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Stroking   Listen
noun
Stroking  n.  
1.
The act of rubbing gently with the hand, or of smoothing; a stroke. "I doubt not with one gentle stroking to wipe away ten thousand tears."
2.
(Needlework) The act of laying small gathers in cloth in regular order.
3.
pl. See Stripping, 2.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Stroking" Quotes from Famous Books



... a long breath. "They're a bit affectionate, you know," he murmured, stroking his beardless chin in hesitation. "She's a hot 'un, Sissie is. She pitches it pretty warm on the affection-stop, I can tell you. But if you really think you can give the other Johnnie a cut on the head with her letters—well, in the interests of true love, which never DOES run smooth, ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen

... pen and wrote with the absorption of one who has but little time and knows exactly what to say. By chance he glanced towards Desiree, who sat at her own table near the window. She was stroking her cheek with the feather of her pen, looking with puzzled eyes at the blank paper before her. Each time D'Arragon dipped his pen he glanced at her, watching her. And Mathilde, with her needlework, watched ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman

... mournfully, Unto the stall he passed, and from the rack Took down the silver bit and bridle-chains, Breast-cord and curb, and knitted fast the straps, And linked the hooks, and led out Kantaka Whom tethering to the ring, he combed and dressed, Stroking the snowy coat to silken gloss; Next on the steed he laid the numdah square, Fitted the saddle-cloth across, and set The saddle fair, drew tight the jewelled girths, Buckled the breech-bands and the martingale, And made fall ...
— The Light of Asia • Sir Edwin Arnold

... to hear it," she replied quietly, stroking her horse. Her cheeks were glowing and she let the overhanging branches screen her face. As they rode on silently they heard the rustling of the leaves beneath the horses' feet, and the soft wind ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow

... willows waist-deep were bearing up against the current with nervous trembling gestures, as if afraid of being carried away, while supple branches bending confidingly, dipped lightly and rose again, as if stroking the wild waters in play. Leaving the bridge and passing on through the storm-thrashed woods, all the ground seemed to be moving. Pine-tassels, flakes of bark, soil, leaves, and broken branches were being swept forward, and many a rock-fragment, weathered from exposed ledges, was now ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir

... the conditions," went on Antony aloud, and still gloomily, and stroking Josephus's head, "is to bring matters to an absolute deadlock, one from which I can never by the remotest atom of chance extricate myself. To accept them—well, I don't see much better chance there. How on earth am I to explain the situation to her? How on earth will she understand the fact ...
— Antony Gray,—Gardener • Leslie Moore

... a sort of dimness in her eyes which made her rather hurriedly settle down on the floor in her own particular nook beside her mother's couch, where her face could not be seen. There was a silence. Presently the mother spoke, stroking back the wavy, auburn hair with her ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall

... man had been stroking Bobby's head and neck. Now, feeling the collar under the thatch, he slipped it out and brought the brass ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson

... which was already so fully occupied by a large dog of her brother's, that she was in no danger from any other intruder. Some of the gentlemen, who were not blessed with much sagacity, followed, to talk to her of the beauty of the dog which she was stroking; but to an eulogium upon its long ears, and even to a quotation from Shakspeare about dewlaps, she listened with so vacant an air, that her followers gave up the point, and successively retired, leaving her to her meditations. Godfrey, who had kept aloof, had in the mean time been ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth

... said, unutterably distressed, "you poor girl! I'm so sorry, I'm so awfully sorry." He crooned over her in his rough man's tenderness, stroking her hair. "You've worked yourself to the bone. You ought to have given in sooner, you've kept ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner

... She was stroking the silver kitten which had curled up in her lap. "I wish I weren't such a—heathen," she said, suddenly. "I know what you mean. But it is only the poetic sense in me that makes me know. I can't believe anything. ...
— Mistress Anne • Temple Bailey

... urbane refusal would have sufficed, but the savages, taking such a reply as a challenge to verbal warfare, returned to the charge with increased tenacity. It were hard to say what natural logic they put in practice or what sylvan persuasions they wrought by, but their peculiar mode of stroking the white men's backs with their hands, and the softer and still softer inflections which they introduced into their voices, would have melted hearts of marble. In brief, the civilized portion adopted the more weakly part and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various

... was done with a desire for solitude and he went below. A half score of men were idling upon the lower deck. He began his restless pacings again, stroking his faded beard with a strangely white hand. Finally he stopped, gazing wistfully at the dark beauty of the ferry tower, sending its winsome shaft up into the quivering night. A man at his elbow began to speak in the characteristically ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie

... said the tax-collector, reflectively stroking his beard. "Although we may not understand it at the moment each particular event that happens is simply a means prepared for some destined end that may be many years remote in time. Vishnu the Preserver saved the life of the little maid of Jhalnagor so that her father's life ...
— Tales of Destiny • Edmund Mitchell

... ruby head. She even took the whole of my rod into her mouth, palating it with her tongue, while at the same moment she tickled my testicles and bottom. Nor was I idle, for I pressed and kissed her bubbies, sucking the strawberry nipples, stroking down her belly and titillating her anus. I then kneeled down, and making her open her thighs widely apart, I inserted my tongue into her slit, titillating the sides of her vagina and sucking her clitoris. Helen was almost mad with the intensity ...
— The Life and Amours of the Beautiful, Gay and Dashing Kate Percival - The Belle of the Delaware • Kate Percival

... decided, and about four o'clock the Major went to the livery stable to order the trap. Mrs Shepherd and Nellie joined him soon after. Turning from the pony, whose nose he was stroking, he said— ...
— Victorian Short Stories, - Stories Of Successful Marriages • Elizabeth Gaskell, et al.

... for more than twenty years in the rectory and whose fidelity was known. The girl Liska was scarcely eighteen, and her round childish face and big eyes dimmed with tears, corroborated her story. When they had told Muller all they knew, the detective sat stroking, his chin, and looking thoughtfully at the floor. Then he raised his head and said, in a tone of calm friendliness: "Well, good friends, this will do for to-night. Now, if you will kindly give me a bite to eat and a glass ...
— The Case of The Pool of Blood in the Pastor's Study • Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner

... external injury the parts of them are violently dis-joyn'd, so as that the leaves and stalks touch not one another, and consequently several of these rents would impede the Bird's flying; yet, for the most part, of themselves they readily re-join and re-contex themselves, and are easily by the Birds stroking the Feather, or drawing it through its Bill, all of them settled and woven into their former and natural posture; for there are such an infinite company of those small fibres in the under side of the leaves, and most of them have such little crooks at their ends, that ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke

... gone, the look of entreaty still in the eyes. The doctor closed them gently, the poor eyes that would never need to beg for help any more, and then the mother, still silent, came softly and touched the girl's face, sinking down then by the side of the bed and stroking the dead hands as ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various

... a little private talk with you, Miss Enid," he replied thoughtfully, stroking his small greyish moustache, "a talk concerning your ...
— The Doctor of Pimlico - Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime • William Le Queux

... beauty, Taute, a beauty," he said to the Kanaka lookout, at the same time stroking the teak of the rail ...
— A Son Of The Sun • Jack London

... no part in the conversation. He was a handsome man of about forty years of age, in the uniform of an infantry regiment, and he sat in the corner of the carriage, stroking his brown moustache in a thoughtful way. He had a fine gravity of face and once or twice when his eyes turned my way I saw an ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs

... eyes and heaving bosom—and Helmsley heard her, showing no sign of any especial interest, the while he went on meditatively stroking his beard. ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli

... true," she said, stroking the white hand softly. "I want you to love me, Miss Graystone. I knew at the first glimpse of your face, that you had suffered, poor child, and I felt for you from that moment; for who can sympathize with the afflicted so ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock

... horse, Mr. Jefferson stood stroking the animal's nose, for he ever admired a fine horse, and he said: "If worse comes to worst this colt would help pay off the mortgage, and, should you decide to sell him, I would like to have a chance to buy him;" then, seeing that the lad's face had become very serious, ...
— Rodney, the Ranger - With Daniel Morgan on Trail and Battlefield • John V. Lane

... stroking the brilliant hair. "The choice lay with you. You could have stood a rooted dolt like all the remainder of us. It was through your great love and your high courage that ...
— Freckles • Gene Stratton-Porter

... that my head was not uncomfortable, after all. I looked again, and saw that it rested on Ellen Meriwether's knees. She sat on the sand, gently stroking my forehead, pushing back the hair. She had turned my head so that the wound would not be pressed. It seemed to me that her voice sounded very far away ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough

... going on for about so long, Rose would yawn and stretch and sit down on the arm of her mother's chair, begin stroking her hair and offering her all manner of quaint unexpected caresses. And then, pretty soon, Rodney's attention to the subject would begin to wander and at last flag altogether and leave him stranded, gazing and unable to do anything but gaze, at the lovely creature—the ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster

... new plaything. She walked to her usual corner, sat down on the floor, and began to play cup and ball for the benefit of two or three of the smallest children. Hester did not regard her in the least; she sat with Nan on her knee, stroking back her sunny curls, and remarking on her various charms to several of the girls who sat ...
— A World of Girls - The Story of a School • L. T. Meade

... Mallory played the finest tennis of her career to that time and in fact equal even to her play against Suzanne Lenglen in America. She ran off six games in ten minutes. Miss Ryan, cleverly changing her game, finally broke up the perfection of Mrs. Mallory's stroking and just nosed her out in the next two sets. It ...
— The Art of Lawn Tennis • William T. Tilden, 2D

... Martha. "It will take weeks to get him up again!—And just look at his clothes! How ever did he come nigh such! They're fit only for a beggar! They must have knocked him down and stripped him!—Look at his poor boots!" she said pitifully, taking up one of them, and stroking it with her hand. "He'll never ...
— The Flight of the Shadow • George MacDonald

... as she was silently but dexterously putting to order the large upper room, which served Pere Francis Xavier as study and dormitory, she paused before his collection of agates and minerals, and stroking the stones, said in her soft French and Indian patois, "Pretty, pretty." Father Xavier was seated at the great open window, looking over the top of his book away across the breezy lake. He heard the words, and knew that she was looking at him from the corner of her eye, but his only reply was a deeper ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various

... continued Mr. de Vinne. "And if we'd been clever, we'd have cleaned him. We'll clean him yet," he said, stroking his chin more thoughtfully than ever, "but it's got ...
— Bones in London • Edgar Wallace

... she shuddered at last in a small low voice. "I'm so lonely!" The old fairy woman's stroking hand ...
— Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... In attempting to identify this force, Mesmer first supposed it to be electricity. Afterwards, about the year 1773, he adopted the belief that it must be ordinary magnetism. So at Vienna, from 1773 to 1775, he employed the practice of stroking diseased parts of the body with magnets. But, in 1776, making a tour in Bavaria and Switzerland, he fell in with the notorious Father Gassner, who had at that time undertaken the cure of the blind prince-bishop of Ratisbon ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various

... protested, evidently under the supposition it was I who had spoken. "Did I, Hannah, did I, poor girl?" stroking the hand that lay in hers with what appeared to ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green

... 'er," ses Bill, stroking his long white beard and casting 'is eyes up at the ceiling. "You don't remember me, Mrs. Pearce, but I used to see you years ago, when you and poor Charlie Pearce was ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs

... had dressed himself, she returned to his room. "I hope you enjoyed yourself at ——," said she, seating herself on one side of the fire while he remained in his armchair on the other, stroking the calves of his legs. It was the first time he had had a fire in his room since the summer, and it pleased him, for the good bishop loved to be warm and cosy. Yes, he said, he had enjoyed himself very much. Nothing could be more polite than the ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope

... sleeping in her little bedroom; she had left the window open, because the night was warm. The moon was shining in, but it did not wake her; neither did the little wood-elves, who had climbed up the great vine, and had swarmed in at the window. Such numbers of them! Some were sitting on the pillow stroking her hair, and whispering into her ears, "Sleep, sleep, sleep," and others were holding her eyelids fast closed, so that she could not open them to see ...
— Little Folks (November 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various

... Stroking the cat and sipping his tea, Mr. Walkingshaw conversed pleasantly with his sister. Jean and Frank had gone into the country, and the two sat alone ...
— The Prodigal Father • J. Storer Clouston

... with more of their company, which also he liked very well; and so his poverty came like 'one that travelleth, and his want as an armed man' (Prov 6:11). But all the while they studied his temper; he loved to be flattered, praised, and commended for wit, manhood, and personage; and this was like stroking him over the face. Thus they colleagued with him, and got yet more and more into him, and so, like horse leeches, they drew away that little that his father had given him, and brought him quickly down, almost to dwell ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... 'ave Rumbleton in,' replied Leather, thoughtfully, stroking down his hair as he spoke, 'and we 'ave Jack o'Lanthorn in, and we 'ave the Camel in, and there's the little Hirish oss with the sprig tail—Jack-a-Dandy, as I calls him, and the Flyer will be in to-night, he's just out ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees

... for the door, which seemed a mile away, and I did not lift my head in passing the table where the lady sat behind her roses. I heard a rustling as I went by, however, a crisp rustling like flower-leaves whispering in a breeze, or a woman's silk ruffles stroking each other, which followed me out ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson

... all worth it?... He argued the point with himself, almost passively, stroking his brown beard meditatively; but the fact that he could argue it at all showed that the foundations of ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson

... howling in French; and she was just thinking of her husband and children when she started to her feet, and the nightmare was over. The meek man, having howled out his French sentence, sat aghast, stroking his poor hat, while his wife opposite was in convulsions, and we all agog. The gentleman then asked H. if she proposed sitting where she was, saying, very significantly, "If you do, I'll put my hat there;" suiting the action to the word. ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... hull durned crowd will git swallowed up in Davy Jones' Locker afore they git ashore, I dew!" said the American fervently, stroking his nose tenderly and speaking more nasally than ever through the injury the organ had received. "Of all the tarnation mean skunks I ever kim across from Maine to California, I guess they're 'bout the right down slick meanest—not nary a heathen Chinese would ha' done what they hev! ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson

... Mr. Marston was stroking his narrow strip of chin beard with thumb and forefinger when she arrived on the quarter-deck. The men of business were below, and he motioned to a ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day

... bad; there is no denying it," remarked the dresser, who was busily stroking out the roses which were to garland Saidie's dress. "It gives me a turn every time I see her ...
— If Only etc. • Francis Clement Philips and Augustus Harris

... George saw was a group scene with the stout young man in the middle of it. The hat had been popped up into the infield, where it had been caught by the messenger boy. The stout young man was bending over it and stroking it with soothing fingers. It was too far off for anything to be audible, but he seemed to George to be murmuring words of endearment to it. Then, placing it on his head, he darted out into the road and ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

... stout, gigantic, left-handed fellow, stepping forward, with a huge blue uniform coat and a plain anchor button, holding his hat in his left hand, and stroking his hair down his forehead with his right. I surveyed this man, as he turned himself about, and concluded, that the tailor who worked for him had been threatened with a specimen of his art, if he stinted him in cloth; for the skirts of his coat were ample, terminating ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat

... Ajax was a dear companion to me in this old castle, although I never took him in my walks, as he was apt to get into mischief, and when I turned my head to look at him he was gone; but strange to say, the hand which had been stroking the dog felt as if it were still resting ...
— The Stories of the Three Burglars • Frank Richard Stockton

... exclaimed David Mizzle, stroking his chin as he surveyed the bone. "If I could only find out, now, which of ye it was, I'd have ye slaughtered right off, and cooked ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne

... his eye he could see that the rest of the Council were startled. That was the way with men. Me they would trap, and take the skin of Saber-Tooth to wrap their cubs in, but at the hint of a Sign, or an old custom slighted, they would grow suddenly afraid. Then Taku looked up and saw Opata stroking his face with his hand to hide what he was thinking. He was no fool, and he saw that if the election was pressed, Taku-Wakin, boy as he was, would sit in his father's place because of the five arrows. Taku-Wakin stood up and stretched out his hand ...
— The Trail Book • Mary Austin et al

... is easy to us and therein is no hindrance;" and so saying he left them and turned towards the courser who no sooner saw him than he shook his head at him; and he approached the beast and fell to stroking his coat and kissing him upon the brow. After this he strewed somewhat of fodder before him and offered him water and the stallion ate and drank until he was satisfied. All this and the suite of the Sultan was looking on at the Prince and presently ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton

... at the same time stroking his upper lip and chin, which latterly he believed had been showing delightful and unmistakable ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge

... Presently she seemed to have come to some decision; for, taking off her riding hat, she threw it, and her whip and gauntlets, on the turf beside her, and drawing nearer to his side, laid her hand on his. He looked at her fondly, and, stroking her hair, said— ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes

... Tommy!" cried Creede, and as the cat stopped abruptly, blinking warily at Hardy, he strode forward and gathered it gently into his arms. "Well, you poor little devil," he exclaimed, stroking its rough coat tenderly, "you're all chawed up again! Did them dam' coyotes try to git you while I was gone?" And with many profane words of endearment he hugged it against his ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge

... Jim was stroking Mixy, and I had my hand and one foot on the ladder ready to start up, I heard Pop's voice calling from somewhere up in the haymow, and saying to us. ...
— Shenanigans at Sugar Creek • Paul Hutchens

... From that time forward no one was permitted to ride him but the lady, who visited him every day in his stall, and always carried him a loaf of bread or a cup of sugar, and never mounted him without going to his front and holding a conversation with pretty Tom, stroking his head with her gentle hand, and giving him a lump of sugar or a biscuit. He was allowed the liberty of the yard, to graze on the young sweet grass of the front lawn, and luxuriate in the shade of the princely trees which grew over it. One or many ladies might go out upon ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks

... certainly will not be able to uncurl it," replied my mother, stroking my head with her gloved hands. "It's a regular wig, and they must never attempt to comb it until it has been well brushed. They could not possibly get the knots out otherwise, and it would hurt her too much. What do you give the children at four o'clock?" ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt

... it is true; but of head or of heart not quite so much as some of us,' said Luciano, stroking his thick black pendent moustache and chin-tuft. 'Ah, pardon me; yes! he does imperil a finer ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... drained his cocoanut cup of intoxicating kava, and surveyed the unwonted apparition on the reef long and carefully. "It is nothing," he said at last, in his most deliberate manner, stroking his cheeks and chin contentedly with that plump round hand of his. "It is only the victims; the new victims I promised you. Korong! Korong! They have come ashore with their light from my home in the sun. They have brought ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen

... so little of being home. If I had a few hours more, just a few hours! Please, good mother,"—she paused, and flinging her arms around the woman's neck, she kissed her. Dame Margery's frame shook and she held the girl close. Then she whispered, stroking her ...
— In Doublet and Hose - A Story for Girls • Lucy Foster Madison

... past the open shed in which the new-found wheat was being stored, past the sleeping-house and a group of fellows mending nets, and came to the great maple-tree under which a rough bench had been placed. There, like a Giant Thrym and his greyhounds, Leif sat stroking his mustache thoughtfully, while with his free hand he tousled the head of ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz

... Ropps Always handles things in shops! Always pinching, always poking, Alwyas feeling, always stroking Things she has no right to touch! Goops like that annoy ...
— The Goop Directory • Gelett Burgess

... in her arms and kissed her with lips that trembled very much; trembled so much that Matilda was afraid she would break into a passion of tears again; but that was restrained. After a little she sat back, and stroking Matilda's hair from her brow, ...
— The House in Town • Susan Warner

... stood at the doorway, gazing austerely. She could not yet forgive her brother's friend his condemnation of her methods as concerned her brother's child. Angela, rising to her full height, stood with one hand on the back of her father's chair, the other began softly stroking the grizzled crop ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King

... comrade," he said, his voice low and trembling with his worship of her, his hands stroking back her wonderful hair. "I must return to ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood

... due consideration, saw the five hundred and raised it to a thousand. "To dissuade you all from drawing out on me," he explained, stroking his mustache ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes

... a living, and he ought to get it?' Then he got the card and went up to Bright, and began scratching him. Duke lifted his head from the trough, and stared at uncle, who paid no attention to him but went on carding Bright, and stroking and petting him. Duke looked so angry. He left the trough, and with the water dripping from his lips, went up to uncle, and gave him a push with his horns. Still uncle took no notice, and Duke almost pushed him over. Then uncle left off ...
— Beautiful Joe • Marshall Saunders

... in our London talks, intimate as they were, interpreted too by gesture, facial expression, and—silence, his full meaning evaded precise definition. "There are no words, there are no words," he kept saying, shrugging his shoulders and stroking his untidy hair. "In me, deep down, it all lies clear and plain and strong; but language cannot seize a mode of life that throve before language existed. If you cannot catch the picture from my thoughts, I give up the whole dream in despair." And in his written account, owing ...
— The Centaur • Algernon Blackwood

... a loud laugh. Then he took her hand in his, stroking it. "You dear little woman! What do you know of sociology?" he said, and then walked away to hide his amusement, muttering ...
— Frances Waldeaux • Rebecca Harding Davis

... fashion with me, which is now gone by. It was the complexion of a particular stage of my life. I was neither the better nor the worse for it. It was an accident, like the bloom on my face, which soon," he said, spreading his fingers over his dirty-coloured cheeks, and stroking them, "which soon will disappear. I acted according to the feeling, while it lasted; but I can no more recall it than my first teeth, or the down on my chin. It's among the ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman

... an index of his character. The look of him gave you the whole man, strong yet gentle, honest and simple, neither very imaginative nor very brilliant, but immensely reliable and trustworthy to the bottom of his soul. He was seated now with Margaret's terrier on his knees, stroking its ears, and Susie, looking at him, wondered with a little pang why no man like that had even cared for her. It was evident that he would make a perfect companion, and his love, once won, was of the sort that did ...
— The Magician • Somerset Maugham

... the child gently and stroking her tumbled hair. When he put her from him to see her face, Mickey was filled with envy because he had been forced to admit the gift was not from him. He shut his lips tight, but his face was grim as he studied Peaches' flushed cheeks and wet eyes, and noted the shaking eagerness ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter

... close to her pillow, and bent over, stroking her hands with emotion. The fright of her ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... bad horse," the girl said, changing the subject, "but he'll win a big race this coming season. You just keep your eye on Lauzanne. Here's your carrot, old chap," she said, stroking the horse's neck, "and we must go if we're to have that drive. Will you hitch the gray to the buggy for us, Mike?" she asked of Gaynor, as they came out of the ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser

... had, for some reason she refused to explain, taken his blouse away with her. For a long time he puzzled over this, seeking reasons and finding none. But, while in the act of stroking his bare arms, the pains of the night before suddenly returned to both shoulders at once. Fire seemed to run down his back, splitting his bones apart, and then passed even more quickly than before, leaving him with the same wonderful sensations ...
— Jimbo - A Fantasy • Algernon Blackwood

... it," said the Baron, stroking his waistcoat. "As to our portmanteaus and umbrellas, my mind is greatly relieved by the assurances of our friend the sober ...
— Voyages and Travels of Count Funnibos and Baron Stilkin • William H. G. Kingston

... know—what's that got to do with helping dad?" Lorraine knelt beside Brit and began stroking his forehead softly, as is the soothing way of women with ...
— The Quirt • B.M. Bower

... having passed a kind of bruette,[33] 15 or 20 paces, they made me turn about my face, and I was ordered while they pushed me roughly forward, to prostrate myself before this bruette, in which the king sat, amusing himself in stroking the toes of his foot, which he held on his knee. He looked at me for some time, and then inquired if I was one of these Christian slaves, whose vessel had been wrecked upon his coasts about a year ago, and what was my ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard

... seat of inoculation a diffuse red patch forms, varying in hue from a bright scarlet to a dull brick-red. The edges are slightly raised above the level of the surrounding skin, as may readily be recognised by gently stroking the part from the healthy towards the affected area. The skin is smooth, tense, and glossy, and presents here and there blisters filled with serous fluid. The local temperature is raised, and the part is the seat of a burning sensation and is tender to the touch, the ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles

... crossing to take a few strokes on the other. And in this way they began once more to approach the other bank. The process, however, was slow; and Grom presently concluded that it was wasteful. He hit upon the idea of setting A-ya and Loob together to stroking with their spears on one side, while he, with his great strength, balanced their effort on the other. Whereupon the sluggish craft woke up a little and began to make perceptible progress, on a slant across ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts

... the criticism of the needlework, while round her neck she wore a collar with embroidery, Pao-yue readily pressed his face against the nape of her neck, and as he sniffed the perfume about it, he did not stay his hand from stroking her neck, which in whiteness and smoothness was not below that of Hsi Jen; and as he approached her, "My dear girl," he said smiling and with a drivelling face, "do let me lick the cosmetic off your mouth!" clinging to her person, as he ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... and cabbage and looked steamy, looked like the steamy leaves of cabbage. The men were oblivious of their wives as they gave the social passwords of Main Street, the orthodox opinions on weather, crops, and motor cars, then flung away restraint and gyrated in the debauch of shop-talk. Stroking his chin, drawling in the ecstasy of being erudite, Kennicott inquired, "Say, doctor, what success have you had with thyroid for treatment of pains ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis

... queen, placing her husband's hand upon her heart, and gently stroking it with her fingers. "I believe during the coming winter we shall often have to be king and queen. Festivals will be given to us, and we shall have to give others in return; the country will do homage to the new sovereign, and the nobility will solemnly ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach

... "That's what the public wants. I give the public what it wants. I don't pretend to be any better than the public. Nor any worse," he added, stroking ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells

... money's to be gained, and avarice can trap even a fox. So he put himself as comfortably as he could into the basket, and up he went in an instant. It rested, however, just before it reached the window, and the fox felt, with a slight shudder, the claw of the griffiness stroking his back. ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... Sweyn of the long legs felt a small hand caressing his foot, and looking down, met the upturned eyes of his little cousin Rol. Lying on his back, still softly patting and stroking the young man's foot, the child was quiet and happy for a good while. He watched the movement of the strong deft hands, and the shifting of the bright tools. Now and then, minute chips of wood, puffed off by Sweyn, fell down upon ...
— The Were-Wolf • Clemence Housman

... Monmouth had been making his uncle, the Duke of York, very jealous, by going about the country in a royal sort of way, playing at the people's games, becoming godfather to their children, and even touching for the King's evil, or stroking the faces of the sick to cure them—though, for the matter of that, I should say he did them about as much good as any crowned king could have done. His father had got him to write a letter, confessing his having had a part in the conspiracy, for which Lord Russell had ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens

... jacket she had carried over her arm the day he had terrified her with his blundering declaration, and still others, and others—a whole group of Trinas faced him there. He went farther into the closet, touching the clothes gingerly, stroking them softly with his huge leathern palms. As he stirred them a delicate perfume disengaged itself from the folds. Ah, that exquisite feminine odor! It was not only her hair now, it was Trina herself—her mouth, her hands, her neck; the ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris

... led her to the rocking-chair and sat down beside her on the lowest step, stroking her thin hand. Mrs. Boynton's eyes were closed, her breath came and went quickly, but presently she began to speak hurriedly, as if she were ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin

... into the pen and stood. The bull gazed at me, but made no threatening movement and his demeanor was placid. I walked up to him, a pace at a time, patted his nose, pulled his ears, walked round him, stroking him, took hold of the ring in his nose and led him over toward ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White

... and laughed at the tops of their voices whenever he stooped to whisper certain details in their ears. Old Bosc had never budged an inch—he was totally indifferent. That sort of thing no longer interested him now. He was stroking a great tortoise-shell cat which was lying curled up on the bench. He did so quite beautifully and ended by taking her in his arms with the tender good nature becoming a worn-out monarch. The cat arched its back and then, after a prolonged ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola

... George couldn't help stroking her bright hair softly and saying, "Oh, don't!" So she wiped her eyes, and sold him the cookies he wanted; but from that day there was one of Dely's customers that she liked best, one team of white horses she always looked ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various

... said, stroking his chin thoughtfully, "it is better that you should remain—better for all parties. I owe you some little recompense for your loyalty to the Firm, and for the admirable way you spoke up for the Firm in Court. I will make you out a cheque for a hundred pounds now—and your salary shall be doubled ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell

... to Lambert and took hold of his reins, stroking old Whetstone's neck as if he didn't harbor an unkind thought ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden

... brightly up into his strong, wholesome face and would really have liked to know more about him, but like many a person we meet on the journey of life, as ships on some wide sea, signal briefly to each other and then pass out of sight, so I never saw or heard of him afterward. He stood a moment stroking the baby's curly head, and then with a murmured "God bless the little lad," he passed on to his own seat. I felt instinctively that all this sentiment would be exceedingly distasteful to Mr. Winthrop, and was amused at the look of relief that passed over his face when our ...
— Medoline Selwyn's Work • Mrs. J. J. Colter

... pleased with the compliment, drew a pocket-book and a stubby end of a pencil from his pocket, and began alternately stroking his chin and jotting down words and figures. Lorna grimaced at me behind his back, but kept a stern expression for his benefit. I suppose she knew that if he saw her smile prices would go up. Presently he drew a line, tore the ...
— The Heart of Una Sackville • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... audience lenient and sympathetic; and seated on the piazza-step, with my head resting against aunt Emily's knee, and, as the tale proceeded, her dear hand tenderly stroking my hair and cheek, I had told the story to its minutest particular, taking, as the sober sight of after days has shown me, more than the necessary amount of blame ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews

... that enormous beat comprehensible only when it applauded him; and besides he wished it warmly well; all that was good for it; plentiful dinners, country excursions, stout menagerie bars, music, a dance, and to bed: he was for patting, stroking, petting the mob, for tossing it sops, never for irritating it to show an eye-tooth, much less for causing it to exhibit the grinders: and in endeavouring to get at the grounds of his dissension with that dirty-fisted fellow, the recollection of the word punctilio ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... herself again in her pantry, glanced out of the window and saw him disappear into the stables. At first she had gone with him when he wandered about like this, touching and feeling all his possessions. In the cattle-stalls, it might be, stroking and patting, getting himself covered with hairs, and chattering away in childish glee. "Look, Merle—this cow is mine, child! Dagros her name is—and she's mine. We have forty of them—and they're all mine. ...
— The Great Hunger • Johan Bojer

... no answer. For the moment it seemed as if he had forgotten Villon's existence altogether. His arms were round the girl, one hand mechanically stroking her shoulder to quiet her fears, lover fashion, and comfort her with his nearness. But his thoughts were in Valmy, a thin, tired voice whispering in his ears, a white face whose eyes smouldered fire looking into his. With a shiver he ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond

... dismounting, stood at John G.'s wise old head, stroking his muzzle, whispering into ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various

... He sat stroking his moustache, looking out of the window, while she looked out of the other, resolutely blinking back her tears. They drove back to her hotel ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman

... two monstrous prize-cocks were brought on. These were the object of the whole affair; the bantams having been merely served up as a first course, to collect the people together. Two fellows came into the ring holding the cocks in their arms, and stroking them, and running about on all-fours, encouraging and setting them on. Bets ran high, and, like most other contests, it remained for some time undecided. Both cocks showed great pluck, and fought probably better and longer ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana

... you the bandages into the bargain," he added, wrapping the foot in an ancient damask rag. "Very fine! Real damask—Indian damask which has never been redyed. It is strong, and yet it is soft," he mumbled, stroking the frayed tissue with his fingers, through the trade-acquired habit which moved him to praise even an object of such little value that he himself deemed it only worth ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various

... Martin laughing at nothing at all, and Maggie smiling, and Uncle Mathew stroking his mouth and sharpening his eyes and standing, in his uneasy fashion, first on one leg and then on the other. Maggie realised that her uncle was trying to be most especially pleasant to young Warlock. She wondered why; she also remembered what he had ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole

... erogenous zones in either sex may sometimes lead on to sexual excitement; Hirschsprung, as well as Freud, believes that this is often the case as regards finger-sucking and toe-sucking in infancy. Even stroking the chin, remarks Debreyne, may produce a pollution.[220] Taylor refers to the case of a young woman of 22, who was liable to attacks of choreic movements of the hands which would terminate in alternately pressing the middle finger on the tip of the nose and the tragus of the ear, when a "far-away, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... brave pup," rejoined Dick, stroking the dog's huge head affectionately. "I wouldn't give you for ten times your weight in golden ...
— The Dog Crusoe and his Master • R.M. Ballantyne

... Ah Ben," suggested Paul. She did not answer, but continued stroking the parrot which had lighted upon her shoulder, demanding ...
— The Ghost of Guir House • Charles Willing Beale

... subsequent events that made the night memorable. He talked rapidly, feverishly, as if every particle of energy was necessary to the task of justifying himself in some measure for the night's mishap. He sat with his rigid arm about his wife's shoulders. Drusilla was stroking one of his hands in a half-conscious manner, her eyes staring past his face toward the dark forest from which he had come. Mr. Britt was ordering brandy and ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon

... little daughter. I'd rather you'd be loyal than anything else in the world," he said, stroking her hand. "But I'm going to tell you a little bit of something. I want to ask your advice. I don't know what to do. You must ...
— The Motor Maids in Fair Japan • Katherine Stokes

... his lips. "Anyone want to play some gin?" he asked, stroking his beard. The beard was a memento of his undergraduate days. Cassel maintained he could store almost fifteen minutes worth of oxygen in its follicles. He had never stepped into ...
— The Hour of Battle • Robert Sheckley

... taken mostly from guidebooks, I fancy, are the only parts of any real worth. The scrapes of the bad boys make up the rest of the story, and it is for those you read these books, I think," answered his mother, stroking back the hair off the honest little face that looked rather abashed at this true ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott

... Dorothea, stroking her sister's cheek. "Souls have complexions too: what will suit one will not ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot

... think that in a moment like this we should be wiser to trust to the swiftness of our horses than to the kindness of the pharaoh's son? He must be a raging lion, which tears the skin even when stroking it, while we are like lambs snatched away from ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus

... more, his brows knit, his firm hand slowly stroking his chin. Then, of a sudden, he drew a deep breath, flung back his shoulders, and looked at her. His eyes were blazing, his voice touched with a new meaning, an ...
— The Lieutenant-Governor • Guy Wetmore Carryl

... the houses opposite, Claude kept watch like a sentinel, ready to take their part if any alarm should startle them. The girl bent over her soldier, stroking his head so softly that she might have been putting him to sleep; took his one hand and held it against her bosom as if to stop the pain there. Just behind her, on the sculptured portal, some old bishop, with a pointed cap and a broken crozier, ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather

... tickled his lip. The long sinewy paws pressed against his neck trembled nervously, as the cat dreamed of stalking fat sparrows, or of stealing fried fish. Its hoarse croupy purr sounded like the sweetest music to the lonely man. "There's you and me, and me and you, Tom!" said Monty, stroking the cat's ragged and crumpled fur. "We'll stick together, and neither of us won't care a cuss what them low-down fellows says or does. You and me'll be all the world to one another. God bless you forever for ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various

... all these ceremonies is not clear, but we may conjecture that they are based in large measure on the fear of the ghost. That fear comes out plainly in the ceremony of stroking the corpse with leaves in order to prevent the ghost from killing the survivors. The writer to whom we are indebted for an account of these customs tells us in explanation of them that among these people death is ascribed to the influence of evil spirits called manoam, who are supposed ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer

... he takes care of you, watches over you and guides you." Then the birds began to arch their necks, to spread out their wings, to open their beaks, to look at him, as if to thank him, while he went up and down in their midst stroking them with the border of his tunic, sending them away at ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier

... pony alongside the new-dug grave, talking to him, stroking his nose. Monkey Brand, of the steady hand and loving heart, did the rest. A quarter of an hour later the girl and the little jockey came back to the yard alone. She was carrying a halter in her hand ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant

... murmured, softly stroking her hair; "He carries the lambs in His bosom." I had been little in the habit of quoting Scripture—the words, coming to my mind, struck me as particularly Beautiful and applicable on this occasion. "And so what I have suggested, would be the easiest and most natural thing in the world for you ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene

... stroking his long beard which gave a venerable appearance to his benevolent features, "are you thinking of the fine shawl that Ragnar is to send you by his friend ...
— The Home in the Valley • Emilie F. Carlen

... times three were thirty-six, more than a tenth of what her grandfather must borrow. It seemed like a little fortune, and blithe as a singing bird she flitted about the house, now stopping a moment to fondle her pet kitten, while she whispered the good news in its very appreciative ear, and then stroking her grandfather's silvery hair, as ...
— Aikenside • Mary J. Holmes

... father,"—stroking his hair as she might a child's, trimming the lamp, and bringing his slippers while he held out his feet for her ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various

... stroking her soft hair with my hand, I tried to conjure up the scene which had taken place in Sir Digby's room—the tragedy which had caused my friend to flee and hide himself. Surely, something of a very terrible nature must have happened, ...
— The Sign of Silence • William Le Queux

... "Yes," he agreed, stroking his chin. "I asked you to come here because Mr. Grell dined with you last night. Do you know if he left you ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest

... Highness," said the Star Fish, stroking his beautiful purple coat with one of his five little fingers, "I was bound for the Caribbean Sea, which is as full of mountains as New Hampshire and Vermont are. Of course, none of them have caps of snow like Mount Washington, for it's nice and warm in the Caribbean ...
— The Iceberg Express • David Magie Cory

... Marg, stroking the rough fur. "You're starvin', too, ain't ye? an' I ain't got nothin' to give ye, not a bite or ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various

... repeated, coming to the side of my little bed and stroking my forehead kindly. 'My duty is to seek out one discontented person each year and see if I can't do something to help him. I have come to help you if I can. Don't you like ...
— Andiron Tales • John Kendrick Bangs

... you anything you like, darling; but Rosamond is a pretty old name, and I'm fond of it, for it was your grandmamma's, and a sweeter woman never lived," said Miss Penny, stroking the fresh cheeks, where the tears shone ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott

... Sanguine Scot said, and then went out and apologised to an old bay horse. "We had to settle her hash somehow, Roper, old chap," he said, stroking the beautiful neck, adding tenderly as the grand old head nosed into him: "You silly old fool! You'd carry her like a lamb if ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn



Words linked to "Stroking" :   touch, touching



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