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Motherly   Listen
adverb
Motherly  adv.  In a manner of a mother.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Motherly" Quotes from Famous Books



... supposed that she was crippled. My admiration for her momentarily increased, the more so since I could see that she was sincerely fond of Val Beverley, whose every movement she followed with looks of almost motherly affection. This was all the more strange as Madame de Staemer whose age, I supposed, lay somewhere on the sunny side of forty, was of a type which expects, and wins, admiration, long after the average woman ...
— Bat Wing • Sax Rohmer

... dust-cloth in her hand, took her seat by the window, with Phemie breathless and sparkling at one side of her, while Clementina, all faultless profile and repose, sat on the other. To Mrs. Harkutt's motherly concern at John Milton's absence, it was pointed out that he was wanted at the store,—was a mere boy anyhow, and could not be trusted. Mr. Harkutt, a little ruddier from weather, excitement, and the unusual fortification of a glass of liquor, ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte

... a big motherly woman, who seemed to radiate comfort and cheer, as a stove does heat. After the first few days, Lloyd would have enjoyed the time spent with her in the cheerful room assigned her had she not been haunted by the thought that she was falling behind ...
— The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation • Annie Fellows Johnston

... at the door. She put the fatal glass away and turned guiltily. A dark little woman was there, and a soft, motherly voice spoke. It must be Mrs. Braywood's. She could not have suspected, for her ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes

... tears! and if you truly love me, offer up for my soul Masses, prayers, alms-deeds, and such like good works." Then he disappeared, and his mother, instead of any longer wasting her strength by foolish grief, began henceforth to give her son proofs of a true Christian and motherly love, by complying with his request. (L. II. ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier

... of other human beings A. Motherly behavior B. Filial behavior C. Responses to presence, approval, and scorn of men 1. Gregariousness. 2. Attention to human beings. 3. Attention-getting. 4. Responses to approval and scorn. 5. Responses by approval and scorn D. Mastering ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... stretch our tired limbs and sink away so quietly into the silence and rest. "O bed, O bed, delicious bed, that heaven on earth to the weary head," as sang poor Hood, you are a kind old nurse to us fretful boys and girls. Clever and foolish, naughty and good, you take us all in your motherly lap and hush our wayward crying. The strong man full of care—the sick man full of pain—the little maiden sobbing for her faithless lover—like children we lay our aching heads on your white bosom, and you gently ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome

... in the evening of December 31, 1862—Barty hailed a hansom, and went first to summon his good friend Dr. Knight, in Orchard Street; and then he drove to Brixton, and woke up and brought back with him a very respectable, middle-aged, and motherly woman whose name was Jones; and next morning, which was a very sunny, frosty one, my dear little god-daughter was ushered into this sinful world, a fact which was chronicled the very next day in Leah's diary by ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier

... poet's appearance, procured for him at once the services of the principal physician in Peterborough. Clare had also an excellent and warm-hearted friend in Mrs. Marsh, wife of the Bishop of Peterborough, who corresponded with him frequently, in a familiar and almost motherly manner, from 1821 to 1837. When Clare complained of indisposition, a messenger would be dispatched from "The Palace," with medicines or plaisters, camphor lozenges, or "a pound of our own tea," with sensible ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry

... woman. Wherever the State touches the personal life of the infant, the child, the youth, or the aged, helpless, defective in mind, body or moral nature, there the State enters "woman's peculiar sphere," her sphere of motherly succor and training, her sphere of sympathetic and self-sacrificing ministration to individual lives. If the service of women is not won to such governmental action (not only through "influence or the shaping of public opinion," but through ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various

... two days finding her. She had offered her services to Mrs. Hopkins in the Alabama hospital. He sent in his card and she refused to see him. He asked an interview with Mrs. Hopkins and begged her to help. Her motherly heart went out to him in sympathy. His utter misery was so plainly written in ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon

... to do, for the landlady had twice asked her for the next week's rent. She looked in at the door of a laundry where a German woman was singing as she ironed children's dresses by the light of a flaring gas jet. It looked pleasant and peaceful in there. Perhaps that motherly woman would let her work with her. She would ...
— Little Lost Sister • Virginia Brooks

... honorarium) to give his son private lessons? Could she afford the time? "I shrink from exposing him to influences, so often malign, of a boarding-school. What I should most of all desire for him is a steady, sympathetic home influence, a—may I say it?—a motherly influence." ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... That's repartee, that is. With the accent on the rap, too. Never you mind; I think old 1812 and I will get on all right after this. It doesn't seem to bother him any, so I don't see why it should worry me. Nice motherly ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr

... was surprised to find that the "child" was as tall as his wife, who, with abounding motherly kindness, had received the girl into open arms. Scarcely less demonstrative and affectionate was the greeting of old Mr. Clifford, and the orphan felt, almost from the first, that she had found a ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe

... affair, she commenced by informing me that at ten years of age she was a scholar of Mrs. Chatterton, his mother, where she was taught plain work, and remained with her until she was near twenty years of age; that she slept with her, and found her kind and motherly, insomuch that there were many things which in moments of affliction Mrs. C. communicated to her, that she would not have wished to have been generally known; and among others, she often repeated how happy she was that her unfortunate son lay buried ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... their bundles of necessaries and relics, in the flight from home, and they instruct their children to keep it burning. They transmit the sentiment of the loathing of Bull, as assuredly they would be incapable of doing, even with the will, were a splendid fire-eyed motherly Britannia the figure sitting in the minds of men for our image—a palpitating figure, alive to change, penetrable to thought, and not a stolid concrete of our traditional old yeoman characteristic. Verily he lives ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... loving encouragement to the waiting girl. But these messages tended otherwise than might have been expected. The sadness that had so long been almost second nature to the girl steadily deepened, and Mrs. Osler, ever kind and watchful of her charge, noticed the depression settling on her, and with motherly solicitude—she had no children of her own—insisted on the only remedy she understood—physic. And the girl submitted to the kindly treatment, knowing well enough that there was no physic to help her complaint. She knew that, in spite of his tender messages and assurances of affection, ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum

... capable, motherly woman had been obtained, by Mr. Armstrong's efforts and inquiry, who would live with Glory as companion and assistant. There was the dairy work to be carried on, still. This, and the hay crops, made the principal income of the Old Farm. A few fields ...
— Faith Gartney's Girlhood • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... in her chair beside the fire, knitting, when her son came in. At the sound of his voice she glanced anxiously up at his face, with all her motherly instincts on ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle

... who takes care of her little children has to go through a thousand tiresome actions which would be intolerable if they were meaningless, but which compose a beautiful life if they are held together by the aim which the motherly love sees before it. Whatever work a human being may perform, force on his mind the treacherous suggestion that it is meaningless, that it is slavery, that others seize the profit, and he must hate it and feel it an unbearable hardship. It ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg

... to the end, Tom waved a last adieu with his handkerchief to the five weeping figures on the platform, and then threw himself back in his seat and gave free vent to his own feelings. Two girls sitting beside him sniggered at the sight of the strong-built young fellow giving way to tears, but a motherly-looking woman opposite presently put her ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty

... She's a woman of sort of practical motherly instinct. Her eyes are blue, and clear, and fine, revealing the wholesome mind behind. She'll be slim, I guess, and her gown's just ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum

... kid," breathed Pearlie, her pale eyes fixed on him in motherly pity. "You oughtn't to do that. You'll get so thin your ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine

... of the kiddleywink was a kind and motherly soul, and treated me with much sympathy, for she saw I was in trouble, and when I told her that I should not go to the bedroom with Eli, she prepared a bed for me on the window-seat, and left ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking

... found a better place. Mr. and Mrs. Lanham were quiet people, who gave them an excellent room and a fine supper. Mrs. Lanham showed a motherly solicitude, and when she heard that they were going to the Curtis ball on the following night she demanded that their spare and best uniforms be turned over ...
— The Shades of the Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler

... tears. She is still looking very grave when Denise takes her in the fond, motherly arms. While she is gone upstairs to papa's room, Grandon explains and convinces Denise that the journey is absolutely necessary, and that no one can serve her young mistress ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... John!—such a favorite! so gifted, and yet so neglected! in regard to high ideals and purposes in life, so ignorant! and so desirous of that motherly love and interest that were ever denied him! He endeavored to fill his life with other things; but in his day-dreams he often pictured his mother, and wondered: "Was she like my aunt? Would she take me and hold me in her arms while she smoothed my ...
— How John Became a Man • Isabel C. Byrum

... kiss one another like the city ladies; but the motherly grip of Mary Bruce's hand sent a ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren

... woman's heart there is a love for the men of her race, a love motherly and pitiful, that will bring the tears to her eyes at the sight of a passing regiment and cause her to passionately mourn the unknown soldier dead. This sentiment, this instinct, is a thousandfold intensified on the bloody field itself. The pang ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne

... "Oh, motherly! Has it come to that? I do believe you are more than half gone. The girl is pretty; she has a beautiful figure; but my gracious! her parents are impossible—just impossible. And don't you think she's a little too intellectual for society? I ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... thirty-five—she had now reached that age, nay, passed it—she was not what you would call "old-maidish." Perhaps because the motherly instinct, naturally very strong in her, had developed more and more. She was one of those governesses—the only sort who ought ever to attempt to be governesses—who really love children, ay, despite their naughtinesses and mischievousnesses and worrying ways; who feel that, after ...
— The Laurel Bush • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

... hardly miss some benefit. It is true, however, that some of the merriest and most genuine of women are old maids; and that those old maids, and wives who are unhappily married, have often most of the true motherly touch. And this would seem to show, even for women, some narrowing influence in comfortable married life. But the rule is none the less certain: if you wish the pick of men and women, take a good ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson

... good people lifted the broken form and carried it out from the hospital's deadly air, into the golden sunshine and away to a clean little cot in a humble home where a good doctor treated him and a kind motherly nurse hung over him and soothed his feverish brain for many a weary hour. For days it seemed that every breath would be his last and for months his sufferings wrung the ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester

... prompted her to the lamentations that scandalised the priests and even Lucas, who broke in with, "Fie, maid, thou mournest as one who hath no hope." But Dr Colet still signed to them to have patience, and Perronel somehow contrived to draw the girl's head on her breast and give her a motherly kiss, such as the poor child had never felt since she, when almost a babe, had been lifted from her dying mother's side in the dark stifling hold of the vessel in the Bay of Biscay. And in sheer surprise and sense of being soothed she ceased her cries, ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge

... had continued to "wax fat," and now it was about as much as she could do, with many grunts, to get up and down stairs. Since her double bereavement of her "Hebe" and her "Lapwing," her kind, motherly countenance had lost somewhat of its comfortable jollity, and her hearty mellow laugh was seldom heard. Still, good Henrietta was passably happy, as the world goes, for she had the lucky foundation of a happy temper and temperament—she enjoyed the world, her friends ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... part of the city. She was a very pretty girl, of the slender type, rather a business woman than one given much to amusement. She had been ill and was still ill. That was evident from the solicitous way in which the motherly landlady scrutinized ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve

... have gathered up the component parts of Mrs. Holman's last screaming treble, he would have found a wealth of emotions: injured motherly dignity, wrath, contempt, hatred, and something heavy, which was meant to have a crushing effect, and really did almost make Silla fall on her knees; she stood ...
— One of Life's Slaves • Jonas Lauritz Idemil Lie

... this request with precision on Ina's nastiest moments, but she always rose, unabashed, and went, motherly and dutiful, to hear devotions, as if that function and the process of living ...
— Miss Lulu Bett • Zona Gale

... These motherly words gave Psyche heart, and she reverently took leave of the goddess and set out for the temple of Venus. Most humbly she offered up her prayer, but Venus could not look at her earthly ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott

... very sorry to think so," answered Phoebe gravely. "But it is true that my small abilities were precisely what they needed; and I have a real interest in their welfare,—an odd kind of motherly sentiment,—which I wish you would not laugh at! And let me tell you frankly, Mr. Holgrave, I am sometimes puzzled to know whether you ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... earnest, dark-haired and dark-eyed young man of three-and-twenty, Abigail Mitchenor at once felt a motherly interest. Having received him as a temporary member of the family, she considered him entitled to the same watchful care as if he were in reality an invalid son. The ice over an hereditary Quaker nature ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor

... so happy!" And Norma, who had gotten into Aunt Kate's lap, as the marvellous narrative progressed, dug her face into Aunt Kate's motherly soft shoulder, and tightened her arms about her neck, and cried a little, ...
— The Beloved Woman • Kathleen Norris

... some of the neighbors, Madge met him at the door and held up a warning finger. The overwrought woman had been soothed into the blessed oblivion of restoring sleep, the first she had for many hours. A motherly-looking woman whispered her intention of remaining with Mrs. Wendall all night. Mr. Wendall took Madge's hand in both his own, and looked at her with eyes dim with tears. Twice he essayed to speak, then turned away, faltering, "When ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe

... not suffice a very motherly woman. Such a woman was Mrs. Batch. Had she been blest with a dozen children, she must yet have regarded herself as also a mother to whatever two young gentlemen were lodging under her roof. Childless but for Katie and Clarence, she had for her successive ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm

... Unitarianism is at the present day. Whether or not the three-cornered hat was considered as an emblem of Trinitarianism, I am not able to determine. Our hair was worn in a queue, bound with black ribbon, and reached to the small of the back, in the shape of the tail of that motherly animal which furnishes ungrateful bipeds of the human race with milk, butter, and cheese. Where nature had not bestowed a sufficiency of this ornamental appendage, the living and the dead contributed of their superfluity to supply the deficiency. ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall

... Fatherly, motherly Feelings had changed: Love, by harsh evidence, Thrown from its eminence; Even God's ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various

... in the slender form and the half-frightened expression in the pale, sweet face caused her to forget everything else except that the stranger was alone and ill at ease. Both her arms went out to Rose with a motherly gesture, and, as she drew her within them, she said, "Why, my ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson

... yer know yer wouldn't let ennythin' in shape ev a human creetur go perishin' past aour fire sech weather's this," replied the woman, as she took the baby, which recognized the motherly hand at its first touch, and ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson

... (washing included) for eighteen shillings per week; she generally took the first week in advance. We asked him to have a beer—for the want of somebody else to ask—and after that he said that Mrs Jones was a kind, motherly body, and understood young fellows; and that we'd be even more comfortable than in our own home; that we'd be allowed to do as we liked—she wasn't particular; she wouldn't mind it a bit if we came home late once in a way—she was used to that, in fact; she liked to ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson

... Percival, but a woman never likes a man so well as when he acknowledges his helplessness in her particular line of knowledge, and throws himself on her mercy. Mentally, I at once began to feel motherly towards Percival, and clucked around him like an old hen. He went on to say that men often are not so blind that they cannot see the prejudices and complexities of a woman's nature, but they are not constituted to understand them by intuition ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell

... letter found its way to Madeline. She read it, tears in her eyes. It told Madeline much more than its brief story of illness and poverty and wonder why Gene had not written home for so long. It told of motherly love, sisterly love, brotherly love—dear family ties that had not been broken. It spoke of pride in this El Capitan brother who had become famous. It was signed "your loving ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey

... advised him with motherly directness concerning the proper underwear he must don, looked at her rifle, examined his and, bidding him assume it, led him out to the range in the orchard and made him target his weapon at ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers

... the little room where he breathed his last, that bleak day in Eighteen-Hundred Fifty-one. The unlettered but motherly old woman who took care of him in those last days never guessed his greatness; none in the house ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard

... main charge of his early teaching. At first, the wayward little Indian seemed likely to form no accession to the quiet household, but he soon became its brightest ornament and pride. Everything was in his favor at the pleasant home of Mrs. Trevor. He was treated with motherly kindness and tenderness, yet firmly checked when he went wrong. From the first he had a well-spring of strength, against temptation, in the long letters which every mail brought from his parents; and all his childish ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar

... and well-defined clear-cut features. Her voice was harsh, but with an undertone of great tenderness. She was scrupulously careful in her attire, which was rather above her station. Altogether, she had much the bearing of a gentle-woman. Her devotion to me was quite motherly. Never having had any family of her own, although she had been the wife of one of my father's shepherds, she expended the whole maternity of her nature upon me. She was always my first resource in any perplexity, ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald

... Phillida's natural reserve were melted away by her friend's effusive sympathy, and the weary heart lightened its burdens, as many another had done before, by confessing them to the all-motherly Mrs. Frankland. Phillida told the story of her lover, of his dislike to the notoriety of her faith-cures. She told of her own struggles and of the grave questions she might soon have to settle. Should she yield, if ever so little, to the demands of one who was to be her husband? Or should ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston

... and found Payne seated on the bed with Surratt, playing with bowie knives, and surrounded with revolvers and spurs. Miss Honora Fitzpatrick testifies that Weichmann was treated by Mrs. Surratt "more like a son than a friend." Poor return for motherly care! Guilty knowledge and participation in crime or in wild schemes for the capture of the President would be a good excuse for not making all this known to Mrs. Surratt. In speaking of the spurs and pistols, Weichmann knew that there were just eight spurs and two long ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various

... bottom a bubbling, noisy little brook went tumbling and bustling merrily over the stones, filling the sweet, warm air with a cheery song of its own. A plank served as a bridge across the stream; and as Susie walked steadily over it she noticed a fat, motherly old duck nestling down amongst the ferns and dock-leaves on the bank. Mother Duck uttered a startled and indignant "Quack, quack," as Gypsy jumped over her head and dashed headlong into the cool, ...
— Golden Moments - Bright Stories for Young Folks • Anonymous

... Lumley, to soothe his mortification, turned to Caroline, who had seated herself by his side. Her conversation amused him, and her evident admiration flattered. While Lady Vargrave absented herself, in motherly anxiety, to attend on Evelyn, while Mrs. Leslie was occupied at her frame, and Mrs. Merton looked on, and talked indolently to the old lady of rheumatism and sermons, of children's complaints and servants' misdemeanours,—the conversation between Lord Vargrave and Caroline, at ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... me very welcome as had ever been her way. She was an eccentric, but embarrassingly straightforward old lady; and if I had heeded her simple motherly counsel in the past all might have ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer

... evolution: from Adam to the middle of the last century the world saw nothing even in the least resembling him. No son of Paian he, but a fatherless, full-grown birth from the incessant matrix of Modern Time, so motherly of monstrous litters of "Gorgon and Hydra and Chimaeras dire"; you will understand what I mean when you consider the quite recent date of, say, the introduction of anaesthetics or antiseptics, the discovery of the knee-jerk, bacteriology, ...
— Prince Zaleski • M.P. Shiel

... scarcely more than a year ago, at the semi-centennial celebration of the academy, that Franklin Pierce, the mature and distinguished man, paid a beautiful tribute to the character of Madam Woodbury, in affectionate remembrance of the motherly kindness experienced at her ...
— Sketches and Studies • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... spoken of throughout the whole world. That letter to the Corinthians proves that, by the end of the first century, the Roman Church had already drawn up fixed rules for her own guidance, that she watched with motherly care over outlying communities, and that she then knew how to use language that was at once an expression of duty, love, and authority.[317] As yet she pretends to no legal title of any kind, but she knows the "commandments and ordinances" ([Greek: prostagmata] and [Greek: dokaiomata]) ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 2 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack

... all, Mr. Little," said Hetty, vehemently. "I think if the baby had lived, it would have strengthened them both. It would have made Sally much happier, at any rate. She is a motherly little thing." ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Anonymous

... help and be helped by her in so many ways in which girls can help each other, as my dear Dora. Now bestir yourself, Mr. Haverley, and make Miriam look at this thing as she ought to. I don't pretend to deny that I have spoken to you very much for Dora's sake, for whom I have an almost motherly feeling; but you should act for your sister's sake. And please don't forget what I have said, young man, and give Miriam ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton

... books of yours," said Mrs. Munday, who took a motherly interest in him, "and you read and you read, and you take no account of time. And now you'll have to eat your dinner half cold, and no time for it to settle proper before you goes off to school. It's ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells

... her life or that I should break with her, even if my own heart should be broken in the parting. I was not violent, but Mrs. Murreyfield heard me from the passage, and came into the room to remonstrate. She was a kind, motherly person who took a sympathetic interest in our romance, and I remember that on this occasion she reproved me for my jealousy and finally persuaded me that I had been unreasonable, so that we became reconciled once more. Ena was so madly fascinating and I so hopelessly her ...
— Danger! and Other Stories • Arthur Conan Doyle

... shake, and the thing went—where I know not. The what and the where are the knotty points in the whole question! No sooner had it gone than I was seized with repentance not to have examined it more closely; not to have ascertained what the creature was. It might have been an earwig,—a very large, motherly earwig; an earwig far gone in that way in which earwigs wish to be who love their lords. I have a profound horror of earwigs; I firmly believe that they do get into the ear. That is a subject on which it is useless to argue with me upon philosophical ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... and you won't have to mix with the crew," he drawled. "I've got all kinds of room. My boss logger's wife is up from town for a while. She's a fine, motherly old party, and she keeps us all ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... would find her sitting there and laugh at her, till seeing the footman passing she called "Samuel" in a terrified voice, and made him walk before her backwards down the stairs till she safely reached the sitting-room.' For all these younger children Maria seems to have had a most tender and motherly regard, as indeed for all her young brothers and sisters of the different families. Many of them were the heroines of her various stories, and few heroines are more charming than some of Miss Edgeworth's. Rosamund is said by some to have been Maria ...
— A Book of Sibyls - Miss Barbauld, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs Opie, Miss Austen • Anne Thackeray (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie)

... my intention. It was kind of you, Luella, to trouble to come and watch me. I wonder if you know Mrs. Agnes Parsons Jopp?" he said, courteously, indicating a kind-looking, motherly woman who had just come up. "How ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse

... had always warmly welcomed Paul, when Count Oreshefski presided over the legation house in London, and Paul had responded to her motherly interest by opening his heart to a greater extent even than to his own mother, the proud Lady Henrietta. For the Countess had known and loved his Queen—a fact which formed an unalterable bond of ...
— High Noon - A New Sequel to 'Three Weeks' by Elinor Glyn • Anonymous

... and she had had lessons with them for many months at a time in the last few years, so they had the strong bond in friendship of having worked as well as played together. But Mrs. Duncan had been very motherly and dear to our friend, and just now seemed nearer and more helpful than ever. The train whistled along and the homesick feeling soon passed, though Betty remembered that Mrs. Duncan had said once that wherever you may put two persons one is always hostess and the other always guest, ...
— Betty Leicester - A Story For Girls • Sarah Orne Jewett

... miss,' she said, in a motherly sort of tone; 'the mistress may be out some time yet. I hope you didn't find the open trap cold. John, he will have his way sometimes, but I said to him you would have been better with the closed wagonette. I hope John didn't make too free, miss? He has a longer ...
— Dwell Deep - or Hilda Thorn's Life Story • Amy Le Feuvre

... her heart, she planned that even this sacrifice to her motherly affection might be turned to some account in the way of trade. Accordingly, there appeared in the Nottingham Herald an advertisement, extending across two columns, headed with imposing capitals, by which the public were informed that Mrs Hodgett being about ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various

... Her poor broken-hearted story was told. Being a married woman, unhappily married, too, I was a danger to her beloved son, and she had come to me in her sweet, unmindful, motherly selfishness to ask me ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine

... ran in here, like as we did, to have some slight repairs done, and Kathy was landed. She seemed to take at once to motherly Mrs. Holbein, who offered to adopt her, and as the captain of the gun-boat had no more notion than the man-in-the-moon who the child belonged to, or what to do with her, he gladly handed her over, so here she has been livin' ever since. Of course attempts ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne

... not my daughter; I do not even know who she is," the woman replied, as she bent over the beautiful stranger with a tender, motherly face. ...
— His Heart's Queen • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

... has lost Him. Opposite this terrible convulsive Magdalen, sobbing, tearing her hair and rolling on the ground, is the other heart-broken woman, the mother; but how different! She remains maternal through her grief, with motherly thoughtfulness for others; for to the real mother (how different in this to the lover!) there will always remain in the world some one to think of. She bridles her sorrow; when John at last hesitatingly suggests that they must not stay all night on Calvary, she turns quietly homeward; ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)

... a husband for her daughter. No painter! And in vain did Soldevilla put on his brightest ties and show off shocking waistcoats; his rival crushed him and, what was worse, the master's wife, who formerly used to have a sort of motherly concern for him and called him by his first name, for she had known him as a boy, now received him coldly, as if she wished to discourage his ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... believed he was well enough to leave his room; but Mrs. Belding would not permit him to do so. She was kind, soft-handed, motherly, and she was always coming in to minister to his comfort. This attention was sincere, not in the least forced; yet Gale felt that the friendliness so manifest in the others of the household did not extend to her. He was conscious of something that a little thought ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey

... feet, not knowing who or what I should see, drawing my sword as I did so, but when I caught a glimpse of a nice motherly looking woman and a mild-looking old gentleman standing before me apparently very much alarmed, I hastily stepped forward and made a low bow, begging their pardon for having intruded in this unseemly fashion. I explained my errand, ...
— The Enchanted Island • Fannie Louise Apjohn

... telephone and unlimited credit at the stores, an' Mrs. Hammond was a motherly soul of much experience with children, an' I knew that I ...
— Keeping up with Lizzie • Irving Bacheller

... also rose. "Why do you run off in such a hurry? You can stretch out right here on my sofa...." She paused, and her smile grew more motherly. "Afterwards—if there's been any talk at home, and you want to get away for a while... I have a lady friend in Boston who's looking for a companion... you're the very one to suit her, ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton

... to buy Black Hill," said Mrs. Jardine, and turned to the fire. The tutor joined her there. He had for her liking and admiration, and she for him almost a motherly affection. Now she smiled as ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston

... start and introduced him at his mother's house. The Breunings were in good circumstances, cultivated, good-natured and hospitable. They delighted in having him about, and treated him with the utmost consideration. Madame von Breuning formed a sincere, motherly affection for him; he was soon on a footing in their house almost equal to that of a member of the family. He went with them about this time on a visit to some of their relations in another city. They were instrumental in ...
— Beethoven • George Alexander Fischer

... travail and pain of State affairs; and that since God had blessed her with a fair and hopeful son, she was desirous to ensure to him, even while she yet lived, his succession to the crown, which was his by right of hereditary descent. "Wherefore," the instrument proceeded, "we, of the motherly affection we bear to our said son, have renounced and demitted, and by these our letters of free good-will, renounce and demit, the Crown, government, and guiding of the realm of Scotland, in favour of our said son, that he may succeed to us as native Prince thereof, as much as if we had ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott

... As she did so, it seemed to her that something knocked against her door from without. Opening it quickly, she was almost certain that the sound of a rustling skirt retreated along the passage. It was very late; perhaps she had disturbed the house by shutting her window. No doubt it was the motherly interest of Mrs. Randolph that impelled her to come softly and look after her; and for once her simple surmises were correct. For not only the inspecting eyes of her hostess, but the amatory glances of the youthful Emile, had been fastened upon her window until the light disappeared, and even the ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte

... this deep affection and remarkable oneness showed no signs of the end to which obviously it was drifting. That kiss which the girl had given to the boy was pure sisterly, or one might almost say, motherly, and indeed this quality inspired their relationship for much longer than might have been expected. So much was this so that no one connected with them on either side ever had the slightest suspicion that they cared for each other in any way ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard

... indeed right or just, but consistent and clear. Helena's native force and rectitude of mind are approved from the first in her just appreciation of Parolles; and her nobility of soul and beauty of character are reflected all along in the honest sagacity of Lafeu and the wise motherly affection of the Countess, who never see or think of her but to turn her advocates and wax eloquent in her behalf. The thoughtful and benevolent King also, on becoming acquainted with her, is even more taken with her moral and intellectual beauty than with her service in restoring ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson

... With motherly concern Mrs. Brewster followed her husband, and in order to be experienced when that trip east was to be taken, Sary dragged Jeb ...
— Polly and Eleanor • Lillian Elizabeth Roy

... Thornton, seated at the breakfast table in the Ellison home, was eating the best meal she had had in many a day. A motherly-looking woman, setting out a few extra dainties for her, wiped her eyes now and again with ...
— The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith

... Branning had been sent for to act as nurse and temporary house-keeper, and, at the urgent request of the widower, remained for a time after the funeral. Weeks passed, and her house was still tenantless. Mildred had become so much attached to the motherly widow and her son, that she would not allow the servants to do anything for her. So, without any definite agreement, their relations continued. By-and-by the village gossips began to query and surmise. At the sewing- society the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various

... religion it is necessary to distinguish inner inspiration from historical entanglements. Unfortunately, as the whole doctrinal form of this religion is irrelevant to its spirit and imposed from without, being due to the step-motherly nurture it received from the Church, we can reach a conception of its inner spirit only by studying its tendency and laws of change or its incidental expression in literature and custom. Yet these indirect ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana

... approve and applaud my design of withdrawing myself from all tumult and business of the world and consecrating the little rest of my time to those studies to which nature had so motherly inclined me, and from which fortune like a step-mother has so long detained me. But nevertheless, you say—which But is aerugo mera, a rust which spoils the good metal it grows upon. But, you say, you would advise me not to precipitate that resolution, but to stay a while longer with patience ...
— Cowley's Essays • Abraham Cowley

... infant, which she seemed to carry with especial care and tenderness. Sometimes, too, in the bleak afternoons, she would be seen wending her way through mud and mire, setting her weary face against the bitter east wind, and patiently singing on; and motherly women, coming from the gay shops and stores, where they had been purchasing Christmas toys for their own children, would often stop to look at the baby's pinched, white features with pity, and would ...
— Stories By English Authors: London • Various

... artificial place; it is so by our choice and for our sins. The subjection of women; the ideal imposed upon them from the cradle, and worn, like a hair-shirt, with so much constancy; their motherly, superior tenderness to man's vanity and self-importance; their managing arts-the arts of a civilised slave among good-natured barbarians-are all painful ingredients and all help to falsify relations. It is not till we get clear of that amusing artificial scene that genuine ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Sellingworth. His mother was dead. He certainly did not think of Lady Sellingworth as what is sometimes called "a second mother." There was nothing maternal about her, and he was fully aware of that. Besides, she did not fascinate him in the motherly way. No; but owing to the great difference in their ages he felt that he could talk to her as he could talk to nobody else. For he was in no intimate relation with any other woman so much older than himself. And to young women somehow one can never ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens

... made Daisy feel very meek. Her kiss had been affectionate, her care was motherly; but with all that there was not a turn of her hand nor a tone of her calm voice, that did not imply and express absolute possession, perfect control. That Daisy was a little piece of property belonging ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell

... like to be beautiful, dear child?" said a voice close at her side, and, when Ruth looked up, she saw an old woman whom she never had seen before. She was clothed in a long blue dress, and her face was full of motherly love. Ruth's heart was filled with gladness, for seldom had so affectionate a glance been shed on her; and when the old woman bent down and kissed her, how all remembrance of the indifference of father, mother, friends, ...
— The Angel Children - or, Stories from Cloud-Land • Charlotte M. Higgins

... subsequently filled all Christian lands, turned back to the poor, aged woman of whom he had bought his gingerbread and solicited her advice. The good old soul, not insensible to the charms of the frank and manly looking boy, with motherly tenderness insisted on his going to her own humble home. Gladly he accepted the invitation. The dinner consisted of what is called ox-cheek; Franklin contributed a pot ...
— Benjamin Franklin, A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago - American Pioneers and Patriots Series • John S. C. Abbott

... her own palace of the Tranquil Motherly Virtues, she caused the Lady A-Kuei to be summoned to her presence, who came, habited in a purple robe and with pins of jade and coral in her hair. And the Pearl Empress considered her attentively, recalling the perfect features ...
— The Ninth Vibration And Other Stories • L. Adams Beck

... back of the hand in which he held his hat. She felt as if at that moment she touched a furnace, and she saw him shiver slightly, as over-fatigued men sometimes shiver in daylight. An extraordinary, almost motherly, sensation of pity for him came over her. She did not know why. The intense heat of his hand, the shiver that ran over his body, his attitude as he shrank with a kind of timid, yet ferocious, politeness against the white wall, the expression ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens

... but could gain there no information whatever. The house had changed owners, and its former occupants had scattered, no one could say whither. But, by a persistent search among the neighboring houses, he did find a bright motherly woman, who, more than fifteen years before, had come, a bride, to live in an opposite house, and who well remembered a tall, dark-complexioned young woman sitting one night on the steps of the shabby boarding-house over the way. Some one had ...
— Donald and Dorothy • Mary Mapes Dodge

... Ulysses reproacheth Thersites, he objecteth not to him his lameness nor his baldness nor his hunched back, but the vicious quality of indiscreet babbling. On the other side, when Juno means to express a dalliance or motherly fondness to her son Vulcan, she courts him with an epithet taken ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch

... naebody with the tong but women of my ain sect. I wish, Mr. Butler, I kend onything that wad mak ye weel, for they hae mair medicines in this town of York than wad cure a' Scotland, and surely some of them wad be gude for your complaints. If ye had a kindly motherly body to nurse ye, and no to let ye waste yoursell wi' reading—whilk ye read mair than eneugh wi' the bairns in the schule—and to gie ye warm milk in the morning, I wad be mair easy for ye. Dear Mr. Butler, keep a good heart, for we are in the hands of Ane that kens better what is ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... grandmother!" briefly ejaculated Pomona. And then, in grand forgetfulness of everything but her great joy, she folded her arms around her child, and standing like a statue of motherly content, she seemed, in our eyes, to rise to the regions of the caryatides and the ceiling frescos. Not another word she spoke, and amid the confusion of questions and exclamations, and the wild demands of the lady, Euphemia and I contrived to make her understand the true state of the case, ...
— The Rudder Grangers Abroad and Other Stories • Frank R. Stockton

... cause to blush with Brother Michel. Our new parents were kind, gentle, well-mannered, and generous in gifts; the wife was a most motherly woman, the husband a man who stood justly high with his employers. Enough has been said to show why Moipu should be deposed; and in Paaaeua the French had found a reputable substitute. He went always scrupulously dressed, and looked the picture of propriety, like ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... apparently been so guilty, but it was evident that there were moments when Mrs. Vanderpoel was uneasy and disposed to ask anxious questions. When this occurred he destroyed the letters, and as a result of this precaution on his part her motherly queries seemed to be ignored, and she several times shed tears in the belief that Rosy had grown so patrician that she was capable of snubbing her mother in her resentment at feeling her privacy intruded upon ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... her down with motherly care - Head, shoulders, arm, and foot, To the very hem of the robes that drape her - All expertly And alertly, Till a ...
— Moments of Vision • Thomas Hardy

... Mrs. Grant. You are so kind and thoughtful." Miss Carson's voice shook a little. The contrast between the day's selfish indifference of Mrs. Lowe, and the evening's motherly consideration of Mrs. Grant, touched her. "I will lie down here for a short time. Perhaps I shall feel better after getting some warm tea. I've been ...
— All's for the Best • T. S. Arthur

... companion was a motherly sort of person of the farmer class, who eyed me affectionately—too affectionately to please me—and attempted to condole with me on ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed

... more so; yet happier than ever now as he stepped into the freshly furbished upper chamber which was his own, his very home. All the dear familiar books on the shelves, the snowy bed, the dainty neatness of the place that showed the motherly touch of old Griselda everywhere, even to the bunch of ...
— Dorothy's Travels • Evelyn Raymond

... a most kind, motherly woman," Harry said. "But it isn't the Back Kitchen, neither," he added ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray

... Mrs. Y., who was a much older woman, and more motherly, "don't excite yourself. They brought him here about half an hour ago, and, to tell you the truth, I never looked at him. He is in here. I don't think they troubled to take off even his boots. If you keep cool, we will get ...
— Three Men on the Bummel • Jerome K. Jerome

... were developing, some of the old women of the Hog Mountain Range had begun to manifest a sort of motherly interest in the affairs of Woodward and Sis Poteet. These women, living miles apart on the mountain and its spurs, had a habit of "picking up their work" and spending the day with each other. Upon one occasion it chanced that Mrs. Sue Parmalee and Mrs. Puritha ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris

... Louise is a motherly child, already eight years old, and always willing and glad to take care of the younger ones; indeed, she calls Gretchen her baby, and the little one ...
— The Seven Little Sisters Who Live on the Round Ball - That Floats in the Air • Jane Andrews

... Please don't; it hurts me so—it nearly kills me!" And with the loved pictures of home—the motherly face, with its white cap; the mother's bed, with his own little trundle-bed underneath; the table, with its white cloth folded and laid upon it; the hickory-bound cedar water-bucket, with its crooked handled gourd; the red corner-cupboard, with its ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady

... to send her to college and you thought you would come over and let me give her a little motherly counsel while you borrowed the money of Tom Adams to pay her college bills. ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson

... different had Agatha been present, but that ingenious maiden was at school at Brighton. Had her daughter been in the room, Mrs. Ingham-Baker's motherly instinct would have narrowed itself down to her. But in the absence of her own child, Luke's sorry plight appealed to that larger maternal instinct which makes ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman

... bright-eyed, motherly little person, with a quick appreciation of a joke, and a wonderful knack at cooking. Incidentally she had a quiet voice and chose soft colors in preference to crude ones. Peter gathered from her manner of speech and from the delicate modeling of her hands that at some time in her life ...
— The Story of Leather • Sara Ware Bassett

... that such a doom should have fallen upon one who so little deserved it. Mrs. Owen met them at the door, and her manner told them that she had heard what had resulted from the meeting. She took Harriet at once in her motherly arms. ...
— Peggy Owen and Liberty • Lucy Foster Madison

... Kuzminichna stood at the closed gate for some time with moist eyes, pensively swaying her head and feeling an unexpected flow of motherly tenderness and pity ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... of obstacles had attended his intrusion into the castle. A brief interview with a motherly old lady, whom even Albert seemed to treat with respect, and who, it appeared was Mrs. Digby, the house-keeper; followed by an even briefer encounter with Keggs (fussy and irritable with responsibility, and, even ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

... soon as Kitty went out of the room in tears, Dolly, with her motherly, family instincts, had promptly perceived that here a woman's work lay before her, and she prepared to do it. She took off her hat, and, morally speaking, tucked up her sleeves and prepared for action. While her mother was attacking her father, she tried to restrain ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy

... recognise our once most intimate companions. Cases are not rare of this kind. Let one pass in absence from childhood to maturity, and who that had not seen him in the mean time could tell that it was he? The trouble arising thence is finely illustrated by Shakspeare in the motherly solicitude of Constance, who, on learning that her young son has been imprisoned by his uncle, King John, and will probably be kept until he pines to death, cries in ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... Mr. Harrison's. Emma said, mamma was a great gardener, and accordingly they found her cutting off flowers past their prime. She gave Violet a bouquet of geranium and heliotrope, and conducted her to her room with that motherly kindness and solicitude so comfortable to a lonely guest in a ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge

... to the little girl, and when Mrs. Noah looked over at her and said, in a motherly way, "I always wanted a little girl of my own," Marjorie felt ...
— The Cruise of the Noah's Ark • David Cory

... forward, looking into the fire. The light of the blaze was on her face, appealingly soft and girlishly sweet. Mrs. Chadron laid a hand on her hair in motherly caress, moved by a tenderness quite foreign to the vindictive creed which she had pronounced against the nesters but a little ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden

... that Master Herbert's condition caused them no surprise. We carried him to the servants' hall and laid him in an armchair, to rest our arms, while the motherly cook lifted his unconscious head to lay a pillow ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... was different. What a smiling welcome they received, my grandfather standing with his hat off, my grandmother with the tears in her motherly vehement eyes, gathering the two wanderers defiantly to her breast as if daring all the world to come on. Behind a little (but not much) was Aunt Jen, asserting her position and rights in the house. She did not seem to see ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett

... old Jane "mixing" with those Harpeth Valley farmer folk was one of the things I have put aside to remember for always. They all knew me, of course, and I was a bit teary at their greetings. Big motherly women took me in their arms and younger ones laid their babies in my arms and laughed and cried over me, while every few minutes some rugged old farmer would call out for Colonel Shelby's "little gal" and look searchingly in my face for the likeness to my fire-eating, ...
— The Tinder-Box • Maria Thompson Daviess

... faithfully. If she ever felt in her heart any jealousy as she saw Polly growing up a pretty bright little maiden, as different to the usual child product of Varley as could well be, she was wise enough never to express her thoughts, and behaved with motherly kindness to her in the evening hours spent at home. She would perhaps have felt the task a harder one had her own elder children been girls; but three boys came first, and a girl was not born until she had been married eleven years. Polly, ...
— Through the Fray - A Tale of the Luddite Riots • G. A. Henty

... her agitation. Men of Lord Dreever's type appeal to the motherly instinct of women. As a man, his lordship was a negligible quantity. He did not count. But as a willful child, to be kept out of trouble, he had ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse

... was stilled by a call from an opening door, sounded good to him. And when he was in the house, where he was welcomed by big, genial Cal Smith, and seated at a table in the kitchen, devouring ham and eggs and home-made bread and pie, and drinking hot coffee, provided by good-natured, motherly Mrs. Cal—why, it was almost worth the tramp to meet such a reception at the ...
— Injun and Whitey to the Rescue • William S. Hart

... del Borne. Back to Majorca, then! He would not live in a palace; the Febrer mansion he would lose forever, according to the arrangement made by his friend Valls; but he would not fail to have a neat little house in the ward of Terreno or somewhere near the sea, and in it the motherly care of Mammy Antonia. No sorrow, no shame would await him there. He would even be rid of the presence of Don Benito Valls and his daughter, from whom he had so discourteously fled, without a word of excuse. The rich Chueta, according to his brother's letter, now lived in ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... Raydon, beginning to walk up and down the room, while I felt in such a whirl of excitement, as I saw Mrs John's beautiful, motherly eyes fixed lovingly on mine, and felt Mr John snatch my hand and press it, and then give vent to his delight at the clearing up by slapping me heavily on the shoulder, that I could not see Mr Raydon's puckered brow. What I did see was the bear's head looking ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn

... his mate was out of his sight did not, however, compare with her unrest in his absence, for her affection seemed to be of the motherly or protecting sort. Before they became familiar with the room, and learned that, though unseen, the partner was not lost, the moment he disappeared from view she began running around the cage excitedly, ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller

... age, with snowy hair and gentle face, was deputed by the town authorities to do our cooking. Her relatives live in Juchitan, and why she had chosen to live among these people I do not know. She took a motherly interest in all our party. Nothing was too good for us. She spent her whole time in hunting supplies and cooking and serving food. Not only did she insist on all our purchases being supplied at cheapest rates, but her own charge for help and service was ridiculously small. From early morning ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr

... thought I was foolish to put those two in a room together," she said to Mrs. Farnham, the motherly housekeeper, whom Eleanor had known since, as a little girl, she had ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at Long Lake - Bessie King in Summer Camp • Jane L. Stewart

... mother, which led that worthy person to become responsible for the young officer's recovery, no one ever knew except the two women themselves, but in addition to being a motherly-hearted woman, Mrs. Allenthorne was a soldier's daughter as well as a soldier's wife, so perhaps it was not necessary to explain so many things to her as it would have been to ...
— Anting-Anting Stories - And other Strange Tales of the Filipinos • Sargent Kayme

... good as gold," said the little creature, oh, in such a motherly, womanly way. "And when Emma's tired, he puts her to bed. And when he's tired he goes to bed himself. And when I come home and light the candle, and has a bit of supper, he sits up again and has it with ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser

... was conjectured that the baby, pending the arrival of a step-mother, would be handed over to the cook, a rotund motherly person who was fond of asserting that she had buried thirteen children and ...
— An Australian Lassie • Lilian Turner

... think you are officious or meddling or anything of the sort, I think you are one of the best and kindest-hearted women in the world. But—bless your motherly soul, Polly! the thing is utterly preposterous. Of course, Patricia is young, and likes attention, and it pleases her to have men admire her. That, Polly, is perfectly natural. Why, you wouldn't expect her to sit around ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell

... Lobkins heaved a long sigh, as her eyes turned from Paul to the tranquil countenance of Dummie Dunnaker, and now, re-settling herself in her chair, as a motherly anxiety gathered over ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... so sorry you are going," she said, with a would-be motherly smile. "Of course I will send it anywhere you wish—but why not leave it here in my care?" And then she could not resist asking one question: "Are you going to Minerva Downs, ...
— Chinkie's Flat and Other Stories - 1904 • Louis Becke

... some time before she would unloose him from her motherly embrace, and when she did the skeleton grasped him by the hand and said, in the most ...
— Toby Tyler • James Otis

... in mouth, at the mail boat and the sailing vessels lying in the stream. There were four in all—the steamer, an American whaling barque, a small brig of about two hundred tons flying the Hawaiian Island colours, and a big, sprawling, motherly-looking full-rigged ship, whose huge bow ports denoted her ...
— Edward Barry - South Sea Pearler • Louis Becke

... to the terrace of the hotel is a little public park called the Kleine Schanze—haunt of well-behaved Bernese children, of motherly Bernese housewives supplied with knitting and the gossip of the town, of Bernese patriarchs in search of gentle exercise and sunshine. This little park possesses a music-pavilion, a duck-pond, a monument ...
— The Letter of the Contract • Basil King

... provisionally, while with comfortable, motherly, half-suppressed chest-sounds, and a round eye cocked for finds among the dirt, remarkably altogether the appearance of a pensive white hen, she made believe to scratch up the earth with her feet. A rather sympathetic performance, ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall

... coom at last, David!" the woman cried, as the boy entered; and, bending, greeted him with a tender, motherly salutation, which he returned as affectionately. "I welly thowt yo'd forgot us this mornin'. Noo sit you' doon beside oor Maggie." And soon he, too, was engaged in a ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant

... Mrs. Ispenlove, with an almost motherly accent, urged me to have another cup of tea, 'if you knew me, if you knew me, what would you say to me? Would your charity be strong enough to overcome your instincts?' And as I had felt older than my aunt, so I felt ...
— Sacred And Profane Love • E. Arnold Bennett

... for a moment, then he bent over, with an expression of almost motherly softness in his big, rugged face. He got Eileen's hand in his left hand and Phil's ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson

... for her boy stronger than pride or anger. She went; and there came into one of the dusk drawing-rooms of the Royals, a little white vision, with fair, floating hair, and pathetic blue eyes—a little creature, so like a child, that the tender, motherly heart of the great lady went out to ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming

... hurried off and tapped lightly on Mrs. Littell's door. That lady hurriedly admitted them, her motherly mind ...
— Betty Gordon at Boarding School - The Treasure of Indian Chasm • Alice Emerson

... tease her!" Mary Wright, the eldest, stupidest, and most motherly girl in the school, exclaimed. "How can you drink without putting your ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand

... back-yard, when there's no linen; but when there's linen to keep the neighbours' eyes off, he'll sit there, hours. Hours he will. Says he feels as if it was groves!' Mrs Chivery shook her head again, put her apron in a motherly way to her eyes, and reconducted her visitor into the regions of ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens



Words linked to "Motherly" :   mother, maternal, maternally



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