"Waif" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... farm, he found it dull and slow, He drifted to the great North-west where all the rovers go. 'He's gone so long,' the old man said, 'he's dropped right out of mind, But if you'd write a line to him I'd take it very kind; He's shearing here and fencing there, a kind of waif and stray, He's droving now with ...
— The Man from Snowy River • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... reports I told the story of a London waif. The story made such an impression upon the superintendent that he thought I was romancing, and said so. My best answer to that was to produce the boy, and I produced him. The boy told his own story. Then it was published in a magazine and produced a strong impression. ...
— From the Bottom Up - The Life Story of Alexander Irvine • Alexander Irvine
... when love is fled? The world, unshared by thee? I'd rather slumber with the dead, Than such a waif to be! The bark that by no compass steers Is lost, which way soe'er she veers— And such is life ...
— Poems • George P. Morris
... desolation of Kerith Island and the sunless tides, he knew such joy as one would have thought beyond a child's achievement. He would get as much out of life as any man that ever lived. At the thought of the contrast between this heir to everything and the other child, that poor waif who all his life long would be sent round to the back door, tears rushed to her eyes, and she cried indignantly, "Oh, I do think you might be nice to Roger." Richard looked at her sharply. "What, do you really mind about it, mummie?" ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... stiff leg over the cantle and swung down to go on one knee to my stout challenger. I can never make you understand, my dears, how the sight of this helpless waif appearing thus unaccountably in the heart of the great forest mellowed and softened me. 'Twas a little maid, not above three or four years old, and with a face that Master Raphael might have taken as a pattern for one ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... But I was speaking of their bodily condition only. I want a model, and should be glad to get it without the nuisance of sketching in the slums. Such a ragged, pinched, eager, and yet stupid child as might sit homeless between the black walls of Newgate and the churchyard of St. Sepulchre,—a waif of the richest and most benevolent society in Christendom, for whom the alternative of the churchyard ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... imbecile to the world 'mid double danger, groans, and tears; The toy, the sport, the waif and stray of passions, error, wrath ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton
... million dollars, was bequeathed to his son, Baron Achille Paganini. And as if mystery should still enshroud his memory and this, true to his nature, should be carried out in his last will, there are those who maintain that Achille Paganini was not his son at all—only a waif he had adopted. Yet Achille always stoutly maintained the distinction—but what boots it, since he could not play his ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... motives—some incentive that was almost a religion. So far, Winthrop was correct. He erred, however, in supposing Overland to be obsessed with a mania for gold for its own sake. The erstwhile sheriff of Abilene had dreamed a dream about an adopted waif and a beautiful young girl. The dream was big. Its fulfillment would require much money. There was more of the poet in Overland Red than his best ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... I heard that the birdie was adopted in the pantry, and was being fed "in the intervals of business." When a few days later I was definitely informed that the birdie waif was a starling, then I confess I did begin to long for another little friend such as my former "Dick" had been, and it ended in my receiving Richard the Second, as we called him for distinction, into my own care and keeping, and month ...
— Wild Nature Won By Kindness • Elizabeth Brightwen
... right have you, you fool, to hope for that, When every mother's son is privileged To jerk the battle-chariot's reins I hold? Think you that fortune will eternally Award a crown to disobedience? I do not like a bastard victory, The gutter-waif of chance; the law, look you, My crown's progenitor, I will uphold, For she shall bear a ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... finally, after his arguments and admonitions, he laid his hand on her bowed head as if silently giving a patriarchal blessing; and Mavis watched and admired, and loved him for his noble generosity in taking so much trouble about the poor little waif that had no ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... mite from the jungle was encased in a heavy woolen straight-jacket, and there was a strap around its loins to which a stout cord was attached, running to the Root of All Evil. The pavement was hot, but there with its bare and tender feet on the hot concrete, the sad-eyed little waif painfully moved about, peering far up into the faces of passers-by for sympathy, but all the time furtively and shrinkingly watching its tormentor. Every now and then the hairy old tramp would jerk the monkey's cord, each time giving the frail creature a violent bodily wrench from head to foot. ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... said her mother, and with her cat pinned up again under one arm and the sugar-stick held under the other, kneeling face to the fire, but screwing her half-closed eyes at intervals in the direction of the couch, the little maid put her little waif-and-stray hands ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... back and he stood in a church by an Irish hill. White and terrified, Kenny remembered what in its vivid agony of detail he would fain have forgotten. Why, now, when Joan was slipping into his life, a lonely waif of a girl in a black gown he hated, why must he think years back to that soft-eyed Irish girl and Brian? Had he broken his pledge to her, driving her son away with a passion of self no less definite ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... were sealed. The throb of selfish triumphant exultation came of the belief that the gulf between them was less wide and deep than he had thought it. A wastrel may woo and wed a waif, surely, without many questions being asked. And then, at the clear, innocent questioning of her eyes, rushed in upon him, scalding, the memories he had thrust away. He saw the Dop Doctor of Gueldersdorp, his short daily stint of ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... have known that the steel box was in that satchel this story might never have been told. But it never entered their heads that the pallid little waif had sense enough to conceal a ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... am," cried Paul. "A waif and stray, an unknown figure coming out of the darkness. I have nothing to give you ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... conscientious Catholic, and a son of his is a most respected priest in the diocese of Liverpool. He was a kind-hearted, charitable man, always ready to do a good turn, particularly for a fellow-countryman. If an Irish policeman called his attention to some poor waif of an Irish child who had lost its parents, or was in evil surroundings—having parents worse than none, or in danger of losing its faith—Laurence Kehoe would take the matter in hand. He would not always go through the formality of bringing the case of such ...
— The Life Story of an Old Rebel • John Denvir
... an increment, has nothing to do with memory or heredity, it is due to the chances and changes of this mortal state. Design comes in at the moment that a living being either feels a want and forecasts for its gratification, or utilises some waif or stray of accident on the principle, which underlies all development, that enough is a little more than what one has. It is the business of memory and heredity to conserve and to transmit from one generation to another that which has been furnished by design, ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... No wonder my bark was wrecked after such mad and careless navigation; but, thank God, the blow of the tempest that staggered and shattered it, and drove it on the reefs, has not sunk it utterly, and now, like a waif or stray, it is being carried to be refitted across a thousand ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... But stood in the square where the wind blew raw, With a drooping ear, and a trembling paw, And a mournful look in his pleading eye, And a plaintive sniff at the passer-by That begged as plain as a tongue could sue, "Oh, Mister, please may I follow you?" A lorn, wee waif of a tawny brown Adrift in the roar of a heedless town. Oh, the saddest of sights in a world of sin Is a little lost pup with his ...
— The Dog's Book of Verse • Various
... tenement waif who rose by his own ingenuity to the office of mayor of his native city. His experiences while "climbing," make a most interesting example of the possibilities of human nature to rise ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... well received that winter's morning, and in the course of the day a poor waif rang timidly at the door of the happy home, and presented a paper bearing ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)
... The solitary waif had a rider, but he was not in the saddle. One foot was caught in the stirrup, and as the horse moved on from tuft to tuft it dragged its dead ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... it over. I'm ready to. I'm not sure that it wouldn't be a relief to get out of this rotten life. I'm all on edge. I could jump out of that window as easily as not. But it wasn't the girl's fault. She's a poor little waif of a thing. You must look after her and keep me from seeing her again, but she's not ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... clothed and shod for the winter, passed heedlessly before the unknown child. One of them, the son of one of the principal men in the village, looked at the waif with an expression in which ...
— Christmas in Legend and Story - A Book for Boys and Girls • Elva S. Smith
... ancestor; she had been glad to trace her lineage back over three centuries to the love-lorn French noble who had come to England in the train of the Due d'Anjou—and now—now she knew she had no connection at all with him,—that she was an unnamed, unbaptised nobody—an unclaimed waif of humanity whom no one wanted! No one in all the world—except Robin! He wanted her;—but perhaps when he knew her true history his love would grow cold. She wondered whether it would be so. If it were she would not mind very much. Indeed it ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... constitutes a further variety; the rarest of all; the kind who would never think about Mrs. Talcott one way or the other. But surely Karen is no kind at all. Could you call her an American? She has never been there. She is a sort of racial waif. The only root, the only nationality she seems to have is Mercedes; her very character is constituted by her relation to Mercedes; her only charm is her devotion—for she is indeed sincerely and wholeheartedly devoted. Mercedes is a sort ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... seeking to comprehend. God knows, at that moment I pitied the poor dumb waif, alone in all the whole round earth with me. The candle-flame, moved by the wind like a slow-painting brush, flickered upon her face, ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... mist. Now he is himself paternal and these about him might be his sons. Who can say? The wise father knows his own child. He thinks of a drizzling night in Hatch street, hard by the bonded stores there, the first. Together (she is a poor waif, a child of shame, yours and mine and of all for a bare shilling and her luckpenny), together they hear the heavy tread of the watch as two raincaped shadows pass the new royal university. Bridie! Bridie Kelly! He will never forget ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... face into so many odd expressions of anger and chagrin, that I resigned it to her, and agreed to say she had lent it to me for the performance. I believe she was afraid that I would change my mind, or that you would resume it as a seignorial waif; for, after she had walked a few turns with it wrapped around her, merely by way of taking possession, she dispatched it by a special messenger to ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... self, sharing, as it were, the misery and sin of this awful city? And today, for the first time, he seemed to have seen the woman in her—or was it the saint? and he recalled that wonderful illumination of her plain face that made her actually beautiful as she looked up from the little waif of humanity she held in her arms. It had startled him, and struck a new chord in his heart, and planted a new pang there that she had no belief in a ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... the little waif should be added to the family, and so it was legally adopted by Cricket, with all sorts of solemn ceremonies. Then came the naming it, ...
— Cricket at the Seashore • Elizabeth Westyn Timlow
... low-brow mechanic. You make me so dreadfully weary when you're mock-humble. As a matter of fact, you're a famous man and I'm a poor little street waif. For instance, the way you talk about socialism when you get interested and let yourself go. Really excited. I'd always thought that aviators and other sorts of ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... to be a great violinist, suddenly realizes that her money is almost gone. She meets a young ambitious doctor who offers her chivalry and sympathy, and together with world-worn Dr. Anna and Jimmie, the waif, they share ...
— The Film of Fear • Arnold Fredericks
... those solitary little islands. The narrow belts of sea, which divide their ocean-girded homes, have constantly to be ferried across, and many a boat which has gone out manned with a gallant crew has never returned or sent a waif to ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, May, 1878, No. 7. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... love and remorse, Rossi was conscious of an overpowering despair. It took the form of revolt against God, who had allowed such a blind and cruel sequence of events to wreck the lives of two of His innocent children. When he took refuge in the Vatican he must have been clinging to some waif and stray of hope. It was gone now, and there was no use struggling. The nothingness of man against the pitilessness of fate made all the world ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... play-fellow. And now lame Tim has driven the cows home; and the dew is falling, the stars are creeping out, and the little crickets and frogs have commenced their evening concert, and still little pet hasn't come! Where is the little stray waif? ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... lover; neither did you hesitate to faithlessly refuse to share his exile, although for your sake he had just jeopardized his life by killing two men. You felt no scruples at abandoning your child in London; although rolling in wealth, you never even inquired if this poor waif had bread to eat. You felt no scruples about marrying M. Fauvel. Did you tell your confiding husband of the lines of shame concealed beneath that orange wreath? Did you hesitate to confirm and strengthen his ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... king Polybus had unbound the feet of the infant, and in consequence of their being much swollen he called him Oedipus, or Swollen-foot. He then carried him to the king, his master, who, pitying the poor little waif, enlisted for him the kind offices of his wife, Merope. Oedipus was adopted by the king and queen as their own son, and grew up in the belief that they were his parents, until one day a Corinthian noble taunted him at a banquet with not being the son of the king. Stung at this reproach ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... opposite page I give a facsimile of this early Manuscript, the exact size of the original. The tiny waif affords a delightful specimen of Borrow's extremely beautiful and graceful minute handwriting, of which one or two other examples exist. The paper upon which the lines are written is evidently a leaf torn from ...
— A Bibliography of the writings in Prose and Verse of George Henry Borrow • Thomas J. Wise
... waif when the tale opens, but the way in which he takes hold of life; the nature friendships he forms in the great Limberlost Swamp; the manner in which everyone who meets him succumbs to the charm of his engaging personality; and his love-story with "The Angel" are full ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower
... despairs of grace? There's no spring-gun or man-trap in that face! Let Moses then look black, and Aaron blue, That look as if they had little else to do: For Chisholm speaks, 'Poor youth! he's but a waif! 60 The spoons all right? the hen and chickens safe? Well, well, he shall not forfeit our regards— The Eighth Commandment ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... compass you about; and light fellowships should take you by the arm, and walk with you an hour upon your way. You may see from afar off what it will come to in the end—the weather-beaten red-nosed vagabond, consumed by a fever of the feet, cut off from all near touch of human sympathy, a waif, an Ishmael, and an outcast. And yet it will seem well—and yet, in the air of the forest, this will seem the best—to break all the network bound about your feet by birth and old companionship and loyal love, and bear your shovelful of phosphates ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... comprehended in the general principle of clothes. And, Leonard, as a remembrance somewhat more personal, accept this, which I have worn many a year when time was a thing of importance to me, and nobler fates than mine hung on a moment. We missed the moment, or abused it, and here I am, a waif on a foreign shore. Methinks I have done ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... in your thoughts for whom you offer up your prayers, they are only beneficial to yourself; and what would be thus lost for want of application, God lays up in the treasury of the Church, as being a kind of spiritual waif or stray, to which nobody can lay any just claim. And, since it is the intention which entitles one to what is offered before all others, what right can others pretend to it; or with what justice can it be parted or divided amongst others, who were ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier
... I'm a waif from the city with a penchant for burglary. He expects me to rob you, presently, and then run away. I'm so unlikely to cross his path again that he talked with unusual frankness to me—or at me, if you prefer to put it that ...
— Mary Louise in the Country • L. Frank Baum (AKA Edith Van Dyne)
... was no longer destitute, no longer friendless. In Barech she had found a friend who never deserted her. Captivated by her voice, he took the little waif into his heart and home, and thenceforth she was protected, cared for, and educated. And he was amply rewarded when, in after-years, the fame of Helen Barech spread over England. No one then ever dreamed that the great singer began her career years ago, one dark night, under the stars, ...
— Harper's Young People, June 1, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... had arrived in the great city, to which he was a stranger, towards evening. A little waif and stray in London, with only five shillings in his pocket! But no fears assailed him. He was encouraged by the great hope of the meeting on the morrow. His heart began beating at the very thought of the loving arms ...
— A Little Hero • Mrs. H. Musgrave
... upon the shoulders of four persons of her own sex. Now and again fatigue brought the bearers to a standstill; then they would change shoulders by changing places. And the white coffin, moving up and down as a waif on the swell of the sea, passed on towards the glowing west, where presently the purple-tinted wings of evening ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... backward glance, inspired by fond imaginings that the pinto might have stopped to graze, Sundown stalked down the road. Waif of chance and devotee of the goddess "Maybeso," he rose sublimely superior to the predicament in which he found himself. "The only reason I'm goin' east is because I ain't goin' west," he told himself, ignoring, with warm adherence to the glowing courses of the sun the frigid possibilities ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... better introduce the few poems which I shall present for your consideration, than by the citation of the Proem to Longfellow's "Waif":— ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... from the depths of her rags, a waif, a martyr—smiled. She must have a divine heart to be so tired and yet smile. She loved the sky, the light, which the unformed little being would love some day. She loved the chilly dawn, the sultry noontime, the dreamy evening. The child would grow up, a saviour, to give life to everything again. ...
— The Inferno • Henri Barbusse
... with Hester's love for Debby was an inexpressible gratitude. Hester realized how much Debby had done and was doing for her. But it was not the dainty dresses and good home that touched her most. Debby Alden had given the waif her mother's name, and Hester never wrote in her big angular hand, Hester Palmer Alden, without feeling a glow of pride. She had a name of which to be proud, a name which Debby Alden ...
— Hester's Counterpart - A Story of Boarding School Life • Jean K. Baird
... up-stairs into the room which his wife composedly designated as "the nursery," where, in the arms of a middle-aged, motherly-looking woman, reposed the little waif chance had intrusted to his care. He was certainly a very handsome boy, and his fine head, big blue eyes, and clear, rosy complexion justified enthusiasm. As Edward appeared in the door-way, the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various
... crying in the street, and wrap her furs about it and carry it off, smiling and happy, in her arms, with no more thought of the attention such an action would attract than if she had been alone with her waif in the desert. But many and many a time, and in many a way, she had made glad hearts by deeds like that; and now where was she? And was there never a one in the whole wide world to help her to bear her own sorrow and ease ...
— Ideala • Sarah Grand
... at that, and looked at his watch quickly. "Not late yet, but I'll walk along. Where are you going, waif? Aren't you in charge ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... vagabonds. He consented to receive them only when he learned that the peddler's wife was to be delivered of a child. That very night she became the mother of a girl, who was at first called Elise. So unimportant was the advent of this little waif into the world that the burgomaster of Mumpf thought it necessary to make an entry only of the fact that a peddler's wife had given birth to a female child. There was no mention of family or religion, nor was the record ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... returning in the afternoon, reported that he had walked half the way, and had driven the other half with a man who had given him a lift in his trap, right into Minehead, but had seen and heard nothing of the missing waif and stray. Coming back to Weircombe with the carrier's cart, he had questioned the carrier as to whether he had seen the old man anywhere along the road, but this inquiry ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... know about her; and I greatly fear that those to whom she belonged perished in the storm. Even the wreckage that was washed ashore furnished no clew; it was part of two different vessels. The little waif was brought to me and with me she has ever ...
— Mr. Fortescue • William Westall
... garden for the seaweed, her cabin a breeding place for fish, soundless but for the dredging water, motionless but for the waving of the tangle upon her battlements—that old, populous, sea-riding castle, now a reef in Sandag Bay? Or, as I thought it likelier, was this a waif from the disaster of the foreign brig—was this shoe-buckle bought but the other day and worn by a man of my own period in the world's history, hearing the same news from day to day, thinking the same thoughts, praying, perhaps, in the same temple ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... augmented fleetness. Further pursuit was useless; but the boats still lingered in their wake to pick up what drugged whales might be dropped astern, and likewise to secure one which Flask had killed and waifed. The waif is a pennoned pole, two or three of which are carried by every boat; and which, when additional game is at hand, are inserted upright into the floating body of a dead whale, both to mark its place on the sea, and also as token of prior possession, should the boats of ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... things, that which he had confessed to him as his greatest sin and how he had hardly availed to persuade him that God would forgive it him; thence passing on to reprove the folk who hearkened, 'And you, accursed that you are,' quoth he, 'for every waif of straw that stirreth between your feet, you blaspheme God and the Virgin and all the host of heaven.' Moreover, he told them many other things of his loyalty and purity of heart; brief, with his speech, whereto entire faith was yielded of the people ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... mighty" drug. His vast dreams seemed to hover not very far away. Once started in my brain, the pictures refused to go away; and I saw him sleeping in that cold, tenantless mansion with the strange little waif who was afraid of its ghosts, both together in the shadows under a single horseman's cloak; or wandering in the companionship of the spectral Anne; or, later still, on his way to the eternal rendezvous she never was able to keep. ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... upon the waters," said Calton, oracularly. "The kindness of Miss Frettlby to that poor waif is already bearing fruit—gratitude is the rarest of qualities, rarer ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume
... was investigated by a physician, who learned that the girl had been a waif and had been taken in charge by a Protestant clergyman when she was nine years old and brought up as his servant. This clergyman had for years been in the habit of walking up and down a passage of his house into which the kitchen door opened and at the same time ...
— The Trained Memory • Warren Hilton
... man, count. Like this puppy here, I am a waif and a stray; yet, at the same time, I have my purpose and am part of a ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... for the little waif for a long time, when at last the clock struck eight and daylight came. The snow, had she not trampled it down, would have come up to her shoulders. The old door behind her was covered with it, as if hung with ermine, and it looked as ...
— The Dream • Emile Zola
... as an indelible mark of identity. No sooner had this been done than a gust of wind blew a large plank to the river's edge. The poor mother tied her infant firmly to this plank and abandoned it to the mercy of the waves. The waif was carried to the shore of the isle of Chin Shan, on which stands the famous monastery of Chin-shan Ssu, near Chinkiang. The cries of the infant attracted the attention of an old monk named Chang Lao, who ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner
... for my favours and greed therefor; * Where find thee a leach for such foolish gree? Then rhyme-linking leave and fool-like be not * Hanged to Cross at the doorway of ignomy! Deem not that to thee I incline, O youth! * 'Mid the Sons of the Path[FN384] is no place for me. Thou art homeless waif in the wide wide world; * So return thee home where they keen for thee:[FN385] Leave verse-spouting, O thou who a-wold dost wone, * Or minstrel shall name thee in lay and glee: How many a friend who would meet his love * Is baulked when the goal is right clear to see! So begone ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... faded red ribbon knotted about its neck, and vicious, amber-colored eyes that were a perpetual challenge, had fled from the tender mercies of Dick to the city of refuge under Beryl's cot; and community of suffering had kindled an attachment that now prompted the lesser waif to spring into the girl's folded arms, and rub its head against her shoulder. Mechanically Beryl's hand stroked the creature's ear, while it purred softly under the caress; but suddenly its back curved into an arch, the tail broadened, the purr became a growl. ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... he, jumping with excitement also, for the boat Carette had sighted was evidently astray, and, moreover, it was, as they could easily see even at that distance, no Island boat, but a stranger, a waif, and so lawful prey and treasure-trove if ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... first collected and published. They came upon the world by surprise; scarcely any one at that time being aware that a fine genius and humorist existed, within the dull shades of London, whose quality very few of the critics had assayed, and none of them had commended. He was thus thrown (waif-like) amongst the great body of the people; was at once estimated, and ...
— Charles Lamb • Barry Cornwall
... and I understand that divers vestments of the ladies have found their way into the state-rooms of the other cabin; particularly a nightcap of Mademoiselle Viefville's, that has been discovered in Captain Truck's room, and which that gallant seaman has forthwith condemned as a lawful waif. As he never uses such a device on his head, he will be compelled to wear it next his heart. He will be compelled to ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... of explanation, in which, seconding one another's efforts, striving to hit upon simpler analogies, plainer terms, Paul the doctor, and Miss Ludington sought to make clear to this waif from eternity, so strangely stranded on the shores of Time, the conditions and circumstances under which she had resumed ...
— Miss Ludington's Sister • Edward Bellamy
... because he had privileges himself; and ready when the French came to take his part in fighting for the old country. There can be no fear for a country, says Scott, where even the beggar is as ready to take up arms as the noble. The bluegown, in short, is no waif and stray, no product of social corruption, or mere obnoxious parasite, but a genuine member of the fabric, who could respect himself and scorn servility as much as the highest members of the social hierarchy. Scott, as Lockhart tells us, was most grievously wounded by the insults of the Radical ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... to herself. I guess you could call it an incantation. I got a picture of a nubile waif, too freakish to fit where she'd been raised. What had her Hegira been like? In what frightful places had she found herself welcome? From her talk, it could have been an Ozark backwater. I didn't want to know what backwoods ...
— Vigorish • Gordon Randall Garrett
... work is known."— A piece of honey-comb, one day, Discover'd as a waif and stray, The hornets treated as their own. Their title did the bees dispute, And brought before a wasp the suit. The judge was puzzled to decide, For nothing could be testified Save that around this honey-comb There had ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... been, and there never can be, a measure of childish happiness, but surely never was a child in the world more happy than the quaint little waif who had sat all alone that bright November afternoon in the brush where the Indian pony had dropped him. All the games they had tried on the previous day were repeated anew by the youngsters, and many freshly invented were enjoyed, including a romp in the snow, with the ...
— Bruvver Jim's Baby • Philip Verrill Mighels
... unskilled, friendless, almost penniless girl of eighteen, utterly alone in the world, I was a stranger in a strange city which I had not yet so much as seen by daylight. I was a waif and a stray in the mighty city of New York. Here I had come to live and to toil—out of the placid monotony of a country town into the storm and stress of the wide, wide, workaday world. Very wide awake now, I jumped out of bed upon the cold oil-cloth and touched ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... experiment fails, In her voice there's a tremble e'en now while she rails, And your shore will soon be in the nature of things Covered thick with gilt drift-wood of castaway kings, 1120 Where alone, as it were in a Longfellow's Waif, Her fugitive pieces will find themselves safe. O my friends, thank your god, if you have one, that he 'Twixt the Old World and you set the gulf of a sea; Be strong-backed, brown-handed, upright as your pines, By the scale of a hemisphere shape your designs, Be true ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... the gilded lattice above, and a small scroll was dropped, not precisely at the feet, but in the neighborhood of the amazed artist. Sharp eyes, however, must be at work; for, ere he could appropriate this mysterious waif on Love's manor, a side-door opened, and an attendant in the very unpoetical garb of a carpenter bore off the prize. It maybe presumed that the next confessor who occupied an arm-chair in the church would have somewhat of novelty ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... all the same, as people tell us now," she said, smiling. "Any way, he looks as if he was a waif from the heroic age. But, my dear, did not I hear him ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... wild glance, the wet hand clinging to his wrist, the laugh repeated like an echo from the symphony of that November hillside. He reproached himself withal. What was known of Cad Sills? Little known, and nothing cared to be known. A waif, pursuing him invisibly with a twinkle or flare from her passionate eyes. She was the daughter of a sea captain by his fifth wife. He had escaped the other four. They had died or been deserted in foreign ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... Like the waif, he spoke Shainsan, and spoke it with a better accent than any nonhuman I had ever known—so well that I looked again to be certain. I wasn't too dazed to answer in the same tongue, but I couldn't keep back a spate ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... owner came staggering along one of the walks of the cemetery; for all his song, no blue-water sailor-man, but a boisterous denizen of the great river, a raftsman or a keel-boatman, who had somehow found himself in the burial ground and now was beating aimlessly about. How this rollicking waif of the grog shop came to wander so far from the convivial haunts of his kind and to choose this spot for a ramble, can only be explained by the ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... a different man, Count. Like puppy, here, I am a waif and a stray; yet, at the same time, I have my purpose and am ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... had become exquisitely tender, and his lips, as he whispered the heavenly words, were quite close to her ear. He, a great gentleman, loved the miserable little waif whose kindred consisted of a blind father and two half-starved little brothers, and whose only home was this miserable hovel, whence milor's graciousness and ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... as the door closed upon the shivering little waif who scratched and whined at the door of his lost Paradise, Jimsy's face, sharpened by disappointment, seemed suddenly thinner and less boyish. Bent upon making the best of things, he ...
— Jimsy - The Christmas Kid • Leona Dalrymple
... enjoying himself. Remembering the description given by Bart, the detective saw that this was the very man who had entered the shop of Aaron Norman. He wore the same dress and looked dirty and disreputable—quite a waif and a stray. ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume
... And with some warmth, "That I deny; 'T is no invention of my own, But something well and widely known To readers of a riper age, Writ by the skilful hand that wrote The Indian tale of Hobomok, And Philothea's classic page. I found it like a waif afloat Or dulse uprooted from its rock, On the swift tides that ebb and flow In daily papers, and at flood Bear freighted vessels to and fro, But later, when the ebb is low, Leave a long waste ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... leaving. In three weeks she was going to move down to Oakwood to her cousin's, for her house was as good as sold. The officials were greatly pleased with this offer; many things could turn up in three weeks, and for the time being the little waif was cared for. So they parted from one another satisfied with ...
— Erick and Sally • Johanna Spyri
... to the Court of Chancery in the Island of Barbadoes, a sinecure done by deputy, Surveyor of the Crown Lands, and Paymaster to the Board of Works. The wits of White's added the title of 'Receiver-General of Waif and Stray Jokes.' It is said that his hostility to Sheridan arose from the latter having lost him the office in the Works in 1782, when Burke's Bill for reducing the Civil List came into operation; but this is not at all probable, ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... without a purpose is like a ship without a rudder; a waif, a nothing, a no-man. Have a purpose in life ... and having it, throw such strength of mind and muscle into thy work ...
— The Girl Wanted • Nixon Waterman
... not know who he was nor whence he came—he had just wandered from door to door since early childhood, seeking shelter with kindly mountaineers who gladly fathered and mothered this waif about whom there was such a mystery—a charming waif, by the way, who could play the banjo better that ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain
... and Moses Ansell had never fallen so low but that, on this night of nights when the slave sits with the master on equal terms, he could manage to entertain a Passover guest, usually some newly-arrived Greener, or some nondescript waif and stray returned to Judaism for the occasion and accepting a seat at the board in that spirit of camaraderie which is one of the most delightful features of the Jewish pauper. Seder was a ceremonial to be taken in none too solemn and sober a spirit, and there ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... talents. He could wash and wipe dishes and, incredible as it may seem, he was also literary. Like attracts like, by some law past understanding. To me it still seems a wonderful thing that this little waif of a man with a taste for Tolstoy and a passion for long words should have just then landed ...
— Dwellers in Arcady - The Story of an Abandoned Farm • Albert Bigelow Paine
... life that are sweet and wholesome. But it is too early yet for me to look back upon what has happened with equanimity and say that I am glad to be a wanderer on the face of the earth, a homeless man, a waif." ...
— The Mischief Maker • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... advanced that the model was hardly needed. She had even set herself, by those unobtrusive ways at the command of gracious women, to win the girl's confidence, not so much for the sake of hearing her story as to give the waif so strangely cast in her path the feeling that the friendship she so sorely needed was within her reach. It had resulted, however, in her hearing Ninitta's history. Many women have no idea of returning kindness save by unreserved confidence, and although ...
— The Pagans • Arlo Bates
... broke into a silly, triumphant laugh, and thrust the child forward against the carriage step. The poor waif, drenched, dazed, tottering without his crutch, caught at the plated handle for support. Honoria gazed down on him with eyes which took slow and pitiless account of the deformed little body, the ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Rouen, while proper enquiries were being made about him. That was the soberly prosaic and commonplace view to take of the matter. The personality of the little fellow was intensely winning,—but after all, that had nothing to do with the facts of the case. He was a waif and stray, as he himself had said; his name, so far as he seemed to know it, was Manuel,—an ordinary name enough in France,—and his age might be about twelve,—not more. Something could be done for him,—something SHOULD be done for him before ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... the shock before I felt her sinking beneath me. The two men at the oars of the principal's boat, without any order from Mr. Parasyte,—for he knew not what to do,—backed water. I could swim like a fish; and as the Splash sank beneath me, I struck out from the wreck, and was left like a waif floating upon the glassy surface of ...
— Breaking Away - or The Fortunes of a Student • Oliver Optic
... lived a few weeks. The memory of that golden, fuzzy head, the little appealing fingers, the great blue eyes of his son still lingered bitterly in the father's heart. When he first looked upon this waif the fancy seized him that, perhaps his own boy would have been like this had he lived, and a strange and unexpected tenderness entered his heart for Mikky. He kept going to the little invalid's room night ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill
... afraid to plunge in; then another comes behind him and pushes him into the water, and he strikes out, and finds that it is not as cold as he expected, and forthwith enjoys it. I have cut loose from the past. I have become a rover and a waif, and I feel as ...
— No Surrender! - A Tale of the Rising in La Vendee • G. A. Henty
... shaped and padded clothes the man was a mere waif of a man—as unbelievably slight as if he were the victim of a wasting disease. Ste. Marie held the body in his arms as if it had been a child, and carried it across and laid it on the bed; but it was many months before he forgot the ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... Song; as in heaven at highest one sceptred sun Regent, on earth here surely without fail One only, one imperious nightingale. Dumb was the field, the woodland mute, the lawn Silent; the hill was tongueless as the vale Even when the last fair waif of cloud that felt Its heart beneath the colouring moonrays melt, At high midnoon of midnight half withdrawn, Bared all the sudden deep divine moondawn. Then, unsaluted by her twin-born tune, That latter timeless morning of the moon Rose past its hour of moonrise; clouds gave way To the old reconquering ...
— Songs of the Springtides and Birthday Ode - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol. III • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... LORD'S, from base to cope. Here faltering Faith and half-extinguished Hope Find entrance unrebuked of Charity. What right? E'en so SIMON the Pharisee Might have demanded of the MAGDALEN, And with a fairer reason. But restrain The weariest waif from entrance to the fane Where pure young girls come for a special grace, Whither the smug-faced citizen may pace, The modish lady trail her silken skirt? Nay, Sir, it is too arbitrary-rash, This caveat, and with Charity must clash, Here sinful souls and spirits sorely hurt Find their last refuge ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, April 12, 1890 • Various
... certain manner of standing, and once he plainly caught that upward shift of the shoulder. Then Gus gave his orders to Bennie, knowing that they would be carried out with precision, for the little fellow, almost a waif and lacking proper influences, would have nearly laid down his life for Gus after the athlete had very deservedly whipped two town bullies that were making life miserable for him. Moreover, the youngster wanted to be like Gus and Bill, in the ...
— Radio Boys Cronies • Wayne Whipple and S. F. Aaron
... them out?" Did you ever say of them it was by Beelzebub? Why say it of me? What he claims he freely allows. The Saviour had no tinge of that jealousy of rival teaching—as if truth could be two, and could avoid being one—which makes so many of his followers grasp at any waif of false argument. He knew that all good is of God, and not of the devil. All were with him who destroyed the power of ...
— Miracles of Our Lord • George MacDonald
... spelling through the pages of the Gull's Hornbook. From this course of idle dissipation he was saved by the interposition of an Ayrshire neighbour of the family, the Earl of Eglintoun, though were we to credit the account of the waif himself the Earl 'insisted that young Boswell should have an apartment in his house.' Certain it is that by his lordship he was taken to Newmarket and introduced to the members of the Jockey Club. He would appear ...
— James Boswell - Famous Scots Series • William Keith Leask
... sea that laves the piers of San Francisco is the ocean of the East and of the isles of summer. There goes the Mexican, unmistakable; there the blue-clad Chinaman with his white slippers; there the soft-spoken, brown Kanaka, or perhaps a waif from far-away Malaya. You hear French, German, Italian, Spanish, and English indifferently. You taste the food of all nations in the various restaurants; passing from a French prix-fixe where every one is French, to a roaring German ordinary where every one is German; ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... have jumped into the boat with a rope's-end, as she came alongside, taking a turn anywhere for the moment; but as, with main-topsail aback, we crept slowly down upon the poor, forlorn-looking waif, a gaunt, unkempt scarecrow suddenly upreared itself in the stern-sheets and, uttering queer, gibbering sounds the while, scrambled forward into the eyes of the boat, with movements that somehow were equally suggestive ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... subside into silence. The window next him was open. He threw his cup out of it; and did the same kind office for mine, and finally the little tray flew after, and I heard it clank on the road; a valuable waif, no doubt, for some early wayfarer in ...
— The Room in the Dragon Volant • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... that he? The other has a still more extraordinary name. He is Paul Griggs. He is the son of an American consul who died in Civita Vecchia twenty years ago, and left him a sort of waif, for he had no money and apparently no relatives. Somehow he has grown up, Heaven knows how, and gets a living by journalism. I believe he was at sea for some years as a boy. He is really as much Italian as American. I have met him with ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... enjoy seeing how quickly the girls in our Home learn to help each other. Mercedes had been in the Home but ten days when Francesca came—a bit of a waif who had never worn shoes in all her life, nor seen a bed before. Of course she knew nothing about undressing and sleeping between clean, white sheets. She tried to do like the others, but got into bed with her precious new shoes and stockings on. Mercedes ...
— Home Missions In Action • Edith H. Allen
... There, like a pearly waif, just past the reach Of foamy billows he lies cast. Just then, Some listless fishers, straying down the beach, Spy out this wonder. Thence the curious men, Low crouching, creep into a thicket brake, And watch her doings ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... Just because of the waif's helplessness was repugnance to her conquered. She had no other redeeming quality. In a certain sense she was fearsome; she required unremitting attention and care; her whimpering fits, in beast-like monotone, ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... days had helped her build little dust-heaps beneath the trees, takes her from the warm cot and hands her over to a woman of stern face and rasping tongue, with whom she dwells disconsolate until one fateful day she finds herself alone in a market-place, weeping the passionate tears of the waif and orphan. But ...
— By-Ways of Bombay • S. M. Edwardes, C.V.O.
... makes me safe— I am, immediate, Of one that lives; I am no waif That haggard waters toss and chafe, But of a ...
— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... marry the Empress of China for one bowl of chop suey. I'd commit murder for a plate of beef stew. I'd steal a wafer from a waif. I'd be a Mormon for a ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry
... that was his salvation, girding himself to it as firmly as he was able. In this condition, plus a swoon from exhaustion, he was descried by the helmsman of the Pretty Mary, a few miles from Cape Surville, at daylight next morning. Blunt, with a wild hope that this waif and stray might be the lover of Sarah Purfoy, dead, lowered a boat and picked him up. Nearly bisected by the belt, gorged with salt water, frozen with cold, and having two ribs broken, the victim of Vetch's murderous quickness retained sufficient ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... little waif that the gods had flung to him slept in his bunk all through the long hours as peacefully as an effigy ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... learned anything conclusive. Sometimes I'm sure he is. Then again I doubt it. I think HE really believes he is—bless his heart! At all events, one thing is sure: he has good blood in him from somewhere. Jamie's no ordinary waif of the streets, you know, with his talents; and the wonderful way he has responded to ...
— Pollyanna Grows Up • Eleanor H. Porter
... bleak day in early winter she was brought to us, from a wild country settlement, by a reputed uncle—a gaunt round- shouldered man, with deep eyes and sallow cheeks and weedy-looking beard, as we curiously watched him from the front window stolidly swinging this little, blue-lipped, red-nosed waif over the muddy wagon-wheel to father's arms, like so much country produce. And even as the man resumed his seat upon the thick board laid across the wagon, and sat chewing a straw, with spasmodic noddings of the head, as some brief further conference ...
— Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley • James Whitcomb Riley
... cried aloud, "Go, take the slave away, And keep her safe for yet another day, And on the morning will I think again Of some fresh task, since with so little pain She doeth what the gods find hard enow; For since the winds were pleased this waif to blow Unto my door, a fool I were indeed, If I should fail to use her for my need." So her they led away from that bright sun, Now scarce more hopeful that the task was done, Since by those bitter words she knew full well Another tale ...
— The Earthly Paradise - A Poem • William Morris
... safe story to expose to the quarrying of men's conclusions? But it doesn't matter much: the tale must be a true one. Only—to think of just this one story, of tenderest righteousness, floating about like a holy waif through the world of letters!—a sweet gray dove of promise that can find no rest for the sole of his foot! Just this one story of all stories a kind of outcast! and yet as a wanderer, oh, how welcome! Some manuscripts, I understand, have ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... his people, and having other things to ask about. What tongue or speech had the respectable, the staid Miranda King in common with the scared waif? To that she answered that she could not tell him; but that it was certain they could understand each other. How? "By looks," she said, and added scornfully, "she's not the kind that has to clatter with her tongue to have speech with ...
— Lore of Proserpine • Maurice Hewlett
... about," said his mother, "if any one has lost their child. There must be sore hearts somewhere, I'm afraid," and she lifted the tiny waif for Robin to kiss ...
— Miss Mouse and Her Boys • Mrs. Molesworth
... aching back. But on one point he was determined: when they neared the suburbs of New York he would telephone to a certain gray-haired, aristocratically high-nosed old lady and persuade her to send out her car for this waif. ...
— Anything Once • Douglas Grant
... shopping, etc., and casually mentioned in the way of conversation that they had heard the child crying, and that it was rather remarkable it should be still alive. Needless to say, Miss Slessor was off, and had that waif home. It was truly in an awful state, but just alive. In a marvellous way it had been left by leopards and snakes, with which this bit of forest abounds, and, more marvellous still, the driver ants had not scented it. Other ants had considerably eaten into it one way and another; ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... incident did not damage his credit with her. However, after the little waif had been sufficiently petted and praised to gratify Master Marmaduke's paternal feelings, they came home, and, instead of holding their tongues, began to tell all our people what a dear little child Marmaduke had, and how they considered that it ought not to be made to suffer for his ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... caught the astonishment in Towsley's eyes as she thus indifferently declined ice-cream, and was amused by it. A whimsical impulse seized her to furnish the waif with all of the dainty which he could possibly consume, and satisfy his craving for one time, at least. In all her life she had never seen any person eat the cold stuff as he did. His mouth opened like a trap, a spoonful went ...
— Divided Skates • Evelyn Raymond
... relic would be promptly and reverently deposited among the other Vestiges of Creation, in the Royal Cabinet. In the course of years, some historian would probably have occasion to turn over these curiosities, and would presently light on the scorched but still legible waif. "Why," says he, in astonishment, "I thought the earth was burnt on the 15th of May! To be sure, it was in the night, and nobody saw it go, [think of that, conceited Worldling!] but it was missed by somebody the day after. But here we have ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 5, April 30, 1870 • Various
... among his new friends a Scotch word or phrase often escaped his lips, but old Petey and the others thought he had picked it up from them, and would have been content to accept him as a London waif who lived somewhere round the corner. To trick people so simply, however, is not agreeable to an artist, and he told them his name was Tommy Shovel, and that his old girl walloped him, and his father found dogs, all which ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... how the poet was awakened on a rainy midnight by the cry of a child begging shelter. The little waif proved to be Cupid in disguise. After being warmed and dried by the fire, the boy artfully craved permission to try his bow, to see if the rain had injured its elasticity. The arrow flew straight at the poet's heart ...
— Sir Joshua Reynolds - A Collection of Fifteen Pictures and a Portrait of the - Painter with Introduction and Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... seize mementoes from the deceased lady's scant leavings, was one who had in her own palmetto hut an empty cradle scarcely cold, and therefore a necessity at her breast, if not a place in her heart, for the unfortunate Lufki-Humma; and thus it was that this little waif came to be tossed, a droll hypothesis of flesh, blood, nerve and brain, into the hands of wild nature with carte blanche as to the disposal of it. And now, since this was Agricola's most boasted ancestor—since ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... the battlements of her palace and seeing this poor waif, takes compassion upon her, and, after giving her refreshments, questions her in regard to her origin. Damayanti simply vouchsafes the information that her husband has lost all through dicing, and volunteers to serve the rani, provided she is ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... to the fire, and the hot coffee; you are frozen with the wind and snow. Glory be, that I am still here to make comfortable for the waif ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... of course, could not know of this; and, while inspecting the queer waif, wondering what it could mean, two others were taken up: one a sprig of cypress, the other an orange blossom; both showing as if but lately plucked, and ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... illusive hopes? Oh that his strong hands and strong heart had some scope for their energies! He paused in one mighty torrent of busy faces and eager footsteps, and despised himself for his inaction. All these had business of one kind or other; all were earnestly intent upon their calling; but he was a waif and a straw on the top of the tide, with every muscle stoutly strung, and every faculty of his brain clear and sound. Would he let the golden years of his youth slip by, without laying any foundation for independence? Was this Civil Service appointment ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... or the Montague may have felt that his place in the world was marked as such, but the simple burgher who, had he not been entitled to call himself so, would have been little better than a pariah, one whom all might have kicked because he had no friends, a mere waif on the turbulent current of the surging and unruly life of those days, felt in every fibre of his being, and from his cradle to his grave, that what he was in the world, and what all that he cared for in the world depended on, was the fact that ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... indulgent to their only child. They themselves had been evolved from a previous generation of promiscuously acquired wealth into the repose of inherited property, but it was currently accepted that Sarah had "cast back" and reincarnated some waif on the deck of an emigrant ship at the beginning of ...
— By Shore and Sedge • Bret Harte
... me, she smiled on me!" In ecstacy exclaimed A little waif in tattered gown, With form so halt and maimed. Remember, even a smile may cheer, A cup of water, bless; A kindly word, sow seeds of joy, Whose ...
— Mother Truth's Melodies - Common Sense For Children • Mrs. E. P. Miller
... with a little sigh, he put away his chess-men, and heartily hoped that it might not be his favorite adversary who was coming before him to be sent to jail. For although the good rector had a warm regard, and even affection, for Robin Lyth, as a waif cast into his care, and then a pupil wonderfully apt (which breeds love in the teacher), and after that a most gallant and highly distinguished young parishioner—with all this it was a difficulty for him to be ignorant that the law was adverse. More ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... were—the taller one he understood immediately must be in command, for his whole appearance indicated it, while the shorter chap was of the calibre not unlike himself, bronzed from a life in the open, and with a cheery manner that drew the waif toward him from ...
— Canoe Mates in Canada - Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan • St. George Rathborne
... became a moderately happy father, and called the child Dinah, because he had never had a female relation of that name; indeed, he had never possessed a relation of any kind whatever that he knew of, having been a London street-boy, a mere waif, when he first became aware, so to speak, of his ...
— The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne |
