"Combing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in front of his own platform, inside during the show, were smaller, too. At first Charley thought that was due to the bally itself, but as the season began and wore on, the crowds continued to shrink beyond all expectation. Counting as he worked, combing his hair with one foot, drawing little sketches for the customers ("Take one home for only one extra dime, a treasured souvenir especially personalized for you by Charley de Milo")—counting the house, ...
— Charley de Milo • Laurence Mark Janifer AKA Larry M. Harris
... was seated in her arm-chair. In her hand she held a piece of knitting. She was making a quilt for Beatrice's bed. This quilt was composed of little squares of an elaborate pattern, with much honey-combing, and many other fancy and delicate stitches ornamenting it. Mrs. Meadowsweet liked to feel her ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... called into her room, to cut her nails or dress her hair; and we would often collect the clippings, and distribute them to each other, or preserve them with the utmost care. I once picked up all the stray hairs I could find, after combing her head, bound them together, and kept them for some time, until she told me I was not worthy to possess things so sacred. Jane McCoy and I were once sent to alter a dress for the Superior. I gathered up all the bits of thread, made a little bag, and ...
— Awful Disclosures - Containing, Also, Many Incidents Never before Published • Maria Monk
... structure, of recent date, and is more in keeping with the fine fertile country about than with the little village in its front. In the cemetery back of it, Carlyle lies buried. As I approached, a girl sat by the roadside, near the gate, combing her black locks and arranging her toilet; waiting, as it proved, for her mother and brother, who lingered in the village. A couple of boys were cutting nettles against the hedge; for the pigs, they said, after the sting had been taken out of them by boiling. Across the street ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors - Vol. II Great Britain And Ireland, Part Two • Francis W. Halsey
... for the purpose of "slicking" it or combing it, is about as bad a thing as could be done; for the moisture sets up a sort of rancid fermentation in the natural oil of the scalp, giving the well-known sour smell to hair that is combed instead of brushed, and furnishing a splendid soil for germs and ...
— A Handbook of Health • Woods Hutchinson
... the tumbleweed. While one was searching, the rest would get ahead of him. The line became disorganized, broke into groups, finally disintegrated entirely. Each man hunted for himself, circling the tumbleweed patches, combing carefully their edges for the quail that sometimes burst into the air fairly at his feet. When he had killed one, he walked directly to the spot. On the way he would flush two or three more. They were tempting; but we were old hands at the sport, and ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... thought indicated a sudden storm, he roused his companions, and all was prepared for a heavy rain, when, instead, to their great consternation, the camp was inundated by "a high ridge of water over which came the sea current combing down like water over a mill-dam." The canoes were almost capsized, but this catastrophe was averted by rapid and good management. Even in the darkness, in the face of a danger unexpected and unknown, the trappers never for an instant lost their coolness and quick judgment, which was ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... who used to spend long hours clipping and combing the Horse of which he had charge, but who daily stole a portion of his allowance of oats, and sold it for his own profit. The Horse gradually got into worse and worse condition, and at last cried to the Groom, "If you really want me to look sleek and ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... greater proportion of the goats is white, and this latter is more valuable than the other. The coat is a mixture of long, coarse hair and of short fine wool: this latter begins to be loose early in April; and is collected, easily and expeditiously, by combing the animals two or three times with such a comb as is used for horses' manes. A good deal of the long hair comes off at the same time, but the manufacturer has found no difficulty in separating it. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 20, Issue 561, August 11, 1832 • Various
... several miles had been traveled. And thus far the party had seen no signs of Jack Hardy's rustler gang. They were not, however, deceived. With every passing minute they were approaching closer to Midway, the Hardy stronghold. And not only that, but the outlaws were probably combing the country ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens
... the seas, especially when going close-hauled to windward, the short, choppy head-sea which the breeze had knocked up having not the slightest perceptible retarding effect upon the sharp, gently-swelling tubes, which pierced the combing seas absolutely without any shock whatever; whereas a boat of the usual mould would have pitched and jerked into them, and half-blinded us and wholly wet us through with spray. And they were quite as much surprised at her stiffness, for her amount of ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood
... Pollyanna worked swiftly, deftly, combing a refractory curl into fluffiness, perking up a drooping ruffle at the neck, or shaking a pillow into plumpness so that the head might have a better pose. Meanwhile the sick woman, frowning prodigiously, and openly scoffing at the whole procedure, was, in spite of herself, beginning ...
— Pollyanna • Eleanor H. Porter
... the tiny stiff plait of hair which stuck out almost horizontally from the nape of Harriett's neck, and watched her combing out the tightly-curled fringe standing stubbily out along her forehead and extending like a thickset hedge midway across the crown of her head, where it stopped abruptly against the sleekly-brushed longer strands which strained over her poll and disappeared ...
— Pointed Roofs - Pilgrimage, Volume 1 • Dorothy Richardson
... of Josue," continued the Master. "The mouth was crooked, but he was clean, clean—I shaved him just in time. And he had good hair for combing to a peaceful look, and he was light to carry—O my good! Go on, what has Josue the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... me Patch. When I find a slut asleep, I smutch her face if it be clean; but if it be dirty, I wash it in the next piss pot that I can find: the balls I use to wash such sluts withal is a sow's pancake or a pilgrim's salve. Those that I find with their heads nitty and scabby, for want of combing, I am their barbers, and cut their hair as close as an ape's tail; or else clap so much pitch on it, that they must cut it off themselves to their great shame. Slovens also that neglect their masters' business, they do not escape. Some I find that spoil their masters' horses for want of currying: ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick
... their Captain Warners as well as we. Bundles of these poisoned arrows were exposed for sale at Ghat, together with bullocks'-hide shields. Whilst the lads are thus passing their time, the lasses are combing, dressing, and oiling their hair, or washing and cleaning, or decorating themselves, or playing with their little trinkets of glass beads and chains; thus clearly defining the tastes of the male and female Negro animal. It is much the same amongst us ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... trying to laugh in obedience to her father's will. She was combing his white beard with her fingers—it was knotted and tangled—and he was labouring hard ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine
... I bid you!" said Dorothy, and glided past her to her dimity dressing-table, and began combing out her yellow hair. ...
— Madelon - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... to be. For, when she came to luncheon next day, she told Mary Alice how she had always been "a bit daft about hair." "When I played with my dolls," she said, "I always cared much more for combing their hair and doing it up with mother's 'invisible' pins, than for dressing them. And it used to be the supreme reward for goodness when I could take down my mother's beautiful hair and play with it for half an hour. I'm always wanting to play with lovely hair. And when I saw yours at the ...
— Everybody's Lonesome - A True Fairy Story • Clara E. Laughlin
... late in the afternoon, and I don't think I was ever so stiff and uncomfortable and hungry in my life. I made my way over to the hatch and found I could reach the combing with my hands, so I pulled myself up, after a mighty hard tussle. Try it some time ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... such a strict Pharisee, you mean," Aunt Deborah answered; "used to imagine religion consisted in wearing the ugliest garment I could put on, combing my hair straight back in a hard knot, being 'a keeper at home,' and making things generally uncomfortable for everybody. Now I think a Christian is one who loves and obeys his Lord. I know I love Him and I am trying to obey Him, but I believe if there is one place on the ...
— Divers Women • Pansy and Mrs. C.M. Livingston
... groups were combing out their hair and chatting merrily among themselves and with ...
— Frank Merriwell Down South • Burt L. Standish
... "Put it on the table, please," she said, without turning; and while Ingram hovered, Mrs. Benson heaving like the sea, gathered into a combing wave and, breaking, swallowed ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... always prefer cities in which to ply their trade, and only strike out to visit smaller places and the country at large—and then only in separate pairs—when too many of them drifted into the same city, so as to make combing the public for money an unprofitable business, or when the police made a general raid upon vagrants of ...
— The Trail of the Tramp • A-No. 1 (AKA Leon Ray Livingston)
... yer finger on it; sure, it's just then that there's work to do combing ov 'em down, young 'un. If I was the skipper, I wudn't sit here with my feet in my pockets as it was, but I'd up an' run for it. Why, look you, we're short av victuals already; and we turn fifty av the hands in the ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton
... sink as usual. Mrs. Brown watched Bradley with maternal pleasure as he hung his coat on a nail and went about in his shirt-sleeves scrubbing his face and combing his hair. ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland
... you're hit there!—Rosa, I'm proud of you. This odious Yankee needs combing down; he ran over us so long at college that he is conceited in his own impudence," and Vincent exploded in shouts ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... Lydia.' No doubt you have seen some picture of him: he is Omphale's slave, dressed up in an absurd costume, his lion- skin and club transferred to her, as though she were the true Heracles, while he, in saffron robe and purple jacket, is combing wool and wincing under Omphale's slipper. A degrading spectacle it is—the dress loose and flapping open, and all that was man ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... one lock in particular, which in spite of all combing and brushing would break away from the rest, and fall in careless curls. Madame de Tecle finally, by the aid of some ribbons, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... thing I heard was a heavy crash of glass, and I woke up just in time to catch the tail end of a combing wave, that dashed in through one of the stern ports, washing the cabin fore and aft. The ship had evidently been pooped by a heavy following sea, that travelled through the water faster than she did before the stiff northward breeze, although ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... to try, no queer hours too exhausting, no deep corner too remote, in the search for my material. I saw the place from an old fisherman's boat and from a revenue launch at night, with its searchlight combing the waters far and wide for smugglers. I saw it from big pilot boats that put far out to sea to meet the incoming liners. I ate many good suppers and slept long nights on a stout jolly tug called The Happy, where from my snug bunk at the stern through ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole
... exploits of three young men armed with guns. Entering a bank, the three young men shot and killed Henry J. Sloane, cashier; held half a dozen other names at bay, loaded their pockets with money, and escaped in a black automobile. The police are, fortunately, combing the city for the three young men and the black automobile. Thank God for the police moving cautiously through the streets with a large, a magnificent comb that will soon pick the three young men, their three guns, and their symbolical black automobile ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht
... in Egypt now. The four-tooth ripple of the Egyptian is improved upon, but it is the same implement. Pliny gives an account of the mode of preparing flax: plucking it up by the roots, tying it in bundles, drying, watering, beating, and hackling it, or, as he says, "combing it with iron hooks." Until the Christian era linen was almost the only kind of clothing used in Egypt, and the teeming banks of the Nile furnished flax in abundance. The quality of the linen can be seen in the bands preserved on mummies. It was not, however, spun on a wheel, but on a hand-distaff, ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle
... for the loading of the ship continued by torchlight, until within an hour of the time of their departure. After tossing about for some hours in their narrow beds, they were glad to go on deck, and to plunge their heads into a pail of water, and were then, after combing their long hair, able to take an interest in ...
— A Jacobite Exile - Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden • G. A. Henty
... on and on till it had reached another country, and the daughter of the Raja of this country was sitting on the roof of the palace, combing her long black hair. The princess looked up at the kite and the bundle, and said, "There must be meat in that bundle." At that moment the kite let the bundle of camels fall, and it fell into the princess's eye, and went deep into ...
— Indian Fairy Tales • Anonymous
... is too poor to have a peinadora to do her hair; and these women go from house to house, combing and arranging the coiffure for such infinitesimal sums as half a real, which is ...
— The Land of The Blessed Virgin; Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia • William Somerset Maugham
... the tray with the breakfast and the letter on the dressing-table, before which Becky sat combing her yellow hair. She took up the black-edged missive, and having read it, she jumped up from the chair, crying "Hurray!" and waving the note ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... avoid it, presently again into the street of a mud-built village. Few people were astir. A man slept in an angle of a wall, flies about his head; a dog in an entry scratched himself with ecstasy; a woman at a doorway was combing her child's hair, and looked up to watch ...
— The Spanish Jade • Maurice Hewlett
... friend of the tangled tresses, which he had evidently succeeded in combing well out, for they now hung down quite smooth on his back and as long as a woman's hair. Another person was also seated near the fire, whose age might have been anything from twenty-five to forty-five, for he had, I think, a mixture of Indian ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... resided in his hair. This set him to thinking that it was strange that Mr. Peyton did not try to reform him with a pair of scissors, but not until Clarence himself had for at least four days attempted to imitate Jim by combing his own hair ...
— A Waif of the Plains • Bret Harte
... all over—you can begin now!" she said deeply, and in order to save herself from a sickening struggle, she bent her soul, as one bends one's body to dive under a combing breaker, and dipped under the wave that ...
— In the Border Country • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... ocean-tide met. The seething waves lashed to foam with the long, low moan of the world-devouring serpent which, legend says, is ever an-hungering to devour voyageurs on life's sea. And for all the world that reef of combing breakers was not unlike a serpent type of malignant ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... doing,' said the governor to the prince; 'you brought her to this when you burnt the crocodile's skin. Now try if, by combing, you can soothe ...
— The Olive Fairy Book • Various
... roaming, where the crested waves are foaming, And the shy mermaidens combing locks that ripple to their feet; When the Gloaming is, I never made the ghost of an endeavour To discover—but whatever were the hour, it ...
— Fly Leaves • C. S. Calverley
... are the nixes, who frequently assume the appearance of beautiful maidens. On fine sunny days they sit on the banks of rivers or lakes, or on the branches of trees, combing and arranging ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer
... "Speaking of combing and things of that sort," remarked Mr. Rabbit, turning to Mrs. Meadows, "did I ever tell you how Brother Bear learned ...
— Little Mr. Thimblefinger and His Queer Country • Joel Chandler Harris
... old Jonas came in without his otter-skin cap, combing the thick grisly fringe round his head, the top of which was quite bare; and directly after from another door—for there were doors nearly everywhere, because Jonas Uggleston had built the cottage very small at first and then kept on adding rooms, and kitchens, and wash-house with stores—Mother ...
— Devon Boys - A Tale of the North Shore • George Manville Fenn
... Kaulualua was combing her hair she saw a tall, fair man fishing in the rivulet, and he was a stranger to her. Never before had she seen so fair a man, though in very sooth she had been wooed of many king's sons and of chiefs from every part of the earth. ...
— The Holy Cross and Other Tales • Eugene Field
... their motley garments were combing their little brunettes and their black-skinned, large-eyed churumbeles in the sun; a knot of vagrants was carrying on a serious discussion; mendicants wrapped in rags, maimed, crippled, were shouting, singing, wailing, and the Sunday throng, in search of bargains, scurried ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... prink my fountain's brim, are hers and mine; And when the days are mild and fair, And grass is springing, buds are blowing, Sweet it is, 'mid waters flowing, Here to sit and know no care, 'Mid the waters flowing, flowing, flowing, Combing ...
— The Campfire Girls at Camp Keewaydin • Hildegard G. Frey
... custom to prepare for the night by taking my switch off and combing and braiding my hair; so, as we seemed to be settled for the night, I asked Mr. McDonald whether the camp afforded an extra comb. He brought out a traveling-case at once from the tent and ...
— Tish, The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... supper rang, and washing up and combing his hair, he went below. He ate his portion leisurely, and was just finishing when the landlady said there was a young lady to ...
— Young Auctioneers - The Polishing of a Rolling Stone • Edward Stratemeyer
... hair, Make patriot breasts with ardour glow, And warrior pant to meet the foe; And long by Nith the maidens young Shall chant the strains their minstrel sung. At ewe-bught, or at evening fold, When resting on the daisied wold, Combing their locks of waving gold, Oft the fair group, enrapt, shall name Their lost, their darling Cunninghame; His was a song beloved in youth, A tale of weir, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume III - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... of being covered with a carpet, there was only a small one round the bed; and near the fire was a cradle, with a cleanly-looking woman sitting by it, rocking it with her foot, whilst at the same time she was combing the head of a little boy about four years old. In the middle of the room stood a table, covered with a great deal of litter; and in one corner was the little girl whom I had before seen with her mamma, crying and sobbing as if her heart would ...
— The Life and Perambulations of a Mouse • Dorothy Kilner
... to Stratford on a poetical pilgrimage. My first visit was to the house where Shakespeare was born, and where, according to tradition, he was brought up to his father's craft of wool-combing. It is a small, mean-looking edifice of wood and plaster, a true nestling-place of genius, which seems to delight in hatching its offspring in by-corners. The walls of its squalid chambers are covered with names and inscriptions in every language, ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume I. - Great Britain and Ireland • Various
... silence across the Dunes to the beach. There, drawn up above high water line, they found a skiff. The captain and Jean shoved off, sprang in, and the little boat plunged into the combing waves. They reached the Southern Cross without misadventure. The captain blew a call upon a boatswain's whistle. A rope was lowered and Jean made the skiff fast to the ladder at the schooner's side. The captain took out his revolver and held it in his hand, while Jean unloosed the ...
— The Inn at the Red Oak • Latta Griswold
... in Maud's eyes, and I do believe they were for me. I could have wept myself. Where now was our project of remasting the Ghost? He had done his work well. I sat down on the hatch-combing and rested my chin on my ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... His racking, scooping, combing insight, into the recesses of man's natural appetites will never be surpassed. How under the glance of his Norman anger, all manner of pretty subterfuges fade away; and "the real thing" stands out, as Nature and the Earth ...
— One Hundred Best Books • John Cowper Powys
... post as soon as ever I heard her enter her room. I was on my knees in a moment, at my peephole, and saw her deliberately undress to her chemise. She then arranged all her magnificent head of hair, brushing it out as far and further than her arms would extend; and after well brushing and combing it, she plaited and rolled it up, in a great big rouleau behind, then washing her hands, she drew out the bidet, poured water into it, and then divested herself of her shift. She was standing in front of the dressing-table, with two ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... The boat was sharp at each end, and the lines from amidships to stem, and from amidships to stempost, were alike. She possessed that essential characteristic of seaworthiness, abundant sheer. The deck was pierced for a cockpit in the centre, which was six feet long and surrounded by a high combing to keep out water. The builder had done his best to make the Mayeta serve for rowing and sailing — a most difficult combination, and one ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop
... attacked by Alan Cope (Nicholas Harpsfield) for his inaccuracy, Foxe replied: "I hear what you will say: I should have taken more leisure and done it better. I grant and confess my fault, such is my vice, I cannot sit all the day (Moister Cope) fining and mincing my letters, and combing my head, and smoothing myself all the day at the glass of Cicero. Yet, notwithstanding, doing what I can, and doing my good will, methinks I should not be reprehended, at least not so much be railed of at M. ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... white and drawn, and the redness of his eyelids more pronounced than ever as he faced Stott in the pale October dawn. He clutched at his beard with a nervous, combing movement, as he shook his head decidedly in answer to ...
— The Wonder • J. D. Beresford
... people said that in former days the maiden was to be seen on the borders of the sea almost every fine evening in the summer, sitting on a rock, and combing her long fair hair with a golden comb, and she sang such beautiful songs that it melted the hearts of her listeners. But she could not endure the gaze of men, and vanished from their sight or fled into the sea, where she rocked ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... mamma, disregarding all mandates, set out to seek him. Already she heard from the stairs the wrangling with Susan that accompanied all his toilettes, and she found him the picture of firm, solid fairness, in his little robe de nuit, growling through the combing of his tangled locks. Though ordinarily scornful of caresses, he sprang to her and hugged her, as she sat down on a low chair, and he knelt in her lap, whispering with his head on her shoulder, and his arms round her neck, 'Mamma, ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the inn, under a dull red lamp swinging there, that looked much like an injured eye, and carrying on a brisk scolding with a man in a purple woollen shirt. Get along with ye, said she to the man, or I'll be combing ye! Come on, Queequeg, said I, all right. There's Mrs. Hussey. .. And so it turned out; Mr. Hosea Hussey being from home, but leaving Mrs. Hussey entirely competent to attend to all his affairs. ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... the house this very minute, please to," exclaimed Susy, "and ask mother—if she's combing her hair, or anything—to come right out here as quick as she can run, and not wait! O, dear, dear, dear! Why, Dotty Dimple Parlin! you haven't started yet! ...
— Little Prudy's Dotty Dimple • Sophie May
... beside the hearth, by the side of which was an armful of furze. The evening meal was slowly cooking in a marmite suspended from a hook. Between her knees she held the child, combing his hair. She stopped when she saw the visitors enter, and the child ran towards the Count who took ...
— The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt
... that after Brighteyes Pigg had finished combing her hair, and had put on a nice, pink ribbon, which she tied in two, big bows, that she heard a knock at the door. There was no one home, for her mamma had gone down to the five and ten cent store to get a wash ...
— Buddy And Brighteyes Pigg - Bed Time Stories • Howard R. Garis
... that means. You married men are mere sieves. You'll run straight home with your tongue out and tell Lady Newhaven that I want to marry Miss—I can't clinch her name—and then she'll tell her when they are combing their back hair. And then if I find, later on, I don't like her and step off the grass, I shall have behaved like a perfect brute, and all that sort of thing. A man I knew out in Melbourne told me that by the time he'd taken a little notice of a likely girl, ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... consequence. We soaped down and scrubbed one another with towels and pieces of canvas, stripping to it; and then, getting into the head, threw buckets of water upon each other. After this came shaving, and combing, and brushing; and when, having spent the first part of the day in this way, we sat down on the forecastle, in the afternoon, with clean duck trousers and shirts on, washed, shaved, and combed, and looking a dozen shades lighter for it, reading, ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... still on her lips, she straightway quitted the room, and during this while, Pao-y having finished combing her hair, asked She Yeh to quietly wait upon him, while he went to sleep, as he would not like to ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... face was changed, as if by magic. Several leaped to their feet. Gode, the Canadian, skilled in snow-craft, ran to a bank, and drawing his hand along the combing, ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... and dreadful Fright in the main Ocean ...... but to his great Amazement he espy'd a beautiful young Lady combing her Head and toss'd on the Billows, cloathed all in green (but by chance he got the first Word from her). Then She with a Smile came on Board and asked how he did. The young Man, being Something Smart and a Scholar reply'd—Madam, I am the better ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... Grace of Benevento spent near forty years of his life; and when the thing came out, it was not of above half the size or the thickness of a Rider's Almanack.—How the holy man managed the affair, unless he spent the greatest part of his time in combing his whiskers, or playing at primero with his chaplain,—would pose any mortal not let into the true secret;—and therefore 'tis worth explaining to the world, was it only for the encouragement of those few in it, who write not so much to be ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... air with their feet upwards, to the great terror of their wives and families, who were naturally very much disconcerted when the master of the house unexpectedly came home, knocking at the door with his heels and combing his hair on the scraper. These were their commonest pranks, but they every day played a hundred others, of which none were less objectionable, and many were much more so, being improper besides; the result was that vengeance was denounced against all old women, with whom even ...
— Master Humphrey's Clock • Charles Dickens
... until he got poor Alla to thinking that it was nothing less than an automobile, and she treated him accordingly. One morning a messenger boy makes his entrance into the flat and hands her a book. Can you beat that? The only thing that kept Alia from foaming at the mouth was because she was combing her Dutch braid. It—the book—was called a Rubaiyat by Omar Quinine, or something like that. This Omar party never wrote a comic opera in his life. But Alla wasn't discouraged, for she looked through every page in hopes of finding a Clearing ...
— The Sorrows of a Show Girl • Kenneth McGaffey
... guess," cried the bold Yankee, combing out his matted locks hastily with his fingers, and sitting up in what he conceived to be a proper position. "Here you are, sir. I'm your man; fix me off slick. Only think! Big Waller ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... two trained nurses, who served adhesive plaster and instruments, and an "etherist" who poured. Costumes were uniformly white with great profusion of gauze trimmings, with which I also eventually became somewhat decorated. One of the internes wasn't half bad, so I kept the nurse busy combing my adopted hair and pinning it on becomingly. It is a much quicker and easier process to have your appendix cut out than ...
— Letters of a Dakota Divorcee • Jane Burr
... Thurstane had seen in New Mexico. Good features, too; that is, they were handsomer than the usual Indian type; some even had physiognomies which reminded one of Italians. Their hair was fine and glossy for men of their race; and, stranger still, it bore an appearance of careful combing. Nearly all wore loose cotton trousers or drawers reaching to the knee, with a kind of blouse of woollen or cotton, and over the shoulders a gay woollen blanket tied around the waist. In view of their tidy raiment ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... life, which can divide me from thee. For the Lord Jesus my Redeemer's sake. Amen.' After which the Lord's Prayer. Then rapidly and vigorously (GESCHWINDE UND HURTIG) wash himself clean, dress and powder and comb himself [we forget to say, that while they are combing and queuing him, he breakfasts, with brevity, on tea]: Prayer, with washing, breakfast and the rest, to be done pointedly within fifteen minutes [that is, at ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume IV. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Friedrich's Apprenticeship, First Stage—1713-1728 • Thomas Carlyle
... the combing, feeling vaguely for the steps of the ladder. Dan sat up and laid by his pipe; two seamen went to assist in the safe delivery of ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... apron-strings as she went. What did she care about her father's departure without her when she could wash her face in a white bowl whose pitcher stood beside the washstand, and comb her hair before a looking-glass "where you could see your head and your belt at the same time?" But the combing was destined to be a lengthy process, for before the child had pulled her comb through the first lock attacked she saw reflected beside her face in that mirror an old-fashioned, black walnut secretary full of books! Lizzie Farnshaw ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... peeped around corners until something more important—such as a cat, a goat, or a gorgeous butterfly—came their way. Tim went inside and slicked up a bit by buttoning and lacing his clothes and combing his rebellious hair. At length a long boat put out from the farther shore and came surging across ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... and more sweet tempered. She often thanked her governess and said she liked to have her curls smoothed with the new comb. She even begged her father to let her own one and have the comb all to herself. It was not long before she surprised her governess and her parents by combing and curling her own hair. In truth, such a wonderful change came over the princess that she did not often have to wear the wooden petticoat, and after a year or two, not at all. So the gossips nearly forgot ...
— Dutch Fairy Tales for Young Folks • William Elliot Griffis
... Weymouth by this time. He could read plainly the advertisement posters outside the cinema theatre facing the esplanade: "Wilkins and the Mermaid. Comic Drama." There was a picture of the lady combing her hair; also of Wilkins, a stoutish ...
— Malvina of Brittany • Jerome K. Jerome
... and to having his claws clipped by her hand. Like birds of a feather, so do lions of a name, flock together. And so another noble beast—that was he—is seen approaching, presumably to claim his share of the combing and clipping and of whatever other favours ...
— In Bohemia with Du Maurier - The First Of A Series Of Reminiscences • Felix Moscheles
... no mind to wait there and be arrested by the Sikh patrol. I wondered whether they were coming in open order, combing the countryside, or heading all together straight for a known objective; and whether in either case I could give them the slip and head back toward Jerusalem. In that ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy
... art, had no doubt procured for him the warrant of a boatswain, in virtue of which he now stood as the vindicator of the laws of his country, handled his cat like an adept, looked at it from top to bottom, cleared all the tails, by the insertion of his delicate fingers, and combing them out, stretched out his left leg—for he was left-legged as well as left-handed—and measuring his distance with the accurate eye of an engineer, raised his cat high in air with his left hand, his right still holding the tips of the tails, as if to restrain their impatience; ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... we looked ahead, All for'ard, the long white deck Was growing a strange dull red,... Red from mainmast to bitts! Red on bulwark and wale,— Red by combing and hatch,— Red o'er netting ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... and scrubbed one another with towels and pieces of canvas, stripping to it; and then, getting into the head, threw buckets of water upon each other. After this, came shaving, and combing, and brushing; and when, having spent the first part of the day in this way, we sat down on the forecastle, in the afternoon, with clean duck trowsers, and shirts on, washed, shaved, and combed, and ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... and arrayed in her oldest calico gown, with spectacles on her nose, she applied herself, with the energy and determination of all her New England grandmothers, to the task of scrubbing and soaping and squeezing and combing the dirt out of the long, thick hair. Three tubs of water were barely sufficient for the process, but finally David emerged, subdued but clean, looking very limp and draggled, and so much smaller because of his wet, close-clinging coat, that for a moment Mrs. ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... "Posses are combing the hills for them. They stole a packhorse from a truck gardener up the valley. It seems they bought an outfit for a month yesterday—said ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine
... detailed to the command of the night-guard; so, as a last resort, I turned aside and sought De Croix. I found him seated cross-legged on a blanket beneath one of the cottonwoods, a silver-backed mirror propped against a tree-butt in his front, while the obsequious darkey was deliberately combing out his long hair and fashioning it anew. The Frenchman glanced up at me with a ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... little girls choose Susie, the large and middle-sized girls can pull their hairs when they are combing them," was the appalling threat from Hannah Straight Tree. "If they tell the teachers we can say their hairs were snarly and we ...
— Big and Little Sisters • Theodora R. Jenness
... care that her cook shall make her toilet in her room, not in the kitchen. Particularly should she be made to arrange her hair upstairs, as some cooks have an exceedingly nasty habit of combing their hair in the kitchen. It will repay a house-keeper to make several visits to the kitchen at ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... agents found the bearded woman sitting on a hay cock, combing out her whiskers, and asked what it would take to settle, and she said $10,000, and she got up and walked over to another hay cock where the Circassian beauty was drying her hair, and the claim agent looked ...
— Peck's Bad Boy at the Circus • George W. Peck
... be better when I get back," she said, as she began preparations for the evening service. These consisted in combing stiffly back the strands of light-brown hair which, during the day, had exuberantly loosened themselves over her temples into something almost like curls; in fastening down upon this rebellious hair a plain brown-straw bonnet, guiltless of all ornament save a binding ribbon of dull umber hue; ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... occasion, there was a good deal of both; so much as greatly to terrify the females. Of all the craft known, however, one of these egg-shells is really the safest, if properly managed, among breakers or amid the combing of seas. We have ourselves ridden in them safely through a surf that would have swamped the best man-of-war cutter that ever floated; and done it, too, without taking on board as much water as would serve to wash one's hands. The light vessel floats on so little ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... blackbirds, and magpies; of dead dogs and cats, and colonies of thriving rats; of imprisoned terriers and goats let out on parole; of shrill and angry maternity and mud-loving infancy; and of hissing, curry-combing grooms and haltered horses, to which Londoners have given the designation of a Mews. Mr Peter Bowley, the landlord of the 'Mother Bunch,' was the late butler of the late Sir Plumberry Muggs; and having succeeded, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 427 - Volume 17, New Series, March 6, 1852 • Various
... skulls, fungus, shells, an old cowhorn—things that interested him, he did not know why. He made Indian necklaces of the shells, strung together alternately with the backbone of a fish. He let his hair grow as long as possible, employing various stratagems, even the unpalatable one of combing it to avoid the monthly trim of the maternal scissors. He lay for hours with the sun beating on his face to correct his colour to standard, and the only semblance of personal vanity that he ever had was pleasure in hearing disparaging remarks about the darkness of his complexion. He tried ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... eyes twinkled. "Do you ever pay compliments to yourself when you are combing your hair ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert
... gone as she spoke, locking the door again, and Mollie got up with a heavy sigh. She had taken off only her outer garments before lying down; and after washing, and combing out her bright silken hair, she resumed the glittering, bride-like finery of the evening before. Poor Mollie looked at the silver-shining silk, the cobweb lace, the gleaming, milky pearls, ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... mind, I was getting better every day. One day I heard her say that I was improving and must have once been a handsome cat. I wanted to tell her of my wonderful voice, but did not do so, and compromised by squaring my shoulders and combing out my whiskers with my claws, for I had saved them and felt that they were still a credit to me. (I think ...
— The Nomad of the Nine Lives • A. Frances Friebe
... groping in the darkness; he felt sure he ought to be sharing his adventures with these other little persons, whoever they were; they ought to have been sitting beside him at that very moment, eating mushrooms, combing their wings, comparing the length of their feathers, and snuggling with ...
— Jimbo - A Fantasy • Algernon Blackwood
... returning from a brief glimpse of home. There was nothing of the glory of war in the embarkation, and, to add to the sad and sinister effect of it, each man as he came aboard mounted the ladder and chose, from a pile on the hatch combing, a sodden life-preserver, which he flung around his shoulders as he went in search of a shelter. The saloon below, where we had our tea, was lighted indeed, but sealed so tight as to be insupportable; and the cabin above, stifling too, was dark as a pocket. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... given at p. 23, and one partly in section at p. 41, it will be understood that the Rob Roy is fully decked all over except an open well near the stern which is three feet square, and about the same in depth; a strong combing surrounds both the well and the main hatchway as a protection in the sea. {20} This well or after compartment is separated from the next compartment by a strong bulkhead, sloping forward (p. 7) ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... point the crafty eyes of Crichton the Chancellor were turned full upon the speaker. His hand tugged nervously at his thin reddish beard as if it had been combing the long goat's tuft which grew beneath ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... only points in which I think your daughter may fail is in properly washing, combing, and examining the dogs, and cutting her ladyship's corns; but surely she can practise a little of both, as she will not be wanted for a month. There can be no difficulty about the first; and as for the latter, as all people ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... popped in with a newspaper in his hand, to read me a curious account of a mermaid, that was seen singing a Gaelic song, and combing its hair with a tortoise-shell comb, someway terrible far north about Shetland, by a respectable minister of the district, riding home in the gloaming after a presbytery dinner. So, as he was just taking off his spectacles cannily, and saying to me—"And was not that droll?"—the ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir
... locks of Will Bowen and John Robards. My hair was a dense ruck of short curls, and so was my brother Henry's. We tried all kinds of devices to get these crooks straightened out so that they would flirt, but we never succeeded. Sometimes, by soaking our heads and then combing and brushing our hair down tight and flat to our skulls, we could get it straight, temporarily, and this gave us a comforting moment of joy; but the first time we gave it a flirt it all shrivelled into curls again and our ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... Jovinus, who had viewed the ground with the eye of a general, made a silent approach through a deep and woody vale, till he could distinctly perceive the indolent security of the Germans. Some were bathing their huge limbs in the river; others were combing their long and flaxen hair; others again were swallowing large draughts of rich and delicious wine. On a sudden they heard the sound of the Roman trumpet; they saw the enemy in their camp. Astonishment produced disorder; disorder ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... the Greeks, beautiful legends grow up which express the aspects of various localities. From the distant sand-banks in the lakes, glittering in the sun, come stories of enchantresses combing, on the shore, the long golden hair of a beautiful daughter. The Lorelei of the Rhine, with her syren song, and the sad events that follow, is found on the lonely rocks of ...
— Summer on the Lakes, in 1843 • S.M. Fuller
... a little distance, watching her curiously, as if she thought this some kind of an oblation paid to the white woman's god before she ate. Margaret pulled the hair-pins out of her hair, letting it down and combing it with one of her side combs; twisted it up again in its soft, fluffy waves; straightened her collar, set on her hat, and was ready for the day. The squaw looked at her with both awe and contempt for a moment, then turned and stalked back to her papoose and ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... morning of December 1, 1885, Lorenzo and Seth Wright were killed by Indians who had been combing the valley for horses. The Wrights had started, with members of a posse, from Layton, and were joined at Solomonville by Sheriff Stevens and two other men, after there had been recovered a number of the stolen horses, for the pursuers rode harder and faster than the fleeing thieves. There had been ...
— Mormon Settlement in Arizona • James H. McClintock
... nocturnal radiation; their only protection from the dew being such branches stuck in the ground, and slanting over their procumbent forms. The Bhotanese were rude and boisterous in their pursuits, constantly complaining to the Sirdars, and wrangling over their meals. The Ghorkas were sprightly, combing their raven hair, telling interminably long stories, of which money was the burthen, or singing Hindoo songs through their noses in chorus; and being neater and better dressed, and having a servant to cook their food, ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... that away which the currycomb hath raised. Then take a round brush made of bristles, with a leathern handle, and dress him all over, both head, body, and legs, to the very fetlocks, always cleansing the brush from the dust by rubbing it with the currycomb. In the curry-combing process, as well as brushing, it must be applied with mildness, especially with fine-skinned horses; otherwise the tickling irritates them much. The brushing is succeeded by a hair-cloth, with which ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... they'd take 'em," broke in the widow's buxom daughter, who had appeared in the doorway, combing her hair. "They goes up in the hall and knocks on the door with their horns all night. There's sixteen dozen of them on the stoop, if there's one. What good are they? Let's sell 'em to the butcher, mamma; he'll buy 'em for mutton, the way he did ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... feeling that it was a very lame excuse, seeing that he had lectured Faith so strongly in the Good-Conduct Club sessions for her lack of thought. "We're sorry, Father—truly, we are. Pitch into us hard—we deserve a regular combing down." ...
— Rainbow Valley • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... torches. The attendant women watch'd And fed those fires by turns, to whom, himself, Their unknown Sov'reign thus his speech address'd. Ye maidens of the long-regretted Chief 380 Ulysses! to the inner-courts retire, And to your virtuous Queen, that following there Your sev'ral tasks, spinning and combing wool, Ye may amuse her; I, meantime, for these Will furnish light, and should they chuse to stay Till golden morn appear, they shall not tire My patience aught, for I can much endure. He said; they, titt'ring, on each other gazed. ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... slender brown fingers combing his long beard, his white djellaba trailing behind him ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... was the ruler and lawgiver of this Island when a barque strove with a cyclone which eventually shattered her to pieces and scattered her cargo of cedar-logs to the four winds. After the wreck a boat put out from a not distant port on a beach-combing cruise. The boat was known as the CAPTAIN COOK. About a hundred years before her namesake had reported that he had seen about thirty natives, all unclad, on an adjacent islet. With the captain was his mate, two other white ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... enough," said Macchiavelli, with a shrug, and an almost imperceptible glance towards Tito, who was abandoning himself with much enjoyment to Nello's combing and scenting. "But how many Mediceans are there among you? How many who will not be turned ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... changing with 'em! Why, these farmers that used to potter around all winter worrying over their debts to the insurance companies are now going to Lafayette every January to learn how to make corn pay, and they're putting bathrooms in their houses and combing the hay out of their whiskers. They take their wives along with 'em to the University, so they can have a rest and learn to bake bread that won't bring up the death-rate; and when those women go home they dig the nails out of the windows to let ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... way his speech was reported and dressed up so that he really could not recognise his own words. Firth was afterwards called to London to give evidence, and he saved enough money out of his allowance to enable him to abandon hand wool-combing, and set up as a hawker of tea and coffee. He never looked behind him after that, and, being a great "spouter," he got onto the Keighley Local Board. He was one of the opponents of the Baths and Washhouses Scheme, and, in fact, he liked opposition in many things. He ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... The courtiers of Charles II. compensated themselves for the stern restraints of Puritanism, by giving way to the wildest excesses in dress and manners. Enormous periwigs were introduced, and it became the fashion for a man of ton to be seen combing them on the Mall or at the theatre. The hat was worn with a broad brim, ornamented with feathers; a falling band of the richest lace adorned the neck; the short cloak was edged deeply with gold lace; the ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... cocaine and morphine a day, eighty times the amount an average dope fiend uses, enough to kill forty men, fifteen years at it too,—this is the record of Dopy Phil Harris, the human dope marvel found to-day by the California Board of Pharmacy in its combing of the San Francisco underworld. If poison were taken away from Harris for forty-eight hours, he would die within ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... encamped in the pass, a scout sent by Xerxes rode up to see how strong the enemy were, and how they were employing their time. In front of and on the walls were a number of the Greeks engaging in games and combing out their long hair. Surprised to see so few men, and to see those few busying themselves in such an apparently unnecessary way, the scout rode back and made his report to the Persian king. Now there was in the camp of Xerxes one Demaratus, who had ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... of endearment, to a young country-girl, who seemed perfectly ignorant of its use, assuring her customer that it was an instrument for unravelling the hair, and making it beautiful and shining, and enforcing her argument by combing through some ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... not a farmer and you've only one cow, while we have eight, and, besides, I've lots of other work to do without curry- combing cows," replied his uncle in a sarcastic tone, angered at Bob's reference to his father's ...
— Hidden Treasure • John Thomas Simpson
... compactly built as the Southdowns; producing a heavy fleece of long wool, mostly used for combing, and making into worsted stuffs. They are scarcely so hardy, either, as the Southdowns; nor are they so prolific. Still, they have many excellent qualities; and although their mutton has not the fine grain, ...
— Rural Architecture - Being a Complete Description of Farm Houses, Cottages, and Out Buildings • Lewis Falley Allen
... lifted his finger, and the first boatswain's-mate advanced, combing out the nine tails of his "cat" with his fingers, and then, sweeping them round his neck, brought them with the whole force of his body upon the mark. Again, and again, and again; at every blow, higher and higher and higher rose the long ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... sat on the hearth to comb her hair. She was thinner than ever now—the tall, loose-jointed "slinky" girl—her hair in its plenteous dark abundance was all of her that was not marked by the branding finger of death. She sat on the hearth combing her long brown hair. But soon the comb slipped from her feeble grasp into the cinders. She, the intrepid, active Emily, watched it burn and smoulder, too weak to lift it, while the nauseous, hateful odour of burnt bone rose into her face. At last the servant came in: "Martha," she said, "my ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... head, as well as on the fore-part of the main-deck, and likewise between the guns, chiefly those abreast of the fore-hatchway, there have been groups assembled to scrape and polish themselves ever since breakfast-time, and even before it. Some are washing themselves; others cutting, and combing, and trimming their hair; for, now-a-days, there are none of those huge long tails, or club ties, which descended along the back of the sailors who fought with Benbow and Rodney. The dandyism of Jack has now taken another turn, and the knowing thing at present is to ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... couriers reported that the stubborn Hellenes had cast a wall across the entrance, and that so far from showing terror at the advent of majesty, were carelessly diverting themselves by athletic games, and by combing and adorning their hair, a fact which the "Lord Prexaspes" at least comprehended to mean that Leonidas and his Spartans were preparing for desperate battle. Nevertheless, it was hard to persuade the king that at last ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... cleaning, washing, combing, cleansing, and arranging their environment, work themselves. As a result, they love useful objects so much that they will preserve a piece of paper for years, and instead of knocking against furniture, and breaking ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori
... along its mossy banks until she came to the seashore. Right there on the soft warm sand sat a mermaid combing her long hair. ...
— The Iceberg Express • David Magie Cory
... of a hill near her father's house, when there was a high wind, and let it blow through her curls, and sing and shout and dance from the fulness of her joy. When she came home, she would say "Mother, the wind has been combing my hair." ...
— The Talkative Wig • Eliza Lee Follen
... Arthur was lost. Twice they thought her heart had ceased to beat, and, in an agony of remorse, Valencia hung over her, accusing herself as her murderer, but giving no other explanation to those around her than: "I was combing her hair when the white froth spirted all over her wrapper, and she said that ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes
... faded curtains wavered slowly in the breeze like long swaying strips of seaweed. Blanche, swathed in a pale wrapper and sitting on the bed whose whiteness was dimmed by the greenish dusk, was suggestive of a stage mermaid combing her locks upon a ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... was off on a hunt, she went out on top of the house and sat combing her long and beautiful hair, on the eaves of the lodge, when the buffalo king, coming suddenly by, caught her glossy hair, and winding it about his horns, tossed her onto his shoulders and carried her to ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... picturesque past of the man. Now he fancied himself again a schoolboy, now a ranger in Arizona, now mushing on the snow trails of Alaska. At times he would imagine that he was defending his mine against attacking strikers, or that he was combing the Rincons for horse thieves. Out of his turbid past flared for an instant dramatic moments of comedy or tragedy. These passed like the scenes of a motion-picture story, giving place ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine
... disturbed; she no longer made her mother hold her hand while she fell asleep and no longer found herself suffocating in nightmares. A fortnight went by in this fashion. Then, one morning, while sitting at her dressing-table, combing her hairs she bent her head toward the glass, as the weather was overcast, and she saw in it, not her own face, but the face of the dead man. A thread of blood was trickling from one corner of his mouth; he was smiling and ...
— A Mummer's Tale • Anatole France
... old clergyman, such as Dr. Chauncey, wearing a white wig, which the barber took from his head, and placed upon a wig-block. Half an hour, perhaps, was spent in combing and powdering this reverend appendage to a clerical skull. There too, were officers of the continental army, who required their hair to be pomatumed and plastered, so as to give them a bold and martial aspect. There, once in a while, was seen the thin, care-worn, melancholy visage of an old ...
— True Stories from History and Biography • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Mrs. Croix sent a peremptory summons to Hamilton. Although at work upon his "Additional Estimates," he responded at once. The lady was combing her emotional mane in the sunshine before the mirror of her boudoir when he arrived, and the ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... finished breakfast, Carlotta called to Beppina, "Come here, poverina! Your hair is full of straw. I will fix it for you." Beppina obeyed, and the woman coaxed her tangled locks into place, combing them with her fingers, and at last succeeded in plaiting them into a number of tight braids which she wound about her head. "There," said she when this was done, "now you will no ...
— The Italian Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... better plan than that," laughed Jack coolly, "and we won't need to be mixed up in it at all. It'll all come back on Hank Handcraft, I owe him a grudge for bothering me about money, anyhow, the old beach-combing nuisance!" ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Eagle Patrol • Howard Payson
... wife took care that they should never be about the house at midnight. But one night as he lay in bed he had forgotten something and asked her to fetch it from below. She looked at him with a disdain out of the mists of her black hair, which she was combing to her knee. Perhaps for a minute she resented his unfaithfulness to the dead. 'No,' she said, with deliberation, 'not till that dog and his companion pass.' She flung the door open, and looked half with fear, half ...
— An Isle in the Water • Katharine Tynan
... ship came on the shore; the sea broke heavily over her, and her crew had to take to the rigging. A plucky brigadesman swam off through waves that might have stupefied a bulldog; he had to watch his chances, and breathe when the crest had rushed on so that he might make his next plunge through the combing crest; and he managed to make his rope fast and save the people. Southward of Shields a ship got into a still more awkward place than the one last mentioned. She was carried in by a terrific sea, and jammed on the stones at the foot of a cliff. The captain's ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman
... sitting awkwardly and uncomfortably in his chair, his unhandsome face, with its outthrust lower lip and deeply cleft masculine chin, flushed and eager, his yellow hair disordered, the one tuft on the crown standing stiffly forth like the feather in an Indian's scalp lock; Broderson, vaguely combing at his long beard with a persistent maniacal gesture, distressed, troubled and uneasy; Osterman, with his comedy face, the face of a music-hall singer, his head bald and set off by his great red ears, leaning back in his place, softly cracking the knuckle of a forefinger, and, last of all and close ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... family, apparently, is troubled with too much bashfulness. One of them has unfastened her hair in the sun and is combing it out with her ringers, while conversing about their domestic affairs at the top of her voice with another, on board. I gather she has no other children except a girl, a foolish creature who knows neither how to behave ...
— Glimpses of Bengal • Sir Rabindranath Tagore |
