tiptoe, stretching my neck as far as I ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid
... laid out, and to us, fresh from the uncouth barbarism of our shanty and its surroundings, this place seems to breathe of the "Arabian Nights." And is there not a certain princess within, into whose seraphic presence we are now entering? We inhale a new atmosphere, and tread lightly, almost on tiptoe, speaking unconsciously in whispers, and with the blood ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... room and showed himself publicly; but at night the police—those stalwart county men—paid a tiptoe visit to his bedroom. They had no right to this privilege, but perhaps Harry thought it would be better for his brother if they did so. Why they went on tiptoe was that Harry told them his brother was in so weak ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... comfortable; and I'll put on a spurt and work hard to keep things together. I have found a dealer in the Montagne de la Cour, who is willing to take my sketches at a decent price. Look here, Clary, how do you like this little bit of genre? 'Forbidden Fruit'—a chubby six-year-old girl, on tiptoe, trying to filch a peach growing high on the wall; flimsy child, and pre-Raphaelite wall. Peach, carnation velvet; child's cheek to match the peach. Rather a nice thing, ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... to the bedroom door and rapped, and was admitted. He went to work with the baby, and soon, to his joy, it lay asleep on the bed. Then he left the room on tiptoe, and a ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller
... cathedral striking nine; she saw with joy the old servant fall into a peaceful sleep; and she left the room very slowly, in order to make no noise; she descended the stairs softly, step by step and on tiptoe, in order to avoid making the slightest sound. She went into the garden, going around through the servants' quarters and the kitchen; in the garden she paused for a moment to look up at the sky, which was dark and studded with stars. The wind was hushed. Not a breath disturbed ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... the world are, certainly, the drivers of post- office vans. Swinging down Lamb's Conduit Street, the scarlet van rounded the corner by the pillar box in such a way as to graze the kerb and make the little girl who was standing on tiptoe to post a letter look up, half frightened, half curious. She paused with her hand in the mouth of the box; then dropped her letter and ran away. It is seldom only that we see a child on tiptoe with pity—more often a dim discomfort, a grain ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... three still giggling, Heaven knows what about, and pushed her towards me. They pushed her close up to me, and then, before I knew what was happening, she put her hands on my shoulders, stood up on tiptoe, and kissed me. After which, burying her face in her apron, she ran off, followed by the second girl. The third girl opened the door for me, and so evidently expected me to go, that in my confusion I went, leaving my twenty marks ...
— Three Men on the Bummel • Jerome K. Jerome
... up from her seat and went out quickly on tiptoe as she heard a door open and close beneath her in the house, running over in her mind any preparations that she would have to make if the rider were ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson
... little servant his card, Mr. Troy was introduced to a reception-room on the lower floor. Before he had time to look round him the door was opened again from without, and Isabel stole into the room on tiptoe. She looked worn and anxious. When she shook hands with the old lawyer the charming smile that he ...
— My Lady's Money • Wilkie Collins
... much solicitude about rain as a lady dressed in all her best attire, shuffling away on the first sprinklings, and running its head up in a corner. If attended to, it becomes an excellent weather-glass; for as sure as it walks elate, and as it were on tiptoe, feeding with great earnestness in a morning, so sure will it rain before night. It is totally a diurnal animal, and never pretends to stir after it becomes dark. The tortoise, like other reptiles, has an arbitrary stomach as well as lungs; and can refrain ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... Samway; and they approached on tiptoe. There was no disbelieving the report any longer. Troy's face was almost close to the pane, and he was looking in. Not only was he looking in, but he appeared to have been arrested by a conversation which was in progress in the malt-house, the ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... silent solo, this time on the tambourine, which the boy pretended to beat with frantic energy, ending by going on tiptoe to peep through the keyhole, and satisfy himself that the doctor was in ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn
... away all the stones of the Bastile," continued Rollo, "and made this tall bronze column in its place. There is a figure of a man on it, standing on tiptoe." ...
— Rollo in Paris • Jacob Abbott
... in which the three Mahars slept I entered silently on tiptoe, forgetting that the creatures were without the sense of hearing. With a quick thrust through the heart I disposed of the first but my second thrust was not so fortunate, so that before I could kill the next of my victims it had hurled itself against ...
— At the Earth's Core • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... its weight, and watched the opportunity of slipping up into his chamber with it, where his box was, and in which he put it under lock and key. At playtime every day he slipped away from his companions, went upstairs a-tiptoe, cut a tolerable slice off, swallowed it, put by the rest, and then came down and mixed again with his companions. He continued this clandestine business all the week, and even then the cake was hardly half consumed. But what ensued? ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... were fastened; the rat held one of these, and the cat the other. Their eyes were bandaged. The cat was armed with a cudgel and tried to catch the rat, who kept out of the way as much as he could, listening for the cat's approach—thus they kept going around on tiptoe, and exhibiting ...
— The Conscript - A Story of the French war of 1813 • Emile Erckmann
... heard the crackling of a burning house, then gunshots far away, and distant shouts. On tiptoe she went to the garret window, and peeped round its edge. Over the hills, quite near, she saw the men returning. One house was blazing—the minister's. The Indians were retreating. Near her door, grazing, stood a riderless horse. She knew ...
— The Indian's Hand - 1892 • Lorimer Stoddard
... affirmed Slim. "That's the worst part of it; I saw it in the book. I'm toting around about twenty pounds more than the government wants, and I'd have to stand on tiptoe in high-heel shoes to meet the ...
— The Brighton Boys in the Radio Service • James R. Driscoll
... and yellow-ochred doorsteps projecting on to the pavement; then another old shop whose small window looked like a cunning, half-shut eye. Mother and son went cautiously, looking everywhere for "Thomas Jordan and Son". It was like hunting in some wild place. They were on tiptoe of excitement. ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... just full of folks with great staring eyes. I fairly shook with shivers then, but I managed to shut the piano and get over to the door where the light was. Then, a minute later, out in the big silent hall, I crept on tiptoe toward the stairs. I knew then, all of a sudden, why I'd felt somebody was listening. There was. Across the hall in the library in the big chair before the fire sat—Father! And for 'most a whole half-hour I had been banging away at that piano on marches and dance music! My! But ...
— Mary Marie • Eleanor H. Porter
... extinguished his taper, when Aramis, who had watched through his curtains the last glimmer of light in his friend's apartment, traversed the corridor on tiptoe, and went to Porthos's room. The giant, who had been in bed nearly an hour and a half, lay grandly stretched out on the down bed. He was in that happy calm of the first sleep, which, with Porthos, resisted the ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... the table and saw her coming. Already she was behind the screen, stealing into the room, her head thrust forward, her lips parted, a peculiar glitter in her eyes. For a moment I stood rigid. The sight of her fascinated me—there was something so wholly animal-like in the stealthy triumph of her tiptoe approach. I recovered myself just in time. One more step, a turn of her head, and she would have seen Grooten. My finger pressed down the catch of the lamp, and a ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... were put into the first two or three rows of desks. The teacher was a little sandy man who made well-trodden jokes and talked in a wheezy voice well suited to his appearance. He used the blackboard, and stood upon tiptoe to scrawl upon it in a large handwriting. That was at the beginning. Later, methods developed; but for the present Sally and the others were merely initiated into the first movements of the difficult craft. With amazement she began to learn the mysteries of the signs "Dr." and "Cr.", the ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... satisfied himself that the chimney was so small that it was utterly impossible to pass even his head up it, he drew the two blocks of wood over to the window, and was able, by placing one above the other and standing on tiptoe on the highest, to reach the bars which guarded it. Drawing himself up, and fixing one toe in an inequality of the wall, he managed to look out on to the courtyard which they had just quitted. The carriage ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... anything you like best," she answered, standing on tiptoe to kiss him. "Only say 'I love you' as you ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives
... his niece. She rose on tiptoe, and just touched his rough cheek. There was no natural childish effusiveness in the action. For the seven years since she left her father, Louie had quite ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... to the silence of that chapel-like library. Half a dozen times in the first few months a fair-haired, rather supercilious young man came and fetched away a few volumes; but even he evidenced an inclination to walk on tiptoe, a tendency that mastered him whenever he forgot for a moment his ...
— The Wonder • J. D. Beresford
... next half-hour, at the end of which he concealed his box of chalks, with an anxiety possibly not unwarranted, beneath the sideboard; and made his way toward the front door, first glancing, unseen, into the kitchen where his mother still pursued the silver. He walked through the hall on tiptoe, taking care to step upon the much stained and worn strip of "Turkish" carpet, and not upon the more resonant wooden floor. The ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington
... dressed in his very Best), may perhaps have mistaken him for some Court Nobleman who had arrived late. He had got within the charmed circle indeed (I being a few paces behind him), and was standing on Tiptoe to take a full stare at one of the young Archduchesses who was bending her bow to shoot at Cupid, when up comes an old Lord with a very long white face like a Sheep, with a Crimson Ribbon across his breast, ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 2 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... when mother Fancy rocks The wayward brain, to saunter through a wood An old place, full of many a lovely brood, Tall trees, green arbours, and ground-flowers in flocks And wild rose tiptoe ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... to her that Carthage had such a lively social existence—for its size. Once, when she fell ill, the people felt suddenly as passengers feel when a street car is suddenly braked back on its haunches. All Carthage found itself wavering and poised on tiptoe and clinging to straps; and then it sogged back on its heels and waited till the car should resume progress. Mrs. Budlong was the town's motorman—or "motorneer," as they ...
— Mrs. Budlong's Chrismas Presents • Rupert Hughes
... calls for—Sarah; and this same comes in on tiptoe, for fear of waking the baby. This Shylock fils Sarah proceeds to describe as equally beautiful with Abel and Moses, which seems to give Shylock pere great comfort,—though I am bound to admit the lowly whispered doubt on the part of a pit-neighbor of ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... afflicted with some stupid ailment or other which prevents them doing this and that. To be in contact with physical health—it would alone suffice to render their society a dear delight, quite apart from the fact that if you are wise and humble you may tiptoe yourself, ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... waxed hot; it had reached its height when 'Poleon laid a finger upon his lips, commanding silence. On tiptoe he led the two men into his tent. When he had issued instructions and left in search of a boatman the partners seated themselves awkwardly, their caps in their hands. Curiously, apprehensively, they studied the fever-flushed face of ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... the little girl, standing on tiptoe, had reached the windowsill and placed the shoe upon it, and was back again in the house beside Granny and the ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... descended through the underwood on the side of the slope opposite to that trodden by Lady Constantine, and crossed the field in a line mathematically straight, and in a manner that left no traces, by keeping in the same furrow all the way on tiptoe. In a few minutes he reached a little dell, which occurred quite unexpectedly on the other side of the field-fence, and descended to a venerable thatched house, whose enormous roof, broken up by ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... and huge preparations were made for sighting and taking aim. We scuttled round with field glasses, and finally stood on tiptoe behind branches on a mound by the side of the gun. There were many soldiers fussing in the dug-out, and at last ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... class are those in which the weight is between the fulcrum and the power. A familiar example is the crowbar when used for lifting a weight while one end rests on the ground. This class of levers is not common in the body. Standing on tiptoe is, however, an example. Here the toes in contact with the ground are the fulcrum, the power is the action of the muscles of the calf, and between these is the weight of the body transmitted down the bones of the ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell
... Sir James Yeo, who had just arrived from England to command the British naval forces on the lakes—the squadron on Lake Ontario now consisting of two ships, a brig, and two schooners—the public was on the tiptoe of expectation for some decisive dash on the enemy's flotilla on that lake. An attack upon Sackett's Harbour, in the absence of their fleet at Niagara, was resolved upon, so as to destroy "the forts, the arsenals, and the dock-yard, where the Americans ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper
... Barney, as they approached the hut on tiptoe; "there may be savages into it, an' there's no sayin' what sort o' craturs they are in ...
— Martin Rattler • R.M. Ballantyne
... mostly thinking about the angels. I do that a lot at night, I have no time in the day; I think of the angels, and Lord Jesus Christ, and heaven, and then father comes in. He opens the door soft, and he treads on tiptoe for fear I'm asleep, as if I could be! And then he kisses me, and I think in the whole of heaven there can never be an angel so good and beautiful as he is, and he says something to me which keeps me strong until the next night, ...
— Daddy's Girl • L. T. Meade
... the mountain poor-whites, that Marcia Lowe heard a knock upon her cabin door. So alone and absorbed had she been for the past few days that a demand from the outer world startled and annoyed her. Martin was sleeping—he lay in the lean-to chamber—so on tiptoe the little doctor went to ...
— A Son of the Hills • Harriet T. Comstock
... of shaking hands with a cutthroat; who knows but here I may introduce myself upon visiting terms with his family? 'faith I'll reconnoitre the position before I establish my quarters. This casement is commodiously low. (Steps to the casement on tiptoe.) I protest, a vastly neat, creditable sort of mansion! Yes—it will do! on one side blazes an excellent fire; in the middle stands a table ready covered; that's for supper: then just opposite is a door left ajar; ay, ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... decide what "slight" shall be, and my neighbour really seems to enjoy using this privilege, judging from the way she talks about it. I would give much to be able to peep through a keyhole and see the dauntless little lady, terrible in her wrath and dignity, standing on tiptoe to box the ears of some great strapping girl ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp
... her cradle-like nest in her nautical bower, Miss Rosey slumbered as lightly. Waking from a vivid dream of Venice—a child's Venice—seen from the swelling deck of the proudly-riding Pontiac, she was so impressed as to rise and cross on tiptoe to the little slanting porthole. Morning was already dawning over the flat, straggling city, but from every counting-house and magazine the votive tapers of the feverish worshipers of trade and mammon ...
— By Shore and Sedge • Bret Harte
... night together and hurried away to the beggar's room. Each was too burdened for talk and they walked in silence. Arriving at the house, they ascended the stairs on tiptoe and paused to listen at the door. "I will leave it ajar, so you may hear what he says, and then you can judge if I am right," said Mantel, ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... the street where the chapel is burning. The Catholics throughout the place are all threatened with destruction, and we met several porters, between ten and eleven at night, privately removing goods, walking on tiptoe, ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... tragedies caused or suffered by the house of Anjou, and by the Emperor—these were full of a more permanent significance. But, since then, the colossal figure of feudalism was seen standing, as it were on tiptoe, at Crecy, for flight from earth: that was a revolution unparalleled; yet that was a trifle by comparison with the more fearful revolutions that were mining below the Church. By her own internal schisms, by the abominable ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... Elfride glided downstairs on tiptoe, and out to the precise spot on which she had parted from Stephen to enable him to speak privately to her father. Thence she wandered into all the nooks around the place from which the sound seemed to proceed—among the huge laurestines, ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... heart had guided her rightly; yonder, in the most remote corner of the room, sat Elza, groaning aloud in bitter woe, her hands clasped on her knees, her head bent on her breast, and not perceiving in her agony that Eliza came in, that she hastened rapidly, yet noiselessly and on tiptoe through the room, and stood still now close in front ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... ready acquiescence, the grateful Rosa put her hands upon his shoulders, stood on tiptoe, and instantly kissed him. ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... Pallid mechanics and their wives, the latter sometimes bearing young children in their arms, exhibited varying degrees of drunkenness, from the hilarious or maudlin state to that of rolling intoxication. Even children, whose size was so diminutive that they had to stand on tiptoe to elevate their heads above the counter, demanded and received their liquor, imbibing the burning fluid with eyes that sparkled delight. I was in the temple of the gin-fiend, and the crowd around me ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... warrior who becomes an ascetic eats leaves, and is clothed in grass. For one month he eats fruits every third day (night); for another month every sixth day; for another month every fortnight; and for the fourth month he lives on air, standing on tiptoe with arms stretched up. Another account says that the knight eats fruit for one month; water for one month; and for the third month, nothing (III. 33. 73; 38. 22-26; 167). One may compare with these ascetic practices, which are not so exaggerated, in fact, ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... in hot and clear, all over the countryside the crops ripened well, and now, in the last quarter of the moon, they were ripe to cut. Ishmael went down to the four-acre with Nicky to see the men at work, and Jim, who for days had been on the tiptoe of excitement over the advent of "the machine," as the binder was always called, ran in ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... Entering on tiptoe, she stood and looked upon his face. He slept as peacefully as a babe. The anxious look of care which he had worn for years had passed away, and the flickering fire revealed the ghost of a smile upon his placid face. In this it was that Evelyn read the truth. The crisis of effort for him was ...
— Solomon Crow's Christmas Pockets and Other Tales • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... that house on the hill above Woluwe no more, not even to see Monica standing on tiptoe to pick her roses. For I have left a giant's robe hanging on a peg in the hall, and I would not have those amiable people see how utterly incapable I am of filling it under normal conditions. I feel, besides, a kind of sentimental tenderness for this illusion fated to have so short ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton
... the floor, and Simpkins saw that he wore sandals. His own heavy walking boots rang loudly on the flagged floors and woke the echoes in the vaulted ceiling. He began to tread on tiptoe, as one ...
— The False Gods • George Horace Lorimer
... of the cunning cat-like Charles Greville, who crept on tiptoe through the world, observing and recording the littleness of men? His stealthy eye missed nothing; and the men whom he flattered and used little thought that the wizened dandy who pleased them with his old-world ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... later on. Between some lovely old turrets, down from convent walls a group of nuns fluttered tremulously; they were putting the last touches to the reposoir of their own Sacre Coeur. Some were carrying huge gilt crosses, staggering as they walked; others were on tiptoe filling the tall vases; others were on their knees, patting into perfect smoothness the turf laid about the altar steps. There was an old cure among them and a young carpenter whom the cure was directing. Everyone of the nuns had her black skirts tucked up; their stout shoes must be free ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... to saunter about the hall, haggle for books with the second-hand dealers along the south wall, or flirt with the milliners who kept stalls for bands and other legal finery on the opposite side, or to listen on tiptoe, with an ear above the panelled enclosure, to the quips and cranks or fierce rhetoric of a famous advocate—these to-day gravitated with one accord towards the south-west corner of the Hall, where, in the Court of King's ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... season has come and gone and now we settle down to the real life of the winter. Plans innumerable are under way for winter activities, and the children are on tiptoe over the prospect of approaching Christmastide. Their jubilations fill the house, and writing is even ...
— Le Petit Nord - or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour • Anne Elizabeth Caldwell (MacClanahan) Grenfell and Katie Spalding
... drives him off, and so the play continues. Now the male grows excited as he approaches her, and while still several inches away, whirls completely around and around; pausing, he runs closer and begins to make his abdomen quiver as he stands on tiptoe in front of her. Prancing from side to side, he grows bolder and bolder, while she seems less fierce, and yielding to the excitement, lifts up her magnificently iridescent abdomen, holding it at ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... and rapped, while I watched them through the blind-slats. Presently the fattest one, a real Falstaffian man, came back to the front door and rung a thundering peal. I saw the chance for fun and for putting on their own grandiloquent style. Stealing on tiptoe to the door, I turned the key and bolt noiselessly, and suddenly threw wide back the door, and appeared behind it. He had been leaning on it, and nearly pitched forward with an "Oh! what's this?" Then seeing me as he straightened up, "Ah, madam!" almost stuttering from surprise ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... of the council chamber the figure of a man emerged. He walked on tiptoe toward the table. The black ash on the table fascinated him. For several ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... 1 Peter 5:8, 9. If our ears do not deceive us, a good deal of this roaring is heard in the ranks of Spiritualists, where, by invisible rapping, agitated furniture, clairvoyance, clairaudience, writing, speaking, marvels, and wonders, he seeks to set the world on tiptoe of curiosity and expectation, and bewilder men into a departure from the faith and the acceptance of the doctrines of devils. He is cunning enough not to "roar" in a way to frighten and repel, but only to attract attention, ...
— Modern Spiritualism • Uriah Smith
... up and down, as if to see that there was no one nigh, and then, coming close to the Corn Engrosser, he stood on tiptoe and spake in his ear, "Thinkest thou in sooth that I am a beggar, as I seem to be? Look upon me. There is not a grain of dirt upon my hands or my face or my body. Didst thou ever see a beggar so? I tell thee I am as honest a man as thou art. Look, friend." Here he took the purse ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... have been the trembling of the moonlight that made me fancy it,' Lena said to herself. And the next morning when she awoke she stood up on tiptoe to examine the particular spot where she had seen these curious things. It looked just the same as the other parts of the curtains—only half hidden among the bushy leaves near the rustic doorway that Lena called the arbour, she found out a queer brown little face that she had not seen before. It ...
— Hoodie • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth
... it was impossible for any one who loved her not to perceive that she was far from well. The kind governess placed her pupil on the sofa, covered her feet up warmly, darkened the room, and then stole out on tiptoe, fancying that Ellinor would sleep. Her eyes were, indeed, shut; but try as much as she would to be quiet, she was up in less than five minutes after Miss Monro had left the room, and walking up and down in all the restless ...
— A Dark Night's Work • Elizabeth Gaskell
... prospect of anything in the shape of fun, I followed Jem on tiptoe, and when we stood by the open window with our hands over our mouths to keep us from laughing, the pale-faced man was just struggling with the inside lids ...
— We and the World, Part I - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... on the ground beside her. I longed to do something to lessen that grief, and help the poor woman a little. She must have come there in a state of destitution: her clothes revealed her poverty. But I durst not disturb either her mourning or their prayers, and I came out quietly on tiptoe. ...
— In the Field (1914-1915) - The Impressions of an Officer of Light Cavalry • Marcel Dupont
... quiet corner, my steps were arrested by the surprising sight of—Beauty!—the very identical devil himself! There stood the unhangable, undrownable, hurricane-creating beast, looking as serene as a newly-born black cherub, washing his fiendish face! I approached on tiptoe, breathlessly, with the basket behind my back and the half chicken extended as a peaceable card of introduction. He scented it instantly—my aunt always keeping Beauty's tit-bits until sufficiently gamey to ...
— The Idler, Volume III., Issue XIII., February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly. Edited By Jerome K. Jerome & Robert Barr • Various
... is a time of tyranny and oppression for those who live in Marathon. The birds are upon us like Hindenburg in Belgium. We go about on tiptoe, speaking in whispers, for fear of annoying them. It is all the fault of the Marathon Bird Club, which has offered all sorts of inducements to the fowls of the air to come and live in our suburb, quite forgetting that humble commuters have to live there, too. Birds have moved all ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... his room on tiptoe, but Eleanor heard him and said, sleepily, "What on earth have you been ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... my utmost powers of persuasion on Mr. Marchmont which I should certainly have done on my own account, being now on the very tiptoe of curiosity to hear Thorndyke's explanation of the unthinkable conclusion at which he had arrived—and the subject dropped completely; nor could I, during the rest of the evening, induce my colleague to reopen it even in the most indirect or ...
— The Mystery of 31 New Inn • R. Austin Freeman
... and, without asking her leave, kissed her twenty times in less than a minute, after a fashion that (I say it with reverence) would have tantalized even a deacon. She clapped her hands, she laughed, she danced, she went swaying on tiptoe around the room with a jaunty step, singing and keeping time to a waltz tune; and finally, pausing near the window, she doubled a tiny fist, as white as a snowball, bringing it down into the rosy palm of her other ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... such sad meditations, and, duty-driven, sought John in the smoking-room. The door was half open and she entered noiselessly. John was sitting at the table; his arms were outspread on it, and his face buried in his hands. Thinking he was asleep she approached on tiptoe and leant over his shoulder. As she did so her eyes fell on a sheet of note-paper; it was clutched in John's right hand, and the encircling grasp covered it, save at the top. The top was visible, ...
— Comedies of Courtship • Anthony Hope
... draw a foreshortened foot, it had been the fashion in art to paint people standing upon their tiptoes, to make it possible for an artist to paint the foot. The enterprising Thomas came along and he decided that feet must be painted both flat and crossed, on tiptoe or otherwise; in short he did not mean ...
— Pictures Every Child Should Know • Dolores Bacon
... himself who hid in the corn, and we made havoc following after. Laughing, we ramble on, till we hear the long, far whistle of a locomotive. The railroad track is just visible over the field on the left of the road; the cornfield, I say, is on the right. We stand on tiptoe and wave our hands and shout as the long train rushes by at a terrific speed, leaving ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... I stole on tiptoe upstairs to the little room from whose windows, looking one way, we see the fields we know and, looking another, those hilly lands that I sought—almost I feared not to find them. I looked at once toward the mountains of faery; the afterglow ...
— Tales of Three Hemispheres • Lord Dunsany
... knocking at the door; and David, his face and hair and cap smothered in the all-pervading white, came in with an eddy of snow. He patted Owd Bob, and moved on tiptoe into the kitchen. To him came Maggie softly, shoes in hand, with white, frightened face. The two whispered anxiously awhile like brother and sister as they were; then the boy crept quietly away; only a little pool of water on the floor and wet, treacherous foot-dabs toward the door ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... later. As John put pussy away, he said, "If t'War Pig doesn't satisfy 'em, I'll show 'em something else." We commenced the performance. I brought the pig out of the box, and exhibited the animal on a small table in the middle of the room. The audience was on the tiptoe of expectation, and crowded towards the table to see the famous war pig, which, after its long confinement, and also, of course, from its natural condition, was hardly able to stand. In a few words I introduced the war pig—"Ladies and gentlemen,—In opening the performance this evening, I have ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... side of the slope opposite to that trodden by Lady Constantine, and crossed the field in a line mathematically straight, and in a manner that left no traces, by keeping in the same furrow all the way on tiptoe. In a few minutes he reached a little dell, which occurred quite unexpectedly on the other side of the field-fence, and descended to a venerable thatched house, whose enormous roof, broken up by dormers as big as haycocks, could be seen even in the ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... caps had formerly been in the streets of Oxford. I stood on the very pinnacle of fortune; and, proud of my skill, like a rope-dancer that casts away his balancing pole, I took pleasure in standing on tiptoe. Noticed by the leading men, caressed and courted by their dependants, politics encouraging me on this hand, and theology inviting me on that, the whole world seemed to be smiles and sunshine; and I discovered that none but blockheads had any cause to ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... looking through the windows of the cars to see if they could catch a glimpse of whom they sought. Suddenly the senator broke into a smile and waved his cane. The action was so unusual for him that it looked grotesque. Margaret stood on tiptoe and waved her hand, and a presentiment came to Aladdin and took away ...
— Aladdin O'Brien • Gouverneur Morris
... to the sausages and other good morsels, while Anna Apenborg was on tiptoe of expectation to see what would happen; and old Wolde was there quite well again (for ill weeds never die—no winter is cold enough for that). And she filled each of their cans with the beer which Sidonia had brewed, after a new formula; but, lo! no sooner had they tasted it than ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... are many chiefly addicted to fattening themselves up by gluttony, who, following the scent of any delicate food, and the shrill voices of the women who, from cockcrow, cry out with a shrill scream, like so many peacocks, and gliding over the ground on tiptoe, get an entrance into the halls, biting their nails while the dishes are getting cool. Others fix their eyes intently on the tainted meat which is being cooked, that you might fancy Democritus, with a number of anatomists, ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... offer of gold, for he had discovered—amid all their outward show of religious zeal—a greed for wealth among these strange white men from over the stormy seas. He suggested that he should fill with gold the room in which he was confined as high as he could reach. Standing on tiptoe, he marked the wall with his hand. Pizarro accepted the offer, and the Spaniards greedily watched the arrival of their treasure from the roofs of palace and temple. They gained a sum of something like three million sterling and then ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... the interval before the hour appointed by the great leader for their meeting. For a time he loitered in a window overlooking the restful oasis of the square, a place of fountains and pleasant leafage, dominated by a graceful tower which served as footstool for a shining goddess on tiptoe to greet the morning. His eyes were not long bent upon the goddess,—he did not "live with the gods,"—nor yet upon the greenness, since he had lived all his days with shrubs and trees; he watched the commingling ride of Broadway and Fifth Avenue, watched till it dizzied and ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... I do to save thee, dear?" At the word she sprang upright; On tiptoe she stood, he bent his ear, She whispered, whispered light. She withdrew; she gazed with an asking fear: Like one that looks on his lady's bier He stood, with ...
— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... his professional glance quickly detected the false pretence of slumber. A slippered foot was still slightly reached out beyond the bright colors of the long gown, and toward the brazen edge of the hearth-pan, as though the owner had been touching her tiptoe against it to keep the chair in gentle motion. One cheek was on the pillow; down the other curled a few light strands of hair that had escaped ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... the room, and returned with his nightly glass and jug of water. There could be nothing else that he would want during the night. It was all he ever had, and he would sleep so until morning. She approached the bed upon tiptoe. ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... as he was about to turn the first page the silence of the room was broken by a faint cackling laugh—an elfin sound which died away instantly. He looked up, startled. His surprise was not lessened at the sight of Mrs. Thalassa watching him from the open doorway. She entered on tiptoe, with a strange air of caution, examining him with ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... brother secured the Yale lock so that its tongue was engaged, and, quietly closing the door, followed his wife and sister a-tiptoe through the hall and past the baize door which led to ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... the flashlight, they went ahead on tiptoe until they reached a spot which they judged was directly beneath the little room in which they believed Cummings and Gibson were in surreptitious conference. There they strained their ears to catch the sound of voices above them. ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson
... other night at supper, what he thought of England; whether he found much alteration from fifteen years ago? "No," he said, "not at all: why, there is my Lord Bath, I don't see the least alteration in him; he is just what he was: and then I found Lord Grantham (735) walking on tiptoe, as if he was still afraid of waking ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... ostentatiously quiet. His troubles had to do with the expenses of his illness, and he beseeched me not to send for a doctor or a nurse. I tried to set his mind at rest, but I failed; he saw that I thought him very ill, and when I moved round the room on tiptoe he asked me to make as much noise as I liked. I was no use as a sick nurse, and my efforts to make the room look fit to live in, though meant splendidly, seemed to me to make the place more uncomfortable ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... thought better of it and lay back again with eyes closed, while Markham moved on tiptoe around the room putting things to rights, all the while swearing silently. What in the name of all that was unpleasant did this philandering little idiot mean by trying to destroy herself on the front lawn of his holiday house? ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... lower stature of intelligence all day long would make one's head ache; standing on tiptoe and stretching up would do the same; one needs a ...
— Tenterhooks • Ada Leverson
... suggested a stream flowing out in that direction through a wooded valley, but stream there was none. That way I looked between and over the near green hills to some distant and higher ones in the horizon, tinged with blue. Indeed, by standing on tiptoe I could catch a glimpse of some of the peaks of the still bluer and more distant mountain ranges in the northwest, those true-blue coins from heaven's own mint, and also of some portion of the village. But in other directions, even from this point, I could not see over or beyond ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... curtain was drawn as noiselessly as possible to keep out the rays of the now setting sun, and creeping away stealthily on tiptoe, the kind-hearted and hospitable couple left their ...
— The King's Warrant - A Story of Old and New France • Alfred H. Engelbach
... second class are those in which the weight is between the fulcrum and the power. A familiar example is the crowbar when used for lifting a weight while one end rests on the ground. This class of levers is not common in the body. Standing on tiptoe is, however, an example. Here the toes in contact with the ground are the fulcrum, the power is the action of the muscles of the calf, and between these is the weight of the body transmitted down the bones of the leg ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell
... than any I have seen elsewhere. The Sabbath was a day of such solemn rest that one lived as it were in a dream. No food was cooked; even the tables in breakfast-room and dining-hall were laid on Saturday; no horse left the stables, the servants dressed in their sombrest and best, moved about on tiptoe, and talked in whispers. We children were taught to consider it sinful even to think our own thoughts on this holy day. If we boys ever forgot ourselves so far as to speak of things secular, there was Flora to lift a warning finger and with terrible earnestness remind ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables
... "I do not like to hear you speak lightly of your headaches. To me they are sacred institutions, and I should never dare to tamper with them. Don't I always walk on tiptoe and speak in a whisper when you have a headache? You know I do, even when you don't happen to be in the room. If your gloom is the same sort of thing ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, February 23, 1916 • Various
... over-shooting the mark by a hundred yards or so and wondering very much what had become of the rabbit. There was a steep path, from the top of which the rabbit suddenly came into view, and the practice of Porthos was to advance up it on tiptoe, turning near the summit to give me a knowing look and then bounding forward. The rabbit here did something tricky with a hole in the ground, but Porthos tore onwards in full faith that the game was being ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie
... rest stood back, Addison approached on tiptoe with the looking-glass, and held it to the hole for some moments. Then he examined it and looked back at us, nodding. There was moisture ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... paper bags from Tom's hands and stood on tiptoe to kiss him, smiling sweetly at his ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... superficial culture at the same time. Books, plays, authors, artists, manners, accent—all were grist to his mill. He was an astute actor. He could assume a virtue; simulate anxiety; hover about closed doors on tiptoe; speak in the awed whisper; in the event of a crisis ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... divided. The theory of igneous injection was advanced by some; others inclined to that of sublimation. Mahony leaned to a combination of the two processes, and spent several days getting his thoughts in order; while Polly, bursting with pride, went about on tiptoe audibly hushing the children: their uncle was writing ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... of Rome is quiet and sober. One could almost fancy the actual generation held their breath, and stole by on tiptoe, in presence of so memorable a past. But during the Carnival all mankind, womankind and childkind think it unbecoming not to play the fool. The modern donkey pokes its head out of the lion's skin of old Rome, and brays out the absurdest of asinine roundelays. Conceive ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... lay down on beds of rushes; and Goldilocks, soothed by the lullaby, fell asleep; but soon awoke, and saw her brother leaning, on tiptoe, over the osier basket. The baby's face looked, in the moonlight, white and pinched; and its sick hands were pressed together ...
— Fairy Book • Sophie May
... retreat she had removed her dripping hat, hung it on the fender to dry, and stretched herself on tiptoe in front of the round eagle-crowned mirror, above the mantel vases of dyed immortelles, while she ran her fingers comb-wise through her hair. The gesture had acted on Darrow's numb feelings as the glow of the fire acted on his circulation; and when he had asked: "Aren't your feet wet, too?" ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... glazed and grated door opening on the street, and guarded by a detachment, Javert opened the door, entered with Fantine, and shut the door behind him, to the great disappointment of the curious, who raised themselves on tiptoe, and craned their necks in front of the thick glass of the station-house, in their effort to see. Curiosity is a sort of gluttony. To see is ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... arch; he paused, and saw a large vaulted room, through the loop-hole window of which shone a yellow stream of golden sunshine. There was a low bed in one corner, and on it lay a motionless form. On tiptoe, and with a throbbing heart, the boy approached; he saw the face—it was ghastly pale. He stood transfixed—could it be?—yes, it must still be, his ...
— The Lances of Lynwood • Charlotte M. Yonge
... upon tiptoe, careful of my person, perfumed, and adorned—but now when a glad whirlwind has overthrown me in the dust I laugh and roll on the earth at ...
— Fruit-Gathering • Rabindranath Tagore
... in the churchyard now, having left the pony within eye-shot, and taken the baskets along with us, and were standing on one of those very lozenges, somewhat grass-grown by this time, and deciphering the inscriptions. On tiptoe we could get a wide view of the marsh, with, the wind sweeping in a lonely limitless way through the tall grasses. Presently hearing Dickens's cheery call, we turned to see what he was doing. He had chosen a good flat gravestone in one corner (the corner farthest ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... breathless interval a two-step followed, and Phil danced again, seizing a corn-stalk and holding it above her head with both hands like a wand. When the music ended she poised on tiptoe and flung the stalk far from her toward the barn as though it were a javelin. Then as she took a step toward the fence she was aware that some one had been watching her. It was, indeed, a nice question whether the flying stalk had not grazed the ear of a man who stood on Holton soil, ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... with tiny white dots, and the neck and sleeves were edged with tiny white ruffles. It had been Rebecca's best dress for several summers, until she outgrew it, and it was made over for the younger girl, but Anna was very proud of it, and stood on tiptoe to see herself reflected in the narrow mirror between the windows of the sitting-room. Her mother had made a sunbonnet of the same material as the dress, and Anna put this on with satisfaction. Always before this she had despised a sunbonnet, and never had she put it on ...
— A Little Maid of Old Maine • Alice Turner Curtis
... Aphrodite is cheapening the Goddesses, and nothing else. In such comparisons the small is not so much magnified as the great is diminished and reduced. If a giant and a dwarf were walking together, and their heights had to be equalized, no efforts of the dwarf could effect it, however much he stood on tiptoe; the giant must stoop and make himself out shorter than he is. So in this sort of portraiture: the human is not so much exalted by the similitude as the divine is belittled and pulled down. If indeed a lack of earthly beauties forced the artist upon scaling Heaven, he might perhaps ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... door of the drawing-room, opened it noiselessly and beckoned to Melrose. He went in, and, against his will, he went on tiptoe, and holding his breath. ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... daring desire arise than the hardy Robin resolved to gratify it; and stealing on tiptoe along the wall, he peered cautiously through the aperture made by the sliding panel. An enormous stuffed lizard hung from the ceiling, and various strange reptiles, dried into mummy, were ranged around, and glared at the spy with green ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... head thrust forward, her lips parted, a peculiar glitter in her eyes. For a moment I stood rigid. The sight of her fascinated me—there was something so wholly animal-like in the stealthy triumph of her tiptoe approach. I recovered myself just in time. One more step, a turn of her head, and she would have seen Grooten. My finger pressed down the catch of the lamp, and a sudden ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... fled precipitately. At the gate he brushed against some one, muttered an apology, and plunged through. Evelyn Walton, following his course of flight from the doorway, laughed softly. Miss Caroline Mullett, standing on tiptoe in the middle of the path, strove to see over the hedge, and, failing, turned to the ...
— The Lilac Girl • Ralph Henry Barbour
... hoary blade and tree and flower that lay upon the glistening window panes. If we had needed inspiration from external things at this moment, how easily we could have received it. But there was not a fibre within us that was not already awake to such soul-stirring influences. We went on tiptoe towards the altar-rail, and knelt upon the topmost step. To tell what followed would be to intrude upon the sacredness of the soul's privacy. Suffice it to say that for some solemn moments we knelt and prayed ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... was rendered intensely lively by the approach of the redoubtable Snarleyow himself, who, having snapped at the horse's heels all the way to the stables, had on his return to the front of the house spotted Aleck from afar. He was now advancing on tiptoe in full order of battle, his wicked-looking teeth gleaming, and his coat and tail standing out ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... over his shrunken breast. His face was a mass of yellow wrinkles. His eyes were closed. His yellow fingers were twined about a wooden staff. Above his head was drawn a patched hood. Was he alive or dead? I could not tell, and I passed him on tiptoe. And going always with precaution between the tall, grey houses and beneath the lowering arches, I came at last ...
— The Spell of Egypt • Robert Hichens
... of his Apparel (for he was dressed in his very Best), may perhaps have mistaken him for some Court Nobleman who had arrived late. He had got within the charmed circle indeed (I being a few paces behind him), and was standing on Tiptoe to take a full stare at one of the young Archduchesses who was bending her bow to shoot at Cupid, when up comes an old Lord with a very long white face like a Sheep, with a Crimson Ribbon across ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 2 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... bidden each other good-night, long after Herbert had trodden on tiptoe with his candle past his closed door, Lawford sat leaning on his arms at the open window, staring out across the motionless moonlit trees that seemed to stand like draped and dreaming pilgrims, come to the peace of their Nirvana at last beside the crashing music ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... quite a minute before I dared to make another step. I had meant to walk straight across to the other door, passing in my course close by the occupied chair. I did not do so; I kept round by the wall, creeping on tiptoe and my eye never leaving the figure in the chair. I did this in spite of myself, and the manner of my action was the first hint of ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett
... cat would always appear again to trouble him. One evening, as a final effort in assassination, before retiring to bed, he tied a heavy piece of iron round the cat's neck, and dropped it into a water-butt which stood in his garden. Next morning he was down betimes, and standing on the tiptoe both of expectation and of his boots, he peeped over the edge of the tub, when lo! there, on the bottom of the butt sat the cat looking up at him with tears in her eyes, for she was too heavily anchored ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... then, creeping on tiptoe, as men do in such houses, to the infinite annoyance of the invalids whom they wish to spare, he went upstairs, and ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... and in its pursuit they are unremitting. It is divided in distinct departments, among the sisters; each of whom is characterised at home by some laudatory epithet, strikingly illustrative of what they would like to be. There is Miss Tiptoe, such an amiable girl! that is, she has a large mouth, and a Mallan in the middle of it. There is Jemima, "who enjoys such delicate health "—that is, she has no bust, and wears a scarf. Then there is Grace, who is all for evening ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 2, 1841 • Various
... scene of conflict, at the last flutter of Death's gloomy mantle, comes the man of medicine; watch in hand, boots a tiptoe, face grave but triumphant. His voice bids a subdued farewell to the somberness proper to a probable death-bed, coming up just a note higher in the scale of solemnities, as it announces to the eager, trembling, ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... "It will be very easy. I will go in on tiptoe, so that she can't hear me. I will slip behind her chair, and I will hug her suddenly, so tight, so tenderly, and kiss her till she tells me that all has ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... 'andkerchief, and while she was busy with it Bill Flurry got up and went out on tiptoe. Young Alf got up a second or two arterwards to see where he'd gone; and the last Joe Morgan and his missis see of the happy couple they was sitting on one chair, and George Hatchard was making desprit and 'artrending attempts ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... she was a ministering angel. Yet I lay on that sofa plotting how to get her out of the room. The plan that seemed the simplest was to pretend sleep, but it was not easily carried out. Not getting any answer from me, she would approach on tiptoe and lean over the sofa, listening to hear me breathe. Convinced that I was still living, she and Sarah Ann began a conversation in whispers, of which I or the deceased husband was the subject. The husband had slept a good deal, too, and it wasn't ...
— The Speaker, No. 5: Volume II, Issue 1 - December, 1906. • Various
... avenues, conversing pleasantly by the way, and left him at last planted by a certain fountain where a goggle-eyed Triton spouted intermittently into a rippling laver. Thence he proceeded alone to where, in a round clearing, a copy of Gian Bologna's Mercury stood tiptoe in the twilight of the stars. The night was warm and windless. A shaving of new moon had lately arisen; but it was still too small and too low down in heaven to contend with the immense host of lesser luminaries; and the rough face of the earth was drenched with starlight. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... into the churchyard on tiptoe as if they were trespassers. Then, unable to find the door in the dark, they walked softly round the building, trying to see what was going on inside through the stained-glass windows. Their suspicious movements attracted the attention of the ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... a philosopher, "refuses to be so adjusted as to eliminate from it all strife and conflict and pain. There are a thousand tasks that, in larger interests than ours, must be done, whether we want them or no. The world refuses to walk upon tiptoe, so that we may be able to sleep. It gets up very early and stays up very late, and all the while there is the conflict of myriads of hammers and saws and axes with the stubborn material that in no other way can be made to serve its use and do its work for ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... later, her hair crisply dried by the fire and curling blithely from its recent bath, herself sweet with the soap-and-water and clean-clothes freshness which is the only fragrance worth cultivating, Sally stole on tiptoe to the top of the stairs and peeped down. She beheld Jarvis pacing up and down the hall, and as she looked saw him take his watch out and scan its face as if he had an appointment to keep. She stood still, her pulses beating rather quickly. This was not exactly the sort of home-coming she had planned, ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond
... mistress's chair. Dandy barked defiance, all the children shouted or screamed and danced about, and the old woman gasped and shook more. Lizzie alone was almost equal to the occasion. She flew at the cat who was standing on tiptoe on the tall back of the chair, with huge tail and eyes like green lamps, swearing, hissing, and spitting, and, regardless of scratches, caught him up by the scruff of his neck and disposed of him behind the staircase door; while Dora at the same moment secured ...
— The Carbonels • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the watchman of the building, noticing the light, came to investigate. A moment he stood in the open door, an appreciative observer. On tiptoe ...
— The Dominant Dollar • Will Lillibridge
... shalt have our daughter." The king said thou to him because he was going to be one of the family. The wedding-day was fixed, and, on the evening before, the whole city was illuminated. Cakes and sweetmeats were thrown among the people. The street boys stood on tiptoe and shouted "hurrah," and whistled between their fingers; altogether it was a ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... visits pleasant. We might not knit, which would have relieved the tedium a little; but we sat in a circle, talking together, only interrupted occasionally by a gentleman, who, breaking out of the knot of men who stood near the door, talking eagerly together, stole across the room on tiptoe, his hat under his arm, and, bringing his feet together in the position we called the first at the dancing-school, made a low bow to the lady he was going to address. The first time I saw these manners I could ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... he came to the brink of this world. 'Hold,' cried he, 'my son, you know my power, and that it is impossible to kill me.' What is this but the diurnal combat of light and darkness, carried on from what time 'the jocund morn stands tiptoe on the misty mountain-tops,' across the wide world to the sunset, the struggle that knows no end, for both the opponents are ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske
... is in this picture. His unfinished works were kept carefully covered and his painting materials were put away in airtight boxes as soon as he had finished using them for the day. According to all accounts, the studio itself must have been as close as a bandbox. The artist always entered it on tiptoe, besides sitting still, before he commenced work, until the slight dust caused by his entrance had settled. I have read somewhere that his paintings are improved by being viewed through a magnifying glass. He strained his eyes so badly with the extra finishing, ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge
... the cream-pan; and there the boys from school, Cricketing below, rush'd brown and red with sunshine; O the dark translucence of the deep-eyed cool! Spying from the farm, herself she fetch'd a pitcher Full of milk, and tilted for each in turn the beak. Then a little fellow, mouth up and on tiptoe, Said, 'I will kiss you': she laugh'd and lean'd her cheek. . . . Doves of the fir-wood walling high our red roof Through the long noon coo, crooning through the coo. Loose droop the leaves, and down ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... look for the others, so they let him do it. One after another the others stole away on tiptoe, while Freddie stood with his head in a corner that he might not see where they hid. Each boy and each girl picked out a place where he thought Freddie would ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at Home • Laura Lee Hope
... and up, ever so far," said Olly, standing on tiptoe, and stretching out his little arms as high as they would reach, "it wouldn't take us long. Mother, don't you ...
— Milly and Olly • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... of Seventeen-Hundred- and-Ninety-One. It had put out of sight every trace of British rule and occupancy, all its homes had been restored and re-furnished, and its sacred places re-consecrated and adorned. Like a young giant ready to run a race, it stood on tiptoe, eager for adventure and discovery— sending ships to the ends of the world, and round the world, on messages of commerce and friendship, and encouraging with applause and rewards that wonderful spirit of scientific invention, which was the Epic of the youthful nation. The skies of Italy were ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... were in a dream. No food was cooked; even the tables in breakfast-room and dining-hall were laid on Saturday; no horse left the stables, the servants dressed in their sombrest and best, moved about on tiptoe, and talked in whispers. We children were taught to consider it sinful even to think our own thoughts on this holy day. If we boys ever forgot ourselves so far as to speak of things secular, there was Flora to lift a warning finger and with terrible earnestness ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables
... was put down unlit. The man was certainly very still. Isbister took up the portfolio, opened it, put it down, hesitated, seemed about to speak. "Perhaps," he whispered doubtfully. Presently he glanced at the door and back to the figure. Then he stole on tiptoe out of the room, glancing at his companion after ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... himself, but for an unfortunate destiny. Although his patronage was such as a mouse might bestow upon a lion, he had a vast opinion of its condescension; and in the warmth of that sentiment, occasionally rose on tiptoe, to slap ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... us and my heart sprang into my mouth, but I could have laughed when I realized that it was the cat. A fire was burning in this new room, and again the air was heavy with tobacco smoke. Holmes entered on tiptoe, waited for me to follow, and then very gently closed the door. We were in Milverton's study, and a portiere at the farther side showed the entrance ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... drops. The heaven was filled with blue windows, and the rain seemed to come from them rather than from the clouds. Into the rain rose the heads of the mountains, each clothed in its surplice of thin mist; they seemed rising on tiptoe heavenward, eager to drink of the high-born comfort; for the rain comes down, not upon the mown grass only, but upon the solitary and desert places also, where grass will never be—"the playgrounds of the ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... chance. She poised herself on tiptoe, half undecided, and—the rustling of paper as O'Hagan opened the parcel afforded her an opportunity to escape, by drowning ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... a vast amount of hectoring from Russell, who was then as now a trifle snobbish and unsteady; but had finally been forced (or so we regarded it, at that hot and touchy period) to accept what was practically a challenge, and we were actually on tiptoe for a duel. Feeling ran high about it, and there might have been a very disagreeable scandal had not Tip's clear common sense and persuasive oratory burst out at the last possible minute from this murky thunder-cloud and effectively swept the whole ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... Expectation was on tiptoe as Dashall broke the seal of a letter that was handed to him on arrival at home. Mortimer was on the fidget, and Tallyho straining his neck upon the full stretch of anxiety to hear the news, when Dashall burst into ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... house," said Boyd loudly. "Now, what's amiss, friend? Is there death within these honest walls, that you move about on tiptoe?" ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... and another silent solo, this time on the tambourine, which the boy pretended to beat with frantic energy, ending by going on tiptoe to peep through the keyhole, and satisfy himself that the doctor was ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn
... more bold than the rest ventured to pass the door and to advance on tiptoe. This example was imitated by the rest, until the room filled silently, as if these men had been the humblest, most devoted courtiers. Far beyond the door the heads of those who were not able to enter could be seen, all craning ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... tastes and feelings, to some extent, at least, of the country in which they lived. Becoming keen observers, shut out from books and newspapers, they listened attentively, learned more of law and politics than was generally supposed. They knew what the election of 1860 meant and were on tiptoe with expectation. Although the days of insurrection had passed and the slave of '59 was not ready to rise with the immortal John Brown, he had not lost his desire for freedom. The steady march of escaping slaves guided by the ...
— The Colored Regulars in the United States Army • T. G. Steward
... heavily down the hall, but almost at once Ford, whose ears were alert for any sound, heard him returning, approaching stealthily on tiptoe. If by this maneuver the Jew had hoped to discover his patient in some indiscretion, he was unsuccessful, for he found Ford standing just where he had left him, with his back turned to the door, and gazing with apparent interest at a picture on the wall. The significance ...
— The Lost House • Richard Harding Davis
... has got the ball!" cried the aunt, starting on tiptoe. "Well, to be sure! five onto one! ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... eleven he climbed over it and jumped on to the ground on the other side, and looked about him carefully; then he went up to the small, white-washed summer-house, where the Princess had promised to meet him, on tiptoe. He found the door ajar, went in, and at the same moment he felt two soft arms thrown round him. "Is it you, Princess?" he asked, in a whisper, for the pavilion was in total darkness, as the venetian ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... last he roused her, and she stood up with a dazed expression. Maria got her bonnet and shawl, and she gazed at them vaguely, as if she were so far removed from the flesh that the garments thereof perplexed her. Maria put on her bonnet, standing on tiptoe, and Harry threw the shawl over her shoulders. Then she staggered out of the room ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... mean to pain him, did you?" the dear little creature coaxingly lisped, standing on tiptoe to kiss me as she spoke. I assured her that I had not. "He has been dangerously ill," she continued, apologizingly, "and sickness has made him more morbid and more unhappy about it than he would otherwise have been. It has ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... raiment from his shoulders, he bares the massive joints and limbs, the great bones and muscles, and stands up huge in the middle of the ground. Then Anchises' lordly seed brought out equal gloves and bound the hands of both in matched arms. Straightway each took his stand on tiptoe, and undauntedly raised his arms high in air. They lift their heads right back and away out of reach of blows, and make hand play through hand, inviting attack; the one nimbler of foot and confident in his youth, the other mighty in mass of limb, but his knees totter tremulous and slow, ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... This was Erik's room—ancient torture chamber. Something still clinging to its walls and furniture. Ah, nights of agony still in the air she breathed. Her words formed themselves quietly. They came to peer into her heart—polite visitors standing on tiptoe before a closed cell ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht
... His Majesty was forced at last to proclaim martial law, and actually hunted and shot with his own hand several of his rebellious subjects, who, with most questionable intentions, had clandestinely encamped in the interior, whence they stole by night, to prowl barefooted on tiptoe round the precincts of the lava-palace. It is to be remarked, however, that prior to such stern proceedings, the more reliable men had been judiciously picked out for an infantry body-guard, subordinate to the cavalry body-guard of dogs. But the state of politics in this unhappy nation may ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... more belched forth a cloud of flame and smoke, and Marcy stood on tiptoe and held his breath in suspense while he waited for the result. He felt the cold chills creep along his spine when, after an interval that seemed very short for the distance the shot had to travel, ...
— True To His Colors • Harry Castlemon
... Madame Bertin," said Gabriel, as he hitched himself to the door and opened it, revealing a gray-haired woman who came in on tiptoe. ...
— Paula the Waldensian • Eva Lecomte
... night. She used to say I was like a bird, having something birdlike in my small dark head and the way I held it up. Certainly I remember myself as a swift little thing, always darting to and fro on tiptoe, and chirping about our chill and ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... us past the vault where Obe Toplady, Timothy's father, lays in a stone box you can see through the grating tiptoe; an' round by the sample cement coffin that sets where the drives meet for advertisin' purposes, an' you go by wonderin' whose it'll be, an' so on over toward the Old Part o' the cemetery, down the slope ...
— Friendship Village • Zona Gale
... growing perpendicularly from the shore, makes a stretch of walls on either side, the monotony of which becomes at last so tiresome that a twenty-feet hill, a boulder as large as a bushel basket or a tree of unusual size or kind becomes specially interesting. Standing on tiptoe in the canoes, we could see nothing before or around us but a boundless meadow, with here and there a clump of pines, and before and behind the serpent-like creepings of the river. The only physical life to be ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... and "stoush" that landlord, and the driver stopped the coach cheerfully at their request; but they said they'd come across him again and allowed themselves to be persuaded out of it. It made us feel bad to think how we had allowed ourselves to be delayed, and robbed, and had sneaked round on tiptoe, and how we had sat on the inoffensive Pilgrim and his mate, and all on account of a sick ...
— Over the Sliprails • Henry Lawson
... along into the warehouse I was only a few feet behind the milk maid!" began Jimmie. "I at once crept in on tiptoe, because I reasoned that he would be slugging along, making considerable noise. I didn't know that there were goods ...
— Boy Scouts in the North Sea - The Mystery of a Sub • G. Harvey Ralphson
... letter with news of Dr. John and his brother. I have been working on the book to-day very hard, after much interruption; it is two-thirds done now. So glad people are on tiptoe. ...
— Hortus Inclusus - Messages from the Wood to the Garden, Sent in Happy Days - to the Sister Ladies of the Thwaite, Coniston • John Ruskin
... with a cutthroat; who knows but here I may introduce myself upon visiting terms with his family? 'faith I'll reconnoitre the position before I establish my quarters. This casement is commodiously low. (Steps to the casement on tiptoe.) I protest, a vastly neat, creditable sort of mansion! Yes—it will do! on one side blazes an excellent fire; in the middle stands a table ready covered; that's for supper: then just opposite is a door left ajar; ay, that must ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... standing directly below the terrified girl, raising herself on tiptoe, and trying to reach her feet with her hands, to guide them to a ...
— Whosoever Shall Offend • F. Marion Crawford
... the successor of Master Weeks, was of better stature, but loosely put together, and slender-limbed. A dreadfully nervous kind of man he was, walked on tiptoe, started at sudden noises, was distressed when he heard a whisper, had a quick, suspicious look, and was always saying, "Hush!" and putting his hands to his ears. The boys were not long in finding out this nervous weakness, of course. In less than a week a regular system of torments was inaugurated, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... the pretty peasant girl who stood there with her eyes cast down, and expectation was a-tiptoe. Before the eyes were lifted, and before an answer could be returned, another actor came upon the scene. The countryman who wore the dark blue cloth bound with crimson, stepped into the group from his place at the side of the curtain. He wore his broad- brimmed hat, but removed his domino ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... stole on tiptoe through the darkened room, catching a glimpse, as he passed the tawdry mirror on the chimney-piece, of a very pale and anxious face strangely unlike his own, while from behind the half-drawn bed-curtains he heard a quiet placid ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... of Vassar College; for when Dr. Jewett resigned the presidency in 1864, my father named the successor who was appointed, Dr. John H. Raymond, his life-long friend. Dr. Raymond came to Rochester to discuss a plan of work, and, knowing my father's interest, I was on tiptoe to hear about the new college. At my earnest solicitation, he and Dr. Raymond and Prest. Anderson permitted me to be present at their discussions. I learned to comprehend the value of womanliness to the world by the estimate that those noble educators put upon it. It was evident that ...
— Woman and the Republic • Helen Kendrick Johnson
... He went away on tiptoe, and it was only after he had carefully and gently closed the bedroom door behind him, that he departed by leaps and bounds to show himself in his bottle-green coat and capes, and white buttons and leggings to match, and beaver hat to boot, ...
— Last Words - A Final Collection of Stories • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... heard again the clock of the cathedral striking nine; she saw with joy the old servant fall into a peaceful sleep; and she left the room very slowly, in order to make no noise; she descended the stairs softly, step by step and on tiptoe, in order to avoid making the slightest sound. She went into the garden, going around through the servants' quarters and the kitchen; in the garden she paused for a moment to look up at the sky, which was dark and studded ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... us,' said the witch, who was very sleepy; and the girl did as she was bid, and went to bed. Very soon they both might have been heard snoring, and Pinkel knew that his time was come. Slipping off his shoes he stole into the hut on tiptoe, and taking from his pocket some food of which the goat was particularly fond, he laid it under his nose. Then, while the animal was eating it, he stuffed each golden bell with wool which he had also brought ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Various
... nature,—all these ideas, vaguely combined, inspired Beck with as vague a terror. Surely something, he knew not what, was about to be perpetrated against his benefactor,—some scheme of villany which it was his duty to detect. He breathed hard, formed his resolves, and stealing on tiptoe, followed the shadowy form of the poisoner through the half-opened doorway. The shutters of the room of which he thus crossed the threshold were not closed,—the moon shone in bright and still. He kept his body behind the door, peeping in with straining, fearful stare. He saw Madame Dalibard standing ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... indeed, they ate everything before them, from flapjacks to the piles of little, crisp trout. And they might have called for more, but there came, on tiptoe, the steward, bowing, presenting a telegram on a tray of silver; and Crawford's heart stopped, and he stared at the bit of paper as though it concealed ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... have just risen from her chair, the Child bends from her arms, and a young and very little angel, standing on tiptoe, holds up to him a flower—other flowers in his lap:—a ...
— Legends of the Madonna • Mrs. Jameson
... throng, slight at first, was rapidly increasing. The building was not large, and from end to end, and on the high window-sills beneath the long green blinds, the people pushed and shoved and stood a-tiptoe. It was yet early morning, and for some unexplained reason the Federalist candidate ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... don't care at all, do we, sister?" said Beth, stretching up on tiptoe to get her "bawheady" from the bureau. "We'd just as lief give it away as not, 'cause we've always you, ...
— What Two Children Did • Charlotte E. Chittenden
... business. The uprore had ceast, and the whole house was now quiet and silent: it seemed as if people were afraid of even breathing: all walkt about softly and on tiptoe. News came that ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... unlighted ways; and after a circuitous journey, climbed a gate and a garden wall or two, and landed at the office. There he made his toilet with the aid of a piece of yellow soap, a bucket of water, and a jack-towel, and then walked down the darkened garden to the house. He paced the paved yard on tiptoe, and peeping through the kitchen-window, saw his father seated alone at the fireside Armstrong looked up with ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... in spite of herself, Audrey took Nick into the bedroom, and as soon as Musa had been introduced into the drawing-room she embraced Nick in silence and escorted her on tiptoe through Miss Ingate's bedroom to the vestibule and waved an adieu. Then she retraced her steps and made a grand entry into the drawing-room from her own bedroom. She meant to dispose of Musa immediately. A meeting between him and Mr. Gilman on her hearthrug ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... when I was ready to depart I stopped and stooped to give him a final tender kiss. I did not even scribble a word of adieu or of explanation. I stole away on tiptoe, without looking at him. This sounds brutal, but it is a truth of my life, and I am writing my life—at least, I am writing those brief hours of my existence during which I lived. I had always a sort of fierce courage; and as I had proved the courage of ...
— Sacred And Profane Love • E. Arnold Bennett
... been thrust into his letter-box from time to time, four or five unopened circulars and foolscap missives, whose appearance told what they were; and armed with these he opened his doors softly and passed out, drawing the outer door to, and then stole on tiptoe downstairs and out into the dimly ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn
... disappointment, had given them up for the night, and had retired to their rooms. Miss Dorothy, who would not suffer her brother to be disturbed, sent the two young ladies to their chambers, and was crossing, on tiptoe, the long picture-gallery to her own apartment, when a door opening, Pembroke, in his dressing- gown and slippers, looked out on hearing the stealthy step. She put forth her hand to him with delight, and ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... Physical Culture Magazine was becoming widely read. I came across a copy of it. I found in it a guide to what I was in search for. Faithfully I took up physical culture. Fanatically I kept all the windows open, wore as little clothing as possible ... adopted a certain walk on tiptoe, like a person walking on egg-shells, to develop the calves of my legs from their thinness to a more proportionate shape. And, as I walked, I filled and emptied my lungs like a bellows. I kept a small statue of Apollo ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... voices and a clash of glasses followed the refrain. Master Pothier's eyes winked and blinked in sympathy. The old notary stood on tiptoe, with outspread palms, as with ore rotundo he threw in a few notes of his own to ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... opened the door, he saw Elzbieta, who had also been looking for Ona, and had come home again. She was now on tiptoe, and had a finger on her lips. Jurgis waited until she ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... and buzz of conversation were at their highest. It was the market day, and the whole area of the square was full. Never, in the memory of the oldest inhabitant, had such a market been seen in Dijon. For the ten days preceding, France had been on the tiptoe of expectation; and every peasant's wife and daughter, for miles round the town, had come with their baskets of eggs, fowls, or fruits, to attend the market and to hear the news. So crowded was it, that ...
— The Young Franc Tireurs - And Their Adventures in the Franco-Prussian War • G. A. Henty
... destiny; the more this confidence had been, till then, disappointed, the more our adventurer believed that the promised hour was about to come to him. The following morning, at break of day, he arose and went on tiptoe to the door of Father Griffen's room. The priest still slept, not thinking for a moment that the chevalier would dream of starting off on a journey through an unknown country without a guide. He ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... that when the hole is big enough for the cat, no smaller one at the side is needed for the kitten. They don't really care for "Glimpses" of this, or "Gleanings" of that, or "Footsteps" to the other—but would rather stretch and pull, and get on tiptoe to reach the sweeter fruit above them, than confine themselves to the crabs which grow to their ...
— A Mother's List of Books for Children • Gertrude Weld Arnold
... spirit-lamp, as she unconsciously murmurs a prayer) Oh! Mary! Blessed Virgin! Save, of thy mercy, this poor maiden! Save her, Madonna mine, from death! (Rudolph, Marcel and Schaunard whisper together. Every now and then Rudolph goes on tiptoe to the bed, and then rejoins his companions. Musetta, interrupting, bids Marcel place a book upright on the table, so as to shade the lamp.) Here there should be a shade, Because the lamp is flickering! Like this. (resuming her prayer) And, oh! may she recover! Madonna! ...
— La Boheme • Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica
... reeking dish, in which a diminutive joint of mutton simmers above a vast heap of half-browned potatoes. How the young rogues clap their hands, and dance round their father, for very joy at the prospect of the feast: and how anxiously the youngest and chubbiest of the lot, lingers on tiptoe by his side, trying to get a peep into the interior of the dish. They turn up the street, and the chubby- faced boy trots on as fast as his little legs will carry him, to herald the approach of the ...
— Sunday Under Three Heads • Charles Dickens
... visage of the man of peace widened almost into a laugh, as Roland spoke. "Verily," he cried, "thee is in the wrong place, friend, in the forest! If thee had no footmen with thee, could thee have none after thee? Look, friend, here are tracks, not of one man, but of five, each stepping on tiptoe, as if to tread lightly and look well before him,—each with a moccasin on,—each with a toe turned ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... his habit to tiptoe around the Senate chamber whispering to other Senators, and then having sat down to rise suddenly as though some great impulse had come to him and hurry into the cloakroom. He inherited the chairmanship of the railroad committee, and all employees came ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White
... long, low stone building that used to be a theater, but was now a dance-hall upstairs and a warehouse below. There were lights upstairs and sounds of music. The stairway was dark, but we felt our way up, and on tiptoe advanced to the big double door, from ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... boyish athletic figure darted on ahead and then approached the rear of the house on tiptoe. Alexina followed in the same stealthy fashion, feeling no older at the moment than her niece. The verandah did not extend as far as the music room, which had been built a generation later, and the windows were ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... had been caught and brought back in triumph ran like wild fire through the hungry community, and expectation was on tiptoe all morning. On tiptoe it was destined to remain, however, until afternoon; when Squeers, having refreshed himself with his dinner and further strengthened himself by an extra libation or so, made his appearance (accompanied by his amiable partner) with a countenance ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various
... contemptuously. "She has thee dazzled, Milo. Say, dost thou not love me?" she demanded, standing tiptoe and thrusting her piquant little face under his gaze. "Look in my eyes, and then tell me another ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... him asleep, except that the poise of her slender figure, between an air of spying and of listening, vividly recalled his likening of her to the Mountain Echo. Man or maid sleeping in the open air provokes your tiptoe curiosity. Men, it is known, have in that state cruelly been kissed; and no rights are bestowed on them, they are teased by a vapourish rapture; what has happened to them the poor fellows barely divine: ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... for if Scott caught him in his quarters with his coat off he would punish him. The officer said he would risk it—that the general was asleep, and he would make no noise. He opened the door softly and went on tiptoe to the water pitcher. He had no time to drink before he heard the tinkle of the bell, and the sentinel outside the door entered. 'Take this man to the guardhouse,' was the brief order, and the coatless captain spent the night ...
— General Scott • General Marcus J. Wright
... he said, reassuringly; and went on tiptoe out of the darkened, cologne-scented room. But as he passed along the hall, and saw his father in his little cabin of a room, smoking placidly, and polishing his sextant with loving ...
— An Encore • Margaret Deland
... to Mrs. Higgins] Here she is, mother. [He stands on tiptoe and makes signs over his mother's head to Eliza to indicate to her which lady is ...
— Pygmalion • George Bernard Shaw
... bee. The blossoms were like small, rose-coloured tulips upside down, very magical and clear of colour. The sky also was like a pink tulip veined and streaked with purple and saffron. In its depth, like the honey in the flowers, it held the low, golden sun. Evening stood tiptoe upon the ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb
... enough to see his own face in the glass, but the glimpse he caught made him stand instantly on tiptoe to see more. For his round little countenance, flushed as it was beneath its fringe of disordered feathery hair, was literally—transfigured. A glory, similar to the glory he had seen that same evening upon the face ...
— The Human Chord • Algernon Blackwood
... a trifle ajar. We approached it stealthily—on tiptoe and at half-breath—for that is the way one's feeling makes him do, at such a time. The king knocked. We waited. No answer. Knocked again. No answer. I pushed the door softly open and looked in. I made out some dim forms, and a woman started up from the ground and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... draw the old hunter motioned me behind him and cautiously raised his head. Then a little farther. Another step and a long look. He stood on tiptoe, and, settling back, quietly motioned me ...
— Across Mongolian Plains - A Naturalist's Account of China's 'Great Northwest' • Roy Chapman Andrews
... philosopher, "refuses to be so adjusted as to eliminate from it all strife and conflict and pain. There are a thousand tasks that, in larger interests than ours, must be done, whether we want them or no. The world refuses to walk upon tiptoe, so that we may be able to sleep. It gets up very early and stays up very late, and all the while there is the conflict of myriads of hammers and saws and axes with the stubborn material that in no other ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... figure spring up on to the sill, and vanish into the room beyond. For a moment only it outlined itself against the brilliant light beyond, but in that moment Robert had space to see that it was indeed his father. On tiptoe he crossed the intervening space, and peeped in through the open window. It was a singular spectacle which ...
— The Doings Of Raffles Haw • Arthur Conan Doyle
... shrugged resignedly. On tiptoe Denny followed him to the locker-rooms in the rear, and at a word of direction began to remove his clothes. While he plunged head-foremost into a bin in search for a pair of white trunks, Ogden kept ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans
... by the door, but she went on tiptoe toward the couch, fearing her light footsteps might disturb the emperor. Yet before she had reached the divan she stopped still, and then she heard the plaintive rattle in the sufferer's throat, and from the background ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Gwendolyn renewed encouragement. They were alone. She stood on tiptoe. "Miss Brown," she began, "did you ever hear of a—a bee that some ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates
... girls in gala attire, white dresses, bright sashes, and coral ornaments, with their curly hair, rosy cheeks, and sparkling eyes, flitted to and fro, some rejoicing that they had passed through their ordeal, some still on the tiptoe of expectation, some laughing, some in tears—altogether a most beautiful ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... was pushed against the walls, except a writing-desk with gilded legs, which stood in the embrasure of the big window, and to this the girl ran softly, on tiptoe, across the bare parquet floor. It was covered with sheeting, which she turned carefully back that nothing might be disturbed and, in falling, make a noise. Almost she had reached the limit of her strength and had no breath even to whisper the "Thank ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... the door, Tiptoe, holding their breath, And hush the talk that they held before, Lest they should waken Death, That is awake all ...
— Poems • William D. Howells
... of a loaded cart, yet does it discover as much solicitude about rain as a lady dressed in all her best attire, shuffling away on the first sprinklings, and running its head up in a corner. If attended to, it becomes an excellent weather-glass; for as sure as it walks elate, and as it were on tiptoe, feeding with great earnestness in a morning, so sure will it rain before night. It is totally a diurnal animal, and never pretends to stir after it becomes dark. The tortoise, like other reptiles, has an arbitrary stomach as well as lungs; and can refrain from eating as well as breathing for a great ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... asleep; his javelins in his left hand, just slipping from his grasp, the right arm bent upwards, making a bright frame to the face, and he breathing softly in helpless slumber. Then I come noiselessly down, treading on tiptoe not to wake and startle him—but there, you know all about it; why tell you the rest? I am dying ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... coziness began to whir mountingly. The September afternoon was full of drone. The roofs of the city from Hattie's kitchen window, which overlooked Morningside Heights, lay flat as slaps. Tranced, indoor quiet. Presently Hattie began to tiptoe. The seventy-two jars were untopped now, in a row on a board over the built-in washtub. Seventy-two yawning for content. Squnch! Her enormous spoon into the copper kettle and flop, gurgle, gooze, softly into the jars. One—two—three—At ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... I followed her into the bedroom. I look round; the room is nearly dark. Near the bed some people were standing, looking sad and cast down. I approached on tiptoe. My mother ...
— The Daughter of the Commandant • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... listening to their complaints and answering patiently their inquiries; but amid it all he walked as in a maze, hearing nothing except the words: "I, Katy, take thee, Wilford, to be my wedded husband," and seeing nothing but the airy little figure which stood up on tiptoe for him to kiss its lips at parting. His work for the day was over now, and he sat alone in his library when Helen came hurriedly in, staring at sight of his face, and asking if he ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... also the night had eyes, and the air a feeling of movement in it, stealthy movement that walked on tiptoe and held its breath. The steel sang, now high, now low, distinct sounds and continuous. The breeze rustled the leaves then and again, but something else was stirring in the night, now behind him, now to ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... sympathy with them made it possible for him to hear rare tales when another would probably have found only silence. Sometimes, while waiting for a train, he would saunter up to a group of negroes and start to tell a story himself and soon have them on tiptoe to tell him one that he did not already know. In many ways he became the possessor of a large part of the negro folklore. He loved a story and he early commenced to write down these fables, making of them such delightful ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... once more and drew his sleeve across his forehead. Most of his hearers were silent now, on tiptoe of expectation. Dimick looked searchingly at Captain Cy. Then he sprang to ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln
... this stillness was broken by a sound of women's geta (1) approaching—kara-kon, kara-kon;—and the sound drew nearer and nearer, quickly, till it reached the live-hedge surrounding the garden. Then Shinzaburoe, feeling curious, stood on tiptoe, so as to look Over the hedge; and he saw two women passing. One, who was carrying a beautiful lantern decorated with peony-flowers,(2) appeared to be a servant;—the other was a slender girl of about seventeen, wearing a long-sleeved robe embroidered with designs ...
— In Ghostly Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... from the big bunch with a heavy heart and many sighs. When the door was opened he walked in first, and thought that by standing in front of the King he might hide the picture from him, but that was no good, the King stood on tiptoe, and looked over his shoulder. And when he saw the image of the lady that was so wonderfully beautiful, and so glittering with gold and jewels, he fell on the ground powerless. Faithful John helped him up, took him to his bed, and thought with sorrow, "Ah me! the evil has come to pass; ...
— Household Stories by the Brothers Grimm • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
... stealing into the room, her head thrust forward, her lips parted, a peculiar glitter in her eyes. For a moment I stood rigid. The sight of her fascinated me—there was something so wholly animal-like in the stealthy triumph of her tiptoe approach. I recovered myself just in time. One more step, a turn of her head, and she would have seen Grooten. My finger pressed down the catch of the lamp, and a sudden ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... best," she answered, standing on tiptoe to kiss him. "Only say 'I love you' as you ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives
... sound of a great horn from out of the wood on the north side, and men knew it for the horn of the Woodland Carles, and were glad; for they could not think why they should be belated; and now men stood up a- tiptoe and on other's shoulders to look over the heads of the women and children to behold their coming; but their empty place was at the southwest corner of the ring ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... he said, pointing to the sacristan. Then running behind, him he stood on tiptoe and screamed in ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... rather live in a world that possessed only literature of the Poe caliber, than shiver in one echoing solely the strains of the Miltonian muse. Mere human beings are not constructed to stand all day a-tiptoe on the misty mountain tops; they like to walk the streets most of the time and sit in easy chairs. And writings that picture the human mind and nature, in true colors and in artistic proportions, are literature, and nobody has any business to pooh-pooh them. ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... till he had turned and was nearly through the entrance, walking softly on tiptoe, and then I ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... they ruffled my locks in doing so), and lastly commanded my legs to march me to the door—a function which they duly performed, though at one time with too much reluctance, and at another with too much ABANDON (the left leg, in particular, coming to a halt every moment on tiptoe). Some one called out to me, "Where are you going to? They will bring you a cigar-light directly," but I guessed the voice to be Woloda's, and, feeling satisfied, somehow, that I had succeeded in divining the fact, merely smiled airily in reply, and ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... imagined that during the next few days I was on tiptoe with expectation. Let it be said at once, that I was quite aware that I was about to commit what might fairly be considered a folly by prudent-minded people. The chances of my goose proving a swan were altogether too slight to justify the extravagance I proposed. But despite this I never once ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... the room on tiptoe, as Chapeau left it; her face was as pale as marble, and her heart beat so violently that she felt that she would hardly be able to reach the chair at the bed-side. De Lescure was lying on a decent but very humble bed, ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... And she stood up, tiptoe, by the window, as if that would make any comparative difference between her height and that of Hotel Devereux, across the square; or as if she could reach up farther with her eyes after the great flashes that streamed into ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... San Massimo and Montemirto Ligure), confess that he is but a lazy unprofitable dreamer, collecting materials as a child picks hips out of a hedge, only to throw them away, liking them merely for the little occupation of scratching his hands and standing on tiptoe, for their pretty redness.... You remember what Balzac says about projecting any piece of work?—"C'est fumier des cigarettes enchantees...." Well, well! The data obtainable about the ancient gods in their days of adversity are few and far between: a quotation here and there ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... as many as were able to effect an entrance—rushed in. Martin and John Kelly were among those nearest to the door, and, in reward of their long patience, got sufficiently into the body of the Court to be in a position to see, when standing on tiptoe, the noses of three of the four judges, and the wigs of four of the numerous counsel employed. The Court was so filled by those who had a place there by right, or influence enough to assume that they had so, that it was impossible to obtain ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... stature of intelligence all day long would make one's head ache; standing on tiptoe and stretching up would do the same; one needs ...
— Tenterhooks • Ada Leverson
... of the ship was at first very slow, for they stepped about on tiptoe as if afraid of disturbing some of the ghosts of its former inhabitants. Then, a speculative gaze had to be turned on each object for a few moments, followed by an inquiring glance at each other. The deck and its accompaniments of masts rising through the canvas roof, and ...
— The Walrus Hunters - A Romance of the Realms of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... feel the natural effect of the deferring of hope. But the sleep which He permits, unblamed, is light, and such as one takes by snatches when waiting to be called. He does not ask us always to be on tiptoe of expectation, nor to refuse the teaching of experience; but counts that we have watched aright, if we wake from our light slumbers when the cry is heard, and have our lamps ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... woods, Tom's attitude and gait would at times resemble the movements of a cock pheasant: now stealing along for a few yards, listening for the slightest sound of any animal stirring in the underwood; now standing on tiptoe for a time, with bated breath. Did a blackbird—that dusky sentinel of the woods—utter her characteristic note of warning, he would whisper, "Hark!" Then, after due deliberation, he would add, "'Tis a fox!" or, "There's a fox in the grove," ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... gasped Sophie, running on tiptoe toward her sleeping father. "He'll nigh erbout kill us ...
— How Janice Day Won • Helen Beecher Long
... this announcement, young Frank never made his appearance—the walks continued overgrown with grass—the wounded Atlas looked proudly to heaven from his deathbed of fame-and the young ladies remained on the tiptoe of expectation. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... watched him with breathless anxiety on shore saw little of all this as they paid out the line or perched themselves on tiptoe on the few boulders that here ...
— Charlie to the Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... at this very moment the situation was rendered intensely lively by the approach of the redoubtable Snarleyow himself, who, having snapped at the horse's heels all the way to the stables, had on his return to the front of the house spotted Aleck from afar. He was now advancing on tiptoe in full order of battle, his wicked-looking teeth gleaming, and his coat and tail standing out like ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... Rosamond, "if that sick woman hadn't been so nervous and disagreeable. She paid enormous sums for her board, and so Mrs. Lindsey would hardly let us breathe for fear of disturbing her. My room was over hers, and I had to take off my shoes and walk on tiptoe, and even then she complained of me, saying I was rude and noisy, when I tried so hard to be still. I made some hateful remark about her in the hall, which she overheard, and when Mrs. Lindsey scolded me for it, saying she was a ...
— Rosamond - or, The Youthful Error • Mary J. Holmes
... were, in their noble proportions, extremely architectural; but their function seemed less to offer communication with the world than to defy the world to look in. They were massively cross-barred, and placed at such a height that curiosity, even on tiptoe, expired before it reached them. In an apartment lighted by a row of three of these jealous apertures—one of the several distinct apartments into which the villa was divided and which were mainly occupied by foreigners of random race long resident in Florence—a gentleman ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... of the Tuscarora instantly caught a sight of the smoke; and for full a minute he stood, slightly raised on tiptoe, with distended nostrils, like the buck that scents a taint in the air, and a gaze as riveted as that of the trained pointer while he waits his master's aim. Then, falling back on his feet, a low exclamation, in the soft tones that form so singular a contrast to its harsher cries in ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... room, to set a couple of his men as sentries at the chamber door; and as the occupants of the humble room stood listening to the King's heavy breathing, for he had fallen into a deep sleep, they heard the tramp of footsteps outside, sounds which made Leoni glide on tiptoe to the ...
— The King's Esquires - The Jewel of France • George Manville Fenn
... of reasoning, he was not long in convincing himself that the way was open for his advance. He hurried by on tiptoe, and drew a long breath of relief when certain that he had passed the dangerous spot. But he was only a short distance beyond when his hair fairly arose on end, for he became certain that he heard the groan of a man among the boulders over ...
— In the Pecos Country • Edward Sylvester Ellis (AKA Lieutenant R.H. Jayne)
... long, tiresome walk, but the place was reached at last; and Edna, standing on tiptoe, rang the bell, which was answered by one of the little ...
— A Dear Little Girl • Amy E. Blanchard
... was now on tiptoe, and all necks were stretched over the shoulders of those who stood before them, in order to see, if possible, what the feat could be which he intended to perform. Having received the half-hundred weight from the hands of the man who brought it, he approached the widow's ...
— The Dead Boxer - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... her hands and laughed, and tried to touch his head; but being too little, laughed again, and stood on tiptoe to embrace him. Then she began to drag him, in her childish eagerness, towards the door; and he, nothing loth ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... the boys from school, Cricketing below, rushed brown and red with sunshine; O the dark translucence of the deep-eyed cool! Spying from the farm, herself she fetched a pitcher Full of milk, and tilted for each in turn the beak. Then a little fellow, mouth up and on tiptoe, Said, 'I will kiss you': she laughed ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... herself up on tiptoe, and peeped over the edge of the mushroom, and her eyes immediately met those of a large caterpillar, that was sitting on the top with its arms folded, quietly smoking a long hookah, and taking not the smallest notice of her or of ...
— Alice's Adventures in Wonderland • Lewis Carroll
... made tiptoe and brigand-like excursions into Miss Blake's room (she is the housekeeper) and got several things. Among others, a sort of undecided thing like part of a wig, which Miss Blake wears on Sundays. Jane, our housemaid, ...
— New Treasure Seekers - or, The Bastable Children in Search of a Fortune • E. (Edith) Nesbit
... Volumnia, not being supposed to know (and indeed not knowing) what is the matter, has found it a ticklish task to offer appropriate observations and consequently has supplied their place with distracting smoothings of the bed-linen, elaborate locomotion on tiptoe, vigilant peeping at her kinsman's eyes, and one exasperating whisper to herself of, "He is asleep." In disproof of which superfluous remark Sir Leicester has indignantly written on ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... patent. No wonder they wanted to hold the young widow back. Her neighbour, Mrs. Saunders, crept in on tiptoe and put her arms about the swaying, fainting woman; but there was ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... verses seemed to slip suddenly out of Joan's memory. She heard something stirring in the stall before her, the straw rustled softly, and there was a faint, slight sound of a gentle breathing. With her heart beating fast she stole forward on tiptoe to the manger, well lined with hay, and lifted up the lantern. It was no longer empty: there lay a child asleep, a little babe, wrapped in swaddling clothes and cradled ...
— The Christmas Child • Hesba Stretton
... about her ears, and hurried back to the disorder of Floss's dim little bedroom. After that it was dust-cloth, and soapsuds, and scrub-brush in a race against recurrent water bags, insistent doorbells, and the inevitable dinner hour. It was mid-afternoon when Rose, standing a-tiptoe on a chair, came at last to the little box on the top shelf under the bedding in the hall closet. Her hand touched the box, and closed about it. A little electric thrill vibrated through her body. She stepped down from the chair, heavily, listened until her acute ear caught the sound of the sick ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... Chinese Ambassador, standing on tiptoe so his queue should not pull so hard. He was a patient man, but after he had eaten his dinner the time seemed ...
— The Pot of Gold - And Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins
... bolder than the rest, entered the room, and advanced on tiptoe towards the bed. He was followed by others, and the chamber was rapidly filled, as silently as if the new-comers had been the most humble and obsequious courtiers. D'Artagnan saw every thing through a hole he had ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... that the house-door opened. She cocked her ears, and could almost make out voices in the midnight stillness. She slipped from the bed, locked and bolted the door of the room, assured herself of Lucy's unconsciousness, and went on tiptoe to the window. The trees all stood white to the north; the ground glittered; the cold was keen. Berry wrapped her fat arms across her bosom, and peeped as close over into the garden as the situation ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... standing by the door, but she went on tiptoe toward the couch, fearing her light footsteps might disturb the emperor. Yet before she had reached the divan she stopped still, and then she heard the plaintive rattle in the sufferer's throat, and from the background ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... after describing the magnificence and felicity of Jesus' kingdom upon earth, represents him as saying that he should come quickly: and in the first chapters, that they who had pierced him should see him coming in the clouds. The Apostles, as appears from the epistles, were on tiptoe with expectation, and frequently assured their converts that "the Lord is at hand, the judge stood before the door, &c." And to conclude, Can you not now, sir, conceive, and guess the cause of the gradual ...
— Letter to the Reverend Mr. Cary • George English
... winter, and the late homecomings from the banquet and the lights and laughter, through the deserted streets—a desolation which would not remind you now, as for a generation it did, that your friends are sleeping and you must creep in a-tiptoe and not disturb them, but would only remind you that you need not tiptoe, you can never disturb them more—if you shrink at the thought of these things you need only reply, 'Your invitation honors me and pleases me because ...
— The Boys' Life of Mark Twain • Albert Bigelow Paine
... On one of his knees is some robust rosy-cheeked nurse from Aversa or Nettuno; on the other, a handsome peasant woman from Bauci or Procida. On either side of him, between the wheels and the body of the vehicle, stand the husbands of these two ladies. Standing on tiptoe behind the monk is the driver, holding in his left hand the reins, and in his right the long whip with which he keeps his horses at an equal rate of speed. Behind him are two or three lazzaroni, who get up and down, go away, and are succeeded by others, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... after a month of illness and several days of unconsciousness, during which silence reigned in the house and all the family went about on tiptoe. Mrs. Gerhardt passed away with her dying gaze fastened on Jennie's face for the last few minutes of consciousness that life vouchsafed her. Jennie stared into her eyes with a yearning horror. "Oh, mamma! mamma!" ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... stand this. I'm going in to him." And, picking up the dim lantern which he had taken from the Harvey wagon, Drummond stole in on tiptoe and knelt ...
— Foes in Ambush • Charles King
... to make their way on tiptoe toward the back room. One stood with his whisky glass suspended in mid air, and tilted back his head to listen. In the gaming-room Hurley pushed back his chair and leaned to the left, giving him a free sweep for ...
— Riders of the Silences • John Frederick
... was busy with odd jobs in the kitchen garden and the children were playing in the front room, there was a ring at the door and the sound of a butt-end of a rifle, as it "grounded" on the cobble stones. When Boudru on tiptoe lifted the latch, the door swung open, and a big man in a greenish uniform stood before him. There was no sign of cap-badge or title on his shoulder straps, and he was horribly dirty. He carried two English ration bags, besides his own rucksack, and they were ...
— War and the Weird • Forbes Phillips
... she chose, Alicia could not avoid passing Lindsay's room, for her own lay beyond it. In the seven o'clock half light of a February evening, in the middle of the week, she went along the matted upper hall on tiptoe, and stumbled over a veiled form squatted in the native way, near his door, profoundly asleep. "Ayah!" she exclaimed, but the face that looked confusedly up at her was white, whiter than common, Captain Filbert's face. Alicia drew her hand away and made an imperceptible movement in the direction ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... coming back on tiptoe,—"an' you didn't think you heern any one neither. It's ruther small work fur ter be foolin' an old woman. Hows'ever, I don' cherish grudges; so, ez I wuz gwine ter say, ye knit thirty-six reounds above ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... with wild staring eyes, could only answer "Dora;" while Eugenia, wondering at their conduct, strove to push them aside. Failing in this, she raised herself on tiptoe, and looking over their heads, saw what for an instant chilled her blood, and stopped the pulsations of her heart. It was the bride, and fiercely grasping the arm of Stephen Grey to keep herself from falling, she said, in a hoarse, unnatural ...
— Dora Deane • Mary J. Holmes
... his business with the key, at once began with the bludgeon. The bludgeon was produced, and was handed up to the bench, and inspected by the Chief Justice. The instrument excited great interest. Men rose on tiptoe to look at it even from a distance, and the Prime Minister was envied because for a moment it was placed in his hands. As the large-eyed little boy who had found it was not yet six years old, there was a difficulty in perfecting the thread ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... was whistling. The steady heating of an oak branch on the porch roof told me it was blowing hard. It sounded cold. Mary stood tiptoe to reach my collar and turn it up. Then she buttoned me snug around the neck. It was the first time a woman had ever done that for me. How good it was! I absently turned the collar down again and tore my coat ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd
... possessing some small knowledge of medicine had been with them until midnight, and, having done his best, had gone away, leaving the child to the two women. Maurice had been in twice, clumsily, on tiptoe, to look with ill-concealed awe at the child, and to whisper hopes to Marie which displayed a ludicrous, if lamentable, ignorance of what ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... up to our armpits, then the water shallowed to the knee, then we stepped up to the neck, and waded on tiptoe, supporting the children above the water; and the same experiences occurred as those which we suffered the day before, until we were halted on the edge of the Little Makata, which raced along at the rate ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... mountains and lakes, and at last he came to the brink of this world. 'Hold,' cried he, 'my son, you know my power, and that it is impossible to kill me.' What is this but the diurnal combat of light and darkness, carried on from what time 'the jocund morn stands tiptoe on the misty mountain-tops,' across the wide world to the sunset, the struggle that knows no end, for both the opponents are ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske
... or so Norgate tried in vain to sleep. All this time the man opposite turned the pages of his book with the utmost cautiousness, moved on tiptoe once to reach down more papers, and held out his finger to warn the train attendant who came with some ...
— The Double Traitor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... there," he said, reassuringly; and went on tiptoe out of the darkened, cologne-scented room. But as he passed along the hall, and saw his father in his little cabin of a room, smoking placidly, and polishing his sextant with loving hands, ...
— An Encore • Margaret Deland
... into a laugh, as Roland spoke. "Verily," he cried, "thee is in the wrong place, friend, in the forest! If thee had no footmen with thee, could thee have none after thee? Look, friend, here are tracks, not of one man, but of five, each stepping on tiptoe, as if to tread lightly and look well before him,—each with a moccasin on,—each with a toe ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... they were doing wrong. They had been told, often and often, not to meddle with things that did not belong to them. As Frank was so much older than George, he was the more to blame; but George was old enough to know better, or why did he put his little foot so gently on the stairs, and go out on tiptoe into ...
— Pretty Tales for the Nursery • Isabel Thompson
... just designated to his attention Mme. and Mlle. de Thaller, accompanied by two gigantic footmen, when, suddenly interrupting himself, and rising on tiptoe, ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau
... in the shadows, nudged Cap'n Sproul beside him, and wagged his head toward the open door. They went out on tiptoe. ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... excitement, hidden, but not in the least repressed. The White Class, their juniors, who were chiefly employed in preparing for Confirmation, should have been immersed in graver things, but were not. They waited on mental tiptoe for details, and a peep at the delicious document. The Blue Class, as became mere infants ranging from six to ten years old, remained phlegmatically indifferent to the missive, yet avid for samples of the chocolates ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... gun-port which stood open just beyond and above the bow of the longboat. In a twinkling Bob had straddled through the hole, with Jeremy close after him. It was dark in the 'tween-decks and the two boys made their way forward on tiptoe, waiting breathlessly for the attack they felt sure would come. But apparently all the buccaneers were busy above in the fierce fight that they could hear raging along the rail. They moved on, undeterred, till they reached the foot of the fo'c's'le ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... Graces dress'd in flowery wreaths "And tiptoe Joys their hands combine; "And Love his sweet contagion breathes, 320 "And laughing ...
— The Botanic Garden. Part II. - Containing The Loves of the Plants. A Poem. - With Philosophical Notes. • Erasmus Darwin
... she replied, "to stand on tiptoe would be to lie before the good Lord, and when you come to know me better you will learn that, though I have a dreadful temper and many other sins, I ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard
... a young man, who had for some time looked at us with a kind of negligent impertinence, advanced on tiptoe towards me; he had a set smile on his face, and his dress was so foppish, that I really believed he even wished to be stared at; and yet he ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... station, round a quiet corner, my steps were arrested by the surprising sight of—Beauty!—the very identical devil himself! There stood the unhangable, undrownable, hurricane-creating beast, looking as serene as a newly-born black cherub, washing his fiendish face! I approached on tiptoe, breathlessly, with the basket behind my back and the half chicken extended as a peaceable card of introduction. He scented it instantly—my aunt always keeping Beauty's tit-bits until sufficiently gamey to ...
— The Idler, Volume III., Issue XIII., February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly. Edited By Jerome K. Jerome & Robert Barr • Various
... dared to question Helena. They moved about her on tiptoe, stealthily. Yet neither subserved her. Her father's quiet 'H'm!' her mother's curt question, made her draw inwards like a snail which can never retreat far enough from condemning eyes. She made a careless pretence of eating. She was like a child which ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence
... four days, but Andy roused me out about four o'clock. The old woman that they called Auntie was up and had a good breakfast of eggs and bacon and coffee ready in the detached kitchen at the back. We moved about on tiptoe and ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson
... hadn't been so nervous and disagreeable. She paid enormous sums for her board, and so Mrs. Lindsey would hardly let us breathe for fear of disturbing her. My room was over hers, and I had to take off my shoes and walk on tiptoe, and even then she complained of me, saying I was rude and noisy, when I tried so hard to be still. I made some hateful remark about her in the hall, which she overheard, and when Mrs. Lindsey scolded me for it, saying she was a very wealthy ...
— Rosamond - or, The Youthful Error • Mary J. Holmes
... was standing tiptoe on a bench under one of the big lanterns. She was holding her little palm slantwise over the chimney, and by blowing against it was trying to put out the lamp. Her face was very serious and flushed. Occasionally the lamp would flare up a little, and she would snatch her hand away ...
— Blazed Trail Stories - and Stories of the Wild Life • Stewart Edward White
... come on, and every moment of delay doubtless increased the anxiety she was causing. Ida went up to the door, stood on tiptoe to reach the knocker, and gave her usual two distinct raps. Mrs. Ledward opened the door to her in person; a large woman, with pressed lips and eyes that squinted very badly; attired, however, neatly, and looking as good-natured as a woman who was at once ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing
... to a low-browed arch; he paused, and saw a large vaulted room, through the loop-hole window of which shone a yellow stream of golden sunshine. There was a low bed in one corner, and on it lay a motionless form. On tiptoe, and with a throbbing heart, the boy approached; he saw the face—it was ghastly pale. He stood transfixed—could it be?—yes, it must still be, his own ...
— The Lances of Lynwood • Charlotte M. Yonge
... by affectation; the language is laboured into harshness. The mind of the writer seems to work with unnatural violence. "Double, double, toil and trouble." He has a kind of strutting dignity, and is tall by walking on tiptoe. His art and his struggle are too visible, and there is too little appearance of ease and nature. To say that he has no beauties would be unjust; a man like him, of great learning and great industry, could not but produce something valuable. When he pleases least, it can only be said ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson
... stillness in the room; she heard only the drip from the tap of the brandy-cask down into the dish beneath, and saw, through the half-open door to the inner room, Mrs. Selvig and her two daughters bustling about on tiptoe. ...
— One of Life's Slaves • Jonas Lauritz Idemil Lie
... true, But I do not sing for you. Higher yet on tiptoe rise, Don't you see a pair of eyes Peeping through the pleasant shade Which the summer leaves have made? There they watch me all day long, Brightening at my cheerful song, Turning wheresoe'er I go For the evening meal below. Dearest mate that ever blest ...
— Canadian Wild Flowers • Helen M. Johnson
... calumnies she might have spoken of his beer (when herself, in the work-house, deprived of it), might not have induced him to take a little more than usual in going down so deep for her. But he answered, "No; it was nothing of the sort. Deep he had gone, to the tiptoe of his fling; not from any feeling of a wish to keep her down, but just because the parish paid, and the parish would have measurement. And when that was on, he never brought down more than the ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... river, and turning sharp up the bank, he took up the hill through a dense jungle. Every hound was at fault, except two, who were close at his heels, and being very fast they never lost sight of him. These two dogs were Merriman and Tiptoe; and having followed the whole pack to their track, we soon heard them in full cry on the top of the high hills which overlook the river; they were coming down the hill-side at full speed towards the ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... child at last was still, and had been put in a deep bed, and the nurse, after smoothing the little pillow, had left her, Alexey Alexandrovitch got up, and walking awkwardly on tiptoe, approached the baby. For a minute he was still, and with the same despondent face gazed at the baby; but all at once a smile, that moved his hair and the skin of his forehead, came out on his face, and he went as ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... the centre of the well that I had to make several steps before my extended fingers touched the cold wall. This I followed slowly, passing exploring hands with utmost care over each inch, from the floor to as high as I could reach on tiptoe, until confident I had made the complete circuit. It was all the same, vast slabs of flat stone, welded together by some rude yet effective masonry, the mortar between impervious to the sharp probing of the knife. Again and again I made that circuit, testing each crack, ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... the pink ice cream," sang Ian, dancing a-tiptoe as they reached the street; and there being but one good restaurant in town, on the high street, next to the saddler's shop where the red goat harness was still displayed, the party drove there, and the pink ice cream was eaten, good and ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... up, and up, ever so far," said Olly, standing on tiptoe, and stretching out his little arms as high as they would reach, "it wouldn't take us long. Mother, don't you wish ...
— Milly and Olly • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... and tried our best to see the procession; but the floor was pretty much on a level, and, though I stood on tiptoe, all that I could see was, now and then, the head of an eagle, or a bear, or a giraffe, rising above the crowd, while the music rang out in thunders of sweet sounds, and the people swarmed in and out of the little square pews in the galleries, like bees ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... out a dance; and then they danced again. Yae was tiny, but she danced well; and Geoffrey was used to a small partner. For Yae it was sheer delight to feel the size and strength of this giant man bending over her like a sheltering tree; and then to be lifted almost in his arms and to float on tiptoe over the floor with the delightful airiness ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... Stone began to laugh. He laughed long and loudly. But Lord Sannox did not laugh now. Something like fear sharpened and hardened his features. He walked from the room, and he walked on tiptoe. The ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle
... little girl, standing on tiptoe, had reached the windowsill and placed the shoe upon it, and was back again in the house beside Granny ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... hands behind her back, and stood with one foot forward, "on tiptoe for a flight," her young figure and radiant look expressing the hot will which possessed her. At the mention of Meynell's name she clearly hesitated, a frown crossed her eyes, her lip twitched. Then she ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... that morning three men climbed over the garden wall of Seaside Villa, and, having deposited their shoes in a convenient spot, went on tiptoe to the dining-room window. Here they paused to consult in ...
— Shifting Winds - A Tough Yarn • R.M. Ballantyne
... the hall, but almost at once Ford, whose ears were alert for any sound, heard him returning, approaching stealthily on tiptoe. If by this maneuver the Jew had hoped to discover his patient in some indiscretion, he was unsuccessful, for he found Ford standing just where he had left him, with his back turned to the door, and gazing with apparent interest at a picture on the wall. The significance ...
— The Lost House • Richard Harding Davis
... and avenues, conversing pleasantly by the way, and left him at last planted by a certain fountain where a goggle-eyed Triton spouted intermittently into a rippling laver. Thence he proceeded alone to where, in a round clearing, a copy of Gian Bologna's Mercury stood tiptoe in the twilight of the stars. The night was warm and windless. A shaving of new moon had lately arisen; but it was still too small and too low down in heaven to contend with the immense host of lesser luminaries; and the rough face of ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Mrs. Croly said: "I want English and American women to love each other. I remember with pride and honor my English birth. I can see my little room now—a small room with a lattice window over which the roses grew, and as I stood at the window on tiptoe, I could look into the old-fashioned garden below. I stood on an old chest. In the winter my summer frocks were kept there, and in the summer my red woollen dress. I loved it; it was beautiful, and it made me love England. When I am in England and I hear anything not quite ...
— Memories of Jane Cunningham Croly, "Jenny June" • Various
... they ate everything before them, from flapjacks to the piles of little, crisp trout. And they might have called for more, but there came, on tiptoe, the steward, bowing, presenting a telegram on a tray of silver; and Crawford's heart stopped, and he stared at the bit of paper as though it concealed ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... tell me at once, for you do now set my curiosity on tiptoe." She was a true woman, and would not for anything have admitted her knowledge of the presence of ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... the child, and with a catch, as it were, and a thrill in the voice that astonished him. Her eyes, fixed on his, grew larger and rounder. She came a pace or two towards him on tiptoe, halted, clasped both hands over her dancing-shoes, and exclaimed, with a deeper ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... her measure of reward. Evelyn bore herself bravely on the whole. Theo's manifest approbation acted as a subconscious pillar of strength. But on the last day of all, when the strain of standing morally on tiptoe was already producing its inevitable effect, an unlooked-for shock brought her back to earth with the rush of ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... plunged in and rescued her. Before March could formulate any question in his bewilderment, Burnamy was gone again; the girl offered no explanation for him, and March had not yet decided to ask any when he caught sight of his wife and General Triscoe standing tiptoe in a doorway and craning their necks upward and forward to scan the crowd in search of him and his charge. Then he looked round at her and opened his lips to express the astonishment that filled him, when be was aware of an ominous shining ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... had separated men who had acted so long together in good and in evil report, and which had accomplished an union between parties and individuals whose contest had generally been a war to the death. The public had not to remain long on the tiptoe of expectation, for no sooner had the house met than ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... looking over the upturned faces and toward the street behind them; and something in his look made every man who saw it turn his head. A whisper started on the outer edge of the crowd and ran backward, and men began to tiptoe and crane their necks. A tall figure was entering the iron gateway—and that whisper ran like a wind through the mass, the whisper of a hated name. The autocrat was coming. The mountaineers blocked his royal way to the ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.
... excited admiral stood on tiptoe to embrace the majestic Washington, and began to call him "petit," or "little," the scene was ludicrous. The French officers politely turned aside; but it was too much for General Knox, who was a big, jolly ...
— Hero Stories from American History - For Elementary Schools • Albert F. Blaisdell
... Reuben bent towards his niece. She rose on tiptoe, and just touched his rough cheek. There was no natural childish effusiveness in the action. For the seven years since she left her father, Louie ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... belonging to the dumb animals, as she called them. She would miss the beasts sorely, and they would miss her: the cows she was learning to milk, the great horses who jingled their medals and bowed their heads so gently as she stood on tiptoe to feed them, the clever old donkey who could unfasten any gate and let all the animals out of a field: the pigs, even the sheep, who were silliest of all, knew her well and showed pleasure at her coming. She looked with affection, too, at the ...
— White Lilac; or the Queen of the May • Amy Walton
... often!" said Letty, annoyed by the question, standing, however, eagerly on tiptoe. "I know her, too, a little; but she never remembers me. She was at the Foreign Office on Saturday, with such a hideous dress ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... body moving near him Frontispiece Rising to his feet, spear poised, he waited 17 His hands closed over something 36 On its neck it supported a weird creature 70 "The boom! We must cut it!" 87 With hands outstretched above his head, he waited for the great moment 122 Piang reached up on tiptoe to pluck a ripe mango 139 Gracefully the little slave-girl eluded Piang and Sicto 149 Over and over they rolled, splashing and fighting 167 A shrill whistle echoed through the forest 210 "Juramentado! Gobernado!" faintly whispered Piang 227 The water spout caught the eggshell praus ...
— The Adventures of Piang the Moro Jungle Boy - A Book for Young and Old • Florence Partello Stuart
... man, thou art but a baby yet. Wait awhile, my Wolferl!" and the disappointed little musician crept away, but as soon as Nannerl and his father had left the room, the tiny fellow crept back again, went to the harpsichord and standing on tiptoe, touched the keys with his chubby fingers stretched wide apart until he reached and played a perfect chord! Leopold Mozart was in another part of the house, but his sensitive ear caught the sound, and he rushed back to find his baby on tiptoe before the harpsichord, giving the first ...
— Ten Boys from History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... this face! Was it in former days? Was it of late years? She could not tell, and the idea distressed her, upset her nerves. She rose noiselessly to take another look at the sleeping woman, walking over on tiptoe. It was the woman who had lifted her up in the cemetery and then put her to bed. She ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... curiosity had come to the aid of a natural obstinacy and an imperturbable confidence in his destiny; the more this confidence had been, till then, disappointed, the more our adventurer believed that the promised hour was about to come to him. The following morning, at break of day, he arose and went on tiptoe to the door of Father Griffen's room. The priest still slept, not thinking for a moment that the chevalier would dream of starting off on a journey through an unknown country without a guide. ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... struck by lightning, remained the prince upon the threshold; behind him were seen the astonished faces of his generals, who, on tiptoe, stretched their necks to gaze, over each other's shoulders, upon this ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... the door, he saw Elzbieta, who had also been looking for Ona, and had come home again. She was now on tiptoe, and had a finger on her lips. Jurgis waited until she was close ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... Eventually, however, they put a bold face on the matter. It had nothing to do with them: the fault was hers! What a stunner that Nana was, eh? One would never have believed her capable of such a fake! And with that they departed one by one, walking on tiptoe, as though in a chamber of ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... many a kind smile and hearty welcome, and never did anybody venture even a grimace at her expense. But it must be acknowledged that her dancing was at least peculiar. With a sanitary view of the matter, she meant to make it exercise, and fearful was the skipping that ensued. She chassed on tiptoe, and balanced with an indescribable hopping twirl, that made one think of a chickadee pursuing its quest of food on new-ploughed ground; and some late-awakened feminine instinct of dress, restrained, too, by due economy, indued her with the oddest ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... to the room on tiptoe. He took ten gold pieces from his table and wrapped them in the little letter. Then he went out again, very quietly, and slipped them ...
— Fifty Famous People • James Baldwin
... corner of the hut, cautiously and upon tiptoe, an ugly smile touched the lips of the white as his eyes fell upon the giant figure of ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... said Pete, and he wiped off his long sea-boots and crept on tiptoe into the room. There she lay with the morning light on her, and a face as white as the quilt that she was plucking ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... when the elder Jervase stole in on tiptoe, with a new cup of priceless beef-tea, he saw the two men lying there, with their faces turned to each other, as if they had been lovers, and hand holding hand. He took Polson by the wrist, and ...
— VC — A Chronicle of Castle Barfield and of the Crimea • David Christie Murray
... morning, a year or two ago, I heard a loud squeaking, as of a young bird in the grass near my door, and, on approaching, discovered the spectacle of a cow-bird, almost full-fledged, being fed by its foster-mother, a chippy not more than half its size, and which was obliged to stand on tiptoe to cram the gullet of ...
— My Studio Neighbors • William Hamilton Gibson
... she unconsciously murmurs a prayer) Oh! Mary! Blessed Virgin! Save, of thy mercy, this poor maiden! Save her, Madonna mine, from death! (Rudolph, Marcel and Schaunard whisper together. Every now and then Rudolph goes on tiptoe to the bed, and then rejoins his companions. Musetta, interrupting, bids Marcel place a book upright on the table, so as to shade the lamp.) Here there should be a shade, Because the lamp is flickering! Like this. (resuming her prayer) And, oh! may she recover! Madonna! ...
— La Boheme • Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica
... both I and my charge were with La Marmotte, and the Italian ran upstairs with a footfall as light as that of a cat. On reaching the landing he stopped for a second, glanced around him, with the same feline caution that marked all his movements, and then, creeping forward on tiptoe, went along a corridor leading to a wing of ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats
... with a noise like the rustling of boughs. It must not be much of a noise, however, for my stringed instruments to the right have begun the very song of the morning. The bows tremble upon the strings, like the limbs of a dancer, who, a-tiptoe, prepares to bound into her ecstasy of motion. Away! The song soars into the air as if it had the wings of a kite. Here swooping, there swooping, wheeling upward, falling suddenly, checked, poised for a moment on quivering wings, and again away. ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... Saint-Just, dominated further on by that of Ceyzeriat. Behind this latter hamlet stretched the graceful outlines of the hills of the Jura, above the summits of which could be distinguished the blue crests of the mountains of Bugey, which seemed to be standing on tiptoe in order to peer curiously over their younger sisters' shoulder at what was passing in the valley ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... been born a Frenchman himself, but for an unfortunate destiny. Although his patronage was such as a mouse might bestow upon a lion, he had a vast opinion of its condescension; and in the warmth of that sentiment, occasionally rose on tiptoe, to slap the ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... the tiptoe of expectation," said Sir James. "But that you know; you must face it somehow. Invent a letter from Ferrier—some party contretemps—anything!—I'll help you through. And if you see your mother in the morning, I will turn up in ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... seconds Regina was standing directly below the terrified girl, raising herself on tiptoe, and trying to reach her feet with her hands, to guide them to a hold; ...
— Whosoever Shall Offend • F. Marion Crawford
... saw her sitting painting, with her back to the light. It was clear that she had not heard me. The hall door was ajar, and when I pushed it open, no one was in the hall. A sudden fit of roguishness came over me. I pushed the drawing-room door very slowly wider, crept in on tiptoe, stole quietly across, and bending down, I kissed the artist upon the nape of her neck. She turned round with a squeal, ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... woman whom he adored. For him the universe did not extend beyond the circumference of her petticoat, and he reproached himself with not loving her. He wanted to see her again; he turned back quickly, ran up the stairs with a beating heart. Emma, in her room, was dressing; he came up on tiptoe, kissed her back; ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... was Tim Tankins and his five journeymen carpenters, standen on tiptoe and peepen in at the chancel winders. There was Dairyman Dodman waiten in his new spring-cart to see 'em come out—whip in hand—that 'a was. Then up comes two master tailors. Then there was Christopher Runt wi' his pickaxe and shovel. There was wimmen-folk and there ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... hither and thither in hot haste? What meant these pearl-bedecked caves, scarcely larger than swallows' nests? these green canopies, overgrown with moss? He pinched himself, and gazed again. Countless flowers nodded to him, and seemed, like himself, on tiptoe with curiosity, he thought. He beckoned one of the busy, dwarfish little ...
— Fairy Book • Sophie May
... was more rapid now, the steamer seemed at her last gasp, the stern-wheel flopped languidly, and I caught myself listening on tiptoe for the next beat of the boat, for in sober truth I expected the wretched thing to give up every moment. It was like watching the last flickers of a life. But still we crawled. Sometimes I would pick out a tree a little way ahead to measure our progress towards Kurtz by, ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... where we have stood tiptoe and reached our tiny hands a little higher to catch the gorgeous butterfly that floated through summer air on silken wings, and then clapped them with joyous glee at our own disappointment, as it sailed higher up into the ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna
... have coughed. And if that did not wake her he might have touched her lightly, say, on the shoulder, and have called to her, first softly, then a little louder, "Mademoiselle," or "Mon enfant." Even better, he might have stolen away on tiptoe and left her ...
— Malvina of Brittany • Jerome K. Jerome
... and full of a dusky splendour and the faint sparkle of gems, ruby, amethyst, topaz, and beryl; in it there was the hush of sleep, and the heart of Shibli Bagarag told him that one beautiful was near. So he approached on tiptoe a couch of blue silk, bordered with gold-wire, and inwoven with stars of blue turquoise stones, as it had been the heavens of midnight. On the couch lay one, a woman, pure in loveliness; the dark fringes ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... only in her tall slenderness and fairness was she presently a challenge to Fenwick's sharpening sense; she began, in a wholly new degree, to interest his intelligence. Her own had blossomed; and in spite of grief, she had brought back with her some of the ways of a young and tiptoe world. Soon he was, in secret, hungry for her history—the history he had so far refused to hear. Who was this man who had made love to her?—how far had it gone?—he tossed at nights thinking of it. There came a time when he would gladly have exchanged ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... unconsciousness, and in the pale morning light that streamed in through the lofty window beheld a repetition of his former pleasant vision, only fainter, more aerial; a vision of Henriette entering the room on tiptoe, and placing on the table at his side a water-jug and glass that had been forgotten before. She seemed to linger there a moment, looking at the sleeping pair, him and her brother, with her tranquil, ineffably tender smile upon her lips, then faded into air, ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... school, Cricketing below, rush'd brown and red with sunshine; O the dark translucence of the deep-eyed cool! Spying from the farm, herself she fetch'd a pitcher Full of milk, and tilted for each in turn the beak. Then a little fellow, mouth up and on tiptoe, Said, 'I will kiss you': she laugh'd and lean'd her cheek. . . . Doves of the fir-wood walling high our red roof Through the long noon coo, crooning through the coo. Loose droop the leaves, and down the sleepy roadway Sometimes pipes a ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... should be alarmed. I well knew that they would not be disturbed by the Indians, who held the sacred spot in awe. When the work of taking down the canoes and carrying them to the water began, expectation was on tiptoe, but, strange as it may seem, not a rat was to be seen. This unexpected development was mystifying. They had all disappeared; there was not one in any of the canoes, as investigation proved, for disappointment instigated a most thorough search. The Indians said ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... meant." "Oh, no!" one of the crowd would say, "that can't be. It's for something else—something mysterious. Mark my words, you'll see all about it in the newspapers some of these days." A curious little fellow came running up the street, joined the crowd, stood on tiptoe to get sight of the wonder, quickly made up his mind, and shouted in crisp, confident, cock-crowing style, "I know what that contraption's for. It's a machine for taking the bones out ...
— The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir
... the killing was done, and the dragoons were clearing the street, that there arrived on tiptoe Monsieur Vaucher, searching through tears for Madame. When he saw her he ceased to weep, but stood looking down, with his hands clasped ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... his Father's neck, and promised him; and then, putting away his medal, he went softly, on tiptoe, up to his play-room, and shutting the door, began to work at a ship that he was rigging. He did not get on very fast, for he could not help thinking of his dear Mother, and wishing he could see her. She had hemmed all the sails of the ship for him, ...
— The Apple Dumpling and Other Stories for Young Boys and Girls • Unknown
... you like best," she answered, standing on tiptoe to kiss him. "Only say 'I love you' as ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives
... down this close was a small public-house, and the passage-door was ajar, and a man watching. No sooner was Little out of sight than he emerged, and followed him swiftly on tiptoe. ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... Standing on tiptoe and stretching up their long necks they often seized the food before it had a chance to fall to the ground. By this good management they usually got more than the chickens. Joe accused Betty of being partial to ...
— Dickey Downy - The Autobiography of a Bird • Virginia Sharpe Patterson
... that she was a ministering angel. Yet I lay on that sofa plotting how to get her out of the room. The plan that seemed the simplest was to pretend sleep, but it was not easily carried out. Not getting any answer from me, she would approach on tiptoe and lean over the sofa, listening to hear me breathe. Convinced that I was still living, she and Sarah Ann began a conversation in whispers, of which I or the deceased husband was the subject. The husband had slept a good deal, too, and it ...
— The Speaker, No. 5: Volume II, Issue 1 - December, 1906. • Various
... of dance she wakes The lordly gallery's silent floor, And climbing up on tiptoe, makes The old-world ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)
... city, at daybreak, when the citizens were standing in the forum on the tiptoe of expectation, Verginius, clad in mourning, conducted his daughter, also shabbily attired, attended by some matrons, into the forum, with a considerable body of supporters. He there began to go around and solicit people: and not only entreated their aid given out of kindness, but demanded ...
— Roman History, Books I-III • Titus Livius
... of the stairs and Mary stood at the turn. She had one hand on the rail of the banister, the other pressed hard against the wall. She leaned forward on tiptoe, measuring her distance. When she looked at the stairs they fell from under her in a grey dizziness, so that ...
— Mary Olivier: A Life • May Sinclair
... girl, all three still giggling, Heaven knows what about, and pushed her towards me. They pushed her close up to me, and then, before I knew what was happening, she put her hands on my shoulders, stood up on tiptoe, and kissed me. After which, burying her face in her apron, she ran off, followed by the second girl. The third girl opened the door for me, and so evidently expected me to go, that in my confusion I went, leaving my ...
— Three Men on the Bummel • Jerome K. Jerome
... should come round from a back passage, carrying a small bundle in his hand, but the object of all his solicitude. He approached quietly on tiptoe, with a look in which might be read a most startling and ludicrous ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton
... pay for) two dozen of sherry. At an Ipswich visitation there was the customary roll-call of the clergy, among whom was a new-comer, a Scotchman, Mr Colquhoun. "Mr—, Mr—," faltered the apparitor, coming unexpectedly on this uncouth name; suddenly he rose a- tiptoe and ...
— Two Suffolk Friends • Francis Hindes Groome
... carried off my living child and my wedding ring, concealed under her ample shawl. Anxiety for the fate of my child caused me to do what nothing else on earth would have tempted me to do—to creep about the halls and passages on tiptoe and under cover of the night and listen at keyholes," said the lady, blushing deeply ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth
... was such a tiny mirror that she could see only a part of her face at a time. When her big brown eyes, wistful and questioning as a fawn's, were reflected in it, there was no room for the sensitive little mouth. Or if she stood on tiptoe so that she could see her plump round chin, dimpled cheeks, and white teeth, the eyes were left out, and she could see no more of her inquisitive little nose than lay below the big freckle in ...
— The Little Colonel's House Party • Annie Fellows Johnston
... familiarity breeds contempt. Is this the man who carried cities by storm and won great battles? Verily, he seems to have forgotten the high rank he so well knew how to sustain. Do you not recognize in him the hero, who, ever equable and consistent, never having to stand on tiptoe to seem taller than he is, nor to stoop to be courteous and obliging, found himself by nature all that a man ought to be toward his fellow, like a majestic and bountiful stream, which peacefully bears into the cities the abundance it has spread ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Vol. 2 (of 10) • Grenville Kleiser
... until he recalled that Harmony was probably sewing in the salon, as she did sometimes when dinner was ready to serve. The boy was asleep, no doubt. He stole along on tiptoe, hardly breathing, to the first doorway, which ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... his mother's room about two hours after her confessor had left her. He had been to a friend to borrow the necessary money to pay his most pressing debts, and he came in on tiptoe, thinking that his mother was asleep. He sat down in an armchair without her seeing him; but he sprang up with a cold chill running through him as he heard her say, in a voice ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... with a number of benevolent and protecting looks and great fervour of manner, Thomas Codlin stole away on tiptoe, leaving the child in a state of extreme surprise. She was still ruminating upon his curious behaviour, when the floor of the crazy stairs and landing cracked beneath the tread of the other travellers who ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... one customer had looked into it since early morning ... 'You see how much business we do!' Frau Lenore observed to Sanin at lunch-time with a sigh. She was still asleep; Gemma was afraid to take her arm from the pillow, and whispered to Sanin: 'You go, and mind the shop for me!' Sanin went on tiptoe into the shop at once. The boy wanted a quarter of a pound of peppermints. 'How much must I take?' Sanin whispered from the door to Gemma. 'Six kreutzers!' she answered in the same whisper. Sanin weighed ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... Suddenly there was a mysterious silence in the hall, followed by a kind of suppressed stir. Every one seemed: to be speaking with bated breath, or, if moving, walking on tiptoe. It ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli
... Sabbath was a day of such solemn rest that one lived as it were in a dream. No food was cooked; even the tables in breakfast-room and dining-hall were laid on Saturday; no horse left the stables, the servants dressed in their sombrest and best, moved about on tiptoe, and talked in whispers. We children were taught to consider it sinful even to think our own thoughts on this holy day. If we boys ever forgot ourselves so far as to speak of things secular, there was Flora to lift a warning finger ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables
... with pleasure, preening herself a little and stretching on tiptoe to try to catch a glimpse in the crowded mirror; there was a movement as a sultana who had been carmining her full lips gave place to a dark beggar maid, and Patricia caught the vision of a slender, ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther
... by the door, Tiptoe, holding their breath, And hush the talk that they held before, Lest they should waken Death, That is awake all night There in ...
— Poems • William D. Howells
... the opposite to a sharp cry, swelled the throat of D'Artagnan. He advanced on tiptoe, trembling, frightened at the noise his feet made upon the floor, and his heart rent by a nameless agony. He placed his ear to the breast of Athos, his face to the comte's mouth. Neither noise nor breath! D'Artagnan ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... seconds more that they remained they saw his arms more closely enfold her. They saw her turn at the brink, and, in an utter abandonment of rapturous, passionate love, throw her arms again about his neck and stand on tiptoe to reach his face with her warm lips. They could not fail to hear the caressing tone of her every word, or to mark his receptive but gloomy silence. They could not mistake the voice,—the form, shadowy though it was. The girl was ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King
... Proteus by the locks. All around this avenue, into which the sea sometimes rushed like an invading host of armed men, the laurels and the delicate trees that love to bend over the sources of the forest-streams hung half-uprooted and perilously a-tiptoe over the brink of shattered rocks, and withered here and there by the touch of the salt foam, towards which they seemed nevertheless fain to droop, asking tidings of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... noises came to their ears, and imaginary murderous-looking "niggers" were seen lurking in the grass, behind rice-dykes, and lying crouching on the ground. If "Tim" discovered something that he was certain was a death-dealing boloman, he would tiptoe over to Jones and hold a council of war. That worthy—the old "vet"—would dispense nerve-soothing whispers in his ears, and he would return to his post ...
— Bamboo Tales • Ira L. Reeves
... drink to the shades; we might still, from the top of Lundy at dusk, watch the dim seas break into lilac around the Shutter Rock, while the unseen kittiwakes were voices from the past; and we might still see Miss Muffet tiptoe on a June morning to smell the first rose. That is what we look for in books, or something like it, and when it is not there they are not ...
— Waiting for Daylight • Henry Major Tomlinson
... earl; and dukes, lords, and barons became as familiar to me as gowns and caps had formerly been in the streets of Oxford. I stood on the very pinnacle of fortune; and, proud of my skill, like a rope-dancer that casts away his balancing pole, I took pleasure in standing on tiptoe. Noticed by the leading men, caressed and courted by their dependants, politics encouraging me on this hand, and theology inviting me on that, the whole world seemed to be smiles and sunshine; and I discovered that none but blockheads ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... legs to march me to the door—a function which they duly performed, though at one time with too much reluctance, and at another with too much ABANDON (the left leg, in particular, coming to a halt every moment on tiptoe). Some one called out to me, "Where are you going to? They will bring you a cigar-light directly," but I guessed the voice to be Woloda's, and, feeling satisfied, somehow, that I had succeeded in divining the fact, merely smiled airily in reply, ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... in bed, you know, lying down flat on my back, and mostly thinking about the angels. I do that a lot at night, I have no time in the day; I think of the angels, and Lord Jesus Christ, and heaven, and then father comes in. He opens the door soft, and he treads on tiptoe for fear I'm asleep, as if I could be! And then he kisses me, and I think in the whole of heaven there can never be an angel so good and beautiful as he is, and he says something to me which keeps me strong until the next night, when ...
— Daddy's Girl • L. T. Meade
... not. Aunt Lydia was already in full possession of Cecile's and Maurice's attic. She was standing on tiptoe, and taking down some musty books ...
— The Children's Pilgrimage • L. T. Meade
... could reach me if I uncovered myself in the night. She used to say I was like a bird, having something birdlike in my small dark head and the way I held it up. Certainly I remember myself as a swift little thing, always darting to and fro on tiptoe, and chirping about our chill and rather ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... later, everybody being tired, all was perfectly still. The prisoner then rose softly, and felt about on tiptoe on the chimneypiece, on the furniture, and even in his clothes, for the key which he hoped to find. He could not find it. He could not be mistaken, nevertheless, in the tender interest of the young girl, ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE COUNTESS DE SAINT-GERAN—1639 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... were slipped in. Where they came out, however, they had to be pushed in rapid succession under the farther side of a burning hot cylinder with no guard at all. To avoid touching the cylinder with my arm in this process, I was obliged either to raise it unnaturally high, or to stand on tiptoe. 'You didn't get burned to-day or yesterday,' said Jenny, 'but you sure will sometime. Everybody does ...
— Making Both Ends Meet • Sue Ainslie Clark and Edith Wyatt
... one of the Hugos of the many parts that his comrades had seen him play. His blue eyes had become an inflexible gray. He was standing half on tiptoe, his quivering muscles in tune with the quivering pitch of his voice: a Hugo in anger! This was a tremendous joke. He was about to regain his reputation as a humorist by a brilliant display in keeping with the ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... backwards on tiptoe towards Deringham's room, but apparently changed his intention, and presently knocked ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... and a few moments later the two boys were standing in the dark and deserted playground. Jack made a circuit of the buildings on tiptoe, and then returned to ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery
... at 8 p.m. My father and a friend were on the platform to meet me. We took a cab to the quay, from which a waterman rowed us across the harbour. Then a journey of another three miles in a carriage, and I was at home, sweet home. My mother and sisters, who had been on the tiptoe of expectation for the last hour, now bounded out of the room as the front door was opened, and I cannot describe what transpired in the lobby for the next few minutes. The tears of joy being wiped away, we all sat down to supper, my companion—he ...
— From Lower Deck to Pulpit • Henry Cowling
... shadow-straws, In lines innumerable. 'Twas so bright, His eye was cheated with a spectral smoke That rose as from a fire. He had not known How beautiful the sunlight was, not even Upon the windy fields of morning grass, Nor on the river, nor the ripening corn! As if to catch a wild live thing, he crept On tiptoe silent, laid him on the heap, And gazing down into the glory-gulf, Dreamed as a boy half sleeping by the fire— Half dreaming rose, and got ...
— The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes, Volume I • George MacDonald
... the sacrifices, almost all the institutions, the priesthood and the monarchy included, had this onward-looking aspect, and Israel as a whole, in the proportion in which it was true to the spirit of its calling, stood a-tiptoe, as it were, looking down the ages for the coming of the Hope of the Covenant that had been promised to the fathers. The prophets, I might say, were like an advance-guard sent before some great monarch in his progress towards his capital, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... on as though never would the frenzied shouters cease, the grim, panting Yates players lined up back of their goal line, on tiptoe, ready at the first touch of the ball to the earth to spring forward and, leaping upward, strive to arrest the speeding oval. Prone upon the ground, the ball in his hands, lay Story. A yard or two distant Blair directed the pointing of it. The ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... desk, took out a roll of gold pieces, locked the desk again and put back the key. I was horrified! But I restrained myself, so as not to disturb her. She went out of the room and I crept after her on tiptoe. She climbed up to the attic and threw the gold into an old chest, which has been standing there empty since the days of my grandfather. Then she glanced timidly around the room, and, without seeing me, hurried out again. I lighted a taper and searched the chest; in it I ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... him from head to foot with great curiosity. The orator bustled up to him, and, drawing him partly aside, inquired "on which side he voted?" Rip stared in vacant stupidity. Another short but busy little fellow pulled him by the arm, and, rising on tiptoe, inquired in his ear, "Whether he was Federal or Democrat?" Rip was equally at a loss to comprehend the question; when a knowing, self-important old gentleman, in a sharp cocked hat, made his way through the crowd, putting them to the right and left with his elbows ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith
... not make much noise," cautioned Darrin, as he led the way swiftly, though on tiptoe. "We don't want to scare the other people cold until we have them cooped so that they can't get away. But you'd better be ready, in case they're desperate enough to ...
— The High School Captain of the Team - Dick & Co. Leading the Athletic Vanguard • H. Irving Hancock
... are you asleep there? Come, we are going now. After keeping us on tiptoe for hours, the summons has come at last. Indeed, there is hardly time for you to dress. Shall I ...
— The Bride of Fort Edward • Delia Bacon
... back the bolt; noiselessly, upon tiptoe, with closed lantern, he creeps into the room ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... clothes with laughing flowers Life's martyr-crown of thorns, and raises up The heart to hold communion with its God, 'Tis thine, this day, with golden clasp, to bind The volume of a life, where sterling worth And beauty go to make the story up. A maiden, one, who, when on tiptoe, sees Her history running through a line of Kings: In fame how excellent; in life how pure; As though the virtues of her ancestry Had found new utterance in her virtuous self. As rain-drops, trickling through the hills of Time, Commingling gather, till, ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning
... her assent weakly, and she even stood on tiptoe to kiss the lips that seemed to caress her through a cloud of hair, but her expression was sad and her listless movements were like a withered flower's, as if there was no joy on earth that could lift her ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... bloom, far from further extinction, warmed to a lovely blush. Henrietta's curiosity craned its naughty neck standing on tiptoe. But, the blush notwithstanding, Damaris looked at her with such sincerity of quickening affection and of sympathy that she again ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... ClA(C)ment's seat by the chimney corner, where he whittled and whistled; Fernand's flute hanging on the wall; the books of Alphonse on the high shelf over the dresser. Claire RenA(C) found that her heart and her eyes would only find comfort if her fingers were busy. She would tiptoe to the dresser and bring out a basket, once filled with the socks of her brothers. She would crouch by the fireside, first stirring the logs to make more light for her work. It was long since the candles were gone. It was ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... "The Geisha" to attract his notice. Ten minutes or more elapsed, however, without any sign of him, and I was already close to the stairs, when I stopped whistling all at once, and holding my breath, crept forward on tiptoe. ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol
... in his restless pacing, stepped on tiptoe to the slightly opened door of the retiring room, and peered anxiously in. He thought he heard a slight stir. But no; she was still sleeping deeply, her position quite unchanged. He drew noiselessly back, and again almost closed ...
— Dr. Heidenhoff's Process • Edward Bellamy
... her breath, she shook her head, as she waited on table. In short, she seemed in so precarious a state, like a petard three times charged with hysteria, that I did not dare to address her; and stole out of the house on tiptoe, and actually ran downstairs, in the fear that she might call me back. It was plain that this degree of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... moonlight I saw, at length, one of my companions waiting patiently for my coming, his head bent forward and his shoulders rounded. Anxious to repay him for my own disappointment, I crept silently forward on tiptoe till quite near him, when, rushing madly on, I sprang upon his back; just, however, as I rose to leap over, he raised his head, and, staggered by the impulse of my spring, he was thrown forward, and after an ineffectual effort to keep his legs fell flat upon his face in the grass. Bursting ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... handkerchief. She wiped her hands gravely; then, as she returned the handkerchief with her right hand, she raised herself on tiptoe and held her left hand up to the ...
— Led Astray and The Sphinx - Two Novellas In One Volume • Octave Feuillet
... thing she was to do. He had her in his grasp—he was the man, the master—and what enchanting readiness to yield in the swaying pliant form! In the distance far away gleamed the statue of Hope, a child on tiptoe, one outstretched arm just visible from where ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Mayall and his son had taken care of their team they walked to the wigwam, Mayall leading the way, whilst his son, Esock, walked timidly behind, straining every nerve lest he should lose his presence of mind when the chief's daughter appeared before him. He entered the wigwam. Curiosity stood on tiptoe. ...
— The Forest King - Wild Hunter of the Adaca • Hervey Keyes
... for his conqueror, and they were all introduced. She allowed herself to be taken with the utmost docility—how unlike Somebody—into the tent with the thrones: she confessed to having stood on tiptoe and looked into Mrs Quantock's garden and wanted to see it so much from the other side of the wall. And this garden, too—might she go and wander all over this garden when she had finished the most delicious peach that the world held? She was so glad she had not ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... usual to his patients, listening to their complaints and answering patiently their inquiries; but amid it all he walked as in a maze, hearing nothing except the words: "I, Katy, take thee, Wilford, to be my wedded husband," and seeing nothing but the airy little figure which stood up on tiptoe for him to kiss its lips at parting. His work for the day was over now, and he sat alone in his library when Helen came hurriedly in, staring at sight of his face, and ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... spectacle of death in all its stages, they returned to Lady Ardagh, now a widow. The party assembled at the castle, but the atmosphere was tainted with death. Grief there was not much, but awe and panic were expressed in every face. The guests talked in whispers, and the servants walked on tiptoe, as if afraid of the very ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume I. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... took our guns in our hands to preserve them from a fall, and started in. Two more miracles saved Dinkey at two more places. We spent an hour at one spot, and finally built a new trail around it. Six times a minute we held our breaths and stood on tiptoe with anxiety, powerless to help, while the horse did his best. At the especially bad places we checked them off one after another, congratulating ourselves on so much saved as each came across without accident. When there were no bad places, the trail ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White
... She raised herself on tiptoe to be kissed. "Good-by, big brother," she said, softly. "Come back to us well and strong, and altogether homesick, won't you? It will not be like home, without you, ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... that I was aware how ill-timed was my presence. My master, doubtless absorbed in an equation, had not yet raised his head; I therefore waved my right hand towards the young lady, like a fish moving his fin, and on tiptoe I retired with a mysterious smile which might be translated "I will not be the one to prevent him committing an act of infidelity to Urania." She nodded her head with one of those sudden gestures whose graceful vivacity is not to be translated ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... especially welcome; there are not enough young men in the hotel to go round, you see." In fact, we could see that some of the pretty girls within were dancing with other girls; half-grown boys were dangling from the waists of tall young ladies and waltzing on tiptoe. ...
— A Traveler from Altruria: Romance • W. D. Howells
... with an air suggesting meditated flight. Even Grace cowered back instinctively. Swift as a shadow, Fran darted on tiptoe to the typewriter, and began ...
— Fran • John Breckenridge Ellis
... from the antechamber, the door of which was slightly open. Throwing on a dressing-gown, and thrusting my feet into slippers, I moved on tiptoe to the aperture, and placed my eye in such a situation as enabled me to command a view of the persons of those who were still earnestly talking in the adjoining room. All surprise vanished the moment I found that the four monkeys were grouped ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... the midnight knell, that was to summon her to the innumerable sisterhood of departed Years, there came a young maiden treading lightsomely on tiptoe along the street, from the direction of the Railroad Depot. She was evidently a stranger, and perhaps had come to town by the evening train of cars. There was a smiling cheerfulness in this fair maiden's face, which bespoke her fully confident of a kind reception from the ...
— The Sister Years (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... old. Her father was to take her on some special excursion, she had long ago forgotten what the particular occasion was, only it was something that could come but once, the day lost, the treat would be lost. But the evening before, when she was on the very tiptoe of expectation, a celebrated action for libel had come to an end much sooner than was expected, and when her father returned in the evening he had to tell her that his case was to come on the next day, and that he could not possibly take her. Even now she could recall the bitterness of ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... fast as possible, opened the door of the house with as little noise as he could, and hastened to the place of refuge occupied by the Covenanter. Morton entered on tiptoe, for the determined tone and manner, as well as the unusual language and sentiments of this singular individual, had struck him with a sensation approaching to awe. Balfour was still asleep. A ray of light streamed on ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... hardly believe her ears. Cautiously she and her party advanced on tiptoe to the balustrade and looked down. Yes, there the pair of them were, now laughing, now in desperate earnest, practising the fox-trot to the ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... things which the best never afterwards gave them; and where she became as hungry and tired as if it were the Vatican. They had a pride in taking books out of the Public Library, where they walked about on tiptoe with bated breath; and they thought it a divine treat to hear the Great Organ play at noon. As they sat there in the Music Hall, and let the mighty instrument bellow over their strong young nerves, Bartley whispered Marcia the jokes he had heard about the organ; and then, upon the ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... sit up and watch. I did not try to dissuade her, for I knew that her mind was made up. Then and there I made up my mind that I would watch with her—unless, of course, I should see that she really did not wish it. I said nothing of my intentions for the present. We came in on tiptoe, so silently that the Doctor, who was bending over the bed, did not hear us, and seemed a little startled when suddenly looking up he saw our eyes upon him. I felt that the mystery of the whole thing was getting ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker
... dark whispering, and then Bill couldn't stand it any longer, and 'e went over on tiptoe to the bunk ag'in. He was tremblin' with excitement and I wasn't much better, when all of a sudden the cook sat up in 'is bunk with a dreadful laughing scream and called out that ...
— Lady of the Barge and Others, Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... me now!" Kagig shouted, on tiptoe with anger. Then he calmed himself and glanced about the room for a glimpse of eyes friendly to himself. "Hear me now. Those Turks—truly come to set a governor over Zeitoon. I forgot that the prisoner might understand English. ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... going to change my lodgings, having received a hint that it would be agreeable, at our Lady's next feast. I have partly fixed upon most delectable rooms, which look out (when you stand a-tiptoe) over the Thames and Surrey Hills, at the upper end of King's Bench Walks, in the Temple. There I shall have all the privacy of a house without the encumbrance; and shall be able to lock my friends out as often as I desire to hold free converse with my immortal mind; for ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... all, do we, sister?" said Beth, stretching up on tiptoe to get her "bawheady" from the bureau. "We'd just as lief give it away as not, 'cause we've ...
— What Two Children Did • Charlotte E. Chittenden
... gone, whispering to Mr. Rupert that he would come back later. He went out on tiptoe, as from the presence of an angel. His selfishness had dropped away from him. The evening wore on, and in the little back room a woman's ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... from the time of Pilpay and Aesop to the present day. His recent tracks still give variety to a winter's walk. I tread in the steps of the fox that has gone before me by some hours, or which perhaps I have started, with such a tiptoe of expectation, as if I were on the trail of the Spirit itself which resides in the wood, and expected soon to catch it in its lair. I am curious to know what has determined its graceful curvatures, and how surely they were coincident with the fluctuations of some mind. I know which way ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... guess I've got some bounce in me, certainly," agreed Diana. "But I thought perhaps if I went about on tiptoe and whispered, and"—hopefully—"I could keep my ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... March could formulate any question in his bewilderment, Burnamy was gone again; the girl offered no explanation for him, and March had not yet decided to ask any when he caught sight of his wife and General Triscoe standing tiptoe in a doorway and craning their necks upward and forward to scan the crowd in search of him and his charge. Then he looked round at her and opened his lips to express the astonishment that filled him, when be was aware of an ominous ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... recalled in all its detail the night at Bald Hills before he had the last stroke, when with a foreboding of disaster she had remained at home against his will. She had not slept and had stolen downstairs on tiptoe, and going to the door of the conservatory where he slept that night had listened at the door. In a suffering and weary voice he was saying something to Tikhon, speaking of the Crimea and its warm nights ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... and dreamed so much about little Hester Gray that she has become strangely real to me. I think of her, back there in her little garden in that cool, still, green corner; and I have a fancy that if I could steal back there some spring evening, just at the magic time 'twixt light and dark, and tiptoe so softly up the beech hill that my footsteps could not frighten her, I would find the garden just as it used to be, all sweet with June lilies and early roses, with the tiny house beyond it all hung with vines; and little Hester Gray would be there, with her soft eyes, and the wind ruffling her ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... them were boys, was too truly a member of the family to permit anything to occur without pushing well into its secrets. Until a few years ago, his wife, Aunt Timmie, had divided this welcome office with him; but after the wedding, and about the time when Bob's household began to walk on tiptoe in fearful and happy expectancy, old Timmie left, bag and baggage, for the younger home, where she had thereafter remained as nurse, comforter, scolder and chief director of the new heir, as well as of the premises in general. The Colonel having lately ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... way, had pierced hard through the buckskin and stuck her fingers repeatedly with her sharp awl until she had laid aside her work. Now, while her husband was talking to the bear, she motioned with her hands to the children. On tiptoe they hastened ...
— Old Indian Legends • Zitkala-Sa
... it is true, But I do not sing for you. Higher yet on tiptoe rise, Don't you see a pair of eyes Peeping through the pleasant shade Which the summer leaves have made? There they watch me all day long, Brightening at my cheerful song, Turning wheresoe'er I go For the evening meal below. Dearest ...
— Canadian Wild Flowers • Helen M. Johnson
... thrust forward, her lips parted, a peculiar glitter in her eyes. For a moment I stood rigid. The sight of her fascinated me—there was something so wholly animal-like in the stealthy triumph of her tiptoe approach. I recovered myself just in time. One more step, a turn of her head, and she would have seen Grooten. My finger pressed down the catch of the lamp, and a sudden darkness filled ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... learn to be what he wants me to," she said a little pathetically to Saidie—"It is like standing on tiptoe all the time trying to reach up to his standard. I'm sick of it. If he loved me well enough to marry me, the same love ought to be strong enough to make him contented with me. After all, I'm the same Bella now that ...
— If Only etc. • Francis Clement Philips and Augustus Harris
... vanished, leaving no trace but her black bag; but while I was dressing a tremendous cackling among my bantams caused me to look out, when I beheld them scurrying right and left at sight of the kangaroo leaping after the three strangers, and my cat on the top of the garden wall on tiptoe, with arched back, bristling tail, and glassy eyes, viewing the beast as the vengeful apotheosis of all the rats and mice she ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... sigh she dropped back upon the pillow; the eyes closed, the face became waxen white. Soon, those who watched could not tell her slumber from the sleep of death. Silence stole on tiptoe through the room, with ...
— The Wedding Guest • T.S. Arthur
... makes a stretch of walls on either side, the monotony of which becomes at last so tiresome that a twenty-feet hill, a boulder as large as a bushel basket or a tree of unusual size or kind becomes specially interesting. Standing on tiptoe in the canoes, we could see nothing before or around us but a boundless meadow, with here and there a clump of pines, and before and behind the serpent-like creepings of the river. The only physical life to be seen was in the countless ducks, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... to fulfil his promise of raising the superior from the ground. She began, hereupon, to perform various evolutions on her mattress, and at one moment it seemed as if she were really suspended in the air; but one of the spectators lifted her dress and showed that she was only standing on tiptoe, which, though it might be clever, was not miraculous. Shouts of laughter rent the air, which had such an intimidating effect on Eazas and Cerberus that not all the adjurations of the exorcists could extract the slightest response. Beherit was their last hope, and he replied ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - URBAIN GRANDIER—1634 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... many a circling bowl Had deeply warmed my thirsty soul; As lulled in slumber I was laid, Bright visions o'er my fancy played. With maidens, blooming as the dawn, I seemed to skim the opening lawn; Light, on tiptoe bathed in dew, We flew, and sported ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... to save them from the infection. In the homes there were no cheerful faces, there was no music, there was no singing but of solemn hymns, no voice but of prayer, no romping was allowed, no noise, no laughter, the family moved spectrally about on tiptoe, in a ghostly hush. I was a prisoner. My soul was steeped in this awful dreariness—and in fear. At some time or other every day and every night a sudden shiver shook me to the marrow, and I said to myself, "There, I've got it! and I shall die." ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Hermione was standing on tiptoe endeavouring to reach a certain bottle upon the top shelf where were ranged many others of various shapes and sizes, when Ravenslee's big hand did it for her; but when she would have taken it, he shook ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... Crusades, the destruction of the Templars, the Papal interdicts, the tragedies caused or suffered by the House of Anjou, by the Emperor—these were full of a more permanent significance; but since then the colossal figure of feudalism was seen standing as it were on tiptoe at Crecy for flight from earth: that was a revolution unparalleled; yet that was a trifle by comparison with the more fearful revolutions that were mining below the Church. By her own internal schisms, by the abominable spectacle of a double Pope—so that no ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... crept stealthily to the window, and standing on tiptoe, looked in. Through an aperture in the curtain he could see all ...
— Facing the Flag • Jules Verne
... dressed than another, he suffers because the latter is his superior in birth or in intellect, and all his gold lace is put to shame by a plain cloth coat. Does he shine unrivalled in some assembly, does he stand on tiptoe that they may see him better, who is there who does not secretly desire to humble the pride and vanity of the young fop? Everybody is in league against him; the disquieting glances of a solemn man, the biting phrases of some satirical person, do not fail to reach ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... lucubration which he cut and slashed remorselessly at the slightest word of criticism from the lady. "Don't disturb yourselves," the good Nabob's wave of the hand would say, as he entered the room on tiptoe. He would listen and nod his head admiringly as he looked at his wife. "She's an astonishing creature," he would say to himself, for he knew nothing of literature, and in that direction at all events he recognized ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... what its contents might be!) without making some disturbance was impossible; and, moreover, to think of escaping through the house, now barred up for the night, was sheer insanity. Only one chance was left me—the window. I stole to it on tiptoe. ...
— Stories By English Authors: France • Various
... again. He could hear it mewing away somewhere. It did not sound so loud as in the garden, so perhaps it would not matter. He felt very much inclined to steal upstairs upon tiptoe and see if Maude were stirring yet. After all, if Jemima, or whoever it was, could go clumping about in heavy boots over his head, there was no fear that he could do any harm. And yet she had said that she would ring or send word the moment she could see him, and so perhaps ...
— A Duet • A. Conan Doyle
... obeyed this command to the letter. When the year and a day came she had been able to stand on tiptoe and look at herself for the first time in her life; and she would never forget the gladness of that moment. It had appeared nothing short of a miracle to her that she should actually possess something of which she need not be ashamed—something nice to share with the world. And whenever ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... was passing. She did not believe altogether that he was in earnest: her immediate discomfort showed him as one who was merely seeking to get her into trouble with her mother in order to gratify an impotent rage. Twice or three times she flamed suddenly, went tiptoe to run from the room. A flash, and she would be gone from the place, down the stairs, into the streets and away anywhere, and she tingled with the very speed of her vision; but she knew that one word from her mother would halt her like a barrier, and she hated the thought that he ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens
... again to trouble him. One evening, as a final effort in assassination, before retiring to bed, he tied a heavy piece of iron round the cat's neck, and dropped it into a water-butt which stood in his garden. Next morning he was down betimes, and standing on the tiptoe both of expectation and of his boots, he peeped over the edge of the tub, when lo! there, on the bottom of the butt sat the cat looking up at him with tears in her eyes, for she was too heavily anchored ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... the summons, immediately appeared his worthy helpmate. She carried a very beautiful half-blown rose in her hand, which, as soon as she approached her husband, she placed carefully in his button-hole, standing on tiptoe to perform ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... have chafed their temper. Excepting the occasional brawls which we have mentioned among that irritable race the carmen, the mingled sounds which arose from the multitude were those of light-hearted mirth and tiptoe jollity. The musicians preluded on their instruments—the minstrels hummed their songs—the licensed jester whooped betwixt mirth and madness, as he brandished his bauble—the morrice-dancers jangled their bells—the rustics hallooed and whistled-men laughed loud, and maidens giggled shrill; while ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... opened her eyes and seen the child; and the child had run towards her; and, standing on tiptoe, the better to hide her face in her embrace, had clung about her with a desperate affection very much ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... writing letters, so he went off on tiptoe to the study, where the doctor was deep in his book, writing with a very severe frown on ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn
... either side; but one of the ushers looked first to Heriot, and then to a little door half-covered by the tapestry, which seemed to say, as plain as a look could, "Lies your business that way?" The citizen nodded; and the court-attendant, moving on tiptoe, and with as much caution as if the floor had been paved with eggs, advanced to the door, opened it gently, and spoke a few words in a low tone. The broad Scottish accent of King James was heard in reply,—"Admit him instanter, Maxwell. Have you hairboured sae lang at the Court, and not learned, ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... occasional napping in the shade of the cotton-stalks. But Alston took no part in any of these. He had no interest for anything apart from his work. At this all his faculties were engaged. His lithe body was seen swaying from side to side about the widespreading branches; he stood on tiptoe to reach the topmost bolls; he got on his knees to work the base-limbs, pressing down and away the long grass with his broad feet, tearing and holding back even with his teeth hindering tendrils of the passion-flower and morning-glory and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... eagerly at every strange sound muttered forth by the growing storm. She had resumed her seat many times, when the castle-bell tolled eleven, and almost at the same moment the cry of a screech-owl was distinctly heard. The expectant damsel glided on tiptoe to the window, and listened eagerly. The cry was repeated. Emma's eye sparkled at length with joy, a deep blush overspread her cheeks, and she produced from an aperture a ladder of twine, which ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... as they approached the hut on tiptoe; "there may be savages into it, an' there's no sayin' what sort o' craturs they are in ...
— Martin Rattler • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... thou wilt place thyself on the level of the zanies of Chincholi. And he said: Thou speakest the very truth: I am the very type of a fool, striving to reach what is above him and beyond his reach, even when he stands on tiptoe: and that is, the level of thy thoughts. And Aranyani said: See now, I said well, thou art the very fellow of the sages of Chincholi: a city, into which on a day there came a certain sanctimonious ascetic, called Pinga, from ...
— Bubbles of the Foam • Unknown
... two-step followed, and Phil danced again, seizing a corn-stalk and holding it above her head with both hands like a wand. When the music ended she poised on tiptoe and flung the stalk far from her toward the barn as though it were a javelin. Then as she took a step toward the fence she was aware that some one had been watching her. It was, indeed, a nice question whether the flying stalk had not grazed the ear of a ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... yard and ended in a soft, queer little whoop that was musical. Crittenden smiled but, instead of answering, raised his hand warningly and, as he approached the portico, he stepped from the gravel-walk to the thick turf and began to tiptoe. At the foot of the low flight of stone ...
— Crittenden - A Kentucky Story of Love and War • John Fox, Jr.
... and Gertrude grew hotly indignant, and wanted Ethel to rush in to the rescue; but Ethel, though greatly moved, knew that female interposition only aggravated such matters, and restrained herself and her sister till she heard Tom stride off. Then creeping in on tiptoe, she found the boy sitting stunned and confounded by ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... stood in that black prison ringing with noise, rank with heat, and there were eight hours to follow before the door would be opened and he could stumble into the clean air and fall asleep in the zareeba. He stood upon tiptoe that he might lift his head above his fellows, but even so he could barely breathe, and the air he breathed was moist and sour. His throat was parched, his tongue was swollen in his mouth and stringy like a dried fig. It seemed ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... in Dolly Town That place to children dear— Is no dolly at all, Though so neat and small If you've time to spare, Go on tiptoe there, See the pretty girl, the rose, the pearl, Who is Queen of ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... pronounced Vandyke point. His mustaches were black, heavy, and waxed. His whole external appearance betokened wealth, and he exuded mystery. He had not taken two steps from the car before the people on the platform were standing on tiptoe to see him. ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick
... doesn't give much light, because the door is thick. It's about four inches thick, and is made of oak and sheet-steel, bolted through. The slit runs this way,"—making a horizontal motion in the air,—"and it is four inches above my eyes when I stand on tiptoe. And I can't look out at the factory-wall forty feet away unless I hook my fingers in the slit ...
— The Ape, the Idiot & Other People • W. C. Morrow
... blue flame and embraced the old lady. She made the sign of the Cross over him, looked round the room once more, and went out on tiptoe. Just as he was going to lie down again there was another tap on the door, he opened ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov
... this silent hill-town, remote from tourists and motor-cars, dreaming its own quiet life under the autumn sun, rose up and cast its spell upon him. Long before he recognised this spell he acted under it. He walked softly, almost on tiptoe, down the winding narrow streets where the gables all but met over his head, and he entered the doorway of the solitary inn with a deprecating and modest demeanour that was in itself an apology for intruding upon the ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... it Miss Verne," said Philip, going on tiptoe towards the couch, and gazing wistfully upon the emaciated features ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... den; and noiseless and supple as a serpent began to wind slowly round the tree. She soon came to a great protuberance in the tree, and twining and peering round it with diamond eye, she saw a very young, very handsome gentleman, stealing on tiptoe to the nearest flower-bed. Then she saw him take a purse out of his bosom, and drop it on the bed. This done, he came slowly past the tree again, and was even heard to vent a little innocent chuckle of intense satisfaction: but of brief duration; for, when Rose saw the purse leave his ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... another silent solo, this time on the tambourine, which the boy pretended to beat with frantic energy, ending by going on tiptoe to peep through the keyhole, and satisfy himself that the doctor ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn
... even on tiptoe Georgina could not look over the rim. All she could see was the ceiling directly overhead. The surprise of such a novel punishment made her hold her breath to find what was going to happen next, and in the ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... the dancing shape came flying, and stood on tiptoe in the doorway. Steady, now, January! keep your voice steady, if there is any will left in you. Keep your head turned a little away, lest there be any change in your face, yet not turned enough to make her wonder. "Star Bright," said Captain ...
— Captain January • Laura E. Richards
... side, as it were, with a noise like the rustling of boughs. It must not be much of a noise, however, for my stringed instruments to the right have begun the very song of the morning. The bows tremble upon the strings, like the limbs of a dancer, who, a-tiptoe, prepares to bound into her ecstasy of motion. Away! The song soars into the air as if it had the wings of a kite. Here swooping, there swooping, wheeling upward, falling suddenly, checked, poised for a moment on quivering wings, and again away. It ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... entered the house and saw Jackson, dressed for the saddle, sword, boots, spurs and all, lying on his face upon the bed, asleep. On a small table near him stood a short piece of tallow candle, sputtering dimly. But the officer saw that it was Jackson, and he turned on tiptoe to withdraw. ...
— The Scouts of Stonewall • Joseph A. Altsheler
... had tried for some time she saw that this was so and gave it up. But with her help Harry managed to wriggle quietly out of his sleeves, so that the dragon had only an Eton jacket in his other claw. Then the children crept on tiptoe to a crack in the rocks and got in. It was much too narrow for the dragon to get in also, so they stayed in there and waited to make faces at the dragon when he felt rested enough to sit up and begin to think about eating them. He was very angry, indeed, when they made faces at him, and ...
— The Book of Dragons • Edith Nesbit
... queer, of course, to stay right there all the time, and to have Muvver staring at them from the bedroom at the other end of the hall, and not to be allowed to do more than tiptoe in once or twice and kiss her without saying a word; but when Ariadne grew confused with trying to think this out, and the little eyes drooped heavily, the new man picked her up and tucked her away in his arms so comfortably that, though she meant to reach ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... have seen a self-luminous body, the size and nearly the shape of a turkey's egg, float noiselessly about the room, at one time higher than any one present could reach standing on tiptoe, and then gently descend to the floor. It was visible more than ten minutes, and before it faded away struck the table three times with a sound like that of a hard, solid body. During this time the medium was lying back, apparently insensible, in ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... that darkened the front of the eating-house, and excitement reached a climax when the coolie, whom my cook had installed as helper,—there is no Chinese too poor to lack some one to do his bidding,—served Jack his midday meal of rice in his own dish. Then men stood on tiptoe and children climbed on each other's shoulders to see a dog fed like—the Chinese equivalent of Christian. They never seemed to begrudge him his food; on the contrary, they often smiled approvingly. We were thousands of miles away from the famine-stricken regions ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... went slowly by, he faced this desolation with extraordinary fortitude. It was part of that curious detachment, that strange gift of impersonal observation. Dickie bore no grudges against life. His spirit had a fashion of standing away, tiptoe, on wings. It stood so now like a presence above the miserable, half-starved body that occupied the bench and suffered the sultriness of August and the pains of abstinence. Dickie's wide eyes, that watched the city and found it horrible and beautiful and frightening, ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt
... and ask my mamma what is best to do?' said Venetia; and she stole away on tiptoe, and whispered to Lady Annabel that Plantagenet wanted her. Her mother came forward and invited Lord Cadurcis to walk on the terrace with her, leaving Venetia ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... to the top of her mistress's chair. Dandy barked defiance, all the children shouted or screamed and danced about, and the old woman gasped and shook more. Lizzie alone was almost equal to the occasion. She flew at the cat who was standing on tiptoe on the tall back of the chair, with huge tail and eyes like green lamps, swearing, hissing, and spitting, and, regardless of scratches, caught him up by the scruff of his neck and disposed of him behind the staircase door; ...
— The Carbonels • Charlotte M. Yonge
... mines of research, is of young pioneerhood alone. It is a youth who dares be radical, who dares, in splendid largess, build mistake upon mistake, bleeding his life out in service. And it is a youth, standing tiptoe upon the earth, now waiting in unperturbed ease, now searching with unbridled zeal, who is lover and mystic. "The best is yet to be," says Rabbi Ben Ezra, "the last of life, for which the first is made." Yes, the last of ...
— The Kempton-Wace Letters • Jack London
... de Saint-Vallier saw them she turned hastily away. Those tears were suddenly dried, however, when Georges beheld the red and white plumes of the page who was devoted to his interests. The count took no notice of this servitor, who advanced to his mistress on tiptoe. After the page had said a few words in her ear, Marie returned to the window. Escaping for a moment the perpetual watchfulness of her tyrant, she cast one glance upon Georges that was brilliant with the fires of love ...
— Maitre Cornelius • Honore de Balzac
... curiosity and feminine craft more signally displayed than in the slim little form creeping on tiptoe, the astute, piquante little face thrust forth into the dark. Across the landing she stole, and with deft fingers opened ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... with all the politeness that characterizes the French under all circumstances, and given in broken English a hearty welcome. Supper being prepared for the family, we were invited to partake. Curiosity, which has led us into many scrapes, was on tiptoe. Wild goose was very good. After fishing in the dish some time I found something with a new flavor. It proved to be skunk. Made a light supper and retired to bed. Mme. Belfie lives in a log hut about twelve feet square. This contains a bed for the old lady and her daughter, two ...
— Narrative of Richard Lee Mason in the Pioneer West, 1819 • Richard Lee Mason
... ye see the pink jes' a-creepin' back T' the pale, drawn cheek, an' ye note a smile, Then th' cords o' yer heart that were tight, grow slack An' ye jump fer joy every little while, An' ye tiptoe back to her little bed As though ye doubted yer eyes, or were Afraid it was fever come back instead, An' ye found that th' pink ...
— Just Folks • Edgar A. Guest
... myrmidons, whom, nevertheless, he ordered to return at eleven o'clock at night. We conversed together with great gaiety and mirth. When I rallied him for visiting me in such a dishabille, he stood on tiptoe to view himself in the glass; and, owning I was in the right, said he would go and dress himself before dinner. He accordingly went away, charging my maid to give him entrance at his return; and he was no sooner gone than I wrote to Mr. S—, giving him an account of what had ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... grew sharper. He could hear Gino coming in on tiptoe. He even knew what was passing in his mind, how now he was at fault, now he was hopeful, now he was wondering whether after all the victim had not escaped down the stairs. There was a quick swoop above him, and then a low growl like a dog's. Gino had broken his finger-nails against ...
— Where Angels Fear to Tread • E. M. Forster
... And he watched her, stupefied, like one in a dream, and all the while she bathed him with intoxicating side glances shot like arrows from the bow of her arching brows. And at last, she came slowly towards him, walking on tiptoe, and attitudinising, placing herself exactly in the posture in which he had seen her first among the poppies on the wall, with one hand on her hip. And she said, lifting her brow, with a smile that stole his reason: Now, then, the idol is ready for the devotee. And at ...
— An Essence Of The Dusk, 5th Edition • F. W. Bain
... executed strategic retreat; Chair empty; JOHN standing on tiptoe, followed retreating figure with despairing cry, "Mr. SPEAKER!" House half hoped SPEAKER would return; dying with curiosity to know what fresh irregularity on part of Government JOHN had discovered; but no help for it. Chair empty; technically "No House;" and JOHN, slowly ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, March 29, 1890 • Various
... flowed on. Presently doors began to open along the village street. People came softly out, came on tiptoe toward the cottage, and with a silent greeting to its owner sat down beside the road to listen. Children came dancing, with feet almost as light as Melody's own, and curled themselves up beside her ...
— Melody - The Story of a Child • Laura E. Richards
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