"Coquettish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... father had given us the history of his life, his remarks upon her mother appeared to have made a decided impression upon her, and her conduct was much more staid and demure; but as the remembrance wore off, so did her conduct become coquettish and flirting as before; still, it was impossible not to be fond of her, and even with all her caprice there was such a fund of real good feeling and amiableness, which, when called forth, was certain to appear, that I often ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... shameless eyes and murmured guardedly, "Perhaps." Then she swept him a coquettish glance that meant they understood ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... naturally that there was everywhere in Verona a sharp division between the Italians of all classes and their conquerors. The great green-rinded melons were never wheeled into the neighbourhood of the whitecoats. Damsels were no longer coquettish under the military glance, but hurried by in couples; and there was much scowling mixed with derisive servility, throughout the city, hard to be endured without that hostile state of the spirit which is the military mind's refuge in such cases. Itinerant musicians, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... that when Nan came to Patty's room next morning, as she often did, she found that coquettish damsel, sitting up in bed, wrapped in a blue silk nightingale, and with a flower-decked lace cap somewhat askew on her ...
— Patty's Suitors • Carolyn Wells
... poem is also a dramatic 'scene', written 'in imitation of the mode originated by the Greek Tragic Writers'. In fact those hallowed models seem to have left far fewer traces in Barry Cornwall's verse than the Alexandrian—or pseudo-Alexandrian— tradition of meretricious graces and coquettish fancies, which the eighteenth century had already run to death. [Footnote: To adduce an example—in what is probably not an easily accessible book to-day: Proserpine, distributing her flowers, thus ...
— Proserpine and Midas • Mary Shelley
... my cigarette, Straight I see a Spanish girl,— Mantilla, fan, coquettish curl, Languid airs and dimpled face, Calculating, fatal grace; Hear a twittering serenade Under lofty balcony played; Queen at bull-fight, naught she cares What her agile lover dares; She ...
— Pipe and Pouch - The Smoker's Own Book of Poetry • Various
... when he had been discouraged and down at heart, and they had been so full of sunshine, and pretty, loving conceits, that by the time he had finished reading them he had been positively jubilant; some, I regret to say, were a trifle wilful and coquettish, and had so roused him to jealous fancies that he had instantly dashed off a page or so of insane reproach and distrust which had been the beginning of a lover's quarrel; some of them (always written after he had been specially miserable and unreasoning) were half-pathetic mixtures ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... chair, an incarnation of the summer morning, fresh as the air in her white blouse and skirt, daintily white hosed and shod, her auburn hair faultlessly dressed sweeping from the side parting in two waves, one bold from right to left, the other with coquettish grace, from left to right, the swiftness of her face calmed into lazy contours, the magnificent full physique of her body relaxed as she lay with her silken ankles crossed on the nether chair support, her hands fingering a long necklace of jade, she appealed to me as ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... a new suit of silk, which he had procured after numerous directions from our friend Mr. O'Brallaghan; Verty resembled the young forest emperor, which it was his wont to resemble, at least in costume;—and Fanny was clad in the finest and most coquettish little dress conceivable. After mature deliberation, we are inclined to believe that her conquest of Ralph was on this day completed and perfected:—the conduct of that gentleman for some days afterwards having been very suspicious. We need only say, that he ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke
... time, Phil had been used to bring home a rare flower or two as a gift for Adele, which Rose had always lovingly arranged in some coquettish fashion, either upon the bosom or in the hair of Adele; but a new and late gift of this kind—a little tuft of the trailing arbutus which he has clambered over miles of woodland to secure—is not worn by Adele, but by Rose, who glances into the astounded face of Phil with a pretty, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... well-powdered hair was built up in a tower nearly a foot in height, were flowers or feathers. Precious stones fastened the folds of rich kerchiefs, sparkled on dainty fingers, or flashed with stray movements of fans that, however discreetly waved, betrayed their trappings once in a while by some coquettish tremulousness. The gentlemen were resplendent also in gold-laced coats and small clothes, gold, or diamond shoe buckles, powdered wigs and queues, and with ruffles of the richest lace about their wrists. These guests, who were among ...
— Bay State Monthly, Volume II. No. 4, January, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... dress and her free and easy manners made her appear old and ugly to him, although she was neither. He thought that such coquettish attire and such playful manners would be well suited to the age and keen wit of little Marie, but that such pleasantry on the widow's part was heavy and stale, and that there was no distinction in the way she wore ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... girl, tightening her apron-strings, and assuming a sly, coquettish look; "Bartle, go 'an mind your business, and let me bring home my pitchers; it's time the breakwist was ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... alluring or coquettish in her manner to Coombe but she tilted her head prettily and looked down at her flower through ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Iseult is excused to some extent by the magic potion, it is of an "all-for-love-and-the-world-well-lost" kind which finds no exact parallel elsewhere in the legend. So too, whether it seem more or less amiable, the half-coquettish jealousy of Guinevere in regard to Lancelot is not Celtic: while the profligate vindictiveness attributed to her in Sir Launfal, and only in Sir Launfal, an almost undoubtedly Celtic offshoot of the Arthurian Legend, is equally alien from her character. We see Iseult planning ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... of that, again! And she knew there were people who called her intelligent. Fortunately he did not seem to notice it; but her laugh continued to sound in her own ears—the coquettish chirp of middle age! She decided that if he spoke again—if he said anything—she would make no farther effort at evasion: she would take it directly, seriously, frankly—she would not ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... was veiled to the middle with the luxuriance of her locks, and clad in a robe of azure blue and a mantilla of silk embroidered with gold and gems of price; and her waist was girt with a zone set with various kinds of precious stones. She ceased not to advance with her graceful and coquettish swaying, till she came to the couch that stood at the upper end of the chamber and seated herself thereon. But when Ali bin Bakkar saw her, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... sweet voice again—a voice which seemed to draw the heart out of me, like the strains of softest music. "Is there that about me that should affright a man? Then surely are men changed from what they used to be!" And with a little coquettish movement she turned herself, and held up one arm, so as to show all her loveliness and the rich hair of raven blackness that streamed in soft ripples down her snowy robes, almost ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... matter from my wife, until further experience should discover to me the extent of this my unheard of calamity. Altering my countenance, therefore, in a moment, from its bepuffed and distorted appearance, to an expression of arch and coquettish benignity, I gave my lady a pat on the one cheek, and a kiss on the other, and without saying one syllable (Furies! I could not), left her astonished at my drollery, as I pirouetted out of the room in a ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... as yet spoken, I fully comprehended the thoughts which agitated her. She looked at her foot—for it was indeed her own—with an exquisitely graceful expression of coquettish sadness, but the foot leaped and ran hither and thither, as ...
— The Mummy's Foot • Theophile Gautier
... This brought a coquettish answer, during which time Andrea Barrofaldi, having first satisfied himself that the wine might be swallowed with impunity, was occupied in surveying the party of silent and humble mariners, who were seated at the other table. His object was to ascertain ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... slight difference in the wording of the greeting as reported by this pseudo-Nita and the man she was running to meet. But Penny, as Nita, was already straightening Tracey Miles' necktie with possessive, coquettish fingers, was coaxing, ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... remarked the nature of the feelings she so powerfully excited, and became very incredulous as to her virtue. If Foedora would none of love to-day, she had had strong passions at some time; past experience of pleasure showed itself in the attitudes she chose in conversation, in her coquettish way of leaning against the panel behind her; she seemed scarcely able to stand alone, and yet ready for flight from too bold a glance. There was a kind of eloquence about her lightly folded arms, which, even for benevolent eyes, breathed sentiment. Her fresh red ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... graciously allowing them to exist upon the surface. Solonet remained therefore in a self-satisfied condition of hope and becoming respect. Being sent for, he arrived the next morning with the promptitude of a slave and was received by the coquettish widow in her bedroom, where she allowed him to find her ...
— The Marriage Contract • Honore de Balzac
... voluptuous and innocent by the exercise of her understanding: excepting, indeed, during the first year of marriage, when she might employ it to dress, like Sophia. "Her dress is extremely modest in appearance, and yet very coquettish in fact: she does not make a display of her charms, she conceals them; but, in concealing them, she knows how to affect your imagination. Every one who sees her, will say, There is a modest and discreet girl; but while you are near her, your eyes and affections ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... by this little extravagance, that he forced the passage, and himself opened the door to admit the comte and his son. Truchen was quite dressed: in the costume of the shopkeeper's wife, rich yet coquettish; German eyes attacking French eyes. She left the apartment after two courtesies, and went down into the shop—but not without having listened at the door, to know what Planchet's gentlemen visitors would say of her. Athos suspected that, and therefore turned the conversation accordingly. ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... attachment is quite invisible—and the result absolutely ravishing! No," she added hurriedly; "I am not wearing a pair myself, these are quite natural, word of honour! But we undertake to impart to any eyes the gaze soulful, or the twinkle coquettish, as the customer desires—as an artist, I assure you that these expressions are due, less to the eyes themselves than to the shade, and especially the curve, of the lashes. Many a woman has entered our saloon entirely insignificant, and turned the heads of all the men in the ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... of coarse, and go to Scotland, and have a good time; but this quiet philosophy cooled him somewhat. As they walked up the bank together, he wondered at himself a little that he did not feel worse about it. If she had been coquettish, or perverse, she might have been all the more bewitching to him. If he had thought she liked somebody else better, he might have been furiously jealous; but "her way of liking a fellow would be a slow kind of a way, after all." ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... arrival to the other side of the loft. There was Mrs. Brown, resplendent in a puce silk dress that Norah remembered from her earliest childhood, with a lace cap of monumental structure topped by a coquettish bow of pale pink ribbon. Her kind old face beamed on every one. Close to her, very meek under her sheltering wing, were Sarah and Mary, the housemaids—very gay in papery silks, pink and green, with much adornment of wide yellow lace. Norah had helped to dress them both, ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... Spanish that the schoolroom was not a dressing room—Camara para vestirse. To his surprise, however, she smilingly held out the tiny stockinged foot with a singular combination of the spoiled child and the coquettish senorita, and remained with it extended as if waiting for him to kneel and replace the slipper. But he laid it ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... attempts to raise grass and potatoes and strawberries on contiguous fields, subject to the same chance of drought or rainfall, has a vivid sense of his difficulties. The potatoes are spoiled by the water that helps the grass, and the coquettish strawberry will not thrive on the regimen that suits the grosser crops. In California, which by its climate and soil gives a greater variety of products than any other region in the Union, the supply ...
— Our Italy • Charles Dudley Warner
... not your dainty head, Your artless look, I own; 'Tis not your dear coquettish tread, Or ...
— Collected Poems - In Two Volumes, Vol. II • Austin Dobson
... merino—her "best" dress in Downport—but she was not dazzling. The little round, black-plumed hat was becoming also; but in his now more prosaic mood, he could stand that, too, pretty as it was in an innocent, unconsciously-coquettish way. Theo was never coquettish herself in the slightest degree. She was not world-wise enough for that yet. But she was quite exhilarating to-day; so glad to be out even in the London fog of November; so glad to be taken ...
— Theo - A Sprightly Love Story • Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Calvin is a coquettish student, who loves to parade his reading and his memory. His work is a gallery, open to all the modern and ancient glories of literature, whom the commentator calls to his aid, often for the elucidation of a doubtful passage. The young rhetorician glorifies his country, and when ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... behind—unnoticed. Mr. Brimmer, for domestic reasons, was quite willing to allow the episode of Miss Montgomery's connection with their expedition to drop for the present. Her name was only recalled once by Miss Keene. When Dick had professed a sudden and violent admiration for the coquettish Dona Isabel, Eleanor had looked up in her brother's face with a half ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... Miss Nealy, in spite of the "glare of publicity" she deplored, had borne up admirably under the strain, and evidently had been able to consume three meals a day and give some thought to her costumes. Her smile under the picture hat was coquettish, if not bold. The special article, signed by a lady reporter whose sympathies were by no means concealed and whose talents were given free rein, related how the white-haired mother had wept tears ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... this proud-looking beauty, dressed so stylishly, and, as it seemed to her so extravagantly, with her long, full skirt of handsome poplin trailing so far behind her, and her basque fitting her graceful figure so admirably. Neither did the hat, rolled so jauntily on the sides, and giving her a coquettish appearance, escape her notice, nor the fact that the dotted veil was not removed from the white face, even after Richard had put the little, plump hand in ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... shape, costly, and choice in character. Birotteau paused before an exquisite clock, decorated with Cupid and Psyche, just designed for a famous banker, from whom du Tillet had obtained the sole copy ever made of it. The former master and his former clerk at last reached an elegant coquettish cabinet, more redolent of love than finance. Madame Roguin had doubtless contributed, in return for the care bestowed upon her fortune, the paper-knife in chiselled gold, the paper-weights of carved malachite, and all the costly ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... upon it. And a hot, toilsome trudge it was, through that long narrow valley with scrubby woods reaching down to the road, but with no habitations and no water. It was the desert. The afternoon was far advanced when the country opened and I saw a village of coquettish appearance, for most of the houses had been washed with red, and many of the window-shutters ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... other than the well-born Baroness she called herself, and looked to be, but partly because, in the last interview, the charming Parisienne had appeared a little to forget Matilda's alarming illness, in a not forward but still coquettish desire to centre his attention more upon herself; and the moment she did so, he took a dislike to her which he had not before conceived; and partly because his feelings having recovered the first effect which the vision of a penitent, pining, dying daughter could not fail to produce, ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... filling up with negroes but he won't have any on the ranch,—he sticks to the Mexicans, and I'm mighty glad, for they seem just to suit the atmosphere. Juanita, who waits on the table, is a beauty, with the most coquettish airs. Miguel is in love with her, and we all hope she won't keep him waiting too long, for if they are really going to be married, we want a grand wedding while we are here. Wouldn't that ...
— Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party • C. E. Jacobs
... of green sward that fronts this ruined monastery you can see the little town of Corigliano, whose coquettish white houses lie in a fold of the hills. Corigliano—[Greek: xorion hellaion] (land of olives): the derivation, if not correct, is at least appropriate, for it lies embowered in a forest of these trees. A gay place it was, in Bourbon ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... remarkable in the fact that the chromatic lass had squealed. Indeed, she and her equally fair companion had been squealing at intervals, all morning. But there was nothing coquettish or gay about this particular squeal. It savored rather of a screech. In its shrill note was a tiny thread of terror. And the two men wheeled about, ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune
... church, of course,—the Goldthwaites were always regular in this; and she wore her quiet straw bonnet. Mrs. Goldthwaite had a feeling that hats were rather pert and coquettish for the sanctuary. Nevertheless they met the Haddens in the porch, in the glory of their purple pheasant plumes, whereof the long tail-feathers made great circles in the air as the young heads turned this way and ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... warmer life. She came into the shop with a light swinging step, her gold chain jingling on her apron, her bare hair arranged in the latest style, and a bow at her throat, a lace bow, which made her one of the most coquettish-looking queens of the markets. She brought a vague odour of fish with her, and a herring-scale showed like a tiny patch of mother-of-pearl near the little finger of one of her hands. She and Lisa having lived in the same house in the Rue Pirouette, were intimate ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... few words; for we have nothing to say, but to give unqualified praise. In the habiliments of our jolly tras—God bless 'em!—utility is every thing, ornament nothing. They are clad just as they should be; and yet, on gala days, they know how to make themselves as coquettish as any girl on Portsmouth Downs. There is no greater dandy in the world, in his peculiar way, than your regular man-of-war's man. The short jacket, and the loose trousers, and the neat pumps, and the trim little hat, and the checked shirt, and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... had as many capricious changes as her manner, had been alternately coquettish, petulant, and serious, had now become playful again. But, like the rest of her sex, she was evidently more alert to her surroundings at such a moment than her companion, for before he could make any reply, she said, without apparently looking, "But there is a deputation coming for you, ...
— A Ward of the Golden Gate • Bret Harte
... you I know she was dead in love with him!" cried the rattling young lady, at the top of her voice. Then, observing the gentleman, who was looking in that direction, she bowed with a coquettish graciousness. The bow was returned, but the gentleman did not seem very anxious to approach the party; when the young lady, beckoning with her finger, obliged him ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... strange, but all the shoes appeared to have come in pairs of twos. Never was there such a collection of boots in couples. Strange it was, also, to see how many little secrets these rows of candid shoe-leather disclosed. Here a pert, coquettish pair of ties were having as little in common as possible with the stout, somewhat clumsy walking-boots next them. In the two just beyond, at the next door, how the delicate, slender buttoned kids leaned over, floppingly, to rest on the coarse, yet ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... thoughts took a gentler turn; in that dim, mysterious horizon line before him, his future seemed to be dreamily peopled with airy, graceful shapes that more or less took the likeness of Susy. She was bright, coquettish, romantic, as he had last seen her; she was older, graver, and thoughtfully welcome of him; or she was cold, distant, and severely forgetful of the past. How would her adopted father and mother receive him? Would they ever look upon him in the light of a suitor to the young girl? He had ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte
... come! I want to introduce you to my coquettish aunt. [Mimics her while making a courtesy, and makes faces. Alexander, shaking his head, goes out with Nato ...
— Armenian Literature • Anonymous
... with several species of birds, among which a green Bulbul is the most common, then the fan-tailed Parus, with its coquettish airs; judging from the voice there is a species of Bucco. Both species of Phaenicornis, yellow and crimson, described in Gould's Century as male and female, and the black Edolius are found. The only ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... have been uttered by a paradisical cuckoo with the breath of a brighter world in his throat. Looking up, he saw a beautiful little fowl perched on the topmost twig of the birch-tree. It had a slender bill, and on its head a crest of splendid feathers, which it set up at Balder in a most coquettish manner. The next moment it flew over the wall, and from the farther side warbled an ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... then all the precious objects I had saved from the wreck; my father's old easy-chair, my mother's work-table, and all of our family portraits, concealed, like proud intruders, in one corner of the room, where haughty marshals, worthy prelates, coquettish marquises, venerable abbesses, sprightly pages and gloomy cavaliers all jostled together, and much astonished to find themselves in such a wretched little room, and what is worse, shamefully disowned ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin
... coming," cried Arthur, drawing Elizabeth toward the boat. All the female voyagers had now scrambled in, save Joan Bates, who was exercising her coquettish skill in parrying the advances of Bennet Allen, the town-clerk's brother, with the evident design of securing the attentions of the handsome Arthur Blackbourne ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... Rambouillet became the fashionable rendezvous of literature and taste, and bas-bleu-ism was the rage. Even the infirmities of this accomplished lady were imitated. An alcove was essential to every fashionable belle, who, attired in a coquettish dishabille, and reclining on satin pillows, fringed with lace, gave audience to whispered gossip in the ruelle, as the space ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... great master animated his faces, there was the smiling expression of a Parisian woman. She possessed in the highest degree all that gives to the face brilliancy, charm, and sportive gayety. No lady at court had then so noble and coquettish a bearing, such delicate and attractive features, so elegant and graceful a figure. Her mother used always to say, 'A king alone is worthy of my daughter.' Jeanne had an early presentiment of a throne! at first, from the ambitious longings of her mother; afterward, because she believed that ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... Mimi, and saw no danger in your loving her. But follow my advice—to the fire with the ribbons, the pretty pink, blue, and yellow ribbons which she wore round her neck to attract the eye; to the fire with the lace, the caps, the veils and all the coquettish trifles with which she bedecked herself to go love-making with Monsieur Cesar, Monsieur Jerome, Monsieur Charles, or any other gallant in the calendar, whilst you were awaiting her at your window, shivering from the wintry blast. To the ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... Macdonald to visit her poor people," said Lucy, entering at the moment with a flushed face,—for Lucy was addicted to running when in a hurry,—and with a coquettish little ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... dressed; he realized that despite the dimness of masculine perception on such points, and, much more clearly, saw that she was beautiful. She was small, and the eyes she raised to his were large and deeply brown, with long black lashes that matched in color the wavy hair under her coquettish hat. As he stared at her, with surprise, relief, and admiration struggling in his boyishly handsome face, she smiled, and in that instant the phlegmatic young man experienced a new sensation. His own white teeth flashed as he smiled back at her. Then he remembered that ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... week did I wander up and down the streets, and watch every omnibus, and stare into the windows and doors of every house I passed. I peered under every pretty bonnet I met, and was, on the eighth day, giving full chase to a coquettish little blue one, in the earnest hope of finding the sweet face of my beautiful incognita hidden under it, when some one laid a strong grasp on my shoulder, and looking around, I beheld the generous face ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various
... celebrity for Madame Recamier was hers by inheritance. Her father was a remarkably handsome man, but a person of narrow capacity, who owed his advancement in life solely to the exertions of his more capable wife. Madame Bernard was a beautiful blonde. She was lively and spirituelle, coquettish and designing. Through her influence with Calonne, minister under Louis XVI., Monsieur Bernard was made Receveur des Finances. Upon this appointment, in 1784, they came to Paris, leaving their only child, Juliette, then ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... old, married, and dead! a sad strand of color this, to run into my tapestry, gay with silver lace, coquettish fans, and high-heeled Spanish slippers. Eighteen years old, married, and dead; and muy querida, much beloved! My thoughts stayed behind, as I moved on, and the words, with their soft inflection, would recur dreamily to me, again and ...
— The Penance of Magdalena & Other Tales of the California Missions • J. Smeaton Chase
... the distinction between look and look. Through the prism of jealousy the eye-beam is refracted to its primary colors; and this wonderful optical analysis says: this is the twinkle of curiosity, that the coquettish ogle, this the fire of love, that the dark-blue ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... coquettish finger and told Smith that he was a very naughty man. This was a new freak in her conduct toward the prophet. Light and frivolous as she had become, the title of prophetess, coveted among Mormon women, had been ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... got into a fume. I should observe that she was a brisk, coquettish woman; a little of a shrew, and something of a slammerkin, but very pretty withal; with a nincompoop for a husband, as shrews are apt to have. She rated the servants roundly for their negligence in sending up so bad a breakfast, but ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... and they that observed the grin upon Raoul's vinegar countenance entertained little doubt, that Mahound's heels then and there avenged certain nods, and winks, and wreathed smiles, which had passed betwixt the gold-chained functionary and the coquettish tirewoman, since the party ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... Tanner's request and preach in Ashland before he left. This decision had put him in so self-satisfied a mood that he was eager to announce it before his fellow-boarder. Moreover, he was hungry, and he could not understand why that impudent boy and that coquettish young woman should remain away at Sunday-school ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... to fall, not on the old belfry, but on the new one. No meteorological reason, I suppose, can account for this preference; but on carefully considering the two spires, I am struck by the delicate foliage, the slender lacework of the new spire, the elegant and coquettish grace of the whole of that side. The other, on the contrary, has no ornament, no carved tracery; it is simply carved in scallops like scale armour; it is sober, stern, stalwart and strong. It might really ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... possible point of view, it may be interesting to know how it was regarded by one who represented the thoughtful side of the age in which their social power was first distinctly asserted. She classes her critics and enemies under several heads. Among them are the "light and coquettish women whose only occupation is to adorn their persons and pass their lives in fetes and amusements—women who think that scrupulous virtue requires them to know nothing but to be the wife of a husband, the mother of children, and ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... side, far hills, bathed in an amethystine mist, invade the horizon. Between stretches the flat green field of the valley, gashed with tawny streaks that are roads and dotted with soft, silvery bunches that are frisking new-born lambs. Little white houses, with a coquettish air of perpetual summer, flaunt long windows and wooden-lace balconies, Early roses flask pink flames here and there. The green-black meshes of the eucalyptus hedges film the distance. The madrone, richly leaved like the laurel, reflects the sunlight ...
— The Native Son • Inez Haynes Irwin
... made over to fit Madame Soudry in the last fashion of the year 1808. Her blond wig, frizzed and powdered, sustained a superb cap with knots of cherry satin ribbon matching those on her dress. If you will kindly imagine beneath this ultra-coquettish cap the face of a monkey of extreme ugliness, on which a flat nose, fleshless as that of Death, is separated by a strong hairy line from a mouth filled with false teeth, whence issue sounds like the confused clacking ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... eagerly expecting the arrival of Miss Alderson, but the evening was wearing away and still she did not appear; 'at length the door was flung open, and she entered bright and smiling, dressed in a robe of blue, her neck and arms bare, and on her head a small bonnet placed in somewhat coquettish style sideways and surmounted by a plume of three white feathers. Her beautiful hair hung in waving tresses over her shoulders; her face was kindling with pleasure at the sight of her old friends, and her whole appearance was animated and glowing. ...
— A Book of Sibyls - Miss Barbauld, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs Opie, Miss Austen • Anne Thackeray (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie)
... at last, a Soudanese woman poured rose-water over their hands, from a copper jug, and wiped them with a large damask napkin, embroidered by Aichouch, the pretty, somewhat coquettish married daughter of the house, Maieddine's only sister. The rose-water had been distilled by Lella Fatma, the widowed sister of Alonda, who shared the hospitality of the Agha's roof, in village or douar. Every one questioned Victoria, and made ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... break in the amusements of the evening. The younger members of the company, whose conversation had previously been general, separated into groups of two or three persons; and in more than one of those composed of the former number, the flashing eye, coquettish smile, and rapidly significant motions of the fan, bespoke the existence of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... the air soon lightened; the Throne, the Altar and the top-hat cast fainter shadows, the figures of John Bright and Gladstone and Queen Victoria faded from my mind. I had entered the precincts of St. John's Wood; and as I went past its villas of coquettish aspect, with their gay Swiss gables, their frivolously Gothic or Italian or almost Oriental faces, the lighter aspects of existence they represent, the air they have of not taking life too seriously, began to ...
— More Trivia • Logan Pearsall Smith
... was no denying that the girl was surprisingly pretty. Prettier than ever this Sunday morning, in a remarkably neat dress of dove color, a demurely coquettish hat, and a bit of cherry-colored ribbon. Rustic beauty was not altogether disdainful of town-grown aids, it would seem, for Ferdinand's eye, trained to be critical in such matters, noted that the girl ...
— Aunt Rachel • David Christie Murray
... than any woman with whom Selma had ever conversed. She was pretty, too—a type of beauty less spiritual than her own—with piquant, eager features, laughing, restless gray eyes, and light hair which escaped from her coquettish bonnet in airy ringlets. If they had met three years earlier Selma would certainly have regarded her as an incarnation of volatility and servility to foreign fashions. Now, though she classed her promptly as a frivolous person, she regarded her with ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... dainty woman," thought the Frenchman, watching her as she rolled and turned on her side with an easy and coquettish movement. She licked the blood from her paws, and rubbed her head with a reiterated movement ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... more than eighteen, with small features, thin cheeks, a pale southern-looking complexion, and large dark eyes. The gentleman wore powder; the lady had her dark hair gathered away from her face, and a little cap, with a cherry-coloured bow, set on the top of her head—a coquettish head-dress, but the eyes spoke of sadness ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... coat, and the "man's tie" was of soft white muslin, and a muslin sleeve and ruffles were visible at the wrists. The hat was very broad brimmed, and was worn set back from the forehead, and bent into coquettish curves, and altogether the fair Diana might depend upon having a very long following of astonished gazers if she should ride down Beacon Street or appear ...
— In the Riding-School; Chats With Esmeralda • Theo. Stephenson Browne
... end the sentence in which he was, so to speak, firing his last gun, for the orchestra began to play a quadrille, and Nais, running up, made him a coquettish courtesy, saying,— ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... departed tip-tap! up the terrace in her coquettish wooden shoes, leaving me alone with the ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... being the simple village maiden," said the leading lady; "what I want is a part with some opportunity in it—a coquettish part. I can flirt," assured me the leading lady, archly. ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... responsible, reek with mawkish sentimentality, inane vapidity, or vulgar buffoonery. Most of the leading characters are duplicated or triplicated. Miranda has a sister, Dorinda, who is repellently coquettish. This new creation finds a lover in another new character, a brainless youth, Hippolito, who has never before seen a woman. Caliban becomes the most sordid of clowns, and is allotted a sister, Milcha, who apes his coarse buffoonery. Ariel, too, is given a female associate, ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee
... all this. She would soon be as well dressed as anybody, and no one would stare any more. In one window there were displayed, not only gowns, but hats and cloaks, and exquisite furs, all shown on wax models with fashionably dressed hair and coquettish faces. One pink and white creature with a startlingly perfect figure wore a filmy robe of that intense indigo just taken on by the sea. Underneath a shadowlike tunic of dark blue chiffon there was a glint of pale gold, a sort of gold and ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... very old ruse, and most players know it: a much better one may be founded upon it. If, for instance, you think you detect any coquettish symptoms in the right leg of your adversary, you may know at once what he is meditating. Oblige him at once. Lunge freely out at his leg, which will of course be at once withdrawn. This, however, you were expecting, and as his leg goes back your hand goes up to the ...
— Broad-Sword and Single-Stick • R. G. Allanson-Winn
... and old; much liked by Friedrich Wilhelm; and almost reckoned family people,—ever since their Eldest Son was affianced to the Princess Charlotte here, last visit they made. To Princess Charlotte, Wilhelmina's second junior,—mischievous, coquettish creature she, though very pretty and insinuating, who seems to think her Intended rather a phlegmatic young gentleman, as Wilhelmina gradually discovers. Then there is old Duke Eberhard Ludwig, of Wurtemberg, whom we saw at Ludwigsburg last year, in an intricate condition with his ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... bought on experiment, together with other matters which must be interesting to a young gentleman who would one day be a landlord, Hetty tossed and patted her pound of butter with quite a self-possessed, coquettish air, slyly conscious that no turn of her ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... love is a pool all mirroring clear, Where coquettish girls come to linger in long delight, For it banishes afar from the face all the clouds that besmear The soul truly bright; But tempts you to ruffle its surface; drawing your foot To subtilest sinking! and farther and farther the brink ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... fall in with his serious vein. Chattering gayly yet half-defiantly, on her face the while a baffling smile, partly tender, partly amused, and wholly coquettish—the smile that maddened and yet entranced him—she brought the mask of reserve to his face and man. At such times he never succeeded in remembering that she was but little more than a child, heart-free, capricious, and wilful. Despairing of changing her mood to the serious ...
— Amarilly of Clothes-line Alley • Belle K. Maniates
... addressed—looked exactly as though she had just stepped out of the early part of last century. She wore a gown of some soft, silky material, sprigged with heliotrope, and round her neck a fichu of cobwebby lace, fastened at the breast with a cameo brooch of old Italian workmanship. A coquettish little lace cap adorned the silver-grey hair, and the face beneath the cap was just what you would have expected to find it—soft and very gentle, its porcelain pink and white a little faded, the pretty old eyes ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... This wise, silly, prudent, coquettish demon was almost perfect in the family relations: an excellent daughter, a good sister, and a devoted mother. And so are ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... with a little coquettish movement natural to every feminine thing, bird, flower, or human being, "you've always such a pleasant way ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... upon and ornamented, as that of a quaker beauty of the present day, who, while she retains the garb and costume of her sect continues to give to its simplicity, by the choice of materials and the mode of disposing them, a certain air of coquettish attraction, savouring but too much of the vanities ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... dance for nothing; but I am very certain that were it not for hope, we shouldn't be good for much. Many a poor groaner has she clapped on the back, and made him leap to his feet and set his teeth together, and spring over obstacles as if he had on "seven league boots." She is a little coquettish, but I like her. She has helped me ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... who is going to marry you!" he answered fiercely; "and I think it's about time this nonsense stopped. It's nothing but coquettish foolishness, your coming here. I hate coquettish fools. I didn't think you had it in you to coquet, but it seems all ...
— The Man of the Desert • Grace Livingston Hill
... his figures repeated in the multifarious volume of Ambroise Pare; to the Aldine octavo in which Fallopius recorded his fresh observations; or that giant folio of Spigelius just issued from the press of Amsterdam, in which lovely ladies display their viscera with a coquettish grace implying that it is rather a pleasure than otherwise to show the lace-like omentum, and hold up their appendices epiploicae as if they were saying "these ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... passed the hairdresser's shop together. It was indeed next to the tobacconist's, so not easy to avoid, whenever one wanted a stamp or a postcard. In the window, amid pendent plaits of divers hues, bloomed two wax busts of females—the one young and coquettish and golden-haired, the other aristocratic in a distinguished grey wig. Both wore diamond rosettes in their hair and ropes of pearls round their necks. The old ladies' eyes met, ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... curtains fell together for the last time, twenty-five girls dressed in white and carrying trays came into the hall. They wore coquettish little aprons, and large ribbon bows in a variety of color, and suggested butterflies as they flitted among the tables. One by one the performers, most of them still in costume, slipped out ...
— Glenloch Girls • Grace M. Remick
... such a visage, withering, woe-begone, Shrinks the pale poet from the damning dun. Come, let us teach each others tears to flow, Like fasting bards, in fellowship of woe, When the coy muse puts on coquettish airs, Nor deigns one line to their voracious prayers; Thy spirit, groaning like th'encumber'd block Which bears my works, deplores them as dead stock, Doom'd by these undiscriminating times To endless sleep, with Della Cruscan rhymes; Yes, Critics, whisper thee, litigious ...
— Poetic Sketches • Thomas Gent
... Clementine talk, listened deferentially as to a superior, did not differ with her in anything, and waited to be questioned before he spoke at all. He seemed actually stupid to the countess, whose coquettish little ways missed their mark in presence of such frigid gravity and conventional respect. In vain Adam kept saying: "Do be lively, Thaddeus; one would really suppose you were not at home. You must have made a wager to disconcert Clementine." Thaddeus continued heavy ...
— Paz - (La Fausse Maitresse) • Honore de Balzac
... scattered abroad, would make me feel that I was approaching the incomparable presence of a vegetable personality, strong and tender; then, as I drew near, the sight of their topmost branches, their lightly tossing foliage, in its easy grace, its coquettish outline, its delicate fabric, over which hundreds of flowers were laid, like winged and throbbing colonies of precious insects; and finally their name itself, feminine, indolent and seductive, made my heart beat, but with a social ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... well-dressed women walking, as only French women ever do walk, nimbly moving their little feet bien chausse, and with an air half timid, half espiegle, that elicits the admiration they affect to avoid. The rich and varied material of their robes, the pretty chapeaux, from which peep forth such coquettish glances, the modest assurance—for their self-possession amounts precisely to that—and the ease and elegance of their carriage, give them attractions we might seek for in vain in the women of other countries, however superior these last may be in beauty ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner
... of two great footmen in knee breeches who sleep in the big armchairs, made drowsy by the oppressive heat of the stove. She thought of long reception halls hung with ancient silk, of the dainty cabinets containing priceless curiosities and of the little coquettish perfumed reception rooms made for chatting at five o'clock with intimate friends, with men famous and sought after, whom all women envy and ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... "They are coquettish these scented dames," he mocked, as he poured himself out some wine. "You are not ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... while the glittering toy, Coquettish, seemed to shun the snare, And then more eager grew the boy, ...
— Poems • Sam G. Goodrich
... A smile went over his face. It was sufficiently obvious that he understood Vere's silence as merely a form of deceit, a coquettish girl's cold secret ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... animal, and if you live to be forty will still have certain pretty ways about you, that win the hearts of women, if not of men. They see your weak points, and take a money view of the case; but we sympathize with your afflictions, are amused with your coquettish airs, and like your affectionate nature. Now hurry up and finish, for I find it a trifle cold ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Vol. 5 - Jimmy's Cruise in the Pinafore, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... drowsy song of the locusts coming in at the open windows all the long afternoons of August; and he watches again the glancing feet of Rose—who was once Amanda—tripping away under the sycamores; and the city Mortimer bethinks him of another Amanda, of browner hue and in coquettish straw, idling along the same street, with reticule lightly swung upon her finger; and the boy bethinks him of tender things he might have said in the character of Mortimer, but never did say, and of kisses he might have stolen, (in the character of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... tracery of blue veins could defy that of the boldest horseman. Her hand, so noble, so flexible, could handle gun or pistol with the ease of a practised marksman. She always wore when out of doors the coquettish little cap with visor and green veil which women wear on horseback. Her delicate fair face, thus protected, and her white throat tied with a black cravat, were never injured by her long rides ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... "waltze" with a noble ne'er-do-weel, thereby earning the "stern disapprobation" of a respectable lover; comes down in the world; has Highland experiences which, at the book's early date, are noteworthy; marries (like her creatress) a minister; but "retains a little of her coquettish sauciness." "Bless her, poor little dear!" one can imagine Thackeray exclaiming in his later and mellowed days. Mrs. Brunton's letters breathe a lady-like and not unamiable propriety, and she is altogether a sort of milder, though ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... fortune to come into contact with. They were jealous, no doubt, of the wandering foreigners, whom they chose contemptuously to term gringos, but who, they know well enough, are infinitely preferred to themselves by their handsome coquettish countrywomen. It is, indeed, notoriously the fact, that any respectable man of European birth can marry well, and even far above his own social position, amongst the dark-eyed donnas of Peru. The men don't seem exactly to like it. Judging by their appearance, we found ...
— The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872 - A Typographic Art Journal • Various
... mahogany furniture, its Testament and Catechism upon the toilet-table; one or two vases of old china had been brought up and placed upon brackets out of reach of the little hands that might have been tempted by their beauty, and a coquettish porcelain image of a flower-girl had been added to the other simple adornments which the ambitious spinster had lavished upon the chamber. Her pride as housekeeper was piqued. The young stranger must be duly impressed with ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... and coquettish toss of her pretty head, she darted through the door, and was followed instantly by the other slave-girl, well trained to divine ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... far and near came galloping into the courtyard, and dismounting in feverish, haste, cried, 'What ho! is the radiant Emmeline within?' Then the old warden with his clanking keys admitted them, and they stood in rows, that the coquettish damsel might ...
— Patty's Friends • Carolyn Wells
... graceful pirouette and laughing out a coquettish, "Don't you hear the last bell? Catch me!" darted off toward the schoolhouse standing half a ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge
... his sister. Netta had always aped the fine lady, and made the most of her few accomplishments; but now it was all like a fairy-tale, and the heroine was Netta, transformed by some fairy into a princess. By turns coquettish, affected, simple, languishing, accordingly as she feared she was too like her natural self—the Netta of the Farm was no more, and her representative was, to Owen at least, an anomaly. How she could have acquired ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... "home," in so loud a voice that she was heard by a group of priests who were talking together, and who quickly dispersed before this whirlwind of furs and curled hair. In fact, as soon as the carriage-door was closed, the unhappy woman sank into a corner, not in her usual coquettish position, but overwhelmed and in tears, stifling her sobs in ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... swept the cheeks, now they were raised suddenly, disclosing the unexpected blue eyes: the little moccasined feet must be warmed on the fender, the braids must be swept back with an impatient movement of the hand and shoulder, and now and then there was a coquettish arch of the red lips, less than a pout, what she herself would have called 'une p'tite moue.' Our ...
— Castle Nowhere • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... wish of Madame Recamier was the wish to please; and she was, no doubt, a little too coquettish, not enough considerate of the masculine hearts she damaged, and the feminine hearts she pained. The Duke de Laval said, "The gift of involuntary and powerful fascination was her talisman." Not, sometimes, to make a voluntary use of that talisman, she ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... decision quietly, and made no comment upon it one way or the other. But when it neared dressing time, and the girl had gone to her room to prepare, she tapped gently for admittance and came in, bearing in her hand a coquettish sealskin hood which she generously offered to ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann
... All her movements were vigorous, active, and usually graceful. When going round the Sand-walk with me, although I walked fast, yet she often used to go before, pirouetting in the most elegant way, her dear face bright all the time with the sweetest smiles. Occasionally she had a pretty coquettish manner towards me, the memory of which is charming. She often used exaggerated language, and when I quizzed her by exaggerating what she had said, how clearly can I now see the little toss of the head, and exclamation of 'Oh, papa what a shame ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... 'Amy' in gold letters wandering across the soft brown leather covers, as if it was a long word and, in Amy's opinion, rather a dear). To take such a liberty, and allow the reader to look over our shoulders, as they often invite you to do in novels (which, however, are much more coquettish things than plays) would be very helpful to us; we should learn at once what sort of girl Amy is, and why to-day finds her washing her hair. We should also get proof or otherwise, that we are interpreting her aright; for it is our desire not to record our feelings about Amy, but merely ...
— Alice Sit-By-The-Fire • J. M. Barrie
... little tour of Holland," as the De Dion's conductor put it. In the suburbs of the large Dutch towns, notably Utrecht, one makes his way through miles and miles of garden walls, half-hiding coquettish villas. The surface of the roads here is formed of a peculiar variety of paving that makes them beloved of automobilists, it being of small brick placed edgewise, and very agreeable ...
— The Automobilist Abroad • M. F. (Milburg Francisco) Mansfield
... whit as wantonly incurred as the others. The shyness, miscalled retiring modesty, with which one young lady shrinks from the notice of a gentleman as though there were danger in his approach, and the conscious coquettish air, miscalled ease, with which another invites his notice, are alike removed from the reality of either modesty or ease. Both result from a fictitious mode of education —both are the consequences of nipping in the ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth
... want visitors,' she said; 'little repose—and all that sort of thing—is what I quire. No odious brutes must proach me till I've shaken off this numbness;' and in a grisly resumption of her coquettish ways, she made a dab at the Major with her fan, but overset Mr Dombey's breakfast cup instead, which was in ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... with a saucy way of wearing her clothes. Her fascinations were always new. I watched her twinkling earrings, her trick of using her lips when she smiled, her hands, her silk clad ankles, her swelling young bust, the small coquettish hat she wore, her shoulders, their expressive shrugs, her quick vivacious movements—and I watched her eyes. Her eyes would meet mine now and then, often with only a challenging smile but again in an intimate dazzling way that gave me a deep swift shock of delight and ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole
... along the banks of the river—a lost soul that is condemned to bear a burden of some two stone of sketching materials, and a sketching umbrella with a defective joint—in search of a point of view that for ever eluded me. Robert cast his choicest flies, with delicate quiverings, with coquettish withdrawals; had they been cannon-balls they could hardly have had a more intimidating effect upon the trout. Where Robert fished a Sabbath stillness reigned, beyond that charmed area they rose like notes of exclamation in a French novel. ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... at the pretty, animated, boyish face looking up at him from under the coquettish straw hat, and he wished that he had the courage to tell her in her own language that she was just too sweet for anything. But he feared above all things lest he should offend her, and so put an end to their present pleasant intimacy. ...
— A Desert Drama - Being The Tragedy Of The "Korosko" • A. Conan Doyle
... carry on a conversation with the lady who remained, whom he had already admired. Here his usual bold flirtation followed. The young lady, who was at first disturbed at his assurance, betrayed her youthful inexperience in such matters; yet for an innocent maiden, she was rather coquettish, and he went ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various |
